MrHoatzin

There is also that issue of having a lot of freedom on the PC (having free reign to pirate what I feel like and run what tickles my fancy), not caring too much for television gaming, and so on and so forth. ...And the Xbox games seem to be more expensive and harder to patch considering that I don't plan on having that Xbox-live crap.

Your words make me very afraid since it is your words we're talking about.

You know, I was really reluctant to buy an Xbox... moreso than to spend 500 dollars American to update my machine.

Crap. Spoke one minute too late...

Erm... no. :ponycrap: There is a human interest story behind it with Ed Fries taking non-mass-appeal games under his wing — and then leaving Microsoft... after which accountants took over the Xbox line and cut the umbilical cords of those games that looked the most unique.

Situation calls for a new smiley:

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices. -Bernard Shaw

Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?! You're not supposed to say things like that... that is ungodly...

Beyond Good and Evil didn't explode because people went out there and downloaded three million copies. Nobody is going to blame the developer for piracy.

Well, it looks more along the lines of Alien Hominid & Stormtrooper Gang Rape.

You're talking about the big picture, the big picture doesn't concern me.On the other hand, I do care about myself -- seeing how I am myself -- and the prospect of a "horde of people" stealing my royalties may cause me to scream out, bloody murder. But I am not Carmack and I don't much care for him, so fuck 'im and his Carstud's Topless Awesome Space Marine Adventure. And there is always going to be people like you and Jake and others who will buy the game and some royalties will come in. Of course, I was in addition paid for my work so I doubt I will be loosing much sleep to screaming out, bloody murder.

Jake, Trep, gimme a break. If you are bothered by enjoying something you didn't pay for, perhaps you should buy it and clean your conscience ex post facto. But don't push the theft is bad school of philosophy on other people. For example, it doesn't appeal to me because -- first of all what exactly does "bad" mean? There is no unversal here; "bad" is as vague as it gets. My actions don't hurt anyone I care for so I don't care about my actions. No lost sleep there; what I do is not "bad". The Big Picture is insignificant. I have decided that, short of just picking up and moving to Swaziland, I cannot affect my own life in any significant way shape or form. I have free will, but only so far as choosing where to put the Tetris pieces -- I don't choose the pieces themselves. The pieces themselves are parts of the big picture and, like I said, it is of no concern to me; it is nothing that I can affect. It just happens. Much like downloading a game. Just for the record, I don't think I have pirated a single game in the past three years. I can never be sure, though... I think somebody burned me a copy of Morrowind.

I don't know what went into this deal. Maybe Majesco gave the best offer. I just know that Majesco after Microsoft sounds anticlimactic.

Well, the little Bomberman people look sortof like Raz... in as much that they have the same body proportions. Does this mean that no one else wanted the project or what? I am kinda stupified by it all.

Even though it is pretty much anatomically impossible, the first Hitman game sucks ass. I have played through the first two-and-a-half missions and, Trep, there is virtually no need for strategizing at all. In fact, the game directly penalizes you for thinking things through and looking at your options. The first mission... Whoop-de-fucking-do. The only way the player may figure out certain important things is by letting the mission fail time and time again, while paying attention to details the world over to figure out what he should anticipate next time. And even taking this into account, the missions feel like one-move games of chess. Designer man: no twinkie for you, motherfucker! The AI is hypersensitive in parts, with urban dwellers — having nothing smarter to do (such as run for cover) — reporting even the least disturbance in a matter of seconds to the local gang lords. I don't know where the fuck I can hide in this place, as the guards see me through the dumpsters... there are no shadows and no way to know if I have been seen. Furthermore, everybody likes to look at me when they're passing me by. In some parts of Galveston, if you don't keep your eyes on the pavement in front of you, you can get beat up. Also the engine sucks. I may need to tweak that some more; it is annoying for a building to have one face of a polygon in focus and another blurry, with copious amounts of artefacts added for good measure. The interface is atrocious, hinting at an ease of use due to a higher purpose (no jump button, the game must handle all jumping on its own, that means I get to think about strategy!), but failing repeatedly. What is up with the little menus? Whose stupid idea was that? What else could one do with a button but press it, or with a door but open or close it, or with an ammo pack but pick it up? When it comes to more extreme cases, such as a body that you may drag or undress, they could've as well inserted an extra button there; in addition to 'perform action', a 'drag body' button; or in addition to 'use', a 'pick up' button (where 'use' would 'dress' your character, but also be used for pressing buttons, opening doors and such). Why complicate an already complicated interface by adding another tier to it? If you're gonna still force me to read through a menu, at least pause the game while I'm at it. Or how about giving me some hotkeys for the weapons? Again, I have to scroll through a menu to find just the right gun to shoot at the thug who just appeared around the corner looking for me to litter my person with ak-47 bullets. Bah, yarbles!

So, as a staunch liberal, I am quite naturally pro-theft. :ponycrap:

Fuck yo little friend and his significance.

Probably highly illegal, but we can always claim that it is a loving homage of a bunch of fans -- which it is, honestly -- rather than a blatant rip-off which it could be erronously regarded as.

Then again, I ought to be truthful: the story in its inception was heavily inspired by Gogol's Overcoat and then drifted away... and got heavily inspired by Bely's Petersburg...

You know what really sucks? I have in a notebook somewhere a non-zombie zombie movie script I have begun to write. I have the basic story and I have written like three dialogues and that is that... Crap. Is there no way in hell to write something truly original out there?

Still looks kinda grainy... that is the main problem of the olden sim games: grain.

Probably. It depends on their server loads.

This has gone too far. I think we should take to the woods and create our own society.

Looks too much like Chris. We can't have that.