Jayel

Dude. you don't quit a game you love just because you get stuck. That's like getting a divorce from your wife over a quibble. if you truly love her then you love her until she dies then you move onto the next game.

they do look somewhat blurry - if you look at old lucasarts games for example they were careful to use anti-aliasing only on sloped edges to keep them crisp. looks very appealing from afar though.

I got a ps3 a couple weeks ago and it's been a frustrating experience. I upgraded the firmware as soon as I bought it, and due to incompatibility(?) between the latest firmware and some games I can't play Uncharted without it crashing every 20 min or so. I wish I could downgrade or exchange it for a new system, but I already bought some downloadable games and I don't want to lose my activations. Bah.

I thought that it was drawing some allegorical references to actual events (which is why I was able to overlook some of the more obvious plot holes that wouldn't otherwise be acceptable in hardcore sci-fi), but I didn't know it was based on the filmmaker's personal experience! that's interesting. Anyway, the impression I got of the aliens is that they were given equal chances initially, but their natural aggression and lack of respect for human life forced them to segregation. If they were acting out because they were fed up, I surely didn't get that part - but to be frank I wasn't paying very close attention near the beginning of the movie so I might have missed that. The caste system explains their savage nature so to speak, but I don't recall hearing about it in the movie either. I don't think i would've guessed, because they seemed to lack any sort of leadership. Were they all supposed to be part of the lower caste? I should really see it again. So 9, yeah, it's more of a Shane Acker movie than Tim Burton movie, but it sure is visually impressive for such a (relatively) low budget movie! I've seen several comments on the web where people draw connections between little big planet's sack boy and characters in 9 - the similarities are definitely there, but short film version of 9 has been around for years before LBP went into production, so any allegation that 9 took ideas from LBP is unfounded

I just got a 37" LG LH30. Supposedly has really low input lag - this guy at avsforum went through 15 TVs in a quest to find an LCD TV with the lowest input lag, and he chose LH30 in the end. Mind you it's a bit old and doesn't have the greatest contrast ratio or deep black levels (or even perfect uniformity), but the colours are simply fantastic and they're so adjustable! Here's cnet review I'm using it as a PC monitor and pretty happy with it. HOWEVER Most LCD TV's these days come with "game mode" that turns off all the fancy video processing and reduces lag. So with this option on I doubt you'll actually notice lag, even on the slowest LCDs.

Happy birthday!

District 9 was pretty damn good, but I didn't like how the aliens were portrayed as disruption to society. Felt like they were trying to justify why they were being discriminated against. As if we humans need more reasons than looking different. Speaking of movies with number 9 in their title, I recommend 9 by Shane Acker. I worked on that one!

Hmm... Black Hawk Down on blu-ray is supposed to have decent image quality (not my image - ripped from some google image search) If you're seeing little to no difference between dvd and blu-ray, I would check your setup first. I can sort of see small indie houses using the same low-res digital master they used for DVD for blu-ray releases, but I seriously doubt that big distributors would do that. digital remastering used to be an expensive process but it's gotten a lot cheaper, and - in case of recent films- eliminated thanks to readily available digital intermediaries (except colour adjustments for TV standards of course). In any case, if a film was already re-mastered for DVD, then chances are they already have HD version all ready to go for HD broadcasts (which has been around loooong before HD DVD or blu ray).

Yeah, I suppose it could be just an illusion or marketing-speak. The thing is I've attempted to play the last express years ago, but within 10 minutes of play, I was in complete catatonic state. Every step of the way, my mind was filled with self-doubt and fear that I might be doing something wrong and get the "bad ending" and eventually I was unable to make any sort of decision. I then uninstalled it and never played it. The same thing will probably happen with Heavy Rain. I have a problem.

Try as I might, I just can't get myself interested in this game. Seems like it oughta be my type of game - I don't even mind quick-time-events all that much. I think it's "you have to play it more than once to experience all that this game has to offer" thing. I didn't play the Last Express for the same reason.

hahaha that explains why I feel intoxicated by LEC games.

i think i'll pickup this one off steam. Sorry if that means less royalty for you

I can sort of sense that you're thinking of the problem as a mathematician - ie an analytical solution in some closed form. While there's research done in that area, it's when it comes to graphics, it helps to think like a statistician. Instead of trying to get "the answer", simply fire a whole bunch of random samples and get an average of some sort. It's not perfect but it's faster and a hell of a lot easier to implement. Virtually every commercial renderer operates under this principle. edit: oh wait, i forgot to add the main point: using the sampling approach you can handle caustics, occlusion, colour bounces, etc etc etc with one unified algorithm that's incredibly simple. photon tracing, for example

If this game is anything like Demigod, I'm not interested. I tried the demo for Demigod recently and I don't like how I couldn't ever tell which side was dominant over the other. One minute, our side has all the control points, the other minute, the other side has all the control points. this last 2 HOURS because the bases are too heavily defended. It's like a pendulum that starts standing still, then it starts swings back and forth, gradually more and more until it finally breaks off and lands on the winner. It feels like I have little to no control over the outcome of a match (even if I do). What a frustrating experience. Okay, rant over.

Yeah I used to be total id/Carmack fanboy too - still is in some ways. I think there were more problems with Doom 3 engine than you mentioned (although I don't know about your point 1 - doom 3, prey, quake 4, etc all got ported to xbox, and even ps3 for quake wars): 1. the impact of unified lighting wasn't that impressive, because other games beat it to the punch (DE: Invisible War for example) 2. developers weren't convinced that Doom 3 engine was capable of anything other than shiny-metalic look, because id did not showcase anything but. 3. Quake 4 on xbox360 (a launch title), had crushing framerate issues. I wouldn't be surprised if it scared off a lot of developers browsing for a new engine. 4. Unreal engines were marketed better and... simply better. In addition to having the right buzzword features, they're easy to use and came with very nice development tools that id couldn't match. It was (and still is) a major selling point. I mean look at this list! Mega textures in tech5 sure seems impressive, but I don't know how it differs from what Carmack already did in Quake Wars.

I have a great respect for John Carmack (and all id does), but his days as a pioneering game programmer seem over. I just get the feeling that he's got nothing to prove anymore, so he's just content sitting wayside watching other people innovate. BTW, cryengine 3's real-time global illumination technique at: http://www.incrysis.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=812&Itemid=1 It feels like a series of crude techniques strung together with a duct tape, and yet the end effect is very convincing. I would've never believed it was attainable even in its current limited form. If my boss told me to create a real-time GI solution yesterday I would've laughed in his face and never even try. I really envy these people's "can do" attitude.

I was super excited about this game until I played the demo and realized that it's just a guitar hero.

I've always hated stencil shadows... looks too sharp and flat, and very expensive to make them softer. Plus I suspect today's games shy away from it because its cpu usage increases with geometric complexity (doing edge tracing and all). CryEngine3 reportedly has real-time global illumination, which means this quality of lighting in real time. Whether they'll be able to deliver on that promise remains to be seen.

gameplay footage doesn't really excite me, but holy shit it has some sweet facial animation!

Nethack is pretty alright So is Freeciv If you can look past their shitty UIs

cool. I see your point. On a separate note, I just went to gametrailers website and saw a bunch of gameplay videos of NFS Shift that I had never seen before. The videos make the game seem no more realistic than Daytona USA - I REALLY hope they were demoing at the lowest realism setting, and the wikipedia articles claim of "more realistic than GTR2" is justified!

Intro credit sequence in the Fate of Atlantis left a big impression on me... Although now that I think about it, Larry 3 did the same trick and came out much earlier.

I think there's been a miscommunication. I meant "damage modeling" as in scientific/mathematical modeling ("damaged suspension is affecting my ability to drive!"), not geometric modeling ("my car is battered up and it looks awesome!!").

You should keep NFS Shift on your radar as well - I really think it could be the turning point for the series. Not only is it being developed by GTR guys, they even brought in the guy who did physics for Richard Burns Rally. Plus it looks fantastic and meant to be played from cockpit view - which earns big thumbs up of approval in my book. edit: speaking of nicely rendered cockpit view... Everything I've seen so far of Shift makes me drool. I sincerely hope they don't screw this one up.

I agree with you on superficial damage: it's completely meaningless to me unless they're going to simulate aerodynamics as well. But as for GT, I'd argue that without any sort of damage modeling, even with the most realistic collision physics, the worst that could happen is lost traction - which isn't really frightening and not enough deterrent to turn the game into a bumper-car racing. Is the above image screenshot to Forza 3? If so, then holy crap!