Erkki

What? Are you saying commercials aren't too loud? It depends on the channel probably, but many channels seem to make commercials way louder than shows.

I finally gave the multiplayer a shot and it's really fun. But there's a limited number of servers where I have good ping and I've yet to find a really organized battle. It's mostly still messy, although not as much as the single player battles.

Awesome episode. At first I found the toys to be ridiculous, but I got used to them and they were pretty fun. A few minor quibbles: * the sound level thing Toblix mentioned. Menu sounds are too quiet. * had to turn down some visual details, it was a bit slow with things maxed (but I guess it also looked better than the earlier games) * I wish Tab opened the inventory * some interface unresponsiveness

I decided not to move. I really want to finish the project I'm currently working on. And I'll have more energy to work on my own projects. And I can stay in this city. The company where I would have moved may have other openings in the fall, so I might reconsider then (but I won't be part of the "core" team then).

I read it as a rap song

From what I recall reading about their engine at the time, I think it's not a simple matter of upping the screen resolution. The voxel resolution was limited too, and used tiles to keep memory size smaller. It might not look that much better in higher res. Or I could be wrong. I tried to find that info from the wayback machine, but the rendering tech. page is not there: http://web.archive.org/web/20010407211856/www.appeal.be/research/rese_par.htm

I have to make a difficult decision by tomorrow. I'm quite happy at my current job, developing information systems for local businesses and government agencies. It's occasionally boring but it can be fun too. The job is just challenging enough that I still have energy to work on some of my own projects on my free time (like tinbullet.in). But now I've been offered a position in a small company that makes some really cool products that are sold worldwide. They have a really great team, probably the best Java developers in the country and I think it'd be great to work with them. But I'd have to move to a different city for a while (I quite like where I live now) and I'm not sure I'd enjoy the theme of the work, which is some really low-level and difficult Java stuff and integrating with various undocumented code. Stuff that normally makes me swear if I encounter it while trying to do something useful. Also I'm already in a project with a pretty good team, everything is going well so far and I would hate to leave in the middle of it But on the other hand, it is a world class product they're making and I'd really like to do product development for a while rather than work on custom software solutions for specific customers. I'd be getting a lot of experience and probably learn something about building products that could be useful to me later later if, say, I'd want to develop tinbullet.in into a real product. Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a deliberator. Choices like this are never easy to make for me.

Crazy shit. I'm glad you're ok.

Well, he didn't say it was art.

THERE'S A NEW LEVEL!!!

I don't use my second screen most of the time, usually when I have to look at logs.

So, what do you guys think of the iPad as a gaming device? I'm between wanting it because I like the size and interface simplicity, and thinking it's evil because it's almost a proper computer, but much less open. If it became hugely popular, it might set some kind of trend that takes us to a place where I don't want to be. As for other limitations beside the closedness, no flash is bearable, given how HTML 5 may make it mostly obsolete anyway, but no multitasking whatsoever seems like a big limit. But as Jake retweeted, compared to PSP and DS, it's MORE open. And I think as a gaming device, it could be great, especially for adventure games and maybe other more complex games that the iPhone just wasn't cut out for. I really liked Beneath a Steel Sky and Broken Sword on the iPhone, but on the iPad they would be so much better. And Sam & Max is already coming out for it..., I'm sure other new adventure games will follow.

That's not it, what I want is speeding up while travelling on the map.

Aargh. I was following the main army of my faction, almost a dozen Boyars (I am still a mercenary) and it rode RIGHT THROUGH a large enemy army. Then I was left to fight that army alone. Fucking ingrateful bastards. If these kind of losses keep happening, the game should at least have a speedup button so I don't have to just watch myself riding somewhere and rebuilding my wealth/army.

The ash cloud will reportedly reach Estonia by tomorrow morning.

BTW Another weakness of the App Store approval process: This has been there from 7th April and still is. In a normal system, the developer should be able to issue a fix as soon as possible, or at least disable this update. Or maybe they can, but just didn't do that?

Wait, are you talking about Silent Assassin (Hitman 2) or Hitman: Codename 47 (Hitman 1)?

The overall quality of missions is the best in Blood Money, but I personally liked a few Silent Assassin maps more (but it also had some boring ones).

I declare this game awesome, but probably not for everyone. Played for several hours straight yesterday and today evening and am finding it more and more fun. I've been doing some espionage missions for a king, and though I failed to get them on my first try, luckily the game gives you enough time to complete them so that you can try again, even if it may take a long while to get back to the point where you had something that was required for the mission. In my case I lost all my Mercenary Cavalry but needed one, so I had to find lower ranked mercenaries that could be trained into cavalry. There are plenty of options for escaping from bad situations (I have "no quitting without saving turned on") even if you lose your army or some of your wealth.

I wouldn't say so. I enjoyed the second one the most, but Blood Money is maybe even better in some respects. I don't remember what exactly was wrong with the first game, but for me and many others, the gameplay just wasn't as smooth.

Don't know if it's just because I played differently, but I'm enjoying this game a lot more than the original Mount&Blade game I started some time ago. I slowly started building my army and wealth, travelling from places and trying to make a profit from selling goods. Unfortunately, you'd really have to use a notebook or some other software to track prices. The game doesn't really make it easy. "Assessing prices" will point you towards random faraway cities, but if I want to make a specific route, it's hard to figure out what goods to bring with me. I wish the game supported it better. I stupidly joined a war as a mercenary after having built up a band of ~40 men, and lost that group even more stupidly as I tried to ride too close by an enemy castle. It's not too difficult to build a new army, though (luckily you keep your money when you're taken prisoner and escape), but to get them trained will take some time. I also lost the second joke of a band I built (mostly fresh recruits) but this time I'm going to try and stay away from large enemy troops and train them quickly on bandits and the like. Some of the bandit-finding quests seem impossible though. I've already failed several and made my status drop

I also stumbled into that place and left and returned later. I think I actually looked up some spoilers for that place because I thought it may have required a specific artifact which I had given away. But it doesn't require an artifact.

Oh well, I couldn't resist. Bought it immediately after the trial ended. I still feel a bit swindled, or almost as if I had payed twice for the same game.

360 for me too, and I'll try to join your posse, although my connection is not the best and I'm currently sharing a TV and won't be able to play at just any time I might move to my own place soon, though. According to the whatever stampede name generator, I should be Mad Dog, but since I'm not very Mad, I'll probably be "Lazy Dog" McMac. I hope noone will be Quick Fox McBrown

Yeah, I've been saying that too. I think Lost and Damned handled this better (haven't played much of Gay Tony yet).