Erkki

The damn pop-in is happening to me more and more. Hitting invisible things in corners is almost becoming normal. Perhaps it's the quality of the DVD drive that matters? Also: shot my first flying rat. The first one I noticed was one under a bridge where I wound up during one delivery job for LJ. I only noticed it because it was explicitly pointed out by the camera... finding 200 of them seems crazy right now.

You could eat seldom enough that it didn't bother me much. Most of the game I didn't have to think about that at all.

I finally took a look at the stats -- 20 hours and 28% (is that percentage just the missions though? I think 100% is when you complete absolutely everything there is to do). Or maybe there's % of missions completed shown as well that I didn't notice?

Wow! I just unlocked Algonquin and drove down one of the roads next to Middle Park. That place is really busy and full of traffic compared to the earlier areas. It was especially awesome taking a cab ride there during a thunderstorm at night, just looking out the cab window and enjoying the sights. That one cab ride almost made me change my opinion that the game is a little bit overrated (with all the 10/10s). PS. Is the unlocking of Algonquin supposed to happen silently during the mission in which you meet Playboy X or did I miss something? I remember that in the previous games there were usually announcements about bridges opening on the radio.

Yeah, I agree. The review scores seem too high, as if some unwritten rules were changed just to give it 10/10. An average of 9.9 seems pretty ridiculous. But on the other hand some of the added detail and deeper integration of main themes and side things does add some quality to the game that has never been there before. For example

I think if there will be a PC version, I will get that one too and play it again. I have always enjoyed the GTA games more on the PC. Even with a HD TV, albeit a relatively small one, it's always a bit too blurry for me on the TV. I also noticed some reviews talk about it. Don't remember which ones, I read the reviews at Eurogamer, GameSpy, IGN, Computer And Video Games, and watched the video reviews of GameSpot and GameTrailers.

Happens to me in the car all the time if a phone is close to the radio, mostly when changing cells (masts).

Hey, this is pretty cool

Sorry to hear that, Marek. I was kind of scared that my luck would have that happen to me too, but thankfully it wasn't so. The game is great so far. A little more like San Andreas than I thought, but I saw that right away when the gameplay videos appeared. The hype made it seem like it would feel totally new -- and in some ways it is, but a lot of things feel similar, although improved. But one thing that is really amazing for me is the peds. There's just so much variety in the looks and behaviour of the people on the streets that it blows my mind. And all the animations are really good. the following is not really a spoiler, but describes some moments that might be cooler if you discover them yourself: PS. Miffy, saw you wanted to play, but when I tried to join I couldn't. Don't know why. Also, what do you use to chat in multiplayer? I have the headset, but haven't tried connecting it yet.

I picked up my preordered copy during lunch. Some stuff at work is keeping me from going home and enjoying it. I'll not be able to play a lot this week, though.

When will the world become a place when all devices can just interoperate via standard interfaces? I was hoping my new Xbox 360 would play music from the iPod, but no luck. Apparently, some new Apple firmware removes the Xbox compatibility or whatever. Of course, at the time of updating the iPod I had no idea that would happen and thought what's the harm in updating. Another thing that sucks is that the iPod messes up VBR MP3-s when "calculating gapless playback info" or something like that. This also used to not be a problem some time ago.

I just started playing Vice City again (on the PC), to get my GTA fix while waiting for IV to arrive in stores, but there's one issue I have: I just can't figure out which controls are right for me. And I don't remember what controls I used to use. It doesn't feel right steering with the WSAD keys, but if I switch to steering with arrows and leaning up/down with WS, that doesn't feel right either. What controls did you use?

Yeah, it's moments like these that make the series extra special. Vice City and San Andreas had the most potential for those. I think GTA IV is probably going to have less variety that way (with the area reduced from a state to a single city), but the added detail will more than make up to it, I hope. Too bad the Steam version of the games could not longer load my old save games, now I'll probably have to complete Vice City and San Andreas again if I feel like doing things like you described in them.

Well, depends on the definition of firmware I guess. What I meant was that it wasn't caused by the latest firmware, because the old iTunes installed the new firmware (but possibly configured it in a way that was still compatible with Xbox?).

It turns out that Garfield actually exists: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2809392.html

I'd also recommend GTA, but I haven't played the previous Mario Kart and don't even know what Double Dash is. I think I spent nearly 200 hours total on San Andreas (played it through twice), so I'm expecting lots of bang for buck from IV as well.

Villane0

The title sucks, IMHO, but the game itself is probably the best episode yet! Just completed it yesterday. I haven't laughed out loud so much in any previous Sam & Max game, or at least this season. The writing is awesome, there are some great jokes and a few really cool puzzles. I got stuck a couple of times, but then I turned on the hint system temporarily and the first hint I got was usually exactly what I needed.

Yep, bought the collection on steam Actually I pirated them earlier. The only one I legally owned was GTA2 (which is actually the worst, hehe)

ca 25 minutes in Time attack mode! Of course, actually with the retries it took probably more like 3 hours. Of course, time attack mode seems easier to get good times as it resets the clock on restarting each level (or did the normal mode do that as well?) Not sure where that puts me in the leaderboards, as I wasn't connected. I should get the wi-fi peripheral tomorrow.

Well, I played it and it was great! But not a 100% improvement, I agree with most things ThunderPeel said, especially in this post: http://idlethumbs.net/forums/showpost.php?p=78409&postcount=14 The movement has a more parkour like flow and the prince has picked up a few moves from Sands of Time. Some really amazing moves can be done, for example at the end of level 3 (before waking the skeleton), as seen at 00:28 in that trailer that was linked to here. I didn't remember this from the trailer, so it was cool to accidentally discover this in the middle of the game! Also going back up the same route in a fluid way is fun. The combat is much less deterministic and feels pretty random. I don't like it. In the original, the combat was hard, but masterable. I played it so much that eventually I could finish the game with only three lives and without drinking any health potions. In this one, almost every fight could be my last (at least from level 4 onwards). Actually, I've gotten better at it already, and if I take all the time I need, I can probably win most fights, but I always keep wanting to rush them like I used to in the original. On the whole, I'd say that the game is about as hard as the original, with the jumps made easier and the combat harder. I dislike one restriction: you can't take the combat off the screen where it starts in any longer (or lure the guys into another place). This was a useful speedrun tactic in at least the first level

Thanks, twmac! Indeed it's not the firmware. To summarize the other thread, this is what I did to get it working: * uninstalled current iTunes * installed the 7.0.2 version of iTunes (at this point I tried to connect the ipod to iTunes, then to 360, but still didn't work) * restored ipod from iTunes (this reset it to defaults and seemed to reinstall the 1.3.x firmware) * created new iTunes library and copied the music to the ipod now it works with the 360! (PS. is there supposed to be no "eject" functionality for USB devices on the 360?)

I'm thinking of getting either the PS3 or XBox 360. Which would you recommend? On the PS3 I can think of a few exclusives off the top of my head that I'm interested in, mostly upcoming: Heavenly Sword and that upcoming Little Big Planet game, God of War 3. On XBox I can only think of Mass Effect right now, but many of the XBox exclusives seem to end up on PC as well (I think, i'm not that well informed atm?). So another option would be to just wait a bit and play the games on PC later. Right now I'm most interested in Assassin's Creed and Gears of War, but GameSpot says the latter is better on PC (although the score is lower). And the XBox is cheaper, so everything seems to be pointing to Xbox. Which one is the better media center, or are they good at that at all?

Actually the locally sold LIVE card should work with any country I was told. At least the points card worked, I'll find out about the subscription card when the trial expires. And it's not very green either. They actually require plastic boxes and lots of packaging for something that should be entirely virtual. [ok, for the majority of people it probably is entirely digital]