Thrik

Shit, I always get those two mixed up. Always!

Yeah, agreed. I prefer it a lot to the original map because weirdly it seems to better disperse the combat over the map, even though there're now only two focus points (the two intel points) rather than five (the five capture points). It seemed a bit big for CTF at first, but I soon realised that one team always ends up taking over the train station and filling it with teleporters/sentries/etc, effectively halving the size of the map to 2fort-like proportions. And then eventually the team will be pushed back out of the train station and the other team takes it. ; But then some sneaky Engineer will go and stick a teleporter up in the enemy base attic, letting someone get some easy intel grabs while all the enemies sit around the train station. Just seems a lot more dynamic and varied with CTF. I'd quite like to see Gravelpit as a CTF map too as it's the only other map apart from Well and 2fort that has a symmetrical design. CTF maps are definitely at their best on the servers with modified spawn times though (either none or 10 seconds maximum). I only play on those. ;

Capture-the-intel Well is fuckin' live. :tup: :tup:

The new weapons are meant to be alternatives, not successors. Having better weapons as unlockables would completely go against their focus on making the game accessible to newbies as it'd be make it even easier for experienced players to arsehole them. For example, the Medic is going to get a new healing gun that replaces the existing one. It will either have no ubercharge at all or a very slow charge, but in exchange it'll permanently buff people's health to 200% instead of the usual temporary 150%. Also, the article says they'll be introducing the weapons gradually. You won't open the game one day and find dozens of new weapons.

I always play on Wireplay servers. The others tend to be on there often when I join too. You could join the superb Mojo group if you want to keep tabs on us. It is the best Steam group. ; I really like how Steam adds people in your groups to an un-opened tab in your friends menu, making it quite easy to play with people who you don't want to fully befriend. If I can I'll play most nights, although it's been a bit less than usual this week as I've been busy. Will be plenty of weekend TF2 going on, though. ;

Of course they haven't. Anyone who believes they could have is mental. I do think a bodyful of detail matching that seen in the eye video could be pretty superb in an actual game, though. You're typically not going to be close enough to spot the tiniest nuances of movement, but with it all happening at once I'm guessing the end result will be startlingly lifelike. Just not uncanny valley.

The Crysis models are OK, but they're really not that impressive in motion. Crysis' eye animation is clearly inferior to that of the clip posted earlier, and the mouths look downright poor. I'd say the closest contender to the Heavy Rain (or whatever) clip is still Source, which sports superb facial animation in Episode Two that looks more convincing and lifelike than Crysis' in my opinion.

There's no way these guys have even hit the uncanny valley, let alone crossed it. I do, however, think it'll be one very sweetly presented game. I really hope noone's expecting true post-uncanny material though, because you're inevitably going to be disappointed. I genuinely believe it's impossible on this generation of consoles.

Whether you're right or not, I think it's fair to say they've done a fucking good job of those eyes.

It was an indoor part of Episode One. A dark room, where you go to one side and turn the electricity on to power up the door and then have to get back again. There are barnacles in the area. You couldn't have gotten to the end of the episode without encountering it so you definitely did it.

Teeee. That was actually Episode One, but yes I had similar problems with it. I didn't ever find the broken bridge solution though, and actually managed to get over with an intricate assortment of stuff to stand on in the water, eventually jumping over to that area to the right of the exit. Clearly they learnt their lesson as Episode Two had a lovely balance.

Right, so instead of clicking furiously you just click it the once when it's about to hit you. Not really difficult enough to take more than a few tries at most. It's a bit lame, but it's really not that bad! A minor grievance at most.

Man, you're rubbish! I died like a few times because of those.

Yeah, that was just a really cool moment -- but the game was full of them! All the physics-heavy collapses and stuff were ace, and I was literally almost shitting myself when the There were just loads of really cool and memorable moments, while in Episode One I don't really remember as many so fondly. Partially because the city is just nowhere near as interesting as seeing the world outside in total disrepair, I think. BTW, I present an improved

Well if you watch the trailer it's clearly added stuff, but yes.

God. I just finished Episode Two, and once again I've been utterly blown away by Valve. It's definitely superior to Episode One in pretty much every way, and the ending was totally . It also left me in great anticipation of what's coming next, while both Half-Life 2 and the ending of Episode One didn't really. I only actually played Episode One for the first time a month before Christmas and finished it just afterwards, so to me the two episodes have felt more like a proper sequel. I'm now going to have to join everyone else in eagerly awaiting Episode Three for 50 years. :~ I'd almost forgotten just how much I dig the Half-Life experience. I honestly think the last game I enjoyed as much as those two Episodes was Half-Life 2 itself. I've enjoyed other games since, but none have made me come away completely satisfied on every level. I also now see just how good the episodic format is. It's great that the technology moves on yet remains totally like it was before (ie: the game is glossed up), I wouldn't really want to be playing for much more and appreciate the break (I can't stop myself playing Valve games!), and the pretty powerful ending of Episode Two couldn't really have been done if seconds later you were playing the next chapter. :tup: :tup:

Man, not one new Bionic Commando game, but two! http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/bionic+commando/video/x4381x_bionic-commando-rearmed_video games I'm actually significantly more interested in this one. ;

It isn't as long as you don't mind getting nothing but refurbished 360s that typically also fail within months, thus getting you into the infamous refurb cycle. ; I know someone who's now on their eighth 360 after getting into the refurb cycle.

Yeah, indeed. I'd hardly call the LOTR films a typical Hollywood action affair.

An argument has never gone on for long enough on Idle Thumbs. ;

Actually I don't think 1600x1200 is a conventional resolution these days. Once you get above about 1280x1024 with LCDs, it jumps to widescreen. I'm not aware of any LCD monitors that use 1600x1200, while essentially every LCD monitor of 24-27 inches uses 1920x1200.

I still disagree. I think by looking at it on a pixel-by-pixel basis you're doing it incorrectly as far as perception goes. 1920x1200 is 16:10 and 1080p is 16:9, with the horizontal resolution being identical. I would argue in laymnn's terms that 1920x1200 is basically the same resolution with a bit chopped off the top and bottom -- but this doesn't matter, because televisions have a bit 'chopped off the top and bottom' too to match. The overall quality to the eye is totally comparable, whereas 1600x1200 would need chopping off vertically and stretching a whole bunch sideways to look comparable. The mathematics fail because I was comparing conventional non-widescreen computer resolutions that most people are familiar with. If you were to turn 1024x768 into a widescreen resolution you'd get a bigger and better picture than 720p, albeit only by a little.

I don't follow. The real resolution of 1080p is 1920×1080, and the real resolution of 720p is 1280x720. And for the sake of interest, 480p is 720x480. 1024x768 is actually sharper than 720p vertically; however, clearly 720p has greater horizontal resolution. 1080p is pretty close to 1920x1200, but has less vertical resolution. Don't forget that HD sizes are always based on widescreen. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that 1600x1200 (4:3) is a closer match to 1080p (16:9) than 1920x1200 (16:10).

It's all about the physical size of the television. It's directly comparable to an LCD monitor for your computer. What happens when you don't use the monitor's native resolution is exactly what happens to a HD television's picture when the native size isn't used -- it's rescaled and quality is compromised, much like when you get a small image in Photoshop and make it larger. The whole 720p and 1080p thing is confusing because most people don't realise being able to see the added detail is dependent entirely upon the size of the television itself. Some people would probably buy a 26-inch television and be all happy because it can do 1080i. Think of it this way: could you tell the difference between 1024x768 and 1280x1024 if they were both somehow running natively on a Nintendo DS screen? Similarly, 720p and 1080p may look like a small difference on a medium-sized television, but on the 60-inch and above sizes that plasma monsters come in, it's a huge difference -- easily as significant as the difference between 480p and 720p. I realise this seems obvious but it's also worth reminding yourself in that in conventional computer terms, 480p is roughly equivalent to 640x480, 720p to 1024x768, and 1080p to 1920x1200. There is a much bigger burden on hardware to render 1080p over 720p (just like 1920x1200 over 1024x768). Either one of two things is going to happen: detail is removed so it can run at the same speed as 720p, or the frame rate is lowered and may have more noticeable low spikes during heavy action. Running 1080p isn't always something to strive for when you're not on a television where the differences are particularlyappreciable.

It connects via USB so theoretically any 802.11g (been the standard for several years now) wireless adapter should work. However, it seems that few of them actually do. I'm guessing it's because the 360 doesn't have any generic drivers that can handle adapters other than the official one. However, I do recall reading that someone got a Belkin Gaming adapter working, which may have been designed to mimic the official one so the official drivers work. I can only suggest googling for this. There are consistently a number of unopened ones up for grabs at around £40 on eBay, which isn't cheap but is considerably cheaper than the £60 that some fucks like GAME charge.