Thrik

Wow, what an exceedingly unfunny page. I've always been aware of Maddox being quite popular in slightly geekish circles and such, but man -- he sucks. I loved LOTR and will not acknowledge any nonsense about it not being a superb trilogy. I didn't read the books.

Is it definitely not just the book split into two, then? I remember reading way back when the LOTR trilogy had barely ended that the plan was to have two Hobbits, the book split into two. I think I did, anyway, Making it up seems a bit dodgy, although it isn't necessarily disastrous seeing as the first classic will have introduced everyone to the world and characters the Tolkien way.

Clearly http://www.ryansgoblog.com/. I should probably add these to my Blogroll (the gaming ones, anyway). There are a few I missed and did not subscribe to. Could also do with adding owners' names after the URLs.

I have to agree that Britney was pretty excellent on the eyes.

I like how in that picture Spaff and Yufster are looking at the camera because clearly someone is taking a photo, while Ginger is staring into thin air yet looks as if he thinks he's looking into a camera. Now there could actually be two cameras there, but I find it funnier to imagine the first scenario. Also, Britney looks like Hitman in this picture: She's even holding her umbrella like a shotgun.

I don't think anyone can really enable anti-aliasing in Crysis. There're so many edges to be anti-aliased that it's absolutely crippling, and needs a serious amount of graphics card RAM (which is already being gobbled up by the huge textures and whatnot).

Yeah, the realism of the world does genuinely make the gameplay more interesting in my opinion. Or rather, it makes it more varied. I mean with most FPS games there's really not much in the way of choice with regards to how you take out some guys, but in Crysis you really can do all sorts ranging from just breaking their neck to shooting out structures/trees/etc to crush them. I really have enjoyed my Solid Snake antics in Crysis. It seems like they have great gameplay mechanics and a great engine. The only areas I've seen a lot of criticism about is the hardware requirements and the storyline. But then, could all the exciting gameplay have been created on lesser hardware? People say they shouldn't have released this game with such intensive requirements, but would there really have been less complaints if they'd just released it with the 'Medium' settings as the maximum? The fact is that Crysis is quite unique in its scale and gameplay freedom, so pointing to any other game and saying it runs better is a bit unfair. BioShock is an example that was brought up for some reason, despite the majority of its environments being in tight indoor spaces and having nowhere near the view distance, physics, and detail seen in Crysis.

Something worth understanding about Crysis is that the majority of the stress is on the graphics card, so every single pixel counts towards performance loss. Just to put this into perspective, I have: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.0GHz 4GB of 800Hz DDR2 RAM (dual channel) GeForce 8800 GTX 768mb And running Crysis on 'Very High' with my native 1920x1200 will very neatly bring me down to 14 fps, yet if I play it on a more typical resolution such as 1280x1024 I can push well over 30 fps. Therefore, what resolution someone uses is a critical factor when comparing stats. The game is clearly ahead of its time technologically, so pretty much nobody can realistically run it maxed out. Even on my machine which definitely sits in the higher end of hardware, I have to lower 'Shadows' and 'Post-Processing' (these make the biggest difference) to 'Medium'. Possibly the model detail to 'High'. This is how PC gaming is in general, unfortunately. Even BioShock falls in frame rate considerably at times on 1920x1200, while on a lower resolution it's as smooth as an eel. Playing PC games is basically a great big pain on the arse, and the sooner they nail precision aiming on all the consoles the better.

So we now have a 'scumbag' emoticon! The collection is becoming complete.

Wow, that's crazy. Is it relatively easy to undo this damage (excluding having to rebuild your profile of course)?

I was under the impression that it'd already had its day. You hardly ever see it in online games and IRC anymore, as opposed to about five years ago where it was ubiquitous. I think this newer generation of gamers is hardly even aware of the term (referring to your Battlefield and Halo guys here), and definitely doesn't use it.

I honestly can't see this from your perspective at all, miffy. Playing those games with a Wiimote sounds great to me, and much more intuitive than the game pads. It's not like you have to actually use the pointing mechanism or motion sensing in every game; simply falling back to the analogue stick and buttons is perfectly acceptable, and already happening in Wii games. That wouldn't make it that much different from using the existing pads, except more comfortable. Critically though, the pointer would be there for games that do make good use of it. I now absolutely hate the game pad way of playing games, where your hands come together to hold it and you're kind of rigid in how you can hold it. The beauty of the Wiimote is that you can hold it in practically any totally-relaxed position you like, even when using the pointer (you don't have to do it like those dicks on the TV adverts -- resting it on your leg/lap/anything and moving your wrist is still perfectly fine). I honestly see no benefit of the older game pads over the Wiimote, and cannot think of any game where the controls couldn't translate over just as well or better. I am vehemently for seeing it completely take over.

It would seem to imply that some people have gotten too close and/or need to spend some time apart.

Will it balls.

The coastal section of the game in general is definitely my favourite. I love the isolated feel you get out there, combined with the threat of never knowing where some equally isolated Combine group is. I think the fact that you traverse so much distance in Half-Life 2 is one of the major appeals for me. It makes it feel kind of epic considering you go across a huge amount of distance. And even better, it's all seamless (apart from the in-game loading) and not split into 'levels'. That's one thing HL1 did that really is awesome, with the only thing better being seamless streaming. Pretty weird how I'm already a bit nostalgic about that game.

Weird. It was the characters, implied storyline, and cinematic nature of the events that made the game appeal to me father than the art direction or architecture. In fact, those things hardly occurred to me at all. How can other people possibly think of the game in a different way to me??

Yeah, that's a good point. PC games is definitely what Valve does, and I can't see how a console version could be anything but inferior. And it probably is.

Not much to really say. I thought both games were fantastic from beginning to end, although I'd say Half-Life 2 is the generally better game due to the sheer variety of locations and gameplay on offer. When I think back to HL2 I remember nothing but awesomeness. I genuinely find it difficult to think of one single part of the game I disliked, and find it very hard to comprehend how anyone could not really like it. All I can do is urge you to persist with Half-Life 2 a bit (unlike Half-Life 1 the environments and gameplay changes dramatically throughout). If you still don't like it, you're clearly insane and want to book yourself into the nearest nut house.

Plenty of people love the game to bits and it has good reviews pouring out its arse ThunderPeel2001, so I wouldn't let opinions steer you too much. I recommend you give it a go rather than just deciding to skip it.

The Wii has definitely met my expectations and delivered some fantastic games, with fantastic ones on the horizon. Unfortunately, as with most Nintendo consoles they're all first-party titles, and I honestly can't imagine more serious games like the type you get on the other two consoles (Assassin's Creed, Kane & Lynch, etc) working with the relatively limited hardware. Even complex physics and such would be tricky as the CPU isn't that great either, as well as environments with a shitload on the screen at once (Mario Galaxy cleverly evades with this its planet concept). I'm sure I'll feel I've gotten my money's worth over the life of the console (Mario Kart and Smash Bros alone will give me a lot of joy), but I definitely look forward to the future of the next generation more than I look forward to the future of this one. The PS3 and 360 have great graphics, but that controller will never become something I'm comfortable with using for the crazy FPS and RTS games I enjoy on the PC. Conversely, the Wii's controller is absolutely ideal for such games and the concept bridges the gap between PC and console controls a lot, but the hardware isn't capable of running the crazy FPS and RTS games I enjoy on the PC. What I really want is a console that employs both. I'm hoping Nintendo themselves will succeed the Wii with a console that's more competitive on the hardware front as they did with essentially other home console before the Wii, and has a fine-tuned iteration of the Wiimote concept. Of course, I'd be just as happy with Sony and Microsoft both ripping the Wiimote concept off so the whole pointing thing becomes just as standardised as d-pads, analogue sticks, and game pads. The Wii's biggest problem is basically that you sacrifice hardware for the lovely controls, while with the PS3 you do the opposite. I see this generation as a time of great innovation, and think we'll enjoy the fruits of that after this generation.

lol

Project Origin is actually F.E.A.R. 2. I.T. C.O.U.L.D. B.E. P.R.E.T.T.Y. G.O.O.D.

I think the new Nintendo Europe site actually transcends the old one in every way to be honest. I don't actually use it much and never have, but it seems a lot more usable and critically it doesn't look like total ass like the old one did.

Interrupting sex is one thing, but interrupting a bath? Now there's a line someone shouldn't have crossed.

Yeah, I'd personally recommend Paint.NET to average Windows users who don't need the bulletproof Photoshop. http://www.getpaint.net/ It's not that it's better than GIMP, and I don't use either myself, but Paint.NET is definitely easier for people used to the Windows GUI to get used to and be productive with. Out of all the free image editing software I'd say it has the most potent combination of power and usability. GIMP has power, but the GUI really isn't great (something that perpetually never seems to be fixed).