Thrik

We know what you're saying, and I'm not sure why you even feel the need to say it. It's in our interests to retain the planet in roughly its current state as we as a species rely on it to exist. Sure, we may have self-preserving motives (although there are plenty who'd like to look after the environment just for the sake of doing so), but that doesn't mean we don't want/need to 'save the planet'. Saving the planet and saving our own asses go hand-in-hand. What you're doing is being is pedantic for no good reason, and are acting as if we can't appreciate blatant terminology and wordplay insinuations, instead diverting the topic in a direction that it doesn't need to head in. Do you seriously think we need the distinction between saving an ecosystem and saving ourselves pointing out?

Yeah, seriously — who would think the latter? Who?! Anyway, I saw the programme last night, and it was good. Although a lot of implications for humans were brought up, a lot of it concentrated on how the warming will wreck the environment and kill off a massive number of species. I mean, I don't know about you Tommy, but I'd say killing off many of the world's creatures including ourselves is a fairly significant issue. Perhaps not for us specifically, but our children and/or grandchildren will definitely feel the burn in that respect. The programme was worth watching though, and some of the key points it brought up that I wasn't really aware of were: 1. The great rainforest(s) will start to burn up and die, resulting in a massive unleashing of carbon into the atmosphere, plus whatever other implications on animals that might have. 2. The melting of the ice will result in less white to reflect sunlight back up, meaning that the oceans will absorb a lot more sunlight than they have in a long time. 3. The oceans will turn acidic due to their aborbing of the carbon whatsits, slaughtering many of the world's ocean life. There was obviously loads more, like the implications of general water rise and whatever, but that's all stuff everyone knows about anyway. On a slightly unrelated note, did anyone catch Ocean Odessy? It was a high budget two-part BBC documentary about the life of a sperm whale that was on this week and the week before, and it was great. Mainly because it was all about the deep sea, with that being where they spend a lot of their time. Honestly, I find the deep sea more interesting than space. They need to make more programmes about that sort of thing.

Totally disagree. It looks beautiful.

I've been thinking of getting that too. Videos looked nice.

I don't think the Third World forum can really be given the title 'forum', can it? I mean, there must be some kind of minimum level of activity required. That or the admins just delete any and all criticism, like that which was carefully thought out and submitted by Yufster!

The web browser is actually a feature with quite some potential, assuming that it can be tied into specific games. For example, games could have an in-game forum, much along the lines of those that initially existed within Tribes 2 and were pretty great. Having in-game forums is good as it means that everybody who owns the game can get involved with 0 effort, and while they lasted in Tribes 2 they were fairly excellent for sharing tips and generally just being all communal. You could even get over the typing issue if the wiimote turns out to have a built-in mic as rumoured and some voice-to-text technology. Or perhaps just a virtual keyboard like on the DS. The browser could also be used for having a web-based update page in games for patches and such, like you see in Steam, and various other things. In short, it has potential as something that can be integrated with Wii software, but I can't see it being much use as a standalone application for most.

Turns out Lost is really just all Walt's fantasy, and The Others are a collective image of his brother trying to sort him.

Whack-A-Mole.

Wifi is basically the way that local area networking has evolved. Instead of having cables all over the joint, what you instead have are wireless transmitters and receivers that can be put anywhere, effectively eliminating cables. This is great for laptops and stuff, as you can imagine. The general idea of a conventional wifi network is that you have a standard broadband internet modem (often supplied by your ISP) that plugs into a wireless router with a cable; the wireless router then transmits a wireless signal over a considerable distance (potentially hundreds of metres) that wireless receivers/adapters are able to pick up. Wireless receivers can be either slotted inside a PC, or plugged in via USB. As far as I'm aware, all the DS does is come with one of these wireless receivers inside it, so a wireless router should be the only thing you need if you haven't already got a wireless network in your home. As long as you're in an area with a local transmitter, you should be able to play online. For most people, this means “buy a wireless router and set it up with your internet modem”, but cities and stuff are starting to have 'hot spots' that anyone from the public can just walk up to and use. There might be ways of getting the DS online by plugging it directly into the modem or something, but really I don't know as I don't have one. The above is just how wifi in general works.

It's failing if it is.

:woohoo: :woohoo: I mean, uh, hope you recover soon. :~

The thing that still makes me look back at Fahrenheit fondly despite the lesser later half was the atmosphere. They really nailed the feel of things going downhill, even if the reasons for doing so were ultimately a bit daft. I guess it was a good effort though, and certainly shows promise of things to come. I just sincerely hope that their storyline and gameplay abilities are sharpened up, else it'll be another “so close but so far” success.

There's no way I've spent that much. But then, I tend to let my hardware become obsolete before upgrading, and in pretty much all cases I've managed to continue using at least some of my old hardware. My PC has definitely been the best value for money in comparison to any console I've owned — which is them all, pretty much. The only hitch is the exclusive games that make me want go out and buy one of the bastards.

£425? More like fuck off. You know what I could do to this PC with that?!

I hope so. I truly admired Fahrenheit, but the weird gameplay design decisions resulted in it falling onto the wrong side of “too much cutscene”. Some parts were good, but those dreaded DDR bits were really very poor. I didn't realise when I started that the whole game would be full of them, and I'd rather that they just weren't there at all if given the choice.

I know what Quantic Dream strive for, and I've also played Fahrenheit — I rated it very highly. Sure, the “Dance Dance Revolution” type gameplay was shit, and the rest of the gameplay wasn't that great either, but the ability to slightly influence the storyline's unfolding was good. There's a difference between that and this, though: Heavy Rain has zero demonstrated interactivity. I'm not even quite sure what's it supposed to be demonstrating at all, other than the brute force of simulating realism I guess, which brings us back to my main critique: too much focus on graphics. And hell, this level of graphics and believability of reality has already been surpassed by PCs and/or existing games. I appreciate that the emotion bundled into the video is fairly well done, but as it stands now that's all they've achieved: creating a movie that's completely scripted but rendered in real time. It's not a game. Until they can crack the art of intertwining this type of cinematic presentation with gameplay that isn't shit (see: paragraph 1), Quantic Dream have a long way to go as game developers. Crafting their own genre is no excuse for making games that just aren't fun. The novelty of cinematic presentations being rendered in real time will soon run thin, and I don't think Fahrenheit even did that well did it? I could be wrong, but I've not come across many people who actually bought it. I want Quantic Dream to do well as their mantra is sound, but unless they can make their games more engaging as opposed to making the player feel like a spectator as with Fahrenheit, they're just going to fall flat onto their faces — it won't fly with the masses. It's not even flying with me, and I'm more open and go out of way to play new gaming experiences than most.

Well sure, you can use motion capture for non-cutscene animation, but in almost all cases that requires quite a bit of work from a traditional animator anyway for it to work properly in a game context. Using motion capture probably speeds things up (assuming you have a place to do it), but it still boils down to an animator sitting there and tweaking it for ages until it looks perfect — especially when animations merge and the player is in there interacting with stuff. The point I was really driving towards is that using motion capture to make animation in games more realistic is all well and good, but it's nothing remotely new and Heavy Rain doesn't look like it's even using it as well as games that've already been released; it just looks like a cutscene, and really serves no purpose in a gameplay context. I would have thought that cutscenes would be lessened now we're moving into yet another generation, but here they are using one to demonstrate a console's ability. The only difference is that it's supposedly in real time. Well, wow, I guess? If this is supposed to make me desire a PS3, I don't think they could have been any less effective. Now, if they'd used a video that shows equally good animation and visuals but in a fully interactive context — and possibly not-shit facial animation — then I'd probably be impressed. But as it stands, I'd rather go and watch one of the Metal Gear Solid 2 cutscenes or something, because that's the era in which Heavy Rain belongs. And yes, I'm grumbling, but I'm just growing so tired of games endlessly trying to be realistic but failing to deliver in actual gameplay. It's looking like the PS3 is going to be yet another fest of graphics over gameplay, and I've heard so many people both on the internet and in the real world say that they're going to get a PS3 purely because of its graphics that I almost want to go find the tallest tree in Sherwood Forest and hang myself off it. I want fun games, not shit motion captured cutscenes with horse-faced women.

I dunno. If it was motion captured then it's really not impressive at all; all that motion captured animations can really be used for is cutscene-like sequences, and games have been doing that for years. It probably costs quite a lot to set it all up, but it's not innovative. There'll always be nuances with animation that require either motion capture or a very attentive animator; even then, the former usually requires the latter to work well. What would impress me would be a way to generate animation on the fly that looks totally authentic without any input from the designers. I guess Spore is kind of going that way with its procedural animation, but the animation in there really isn't the most breathtaking around. To do it really convicingly I suppose you'd need to emulate an entire muscular structure and everything.

Anyone know when the Lites and Mario Bros come out in the UK? As for flying, I'm actually kind of relieved to hear that! I never really enjoyed doing it in SMW, SMB3 or M64, mostly because I feel a bit out of control while doing so. I don't know, I just didn't like it much.

Eh? What? PS: Why do we have no quick reply?

Racing the Diddy Kong Racing bosses describes one of the most infuriating times in my entire history of playing games.

Hahahah. You have to love the random guy who two-fingers the camera in the second video.

I completely contest the notion that 3D on the DS can't be immersive or meaningful, which is what you said earlier. Granted, 2D can simply be done better (New Super Mario Bros!), but with the right treatment 3D can work great too. Hell, when I was last playing Mario Kart DS, it felt like I was there. There, man.

Why didn't a Wii-ified Yoshi's Island occur to me? God. That'll be the first thing streaming down my virtual console line. And yeah, 3D works really well on the DS. To say otherwise would mean you either a) Have not played it, or Are shit.

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