Thrik

I'm interested to see what Irrational have done with Tribes Vengeance's single player. It's supposed to be rather good, but I dunno.

Man, this game is looking so great. The intro is great, especially its music which is another huge thing I'm looking forward to about Psychonauts. The gameplay footage shown also looks fluid and fun, with plenty of immersiveness promised. Jeez. I'm excited. Omg.

Demo seems good to me. I haven't sat down to fully explore how it plays, but the interface and actual running/visuals of the game were perfect. It ran smoothly with maximum detail, which is always a good bonus. I liked a few of the aesthetic changes though. I noticed that you can edit the colours of practically anything ever, from the seating boxes on rollercoasters, to each wall segment on a fence, to each <i>flower</i> in a flowerbed.

Remember people, hype kills. Calm down.

I was reading this article on GameSpot earlier, and it seems quite interesting. It looks like Microsoft are keen to blur the lines between consoles and PCs by making gaming a far more simplified process - something that often draws people away from PCs, and that people use in their "PC vs Console" arguments. Key quotes: Lester reaffirmed Microsoft's dedication to making Longhorn's game functionality be as accessible as that of a modern console. However, he said the company wants to retain the strengths of the PC platform, including high-end graphics and sound hardware, online communities, post-release community support, and content updates like modifications and maps. One example was the conventional game installation system that requires users to sit through several lengthy loading screens. Lester stated flatly, "we need to make that go away." Ideally, Microsoft would like to make PC game installation as easy as the plug-and-play experience of console games, which can be played the instant a disc is dropped in the drive. Xbox 2 peripherals will all work on PC," said Lester, clarifying that Xbox controllers, steering wheels, and other console-related peripheral functionality will all be brought into Longhorn's portfolio, as will Xbox Live functionality. For game players, this will make for, if nothing else, an added convenience, since playing a game on their PC or their Xbox will [ideally] come down to little more than unplugging the controller from one, and plugging it into the other. I don't know about you guys, but I like this move. At the moment, there is a kind of barrier between hardcore PC gamers and hardcore console gamers. Generally, people stick to either one and rarely venture into the others' territory. Having this barrier broken down so that the two work with each other rather than alongside each other seems like an awesome concept to me, and I must say that I fully support Microsoft in this particular endeavour. Feel free to leave your thoughts.

:( Edit: Whoa, that's a weird smilie for :(.

Shaun of the Dead is pure excellence. Coincidentally, I got the DVD today.

Argh, sly edit. I can appreciate that to anyone with the slightest of knowledge of PC hardware it's daft, as I said. But trust me, there are a lot of people out there who avoid PCs simply because they can't get their head around what a Geforce 6800 is as opposed to a Radeon X700, with a Hyperthreading 3.04GHz 64bit tgurfhtf is. To put it bluntly, gamers on average are thick. Without simplified titles and such to indicate exactly what they need, they find it hard to adapt from their plug 'n' play lifestyle that a console brings. Whilst a PC can never truly be as simplistic as a console, taking steps to make it blatantly obvious what you need to run what will probably help. For example, what's easier to say to a guy who's never looked into PC hardware in his life? "You'll want 1024mb of DDRAM, plus a 2.6GHz Pentium 4, along with at least a Radeon 9800 graphics card", or "You need a level 5 system"? It sounds overly dumbed down and such to anybody with the slightest knowledge of computers, such as yourself Yufster, but it will help the generally retarded gaming public out. Your point about the numbers getting higher and higher is valid though. I'm not sure how exactly they'd go around that.

It's a match made in heaven!

From a report I read a few months back (don't take this as fact), Longhorn itself has some pretty hefty system requirements. Therefore, Microsoft can assume that if you are using the OS, then you can support the hardware. It makes sense. As for CDs, by 2006 I wouldn't be surprised if they are bordering upon obsolete. With DVD drives/burners coming down in price, there is soon going to be no incentive to use them at all for anything. Assuming the DVD drives which are cheap in 2006 are fast enough to allow almost instantanous loading (which wouldn't surprise me), then it should be fine. As for the other hardware, the article also goes on about how they're considering giving different hardware "levels", and then indicating that level for the system requirements on a box. So, if you want a "level 7" game, you need a "level 7" hardware setup. It may sound pretty dumbed down for tech savvy people like I'm sure we all are, but for the average console grunts that is ideal.

I thought it was quite an interesting way to end it. The entire game was filled with plot twists and such which are generally unexpected, so it was appropriate that the very ending would also be a twist. When I was watching that brilliantly done pan through the lighthouse which Marek mentioned, along with the calm music, I thought that the story was totally over and wrapped up (I had no idea that it was an intended trilogy at this point). Then suddenly we move over to Pey'j and.. you know the rest. It was an appropriately unexpected and twisty ending for a twisty game in my opinion. It's a tragedy that it wasn't allowed to continue as a series (or at least, it's highly unlikely) in my opinion. The game was so perfect on an artistic and gameplay level for me. The last game to hit me in the same way was Grim Fandango. It's quite coincidental that both masterpieces suffered terrible marketing. ¬¬ Anyways, the final boss was also pretty good in my opinion. It was far more difficult than the majority of the game, but I'd have been way more angry if the boss was piss easy. Games these days are becoming way too simple to complete as a whole, there's rarely a game which completely and utterly sticks me down - this was a refreshing change. It's just a shame that the whole game didn't have similarly hard bosses (although that Metal Gear Domz was pretty difficult). * Thrik waves the Beyond Good and Evil fanboy flag

I'd just rather wait if the game is all the better. Think of it this way; if it wasn't delayed, the game would most likely have ended up being shit and unfinished. But yes, Valve are beyond terrible with deadlines. From the highly delayed HL1 to whatever they release in the future, I'm sure we can rely on them to be appropriately late.

The highly anticipated Donkey Kong Country Remix Project (temporary html mirror, should be at http://dkcproject.ocremix.org) over at Overclocked Remix has finally been completed. It clocks in with an extremely respectable 22 remixes, going from the very beginning (main theme) to the very end (credits). I've not listened to the whole thing yet, but I listened to all of the WIP versions whilst it was still being produced and it was friggin' awesome. Frankly, I cannot recommend this thing enough to you all and I encourage ye to help spread the word of this mighty accomplishment as best you can. The remixing and arrangement skill itself is outstanding. So yeah, go download your face off.

Just in case you missed it, FilePlanet subscribers get to participate in the Tribes 3 open beta testing for the next week. You can check out the specific page here, and some screenshots here. Incidentally, if anyone is a (paid) FilePlanet subscriber and isn't interested in this beta, could you be so kind as to throw your key over here? It'd be a terrible waste to not use it, and I'd really like to participate in this myself. :~

In these tunnels, this was recently discovered. It's like something out of the Broken Sword games. I suggest reading the whole thing. Most odd.

It's a team game, who cares if he gets "credit" for your work? The point is you got the flag back for your team. Who capped it is regardless. ;D

People who get their ass kicked in Tribes must be shot.

Well, it went public. Got it, played it, loving it. I stuck up a short video of one of my flagruns up here. You can read info about the video on my site if you wish.

Man, those Google ads are smart. I come into this thread and it's showing all Command & Conquer ads.

What the hell.

Oh, there's a new MGS3 trailer on there - English this time. Coolio.

It was near the bottom. Still is. The one you're on about is hidden in some scrolling box thingy, no wonder I missed it. :~

Tee, that looks excellent. There's a lot of things which look totally inspired by MGS - like the stealthy camoflage and the way the guards all have comical things coinciding with their current state of alertness and conciousness and stuff - but I love all that so who's complaining? The characters themselves look very nice too.

I assume trailer 6 is the target, as that's what's downloading. ;-*

Of course, the gameplay is likely to be top notch. It's a shame that these days people seem to be going for games purely on looks. If I were to go onto IRC and be all "D3 or HL2????", most people would say Doom 3 because it has the graphical edge. I think HL2 is going to come out tops regardless. As well as them having proven that their gameplay is top notch, they have a cracking engine that will almost certainly provide years of mods. Hell, it *already* has a strong mod community, and it isn't even out yet. My original point was just that it doesn't graphically stun people anymore, which *is* a shame because it'll have a less of a "Holy shit" impact on people than it could have. I'm thinking purely of the game's success here, like. Also Intrepid, what is that damned thing in your avatar? I've seen dodgy gifs of it and stuff too in places.