Thrik

Wait, what? People's eating choices can be seen as a political statement? Apart from just not liking animals to be chopped up for our plates, what could those political positions possibly be? I do remember that in Fable you got fat from eating meat, pies, etc and slim from eating fruit, vegetables, and tofu.

A year, even though she knows it's pretty much over? She really should call it a day both for herself and for him. If she's doing it to make it easier for him, maybe suggest that letting him waste another year of his life on a relationship that's going nowhere is going to do him far more harm than good. And it means she has to live with something she really doesn't want for a whole year. That's just crazy talk. Edit: Of course, it's going to be difficult to say anything like this without you looking like a serious bad guy if he finds out, so yeah... shitty.

Man, your friend's relationship is so on a railway to failure. Might be better off just letting it play out and not getting involved with it whether it's talking to him or her. It sounds like she's only going to tolerate it for so long. If it means you can't stand to be around him then... well, you might want to consider that.

Heh, Jesus. The ability of gamers to crack the most obscure things ever never ceases to amaze me. While the effect of the painting's transformation does seem very sci-fi and thus points to a new IP, the painting's connection to God of War 3's ending is impossible to deny. It looks to me like an explosion that's sending a shockwave around Earth, which would coincide with either of two things that happened during GoW3's ending: There are plenty of gods and titans left for utilising in a new story, including some that weren't killed in the main trilogy and one that's particularly pissed off with Kratos. So I guess there's ample fodder for a new story, but it's hard to imagine what a motivation for Kratos could be now that he's well and truly gone beyond making good what's powered his fury throughout the series. Part of me would like to see them come up with something incredible, but if it ends up anything like the side-games' stories which have no real impact on the world or arc (because they're designed to neatly fit within it) it's just not worth it.

I agree that God of War's story is well and truly done. I haven't played Ascension, but it seems to just be another relatively inconsequential game in the same vein of the two (admittedly quite good in their HD PS3 form) PSP titles. I'm sure they could somehow continue it, but it ended on a conclusive albeit depressing note. I'm actually disappointed they put in a post-credits scene, they clearly wanted an out but that kind of ruins the finality and message of how devoting yourself to vengeance will not just destroy yourself but everything else around you. I liked that they had the balls to end the game in such a horrible way, then they ruined it with a few-second 'oh it might all be OK after all' scene. What I would like to see is something that's as good as God of War using a similar formula. Lots of games have tried, but I don't think I've played much else that really captures the incredible highs of especially God of War 2 and to a lesser extent God of War 3. I know that Ascension is said to have made some genuinely good gameplay refinements, so I'd love to see that evolved into some other kind of mythology-themed game. I think grounding it in actual mythology is a big part of why God of War works so well, incidentally. The other option is to dispense of Kratos altogether and focus on a completely different character and time in God of War's lore, perhaps even Zeus himself prior to the events of the God of War franchise. I'm sure some kind of 'he's weakened for some reason' story could be put together. The fans might like this even less than just ending the series altogether, but I sure do love Greek mythology.

That's what I mean. It just seems off to me that Arkane is being railroaded into doing this game that I'm not entirely convinced that many people are bothered about in the first place. I'm not saying the original game was a failure (I meant Prey 2's development), nor am I saying this is a particularly unusual thing. I'm just saying that to me it's a bit odd that so much bollocks has occurred around a sequel to Prey, which in my opinion was an adequate but wholly unremarkable shooter. As I say, I was a little confuzzled but not exactly shocked by the decision to make a Prey sequel as they did (my reaction was more '... why Prey?' due to the complete lack of connection). But I am genuinely saddened by Arkane getting dragged into the mess, and it sounds like they are too.

Well in all fairness I was saying the same thing when it was announced (probably in this thread). The fact it was getting a sequel at all seemed kind of weird to me, with it being a really unremarkable cousin of Doom 3 and Quake 4. Its sequel seemed like it was going to bear little resemblance to its predecessor in any way, right down to not featuring the portals that were Prey's only particularly novel concept — something backed up by the recent leaks. You have to wonder who it was being made for. But to continue pursuing a sequel after the initial run at it failed just adds to the weirdness. Why not just let it go? It was never a really big IP, and it's even less so now. I don't want to see an excellent developer like Arkane wasting their time with trying to pick up the pieces.

I still think it's bizarre that this was developed in the first place, considering its complete dissimilarity to its predecessor and the original never really being that big a thing. But now they might be starting again with another developer? Why not just... you know... not bother? It seems below Arkane to even touch this rather than make some sweet new IP.

This is totally coming out on PS4/XBone. They're being too cagey about discussing the idea for it not to be.

New update for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is out. I won't say what we're all thinking, but I will point out that '3' and 'CONFIRMED' appear in that picture.

I'm really curious to see whether or not Lionhead can do much now that Molyneux is gone. At the moment they might as well be called Fable studios, with the originality and variety of the games they made in the early-to-mid 2000s now a distant memory. I'm sure they can whip out some more derivative Fable sequels, but can they do anything truly original? Even Fable 3 was a hugely lazy step after its comparatively brilliant two predecessors. I have no excitement about another Fable game at all, and it certainly wouldn't be the deciding factor of me buying the console like Fable 2 was.

Oh yeah, I guess it varies by region. PoF in particular is so big in the UK it's virtually pointless looking at anything else. As for the dud dates, it was really just the usual things like 'holy SHIT she looks nothing like her picture' and 'we have literally nothing in common'. I guess the latter can happen in traditional dating too but usually the first encounter is the first date as such, so you get to feel each other out. Verbally.

I've been happy for years after meeting my special other through Plenty of Fish — which along with (to a lesser extent) OkCupid are the only ones you should put any time into, and they're free. Of course a number of hilarious dud dates resulted from using them too, but the point is you can encounter lots of people pretty rapidly. Hint: there is a learning curve much like playing a game, which when overcome can result in way, way more XP. I mean dates.

You're still alive! But did you get that tetanus shot?

LITTLEBIGPLANET (2)

This looks really awesome. I thought it was some random indie thing at first. I love the concept of controlling two characters at once using the same pad, I can't think of any game that's successfully done that before. Graphically it looks gorgeous, too. All they need are some deep and emotional moments that draw out feels like Journey and this will be a serious winner. Too preoccupied with Skyrim right now but I'll definitely pick this up.

Please sell me on Hong Kong. For some reason I feel like I want to go but I don't even know why, I know nothing about it!

Hah, I was intrigued until I saw it's blue. I just cannot bring myself to eat them, also I'm allergic to penicillin which could cause me to react badly to the bacteria they use in the cheese. But I do admittedly need to try more interesting cheeses in my burgers. All I've done so far is use pretty generic grated cheeses.

Ah man, takes me back to the days when Nintendo Official Magazine used to relentlessly use the terms GreyStation, Sadturn, etc.

Yeah I personally think rescuing bitches is better than rescuing damsels. ...oh dear.

I published an article by one of my forum regulars about the direction of first-person shooters yesterday. I didn't foresee it being so popular, it ended up on reddit almost immediately and within hours was over 2000 views. It's about 20 hours later now and it's at 60,000+ views. Jeez. Which brings me to the real point here. If anyone's ever wanting somewhere to write a good guest article (ideally with a technical slant as it's a game development forum) let me know, as the forum is pretty active and articles tend to get good readership. The most popular so far have been Making a Map: CS_Museum and Technical breakdown: Assassin's Creed II. Any kind of tutorial or article looking into the process of making something seems to go down great and I personally find them fascinating.

While I don't wish to get too much into the specifics of Fish or online assholes in general, it's worth bearing in mind that it's not too difficult to somewhat insulate yourself from the masses of attention-hungry scumbags out there. You don't have to use social media, and even if you do you don't have to let the entire public pore over your writings — Twitter lets you moderate who follows you so you can still keep in touch with actual friends despite being an e-celebrity. I mean this is something that well-known figures in the film, TV, and music industries have been doing for years. Unless they have a particularly thick skin, they let PR teams or agents handle the fans. Of course any celebrity is free to dip their toe into the public at any time, but I think it's reasonable to expect potential assholery. I guess because the games industry is still quite immature compared to those other industries, its emerging public figures are still getting to grips with the fact that they are no longer just normal people. I'm sure many famous people would love to not have countless photographers chasing them and every gossip magazine in the world ripping their personal life to shreds, but that is the choice you make by exposing yourself to the public eye and I think it's only going to get worse as the games industry continues to grow. If you want to be a reclusive character in the industry that's perfectly possible, you just don't get the benefits that can come with fame. And let's make no mistake about it, Fish has consciously pursued fame.

I used to live near a three-legged cat, he was a wonder to behold. You'd literally miss the fact he was missing a leg if you didn't look closely, as he moved with all the grace of a fully-equipped feline. If you ever needed evidence of the flexibility of kitties:

Nice, feels like you're in an RPG or something.