Thrik

I don't think it's fair to direct any blame towards Ubisoft for the PSN issues. They're in exactly the same situation as countless other publishers and developers, which is that one of their main distribution platforms has been down with Sony refusing to be specific about its planned return (which was just a couple of days ago in the UK it turns out). It's probably still not fully online in some regions, and the servers are fucked from being swamped. I really doubt Ubisoft is trying to stiff customers by not being able to effectively distribute a game they've just spent a fair bit on remastering and marketing. They've just not committed to a new release date because it's been impossible to determine one thanks to PSN currently being widely considered a barely floating ship. It's obviously going to come once the PSN issues are history because they made it, it still says it's coming soon on the official site, and they have people clamouring for it.

That is fairly crazy. The only silver lining is that the game isn't toast — which in all honesty I'd assumed — and that it will hopefully be fairly awesome when it does eventually come. It's better they take their time than put out something that's half-hearted, but fuck me I want a BG&E sequel already. I'm guessing they're still pretty much in an on-and-off pre-production (Ancel had admitted they've spent considerable amounts of time doing stuff like Rayman: Origins instead), or they've gone ahead and started over. They wouldn't openly say they're targeting the next generation if they'd already produced a significant amount of assets because that'd be essentially wasted work.

Only got to the end of the third case, but absolutely loving it so far. Very immersive, great characters, graphics mostly do a good job (although very clinical and lacking much in the way of true beauty), sound and music is superb, and the case gameplay itself is very compelling and the first time I've really encountered such in-depth 'doing what you normally see in crime shows' play. I do agree that getting your partner to drive between locations is by far the best way to play, to the point where it seems like it was designed that way before they stuck in the open world aspect. While the driving is done well, you get to do that during cases anyway (eg: when tailing) so it's not like you're missing out. I think I'd very quickly get fed up with driving everywhere.

If that's the case I definitely recommend you get AC2. I've been playing Brotherhood and am really enjoying it, but I do think AC2 has the edge. The main reason is like I'm sure we've mentioned a million times in this thread now, Brotherhood takes place in a single city whereas AC2 features a good half dozen such as Venice, Florence, and even a small part of Rome. While Brotherhood does a very good job of giving Rome's districts a unique character, it really doesn't compare to AC2's completely separate cities which are all extremely distinctive and feel totally different to one another. With that said, Brotherhood's Rome is denser when it comes to things to do so it's not like there's less gameplay — it just feels better having a more expansive amount of space to explore rather than being confined to a single city. So far I also prefer AC2's story, which seemed more focused. Brotherhood's is a bit more all over the place, with a lot of overlapping and reliance on having playing AC2 to recognise characters and their motives. Also I think the fact the story is intertwined with several cities again works well and carries it better. Basically AC2 and Brotherhood are blood brothers, to the point where Brotherhood essentially feels like an expansion to AC2 rather than a game of its own. So rest assured, whatever issues you had with AC1 almost certainly aren't in the superb AC2.

Quite an intriguing video of a real detective giving the game a spin and commenting on its authenticity: http://www.g4tv.com/videos/53057/a-real-detective-plays-la-noire/?quality=hd Seeing regular gameplay like that certainly increases my desire to get this after I've finished other games I've been playing got like a year such as Red Dead Redemption .

I suppose, but Lie to Me is fairly well respected for being a very informed program. It's a bit more like saying you have a basic grasp of law and crime investigation from watching Law and Order, which again prides itself on getting it right most of the time. CSI on the other hand openly goes completely beyond the realms of technical possibility; in fact, the last episode of CSI: Miami I saw featured a bloody ghost! Basically the show goes to great lengths to explain the scientific reasoning behind identifying who's lying, which is after all the whole premise of the show. It squashes most misconceptions including those on the previous page, and goes well beyond that. As such they really do their research and indeed the main character and his organisation is based upon the guy featured throughout the article you posted on the last page. I'm hoping LA Noire has adopted a similar philosophy.

Well it can get infinitely detailed depending on what exactly we're talking about, at least so it seems from watching lots of Lie to Me! For example grasping certain parts of the body in certain ways can indicate guilt rather than anxiety — but what exactly is causing guilt in response to a certain question can be interpreted in all sorts of different ways. For example it could mean they're guilty of doing what you've accused them off, or it could be they feel guilty because they let the person go into that situation. I don't know how sophisticated the game will be in this respect but I'm hoping for the best!

I'm sure I read that being able to read the face and body expressions isn't the only way of progressing (without resorting to blind luck), and that there're also other things that can help you along like simply stacking up the evidence, comparing what people say, analysing clues, etc. After all, not every detective in the real world is necessarily a master of face reading. If you totally screw up an interview there have to be other approaches you can take. I know what you're saying about whether or not they appeal to people's preconceptions, but then surely you're going to aim for realism rather than ignorance if making a game based around teaching people to read and outwit 'enemies' rather than just shoot them and doing loads of research into criminal psychology. Based on reviews and player reactions I'm thinking they've gone for the realistic approach and if people don't learn to pick up on the clues they'll have a harder time progressing in other ways. To be honest though the preconceptions people have aren't that far off — they're just primitive. For example lots of people do break eye contact when lying; what matters is how they break it (looking to one side indicates creating something, looking to the other indicates recalling something from memory). Similarly, many kinds of shuffling and grasping of one's own body do indicate lying. Really though even the experts admit it's not an absolute science and it's always possible to get it wrong, and some people are simply advantaged when it comes to reading people regardless of tuition. It's just all about reducing how much you get it wrong, and that in itself is something I find quite appealing about LA Noire if they do this aspect well. They've made a big song and dance about getting the rare opportunity to read people and accuse them of lying if need be, and I'll be very disappointed if they haven't done this properly — just like you will be I assume!

I'm sure at the very least the developers spent some of their many years developing the game doing a bit of research on Google into the psychology and science of lying. Especially considering that, you know, it's the central theme of their game. One of the primary reasons they're using experienced actors rather than technical directors and sound guys for the facial capture is probably because they're more likely to be able to adhere to certain principles and habits surrounding lying, just like the actors in 'Lie to Me' (which was based on the very same Paul Ekman quoted in your article) did. Or not and it's actually just a complete joke. The reviews imply otherwise, though!

lol! Quality.

I think the open world thing is an attempt at what most people have always said they want from games, which is take place in a completely believable environment. In real life you don't have invisible walls and stupid limitations on where you can go, and while these are well-accepted and traditional features in games it's inevitable that developers are going to start trying to break away from that if it can be done without compromising the narrative (which in LA Noire's case is apparently the case). Granted the technology doesn't really live up to such a notion because unless you've got at least a GTA4 level of interactivity and depth out there it's going to break the illusion, but still I can respect the attempt. A comparison would be a game like Zelda that allows you to explore endless meaningless forests and landscapes, with little to do out there beyond tackle the odd side-quest. Just because it's superfluous is it bad to have it there, if it makes the world seem more vast, believable, and existent? Or is it better to have an extremely confined world that for all intents and purposes only exists around your actions and intentions?

I think we're now very much in 'wat' territory.

I forgot to comment on this, but for what it's worth I got LBP2 and think it's probably the best platform game I've played since Yoshi's Island. Seriously, absolutely awesome and definitely sits alongside the all-time greats. If you don't like this you hate games, and probably little children and kittens too. It's all the little touches that make it feel like so much more of a cohesive whole, like having proper themed overworlds and a more old-school way of navigating levels. Also the pacing of the levels and the frequent boss battles are superb. The gameplay is definitely well above and beyond what I've ever experienced in any platformer before, in no small part thanks to the simple yet unbelievably fun-unlocking grappling hook and the Sackbots which will bring a smile to the faces of all but the most heartless and soulless of gamers . Creating is also a completely different kettle of fish this time, with literally just about anything being possible. I just saw this mech FPS someone's finished putting together: T_CKjtjjcoI I mean, like... whoa! Also worth a mention:

lol!!!!!

That thread is absolutely hilarious to read in hindsight.

Does the US PSN Store not have this kind of layout? http://video gamesrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/swine-flu-playstation-store-2.jpg I've always found the PSN Store a bit fiddly, but then I can't say I find the Xbox LIVE one much better. Seems like they both need a master class in e-commerce design.

Games and the console can supposedly still be updated, but everything else is indeed toast. I keep hearing that it won't be up until at least May 31st which seems mental yet believable to me.

Oh. Fable 3's been out since last Autumn — I finished it well before Christmas. Or are you on about the PC version which is meant to be out next week?

The Chicken Rebellion? What's that? First I've ever heard of it and Google turns up nothing particularly insightful.

Yeah, to be fair this exact problem has always plagued any release of any film on any medium. Usually the cut of the film gets better with each subsequent release on a new medium as new techniques allow for better preservation of the original cinematic version, but countless complications can cause problems. A particularly prominent example is Aliens, which was filmed on an experimental kind of film which degraded particularly quickly — meaning that the later Laserdisc release, DVD release, etc got increasingly washed out and lost that original quality. With the new Blu-ray release they finally sorted it out with advanced techniques overseen by the original director: http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=619550 But then some might say the Blu-ray remaster looks wrong because they've only ever seen the compromised VHS-onwards releases. Basically just know what you're buying — read reviews on informed sites. Some Blu-ray releases aren't HD at all, and are simply upscaled DVDs with minor post-production to try and make them look a bit better. TV shows are commonly like this because a HD-suited version was never produced in the first place.

Oh yeah, Flash hasn't been a reasonable solution for designing an entire site for a long time. For any and all sites you can accomplish what you need with JavaScript and Canvas (if you have Chrome you might want to see what can be accomplished in a Flash-free future), but Flash does persist as a useful stand-in while such technologies continue to mature and become supported by the browsers people are actually using. Specifically Flash is most useful right now for playing videos (HTML5 alternatives aren't really ready for prime time yet), producing games (it's possible to do this with JavaScript and Canvas but it's an incredible chore, akin to designing a website in Paint), and of course in non-web contexts where Flash's superb performance and range of visual interaction is useful. Game interfaces are a very natural fit when you think about it, as are presentations, interactive CDs, etc. The kind of things Flash's sister Shockwave used to be used for, actually. I agree with you about the MX editing tools, though. Adobe have very much overhauled Flash and the interface and software alike are infinitely better than it used to be, with Flash now having a completely object-orientated scripting language and the ability to export directly to JavaScript and Canvas — which means that Flash or an Adobe-developed derivative of it is still going to inevitably be used for producing many of the interactive interfaces that'll succeed Flash itself, especially when you consider that Flash can now natively open Photoshop and Illustrator files. So don't shed a tear for Flash, because it's going to simply evolve and live on.

Some Rare guy explained to me at Eurogamer that all their huds, interfaces, etc are done in Flash — including in their flagship Kinect game, Banjo, and Viva Piñata. He said such practice isn't remotely uncommon in the industry, as many UI designers — who often handle interaction and animation too — can readily use Illustrator/Flash, whereas using other approaches requires more training, developer intervention (not who you want handling animation and visual effects, etc. Personally I think Flash gets too bad a rap, largely due to Apple's self-centred smearing efforts. It's not nearly as bulky, inefficient, or bloated as many seem to think, especially in comparison to earlier versions. Granted it may not be the best long-term solution for the web, but its been incredibly useful for many things and has helped define modern web interactivity.

Far Cry 1 and 2 were basically entirely different games and I think the IP was used purely for its marketing value, and while I think FC1 was far superior it's fairly pointless pursuing that because Crysis already accomplished everything FC1 strived to be and more. I'd probably give FC3 a chance if it were based somewhere drastically different to the FC2 setting (somewhere snowy does sound great, although we're heading back into Crysis territory here) — but if it's as generally tedious to play as FC2 often was it can piss right off.

USB sticks/solid state media aren't particularly expensive but they're still infinitely more costly to produce than discs, especially if you go for larger sizes like 64GB+. If they're paying literally 10s of times more to produce each piece of media (even if it's a fraction of what consumers pay), you can bet your arse they'll find some evil way of recouping that. Another cost angle is that an incredible number of discs are produced, and to convert all those factories to being capable of producing solid state media is way more costly than it is adjusting them to being capable of producing different discs. Don't forget it's games where console manufacturers make their money rather than hardware, and anything that eats into what are already slim margins for most games isn't going to go down well. I can't see any other real obstacles, as so long as the console were designed to use USB3 (USB2 struggles to match even half of Blu-ray's read speed) we could still enjoy the same quality. It wouldn't surprise me if we see solid state used for delivering extremely large sizes in the future, although they'd need to come up with robust ways of protecting the data so people can't start writing to them for cheating/piracy/etc. For now Blu-ray is a lovely solution. Discs aren't exactly big, they're durable, and their capacity is superb.

This is a very big point too. When you actually think about how many good games that people like us would like to play have come out on the Wii in almost five years it's fairly shocking. A handful at best have been truly worthwhile, and even then I find myself constantly thinking "imagine how awesome this would be on the PS3". It does it even if I close the blinds and keep the lights off, Sno. I can see how it's struggling: it confuses where the IR has bounced off my white walls for a second beam, it struggles with the distance, and it's just generally really awful to use. Even in my last home where I had ideal conditions (six feet away, perfect darkness, chair right in front of TV) it wasn't exactly smooth.