Thrik

I was more talking about the literal technology rather than the concept. The Wii literally doesn't work for me, because the distance between me and the large TV is more than average (Good for things like Kinect!) — the pointer just completely craps out, even of I tweak the sensitivity. It's because of the IR way it passes the data, which is a fairly crude approach. Move on the other hand should be entirely fine as it uses a much more accurate and sophisticated approach, as will the Wii successor I imagine. Also the games looking very dated doesn't help to lift my enthusiasm, but the jankiness of the core hardware just makes it a horrible experience. It's well overdue an overhaul.

I can't really use the Wii because its technology is fairly shit. I'd love to finish games like Twilight Princess and get Mario Galaxy 2 but it's too painful. It does excite me that Nintendo's finally getting a HD console so I can enjoy Mario and Zelda in HD, although I'm not sure I'm keen on this new world of generations starting in such a staggered fashion. In a couple of years or so the chances are Sony and Microsoft will bring out new consoles that — no matter what you say now — will make the current generation look like ass, and Nintendo will once again be behind as rumours imply the Wii 2 will barely be more powerful than the 360 and PS3. But then if Nintendo come out with something even better halfway through those consoles' lifespan like they are with the Wii 2... It's about the right time, whatever the case. The Wii is now getting towards being five years old, and its technology was never particularly inspiring beyond being novel in the first place. It's well due a successor.

Sorry, but who on earth is on the hackers' side anyway? I can't imagine anyone is exactly pleased about being locked out of their online services for several weeks and potentially having their personal/financial information floating around. A third attack isn't going to change anyone's perception of the hackers because I think they're universally considered dickheads. It's simply going to inconvenience and frustrate people even more, which is probably what many hackers get off on anyway.

wat

Yes, get in touch. Nintendo tend to be very reasonable with replacements AFAIK, so if you think your unit is bummed — rather common for the first wave of units — have it sorted while Nintendo's feeling the PR pressure. In other news, I noticed the other week my original DS Lite has just developed cracks on the hinges. :tdown:

Sony must be feeling thoroughly bummed in the gob right now. Fortunately it seems the credit card extraction was purely from SOE and the database was an archived one from 2007, so I'm guessing the cards have now all expired. Probably not too difficult to work out the renewal date, though. Bit weird that it was allegedly the same attack yet only SOE's credit card information was compromised. Presumably their active credit card databases are fairly secure and it was just some stupidly-stored backup or something that was nabbed.

Does your bank not adhere to the newer rules regarding debit cards, which is zero liability for any and all fraudulent online transactions? I know there was a considerable divide in coverage some years ago but this is no longer an issue with the majority of banks — particularly any issuing VISA debit cards, as I believe it's mandatory with VISA. Regarding passwords, I continue to be dumbfounded by how many companies store their passwords either as plaintext or in a way that's relatively easy to decrypt. I mean, how many fucking times does this kind of thing need to happen? Actually it'll probably always happen because in my professional experience every single e-commerce company whether they be big or small tends to adopt a 'it'll never happen to us' kind of mentality. A tip I often give out regarding passwords is to use an acronym which slightly varies with every site you use it on. So for example, 'i like using this password for many things' would be 'ilutpfmt' — quite impossible to guess, and extremely difficult to work out if someone's watching you type it in over your shoulder. You can then make it site-specific by using a basic formula, such as attaching the first letter of the site's name to the beginning of your password. So in Idle Thumbs' case, the password would become 'iilutpfmt'. On Mojo it'd be 'milutpfmt', etc. You can use your imagination to quite easily make this a bit more sophisticated yet easily memorable. It's a good approach because then you not only have a fuckin' hard password to guess, brute force, or observe, but also if they do get it (the site itself leaking your password like with PSN being the only realistic way this'd happen) it's not going to get them anywhere on other sites you use. Using a variation of this technique I have literally hundreds of unique passwords out there yet I never struggle to remember a single one of them.

2012.

Man, what a messy situation. I think Sony's handling has been a bit iffy in that for days they knew there was a huge problem but were completely silent about it, however once the emails started rolling out a couple of days ago I think it's fair to say they've been very open and explained what's happened. I've heard a lot of speculation, with a particularly interesting one being that firmware based on the development kits' firmware made it out into the wild shortly before the PSN take-down which could supposedly be reverse-engineered to gain access to things you shouldn't be able to due to weak authentication and relaxation of security measures on the kits. The last bit could be complete bollocks but the fact the firmware made it out is fact. Either way their system was well and truly arseholed to the point where it went well beyond plugging a hole that the hacker used to gain entry. Whatever the case Tanukitsune, I don't think anyone was pre-emptive by informing their banks of a potential compromise of security and they certainly don't deserve to be ridiculed for it. I didn't personally do this because I monitor my statements online and will immediately report problems, plus HSBC has a particularly feisty fraud division who would ring me about any strange charges, but when a company says they think your credit card details have potentially been compromised it's best to err on the side of caution. If a company comes out and says something like this — which is usually catastrophic on them PR-wise — it's usually for a valid reason.

Also agreed on the speed boat part of HL2 being excellent, although it's the coast section that stands out by far for me. I just loved the feeling of isolation those two sections had. While you could race through them, if you took time to have a good look around the atmosphere was superb — particularly when surprised by hidden zombies.

I personally love the fighting in this game. I've dipped my toes in most other big titles and haven't particularly enjoyed them, but this new MK is extremely satisfying to play. I think it's a combination of ridiculous theatrics and the fact that it's quite easy to discover moves by button mashing due to the sheer abundance of them — and as time goes on you remember them and start playing more tactically. To me it seems considerably less awkward as a newbie than Soul Calibre and Tekken. While I'm sure the combat isn't as sophisticated as the latest and greatest from Japan or whatever, I don't think it's remotely fair to condemn this MK game's fighting. It manages to be accessible, loaded with depth (with regards to both number and complexity of moves), and it's simply great fuckin' fun to play due to how OTT everything is. MK does a perfect job of pleasing its target audience, which is showy fighting that's not too unforgiving for newbies but has enough depth to make investing time in it worthwhile. SSF4 seems tame and boring in comparison, even if the technical fighting superstars out there love it. As for the characters being outdated and anachronistic? Absolute bollocks. Have you seen the characters in games like SSF4, TTT, and the superhero-filled titles in recent years? I'd hardly say they ooze sophistication and relevance over Mortal Kombat. If anything I'd say the new MK has done an excellent job of taking very old character concepts and modernising them a bit. Plus let's not forget that seeing these old favourites is exactly what the fans want, while cutting out all the unnecessary shitty characters that've appeared over the years. Like it or not, the MK cast is iconic — arguably more so than Street Fighter's in the West. Even the women aren't as bad as is made out. Sonya is fairly well-balanced as a woman who's strong-minded and smart, and even though most female characters are dropping flesh this isn't exactly inconsistent with how women act and dress in real-life extreme sports — I can attest to this personally.

Aye. Whatever the case it's all very smooth, which makes it a little disappointing there're excessive loading screens in other parts of the game like the challenge mode and the extras (often unnecessarily).

While I agree that the payload of data to download is likely much lower due to the 2D plane allowing surfaces to be strategically left undrawn, I think the story cutscenes are actually all in-engine pre-recorded videos as we've already seen in games like Uncharted 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4. They may look real-time — and they probably were during development — but they're not. So while the next level/arena is probably preloaded while the video plays, the cutscenes are unlikely to be getting loaded in while fighting. This'd be impractical as the ending of a battle can't be predicted, and loading it too early would result in poor performance.

Got this as a random present today. What a game! This is definitely the best fighting game I've ever played. Admittedly my experience is limited to Mortal Kombat 2, Street Fighter 2, Tekken, and Soul Calibre, but this shits on them all. The reason I like it so much is because I usually find fighting games incredibly boring to play alone. With friends they're always superb, but alone? Fuck that shit. Mortal Kombat solves this by effectively building a superior Mortal Kombat movie to the actual Mortal Kombat movie right into the game, except you can actually control the fight scenes. It works tremendously well even if the story is about as contrived as it gets — yet it seems like Mortal Kombat deserves to get away with such madness. What surprises me if I didn't hear a thing about this absolutely superb story mode until reading this thread. It's a good 8+ hours too as I understand, although I think it'll be longer for me because I keep getting fuckin' wasted.

Having not played a Mortal Kombat game since the SNES's MK2, I can say after playing the demo this fighter is fun as fuck and seems to have a ridiculous number of moves and options for each character.

Hahaha oh god KKND was ace. The mutant leader guy always cracked me up.

It's just a bit of fun for most people. Lots of people enjoy solving ingenious puzzles; lots of people enjoy getting games they're salivating for a few days early, especially if they feel partially responsible. Both requirements have been satisfied by Valve's marketing of Portal 2. The fact it's marketing is obviously there, but marketing isn't exactly some kind of enemy. In fact we're usually the first to bitch when a game's marketing isn't good enough and a superb game fails to sell well.

I suspect if it becomes apparent they've been way too ambitious they have subtle ways of accelerating things somewhat.

Clever bastards. I have to say, this is one hell of a gesture towards indie developers — using a high-profile release to generate sales for games most people would never even hear of. Granted it's a bit cheap and probably quite frustrating for those gagging for Portal 2, but it's nice to see that even after so long Valve is committed to the little guys.

Kind of funny how some people find the idea of an early release disappointing whereas some are absolutely salivating at the idea.

I thought it was quite a widespread stance that BS2 is the better game, myself. Hands up, people!

Oh god yeah, BS2 is my favourite. It's the locations, man — so wonderful! What a game. As for the remaster, I would bloody hope the audio is improved because the visuals look exactly the same to me in those screenshots on Steam. Other than the GUI and heads obviously, but it's still kind of crummy. I'd love to see places like the beach home and jungles brought to HD life.

Valve's strategy probably involves identifying good PR companies and then hiring all their staff and/or acquiring the company.

I've got no idea what software was used and don't really think it's relevant, but for what it's worth the illustrator next to me at work has a ginormous Wacom and he seems to be able to easily adjust stroke width by using less pressure while drawing — I'm guessing this is how someone like Gibbons would draw nowadays.