Thrik

I'm not a big fan of virtual machines because there's a relatively high overhead for what's not a particularly big job, plus it can be complicated if you're trying to test sites on a local version of IIS through the virtual machine (Let me know if there's actually a way round this!). Testing in a virtual machine at some stage is good, and indeed we have native installations of all supported browsers so they can be tested properly — including a Mac. However in my experience thus far IETester produces identical results to the native versions, making it little more than a formality. To clarify, IETester doesn't suffer from the JavaScript engine mix-ups that you describe; it ships with the appropriate engine for each version. It's a much better solution than the hack-job that was MultipleIE (no longer works acceptably in Vista anyway).

Yes.

Heh, god — don't even get me started on IE6. For two years I've had to build dozens of sites at work that work flawlessly in that trash, even the ones that need PNGs and other such fanciness. I keep egging it on to fall down a cliff and die forever, but that usage statistic does nothing but climb down carefully. One saving grace is that companies with ridiculous software dependencies can use IETester now, allowing them to use IE6 (or even 5.5) alongside any other version of IE; ideally IT departments should encourage this so general browsing is done in a secure, up-to-date browser. This is naturally how I test sites in IE6, too.

Heh, this is awesome: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Xj8iIHAfg&fmt=18 Watch it get moving, etc. Also, big congrats to Spaff for his site getting featured on the official Media Molecule blog!

I watch BBC News 24 very frequently and haven't observed any of what you've described at all, actually. I find they tend to deliver the most objective and non-sensationalist view of everything happening at the time, even when it concerns two of its parent organisation's own staff being lambasted, etc (I was surprised by how much the BBC News anchor grilled the BBC director or whatever). Site is good, too — although I only subscribe to the technology/science areas.

Wow, those pictures.

The VR training from Metal Gear Solid returns!

lo m8s imo.

Oh wow, yeah if you watch the original 720p WMV you can see that the background is in fact 3D. You can even see the animation of the river that goes off into the distance. :tup:

Great. :tup:The original was a really stellar game and for some reason reminded me a lot of Broken Sword (aka Circle of Blood ¬¬) in terms of overall feel, so I have high hopes for this. Really love the arctic theme — some fantastic potential for atmosphere. Hope a large portion of the game has that.

Wow, their blog is generally very insightful. I do really respect the professional approach they're taking to this, and it's a far cry from what initially looked like a project guaranteed to fail when it first got going in 2004. I think as far as HL1 remakes go, it couldn't be in better hands other than Valve themselves.

Teeee. I love the anti-climatic nature of that — I heartily approve of this game pitch.

Spail.

I don't think he was (intentionally) being rude to you.

Ooh, didn't notice that'd launched properly. RSSed as fuck. What solution did you use to generate those superb graphical post titles, Spaff? It's not immediately obvious from 10 seconds glancing at your source but it looks a lot better than sIFR.

Man, what happened to that guy? Also, get that shit re-stickied. ;

With regards to MetaCritic's numerical point system, one point I'm surprised nobody's made is that MetaCritic does in fact have a secondary scoring system that is essentially a three-star rating: red, yellow, and green. I personally use this rather than the specific number. If it's red I'll stay well away, if it's yellow I'll probably only look into it if I'm particularly interested in it for whatever reason, and if it's green I'll most probably read a few of the aggregated reviews and also read most of the little excerpts (which are in themselves an excellent little provision IMO). Of course many people will go by the specific scores, but I kind of suspect a lot of people don't. The traffic light system is a subtle but very good feature. For what it is, MetaCritic does a pretty good job and allows people to use the service in the way they find most useful. Certainly far superior to GameRankings I reckon.

Tee. It is surprisingly steep a learning curve, but you do get quite good with it relatively quickly. It seems to be especially easy if you have a cool concept in mind rather than just randomly dicking around — I think there's something to be said for sketching out an awesome level before trying to do it in the editor. Just like when I was a kid!

Looks like Lively was ultimately epic fail: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_lively_is_deadly.php Turning it off at the end of the year.

Guess it gives more people an opportunity to develop such skills though, n0wak. Not that they'd be much use outside of LBP. :tdown: Regarding the griefing, on one hand I do understand why they allow reports to have a level automatically thrown into the moderation queue, there clearly need to be safeguards against great levels like this being unfairly taken offline (albeit temporarily until their staff can review it). I'm guessing it's something they somehow didn't anticipate though, and are going to work on a solution ASAP.

You bloody what? That level looked ace — I was going to play it properly this week. Better get un-blocked.

Just finished the story mode, and loved every last bit of it. It really brought back the memories of the old platformers for obvious reasons, but it's definitely its own new thing — I can't recall seeing many of the gameplay mechanics in LBP in other platformers before. Pretty much worth buying for that and the better user levels alone. Also of note is how fuckin' brilliant the music is. I especially like what they call the iMusic tracks (Heh.), which as you might expect let you seamlessly make the intensity of the music match each area of your level. :tup:

Zone mode is indeed a visceral treat. Apparently it looked even better and more mental before, but they had to reduce the craziness because of epilepsy issues. I don't find it that fun though because I'm so wank at it and end up crashing constantly.

To an extent. I think they balanced it really well to be honest, because the limited respawns do make add a certain tension to the gameplay that otherwise wouldn't be there. Fucking up easy jumps because you're so tense is all part of the fun! Basically, the way it works is there're respawn checkpoints throughout the level. These are much more common than in most games, sometimes every couple of screens. Each time you pass one you're given four lives (I believe) until you reach the next one; once you do, you're topped up with a fresh four lives. I think if they gave you unlimited lives they'd have to reduce the frequency of the checkpoints, which I wouldn't like as I enjoy being able to respawn only a little before I died. Of course, custom levels can throw a spanner in all of this if the creator only puts checkpoints sparsely through the level. One way of making it harder, I guess! Either way, I haven't really found the whole life system much of a bother. To be honest I'd hardly thought about it until this thread.

Omg: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UEYf8EJ6KF0&fmt=18