Twilo

Well you can understand why I might have missed the point considering that you pretty much said the guy musn't like video games because he doesn't appreciate the hype-machine around Spore. Other than that, I don't think there's anything wrong. Kotaku isn't IGN or Edge or anything; it's a frequently updated collection of links to interesting things on the internet framed with some little paragraphs which would ideally be entertaining to read. Maybe he missed the mark with the comment on the German lady's bust (even though it was probably meant as a criticism of the whole booth babe phenomenon), but he's right to jump on the "Scenius" thing. Personally, I don't think it's a pretentius coinage as much as silly Sony-style marketroid babble. Spore is the most hyped game I've seen since Black & White. It's not magic or special or anything new. I probably won't get it, Eckhardt probably won't get it and if I was in the same position as Eckhardt is, I probably would have written something pretty similar. Which I would then frame around a link to the video.

Play-asia shipped my copy earlier today, along with Phoenix Wright 2. w00t.

CoM has a decent multiplayer mode which lets you tackle a dungeon with up to 3 other people (provided they also have carts; it doesn't support one-cart multiplayer).

Engage preparations for disappointment!

I would like to see the train of thought that is behind this. Frankly, the response to a critical (and rather bloggish) post about Spore and Will Wright (and it's not even very critical) in here is rather absurd. Childish, even. Kotaku has a number of correspondents, some of whom are looking forward to Spore. When there is a Spore demo in the US, the US guys go to it and some of them like it. This was a demo in Germany; Eckhardt lives in Dublin so he was the one who went to the demo. Spore isn't "all that" anyway, I don't see why it seems to get special treatment or overboard defense.

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are due around Marchish; definitely picking one of those up. What's rather nice is that you can have one of the GBA pokemon games (emerald, ruby, sapphire) in the advance slot and transfer your pokemon across to the DS game for online fun (or for giving your guy totally overpowered dudes for the singleplayer game. Level 70 Manectric is what it's all about). This allows me to keep playing Pokemon Emerald without feeling like I am wasting my time (Pokemon is never a waste!). My list of upcoming acquisitions is roughly: Phoenix Wright 2 (Japanese version), Contact, Hotel Dusk, Touch Detective, FFIII, EBA. The same stuff as everyone else really. We sure do pick'em. I have the japanese version of Children of Mana; seriously, it's not all that hot.

I agree with Florian Eckhardt

I guess my point is really that the characters are pushed to do things which they would not normally do, and that they are placed in context by the surrounding episodes for the kain trilogy (i.e.: this is Starbuck, this is Roslin, this is Adama. They're behaviour is typically starbucky or rosliny but when things get crazy, they do things which contrast very strongly with that). In the occupation episodes, there's a big 7 month gap between the close of last season and the opening of this one (and a 6 month gap between the last time there was contact with Galactica and now) . It's no longer fresh in our minds just how Starbuck or Tigh or whatever normally behave; because there's a missing 6 month period of development during which life has not been the usual Galacticish thing we're used to. We remember Starbuck the lone wolf Viper ace, not Starbuck the imprisoned, probably-sorta-crazy, forced to murder a Cylon over-and-over Cain and Abel style... ace. This isn't really a response to anything anyone's really said here so far, just me putting my take out there.

As a fairly obvious Iraq allegory, it's a pretty been pretty decent so far. Character development takes a bit of a backseat here because too much time has passed off-screen (webisodes notwithstanding). A reasonable comparison can be made between these three episodes so far and the the pegasus/resurrection ship episodes last season; a major shakeup to the "status quo" of the series, as it were. IIRC, many of the main characters were acting in ways that I thought to be off-character; Adama betraying a superior officer, Roslin advocating assasination etc. The difference, I guess, is that Pegasus happened in the middle of the season; there was a reasonable stretch of day-to-day-Galactica before and after. The Occupation, on the other hand, has to straddle the inter-season gap and lacks that context. Personally I approve, considering that we've been subjected to the same seperation from the New Capricans as the Battlestars were.

I was pretty "stoked" too, especially when the screenshots and movies started coming out; but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that maybe I won't enjoy FF3. The oldest FF I've played is 4, and FF3 has a world and plot like that but with the jobs system you see in FF5 and X-2. While I absolutely love the jobs system, and classic FF combat, the plot and setting of the NES FF games isn't all that hot compared to what's available after the 16-odd years of developments in RPGs since the original release.

Not out of the box, no. You can buy an expensive-ish offical addon, or you could buy a bog-standard wireless access point and connect it to the xbox ethernet port.

PSP still doesn't fit in my pocket, though...

¥47600 is €320, which is actually a pretty nice price. Obviously that's not going to be the price point in Europe or the US, but it's not like I'm ever going to buy a European PS3 (not after the poor treatment the PS2 got compared to the US). It's a good import buy, if you can get around any applicable taxes. I'm not touching the thing until Christmas 2007, at any rate. Last I heard, PS3 games would be region-free on HDTV; though given sony's track record, that might be Kutaragi-speak for "Completely and absolutely region-locked forever and ever."

Up is down! Black is white!

Figured this was good for a thread to break up all the Wii news. Some of the nice things that I'm looking forward to got a good showing, nice videos (IGN) of... Lost Odyssey (Mistwalker - RPG) Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream (tri-Crescendo/Namco - RPG. Holy crap!) Blue Dragon (Mistwalker - RPG...) Project Sylpheed (Square Enix - Shmup. There's like, 5 seconds of actual gameplay in this trailer. This is what happens when Square Enix makes a shootemup) Lost Planet (Capcom - Action-adventure. Not really my kind of thing. There's a demo on Live) Also, technically not showing at TGS, there's an excellent new Bioshock video with commentary that was put up today. I'm starting to think that owning a 360 is finally paying off...

Judging from interviews I've read and that video above, I think the game is still on track to being a spiritual System Shock 3. The decision to focus on the FPS-ness (SS1 and 2 are fps games too, remember) is marketting, yeah. The system shock games aren't all that well known, particularly so among the console crowd. To a large extent, they're marketting the game from scratch, which explains why Levine says it's getting rid of fps clichés and so on (which is a little overblown, but he's known to be a bit excitable). Bioshock isn't doing anything that System Shock didn't do, but then, not much of System Shock rubbed off on other FPS games (Deus Ex notwithstanding). They need to sell to the Halo bunch, and this is probably a reasonable way to do it. Also; Trusty Bell is getting the name "Eternal Sonata" for the US release next year.

A man after my own heart (WoW and BG&E notwithstanding).

What you're probably looking for is a wireless access point. These look more or less like wireless routers, but they usually only have one port for ethernet. You run an ethernet cable from your router into the access point, and now your toys can connect to the router wirelessly via the access point. They're usually around €30-€40, though you can find them cheaper if you shop around. This is the AP that I own, but you might want something a little newer/cheaper.

It's looking like we still haven't gotten to the bottom of this.

Absolutely. Since finding out about the region locking, I've gone completely cold on the Wii launch. If, like me, you're not a fan of the typical nintendo franchise games (zelda, mario, metroid etc.), then you're in for the usual hideous European lineup of console ports and movie tie-ins. Look for Agent Cody Banks Wii in Q1 2007! I don't expect to even consider getting one for at least a year, and if then, it'll likely be a japanese console (fingers crossed for Ouendan Revolution).

I'm with you there, mate.

£179 is €265; might want to take the ferry to france (or Cork!) or something

£113 (€167) from Japan a month later. Bonus: Japanese menus give you extra hardcore cred.

So was I. However...