SiN

It's like Sony didn't "get" why the PSP failed the first time around. Look, this NGP thing looks very nice on paper. I totally agree. But like Miffy, having actually owned a PSP, I have a lot of reservations. It's very powerful. But it'll come at the expensive of price, size, and battery life. The thing is huge! Portable devices are suppose to get *more* portable, not less. Dual analog sticks. First off, they stick out of the device. Second, why bother? If your game needs two sticks to work, you're not designing a handheld game. As for the rest of the inputs, I feel there's some good stuff in there. The Back Pad (or whatever they're calling it) sounds interesting. But between the dpad, face buttons, triggers, analog sticks, touch screen, back pad, gyro AND camera, I kinda get the feeling Sony shoved as much crap as they could into this device and hoped for the best. From a usability perspective, I'm not sure how they're going to communicate all the controls to the player. The games look great, but like Miffy said, I don't want to play console games on a portable. It made zero sense back with the PSP, I'm not sure why they think it's going to work now. Finally, the UI is kinda ugly. I know this seems like a minor point, but I think it's really important. A fluid, polished, classy looking UI can make the device a lot more approachable, and more fun to use. Apple nails this shit, that's why people love their devices. Cheers, Mo

Yep, I ran into that issue. Missed out on Shank as a result. However, the next day it just sorted itself out and Steam purchasing works fine for me now. I'm guessing it's down to the volume of sales they're getting now. I'd say try again a bit later. Mo

Just beat the game. Really loved it! Pretty much the first and only JRPG I've ever enjoyed. It was definitely quite rough around the edges, but its charming dialogue & storyline won me over. Also, I've gained a new appreciation for JRPG game mechanics. Will now patiently wait for the DLC. Mo

Apparently, IGN writers & editors lack a high-school level education in math...

I graduated last year and am working in Seattle now. At some point I should reaaaally update my location.

A very belated thank you! Just bought Curious Village, Miles Edgeworth, and Civ 5 on Amazon, taking advantage of their 3 for the price of 2 offer. (more info http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/02/amazon-buy-two-get-one-free-sale-running-through-november-6/) Cheers, Mo

*bump* Alright guys, I want in on this Layton business. Which one should I get? Cheers, Mo

I assume the full game doesn't have checkpoints, yeah? It's a shame because I really enjoyed the demo, despite it being quite hard. The controls are tight as hell, and the physics are spot on. But I know that if I bought the full game it would just end up frustrating me. Hard games = good. Making me repeat the same bit over and over = bad. I wish Team Meat went the VVVVVV route and added plenty of checkpoints, or better still, the Sands of Time route and allowed me to rewind time. The instant replay thing at the end is ace though. Mo

Weird! I've definitely thought the same thing. I don't mind when moral dilemmas make incidental changes to the storyline. I expect there to be narrative consequences to my actions. However, there's a fine line between a subset of characters reacting to you according to a decision you made, versus good/bad ending depending on the moral stat or whatever. In Fable 3, it would be interesting if you made political decisions that were not good/evil, but liberal/conservative. When you become King, certain groups of people would be pissed at you, others would support you. Crucially, both groups are justified in their feelings. You've pissed people off because your thinking is different, not necessarily wrong or right, good or evil. Cheers, Mo

I wasn't even thinking of anything as dramatic as that. A few simple change would go a long way: 1) I'd love it if analog triggers had the same "click" function that the gamecube controller had. Seriously, it was possibly /the/ most ingenious, yet criminally under-used controller feature. 1a) While we're at it, a bit more analog-ness on the triggers too. Maybe a bit of resistance too. Basically, I feel analog controls need to have more weight to them. 2) The "press in the analog stick" buttons have to go. They're awful. Hard to press, easy to accidentally press, and it's not at all obvious that they even exist. 3) This one's a bit more hardcore, but I wonder if swapping around the trigger and bumper would work better? You always want to use the trigger with your index finger, so you end up using the one finger between two buttons. If the bumper was behind the trigger, you'd be able to use your index finger for the triggers, and middle finger for the bumper. 4) What about face button placement? I wonder if the gamecube face button placement actually helped players understand controller layout better. There may be benefits in making more important buttons bigger, and so on. 5) Sort out your dpads. It's 2010. This shouldn't be difficult, Nintendo patents not withstanding. 6) Finally, I wish developers would take more care in assigning features to buttons. Namely, I don't want my dpad to be mapped to a bagfull of random features. I can (just about) understand left/right for cycling inventory & weapons. I can understand up/down for zooming a minimap. But when random shit like nightvision is mapped to left-dpad, I just get mad. There's no logic to it. The dpad should *not* be treated like 4 extra buttons to use. Cheers, Mo

I think it's more a problem with the controllers than it is with the players using them. Compare the N64 stick to the Xbox stick. The N64 stick was longer. Longer stick = more torque = allows for finer movements. I also wonder if adding resistance as the stick is pushed further would help. Which brings me to my next, somewhat random, point: why aren't we seeing more innovations in controller design? It's really frustrating to me. This motion stuff is interesting and all that, but I think there's a world of exploration yet to happen in the area of typical controllers, that would make games more approachable, while still maintaining "hardcore-ness" for present gamers. Annnnnnnnnd, I'm late for a meeting now. Cheers, Mo

Now I've gotta buy a PS3. I own a copy of Shadow of the Colossus even though I don't own a PS2. I bought the game, borrowed a PS2 from a friend, and played through it over a long weekend. Definitely worth it!

Same. I wouldn't get my hopes up though, as I imagine that build is not even close to being releasable. That said, the E3 2001 is exactly what gave me so much confidence in Duke. Every time I watched that trailer, even years after it came out, it still looked modern. It still looked like the best in the business. Sure, the tech got older, but the set piece design was unmatched. Only Half-Life 2 surpassed the set piece design of DNF, and that was 3 years later. Still got my fingers crossed for that set piece design magic shining through, but I think Valve set the bar too high at this point, and we'll see DNF (maybe) match them, but not surpass them. Cheers, Mo

Why is DNF still relevant & why am I still excited for it? It will not based in a (real or fictitious) Middle Eastern country. It will not involve shooting a handful of pixels from far distances. It will be colourful. It will (hopefully) not require you to hold down TWO triggers just to fire a weapon. It'll be funny, even if it's in a juveniele way. Even if most of the jokes fall flat, it'll be funnier than most FPSs on the market. It'll have enemies that are not soldiers, and some which are not human. Its design will not be bogged down by reality. In Short: Always Bet On Duke. Cheers, Mo

The tech was incredible, but the controls were definitely the best part. It plays especially nicely on the iPad too. Nice to see a deviation from the awful, awful virtual analog sticks. Honestly, at this point, if a game uses a virtual d-pad and/or stick(s) I don't even bother downloading the lite version. It's just a straight-up no sale. Mo

Seriously, this is silly. I don't care if you like the comics or not, but try not to insult my intelligence, please. Your position strikes me as being the same argument as "Everyone I know, personally, who is a big fan of Halo is either not a gamer or is an illiterate, Kotaku reading hypocrite." Basically, when something has mass appeal respond by taking the elitist position and hate it. Very vocally. So what if the people who like the comics are not gamers? I think that's great! In the same way that Halo widened the audience of video games, I'm glad that Scott Pilgrim brought Video game-isms to cinema. Are they the best introductions to video games? No, not really.* It would be nice if people were introduced to video games via, I dunno, Deus Ex and a more serious movie on video games, but screw it, I'd rather people have some sort of interest/awareness of video games than our precious hobby continuing to lurk in the dark corners of the general consciousness. Mo * although I think Scott Pilgrim captures video games & gamers more than we'd care to admit

What other developers? Carmack single-handedly coded every id software engine up to & including Quake2*. Quake 3 was also all him, apart from an AI programmer who did phenomenal work. Doom3 was a larger team (5-6 programmers), but Carmack still did most (if not all) the rendering work. I'm not sure what the team size for id tech 5 is, but you better believe that Carmack has touched more of that code than anyone else on the team. (* It is worth noting though, that Carmack had another programmer write the mapping tools.) Mo

You think he's doing this by choice? I'm pretty sure he'd spill the beans, but contractual obligations stop him from doing so. Mo

Yeah, the games with an "s" and the hinting at a smaller, faster downloadable release is quite exciting. I love Tim Schafer games, but I hate waiting 4 years between releases. Hopefully with the new engine and strong team, they should be able to put out more frequent releases. Or at least release shorter downloadable games along with their epic releases. As for the Bobby Kotick stuff, I think the headlines were a bit sensationalist. They sort-of imply the interview went something like this: Schafer gave a fairly balanced and honest answer, given what he's gone through with Activision. Still, nice to hear someone come out and say it. Mo

Oh man, DeathSpank is HILARIOUS. I just played around an hour worth of it on Xbox. His voice is perfectly suited and well delivered. The rest of the cast is spot on (so far). The dialogue had me smirking and laughing constantly, and in stitches quite often. I never did wipe that grin off my face. The graphics are wonderfully done too. Very bright and cartoony. The fixed camera hasn't gotten in my way, so I'm not complaining. Occasionally, I find that the characters and the background clash, but it's not a big deal. Mechanically, the game is good, but not really special. It's basically Diablo-lite, but with adventure-isms thrown in. Honestly, as long as the dialogue keeps up DeathSpank may end up being the first RPG I actually enjoy. My main beef with the game is actually how the dialogue is presented. The dialogue shows up in JRPG-esque portrait + text boxes, which is fine, except it's presented right in the middle of the screen. I wish it was off to the side (or better still, I could turn it off), because I end up reading the dialogue before the character voices are done, which occasionally ruins the delivery of the jokes. Still though, hilarious, entertaining game. Go play! Cheers, Mo

That was very interesting. Thanks for linking it.

Yep, got it. Cheers!

Oh, right, forgot about that. Added!

Yes please! My Steam ID is MisterMo86 Cheers, Mo

I got it on iPad and am having a good time so far. Haven't gotten too far, mind. The graphics are well done, the voices are mostly good (Largo is a bit off from my internal voiceover, but the main characters are ace, Wally especially.) The developer commentary is good, but it's kind of annoying that you can't go back and replay any of the commentary you missed. Mo