Roderick

Everything I've heard and read so far about this game here is based on either speculations or features that we don't know the meaning/context/details of. Let's postpone fierce judgements until we've actually played the game. Everything else feels dangerously close to getting swept up by populist sentiments and pooping on a game before it's even clear what it will be.

Or, you could wait for subtitles. You know.

In a left field move, gaming shops in the Netherlands have started selling Skyrim today, three days before the official launch. I have it here in my hands for XBox 360 and will play it the coming hours. First impression: it has the lousiest cover of the year. It's a sleet of black with some 'book' detailing on the side and a remarkably weak logo. Nothing pops, it looks just really unfinished and unexciting. Probably everything the game is not, so, odd they went for this. As a sidenote, when I popped in the disc just now I found Batman: Arkham City was still in. I removed it saying 'fuck off, Batman' and when I realised what I just said I smiled.

I can't wait for that movie. Takashi Miike has made some great movies these recent years (13 Assassins was fantastic) and this should be a treat. I love that there are holographic screens in the court room that people can bounce over to each other like volleyballs.

I'm looking forward to the full XBox 360 list! This is super awesome and I might join in on the giving myself. Gotta check what I've got lying around...

Assassin's Creed is the only property interested in exploring history outside of the staples of the middle ages or the World Wars. I'm still hoping fiercely that the next jump in the Assassin's Creed universe will be towards the Napoleonic era, ranging from Paris to Moscow.

Those are adowwable! I think Purcell and Schafer are always interested in cool handcraft stuff based on their work.

Upon encountering a lonely turret, manning it is mandatory to trigger a wave of enemies.

Upon seeing Johnny English Reborn for a second time in theatres yesterday (agent in distress!), I was once again confronted with the horror that is the 'Happy Feet Two' trailer. This thing is so vile and objectionable that I had to put it in words, but it's surprisingly hard to say what exactly makes it so abhorrent. Here is an attempt. 1. Pushing adult themes on seemingly baby penguins in a movie for babies kids. These juvenile penguins are singing gangster rap shit about picking up ladies and 'knocking them out', which frankly I don't know what it means but it sounds scary. 2. Hypersexualizing gender patterns for children. In the trailer there are two groups of kid penguins singing: boys and girls. The boys are all tough and macho, but then the girls come up (visually indistinguishable from the boys) and they all act like three Beyoncé's put together. With high-pitched, breathy moans they sing their stuff, wagging their hips and doing some seductive dance. Then the parent penguin comes up and goes 'oh ho ho, well done son'. It reminded me of those beauty pageants for toddlers where mom dresses them up with lipstick, fake boobs and pink dresses. It's disturbing, wrong, and in a theatre near you. 3. A movie about penguins with no Morgan Freeman voice over

As a sidenote, it took me a day but I finally figured out what the hell Sal's avatar actually is. It's kinda tricky to parse, and funny.

*Grumble grumble been making it for three pages you mean grumble grumbloid* Cool new avatar.

Well, I didn't like it when Kingz got frustrated with it and others started judging it for what it wasn't trying to be, but I only got angry when someone [indirectly] called it a failure. I'm sure the creators didn't think it was a failure and are pretty happy with the end result, which is exactly what they set out to create. I mean, those really are some pretty high horses there.

Holy shit, get those lifesize sticks out of your asses. Jesus Christ. Someone made a cool thing that I enjoyed seeing for whatever reason, and you're pissing on it because of hang-ups about art. Maybe they're not trying to make art? Maybe it is just for the fuck of it, or 'can we make it?' or 'we're making a series of recreating game scenes in Minecraft'? A quarter of million people saw this and most of them at least enjoyed what they saw or thought it was cool. But because it doesn't build towards the higher purpose of 'art', you call it a 'failure'. Here's a newsflash: most of the stuff anyone on earth creates has no cultural value or is even remotely art. Does that mean they shouldn't produce it, or even that it has no value, or worse yet, it's a 'failure'? That's ridiculous, and looking at the creative process through an extremely narrow scope. I understand your frustration from the point of view that you hate the hypothetical situation where a lot of 'geeks' will think this is indeed art. But that's not the fault of the creators, and even then it's your own hang-up that you'll have to deal with.

It's strange, today I got really excited for GTA V. Yesterday expectations tainted the experience, today I'm like fuck yes I'll be a crop-dusting midddle-aged crook in LA! (Though I kind of cringed at the slogan for the firm: 'putting the FU in fumigation')

You're right in that they're not the same thing, but there are lessons to be learned from Arkham City that GTA would benefit from.

What Rockstar needs to do is take a good, hard look at Arkham City, understand what the future is for free-roaming sandbox game, scrap everything they were working on and follow that example. Though it's hard to pinpoint why Arkham City is so great. It's the vibrancy of the world, the density, the facility of (vertical!) transportation. Tuning into the commentary of enemies around you gives the world real sense of aliveness. Side missions were great and added to the whole. There was far less of a disconnect between all the elements of the game: the sandbox interactions, the story being told through main missions and side quests. GTA has always walled these off in their own little cubicles. Merging them would be ambitious, but necessary to keep the series modern in a post-Batman age.

Well, it's GTA all right. LA looks great in the trailer. It's probably going to be the same as IV. I'll enjoy it. And maybe it'll surprise me once I hear some of the features.

One minute to go for the trailer launch...!

Holy shit Marek BM Bronstring.

Also telling is the happiness of what appears to be a pirate gentleman at having been able to extract two copies of Windows95. Score for the little guy!

Well, Chris was playtesting at DF at the time (about the time he and Tim had some weird, public romance or other that drove Rusalka nuts with jealousy). The others probably mailed pestered until they were grudgingly added to the credits.

You can probably do that in the WayneTech upgrade screen. Select the move you want a tutorial for and it should have the option. If you want an overpowered (if tedious) method to brute force your way through big fights, use the quickfire explosive gel. Throughout the animation Batman is invincible, it acts as an evasive jump (getting you out of the way) AND it leaves a bomb where all the enemies now are which you can detonate. It maked fights chaotic, but also a lot easier to deal with. Of course, the freeflow combat is so satisfying and quick that you can pretty easily deal with huge groups of people.

I don't think I have them, sorry. But if you're making a full catalogue of Thumbs stuff, do also post into the archive the weird report video you made of E3 years ago. That's always good for a laugh. Stunts is Alex Ashby.

The final AR challenge that you're doing is anything but a tutorial. In the game you'll never have to do anything as ridiculously hard in terms of gliding as that again. I really liked the challenge even though I usually shy away from tough things, but I can see how it might frustrate someone. Rest assured that apart from the satisfaction of beating it, there is no other reason to finish this particular one. There isn't an item or upgrade waiting for you at the end of that tunnel. As for the fighting, I found it great and exactly the same as in Asylum. I hardly ever used combos, instead relying on quickfire gadgets to push through every encounter.