Roderick

I was forced to resort to some pirated version of the game as well, one that I couldn't quite adjust by tampering with the .ini files, so I was never able to kill the respawn or simply adjust the difficulty. I loved the hacking though. I started out with the 'mage' equivalent, but quickly rerolled as a hacker because I discovered it's extremely beneficial. There's just so much to hack; you can shortcut security cameras, et cetera. I only ever played the first half hour of Bioshock and obviously, it's very engrossing. I'd like to play the rest. Perhaps it gets boring, but we'll see. The game deserves to be played, in any case.

Print is dead. Best quote ever

This is not the season for replaying classics. There are too many modern classics coming out right now

Sounds good enough, but it's still so... storydriven. Also, it doesn't make any sense; if you pull a flag's rope the flag goes up, not down. So he should've been at the bottom of the pole; carefully inching the flag down.

Check out the other thread about AC; more findings are in there =)

Holy crap. Then where did that idea come from? Aside from the fact that it's weird? Why would Mario take down a flag if it were the symbol of his victory? Or is he reclaiming the lands from the Koopas?

I played System Shock 2 foor the first time seriously a year ago. I really liked the gameplay, I loved the atmosphere, but for some reason after about three hours I lost interest because the game proposed too much resistance in the form of respawning enemies. That just freaked me out, because I'm a fragile gamer. I never got any further and lost interest. Which is strange, because I do really like the game and should very much like to finish it!

It is awesome. What a surprise when they start doing Tetris! Small nitpick: the flag is supposed to go up, not down, at the end of the level, but what the hell. The triumphant music brings a tear to the eye. Mainstream gaming indeed!

Bleh. Fortunately, I just want the game and most CE's don't really interest me anymore ;

Yeah, I heard there was some confusion about different sort of editions. Is that even legal; shops crafting their own product? I should think Ubisoft frowns upon this sort of thing; because it's bad for the customer and bad for the product's reputation.

Oh, I just now saw the Phantom Hourglass review and it was unfairly critical in my estimation. The sailing (which I never really objected to in Wind Waker) is actually much improved, it's a lot more involved and it hardly lasts long. The ocean is small enough that no trek lasts for over two minutes (unless you've been drawing strange routes of course) and I personally enjoy the atmosphere of being out in the open sea very much. It's utterly charming. And if you don't like it there are plenty of shortcuts to take, so I really don't think it's fair to criticize something as optional as spending a lot of time digging up treasure or enjoying the mood. Yahtzee's completely right about the time-based do-everything-again-and-again key-dragging dungeon, though. That's just really poor game design and a disgrace that nobody in the team came up and said 'wait, this is actually extremely frustrating to the player. Let's pull it out'. I hate it. It's a shame because everything else in the game so far seems to be so very pleasingly laidback and simple, allowing you to focus on just having fun interaction with the world and progressing the story.

I'm gonna pick up UR MR GAY somewhere in a few weeks when I've got some more money and I've finished Phantom Hourglass and perhaps Umbrella Chronicles in two weeks. I wish I had more time and money, but it's pretty impossible right now. I just hope Nintendo doesn't issue a recall in the meantime because of the deliciously seditious cover

I just came back from hours of AC play at a friend's house, on a gorgeous HD-ready tv. It's too late in the night to write a cohesive thing, so I'm just going to blurt out my impressions. First of all, I really have to stress that I played the game just trying out all the stuff in it. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the story or the missions or whatever. So in this case, this night the game was like Grand Theft Auto where you just go for a walk and start killing people or riding a horse. And it was absolutely fun! Can't say a whole lot about repetitiveness yet, of course, but I had a blast! The killing is very satisfying and so is the interactivity with the environment. Controls are fairly complex, it takes a while to get used to them. But they do seem to give the intereactivity a depth that simpler controls might not have had. Visually the game is very impressive. I don't care about occasional glitches or tearing screens; whatever. The design is mesmerizing; I love how the idiom of the game is surprisingly unique. The middle-eastern scenery is a lovely backdrop and it's refreshing to see cypres trees everywhere. It has that medieval feeling, but far less clichéd because of this. But above all, I had a good few hours worth of immense fun. The game makes the tiniest move very impressive to watch; so there's a great sense of gratification. Just hopping over roofs is already fun. I know this perception of the game might change as I delve deeper into the missions, and maybe stuff gets repetitive, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a disgrace that reviewers give a game that has such fun-potential (GTA style) low 7s or whatever. I guess what Gabe said is perfectly true. If you go out to 'review' the game and rush through it, you're not going to understand why this can be such fun. But if you're just going to dick around and see what happens if you throw a guy into a crowded market stand (and you should) and that sort of tomfoolery, this game gets as good as GTA can get. Honestly, you wouldn't judge the latter based on only its missions, right? So just because Assassin's Creed has put more work into its mission is a justification to score it less? Crazy stuff. Well lookie here. I guess I got carried away in my vocality after all. It mustn't be that late, then.

Happy Birthday! (Now get to blogging!)

The concept of Ghostbusters can make a great Video game, but I just really fear they won't be able to get the knowing humour from the movies in it. It can so easily become an action game without any of the personality of the source material. I mean; part of the joke in the movies is that these supernatural specialists are just average Joes themselves and only late in the movie take on heroic qualities. Hoe could that be translated to an action game in all its goofiness?

Oooh, that's a story you don't hear very often; Wii's breaking down. I've probably stated it before here and there, but I'm looking forward mostly to Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles which is due at the end of November. I'm gonna try play through the game in one evening, co-op with a friend. I hear it's pretty tough, but that co-op alleviates some of the nastiness.

I contest that. You can take the very simple thing of spraying blood in many different directions. From Gears of War's black globules to the ephemeral smokelike effects from the Streetfighter 4 trailer. But the issue is not aesthetics here. You are or were implying that gore and blood can only be used in an easy, juvenile way (and with juvenile I also mean the 'serious' gore), but it can be just as much part of a world and its themes and its subtle depth as any other thing you can think of; the use of cars, monsters, sex, dialogue, whatever. Anything. We've just been conditioned to see gore and mindlessly violent, shallow games as the same thing, but this is an unfortunate fluke. Ironically, this predisposition many will have will make it harder to succesfully pull off artistic gore for a developer. The context is just too strong; people automatically project their views upon it. But even so, it's silly to treat either gore or likeminded subjects such as sex like they can only be used in a certain way. That's just not true.

But Rusalka's already married to Mr. Schafer

I can't keep this to myself any longer. When I joined up years ago, it was exclusively for this very purpose. Before you stands a shamed man.

That is bullshit. Gore is not inherently any 'easier' than any other part of content in a game. It may seem that way because most games use it, and use it in a facile way at that. But literally anything can be made as challenging and artistic and creative as the developer wants. Execution is everything.

As far as I'm concerned, creativity works best when it has a canvas set around it. Television's canvas might be of different shape and arguably more of a vice, but even then there is no stopping creativity Which is to say; if you're expecting a neutered show, you're in for a surprise =)

The C episode was quite disappointing. Obviously a spoof on crappy game shows, but at even 15 minutes boring to watch and surpassing its own goal. I hope the next one (which is due in a few days or something) is a return to the good stuff again. I do enjoy the Towers idea, though as always when things go more the way of the overarching story; something of the playful 'anything goes' randomness disappears. It's fun for the variation, of course. Though I must say I'm more looking forward to the new Gaiden season. I simply adored the style and flavour of season 2, with its slickly designed, scripted bits; such lovely debauchery with a decadent vaudeville atmosphere. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Ah, but then I'm not comparing you to psycho-Gareth Keenan =)

A few years ago, I knew someone who was into Manhunt 1, and I'd be pretty surprised if he wouldn't love Manhunt 2 Uncensored. He was a crazy guy. He would actually demonstrate the Manhunt moves on you, Gareth Keenan style. But then extremely scary. You just had this feeling that he was constantly teetering on the edge of becoming a psychopath himself.