Roderick

That world is a bliss to traverse. Are spoilers or hints really necessary? It's not difficult (in fact I wish it would have had more strategic depth, like a real turn-based strategy game! (which apparently was in the planning, but DF had to dumb Psychonauts a bit down to make it more accessible and less adventurey.)), and you'd pretty much figure everything out just by going to places and interacting with them.

Actually, since Pandora already released whatever was inside the box in her own time, what we'd end up now by opening the box would be a really pretty, empty box.

I'm playing one of the greatest platformers again, on my GBA SP: the original Warioland. Classic, and still so much fun! With such nice little touches and elegant simplicity! Compare that to the convoluted, complicated Master of Disguise... brrr. I hope there'll be a classic Wario platformer again some day!

Zack & Wikipedia sounds so nice. Must-have! Hopefully reports like this shut up the whiney naysayers wailing that 'it's not an adventure game'. I kinda got bit in the ass with that on AGS, so it feels good that they now get to know how wrong they were.

haha, wow! Mario Bee! I missed that (I kinda jumped into the Nintendo conference halfway). Spidermonkey, I didn't think Killzone 2 looked very impressive gameplaywise either. They did hit their polygon agenda of having it look pretty in-game, but that doesn't erect my dick [/Emilio Zerg]. Wii Fit piqued curiosity, though the conference as a whole (much like the other two) were pretty uneventful.

Soon I will be absolutely dead, I twixt, m'lady, and wasth behead.

A: What is the meaning of life? J: If you live it to the fullest, it has meaning. If not, there is no meaning. A: I’m not too good with negative counterfactuals.

O my god. I was JUST finishing breakfast when I opened this topic. Took me some skill to swallow those last bites. I could've just gone away of course, but where's the challenge in that?

Anyone want to bet we'll see the first neon-coloured top down shooters pop up within the first months?

You, sir, are absolutely right. That was one arcade experience that was waiting to come to the Wii.

Yes, because Notting Hill opened the waterworks with me. Can't imagine what a NH game could do.

Let's give the man a chance. Two things speak against him already though: they're not objective games but even now 'Spielberg's toys' and connected to it, the bad press he got with his ridiculous quotes which were good for the mainstream who don't know a lot about games, but verrry bad for the actual gaming audience.

They did finish it, it just didn't have a traditional ending. Admittedly, it's structurally not the best way to pace a game, but then it was never meant to be played for longer than 15 minutes as a way to do some advance recon on the post-construction Utrecht inner city.

I'm curious, Marek; what do you predict would happen if the US were to break apart into peacefully cooperating countries? Would the NATO assume its role as peacekeepers all over the world (or rather; a military powerhouse that keeps zany people ruling little countries from doing zany things)? Or would they actually see an opening to stretch out their world domination muscles themselves and the world would erupt in chaos? I honestly wouldn't know. Here's why I think it'd be a good idea if the mantle of power in the world were to shift away from the US and onto a relatively new and non-national body: the US has gathered so much badwill all over the world over the past 40-50 years that it will always meet with resistance on prejudice alone. If the US were to be marginalised and in its place come a more 'neutral' organ, the many fucking crazy 'enemies of the western world' would be marginalised as well. I propose that we make the Netherlands the new rulers of the world. Nobody dislikes the Dutchies! As a sidenote: I thought the states were already quite independent of the US as a whole? Would their policies and structure change that dramatically if they separated?

It's utterly amazing what happened to The Blob. I'm in the same year as the HKU game design students that made it and I was working with them in a team when they (and the school) had talks with THQ about the acquisition. Right now the guys are working on a new project that very much has the same philosophy as the Blob had, but sufficiently different of course. As for the THQ Wii remake, I'm curious towards it but can't say anything yet. Could be good, could be pish.

Wow, Olbermann sure knows how to say it. Are there people listening too? Time to hit the streets with riots, I'd say.

Yes, because politics are that simple

Heresy! Ruxpin is so superior! (As a sidenote, I have completely lost interest in the Transformers movie. I thought I wanted to see it, but now I realise I couldn't care less. The horrible designs and the horrible posters all around, and then just the thought that it's gonna be a slick Bay-film... it is complete meh-ness and I have no interest in seeing it. It's not even that I'm scared of it ruining the old series or angry towards it or any of that bullshit. I just literally don't care.)

I may be a little more lenient than Marek by saying that I don't think it's fair to expect a country that huge and with such burdens to run 100% smoothly. A few scandals and some mismanagement is bound to happen. In no way does that free the Bush administration from the amount of lying, subterfuge, flim-flam and chicanery that has been done and practiced over the past years ever since 9/11 (and before that with the not keeping to Kyoto protocols). There is a decided level of irony that one of the main reasons that Americans are allowed to have guns is that the nation was born by wresting itself violently from the clutches of the governments from the Old World, and so they have guns to ensure they can always free themselves should the rulers become too oppressive. But where are the riots? What good are all those guns when over half the population is too stupid to realise they're being fucked with and that they have the ability to end it?

Oh crap. World of Warcraft has me again, but this time in a much viler, more dangerous and intense way: The TCG. Let me back up: ten years back, I was a huge card game nut and spent thousands of Euros buying heaps of cards. Sometimes I played with them (somewhat justifying the ridiculous amount of money I spent on Pokémon cards), but most often not because if it ain't Magic or Pokémon, nobody plays it (for the above loophole reason). I finally, thankfully grew out of it when I lost sight of the one person I regularly played with, and suddenly realised how much money I spent on useless cards. And now it's happening again. I bought a few boosters of the World of Warcraft TCG this week and since then I've had two feverish nights where the cards were lodged into my mind. Serves me right for spending hours on forums reading stuff about them like a real troll, I guess. But I'm in a rough spot: no amount of reason can stop me from being infatuated with this game. Even though I have no one to play against yet, no money to spare and the knowledge that the game probably won't be worth the cost. But at the same time, it takes me right back to the unimaginable excitement of buying a booster and the possibility of finding rare cards within! Not having felt this in years, I couldn't sleep because of it yesterday! Jesus. Also, the art on the cards is occasionally nice, if it isn't trying too hard to be glossy MtG-style art. And I've got a gameshop around the corner with friday evening tournements and casual competition, opening up the possibility of gameplay. Oh, and I have more of a connection to the game than I have to Magic, because the former has the distinct tincture of World of Warcraft which I like, whereas the latter has 'fantasy' as its only canvas, which makes it erratically free and chaotic in what it can do. I find it really compelling to have a card showing the Eye of Killrog, a spell I used 11 or 12 years ago in a Video game and have loads of memories of. It makes it a lot more special. Now, I'm going to try to keep this under control: buying only a few boosters and a starter deck for the first two expansions and then only a bunch of boosters for the coming ones. Just so I can keep up and up to date. I don't feel the need to collect every card (except the epic rare Leeroy Jenkins of course, which makes the game 150% more awesome because you have to shout his name mid-play to use his ability), so I can keep it under control. So... it's not all bad, though it goes directly against my recently found non-materialist asceticism. I guess there must be exceptions. And damn. World of Warcraft has me again. I am Blizzard's bitch.

That's for true!

I think lists like these are bollocks anyway. Not that I'm necessarily in disagreement over Ocarina, but the craftsmanship of any game can only amount to a certain level of excellence. After that, it's purely a matter of taste whether or not the game is propelled to classic heights. That Ocarina is a favourite of many speaks for its atmosphere and riches and commercial success, but says little about it being 'the best'.

A local toy chainstore halfed the price of Dark Portal boosters. The upside: Score! Cheap cards to swell my budding collection! The downside: the expansion set (and possibly the game in its entirety) is going out of mainstream circulation.

We already had two kinda samey free newspapers clogging up public transport, but earlier this year we got another one, and recently yet another one. It drives me nuts. Why? Because with the positive exception of one of them (the recent De Pers, which actually tries to bring something qualitative every day), they're ALL THE FUCKING SAME and utter shite. Sp!ts and Metro have been added to with another irrelevant piece of crap called Dag ('Day'), which tries to set itself apart by presenting less words and more pictures. Because words are bad, bah! We don't understand all those mean sentences, we want more funny images! It doesn't help that the layout is fucking horrible and the headlines are (get this) enveloped in yellow blocks like someone selected them in Microsoft Word and put a coloured background behind them. Why am I suddenly writing about this garbage? Because the screaming headline of today's Dag was about that humans would soon live to reach 300 years (didn't read the article so can't comment on that). And underneath it was this quasi-critical, faux-reflective bullshit question: ,,But will it make us happier?". What a load of crock! I can't believe it! It was bad enough that they soil our land with their crap in the first place, but now they're pretentious as well?! What an utter non-question! The Rolling Stones are touring again! -> But will it make us happier? Red apples are good for you. -> But will it make us happier? AARGHBLARBBBJHLBA! HARGHBLIABBBBALF!!

I've only ever donated some small amount to the national cancer fund out of sheer terror for the disease, but nothing truly altruistic. I too made it a point to start donating as soon as I have enough money to support the lifestyle of my choosing (which isn't particularly luxurious or anything). This is not at all a valid excuse because I could spare a bit already, but I don't because I guess I'm lethargic and aloof towards these things. Not intellectually, but emotionally.