loonyboi

I think it's a little different for Oddworld, since the founders came out of the movie industry in the first place. I'm always interested in what Oddworld's up to, but Munch left a bad taste in my mouth. (Enough so that I never picked up Stranger). Hopefully this puts them back on track as a studio.

I guess I can't complain since one 2K title beat out another one, but I still say Civ IV was robbed.

I have it for PSP and I suck at it, so I'm skipping the XBLA version. Seriously, I'm awful at it. I never made it past the third skin, and even then, I found it extremely difficult to get that far.

I don't know if anyone really uses AYB seriously. It's just a random acronym to throw in with OMG WTF BBQ.

I had to look that one up (urban dictionary FTW). I don't think I've ever seen that one before. Of course, I just used "FTW" which means I'm just as bad. ROFL. AYB. WTF.

Even if they did, the Internet is simply awash with abusers of the English language. Misuse of "it's" drives me nuts. It's so blatantly wrong and yet so many people do it. The worst is when I see it in games. X-Men Legends II misuses it's several times. There are other typos, but there's no excuse for that one. I admit I'm a stickler for typos, but some people are the extreme opposite. When I was in college, our newspaper was such a joke that the first six issues (six issues!) had typos in the banner headline on the front page.

Can somebody correct the typo in the headline? It's painful to look at.

Why do I think this quote is guaranteed to be Yufster's new sig?

100, I think. It's not literally full, is it? I didn't think that was possible. I have a lot of people on my list from my office, but also the Shack and my meatspace friends. Of course, since I can't rename people on my friends list, I rarely have any idea who's who. Trillian has spoiled me.

This is a sad, sad day for gamers. Such a loss.

I love GH, but damn, hard mode is most certainly freaking difficult. I've been going back and getting four and five stars in the medium mode and then when I'm feeling brave, tackling one of the hard songs. I've passed the first tier, but of the second, I've only managed to get two in so far. I can't imagine how the heck I'm going to do bark at the moon on hard. I can't believe I finished it on medium.

My DS is all about Clubhouse Games. Seriously. It rocks.

I will never understand why anyone likes those C&C live action cut-scenes. They're awful. Awful, awful, awful. I don't care who they put in there, they're still going to be melodramatic and painful to sit through.

No, a more accurate statement would be "among the women I know, this is categorically not true." But again, this gets back to my point: there is a very vocal minority for whom this is true, and that's why this research is skewed. The majority of potential women gamers probably do prefer non-hardcore games, tough as that is to believe for some of us. The problem is that those of us who know women who are exceptions naturally take offense at this gross generalization, when in actuality there is probably some, if not a great deal, of truth to it.

This is such a strange topic. There's so much data out there on it, and yet nobody seems to have any idea what they're talking about. Here's what is generally accepted as true: - The majority of players of casual (hearts, bejeweled, etc) games are women - A significant portion of players of The Sims are women - A notable percentage of players of MMOs are women - A small, but vocal portion of "hardcore" games (FPS, RTS, single player RPG) are women. It's so hard to talk about this subject, because that small portion of hardcore female gamers is so vocal that it throws everything off. The same thing goes for male gamers, by the way...I'm not trying to be sexist. If you ask a group of very vocal gamers anything, regardless of subject, you'll walk away thinking that this is a widely held opinion. But that doesn't make it so. It just means you're hearing from the most vocal people. I say this as someone who is A) a hardcore gamer, married to someone who plays The Sims for many, many hours a week, and C) related to a once-prominent (female) member of the hardcore FPS community, so I do have some experience in this area. I'd like to say that designing games specifically for women is a bad idea, but I don't think it necessarily is. I don't think the world needs an FPS designed for women, but gender inclusive game design isn't a terrible idea (and I can't believe I just wrote that sentence).

It's surprisingly easy to get used to. The fact that there's an on-screen pointer for where you're aiming the Wiimote helps a great deal. And nah, I'm not violating an NDA. The press has seen more than I have. Regarding Mario Sunshine, I was very, very let down by that game. Mario 64 is one of my favorite games of all-time, so I was hoping for a lot more from the next true Mario game (as opposed to remakes or Luigi's Mansion). Sunshine wasn't bad, but it was tedious. By comparison, Mario 64 was a joy in every regard. I think Galaxy's going to bring back the magic.

Mario Galaxy rocks. It's the best Wii game I've seen, and it's the reason I'm getting the system. It is 100% a mario game. Trust me, I've played it. It's the game that convinced me that the Wii was more than just a gimmick. The interface tweaks are genuinely fun, and do much more for the Mario gameplay formula than you'd think at first glance.

Hell yeah it did. Doom engine + breakfast cereal == awesome. Someone needs to do a Cap'n Crunch game using UE3.

I've never liked the jobs system in any RPG. I like my RPGs straight-up and linear. But I'm still gonna check out FF3 on DS. FFXII I'm a little more cautious about...everything I read about it sounds awful, but then everyone says it's a great game.

Suits suck. Unless I'm going to a wedding, funeral or some other formal function, I'm in jeans.

Couldn't disagree more with this. In my industry, wearing a suit is just asking to be rejected. Unless you're in finance or legal or some other stuffy side of the industry, suits == bad idea. If it's a very casual company, you can't go wrong with business casual. You'll be more formal than the employees (who may be wearing shorts + sandals), but it's better than showing up in a suit and tie at a company where nobody wears such things. And yes, always send a thank you note. E-mail is fine if that's how you've been communicating. Also, persistance helps, but within reason. Don't e-mail them again if you haven't heard anything in a week, but if a month goes by with nothing, that's fine (just make it friendly).

What's the big deal? We've been playing daily. LAUNCH DETECTED.

It rocks. Get it. Obliterate some random country. Life is good.

Many, many, many moons ago (this was on PlanetQuake, to give you an idea of how far back we're talking), I wrote an article where I compared the art style in Myst and Riven to a Bob Ross painting. That is, they were all photorealism and no style whatsoever. I got death threats. Seriously. But I still say it was a valid point. Crysis is similar in a lot of ways, except what they lack in visual creativity in their world, they're attempting to make up for in some of the non-realistic elements. Like that giant spider-thingie. That was freaking cool. I still tend to be bored by photorealism, but I think it can work and work well. Oblivion's a good example.