Wrestlevania

I honestly didn't believe a colleague when he told me this was a reality... Shocking.

Guild Wars is a notable example of this.

Anyway, enough of him ^ (the idiot). Has anyone seen Renaissance yet? I planning to go see it next week, so no spoilers please!

Why do spambots smell of wee?

I think Crash was a good film because it simply 'worked'. It was intended to tell various intertwining tales about how stupid, unfounded and *compounded* prejudice is due to human ignorance. And in that it succeeded I think. I managed to miss almost all of the hype about the film until after I'd seen it, so maybe that's not coloured () my view of the film? I was aware of the buzz, but didn't read any of it until after I'd been to the cinema. I still think it was worthy of the attention because of the subject matter. And it wasn't just about racism either; there was a lot of time spent highlighting generally shitty/stupid day-to-day human behaviour too. And, what with it being a mass-marketed film, it meant plenty of people who might be ignorant of such material got to see it. I'm not advocating Crash as some sort of brilliant tolerance PR exercise, but I've seen evidence of it broadening the perspectives of people who really needed to look outside their windows more (if you get my meaning).

Chopped I fear.

And you're quite right to be skeptical, too--so was I. It's in the implementation of sheer numbers that the game shines through. Yes, you could reasonably argue the AI is cheap, so too the character rendering and animation. But it's in the breadth of possible interactions with these characters - and almost *everything* littering the sprawling and varied environment - that pushes the generational envelope into true next-gen. Couple hundreds of props (all of which can be used as impromptu "weapons"), decent enough physics, and hundreds of independent on-screen targets and things start to add up. Figure in the randomness of every encounter - and therefore every play - afforded by the extra storage and greater horsepower, and things start to look really promising. Please try to play it if you can--I'm hoping you'll be as pleasantly surprised* as I was. * Actually that's not strictly true: I had high hopes for the game from the very first time I read about it many months ago. But the automatic skeptic in me didn't want to be suckered in and expect much to come of it. It's the proof that this fear was ill-founded that's been the pleasant suprise--and that a games' company, touting a revolutionary game idea, have actually delivered exactly what they promised.

The shift to in next-gen should be to new experiences; realistic crowds, more convincing character interactions, new gameplay models facilitated exclusively by new hardware (in the box or connected to it). Two of these three refer to graphics on an immediate level, but, through actual play, it becomes apparent that this is much more meaningful--you can't simply write this off as "higher resolution textures wrapped around more-detailed models." People have already sighted an excellent example of a 'proper' next-gen game; namely Dead Rising. I'm shocked at just how much this game is bettered by its investment in next-gen technology (primarily the graphics). I now have very high hopes for Assassin's Creed too.

Sadly, this seems to be the way of things with the FCP (Fruit Computer People); complete and unfaltering indoctrination into Jobsism. I know a *lot* of techy, designery types and not one of them passes up the chance to bang their Apple drum, given even the most obscure opportunity to do so... It's quite scary to be honest. And yes; that PS3/Wii spoof's total

Couldn't agree less.

Just bumping this thread because Ubisoft comes under the spotlight in the latest issue of The Escapist. In particular, Jim Rossignol has written an interesting piece that centres on the character Jade from Beyond Good & Evil; it's entitled Green-Eyed Grrl and it's well worth a read.

It's still pretty damned dark, so I took the liberty balancing out the colours a bit: Update Here's an alternative that's a bit fuller (and I made his eye glow a little more prominent): You just can't keep an obsessive-compulsive Photoshopper down...

Microsoft are pushing it as "free" off the back of the studio software costing nothing. But $99 a year is still a lot cheaper than investing in a fully licenced development agreement with Microsoft though. Managing the huge number of potentially lucrative projects will be difficult too, but MS may be smart and simply use the "XNA community" to filter out the most promising titles worthy of attention.

I don't use any third-party stuff for mine, just plug it in and use it as it comes. You're right about the sticks being a bit twitchy, though. We have an Xbox 360 in the office with wireless pads, and the sticks on those feel smoother and less snappy. So I guess it's simply a case of wearing them in really--same goes for the D-pad. If you do find any decent joystick configuration software, please post a link on here. The reason I ask is because some games don't recognise the different axis of the Xbox 360 pad as you'd expect. For example, the right stick isn't x2 y2 as you might think, it's something like yRotation and zRotation. In the meantime, you can break your shiny new little puppy in with the most-excellent Grid Wars, which maps both sticks perfectly and plays like a dream. Grab it quick though as Bizarre Creations are trying to get all Geometry Wars rip-offs removed from the web wholesale.

No, I had to work quite hard to get past that one too. It's worth persevering though; the final stage of the first 'level' is a mashup constructed from all the games you played earlier, and the tune is insanely catchy. Tip: Time your button presses so that they end - i.e. are fully depressed - on the beat, rather than starting your button presses as the beat starts. Feels a bit prescient to begin with, but you get used to it and it becomes more instinctive than generally mashing away when you guess you should. I'm a few games further at this point, but it's definitely getting harder quite quickly.

Soundvoyager A very intriguing audio-based game, which uses the stereo sound of the Game Boy Advance to full effect. Play takes place across three main different types of stages (outlined below), with the overall game structure being a series of branching levels. Each level may lead you to two more continuing branches, allowing you to progress further into the game. However, always pursuing the same branch (i.e. selecting the left-most branch every time) will a shorter game--some branches end naturally at the very edges of the playing field. sound catcher Move yourself left or right across the playing field in order to collect incremental samples and create the tune composed for that field. Once you have completed the composition - and you have not reached the end of a 'branch' - you may choose which 'branch' to tackle next by orientating yourself with the sound of the branch you want. sound chase Racing up a five lane "carriageway" you must catch the target sound whilst dodging unwanted sounds. Set against the clock. sound drive Very similar to sound chase but without the necessity to catch something--you must simply complete the length of the course without 'hitting' any oncoming sounds. As may (or may not) be apparent from the bit Generations prefix, music throughout Soundvoyager is heavily electronic. I would advise that only people who appreciate artists such as Orbital or The Chemical Brothers pick this up, as the arguably simplistic and stepped nature of the tunes involved may grate otherwise. This is an interesting and somewhat compelling 'game', but it's very niche and quite limited. I'd recommend that you spend your money on Rhythm Tengoku instead; it's much more enjoyable. Overall: 2/5

Got this today. All I can say is; those year's of beat-matching as a DJ have not paid off... On the plus side it's utterly hilarious being shit, especially the game where you're the third in a trio of afro-wearing clapping monkeys. If you mis-time your claps during the performance, the other two monkeys scowl at you something rotten!

Sorry - that was given in context of the demo, not the full game.

I can believe the entire project - with all assets and source code - maybe spanning 5 DVDs at a push. But that would seem pretty optimistic* an assumption as well. Most odd. * I'd expect a game like this to take up more than ~25GBs in a source repository, with all material under version control.

5 DVDs does seem pretty ridiculous a claim.

Ye gods--I'm never taking my three! I think the family that frags together might need to take showers more often and maybe go out the door once in while. And no, going for extra Mountain Dew does not count.

Not if she's now your ex, no.

Sounds heavenly to me...

Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying; I'm not advocating their lock-out system, nor trying to bolster it. I'm simply thinking out loud concerning less obstructive, more productive alternatives if they simply must limit access to the comments system. At least with something that requires you to make an effort before being admitted gets around the "so-and-so commenter is my best mate, so I'm equally as important" thinking. I still hate the idea that very few people get to say their piece, especially on sites which prop their daily posting quotas up with thread-bare speculation and blatant rumour-mongering. This is one of the reasons, as I mentioned before, why I've ditched Kotaku specifically.