Thyroid

Oh, look, a counter-suit.

"Your business is appreciated".

Re-check The Shack. Some really delicious info coming up. Plus the Steam forums seem to have unearthed a small voice clip of Dr. Kleiner (the thin, bald physicist from Half-Life) saying "That's amazing!" Even I've heard it. Make sure to lower the volume on your audio speakers.

Activision have apparently not paid Infinity Ward any royalties re:MW2. Not sure how reliable this source is.

This. Was. Awesome. I went to bed a little disappointed last night (was half-expecting that Telltale announced Sam and Max 03 and ignored this week's "Telltale Tuesdays"), but Valve made-up for that and with style. Let's just hope they ignore "Valve Time", eh? I think this is the latest development.

Hey now, I may dislike David Cage, but any opinion I have on his work is based on the work itself. I know I come-off as a cunt and sometimes as a quintessential fanboy, but I'm a critical, cold, objective animal in front of a piece of work. Any misgivings I have about Heavy Rain stem directly from the game itself.

Consider my mind blown. I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you played it in French or Japanese or Syracuse. And while there are definite moments of incredible lifelike movements, there's a lot of creepy, uncanny valley staring into space that completely ruins it. The faces, especially Ethan's, hardly ever seem natural, while the rest of their bodies do. (Played a good chunk of it on my cousin's PS3 - he bought it on impulse on release day. I still refuse to buy it.)

So what ending did you get? There's 22 of them, apparently.

Peter Cook was a genius. I'd kill to be able to write comedy this good. MUrhdIxTJSA

OK, I promise I'll stop on the Cage crap (unless he says something really outrageous), but I couldn't resist posting this. It is full of depressingly funny quotes, including: I have to admire a guy that out of touch with reality. It's almost like he's high: high on life, on genius, and the smell of his own fart. All of which begs the question: has he always been this unintentionally hilarious, or did he have to work on it?

Not sure what you mean: the ideas have all been put out in different games. Unless you mean that you admire they tried their hand at police procedurals/detective stories, which I will admit is admirable. I'd like to see gaming's answer to Raymond Chandler, The Wire, George Pelecanos, etc. Anyways, I don't want to completely derail this thread, but I'll take a detour. I was playing Fahrenheit earlier. I think I'll stop. To quote Wikipedia: Gamespot gave this shit their Best Story award in the same year Psychonauts was nominated. I quit playing at the point where . I mean, the thing reads like the fucking Da Vinci Code. Why? I don't understand why and how you could go from a surprisingly tense escape in the snow to a badly written police procedural, and then finally end with AI, clans and sentient beings. It's like a messy, really lame and convoluted parody of Sam and Max: Season One, except it works in Sam and Max - and not just because of the humour involved. Anyways, sorry. I ended-up hating Fahrenheit. It irks me that there's so much potential there, but they messed it up completely. What a waste of a great idea.

Oh man. Have fun. O-town's prettiness is mostly downtown, around the Rideau Center. If you want to know a good place to eat, tell me what you have in mind and I'll let you know. Yep, just take the number 7 (Carleton or St. Laurent, depending on what part of town you're in; the OC Transpo website should have a travel planner), drop off at Greyhound, buy a ticket and wait for one or two hours. The scenery's a little repetetive, though, so bring a book to read/something to listen to/console to play on for the 2 hour bus drive.

You mean on an emotional level? Apparently the story is stupid, and if there's anything games have done it's the stupid story, so if it's emotion you're talking about...I mean, what, love? Fear? Trust? Aren't all of those things in Ico? Doesn't Yorda go from taking a risk with the kid to completely trusting her life with him at the end? She's reluctant to jump at first, but by the end she'll take huge jumps and have him catch her without a second's thought... That was an emotional moment. "Racy" isn't the right word...It's like those movies that have little going for them, and as such have trailers which emphasize the nudity. My point being that they're looking for something to sell to young teenage boys, and then say: "We're doing this for the maturity." I don't mind nudity. But it seems that, in this case, it's just a bullshit excuse. Even if you go to YouTube, type in "heavy rain" and wait for the suggestions, you'll get "heavy rain strip". I'm aware that a good man doesn't necessarily make good art, and vice versa. My main gripe is that he thinks he's done something wonderful, whereas the game itself says "I'm only OK". What you're saying is right, though: I'm basing my opinion on the game on a demo, a few videos and a few reviews; while informative, they aren't enough to form an overall opinion on the game. Considering that I want to at some point work in the games industry (don't laugh at me; I may be a douche, but at least I'm a dreaming douche), I probably have to read everything about the industry I can. I do care about games, that's the thing. I'm enjoying Fahrenheit, bless it. I just don't think it warrants arrogance, and neither it, nor its PS3 evolution, warrant > $30 - and that I can defer from reviews and a demo. Re-check that Eurogamer interview I linked to. He constantly refers to "I", and only once or twice to "we". He reminds me of movie directors who write, "A film by blah blah," but who have not written, edited, shot or produced the movie - they "directed" it, which, of course, overrides everything else.

I haven't been there myself, but almost everybody I know has gone on and on about how good Zet's is. It should, conveniently, be close to Toronto airport. Best burger you'll ever have, apparently. Ottawa and Montreal are usually just awesome to walk around - well, for me, at least. I've always liked everything from the architecture and winter games to the sales they have in the summer (it's a great time to pick up obscure music albums for 80% off). So...err...enjoy the scenery, I guess? If the Ottawa Canal is frozen over, you can go ice skating on the world's biggest skating rink No need for a bus! But yes, this may have more to do with me living the majority of my life in the Middle East and finding the new life there appealingly different. If it helps you decide, Toronto is the "Canadian New York", whereas you'll find Montreal to be a little, err, French. Ottawa is Ottawa. The Parliament buildings are amazing to behold, but if you're only spending five days, best to avoid Ottawa. (Except to pass by my old apartment and say "Daddy misses you baby".)

First game I played: First game that knocked on my door, waited for me to open it with my favorite slippers on, ripped my head off and shoved itself down my throat:

I dislike him because he thinks that his intentions will come across no matter what. I also dislike him because he thinks he's doing what no one else has ever done. Can he absolutely guarantee this? If he fails, can I get my money back? Because honestly, he says it like he's 100% sure I will give a damn about his characters. There isn't a "maybe". He might just not have a very good handle on English (in which case, he really shouldn't be writing the English translation and then giving it to Hollywood Script Doctors, who are useless), but he still comes across as being cocky. The flipside is that it wouldn't matter if the game was actually that good. Great work can come from a shit person, and vice versa. But Heavy Rain's writing and story seem to be so awful, and, according to a lot of the reviews I've read, this is something that carries over to the entire game and not just the handful of scenes I've checked out. This is what irks me the most. From what I've seen (check the NSFW video), Heavy Rain is less about being mature and more about being racy. So while I am interested in a game that evokes emotions, I am not interested in Heavy Rain. It is not the first game to create an emotional response; it's not even the only game of the year that will do so. What about The Last Guardian? Won't that push my buttons? Do I want the industry to be ruled by trolls and goblins? No. (I think there's a bit of an irony there, since it almost feels like he's trolling a bit.) There's a million games that offer neither of those things. I think I'll be buying those instead. So while I do appreciate that he took a risk, and making such a game was admirable, I find it annoying that he actually thinks Heavy Rain is something to cherish, a single ray of sunlight in a goblin-infested cave. It really isn't.

Blah, been meaning to post "EA Presents: Oliver's Twisted". EA Presents: A Trail of Two Yetis [hunting game? I dunno] EA Presents: The Prisoner of Zelda EA Presents: King Solomon's Mines: eXtreme Claymore EA Presents: Return of the Navy: SOCOM EA Presents: Of Human: Bond 007 EA Presents: Jane Air Missile Can't think of anything for War and Peace or The Sound and the Fury, though they seem obvious. Not as good as everyone else's, anyway.

It's a blend of GTA and Godfather, innit? Isn't Saboteur like that? For that matter, wasn't The Godfather game like that too?

I just wanted to say that the first two episodes of The Wire are the best thing that ever happened to me. They were flawless. Where has this show been all my life? I'll have to watch the rest in the summer, unfortunately, but it's going to be a long wait. Not in this place.

Gamespot and Giant Bomb are missing. Maybe Sony's stopping anyone from publishing a bad review by enforcing embargo? In my experience, embargo usually lifts one day before release, so it's weird that at least two of those reviews were published three weeks ago. Anyways, I wouldn't put much stock in game critics. No offense to anyone here who does it, but the majority of it is terrible. Most of it is just a hype measuring stick. Thumbs was one of the handful of exceptions, which is why I post here. I just dislike that he wants to be a movie director so badly that he actually has you click "New Movie" instead of "New Game". That "shooting set" is embarrassing. The ego just makes it worse. Everything considered, I don't mind a bit of ego, but the work better live up to it. You can't go around producing mediocre "interactive movie"s, though, and then decide you should be eligible for an Oscar. It's the kind of thing that Hideo Kojima indulges in, and part of the reason why I dislike him so much as well.

I decided not to get this for > $30. Fuck David Cage. Fuck him with a steel-necked giraffe. I'm playing Indigo Prophecy, and..."New movie"? "Shooting set"? Ugh. Is there going to be a director's cut special edition somewhere? I mean, the game is fine so far (it's far more about illusion of choice than actual consequences; I ), but his sweaty dick smells throughout, a misty ego that sticks in my hair and won't go away when I shower. As such, I won't be getting Heavy Rain on full price.

EA Presents: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

Yeah, typo. My bad. Baskervilles is possibly the best one, but it's not the most accessible (that would go to the short stories or Sign of the Four). I do recommend starting with Scarlet. Your call. Do the later stories get lame? I remember disliking some of them, including the "The Lion's Mane," but there were some genuinely good ones...I haven't read these in eight years. I should re-read. -------- Anyways, does anyone know any good novels that explore deep philosophical or scientific questions? I remember watching the first six episodes of Ergo Proxy (one of two anime I liked), and I found its blend of cyberpunk and police procedural interesting, but lacking in the philosophical themes I expected it to have. I never bothered finishing it. Someone mentioned Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and someone else mentioned The New York Trilogy. Got any other suggestions? I'd appreciate them!

Am I the only one here who is never going to see Moon? Our cinemas aren't awesome enough to get it? Anyways, Alexander Dumas is going dark and grainy on your ass.

A Study in Scarlet is the first adventure, and shows how Watson and Holmes meet and become lodgers. It's not the most interesting detective novel - half of it is Watson getting to know and used to Holmes (which I thought was awesome, but you seem to be looking for a straight detective novel); it's worth reading. I remember liking it a lot. The second novel is The Sign of the Four. I remember thinking that one was excellent. Otherwise, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (the first...twelve short stories, I think) is where it becomes a detective series. I'd suggest starting with Scarlet and then reading the short stories. They're not that different, except that the novels are larger, more convoluted mysteries. Most of the stories are good, maybe with one or two duds. I hope you like them. You can read the entire series on Gutenberg, by the way. They go like this: A Study in Scarlet (novel), The Sign of the Four (novel), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (short stories), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (short stories), The Hound of the Baskervilles (short stories), The Return of Sherlock Holmes (short stories), The Valley of Fear (novel), His Last Bow (short stories), and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (short stories).