James

Check this link. It is fucking genius and only loosely related to the original statement.

I've seen a video of someone ticking over the maximum score in Tetris DS. Infinite mode's hardest isn't very hard, even for a moron with horrible reflexes like me.

Did this one spend more than a weekend in development? (I'm not convinced it's actually a sequel. For one thing, it's actually "Big Rig Europe", singular.)

Yeah, Prince of Persia is more like a network of nodes, which plays like a branching linear game, although the branches do rejoin, unlike in an actual tree. I kind of think of the term "sandbox" as referring to a specific game type (secondary genre, perhaps?) in which varied and unrestricted action is permitted and, indeed, encouraged. There's usually some kind of structure should you choose to follow it, but there's very much a "we're dumping you in this world where you can do whatever the hell you want" kind of vibe. The emphasis is probably not on the story.* "Open world", on the other hand, is, to me, a less specific term that refers simply to the characteristic of having largely non-linear world design. It's also probably relevant how closely the area available to you is tied to your progression in the game. I'd agree that "open world" is on the way to becoming as widely applicable a descriptor as "3D" or "action" are (not that those are particularly commonly used, since they can be applied to nearly everything). Well, not quite as universal as them, perhaps, but in the same league. However, I don't think that makes it inaccurate; just less of a selling-point, as you suggest. It will still be a differentiator, though, just as futuristic games are distinct from modern day ones, without any suggestion that either is inherently preferable. I don't think the degree to which a game's environment is narratively fleshed out really influences the applicability of the term "open world", at least in my eyes. I've always thought of the word "world" being used in a very general and fairly abstract sense, like "level" or "map" (only bigger). Then again, perhaps I'd change my judgement on actually playing the game. Either way, perhaps we could do with a way of distinguishing between games that have a rich environment full of unique content and back-story that you can freely explore and investigate, and games that dump you in a large ultimately arbitrary arena and let you blow a load of stuff up. I guess "large arena game" doesn't really have enough of a ring to it, though. How about "open-world RPG game" and "any other open-world game"? That's probably inaccurate. * I'm actually not very happy with this definition, largely because of games like Oblivion and Fallout 3. While you could argue that the emphasis is on the story, in the case of the former I pretty much ignored it, and didn't feel like I was playing the game "wrong" or particularly deviating from its intended use (it's wasn't like making up my own objectives in Mario 64 and so on). Yet I wouldn't call it a sandbox game. I suppose it may be because, even if you don't follow the main story, you're probably following some sort of story, be it guild progression or a one-off quest from some villager or whatever.

I've thought several times of getting the PC version, but I missed the boat on the Rockstar pack deal front, and that kind of puts me off. Also, I don't know how well it would run. I suspect it would be at least passable, but plenty of horror stories were going around at release.

It reminds me of this: ... which I'm very fond of.

LFG HEI PÅ EN SNEI NEED PRIEST (Not actually now, but, you know, some time)

I cut your tail off with my rotor blades! You know, in case you forgot. I couldn't let that happen.

I'm sure he'd understand.

Mine, I meant. Yeah, I feel like I might have to retire from it, too. My thoughts are kind of muddled and they get even more confused when I try to verbalize them.

And quite an "oh dear" post it was, too. The kind of thing that unsettles me a little is stuff like Gödel's incompleteness theorems and so on. I suppose they don't precisely undermine the foundations of mathematical systems so much as their universality, though. Anyway, I was more going for the fact that you probably haven't proved or seen proved all the stuff you rely on in your life, but perhaps that isn't accurate. Doesn't that mean that all science can tell you is "assuming that the premises this principle is based on are true, such-and-such is true"? That's fine, of course, but in order to apply any of it you have to make some sort of assumption. It doesn't, provided the car manufacturer hasn't rigged it to explode after a certain number of miles, or whatever. You trust the manufacturer because you have no reason not to. You also trust that it knows what the hell it's doing. Similarly, we trust that scientists have no ulterior motives and are working from correct information. What if one of the apparently self-evident premises at the source of it all turned out to be false, or not true in all cases? I don't really know if that's at all a possibility, but I'm not sure how it can be logically ruled out. Anyway, this is confused rambling that probably isn't worth very much at all. I would agree that what I'm talking about probably isn't "faith", but it is a degree of trust and assumption. I'd also like to point out that I'm not worried that science and maths is actually all wrong and it's all been an incredible coincidence. I'm just saying. Well I'm glad you liked it. As far as I know, "agnostic" means that you think ultimate truth is unknowable. I think that strictly speaking almost everything is unknowable, as we can't necessarily trust any source of information, including our own senses. On the other hand, I'm an atheist in that I deny the existence of gods. It's pretty late and I'm very tired so this might make even less sense than the last one. I really don't remember where I was going with all of this. Sorry.

I'm so incredibly pleased with that, and so incredibly disappointed that I didn't record it. I considered setting up the camera, but couldn't be bothered, reasoning that nothing truly spectacular was likely to happen. WHAT A FOOL I AM. Wrestle is right: the 360 version is sorely in need if the PC's replay-record feature.

It's for the special edition.

I played the demo of that game! Oh wait, I'm a month late.

No, it's true, they haven't made any next-gen games. Nobody has. Because it's not here yet.

Complete darkness. Suddenly, a razor shard of pure white cleaves it from top to bottom. With a deep rumble, the shaft of light gradually widens. Eventually, a silhouette steps into the stone doorway, dwarfed by its gigantic proportions. You peer into the gloom. This is it. Finally, your journey is at an end. You have climbed mountains. You have crossed canyons. You have sailed seas and trekked deserts. You have braved burning heat and biting cold. You have consulted sages and bartered with gods. You have navigated vast mazes and bested deadly traps. You have fought and slain innumerable guardians, man and beast. You have ended legends and felled giants. You have been dragged naked to the gates of Hell and fought your way back with your fists alone. You have given up all that you had, and all that you were ever to be. You have forsaken your family and relinquished your soul. You have nothing and are nothing. Your quest has consumed you. And here it is. The room is large and bare. In its centre, an ornate pedestal, made of the most precious of metals and encrusted with the rarest of gems. Atop it, your bounty. The perfect game. 8.3/10 IGN.com

OK, the prospect of a PC version is pretty exciting. I might actually get both. In theory it seems like it would make sense on XBLA, but it's Worms, so I kind of can't turn it down on PC. I'll probably only play it enough to embarrass myself, though. I never seemed to get properly good. Then again, I did consistently beat my sister and a bunch of female non-game-playing cousins a few Christmases running. A veritable tour-de-force of skill and strategy, no less.

Call it what you will; we all make countless assumptions all the time, with varying degrees of supporting evidence. Of course I believe that there is more evidence for the things I believe than the things that I don't, but I'm open to the possibility that I've completely misread things. I'm confident that I haven't, but speaking in absolute terms, unless you are going to thoroughly research the basis for each thing that you believe, there isn't a fundamental difference between your judgement that the science and mathematics and psychology and economics behind everything you believe is right, and a religious person's that the translators of their holy texts and the writers of their holy texts and the priests and the prophets are telling the truth about God or gods or reincarnation or karma or ley lines whatever their religion concerns. I believe my system of beliefs is more reasonable and logical and consistent and so on, but, on a personal level, most of this is inferred rather than deduced. I guess it's the problem of generating the first premises or axioms from which to derive everything else. Can things really be self-evident? I don't really know. I guess I shouldn't talk too much on the subject, as I haven't looked into it properly, but it's something that unsettles me about both science and maths (and the idea of reliable knowledge in general). As an analogy, imagine a vast and impressive structure, with thousands of layers beautifully and securely seated on those below. However, the very bottom of the building is completely obscured by dense fog. As far as I can see, the building is structurally secure, and it certainly looks like it has good foundations, but I just can't be sure. It may be that I'm just horribly ignorant. Practically speaking, I don't think it really matters. But it does make me hesitant to get all high-and-mighty about my belief system, no matter how much more likely I think it is than its alternatives. I'd like to point out that I don't mean to overplay all this doubt and equality stuff. I might have given the impression that you may as well flip a coin to decide what you believe. I don't. I think it makes much more sense to follow the atheistic path (sorry for conflating science with atheism a little in this post -- my mistake). I'm just not going to judge people who don't do that. Unless they're completely nutty cultists or something, I guess. Hooray for consistency! I've encountered the same principle expressed in terms of invisible elephants orbiting the Earth and so on, which, whilst amounting to the same thing, are perhaps a little distracting in their outlandishness. They might appear more like a cheap dig than a genuine analogy, I think. "Your god is like an invisible space elephant" could turn some people off what you're saying. Then again, so could comparing it to a chair. Oh well, at least I tried.

You could always friendly-fire me to death in L4D, or stab me in the head in GTA. This phrase is delightful and dangerous.

Sure, why not. It feels a bit weird not getting it for the PC, though. Are they even doing a PC version? I did get one of the PSP games, but I barely played it. To be fair, that's more to do with my life not really having a place for a PSP (and not much more of one for a DS) than a fault of the game.

Well I'll join in if people are going to have another go at it, but it doesn't seem like a game you play with people you know unless it's a clan with tactics and all that crazy nonsense.

Me, but it's 2000 GMT / 2100 BST / 2009-06-30T20:00:00 UTC / 2009-06-30T21:00:00 UTC+1! Pedantry is sweet!

Speaking of RapidShare...

Drowning in a sea of pods.

VIDEOGAAAAAAAAAAAAMES