Forbin

That's the truth, I can't tell you how many terrible movies I've seen with "two thumbs up". I just find it funny he keeps bringing this up, when he doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe he's still getting blow back from his original article. I decided to read some of the comment on his blog. It's funny how many banana riders he has, but I liked this guys response: to which Ebert replied: He just chooses to ignore anything that goes against his assumption that all games are simple systems. I wonder what would happen if someone sat him in front of Last Express and forced him to play it. Or better yet, let's see how he reviews the movie if he survives to see it.

Meant to post this in Idle Banter, oh well.

What you just said: 1. it seems that safe bets are the only things that get funded nowadays (A-> 2. this doesn't seem like a safe bet (! What is known: 3: this is funded (A)

Are you in the Steam Mac beta, or did you just bootcamp/vm into windows?

This neptune's bounty game sounds pretty good.

I'm thinking I finally I have time to play through Tales. Does anybody know if I buy it on Steam if it will work on my Macbook as well?

In a weird collision of occurrences, TF2's blog today features mention of Jake and Famous' team: http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=3698&p=1

Had to pause the cast to post this: http://www.siliconera.com/2008/01/21/master-english-with-the-power-of-starcraft-english/ Jake's jokes always come to life

"Big Dog Nurses Get 'Er Done" is my favourite. It screams overcompensating. He's even got an American flag on his breast.

LOL I can totally picture the fat longhair biker that would wear shirts with those patterns.

In all honesty you've got to respect how high they set the bar at 2k Marin. It's like a chubby kid coming up to the plate and pointing at the bleachers. Everyone balked at the idea of Bioshock 2 but they seem to have hit it out of the park. Now chubby's up to the plate again and he's pointing out to left field.

I hear that Firaxis has made a game or two that requires turn taking. They were made by some some guy Baron Von Sidious Meir. But in terms of "who has experience" people seem to forget that turn based strategy games were extremely popular in the 90s, and a lot of studios have experience. Jeff Green told a great story on GFW radio about how the other editors at CGW wouldn't let him claim StarCraft as one of the best strategy games of all time. They didn't think any RTS could compare to turn based games, and this was after Dune, C&C and Warcraft 2.

It'll just be Oblivion with guns.

Wizard reference in recent Joystiq interview: But seriously, I think it'll be interesting what kind of studio they can put together under EA partners. It may not end well though, they've never really proven they can make a company financially sound.

Just reading through these documents there are some interesting accusations, that seem unfounded. Apparently Activision is claiming that because W&Z requested a larger share of the bonus pool for Modern Warfare 2, that made impossible for ATVI to give any bonuses to IW employees for their work. It never directly says that W&Z agreed they would take money instead of their employees, it just suggests that if Activision can win back the royalties for MW2 in this case they'll be able to pay the people remaining at IW for their work. Considering their entire argument is that W&Z was using these bonuses to manipulate employees to join them in a new venture, it's hard to not see what ATVI is doing right now... They're holding the unpaid bonuses over the heads of people that work at IW, forcing them to stay instead of joining W&Z. The only specific example they list has to do with the Wii SKU, when Activision asked for a list of employees that should be granted consideration for their work on the title. The exact quote is: Now to me, it sounds like they were asking more time to finish their employee evaluations and that if Activision needed to balance the books West would just sort out the money later. This delay is common, especially among software developers, as we're always fighting fires when our TPS reports need to be filed.Also, it appears that the MOU is actually a document that Activision fears. They say that W&Z breached the MOU, and the only specific reason they say how is that the agreement was for them to develop release and market Modern Warfare 2, and they interfered with marketing. How did they do that? Oh there it is... they refused to put an Activision logo in the game. I'm sure that really hurt their world record shattering marketing campaign. So what are they asking for? 1) They want W&Z to stop stealing employees. Which they are doing, if not with such nefarious plans as ATVI claims. Who wants to work at a sweat shop that doesn't give you a bonus after you create the most successful game launch of all time? 2) They feel like they should get all the "incentives" back that W&Z received during "the period of their disloyalty" (basically anything after 2008, including all money from MW2). That's a huge chunk of change, and I doubt they'll get any piece of it.

Senior super douche? Or was that fourtwozero?

Maybe that's why Ars eventually removed it. TBH I don't care to follow up, it's probably a more surprising story that Chinese Policemen didn't beat the crap out of this guy in the altercation.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/01/dragon-age-origins-celebrates-feastday-with-dlc/1#c26773545 Apparently it's not an april fool's day joke, they're charging real money for this.

There was a good article on Ars' Opposable Thumbs blog about Evony. They seem to have cut out the bit about the Chinese police beating an Evony employee in his home in front of his son for posting information online that Everiss was using.

Sounds like he just got a new job somewhere else.

I picked it up on the recent $5 weekend sale, and since I haven't played a game like this since Diablo 1 and I'm a little confused. Do I get more money from selling items I've identified? It seems I'm always at a shortage on scrolls, so it's not practical to use them on everything. Would it make more sense to use them mostly on Blue+ quality items? Is there some sort of disadvantage for dual wielding? I found a legendary/unique bow early on, but recently found a blue quality pistol that does far more dps and has better enchantments. But when I switched to pistols I find I'm having a lot more trouble, and my spells don't seem to hit as hard. Does the shitty wizard give any indication how much gold his enchantment will cost? I wasn't paying attention and nearly lost all my gold to him, but when I tried enchanting another item it didn't seem like the cost was too prohibitive. Does the price scale based on weapon slot/level/number of times you've previously enchanted? Is there any way to rebind my WASD keys to something useful? I find my hand hovering over them to use shift and 1-5, but if they're not going to be used for movement it'd be nice to provide easy access to 6-0.

Yeah it seems to have pretty much broken the game.

Thanks for the responses. One more thing: I'm using an explosive shot from the ranged talent tree. It says it's based off weapon damage, but will it scale from magic or dexterity? I'm using it way more than my auto-shot. I find I'm banking a lot of talent points and waiting for gear restrictions to use them.

I would love it if somebody hired this service and then treated the girl to what she could regularly expect in a public server. Call her a 12-year old boy. Be sexist, and talk about how terrible she is at the game. Then ask her if she really is a girl, and start hitting on her.

The first few hours are the worst, the guns are fine, but they really screwed up the class unlocks. The beta gave you more of a head start so I was shocked when I originally loaded up and found that the Medic didn't have a kit or defib, the Assault didn't have supplies and the engineer didn't have a repair gun. It didn't take long to get over that hump, but that was too much in my opinion and will probably make a bad first impression for a lot of players. Seems like it's a bit of a fallacy to keep people grinding out the weapons as their first taste of unlocks are much more advantageous than anything late in the game. Though certain things unlock late in the game that can drastically change the way you play. Most people think of the Recon class as a sniper (a stereotype that's aided by the rediculous gilly suits), but later on the unlocking of the red-dot sight turns it into one of the most dynamic classes in the game. Equip a non-bolt action rifle with the red dot and you've got a rifle similar to a garand that allows you to get up and personal without having to use your pistol or some crappy shotgun. It quickly becomes apparent that the Motion Mine is just as important as the medical or supply kits. There's little price you can put on boosting your teams situational awareness. It's instrumental in attacking and defending MCOM stations, and breaking through chokepoints.