Gwardinen

I think the Mass Effect discussion has run its course now, but I want to clarify that I didn't post about it because I think ME is a particularly egregious example of sexism. On the contrary, as I said I think BioWare is surprisingly forward-thinking in a number of ways given its position (though there have been some backward steps). I posted about it because I found the situation with the poll and the reaction to it genuinely confusing and discomforting. As I said in my post, it got to the point at which I couldn't even really tell who was being sexist anymore, because everyone seemed to be vilifying both the objectification of women and the women themselves! I only noticed that once you pointed it out, but it is funny. I'd argue this is because Batman is one of the few pure mortals in a superhero role. While Superman is probably so obsessed with maintaining his image that he heat visions his own hair off every morning in 0.1 nanoseconds, Batman is busy building shit to try to keep himself alive while fighting a similar calibre of villain. Returning to the point somewhat, there have actually been some serious PR issues for DC recently regarding sexism. There was a woman dressed as Batgirl at San Diego Comic-Con who asked some very pointed questions about women in DC, both in terms of characters and staff, and DC has been scrambling to respond. I don't have any great links to share myself right now, but a little internet research from someone with a little more time might shed some light on it.

To briefly bring this back around to Trenched, I believe it's STILL not available in Europe, which sucks for Double Fine. I say this because I was probably going to buy it when it came out, but now my interest has waned, and my available cash has been depleted by things like Summer of Arcade titles and upcoming retail games such as Deus Ex. I can't imagine I'm the only person in this boat, so I bet they lose a significant amount of the money they would have had had this come out at a time in which there wasn't much else going on and it had internet hype.

All depends on whether you want the Play Pack, I suppose. I've been trying OnLive a little over the past few days, the instant free trial thing is my favourite part of it. I hope more games come to the service purely so that I can play the trials. I also enjoy going into the Arena and watching other people play various games, it's strangely entertaining (though only in brief bursts). That said, more than once I had the screen suddenly hugely pixellate on me, particularly at the beginning of a trial, and that combined with the occasional burst of huge lag makes me wary of playing anything that requires constant attention (such as anything multiplayer or very timing based). All of that is a problem and I'm on a fairly strong connection for this area, around 6Mb/s. Also, despite the fact that the buy one get one free deal from Deus Ex to another game is really solid, I don't really see the point in buying something on OnLive if you have a console or a computer that could run the game at the same level as you'd be getting through OnLive. My computer is gradually losing that distinction, but the fact remains that I still own a console and any of the games they're offering in that deal with look and play better on it and won't require an internet connection or be subject to lag even in singleplayer. Still think this technology could be the way forwards, it just doesn't quite meet my requirements yet beyond being the best way to try a game for half an hour.

I'm about a third of the way in, so I suppose I'm going to hit the soon? Truth be told it already feels like it's lost a little momentum, but we'll see how it goes. I actually took a break from reading a Dance with Dragons to read the latest Dresden Files book, Ghost Story. I'm both impressed by the chances Jim Butcher (the author) took, and disappointed by the chances he didn't take. It's certainly an interesting semi-reboot of the franchise at a time in which the franchise probably could use it, and at least resolves everything that happened in the previous book, Changes.

Yeah, that was my big throwaway too. It was mentioned in the video too, but in the article every other sentence kept dropping hints that if you maybe wanted a ransom, this girl might be a great target. It started getting somewhat creepy.

I would note you currently have DDR2 RAM, and it might well be fairly cheap to upgrade to a similar amount of DDR3 RAM. Chances are to see a real change you'd still have to also change your CPU, and if you're changing both memory and CPU it might be worth going all the way and changing your motherboard, as JonCole said. I doubt your hard drive is slowing anything down, except for the fact that after four years it's probably full of crap. An SSD would of course be faster, but they're still very expensive per MB by comparison to a standard hard drive.

Yeah, I should be clear that I'm not against the blonde design, and actually it's one of two that I thought were visually interesting (the same two Rodi liked, in fact). I find the idea that people are so angry about this choice more bizarre and intriguing, with the side note that it's strange that supposed feminists are being so brutally disparaging about the blonde design, as if being blonde makes one somehow an inferior woman from a feminist perspective.

Yeah, I think the poll was official, and that the blonde Shepard will now be the marketing focus. I don't really have anything against BioWare for this, it may seem like they're doing little to be proud of, but they're still doing more in terms of honestly portraying people of inclinations and genders and so on that aren't considered the "norm" as equals than most games developers. Especially when considering they're owned by one of the largest publishers (and therefore biggest targets) in the industry, they're actually pretty forward-thinking and out there.

Vaguely related - the female version of Shepard is getting the spotlight more for Mass Effect 3 than in the past, being the star of at least one trailer and on the cover of the ME3 collector's edition. That alone, and the lack of it in the past, may be worth considering or even talking about, but the real internet scandal is regarding WHICH female Shepard it will be. A Facebook campaign just recently ended during which people could vote, by way of "liking", for which of several versions of female Shepard they wished to be the default and marketing focus. As it turns out, the winner was a blonde Shepard with long(er) hair. Cue nerd rage, girl rage, random bystander rage. A fairly significant number of people seem to be unhappy with the "blonde bimbo" archetype, many of whom seem to be identifying as feminists, either angry that it was "clearly" men voting for the generic hottie, or angry that men and women have not seen fit to properly exercise their right to vote for the choice that is "interesting" or has "integrity". I honestly can't tell who is being sexist or patriarchal at this point, but it definitely smells like it's in the air somewhere. Is it the many men who probably did vote for the hot blonde girl? Is it the women accusing everyone of having such shallow motives? Is it the very concept that being blonde somehow makes you stupid and promiscuous (that is definitely in there as a problem on both sides)? It's a pretty bizarre situation that makes me feel rather uncomfortable, and at this point, I'm not sure who to blame.

Yeah, the whole assault on the palace, and the wave based fight and the boss fight within are all kind of dodgy in my opinion. They don't really fit on the rest of the game's difficulty curve, and while they are dramatic the first few times, eventually just become frustrating. For my part, I'm trying to work up the motivation to continue playing my rented copy of Killzone 3.

I don't understand this "buggity buggity buggity" thing that everyone seems to be reacting to. Is this a thing? Is this phrase meaningful other than something strange to put before "Amen"?

Slightly odd question, but does anyone know where I can get information on the exact names of game modes in languages other than English? I'm currently trying to find out what the names of various multiplayer modes are in Call of Duty games in German, but frankly German Wikipedia is even less complete and accurate than English Wikipedia so I'm having a tough time of it.

I managed to find most of them in the end. It didn't help that earlier CoD games just had English names for modes and later ones gradually actually translated them, or that it appears certain stuff is just still never translated - for example "Capture the Flag" and "Team Deathmatch". By the by, I speak German (indeed, there are some who would say I am German), translation or language itself are not the issues - but literal translation of words does not necessarily net an actual result when you're talking about arbitrarily selected terms within a product designed and localised by many different people. For example, Zombie mode is, as of Black Ops, called Überlebenskampf - basically "fight for survival" - which makes perfect sense but is not by any means a translation of "Zombies".

Played the XBLA trial... the controls are kind of an issue. It's not terrible by any means but the thumbsticks do feel rather imprecise. That said, anything you do will probably be shaped by gravity and water very quickly anyway so perhaps I'm looking for precision in something that doesn't have any to begin with. I also wonder, since this has always been shown on consoles, whether the PC version will be a port. If it is, will it have the same strange control system the consoles do, and will it in fact not really be any better in the precision and camera control angles? Remains to be seen, I suppose. I'm having a very tough time deciding whether to buy it or try to wait.

Yeah I wanted the mouse control, I'm really pissed off that this got delayed at the last minute. I did just skim the Giant Bomb review of it and the reviewer mentioned that controls were an issue that may or may not be addressed in the PC version. I have been hyping so hard on this game, though, that I just don't know if I can wait until half way through August. By that time I'll only be a week off Deus Ex. I'll play the trial tomorrow and see how I feel.

That sucks, I was hoping to get it on PC but I'm too impatient for this game to pass up the XBLA version if it's going to be the only one available for now. If this really is to do with timed exclusivity, I suppose they're getting what they want from me. My condolences to those of you with only a PC!

Agreed. The concept worked and the casting really supported it... but then the actual writing for the parts really didn't. I definitely feel like these actors could have played these parts very well if they were given the material to work with. It turned into a pretty bizarre film, which was somewhat redeemed by the music and visuals, as you mentioned. The start of the film, at least, was wonderful.

Richard Dawkins has his own problems though, for one he's so fucking militant about his atheism that he comes across a as a palette swap of a religious fundamentalist. Same personality, different ideals.

I must admit, I've been wondering how that film would play out for a while. It's also being made into two films, right? This is just part 1? I can understand why as the last book is twice as long as the other books in the series, but it does also mean this is a huge expenditure and risk for the studio and it of course means we get twice the craziness on our screens as well. I kind of hope they pull this off somehow as, if they can manage it, it will be a serious achievement in film making.

As far as I recall the ending doesn't really answer anything. Sorry! The game is still totally worth playing and finishing, though. One of my favourite XBLA titles.

I played the trial, enjoyed it enough to pick up the full version, and am so far enjoying that. Far too soon to give any kind of measured opinion about it to others, but the core concepts of the game so far are solid. I must say the fact that Giant Bomb isn't running a review is just another feather in its cap to me. Every time I do some writing for some random gaming website and hate myself for how they force me to use social media or look at the next article on the page and see it's a Top 10 Sexiest Video Game Girls list or hear them talk about how there's no point spending too long on a particular review because its publisher "couldn't be bothered to send us a copy", I look back at Giant Bomb and it gives me something to hope for. It's probably not something I'll ever get the chance to participate in, and chances are I won't even ever get to do something like it, but at least for now it's a nice dream.

Yeah, they may be hoping that the internet will get better in the UK. It has been doing, slowly, and in a very patchwork fashion. It also doesn't help that there are still legal fights going on over the exact wording of ISP agreements and advertising with their customers - for example I believe it is still totally OK for Virgin to advertise "up to 20Mb broadband" while actually delivering an average of 3-5Mb/s and that only to those areas that they can serve well. Most "normal" consumers probably don't know what they're really getting for their money, only what they might be.

It's been around for a while, but mostly in the US. Are they actually properly supporting European customers now? When I last tried it all the servers were still in North America so 90% of the time it said I didn't have a good enough connection. That said, having tried it it's also not the same as playing it on a top end rig, not by a long shot. It is, however, like playing any PC game in the world on a computer that can run it decently, without actually requiring said capable computer, and that in itself is a huge step up for many people. The ability to play the new Deus Ex on an 8 year old laptop without even thinking about system specs or configuration is not something to sneeze at. Given how expensive PC hardware still is (although that is sort of changing to an extent), something like this could definitely be the way of the future. PC gaming would suddenly have a way to compete with the ease and low cost of consoles on their own turf.

I definitely fall into that camp too. I really wanted to finish GTAIV but I think I'm about 2/3 of the way through and every time I try to play it I fail the mission I'm on through lack of practice and then don't want to do it anymore. So far the second half of the game just feels like variations on the "go into a place with lots of enemies and kill them all one by one" theme anyway. I miss some of the more interesting and less super soldier-y stuff from earlier in the game.

This was one of my main issues as well. Especially when compared to Prototype, a contemporary of the original game, Infamous seemed very slow and clumsy in the traversal department. That said, via a combination of different level design (emphasising a lot of electric wires in strategic places and adding a vertical jump electric pillar to some buildings), an extra upgrade to the static thrusters and a new power called the lightning leash, the second game actually addresses this to an extent. By the end of the game you certainly feel capable of getting around smoothly, but at the start it is hitting a lot of X to gradually make your way up buildings again.