Slashdot Mirror

• grinding is not required to advance (although you can if that's what turns you on),
• the primary method of advancement is fun (the quests are all stories, and many are tied into a larger, compelling, tale), and
• real-money trade is not particularly helpful (the most useful thing it would be for -- aside from paying repair bills -- is buying crafting ingredients in-game, and the main purpose of crafting is to make consumable items your character finds very helpful but not strictly necessary, or occasionally some nice gear that you can either wear or sell, but not both).

In this Interview :

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65 345

Gabe essentially says that what we are playing now (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) IS Half-Life 3.

"Probably a better name for it [Half-Life 2: Episode One] would have been Half Life 3: Episode One, but these three are what we're doing as our way of taking the next step forward, but Half-Life 2 was the name we used," said Newell.

And yes I too would love, oh love so much for the game to be out tomarrow or yesterday. But when I look back on how much I so badly wanted Half-Life 2 and when it came out I was personally very satisfied. Sure at the end I was like WHAT thats it I want more! But isn't that the goal of any artist/game maker/music maker/tv producer? For the consumer to like your product so much that they just can't wait until next weeks episode? I really, really, really also want Episode 2 to come out today. Its easy for me to self delude myself sometimes because I live 5 miles away from Valve head office its hard for me to even fathom that the game I and people all over the world want is 5 miles away form me.

But wouldn't you rather it take a little bit longer just so they get things right? Just so the game isn't hurried out the door with major bugs, flaws and loss of content because they felt so pressured from their fans to just hurry the game up and gold it? Sure they may have made a mistake on making it episodic and sure they are way off on their estimates. But I would personally take waiting 1.5 years for 1/3 of a game then waiting another 5 years for 20 hours of game play. But maybe thats just me.

Sounds like fun. Pity it's going to take 4-5 years to complete. That's a pretty long time in game development.

no mention because EVE online allows developers to cheat, why would you play a game that you have no chance unless you got dev buddies? : http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=72 886

We have plenty of potential "WoW killers" due for release at the end of this year: Team Fortress 2, Crysis, Warhammer Online, Unreal Tournament 2007. They may not steal all of the player base (the hardcore people who play relentlessly for minor equipment upgrades), but I would bet a few dollars to say these games will make a serious dent on the population of WoW. That is unless Blizzard are crafty and manage to get another expansion out by then, which is doubtful.

Although the upcoming patch for World of Warcraft is pretty much offering more of the same and has been 5 months in the making, and WoW players seem to be particularly apathetic about what Blizzard provide them with in the way of content - Blizzard say they prefer fixing bugs rather than producing more content - seems to keep the majority of the wow addicts happy.

http://www.eurogamer.net/releases.php?platform=pc

Shows all the PC games

Honestly, I think Eurogamers take on it is far more even handed than 1ups, which is something I'm almost never able to say.

You're just a wealth of misinformation. The PS3 does have a hardware scaler. Aside from that, your continuing denial of problems the entire PS3 technical community acknowledges is just a waste of everyone's time.

If they're crowing about how many were shipped, they're being deliberately disingenuous, since a free Blu-Ray copy of Casino Royale is being given away to the first 500,000 people who sign up for the PS3's online service.

So they haven't sold 100,000 copies at all, they've managed to give a bunch away for free.

This article states that Sony was GIVING AWAY 500,000 copies of Casino Royale on Blueray to the first 500,000 people to register their PS3 after the European launch of the PS3, which was on March 23rd.

So how many people actually "bought" the movie?

You're in luck. Sim City is coming to the DS this summer.

lack of lawsuits

I know people love to think Nintendo is a nice, friendly company that encourages homebrew, but it just isn't true. They don't care at all about people buying a DS to hack on it. Why would they? That market is incredibly small compared to the very real losses they face over illegal copying.

Don't get me wrong. I bought a DS because it was cheap, hackable, and had a stylus, but I don't kid myself about Nintendo as a company.

Myself, I have never been interested in online duels, which is what most people seem to mean when they say "online multiplayer games." Trash-talking, griefing, and players who obviously spend way more time than I have available to play do not make playing against another human more fun than playing against a computer. I do not relish getting mad while I game, nor do I think that being able to make other people mad automatically elevates the quality of a game.

Why don't he push the graphical limits on cell phones then?

And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.

Here are more figures:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=69 969

"Enterbrain, publisher of Famitsu, has revealed the the tie-in ratio of software to PlayStation 3 sales is 0.98 - less than one game per console."

Yes! fuck Sony and their litigious ways!

Let us embrace the beloved Nintendo, who would never stoop so low as to sue Lik-Sang!

Looks like a cranky mod is getting "off topic" confused with "informative". The info certainly spurred me to find a more reliable source than The Guardian and I found this: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=68 947. Those damned Wikipedians have also been beavering away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(film) ... and I still couldn't find this putative "pace marine" anywhere.

Culture Shock is the loving update we dreamed of. It's the kind of game you want to be playing when your friends and family walk in the room, if only to demonstrate that there are videogames out there that aren't just about killing things and smashing cars (even if, yes, you can actually do both in this, albeit in typically slapstick fashion). Even the jazz licks of the soundtrack make you want to turn up the volume in celebration. You want the whole world to know that people still make games like this - ones that not only make you laugh, but everyone else too.

The only one I've heard of is Jack Thompson, who (as the abstract points out) is the plaintiff's lawyer. And he already has had his license to practice law revoked in Alabama. This isn't a problem with the legal system as much as it's a problem with irresponsible parents and 'ole Jacky.

I can't see them matching the installed base that will rumble into place as soon as Sony get their act together.

Sorry man, Sony users don't rumble anymore...

WOW beats you.

Here's a good article about the E3 demo with good descriptions of the controls for SMB Wii. The entire time I was reading it I had a girlish grin on my face, thinking "Man, I can't wait for this".

For those who are utterly tired of WoW and wish not to hear any more about it try reading this link instead. It's about the upcoming "Kali" expansion to CCP's EVE-Online. A game that actually gets better the more you play it. Who could have thought?

-Pinkoir

Link in summary goes to the introduction of the video. Click here to watch the video.

You really don't want to train people to know that you're going to drop the price of something within a few weeks. It's one thing to know that you could wait a year and spend $30 to get the game you're about to spend $50 on. It's another thing entirely to know that you could wait a month and spend $50 to get the game you're about to spend $80 on.

This is exactly what Nintendo's president is worried about here, although he's even worried about 6 month or 9 month typical discounting. I agree with him on that - if you have a scheduled price discount on software, you will teach people to follow it. Or heck, even with hardware.

While Sony, by cramming a $500 to $600 PS3 down our throats, has decided to lose the war.

Except that $500 box can let me play Assassin's Creed, while the Toshiba box lets me see some 30 different HD titles most of which I have already seen.

Not to mention that I get games with a wider range of textures and environements and content due to the increased storage offered. There is benefit to gamers beyond just beign able to watch movies in HD.

Your thoughts that Sony has decided to loose the way by offering a box at the same price as the Toshiba player with a lot more functionality and that probably does not take 30 seconds to turn on strikes me as odd.

Why again am I going to buy a standalone HD player in a market with two formats for the same price as a gaming system I know at least games will be produced on years to come?

The rumor mill has justified the delay by saying Episode 2 will bring big changes to the Source engine and create new game experiences. I wouldn't mind that at all, but that is NOT what you use episodic content to market. Save it for Half-Life 3, and have the content team work with the status quo for Half-Life 2 episodes while the engine team finalizes the changes to Source.

The original Half-Life took us two years to develop. With a considerably larger team Half-Life 2 took us six years to develop, so we thought if we were going to continue our trend with Half-Life 3 we would basically ship after we had all retired. ... I always thought of it as Episodes One through Three because that's how we planned the products out. I think people thought we'd need a name for them, and Aftermath ended up being more confusing than helpful. Probably a better name for it would have been Half Life 3: Episode One, but these three are what we're doing as our way of taking the next step forward, but Half-Life 2 was the name we used.

Hello again.

People like to think that Microsoft will not deliver games on HD-DVD, because it would anger current owners.

Microsoft have repeatedly confirmed that they will not ship games on HD-DVD.

No-one wants multi-disc games, publishers as well as gamers, but they simply won't be necessary, even on DVD, for the vast majority of games.

What takes up the most space on a disc? Not gameplay code, or even textures. It's cut-scene video - and there's many ways of reducing that. Faster, multicore CPUs can use better compression algorithms (lower bitrates or resolutions are also possible, in a pinch). Game-rendered cutscenes take a fraction the space, are already popular, and getting more practical all the time. Even HD textures aren't a big deal - they can be compressed on disc with better algorithms too, and similarly, procedural (or procedurally-modified) textures are fast, popular and ever more practical with today's GPUs.

In the PS2's day, MPEG2 cutscenes were all the rage (and early PS2s couldn't even read dual-layer discs), but we've moved beyond that now. When faced with long cutscenes, a PS3 developer may have the space to be lazy, but a 360 developer has the devkit tools to be efficient.

First you seem to complain how developers are only interested in graphics and celebrity voice overs. Then you say how Tron 2.0 sucked and that it lacked - celebrity voice overs. Maybe you were kidding. FWIW, Tron 2.0 is considered to be a fairly good game, to quote the Eurogamer review: "It certainly isn't going to win any awards for pushing the envelope, but it's a damn sight better than most of the generic FPS tripe we've seen pass through the office over the last year or so."

To me, "hastily tacked on" means that the decision to add the feature came late in development and was then added at the last minute.

They found out in the last week or so. See here. They did the tuning in just the last few days.

I highly doubt that they wouldn't've given the controller to them if it had been ready earlier - or if they even knew it was going to work much earlier. This was a "have this work by E3 or else" announcement, and I'm surprised that it works at all.

EG: When did you first learn about [the tilt functionality] controller?

Dylan Jobe: We've really known officially for about a week and a half, and we did the final tuning just a couple of days ago.

What the retro controller article seems to be missing, is that the controller pictured probably isn't for Wii games. Nintendo has already stated that the Wii will play all the old Nintendo titles, including GameCube.

I'd like to see how people plan to play these games with a motion sensor controller. (Hint: It's very doubtful they can.) Ergo, the "retro" controller. Designed to allow classic gameplay on the Wii.

Of course, classic, classic (NES) is fully supported by the Wii-little design. :-P

I perfer Eurogamer which had the same thing here. It also has MS conference live here (going on as we speak.)

I perfer Eurogamer which had the same thing here. It also has MS conference live here (going on as we speak.)

Woeful game: appalling voice acting, screen tearing, wandering frame rate, no cockpit view, idiotic missions (like flying randomly around in a low visibility sandstorm), infinite heath, offensive history, Starforce Virus.

But good looking cityscapes.

There are much better recent games in the genre (shame Zonk didn't review them), Heroes of the Pacific for arcade action, and Aces of Pacific if you want more sim. But dont take my word for it, here is a selection of other reviews:

IGN 68%: "Going down in a blaze of boring."http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/697/697947 p1.html [ign.com]

Xbox 360 Advanced 65%: "While Blazing Angels shows high production values, the single-player gameplay falls incredibly flat. "http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7140 [advancedmn.com]

Eurogames 50%: "With genuinely appalling voicework setting the tone for development incompetence, it's compounded by a few dreadful levels, camera issues and the feeling that the whole project was ported onto the 360 as an afterthought" http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63 662 [eurogamer.net]

Boomtown 20%: "As it stands Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a deeply flawed game. From the terrible image tearing to the offensive voice-overs, it's as big a failure as I've seen from a major Publisher for some time." http://xbox.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.p hp?id=11039 [boomtown.net]

Woeful game: appalling voice acting, screen tearing, wandering frame rate, no cockpit view, idiotic missions (like flying randomly around in a low visibility sandstorm), infinite heath, offensive history, Starforce Virus.

But good looking cityscapes.

There are much better games in the genre (obviously Zonk hasn't played them), Heroes of the Pacific for arcade action, and Aces of Pacific if you want more sim. But dont take my word for it, here is a selection of other reviews:

IGN: 68% "Going down in a blaze of boring."http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/697/697947 p1.html

Xbox 360 Advanced 65% "While Blazing Angels shows high production values, the single-player gameplay falls incredibly flat. "http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7140

Eurogames 50% "With genuinely appalling voicework setting the tone for development incompetence, it's compounded by a few dreadful levels, camera issues and the feeling that the whole project was ported onto the 360 as an afterthought" http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63 662

Boomtown: 20% "As it stands Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a deeply flawed game. From the terrible image tearing to the offensive voice-overs, it's as big a failure as I've seen from a major Publisher for some time." http://xbox.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.p hp?id=11039

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63 701

Bryan Dawson, if you're reading this, please have your editor proofread your paper. It sounds like a 7th grade book report.

(It's not as bad as Kieron Gillen's horrible piece of masturbatory twaddle. That's a classic, right there. "Time for a Monday neologism: Post-genre," indeed.)

My favourite game reviews site is probably Eurogamer - surprisingly, it's Europe-centric (conveniently for me), and I've found that the reviews (and previews) are usually well worth reading. It's helped get me to broaden my gaming horizons a bit, too - I bought Darwinia on the basis of the Eurogamer review, and found it to be one of the best games I've ever played.

As for GameSpy, someone from one of their sub-sites recently asked if they could make my MINERVA mod the level-of-the-week, or something. Unfortunately, there was a corporate-mandated requirement - that in the review, there had to be a Fileplanet download link.

To their credit, they did ask (the MINERVA terms of distribution coincidentally forbid mirroring on subscription-based download sites without permission) - but awkwardly for them, I said no. Citing a sheer distaste for Fileplanet, its queues, its Win32-Internet-Explorer-only download system, etc.

I never got a reply. And I've yet to see a review!

Yes, most of them are biased, but no more than any other reports on VGs.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/vio lence/violence.htm
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62 504
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/halo2.ht ml

And some funnier ones
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wowworld .html
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wargames .html

The Xbox 360 shouldn't have problems no matter where you put it. Sorry to say, but If I can't put the thing where I want to, then it's broken. Obviously things like putting it in your oven are a bad thing, but simply putting the power supply on carpet was reported to cause problems. I'm sorry, but not being able to put the power supply on the carpet is a little restrictive.

I have the power brick sitting behind my TV on carpet and I have no problems. I think the people that had problems were sticking it inside of their TV cabinets, which I imagine can cause problems if it's not well ventilated. There's lots of warnings not to do this, but lots of people don't bother reading them. (They just want to get their shiny new toy up and running as soon as possible)

Should equipment like that be designed that it can run in ANY location? Probably not. Otherwise, it'd take a lot longer for the product to be released, as the engineers try to figure out how to get the PS3 to work fine on top of a hot CRT.

So, how about designed to run in a reasonable location? Sure, I'll agree with that. But the problem is that there's a lot of gray area here. I think it's obvious not to stick equipment in un-ventilated cabinets, because I'm a techie and also because there's warnings all over the place not to do so. But Joe User doesn't read manuals and throws those paper warnings away, so he'll do just that and complain when his latest gaming system keeps locking up.

Granted, there's also the problem where any hardware is going to have defects. Anyone remember the class action lawsuits with the iPod that Apple settled? Or the PSP dead pixel problem? Ideally, yeah I want all of my gadgets and electronics to have absolutely no problems, 100% of the time. But we don't live in a perfect world. Fortunately, that's why we have things like customer service and warranties, so that when you are bitten by the bad hardware bug, you can expect to get a replacement as soon as possible.

What would be nice is to get actual statistics on hardware defects and returns, and not anecdotal evidence. I know several people with 360s and they've had no problems. My 360 has been running fine, but I did get a bum controller recharger. But that's just me. I'm sure the Slashdot audience is going to claim higher than normal problem rates, since the typical user is anti-Microsoft. (It's also interesting that those who claim lots of problems don't even have one themselves. They just repeat what they saw on the Internet) I know there has been talk of class action lawsuits on the 360, but don't know if they've gone anywhere either.

The real issue about the hardware problems is going to be years from now, to see if people still remember the issues or not. I know I had lots of problems with my PS2 (remember the DVD lawsuit and settlement?), but it's in the back of my mind and I mostly remember all the great games on that platform. That's exactly what Sony wants. Whether or not the same will happen with the 360 remains to be seen.

I remember hearing that a Zelda title might be a launch title for Revolution. I assume this would be different than Twilight Princess? Anyone have any information on this?

Satoru Iwata (Nintedo's president) has said that the console will be released before Thanksgiving. He is not known for exaggerating, so unless there is some unexpected mishap, it will be released by then.

Reggie Fils-Aime (Nintendo of America head honcho) has said that the console will launch for less than $300. Current expectation is that it will launch for $249.

Hmmm... there does seem to be a trial available for download somewhere, but clicking on Game Information from TFA indicates a release date of December 2006 - which is well off.

As far as I know, the game is unreleased and there's nowhere to get it. Either the article's support page is incorrect, or it's something that will be forgotten by the time it hits the release date

Will PC gamers get one of those neat bloody chainsaw controllers to play with?

I've found I have StarForce on my laptop that I only use for work... except:
Two days ago, a friend of mine has recommended the free "TrackMania Nations ESWC" (see http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62 590%255...php?article_id=62590 and http://downloads.gamezone.com/demos/d14755.htm for dlnd) for my kids. I have downloaded it and installed/tested it once, before uninstalling and copying in on a USB key for transfer to the kid's machine.

This is a 2-month old Dell Latitude, and it hasn't ever been in contact with a _commercial_ game before (I guess that installing a free Sudoku generator does apply as a game...). Visual Studio & Office are the only commercial apps installed (next to a buch of free tools: Firefox, Thunderbird, GCC, etc...).

Anyway, it appears to me that the free game "TrackMania Nations ESWC" installs the malware. A quick series of searches through the EULA (I had not read it initially, too small window for viewing, requires copy-pasting elsewhere) did not reveal any info about the installation of StarForce.

"CD copy-protection" for a free game downloadable off the internet?
Can't blame Starforce for how its tech is (mis-)used?
I say this is pure malware in any case.

PS3 actual development screenshot
PS3 hype "screenshot"
Yes, Sony, of coooourse we believe you.

3D Realms CEO Scott Miller has revealed that he has yet to get his hands on an Xbox 360 - despite the fact that his studio is supposed to be developing a game for the console.

In a post on his blog, Miller wrote: "I've yet to touch the controller of any [next-gen console]. I can't find a X360 to buy in stores, and we have yet to get a development machine sent from Microsoft even though Prey is being developed for their system."

Miller went on to make a number of predictions regarding the next-gen systems, stating that he reckons the Xbox 360 and PS3 "Will wind up about equal in terms of sales, with Nintendo's Revolution coming in a distant third."

"Perhaps this will be the last console from this company," Miller added.

While Oblivion does look quite gorgeous, it is Mad Doc Software that is doing the actual work on Legacy with Bethesda publishing the title (as it is Bethesda which now has rights to the publishing and creation of 'Trek-based games). This article at Eurogamer sheds a little more light than the Gamasutra entry, and from how it sounds, the preliminary game concept reminds me a bit of Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars -- an okay game, but not a great one, with a look similar to the screenshots provided. We'll see what happens, though.

NGC, one of Future Publishing's UK games magazines, claimed they had definitive proof from an inside source that the next Zelda would make use of the Revolution controller. Nintendo made a statement in response saying NGC's article was "pure speculation" (Eurogamer article).

When GameDaily's article says we should "... expect to see Zelda: Twilight Princess running on Revolution with the new features discussed a couple weeks ago...", they might as well claim that we should expect to see every other rumour and piece of speculation come true too.

I for one am looking forward to seeing Link ride into town in his new monster truck, weilding an AK47 and smoking a phat spliff.