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Obligatory VGCats

I believe it has something to do encountering a box with random contents inside, and you have to use real money to purchase a one-use key to unlock it. There may be a chance for an ultra rare item, or a handful of common items you could have easily acquired with in-game currency.

This comic seems to have an interesting take on such things from Team Fortress 2.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?...

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?...

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?...

Also known as the Sony strategy.

sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar

And sometimes, it's a face full of alien wing-wong.

Maybe now they'll develop a console not designed for children and grandparents and stop making kid games with bright colors.

...yes, because real is brown.

This article is about how you can get free advertisement. Move along.

Yep, because nothing makes me more interested in checking out a game than learning of an unpopular change.

It serves as a reminder that EA are a bunch of assholes. Lest we forget.

Verily; behold the obligatory

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=306

Not a huge surprise... Though I wonder how they're going to wriggle their way out of that one. I'm guessing they'll just try to ignore it and hope it goes away.

The same way they always wriggle out, Pinky!

VG Cats #214.

http://twokinds.keenspot.com/ (be sure to read the one for 2012-12-26 - NSFW? - can't link directly right now because of the stupid "archives" way it uses to make links to past pages)
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/
http://www.xkcd.com/
http://www.google.com/ (you can search for more web comics with this thing!)

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=211

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/110427.jpg

...so where do we complain?

According to some stuff I just made up, apparently EA is now handling all DMCA takedown complaints.

Okay, to quote the Grim Reaper in Episode 5 of The Grim Reaper Show, "That's fucking hilarious."

"All out of fucks to give" is now entering my arsenal of comebacks.

...so where do we complain?

According to some stuff I just made up, apparently EA is now handling all DMCA takedown complaints.

Yeah, I tried that too. I wanted to resurrect an old IBM box with a zippy install of Ubuntu, and it was nice! Until Unity came along. *BOGGGGGGGGG*choke-gasp-gag*

So I chipped in a few pennies for some extra memory, and it pepped up a bit. I ran a cable under my carpet to the living room and set it up as a media center on my screen projector, but the cable got pinched. So I bought a wireless dongle.

A Netgear WNA1100. I plug it into a WinXP machine, and *bink*! Instant connectivity. Done and dusted. I plug it into Precise Pangolin and...and...annnnd...?

Zip. Nada. I search the boards, I scour the help files, I fight and claw my way through page after page of ultra-mega-super geeks asking the newbs to post page after page of process listings. Three...fricking...DAYS of digging.

And THEN, when I finally got it to work, and did everything the tutorial that *I*, not the geeks, *I* put together, it died again after a reboot. And nothing I could do could bring it back again.

I'm no slouch when it comes to hardware. If there's info out there, and I can find it, then I can fix it. I fix my own car, I fix my own machines, I fix my own house, my own wiring, plumbing, appliances...you name it.

But Ubuntu gave me two rare birds. I think my Ubuntu install is endangered.

yep, nothing to see at all

Just figure out what the gestures and sounds to avoid are when you first plug it in.

FYI, I forgot to put my reference

ok, but how does it recognise your voice (or your girlfriends.... ok, or your mates voices) and not those of Brad Pitt shouting during a movie? Cancelling out background noise and music is one thing, cancelling out some voices and not others is a bit more tricky.

So Brad reads the line "lets Bing sex aids" during some comedy, and .... you don't want to know what happens next

This definitely shows that there is either no god or he/they hate us all: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=198

Mass effect is barely even in the category of "RPG." Although the quest system is pretty good, the equipment and skills were lacking. No, what OP (I suspect) is talking about is games more like The Witcher (1&2, especially 1), KOTOR (going back a ways), Oblivion (kinda), even Dragon Age or the soon to be released Diablo III. None of those games can be played by sitting something on the controller and walking away which is what can be done with some of the new ones (I think this sums it up nicely).

The Last Remnant, which I did play and while fun, was a terrible RPG (worse than Mass Effect. Seriously) 3rd person cover shooters are more innovative RPGs than this (in fact, they actually did involve innovation at the time.) Walking down a single pathr, absolutely no choice of skills to update (you can choose which ones a character focuses on... that is all), 2-3 choices (which you don't entirely control) for combat, group-based fighting. Honestly, it's fun for a while especially since it is more or less the only JRPG I ever played, but I cannot see how people could ever spend massive amounts of time playing games like that. I tried one of the recent FF (13 I think) games for about 30 mins once. It... didn't even feel like an RPG, it felt like walking down a narrow corridor holding down a button.

Also, neither Magicka nor Torchlight were very good RPGs, no idea why you chose those as examples. They were a lot of fun, but deep RPG action they were not. OP is right: Western RPGs have, if not grown deeper, at least expanded and experimented in the genre. JRPGs seem to have devolved.

Oh yeah, because marketing works so well

Sony's method of protecting private data!

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=302

We're waiting for the games.

Obligatory xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/695/

Obligatory Ikea response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNlJIKzlCnU

Obligatory VGCats parody of obligatory Ikea response: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=53

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=42

Truly dedicated MMO players don't seem to concern themselves with bodily functions, or where they even occur

Related

Scroll to the end to see what GN does with his money.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=302

And yes, Valve and Steam are stalwarts for PC gaming, . It usually costs nothing to "port" a game to windows and costs nothing to publish on steam (although steam does take its cut). There ARE PC gamers out there, and this (and blizzard) proves that there is still money here to be made.

NO other games have ENERGY swords or anything. BROLLCALL!

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=285

No, I don't think you can get much information on this trend from TV shows.

I disagree.

I had noticed that reason and critical thinking were fading in the world of late, but I never thought that the rot would get so bad that the foremost geek site on the internet would be giving credence to this sort of rubbish. What the hell were the editors thinking? What should I even have to say that ghosts don't exist and that this "investigation" may as well be looking for invisible green unicorns?

As a society, we're reverting back to superstition and ignorance. We've even given up on even imagining a better future.

The only question I ask is: where did it all go wrong? When did the world abandon progress?

I share your dismay, and you convey the feeling pretty well.

On my part, I try not to reach premature conclusions on interpreting all this. The Enlightenment over the18th century culminated in two political revolutions (American and French) that brought about the modern liberal state that in turn promoted universal education. The conservative forces, weakened, never really gave up and can be seen as staging a counter-revolution. The attacks on and the demonizing of the "damned liberals" can hardly be interpreted otherwise.

Will they have their way or are they staging their obliteration from history? This remains to be seen.

I had noticed that reason and critical thinking were fading in the world of late, but I never thought that the rot would get so bad that the foremost geek site on the internet would be giving credence to this sort of rubbish. What the hell were the editors thinking? What should I even have to say that ghosts don't exist and that this "investigation" may as well be looking for invisible green unicorns?

As a society, we're reverting back to superstition and ignorance. We've even given up on even imagining a better future.

The only question I ask is: where did it all go wrong? When did the world abandon progress?

"Different games attract different people."

No shit.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=280

Heres a comic i read a while ago that seemed very related to this topic and hilarious by itself.

http://static.vgcats.com/comics/images/090423.jpg

Games, however - such as the Source engine after it got the HDR update with Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Day of Defeat: Source, actually do increase the dynamic range of a scene beyond what your monitor can display. They underexpose and overexpose parts of the scene when transitions between light and dark places occur, just as your eyes would before they adjusted to the new light, or as a video camera would depending on what exposure the videographer chose. This makes it look more realistic - just take a look at a bright outdoor scene in Half-Life 2: Episode Two and check out how shiny objects in the sunlight have blown-out highlights that gleam brilliantly, and then look at the same scene in the original Half-Life 2, where that object would look flatly-lit and fake. The "non-HDR" looks more fake because the dynamic range is compressed so you can see all the detail everywhere, which also gives it that flat "game" look.

HDR is the first thing I turn off in any game, this is why.

Overrated? Someone who disagrees with you must have mod points. ;)

I had a similar discussion about music. It came down to the theory that the majority of a generation always seems to hate the games/music/media of the generation after for the reasons you described. There are always going to be abuses of advances in technology, sometimes to the point of obscenity, but it will eventually level off. In the worst case, we still have damn addicting flash games.

That's certainly a common point of view, but it contains an unscientific bias. I'll illustrate by presenting the opposite bias:

According to Christian tradition, proof was given, miracles were performed, witnessed by thousands, and recorded. But humans, cynical creatures that we are, like developing cynical new standards by which we can deem the old proof invalid or insufficient and so feel superior about ourselves. Funny how easily one can win a game just by changing the rules as they go. So from this perspective, exactly how long do you expect the guy who built your freaking brain to be amused by his 7 billion children prattling on about their shiny new rules to a game they made up in the first place?

Or maybe you expected to see "Slartibartfast" signed in a glacier somewhere?

Blood.

I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=185

And this is why I don't care about Madden servers being shut down: "It's f***ing Madden!"

Some people http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122 don't exactly play the sims the same way they would act in real life.

Your first example is an interesting thought experiment, except that it virtually never happens. People don't make the mistake of centralizing questionable material. Keygens are almost always stand-alone, and consequently spread like the wind through more methods than just the internet. (Plus, if they weren't stand-alone, where would all the sweet chiptunes go?)

I doubt the soundness of thought of your second position as well. You actually allude to the weakness yourself, but to expand it, just because you know the dangers of the internet's 'bad part of town' does not mean that Joe Jackass who really wants a free copy of MADDEN TENNNGH knows or cares about such dangers. What acts as a deterrent to a careful technician is not going to act as a deterrent to most people, even most technicians. I've worked in support for about a decade, and I take a 'I ain't afraid of no ghosts!' attitude toward such matters. I know how to recover from basically any malware assault, so I kind of take it as a challenge.

It's kind of like Idiocracy.

Take this brand new game, Bayonetta. It looked like a pretty bad-assed title; I recently found out that they added a "one handed gameplay mode". You can watch a video of it over there.

There aren't many games that allow you to play one-handed. You might be able to get by with one hand on certain RPGs -- leaving the other hand free to grab some popcorn during those really long cutscenes -- but, for the most part, it just doesn't work. Of all the upcoming games we wouldn't expect to play one-handed, Bayonetta sits right at the top of the list. As an action game from Hideki Kamiya, the mind behind Devil May Cry, we can't even imagine trying to play it without two hands sweatily clamped around the controller.

Or how about the Nintendo trend of games "playing themselves"?: New Super Mario Bros. Wii, future titles will play themselves

Are games too hard for you, Johnny? Don't worry -- Shiggy's got your back. Starting with upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii, future Nintendo Wii titles will be shipping with the ability to, well, play themselves. In an interview with USA Today, the man who birthed Mario confirmed the existence of "demo play" for the next Mario game and "future games, too" -- essentially an option to allow the game to play itself when the player encounters an area too difficult for them to handle.

Or take a look at the trends in console sales. VGChartz. The new world gaming order is here, and it only cares about the casual gamer.

The casual gamer has money, and he'll gladly take part in microtransactions to buff his character out.

A YouTube video has surfaced displaying the megaton of content that will be offered when the game hits retail in a few days. Most of it only affects Franchise Mode. You can download advanced trainers, staff, and scouts as well as a plethora of game-breakers such as temporary boosts to player and coaching statistics.

So, yes. New graphics are in, new gameplay is out. Small studios can die, nickel and dime-ing is in. Damn it. Where'd all the gamers go.

Oh, that's right. I'll let VGcatz sum it up for me: Nerd Rage

End Transmission.

Your post makes me think of the topical VGCats Comic Strip

Huh? Aren't games based on pro sports among the most popular/best-selling video game categories? Would it not stand to reason that the more detailed and realistic these games become, the more interest they will hold for people who play the games in real life?

And come on, let's face it... what does it take, really, to "pass oneself off as a gamer"? Videogames -- and especially casual video games -- have become a multi-billion dollar industry. It's not like it's 1978 and you're meeting in your friend's basement to toss around 20-sided dice; entire Hollywood movie franchises are being built around videogame characters. Face it -- it ain't geekery anymore, it's mainstream... just like pro sports.

I've got two words for you: VG and Cats.

Huh? Aren't games based on pro sports among the most popular/best-selling video game categories? Would it not stand to reason that the more detailed and realistic these games become, the more interest they will hold for people who play the games in real life?

And come on, let's face it... what does it take, really, to "pass oneself off as a gamer"? Videogames -- and especially casual video games -- have become a multi-billion dollar industry. It's not like it's 1978 and you're meeting in your friend's basement to toss around 20-sided dice; entire Hollywood movie franchises are being built around videogame characters. Face it -- it ain't geekery anymore, it's mainstream... just like pro sports.

I've got two words for you: VG and Cats.

Indeed, This just in: Cell phone providers are screwing you and Apple is evil. Story at 6:00.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=282

Enough said.