"A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.
Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years." - Terry Pratchett.
So either things have changed, or the movie will end up being a sequel to Charlie and Chocolate Factory or something.. 'Hey, Wee Free Men? Those are kind of like Ooompah Loompahs, right?'
Traditionally, a lot of disc space on console releases have been taken up by full motion video scenes, which tend to be rendered in CGI rather than with the in-game engine, because fancy CGI workstations can do things the in-game engines for most games can't. The trouble is that FMV video takes up a hell of a lot of space on discs.
Hopefully with the power of the 360, games producers should now have a platform where they don't need to resort to CGI for fancy looking effects. Resulting in less CGI FMV sequences and more scripted cutscenes which should take up less space.
.. is one of the most memorable occurances in virus history. An author wrote a book on viruses - the title of which shall remain nameless - and helpfully included the source code to an actual virus. Which led to dozens of variants appearing virtually overnight. Not the smartest thing to do.
.. some poor sods in the UK who pre-ordered from Special Reserve, a UK online retailer, paid in full for their consoles. And the company then went bust, leaving those who hadn't paid via credit card £270 out of pocket.
Everyone knows that any self respecting Japanese launch line up does, by law, have to contain some sort of obscure and vaguely fetishistic dating game. So until I see mention of 'Go Go High School Love Game', I'm calling bullshit.
You start a game of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with $5000, but spend two thirds of that money on being serviced by prostitutes. A pedestrian carries an average of $20 - so how many pedestrians do you have to kill and rob in order to get back up to $5000?'
.. in any discussion of the 360's use of an HD drive is the fear that the cutscenes in games will mean that games will have to come on multiple DVDs. Thing is, though, the power of the X-Box 360, and presumably the PS3 should allow them to render real-time cutscenes that will look so good that FMV won't be required.
Actually, several mods can be run on Morrowind on the X-Box, provided you have a naughtily modified X-Box, so presumably when the 360 is finally modded, Oblivion players will be able to do the same. And hopefully Live's marketplace system should give scope for actually buying commercial expansion packs rather than having to wait for the whole game to be re-released, a la the X-Box 'Game of the Year' edition.
What is more likely to be an issue for the X-Box version is bugs. With the PC version, if you ran into a bug in Morrowind, you could access the cheat console and skip that quest, or spawn the missing items/enemies. On the X-Box, on the other hand, you couldn't do that. I had to play through the goddamn Spriggan mission five times before the missing Spriggan I had to kill finally spawned.
Core, Premium and HD Premium? Because I can't see MS *not* releasing an HD 360 at some point, with the HD drive built in. Granted, I don't have much interest in watching HD movies, but what concerns me more is if some games end up coming out on multiple discs on DVD, and one single HD. I hope at least MS makes the drive fit as neatly onto the 360 as the ill-fated Sega MegaCD did onto the Megadrive/Genesis.
.. just remove every single page from their records that is just a list of links. A hell of a lot of times I've gone looking for something only to get a page linking to another page linking to another page and so forth.
No, the real question is how on earth did anyone at Sony think creating a Star Wars MMO was ever a good idea? Yes, Everquest works to an extent, but that's pretty much a free-form RPG world built from the ground up. On the other hand, everyone knows Star Wars and consequently wants to be a hero - a Luke Skywalker or a Han Solo, and just applying the same sprawling structure to the game has resulted in one big mess. Plus there's the fact that there can be no semblence of contuity in the game.
What Sony should have done was have set the game in the Knights of the Old Republic time-period, which would have given them a great deal more freedom for a start, and actually allowed them to have huge Jedi vs Sith battles, and actually thought things through. Instead they just seem to have slapped the Star Wars licence on the Everquest engine and left it at that, resulting in a massive non-directional mess. I think the game's just too broken to be fixed by any changes Sony see fit to make.
Well, there's me for a start. I was actually more psyched about Star Wars: Battlefront than Halo 2. Why? Because I'd played the original both in single and multiplayer, and been disappointed by the weak single player game that had you exploring the same room over and over again as of the Forerunner Complex levels.
But I was actually pleasantly surprised by Halo 2's level design. It's a step up from the original in that the repetitive level design has gone out of the window, and while some areas look vaguely similar, there's none of the potato print levels seen in Halo. Where I did feel Halo 2 let me down was in the bait and switch pulled regards the game's location. The trailers seen so far, and the ads and so forth, all indicated the game would take place on Earth. Yet only the first few levels take place on Earth and then you're off to another world.
Multiplayer in Halo 2 is fun if you have Live - but if you can only play on a single box you're not getting the most out of it. AI controlled bots would have been a blast, but for reasons as yet unknown Bungie left those out. So as it stands, Halo 2's a good game, but it's not the mind-blowing experience you'd think from the hype.
Well, the latest regards Thief comes from a quote from the Eidos boards... 'We are working on a solution that is palatable to Microsoft and other related parties' - which sounds to me like they are looking at a Live patch for it. Hope they don't do this though, as I'm without Live. As for Ninja Gaiden, the content may end up on a Official X-Box Magazine coverdisk some time. I've certainly not noticed the camera being a swine or any other problems with the game.
Well, the company has done pretty well with the Silent Hill comics - 'Dying Inside'. The first two were superb, and stood alone as a story and the other two, while being a tad goth-heavy are pretty good as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys. Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years." - Terry Pratchett. So either things have changed, or the movie will end up being a sequel to Charlie and Chocolate Factory or something.. 'Hey, Wee Free Men? Those are kind of like Ooompah Loompahs, right?'
Traditionally, a lot of disc space on console releases have been taken up by full motion video scenes, which tend to be rendered in CGI rather than with the in-game engine, because fancy CGI workstations can do things the in-game engines for most games can't. The trouble is that FMV video takes up a hell of a lot of space on discs. Hopefully with the power of the 360, games producers should now have a platform where they don't need to resort to CGI for fancy looking effects. Resulting in less CGI FMV sequences and more scripted cutscenes which should take up less space.
.. is one of the most memorable occurances in virus history. An author wrote a book on viruses - the title of which shall remain nameless - and helpfully included the source code to an actual virus. Which led to dozens of variants appearing virtually overnight. Not the smartest thing to do.
Where am I supposed to get my huge-busted vampiric redheaded heroine fix now?
.. some poor sods in the UK who pre-ordered from Special Reserve, a UK online retailer, paid in full for their consoles. And the company then went bust, leaving those who hadn't paid via credit card £270 out of pocket.
Everyone knows that any self respecting Japanese launch line up does, by law, have to contain some sort of obscure and vaguely fetishistic dating game. So until I see mention of 'Go Go High School Love Game', I'm calling bullshit.
You start a game of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with $5000, but spend two thirds of that money on being serviced by prostitutes. A pedestrian carries an average of $20 - so how many pedestrians do you have to kill and rob in order to get back up to $5000?'
In the form of "Salmon Days" an online comedy show set in an IT department. Though I didn't think it really took off.
.. at 'six year old laughing at willy jokes' level.
.. in any discussion of the 360's use of an HD drive is the fear that the cutscenes in games will mean that games will have to come on multiple DVDs. Thing is, though, the power of the X-Box 360, and presumably the PS3 should allow them to render real-time cutscenes that will look so good that FMV won't be required.
Actually, several mods can be run on Morrowind on the X-Box, provided you have a naughtily modified X-Box, so presumably when the 360 is finally modded, Oblivion players will be able to do the same. And hopefully Live's marketplace system should give scope for actually buying commercial expansion packs rather than having to wait for the whole game to be re-released, a la the X-Box 'Game of the Year' edition. What is more likely to be an issue for the X-Box version is bugs. With the PC version, if you ran into a bug in Morrowind, you could access the cheat console and skip that quest, or spawn the missing items/enemies. On the X-Box, on the other hand, you couldn't do that. I had to play through the goddamn Spriggan mission five times before the missing Spriggan I had to kill finally spawned.
.. 'Uwe Boll's Springtime for Hitler - coming to a cinema near you soon.'
Core, Premium and HD Premium? Because I can't see MS *not* releasing an HD 360 at some point, with the HD drive built in. Granted, I don't have much interest in watching HD movies, but what concerns me more is if some games end up coming out on multiple discs on DVD, and one single HD. I hope at least MS makes the drive fit as neatly onto the 360 as the ill-fated Sega MegaCD did onto the Megadrive/Genesis.
.. has the guy's Live account been cancelled? If not, that'd be a story in itself.
... when Hulkamania runs wild on you? Oh, wait, WMF. Never mind.
... most people don't know their RSS from their elbow.
Now if only someone would have the foresight to install a wheelchair lift or entrance ramp in the Jedi temple.
Now if only someone would have the foresight to install a wheelchair lift or entrance ramp in the Jedi temple.
.. just remove every single page from their records that is just a list of links. A hell of a lot of times I've gone looking for something only to get a page linking to another page linking to another page and so forth.
No, the real question is how on earth did anyone at Sony think creating a Star Wars MMO was ever a good idea? Yes, Everquest works to an extent, but that's pretty much a free-form RPG world built from the ground up. On the other hand, everyone knows Star Wars and consequently wants to be a hero - a Luke Skywalker or a Han Solo, and just applying the same sprawling structure to the game has resulted in one big mess. Plus there's the fact that there can be no semblence of contuity in the game.
What Sony should have done was have set the game in the Knights of the Old Republic time-period, which would have given them a great deal more freedom for a start, and actually allowed them to have huge Jedi vs Sith battles, and actually thought things through. Instead they just seem to have slapped the Star Wars licence on the Everquest engine and left it at that, resulting in a massive non-directional mess. I think the game's just too broken to be fixed by any changes Sony see fit to make.
Well, there's me for a start. I was actually more psyched about Star Wars: Battlefront than Halo 2. Why? Because I'd played the original both in single and multiplayer, and been disappointed by the weak single player game that had you exploring the same room over and over again as of the Forerunner Complex levels. But I was actually pleasantly surprised by Halo 2's level design. It's a step up from the original in that the repetitive level design has gone out of the window, and while some areas look vaguely similar, there's none of the potato print levels seen in Halo. Where I did feel Halo 2 let me down was in the bait and switch pulled regards the game's location. The trailers seen so far, and the ads and so forth, all indicated the game would take place on Earth. Yet only the first few levels take place on Earth and then you're off to another world. Multiplayer in Halo 2 is fun if you have Live - but if you can only play on a single box you're not getting the most out of it. AI controlled bots would have been a blast, but for reasons as yet unknown Bungie left those out. So as it stands, Halo 2's a good game, but it's not the mind-blowing experience you'd think from the hype.
Just wait till they try doing the same with MGS2 and try fitting a whole 20 minute codec conversation into a single page.
Well, the latest regards Thief comes from a quote from the Eidos boards... 'We are working on a solution that is palatable to Microsoft and other related parties' - which sounds to me like they are looking at a Live patch for it. Hope they don't do this though, as I'm without Live. As for Ninja Gaiden, the content may end up on a Official X-Box Magazine coverdisk some time. I've certainly not noticed the camera being a swine or any other problems with the game.
Well, the company has done pretty well with the Silent Hill comics - 'Dying Inside'. The first two were superb, and stood alone as a story and the other two, while being a tad goth-heavy are pretty good as well.