A fair point, and one I'd personally be pushed to agree with. I subsequently played Halo 2 and think it's a pretty mediocre FPS with some decent gun-battles, but it seems to lack the punch of the original. Either way, that year also brought us Half-Life 2, which pissed on Halo from a great height.
However, the review was and is Piaras' opinion, and when you ask someone to write a review for you, you defer to their judgement:)
I can speak with first-hand experience on this matter. The contents of this post come from my experience as Sub Editor at Gamers Europe when Halo 2 was released.
The problem is that the first wave of reviews - the most important in terms of ensuring people believe the hype - are from publications/websites that received preferential treatment in the form of early code. In addition, the publishers embargo all reviews until a certain date, forcing all outlets to generally release their reviews at the same time unless they want to appear to be "beaten to the scoop". This also prevents would-be-critics (or at least unimaginative ones) from seeing
At Gamers Europe, we received some of the first batch of code. This came as something of a shock, as it was generally only the conglomerate-owned big guns (IGN, Gamespot etc.) who had this privilege. However, thanks to our links with Microsoft Ireland, we were included too - so we sent our man Piaras to review the game, and he and I made sure that we too were ready to go live by the embargo date. So that night, along with all the other sites posting their 9+/10 reviews, we released our review - a large volume of copy, tinged with disappointment that whilst the game was a decent FPS, it didn't scrape the heights of its predecessor. This was topped with a score of 8.0/10 - we only reviewed the single player campaign as the European Live servers weren't yet up; I'm still perplexed as to how other sites were able to test the game online...
Anyway, the fanboys went absolutely batshit (the writer received at least one death threat), Microsoft were not best pleased (but to their credit, have continued to send us code - the relationship we have remains essentially unchanged), and by the end of the day we found ourselves as the only review of Halo 2 online that offered any criticism.
So in short: there was no pay off that we observed - there was a launch party a few days after the reviews went live that journos were invited to, but this is pretty standard with big titles, and doesn't amount to a substantial bribe - nevertheless, given the difference between our views and that of every other publication, our man in attendance found it quite an uncomfortable experience.
What there was, was a co-ordinated schedule for reviewing the game, effectively set by the publisher. All the big, important reviews were concentrated into a single blast of hype a few days before the launch date, with no opinion seeping out beforehand. Looking at the first day sales figures, and your own conceptions of how the game was critically received, you can draw your own conclusions as to the effect that had on the gamebuying public.
[Apologies for the slight incoherence of this post - I'm currently feeling a little out of practice!]
Hate to be a pedant, but Venezuela's not a dictatorship.
There's certainly a lot of domestic opposition to Chavez, but there's a lot of domestic opposition to Bush too - the fact remains that both were democratically elected by the people.
Excellent German insultry there - I'll wear my "stupid-head" badge with pride:)
Sorry about the lack of correct spelling - an UK keyboard and lack of effort conspired to make me write a rough approximation using the English alphabet.
And just to cover my rather sweeping statement - I know Star Wars: Battlefront had an Xbox release, but with a maximum of 16 players over Live, it's more like "Star Wars: Skirmish", really:)
...because it is a great game, and all, but there's really not a lot here that's not possible on consoles. Indeed, the fact that the consoles don't offer a similar experience is entirely down to a dearth of similar games - and god knows Xbox Live could really do with a game that bridges the gap between traditional small, userhosted deathmatches (like Halo 2) and the large MMO style as well as Battlefield 2 does.
Before you start moaning about grievances that are 500 years old, I hope you understand that to avoid hypocricy, I'll therefore have to ask you to shut the FUCK UP about Christianity.
You're a troll, and/or a hateful moron. Please be fucking off.
If it is the TB test, then it's that - only a test. If the test ring doesn't come up red, you have to have a proper TB vaccination, with a nice normal needle.
I point you in the direction of the excellent Physics 2000, which is horribly patronising, but informative. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000 /quantumzone/p hotoelectric2.html
They even go on to do a bit of wave/particle duality at the end:)
That was the problem that sprung to my mind the first time I read the post - as I misread it as Hubble Constant. Now, the Hubble constant has changed a hell of a lot over the last 100 years, so I was going to moan about inaccuracy.
However, for Planck's constant I'm going to have to defer - I haven't got a clue:)
Plank's constant is a single Quanta of energy. If you subscribe to Quantum Theory (and most people do), then energy only comes in blocks of "Planck's Constant" joules, and thus it's the smallest possible quantity of energy.
The elementary particle of light, or photon, has energy of hf - that is, planck's constant multiplied by the frequency of the light. As we can use Einstein's equation E=mc^2 to link energy and mass, thus a quantity of light has mass.
I'll attempt to derive an equation for m now, it's probably wrong - I'm not a grand physicist, and I'm very tired:
E=hf v=f(lambda) E=mc^2
thus mc^2=h(v/(lambda)) the v and c cancel (as the velocity of light is c) mc= h/(lambda) m=h/(lambda)c
Slashdot Mirror
Apple's Market Cap is ~$50bn. Nintendo's is ~$27bn. Could Apple "buy them out"?
It was called Nathan Barley.
There's a reason there's a magazine called "Shoreditch Twat".
Not really - it's "nationalism", which is something entirely more scary, because 'them' and 'our' become plural.
On the contrary, I think Orwell would be disgusted by the total disregard for fellow humanity that you are suggesting is 'right'.
The communist ideal isn't state owned property - it's the dissolution of the state.
It's the transfer between private property and the shared ownership almost inevitable leads to that problem - but it's certainly not the 'ideal'.
I missed out the end of one paragraph: "...seeing the critical opinion of others."
I'm going back to university in a week, where I have to do twelve essays a term.
Shit.
A fair point, and one I'd personally be pushed to agree with. I subsequently played Halo 2 and think it's a pretty mediocre FPS with some decent gun-battles, but it seems to lack the punch of the original. Either way, that year also brought us Half-Life 2, which pissed on Halo from a great height.
:)
However, the review was and is Piaras' opinion, and when you ask someone to write a review for you, you defer to their judgement
I can speak with first-hand experience on this matter. The contents of this post come from my experience as Sub Editor at Gamers Europe when Halo 2 was released.
The problem is that the first wave of reviews - the most important in terms of ensuring people believe the hype - are from publications/websites that received preferential treatment in the form of early code. In addition, the publishers embargo all reviews until a certain date, forcing all outlets to generally release their reviews at the same time unless they want to appear to be "beaten to the scoop". This also prevents would-be-critics (or at least unimaginative ones) from seeing
At Gamers Europe, we received some of the first batch of code. This came as something of a shock, as it was generally only the conglomerate-owned big guns (IGN, Gamespot etc.) who had this privilege. However, thanks to our links with Microsoft Ireland, we were included too - so we sent our man Piaras to review the game, and he and I made sure that we too were ready to go live by the embargo date. So that night, along with all the other sites posting their 9+/10 reviews, we released our review - a large volume of copy, tinged with disappointment that whilst the game was a decent FPS, it didn't scrape the heights of its predecessor. This was topped with a score of 8.0/10 - we only reviewed the single player campaign as the European Live servers weren't yet up; I'm still perplexed as to how other sites were able to test the game online...
Anyway, the fanboys went absolutely batshit (the writer received at least one death threat), Microsoft were not best pleased (but to their credit, have continued to send us code - the relationship we have remains essentially unchanged), and by the end of the day we found ourselves as the only review of Halo 2 online that offered any criticism.
So in short: there was no pay off that we observed - there was a launch party a few days after the reviews went live that journos were invited to, but this is pretty standard with big titles, and doesn't amount to a substantial bribe - nevertheless, given the difference between our views and that of every other publication, our man in attendance found it quite an uncomfortable experience.
What there was, was a co-ordinated schedule for reviewing the game, effectively set by the publisher. All the big, important reviews were concentrated into a single blast of hype a few days before the launch date, with no opinion seeping out beforehand. Looking at the first day sales figures, and your own conceptions of how the game was critically received, you can draw your own conclusions as to the effect that had on the gamebuying public.
[Apologies for the slight incoherence of this post - I'm currently feeling a little out of practice!]
Hate to be a pedant, but Venezuela's not a dictatorship.
There's certainly a lot of domestic opposition to Chavez, but there's a lot of domestic opposition to Bush too - the fact remains that both were democratically elected by the people.
One of the tech demos the console was showcased with behind doors was Kuru Kuru Kururin.
Excellent German insultry there - I'll wear my "stupid-head" badge with pride :)
Sorry about the lack of correct spelling - an UK keyboard and lack of effort conspired to make me write a rough approximation using the English alphabet.
Jesus Christ, is this post a bloody propaganda speech or something? Slashdot - keeping the Nuremburg spirit alive!
And just to cover my rather sweeping statement - I know Star Wars: Battlefront had an Xbox release, but with a maximum of 16 players over Live, it's more like "Star Wars: Skirmish", really :)
...because it is a great game, and all, but there's really not a lot here that's not possible on consoles. Indeed, the fact that the consoles don't offer a similar experience is entirely down to a dearth of similar games - and god knows Xbox Live could really do with a game that bridges the gap between traditional small, userhosted deathmatches (like Halo 2) and the large MMO style as well as Battlefield 2 does.
Before you start moaning about grievances that are 500 years old, I hope you understand that to avoid hypocricy, I'll therefore have to ask you to shut the FUCK UP about Christianity.
You're a troll, and/or a hateful moron. Please be fucking off.
Just a quick pedant note: thisislondon are nothing to do with the BBC.
It's apparently to be based on the same IBN PPC970 processors as the Xbox 360, as well as a custom graphics chip from ATI.
So I'm thinking the two consoles could be very similar indeed...
X3: The Reunion is due a console release this year.
If it is the TB test, then it's that - only a test. If the test ring doesn't come up red, you have to have a proper TB vaccination, with a nice normal needle.
I point you in the direction of the excellent Physics 2000, which is horribly patronising, but informative.0 /quantumzone/p hotoelectric2.html
:)
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/200
They even go on to do a bit of wave/particle duality at the end
Js is the unit of impulse, by the way.
That was the problem that sprung to my mind the first time I read the post - as I misread it as Hubble Constant. Now, the Hubble constant has changed a hell of a lot over the last 100 years, so I was going to moan about inaccuracy.
:)
However, for Planck's constant I'm going to have to defer - I haven't got a clue
Plank's constant is a single Quanta of energy. If you subscribe to Quantum Theory (and most people do), then energy only comes in blocks of "Planck's Constant" joules, and thus it's the smallest possible quantity of energy.
The elementary particle of light, or photon, has energy of hf - that is, planck's constant multiplied by the frequency of the light. As we can use Einstein's equation E=mc^2 to link energy and mass, thus a quantity of light has mass.
I'll attempt to derive an equation for m now, it's probably wrong - I'm not a grand physicist, and I'm very tired:
E=hf
v=f(lambda)
E=mc^2
thus mc^2=h(v/(lambda))
the v and c cancel (as the velocity of light is c)
mc= h/(lambda)
m=h/(lambda)c
Planck's constant would be a very elegant solution - it being the smallest possible quantity of energy, and of course, energy == mass * c^2
Amazon referrer ID is still in that address - somebody's going to become very rich tonight...