Calgon • Comments
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Animal Crossing: New Leaf review
Thanks much.
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The Last of Us review
Journey's end.
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USgamer.net covers the best in video gaming from an American perspective. Check it out!
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Does Animal Crossing Stress Anyone Else Out?
Not sure if she's doing it wrong, Olivia questions whether or not Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a management sim blessing or a holy-crap-there-so-much-to-do-and-I-want-the-best-town-ever-right-now time-sink curse.
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The Witcher 3 Opens Its World for a Wild Hunt
CD Projekt Red lets a neophyte take a look at the latest Witcher title.
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In Which Lavish Praise is Heaped Upon Two Old Game Boy Color Re-Releases
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Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara Review
A review of Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara.
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Gender is Carefully Balanced in The Last of Us
Gender equality in video games is an important talking point in our community. With this in mind, Olivia takes a look at how well Naughty Dog handles gender roles in The Last of Us. Warning, this article contains spoilers.
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Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Launches on Steam
Satirical role-playing game makes its way to Steam for PC and Mac... but beware of the microtransactions!
War never changes
I may even build a new PC till things settle down and come down to the right prices for the mainstream. Also people have been high and mighty about piracy ruining the industry for years with so much money at stake and dev houses going bust maybe it is time for us at least see how it pans out(something does have to change there). It's a big risk for MS but how come everyone (especially Eurogamer) has only looked at it from the skeptical angle, have you thought about reasons why it could be good for gaming? If it does lead to more people actually buying the games overall, more risks can be taken, bigger budgets etc, I really think if Sony had have tried anything along the lines of this these very SHILLS on Eurogamer(lost all respect for the staff, no integrity - consistent only in their double standards between MS and Sony) would have written an entirely different piece convincing us Sony is trying to save gaming or make it better for developers.
People seem to bang on about how great steam is, which is pretty much what MS are attempting to duplicate in console format pretty much, so I will try that out on my new rig and find out if people are overreacting or not about Xbox One.
The final thing to learn from E3 for me was to do with this website itself, its time for me to stop reading it I think they've reached a new low to the point where they are no longer attempting to hide their bias and double standards... everyone who has found themselves reading through many of these articles and saying "hang on but that applies to sony too" many times in each of them is spot on! Eurogamer Off!
edit: To clarify since I'm not going to bother replying to anyone anyway. I've not argued with his points(most of them are fair some of them we cannot be sure of yet) I've pointed out the double standards and they did this as people have rightly pointed out at the last E3... it crops up again and again on this website. I'm not sure which I'm buying yet and as I've said it wont be day one. To anyone getting uppity about the people pointing this out, if these companies that take your money for games and consoles are rightly open to criticism why should a website that makes money from the very same people be above reproach? Yes its his own analysis but frankly I dont want opinions with double standards forced down my neck so to speak, did I have to read it? No but I clicked on what I hoped would be a fair analysis, maybe learn a few new things but ended up spotting big gaps and inconsistencies. Thats precisely the point Im finding it so often to the point where I dont feel the need to read much of what is said here anymore, just one reader expressing his opinion to Eurogamer - they believe things and seriously gone down hill, not worth getting upset about *looks at post below*. Reply +3
Xbox One: developers have their say on specs, self-publishing and TV TV TV
Not to mention we don't even know how much they will cost yet. I'm not even close to deciding what I will get, maybe Xbox One maybe PS4... maybe both at some point? Maybe neither since the hardware choices mean if enough games make it over to PC it might be smarter just building your own gaming system(with better specs) and maybe picking up the cheaper slim models for the exclusives you missed later. Reply -1
Actually wait let me get this straight... you dont think the people I mentioned are still playing Kinect to this day for the fitness and dancing games?(some people do like these games) They are bloody good for the people who like them, reviews DO back that up.
Looking at the above points does me not personally having played them have any relevance? Does you having "tried more games than most" have any relevance? They've already found games they like so no it doesn't because they are getting their moneys worth since they really do enjoy those games(and for what they are I dont know what more you were expecting the reviews back this up too). It did find a market... it wasn't a waste of money in everyones eyes. Im not disputing that it was a waste of money for you or trying to tell you what to like but you are not everyone and this sites population isn't necessarily a reflection on the rest of the UK/Europe.
I am giving Kinect2 a chance because I make my own mind up(thats not to say it hasn't got to convince me, but it did look pretty fast and responsive), theres too much bashing of Kinect, even negging people(saddest form of censorship lol) for saying anything remotely positive about it(which was my point plenty of people do like it, but they arent the types who would come and bash or defend things on a gaming site but since there is a market for them it wasnt a complete failure). Like I said too many people trying to speak for everyone on this site and its not the way to be. Reply -8
As for the amount of band wagon jumping I see among the gaming sites these days I'm just reminded of this(especially when it comes to tech talk)
Reply -8
The people who I do know that bought Kinect love it to this day(mainly women... dancing and fitness games, so it wasn't the complete failure some people like to believe because it did find a market)Kinect1 needed more space than I had to play it for any reasonable amount of time so I never bought one. The concept was good but it wasnt accurate enough yet(atleast not for the type of things that would have a chance of swaying hardcore gamers) hence the most successful games were ones that involved big gestures, dancing, exercise etc(and they did it well to be fair)... Kinect2 could well deliver on that vision they had though.
We dont know enough about Kinect2 yet or the games do we? It sounds and looks much improved so far though to me and I'm actually interested in seeing how far they've taken it and what could be done with it in games.
Some of us dont just jump on every hate or like band wagon, we look, observe and decide for ourselves when we are ready. Reply -8
Kinect2 did look good to me, it looks accurate enough to track subtle movements which means sitting down to play... no need for the geeks who hate kinect to flap their bingo wings in a panic over it just yet then. Reply -7
Having said that, this quote has me thinking MS have been ready to let Sony take the most powerful crown from day one:
Its a bit of a shame that they are using the same chip makers, the only thing either side can do is outspend to gain an advantage now it seems, console hardware is becoming less unique(it used to be innovative because of the restrictions) but I suppose the developers will welcome that.
I'm glad to see others noticing a trend for influencing negativity towards all that is MS/Xbox on Eurogamer but cast your minds back and this is noting new because they did this at the start of last generation too. They fed everyone Sony propaganda, bought into the target renders... pretty much told us how PS3 would blow Xbox360 away. They are quick to question MS and always apologetic for Sony... disagree? Remember that article about "Xbox 360 uses this much power... bad for the environment as well as way less powerful!" (ok that wasnt the title but its how they came across, over the months before and during launch) when it was later found that PS3 actually used MORE power than 360, did they update that article or add another one related to it? No that would make Sony look bad wouldn't it, they couldn't possibly do that.
Sort it out Eurogamer! Some of us --and I can see Im not the only one with the sense to see through it-- are noticing these double standards and it's making people doubt the very fabric of your collective integrity. Reply -14
Microsoft reveals Xbox One, due worldwide this year
We know Sony always overhype what their hardware can do from Playstation to PS3, why would PS4 be any different?
I've leaned away from Sony in the past just because of the hipster image(look at some of the cheerleaders here... cringe worthy is not the word) and empty promises but I will give PS4 a fair chance(it shouldnt really matter having the same product as some annoying people I guess). I dont care what anyone says Kinect 2 might actually sway me depending on how far they've taken it(it looked seriously fast in that demo).
This gen I think I'm going to wait till after launch regardless of what we hear before it, so E3 will have no baring either and I dont think it will be any clearer even after it who's the "winner". Reply -7
Kinect Star Wars Review
Is it Microsofts fault? NO!
Is it Kinects fault? Try and reason that all you like but you have no clue about the technology if you do, most of you by the sounds of it dont know the first thing about it. Answer is NO!
Are all Kinect games as shit as you try and make out? NO! We all know this so the way you try and keep it up is just pathetic. Im not in a rush to buy kinect but there are a few now that I'd actually like to play myself. Not as many games as their should be but thats down to the devs.
Is the Technology behind Kinect worthless? No it pisses on the wii-mote and the Move from a great height from technological standpoint, they used existing tech in an innovative way, Kinect is a different beast. This isnt the mega-cd or the eyetoy either or lets face it a cd player and a webcam neither of which were anything you couldnt buy for a pc already, nothing unique about their hardware or software, the same cannot be said about Kinect(the efforts people have gone to with Kinect hacks PC side already is evidence enough).
Personally I think MS should have launched the hardware first on the PC and buisness markets for none gaming purposes, recoup some of the R&D costs there and wait for a time when they could bring out a more refined version for Gaming purposes without selling at a loss. Gamers are on the whole stubborn and pedantic little creatures, the damage has probably already been done from the looks of it here, if they have their minds set against something, good luck changing it no matter what you accomplish(they wont even look at the games in most cases, in their minds they "just know".). Having said that, they have shifted quite alot of them so who knows how much they have made back.
I think the problem was MS forgot who they are dealing with, I give them credit for being ambitious enough to launch right away but clearly there was too much that they had to get right BEFORE they launch it as a gaming device where speed and accuracy are paramount.
The accuracy(exagerated by the haters but could be better and even needs to be for the hardcore market), speed/lag(again exagerated), playing distances, sitting down to play naturally probably can and will be rectified with further hardware revisions. I'd say if they do release a successor to Kinect, that WILL be the one they should have launched with in the first place.
Do I want to still use a controller? Yes for some games I will probably always prefer that but I think if MS or more accurately a developer can show me a better and more natural way of doing things in certain types of games I'm all for it. I doubt they would make the mistake of forcing Kinect like some of you are scared of, the best way would be to offer both control methods and actually prove the other way is better and then let gamers join of their own accord. Reply -2
343 confirms Halo 4 is native 720p
If anyone is qualified on Xbox360 to say which game has the best engine or graphics its Corrinne Yu IMO(she's a female John Carmack, take a look at the link below and you will see what I mean). Wasn't she part of the XNA team who had to take a look at other peoples game engines and sometimes help them out if they were having performance issues? She's also given quite a few developer presentations and interviews if you look around(the only dev who has bothered to go into any detail on what they do know about the XCPU and what room for improvement there is ect). So if she is saying that this engine/game is the business, then I'm quite looking forward to seeing what they've got there.
Recent interview with Corrinne Yu Principal Engine Architect at Microsoft Games, “Best in Engineering" award winner at GDC 2009
Reach was pretty impressive for the most part, if you are trying to say it wasn't then clearly you've not seen enough of what it had to offer(probably just read online "sub HD" and wrote it off) and as far as performance issues went, I've got to say it must be dependent on the difficulty setting because it seemed handle everything that was thrown at it rather well. I cant remember it tearing, and although it did drop frames it was nothing anywhere near "coming to a crawl"(and the times that it did were that hectic that it was easy to look past it). Reply 0
First in-game Halo 4 screenshots revealed
Sony makes gargantuan £1.3 billion loss during third quarter
Maybe they just didnt agree with a lot of what you said, you claimed you knew that the deflated Yen was the reason(it will have an effect but not to this extent surely you dont believe that), but most sources on the subject of Nintendos losses point at a declining handheld market which has been a big earner for them(the rise in smart phones and cheap smart phone games being the culprit) as for the natural disasters that would actually have an effect I agree but from their Japan sales only.
Even looking closely at the numbers(although probably not as bad as it first appears taking the figures here at face value) you can't safely assume "all is well" with Sony and the Playstation business on the whole. It doesn't look quite to be going quite as smooth as you seemed to be trying to say is all, although I do fully expect to see a PS4 to be fair.
edited: For clarity and typos... 5times. Thats all from me here anyway found this news surprising but Im sure Sony will handle it some way or another. Reply +2
Ah good old Vizzini spouting SDF damage control and technical dribble since 2006(sometimes seems to know what he's talking about, others when he's really reaching because he's blinded by his sheer bias for Sony... not so much lol).
P.S: I thought about leaving a taunt to the aggressive PS3fanboys which have plagued the internet over the years and done Sony's image no favours but... oh dear I just commented about them didn't I, well I will stop there, that's all from me on that. :0 Reply +3
Next Xbox GPU based on £50 Radeon HD 6670 card - report
Aside from the disasterous decision to skimp on testing to get it out for the christmas run-in which has cost them over a billion(I wonder what would have happened had they recognised how big the fault was, delayed it and shipped with something closer to the Elite machines from the start sometimes) the rest of what they did was a pretty damn big success in many regards. I think it would be a mistake to try and out Nintendo, Nintendo(although they can always try and capture some of that market by all means) and a step back for them since they'd lose a lot of their existing fanbase and lets face it, although its taken a lot of time and money to get this far they have come a long way.
I could be wrong but Im thinking this is bogus for now, although he could have been guessing rather than making an informed estimation Carmack said he expects something more in the way of 10x more powerful overall for the next consoles from Sony and MS, this would be half that. Reply 0
Face-Off: Battlefield 3
MS: Xbox exclusive games, DLC "critical"
I will never have sympathy for Sony after the tricks they pulled when they entered the market and since MS entered the market its Sony who have suffered like Sega did when they entered, Nintendo seem to be doing more than fine(I don't see many real Nintendo fans with an Axe to grind about MS these days oddly enough), MS have done a lot of good, they've made Sony and Nintendo push harder than they ever would have done before(prices, technology, on-line gaming... you really think PS3 on-line would exist in the form it does now without MS' influence? No way would they have invested so much this soon without it) .
I just love the hypocrisy of it all though, when you get self righteous Sony fanboys with such an unjust sense of entitlement, like Sony own gaming and Sony winning any little battle fills them with some sort of accomplishment for themselves. I do think MS need more exclusive games but they are only a plus point if they are genuinely good games, I've seen people play some shit over the years and pretend its good just because its exclusive, just because they feel like they are getting something other people aren't. This includes adults who are behaving like this, its all so tedious and childish... the more I see it in people the more I think its maybe time to find another hobby for grown ups(its no wonder none gamers share that view looking at some of the "Adult" gamers here and on the other popular gaming sites) or maybe just stop visiting gaming sites so I can forget how messed up the core audience can be. Reply +2
Digital Foundry vs. E3: Microsoft
PS3s CELL(the one that has relevance here... ) has been bested by modern PC CPUs easily for gaming performance(anyone suggesting otherwise is out of their minds and loses all credibility), add to that the fact that CELLs main strength is actually done better on GPUs for the modern PC side of things(they do a much better job of it... which is we you see things that even with the ram PS3 would have no hope of achieving) and you start to sound like you dont have an Effing clue what you are talking about... again. ;)
"Triangle throughput of ~450M hard limited in the Xenos and still unconfirmed in the RSX by only vertex processing figures listed at 1.1billion, and debated where ~1.09billion polys (via optimised quads) or ~360million (via unoptimised polys using 3 independent vertices). "
As for this, Triangle "set up" Xenos: 500Million RSX: 250Million(from the similarities it shares with the G70 core and the fact that we have been given no reason to beleive different... oh but Sony didnt come out and say it so its unconfirmed, wonder why hmmm ;)... ), also I told you last time Xenos has the potential to trounce RSX in Verticle performance(think ALU allocation within a unified shader architecture... 1.1billion? try 6.0billion with all Xenos' 48ALUs and lets not forget texture and vertex fetch if we are moving away from raw theoretical limits ;)...), you've just used common marketing ploys GPU Makers have used for ages, strips, quads and meshes... both GPUs figure's can be manipulated by them in the exact same ways. You've also glossed over vertex and texture fetch and how the two differ in that regard, heres a hint Xenos comes out best there. Even without telling you that its pretty obvious looking at cross platform that 360 handles high poly environments better than PS3, but naturally you will point to the devs and everything but the RSXs ability to handle high poly counts as the reason for it. Also Xenos has something much more useful than any texture format you care to mention on RSX and thats CUSTOM texture formats if you had even bothered to look into that you'd know theres room to explore there for 360 devs(yet I think MS just dont invest much in first party anymore so thats a shame as they should lead the way as Sony first party do), combined with the tesselator, added to the fact that Xenos' ALUs process everything internally at FP32( or128-bit floating point before you roll that out as if PS3 is the only console that can manage it again) ... I know which I would rather have and its certainly not an aged texture format that RSX cant really do much with anyway.
As for your tripple buffering at 30FPS "win" for the PS3, and FP16 HDR(which you forgot to trumpet) the only reason for this is all to do with the 10MB eDram framebuffer(nothing to do with what the ALUs can handle or how well), PS3 devs themselves would choose the 10mb eDrams benifits over tripple buffering and FP16 HDR(which isnt even noticably better than 360s FP10 if handled right... some devs have shown this already). Its quite simple theres too many benifits for fitting the framebuffer into the edram than doing it any other way, they arent really needed if the engine itself is up to scratch, so for exclusives or 360 led games its a none issue.
Really Vizzini you've never convinced me you are an expert in any area, not everthing you write is BS but that could easily be cut and paste and it doesnt always mean you understand it. I just find you a little desperate to impress and like I said eager to convince yourself you know the PS3 is significantly more powerful, Im pretty sure it isnt myself and I beleive I know what Im talking about more than you do personally so theres not much more to say to each other. Reply +1
He just doesnt understand Gamma Correction in regards to games, cross platform it can be problem yes(if the 360 is lead PS3 could end up with gamma that looks off and vice versa) and the hardwired gamma correction curve isnt as close to the real SRGB curve as it could be(none of them are 100percent accurate btw, nobody will have a gaming display that is even close either, this isnt photography we are dealing with) but if you know this from the beginning you will not get crushed blacks at the end because you will change your assets accordingly so for exclusives or 360 led titles theres no excuses for the gamma not being how the artists intentended it to be(plenty of examples to show crushed blacks and what not are a product of lazy development on 360, theres no excuse for it in this day and age).
As for the rest of what he said... I didnt even waste my time reading it, he's just trying to convince himself more than anyone else IMO(thats what it looks like to me, the obsessive nature and consistency of his ramblings), that PS3 is on another level to 360 where it clearly isn't(the time for excuses is over, CELL can no longer be considered new or misunderstood, certainly not to the big names in the game, get over it and just enjoy your games ffs, it doesnt really matter that much, even though you are wrong sorry ;)..), ask any respected 3rd party guru(Carmack being arguably the most respected and experienced Game Engine Architects out there).
In closing, its time you CELL worshipers got a new hobby, its old hat now, plus how can you care that much when theres PC games out now with a level of fidelity and richness that no console out now has a hope of replicating with any accuracy. Reply -1
Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3: Round 30
There's always bias thats usually the whole point of them mentioning they own more than one console in the first place, take a look at some of the people who have mentioned that here from both sides, they just use it to inflate the value of their own opinion ie "anyone who disagree's with me which is best, is clearly wrong and cant possibly have played both... must be a Xbot/Sony fanboy" I find it hilarious they actually beleive that though, just stop trying to find reason in the majority of vocal gamers in general is the best advice I think.
Edit: @BuckEntropy- Just read that, one of the best posts here in a long time, couldnt agree more... its just too hard to swallow for some even after all this time. Which explains the sentiment of "Everybody hates RL" and "anyone who prefers that shitbox 360 is obviously a blinkered Xbot" thats been lingering for a while now. Im glad RL has actually continued how he started(just telling it how it is with the facts and what he makes of it all) and just let all the "hate" go over his head, I can respect people like that(I've noticed a that some have taken to cherrypicking the facts now its a bit closer... bits from DF and bits from lense of truth but they are both worthless sources when it suits them lol). Reply +1