kapowaz • Comments

• Apple iPad 4 review

• kapowaz 29/12/2012

  @el_pollo_diablo Apple doesn't number their iPad products, though; this is something tech journalists do themselves. Apple simply refer to this as the ‘iPad with Retina display’, and details such as 3rd generation vs 4th generation are distinctly played down. Reply 0

• Portal 2: Songs To Test By (Collector's Edition) due next month

• kapowaz 26/09/2012

  I was excited to hear that there may be more music from Portal 2 that hadn't yet been released, but from the looks of it Disc 4 is actually the original Portal soundtrack — it wasn't officially released, but the audio exists within the game data files with these exact titles. Reply 0

• Apple preparing pocket-sized iPad production - report

• kapowaz 05/07/2012

  @FireMonkey you're right, it wouldn't — Eurogamer appears to have taken it upon themselves to give it this name (maybe just so they can troll people with the old iPod model photo?) in spite of it really not being pocket-sized at all. All the rumours point to it using a display with the same pixel density as the 3GS (around 163 PPI), which would give you a 7.85" display of 1024x768. Reply +1

• kapowaz 05/07/2012

  Oh, like a[n] iPhone?

  Yeah, just like an iPhone!
  
  Reply -4

• Apple TV and gaming together "could be interesting" - Apple

• kapowaz 30/05/2012

  @Mr.Spo when you're talking about a marketplace for gamers that could theoretically number in the billions, delineations such as ‘traditional’ and ‘casual’ quickly become irrelevant. It's gaming — whether or not it may be to your tastes.
  
  I'd wager Apple would take more of an interest in ‘traditional’ gaming if the size of the market were anywhere near as large (and strongly aligned with their rapidly growing iOS devices). Reply -1

• kapowaz 30/05/2012

  @arcam that requires something attached to your TV to stream that content to. Right now, that's an Apple TV. In the future maybe an Apple ‘Television’ will do the job for you, but not everyone will buy such a thing. The Apple TV is probably going to exist as an end-point for some time. Reply 0

• Always Online: What Diablo 3's Battle.net Does Wrong

• kapowaz 18/05/2012

  I share the irritations of many about how Blizzard handled Diablo 3's launch. I wrote my thoughts up on the issue directly on the battle.net forums, but the complaints above don't hold water to me. The key is this line:
  

  The reason Blizzard needs a real-money auction house is because of the incredibly self-indulgent way that it develops its games

  This belies a complete lack of understanding of Blizzard's goals (and they are stated goals, if you look for them).
  
  Like many of us, Blizzard is hoping that Diablo 3 becomes a rich and enticing gaming ecosystem for a great many years to come. Diablo 2 had a great community, but ultimately it was undone by two things: the black market for items, and item duplication. Blizzard realises that some gamers will want to pay for items irrespective of whether or not the game supports such trading, and so unless they took steps to bring such trading inside of a safe system they had control over, it would happen through other channels. The RMAH is their solution to that problem: if you make it easy enough to trade with other players using real money, they won't need to seek out any illicit channels.
  
  But a market in which people trade for items with real money would be completely undone unless Blizzard also took steps to mitigate the other issue Diablo 2 suffered from: item duplication. If the client ran the entire game world locally but had a real money auction house it would only be a matter of time before the client's logic for creating items was reverse-engineered, and the market would be ruined. The only solution is to ensure that it remains on the server. Now, anyone who plays WoW knows that a server-side solution doesn't entirely prevent duplication, but it's the difference between it being difficult (and fixable) and it being trivial.
  
  These were Blizzard's desires and motives. Conspiracy theories about their attitude towards gamers, their intention to squeeze as much cash from the game as possible, or being part of Activision are just that: conspiracy theories. The design decisions that led them to what they built are legitimate, sound and probably the best option. Had they not been made, we'd probably be seeing another, different kind of editorial on Eurogamer within a couple of months, bemoaning the very problems these decisions address. Reply 0

• Alienware unveils its first small and cheap gaming PC, the X51

• kapowaz 18/01/2012

  I can't help feeling Alienware have missed a trick here. They're about 80% of the way towards building a PC in the same way Apple builds its machines. Imagine if instead of trying to build a small form-factor PC at a reasonable price (but with a reasonable array of upgradeable options) they'd built a small form-factor PC which couldn't be upgraded but instead had a bespoke, custom motherboard, SSD memory and GPU assembled on-board (a la the MacBook Air). Cut 30% of the things that most gamers don't need (7.1 audio, all the many different audio/video outputs) and thus cut costs.
  
  You could get something around the same price as a Mac mini, but with the performance to actually play modern games at decent framerates. Yes, you'd sacrifice upgradeability and expandibility, but if those are important to you then buy an ordinary gaming-oriented PC. But that might not even be an issue even if you do care about those things: the cost of the upgrade treadmill isn't trivial, and modern I/O (see: Thunderbolt) is getting fast enough that you could probably have almost everything external these days without sacrificing speed.
  
  So Alienware, the challenge for you is this: build a sub-£500 gaming PC that performs as well as a £1,000 one, in a small form factor. Stop trying to be all things to all men, and focus on being good at one thing. Reply +5

• Game stops selling old pre-owned 360s

• kapowaz 05/09/2011

  Personally I'd be just as concerned about buying a console that's been perma-banned from XBL as worrying about the possibility of failure... Reply +17

• Halo 4 Warthog in Forza 4

• kapowaz 26/08/2011

  A military vehicle with a row of fuel cans hanging on the back. Completely plausible! Reply +24

• Bungie Mobile not iOS exclusive forever

• kapowaz 15/06/2011

  Those of you complaining about this currently being iOS-only and not being on ‘the most ubiquitous mobile OS’ are ignoring one important point: this app targets only iOS 4. The overwhelming majority of Android devices are running older and outdated versions of Android (source: http://www.mobile88.com/news/read.asp?fi... ), so it's an unrealistic expectation that Bungie release this ‘for Android’ with equal priority to iOS, unless you assume they create a version targeting outdated versions of Android. Depending on what the app does, this might not even be technically possible. Reply +3

• Planescape: Torment re-released at last

• kapowaz 28/09/2010

  “It's compatible with all operating systems”
  
  All Windows operating systems, you mean. You got me all excited that it might have been given an OS X release, but no. Reply +2

• World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

• kapowaz 14/06/2010

  It didn't take long for people to go from commenting on how cool this looks to complaining about how WoW has stifled innovation within the MMO space. Oh puhlease. This makes about as much sense as suggesting that modern literature is all trite rubbish and it's Stephanie Meyer's fault...
  
  Out of all the details that have emerged about the new expansion, it's the really little ones like what form the Archeology profession will take that are intriguing to me. I recently read (elsewhere) that there will be new music for all the cities and vanilla zones, which is one question I'd desperately wanted an answer to. I can't wait for the beta's arrival and to (hopefully) get my hands dirty in it for myself. Reply 0

• F1 2010

• kapowaz 11/06/2010

  It looks very pretty, but there's one little detail with the cars in the rain that looks to be physics-bafflingly wrong: the little droplets of water on the bodywork. Yes, that's what they'd look like if the car was sat stationary, but at 200 MPH they sure as hell won't be sat there in little happy speckles as if nothing was happening. They'd be far more likely to blast off the bodywork in rivulets of water streaming backwards.
  
  I know, it's a small and inconsequential detail, but considering they went to the trouble of including them it seems a shame they've made them act in such an unrealistic way. Reply +2

• Portal, Torchlight for Mac Steam launch

• kapowaz 12/05/2010

  Welcome to an entirely new era of retarded commentary from the peanut gallery. It's like HOW IS BABBY FORMED as told by somebody with Asperger's. Reply +1

• Bungie introduces Reach's Noble Squad

• kapowaz 14/12/2009

  @Murton: on what basis are you concluding that this is “essentially another Halo 3 expansion”? There are several (admittedly subtle) clues within the trailer that would imply this isn't the same engine; something which confirms comments that were made by an alleged private beta tester with leaked images a few weeks ago.
  
  Given the advanced state of development this game is in (beta in less than 6 months?), another team must have been working on this concurrently with ODST, possibly even with new tech as part of their remit. This is supposedly Bungie's last Halo game, and we know that they're working on some other (still secret) non-Halo project. It seems unlikely that they're intending to use the Halo 3 engine for all these projects — they'll have to retire the old warhorse eventually. Reply +3

• First Halo Waypoint content discovered

• kapowaz 04/11/2009

  For those of you who don't know him, Louis Wu runs halo.bungie.org, probably the biggest Halo fan site out there. Reply +1

• Tecmo iPhone trio features girls

• kapowaz 26/06/2009

  As a general thing, could you warn us when you embed iTunes store links in your article? Please? Reply +4

• Dragonica

• kapowaz 13/05/2009

  I was going to sign up for the beta, but gPotato's account registration system is painfully bad; it wouldn't permit me to use an email alias with + in (as gmail allows), saying that it was invalid. I then typoed on correcting it, and now my preferred screen name and account name are both taken, with no way of correcting the mistake apart from waiting 14 days for the account to be deleted.
  
  Tip to people making MMOs: the user experience of your game is not the only part of making your game successful. If your account management system is web-based, and using it is about as fun as poking needles in your eyes, people won't use it. Reply 0

• Flood of info as WOW patch 3.1 hits test

• kapowaz 25/02/2009

  <em>Whine about how MMOs are crap</em>
  <em>Whine about how WoW players are nerds</em>
  <em>Whine from EVE Online player who can't understand why people play WoW instead of EVE</em>
  
  etc.
  
  But srsly...
  
  Patch 3.1 is shaping up to be very nice indeed. New bosses in Ulduar will give the hardcore guilds something else to brag about (they didn't like how easy Naxxramas was). The tournament seems like a really interesting idea, and gives most players yet something else to get involved with. Maps for dungeons is yet another nice touch which will end up in the great big bin of features marked <em>stuff you can't imagine not being there, yet somehow the game managed without</em>. Reply 0

• Lumines Supernova on PSN tomorrow

• kapowaz 04/02/2009

  iPhone version please.
  
  That is all. Reply 0

• EVE Online to drop "classic" graphics

• kapowaz 19/01/2009

  *RRRRRRRK*
  
  ...is the incorrect answer! Silly CCP. Have they learned nothing from WoW? One of the biggest reasons the Other Big MMO has been so successful is its inclusive approach to hardware requirements. Stripping out the old experience might make sense from a code maintenance point of view, but it'll hardly make it easy for your average punter to get into the game.
  
  That said, as bicky316 mentions, the game's initial experience is very overwhelming for the completely uninitiated. Maybe they're ringfencing their current subscriber base and don't intend to draw anybody else new in? Reply 0

• Valve to convert pirates into payers

• kapowaz 19/01/2009

  Way to ignorant, beckyh. Care to back up your gross oversimplification with evidence? Valve is actually echoing exactly what independent videogame developer Cliff Harris found out when he asked people to anonymously tell him why they pirate games last year. And of course you can compete with free; you just have to make it feel worth the price compared to any negative aspects of pirating a game. Usually these negative aspects are a stick, in the form of DRM or other irritating copy protection routines, but if more developers move towards a carrot approach (positive benefits of buying the game) then more customers will buy instead of pirate.
  
  Bravo to Valve for being honest with themselves about this. Too many businesses in this day and age would rather turn to legislation to prop up their business model in the face of adversity, when there might actually be a happy resolution for all concerned somewhere in the middle. Reply 0

• Killzone 2 - Hit-response

• kapowaz 13/01/2009

  Am I the only one who finds this video deeply disturbing? Yes, it's a game involving killing people, but should we really buy into the idea that by setting this activity to beautiful classical music that killing is in some way beautiful too?
  
  When Microsoft used Gary Jules' Mad World for their Gears of War adverts, they shyed away from the violence of the game and instead focused on the atmosphere of the world you were playing in, and the music and visuals were a perfect marriage. With this video, it feels more like something a sociopath would dream up; hey look at the pretty patterns of blood flying out of his head! Look how he dances around whilst on fire! Awesome! Reply 0

• First Old Republic footage shown

• kapowaz 15/12/2008

  So very, very little to see there sadly. I applaud them for aiming for a stylised reality look but I don't think they've quite got it nailed; in an MMO you're not zoomed into the character most of the time, so stylised facial features aren't so apparent — the stylism has to extend into the design of the player models and geometry of the scenery too otherwise it still looks like it's pseudo-realism. I can't help but feel that the Star Wars license is more of a hinderance than an enabler for an MMO... Reply 0