ChaosDent

I can't say that I haven't played and enjoyed at least a few games from all of the listed genres and the additional genres mentioned in the discussion. I will say that the action genres, shooters and brawlers in particular are played out and rank far below most other game types in my interest level. It's too bad that they are still the vast majority of big games released these days.

There is no way to override the mobile layout now. They are using a CSS technique to alter the site layout depending on how wide your browser window is. There are a lot of benefits to this, but it does limit the site's ability to override these automatic layout changes.

For all intents and purposes though, it is the same site. You should be able to access all the content from the mobile view, but perhaps with a little less detail (e.g. the forum grid).

The on site video experience is so much improved. Flash playback with accelerated smoothing again, pinning is nice, embiggen and debiggen don't reload the player, it goes truly fullscreen in Linux, and a maximize to window mode that effectively fullscreens the player while avoiding OS X's awful multi-monitor fullscreen implementation.

The video experience is not great on Android. Video does not play at all on Firefox for Android, which did work fine using HTML5 on the old site. Android Browser works but the native video playback UI is busted. Chrome for Android works pretty well, except the video canvas pauses on touch, which it should not do. Tapping the video canvas should be ignored because that is used to bring up the native UI controls. Tested on a Galaxy Nexus and a Nexus 7.

Dinner out with family, then board games, then family time again until Midnight.

@DoctorWelch said:

@crusader8463 said:

@Chavtheworld said:

@DoctorWelch said:

Where can you even buy another one of those things? The ones on Amazon are all knock offs.

They were discontinued I believe.

Which is insane.

Nothing insane about it. Microsoft realized they could make more money forcing people to buy a whole new wired controller.

The problem with this while thing is I want one of those new controllers to use with my PC, but they don't make those things wired and they don't sell dongles. So, Microsoft basically made their controller better, but then prevent you from using it on a PC where you might actually use the D-Pad.

It is a bit technical, I think a Dual Shock 3 with MotionJoy is a better solution for the most part these days. You have better quality control on the analog sticks than the old Xbox 360 wired controllers (the sticks on mine are loose and have dead-zone problems in some games) and a far superior D-Pad. MotionJoy is now signed for Windows so it installs easily and emulates X-Input perfectly. You can use a standard USB cable which comes with the PS3, or with a little research dedicate most $15 Bluetooth controllers to pair wirelessly.

I would recommend trying to get the Xbox wireless working only if you already have an Xbox 360 but not a PS3. Even one of those knock-off dongles will be cheaper than a new Dual Shock 3. It seems like they probably do work, but are more of a hassle to set up than MotionJoy.

@JoeyRavn said:

The console being open to the player has been available since... well, a fucking long time. It's not something that Skyrim invented. When you're using mods and need to change settings on the fly to see how they work or what is wrong with them, the console is a blessing.

The problem is not the console, but what the player does with it. Learn to control yourself and don't cheat if you'll feel bad about it.

The first game I remember seeing a console in is Quake. Earlier games in the FPS genre at least tended to put debug features in as cheat codes you would just key in. Developers need these features somewhere to debug production code, and if they want to encourage modders it makes sense to expose them to users.

Ultimately in a single player sandbox game you should do whatever you think is fun. The tools are available to break or change the rules to suit your taste and you aren't hurting anyone else by doing so, so have at it.

Independent games on PC, console, the web and touch devices are an extremely diverse and interesting universe, some of which are heavily tied to story but not all of it (or even most of it).

Big budget action games, which are essentially similar to each other, are increasingly focusing on story and appearance to distinguish themselves because these are less risky and more predictable than experimenting with game design.

It looks like a typical small form factor PC to me, my guess is using an AMD APU. You don't need 6 1/8" audio jacks and 4 display outputs (2 DVI, 1 HDMI and 1 Display Port maybe?) for a living room streaming box.

I only subscribe to Ars, Tested and Anandtech among the general tech sites, and even those three are maybe too many for me. I also subscribe to a ton of the primary sources that most of these tech bloggers repost from and I subscribe to a few more specialized sites like Groklaw, the EFF for a more nuanced view on software law than Ars provides.