I have over 1,100 posts to forums/videos/etc. and I have never cussed in any of them. I don't really know why, but I just haven't. I don't really cuss in general either. It's kinda like in MMO's where people go out of their way to type cuss words, but then at other times they type stuff like, "R U doin the HM FP 2nite"? They will type lengthy cuss words out all spelled properly, but then purposefully misspell words. I think it kind of defeats the purpose of cussing if you are dropping F-Bombs all the time.
Listening to the Day 4 Deliberations Podcast found here: http://www.giantbomb.com/podcast/?podcast_id=200 (they start talking specifically about it at 23:45) I noticed a something that they are criticizing for their 2010 Worst Trend in Games as something that GiantBomb is guilty of themselves: Social Networking in gaming and how it is a bad trend in gaming. GiantBomb does this with facebook and achievements for the site. They talk for a few minutes about how it sucks that you can get achievements for certain games by getting friends to play a game by using facebook. They talk about how it is unabashed advertising for games by spamming your friends facebook. GiantBomb does this as well though by giving us a way to update our status on fb by letting our friends know we get certain achievements on games. GB does exactly the same thing it is criticizing and that seems to me as hypocrisy.
Granted, I don't get quest points(yet) for clicking the facebook update when I am playing a game to let my friends know when I earn those achievements on the site, but isn't it only a matter of time before that becomes one of the Quests? I think it is terrible in all forms, and I think the Staff needs to stop calling the kettle black. At least it didn't win the top honor for Worst Trend in Gaming, but still, it is pretty lame that they didn't catch the fact that they are guilty of it as well as the game devs that make the games that contain the very thing they are saying make the games worse.
It's bad enough that I get updates on fb that my friend just beat his friends at whatever facebook game, but now we have real games that do it and we have my fave gaming site that does it, yet they don't call themselves out on it. Ryan, Jeff, Vinny and Brad put Socially networked gaming on notice and I am going to do the same thing to GiantBomb: You are on notice gentlemen!
I was really stoked when I saw the trailer for Bethesda's latest in the Elder Scrolls franchise: Skyrim. Then I got immediately skeptical. I remember the same two dungeon skins that were rehashed for every dungeon in Oblivion. I remember the awful bugs and beefy specs that Oblivion wanted when I bought the CE on day one for my PC(it was rated "T" for Teen til they had to change it to "M". I am stoked to have that original box). The character animations were really clunky as well as having a pretty terrible combat system.
The setting and story for Oblivion was the game and that speaks highly of how gifted the people at Bethesda that take care of those parts of a game are. Here's to hoping they take a page from the people that made Demons' Souls when revamping combat. Skyrim is coming out in 2011 and gone should be the days of swinging my sword at a rat 10 times before I kill it. I want to plunge a well timed sword thrust into the belly of a foe and watch him grimace and crumple to the floor this time around. I want a streamlined inventory system that I don't have to download from a user 5 months after the game comes out. I want a game that is polished and closer to 95% free of bugs than 75% free of bugs.
I really doubt that we will see Skyrim on its supposed release date but I will keep my fingers crossed. This time around though, I am waiting to read reviews. New Vegas, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 have shown me that Bethesda is willing to put games out that are wallowing in glitches and frustrating crash/locks. Here's to hoping they fix that. I used to be an unabashed fanboy of the TES series, but this isn't 2002-2007 anymore and I expect more from a AAA developer at this point in time.
With the upcoming release of Sony's new motion sensing controller this month and Microsoft's release of their controller free control scheme in the form of the Kinect(November); I figured now would be an apt time to discuss what some journalists have diplomatically danced around. That topic: How far away do you need to be from either device for them to work properly? Of the meager information I could find in any review,http://reviews.cnet.com/game-controllers/sony-playstation-move-starter/4505-3146_7-34167419.html, that distance is agreed upon to be 8 feet(Vinny Caravella of GiantBomb and Morgan Webb of G4TV also report this distance)for someone who is 6' tall. Those same journalists reporting the distances also say that they probably won't buy this because their apartments don't have that kind of room. While 8' doesn't seem like a lot, it adds up when you have your entertainment system, your couch, and a coffee table in the room. That space gets eaten up very quickly.
Also interesting were the similarities between Justin Calvert's(GameSpot) andDana Vinson's(G4TV) reviews of Sports Champions. Here is what the both said at the end of their reviews respectively: Justin: "Sports Champions is undoubtedly one of the strongest launch offerings for the PlayStation Move hardware." Dana Vinson echoes his sentiments: "Sports Championsis one of the strongest launch titles for the PlayStation Move and illustrates the potential of the Move quite well." The problem? Neither review score is very overwhelming. GameSpot gave Sports Champions a 7.5/10 and G4 gave it 3 stars out of 5. Both reviewers agreed that Sports Champions was the "Strongest launch title for the Move". For being "the strongest title at launch", the review scores certainly don't seem to offer any hope that the other games coming out for the Move will offer us anything better. Are these types of scores to be expected from launch titles or are they lackluster? Do you have the amount of space needed to have one of either of these control schemes? If so, are you a day 1 consumer of either the Kinect or PSMove, or are you taking a "pass" on this technology? What does this mean going forward for the industry as a whole if these products don't offer very promising returns financially for either company?
GB members shelled out $25,000 so the GB staff could talk about games on the GiantBombCast like you do with your friends but receive no money for. which leads me to believe that the GB Profie Pic Medal=Suckerz.
I can't believe that The Old Republic is going to have Jedi/Sith dedicated healers. Star Wars has been going into the toilet for 10 years now and is showing no signs of it getting any better. Who would actually want to play a Sith Healer?
So the PSMove got me thinking. $50 for the wand, $30 for the controller part and more for the eye toy. doesn't even include a game. If you live in a house where multiple people want to play at a time it's even more. this doesnt seem right to me.
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