Rayeth

I think the general issue with the Apple stories specifically is that when there is big tech news (which this certainly qualifies as), there are many other sites that provide that information and are dedicated solely to that info (sites like Engadget or the like). Giantbomb has that information on the periphery and it pretty much only ever pops onto the front pages once or twice a year whenever something big in tech happens, generally the Apple event yearly and 1 or 2 other times. So it isn't really a big deal, and clearly almost everyone at Giant Bomb loves these events since they have been putting them on the site for years now. It's almost expected that there would be some kind of story. I mean given that Brad, Jeff and Patrick all basically live tweeted the thing, clearly it was a big deal for the GB crew. I personally don't care about it at all (since my contract on my Android phone isn't up for another year), but then again I don't run a personality driven website that puts up video and news stories based on my tastes. GB does, so it makes sense this gets covered at some point. It's interesting to be informed about the greater world of tech, but I don't really come here for that. There are websites who generally have better and more in depth info on those topics and I go there to get them. All of that is fine, and (hopefully) the way it should be.

@patrickklepek

If the ads get more "serious" and less like the Small Business man one, I'll eventually stop. The hulu+ one this week is a good example of what I'm NOT looking for in ads. But overall, I generally listen more often than not.

After the shit heap that was DA:2 I will never pre-order an EA game ever again.

I don't care what bullshit pre-order items or DLC or whatever they add. That game stole $60 from me and then shit all over my computer with its terribleness. I'll consider picking up this game after reviews are out and even then maybe I'll just wait until the inevitable GOTY edition that includes all the DLC.

Not really sure how there can be a King's Quest game without Roberta Williams involved. I hope it ends up good, but that franchise really felt like it was her thing.

Sort of the same feeling with Geometry Wars too. No Stephen Cakebread makes it feel like a cash grab.

The no +1 rule sounds like this is a recipe for awkwardness. I can understand why it is in place but I certainly wouldn't want to attend any kind of event run like that. (Not that I'm going to PAX anyhow) Still, glad they are trying to get as many members in as possible. Good stuff guys, have fun everyone going to the event.

ORRRRRRRR...

Nintendo of America was full of silly people during this time and they did a bunch of stuff without Japan's approval in the name of "localizing for the Western market". You know, things like making some weird Doki Doki Panic game into Super Mario Bros. 2 or the like.

@patrickklepek Games like this, and a lot of other mobile games make me think that we should probably have a lot more government regulation in the games industry. Gambling-like and addiction fueled games like this get a pass, but god forbid someone play poker on the internet? Something seems pretty wrong to me there.

@stoodspoon:

Morality is not really a thing you decide via choices so much as each character will have an alignment that determines the kind of actions they personally would do. You will also choose an alignment for your character and you can sometimes be penalized or have new options open to you based on what alignment you or your companions are. It is possible to pretty much ignore this, but beware if you are aligned "good" and you end up going on murdering sprees of innocent people you will probably have some problems. "Evil" aligned character will probably be perfectly fine with this, however.

The whole system works on 2 axes, Lawful - Netural - Chaotic and Good - Neutral - Evil. So you end up with 9 possible alignments. Lawful Good, Netural Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Netural Evil and Chaotic Evil. The idea being that the one axis of Lawful -> Chaotic tells you about how that character feels about laws and order in general (regardless of right/wrong). While the other Good->Evil axis tells you where their morality lies. So a Chaotic Good character will generally be doing "good" things, but might not choose to follow all the laws (e.g. Robin Hood). While a Lawful Evil character will be down for whatever helps them personally (stealing, murder), but not necessarily overthrowing the government (e.g. a corrupt official). The neutral ones are a lot harder to make examples of, but the general rule is that Chaotic Neutral is generally used for actually insane characters, and True Neutral characters really care about the balance of good and evil all the time (druids often fall here).

That's a lot of over-simplification as the alignment thing can actually be much more complicated (Paladin class characters must be aligned "Lawful Good" for instance), but that's the general idea.

The fact that durability is tied to FRAME RATE is the silliest decision they made in DS2. I can understand if you want to tie it to weapon swings, or hits or blocks or something like that, but straight up if you run the game at 60 FPS your weapons degrade 2x as fast as someone playing at 30FPS. That is silly.

I'm happy Sony is at least attempting to limit the number of pay-us-for-these-games-monthly services that are out there. The PS+ thing is already kind of crazy and I can easily see a dystopian future (in about 2 years) where every publisher has one of these programs to get their DLC and new games. It sure would be nice if they were all under one subscription instead of 15 different ones, but I have no faith that will ever happen.