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@evo: That's it. Thank you!

I have a memory of Brad doing a quick look with -I think- Vinny for a game that was a first person physics puzzle game, very similar to Portal. In the video, they were manipulating the environment by picking up colored spheres and droping them into slots that would then cause parts of the room to move around. It was a very sterile labratory type environment and I remember himsaying he had talked to the creator and there was no story at that time.

This was a PC game, and I think they said it wasn't finished yet. I looked back through the QL list, but didn't see anything that looked like the video i remember. Any help is appreciated.

Yeah, they do. PSN+ is great. I will likely keep PS+ going now that I have a Vita. I think that fee will probably keep me afloat with Vita games to the point that I don't buy any individually.

But, $50 also goes a long way on Steam if you wait for games to drop down super cheap. I just picked up Civ V God Edition for $12.50. That's hundreds of hours of play.

They did not say first party - they said 15 exclusives with 8 of those being new IPs. "Exclusive" is subjective given the PC...

I'm jumping ship to the PC myself for this very reason. First Party games for Sony and MS aren't enough to make me want to buy a pair of $500 devices - espicially when the first games they mentioned were IPs from last gen that I got bored with already (killzone, Halo, forza, inFamous, etc.). I'd rather take that 1K and build a kick ass PC that will trump both consoles out of the box and still give me access to all the third party stuff from Ubisoft, EA, Activision, etc.

I've bought all the parts except the video card and a copy of Windows. Looks like my total cost will be a hair under $1200 going with an i5 3570K, 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD, and a GTX 770. Still cheaper than buying both consoles and subscribing to their online services.

Thanks Vita.

*snicker*

Spent $1600 on a treadmill when I first decided to get in shape only to find out I hate cardio and love weight lifting.

It's not food, it's genetics. Take a dozen typical Asian women and a dozen typical white American women - all with the same body fat percentage - and the American women will typically weigh more, be taller, and have larger measurements in the bust and hips. Similarly, the average white American male will be taller and heavier than his Asian counterpart. People who are naturally smaller in frame just get "skinny fat" when they eat a higher calorie diet unless they are also lifting weights. They don't get "curves" just because they eat more. Either you're born with "curves" or you're not. And of course there are people from all ethnic backgrounds who have "curves" - it's just genetic.

I see the same thing on weight lifting forums all the time - short guys want to get "big like Arnold" and while they can certainly add muscle, they need to drop the comparisons because nothing is going to make them taller. It's just genetics...

@kashif1 said:

Seriously though he has a point, especially since most of the attendees at e3 are press and investors, not horny teenagers.

Press and Investors may be effected by this marketing tactic in a way that is favorable for the companies displaying products. They probably aren't going to be fanboys about booth babes since there is a relative amount of professionalism involved, but they don't check their libidos at the door just because it's a work day for them.

The whole female exploitation argument is bullshit.

Aside from some super emo teenagers and religious nuts, I don't know a single guy who is disgusted with porn. Jeff and Ryan have both cracked jokes on the podcast about how they like porn, and I think it's a safe bet most guys when left to their own devices will enjoy a little porn now and then. That doesn't mean they're pornaholics, but seriously - what sexually active male is out there fighting a crusade to get the porn industry shut down and banned due to their moral outrage? Yeah, no. Aside from prostitution, porn is about as exploitative as it gets - even that is a fine line. So, if you're morally okay with enjoying porn, it's a bullshit hypocritical argument to cry foul at women being exploited as eye candy at events like E3. However exploited the booth babe is, she's not getting split roasted and cummed on...for money...

This whole argument is a cover for the truth that no one wants to come out and say: Men have their fair share of negative self image and general lack of self confidence, especially when it comes to women. That leads to an outright nervousness when forced to be in contact with a hot babe. To make matters worse, the press is working at E3. They're moving from place to place getting shit done. That means they're going to be tired, sweaty, run down, and maybe a little hung over - they don't have the opportunity to present their best appearance to the booth babes when they are forced to interact with them to get the info they need when they provide coverage. It's not that every guy wants to try and pick up every cute girl. It's just depressing to think a hired gun might be silently judging you with contempt while you are there trying to get work done. I mean really - Nintendo chained all the 3Ds units to these women? Really? For those trying to get work done, this is a situation that is only made more stressful and difficult by forcibly inserting sexuality into it.

I agree the practice is distracting for the press who are actually trying to get work done, but let's be really honest about what's going on here instead of trying to twist this into a discussion about morality. Hot women have an effect on men. Period. Some men get nervous, others get cocky and a little rude, others become introverts and play it off like they aren't intimidated, or turned on, etc. But every straight guy notices some change when a hot woman is around.

I work at great company filled with experienced professionals. 90% of the company is men over 30 with wives, kids, mortgages, etc. We act professionally because we like our company, we make good money, and our families are counting on us to do strong work and bring home the fat pay checks. Everyone is very polite and I've seen no significant drama in the 5 years I've been there. About three month ago, my department hired a _HOT_ young girl. She is honestly a 9 or 10 and she knows it. She spends a lot of money on high end clothes, make up, drives two hours once a month to visit her hair stylist, etc. She's not even my type at all, but I can say without reserve she is really gorgeous. And she's had an impact on the social dynamic around the office.

Suddenly guys who were not all that helpful or interested when her position was previously held by a guy are now floating around her desk seemingly at all times. She asked me for help the other day on an issue, I came over to her desk and within 2 minutes, two other guys came over to see if she needed any additional help - she didn't ask for their input, they just saw me over there and decided they needed to insert themselves into the situation. I bailed and went back to my desk. I wound up doing the work one of those guys was responsible for because he were too busy buzzing around her. It's a little frustrating, but not unexpected. This is the effect beautiful women have on men. It is as unavoidable as sunshine.

I can see how booth babes only complicate the work that needs to be done at E3 by the press and business folks, but let's take a step back and really look at the situation again. Are we really upset that some young college girl is getting paid a few hundred bucks to stand around and look pretty for a week? Really? I don't think that's the issue.

Thoughts? Am I totally off base here?

@vunna said:

The most incriminating thing that I took from this story was the that former Director of IT, Thomas Fenady, is horrible at his job. Neither his entire IT staff or himself could figure out how to access an employee's WORK email or voicemail? That sounds impossible unless he just said that because he was uncomfortable doing so and needed an excuse not too. He basically said that no one in that IT Department can do their job.

I feel bad for Warner Bros, his new employeer. Hopefully he was able to pickup an Exchange and VOIP class before he started there. Unless of course he was hired to wash executives cars. Then he is perfectly qualified for his new position.

Keep in mind, Infinity Ward is it's own company. Yes, they are owned by Activision, but that doesn't mean they are all on the same local network, or that the IT Director for Activision would have any serious security clearance to the Infinity Ward network. It sounds like Infinity Ward was as independent as they could be, so it would not surprise me if they simply had a VPN or web based portal to plug into the greater Activision Network, while still retaining their own autonomy entirely. I would imagine that was all restructured to give Activision IT direct access to everything on the Infinity Ward network after the big shake up, but it probably wasn't a Big Brother situation before the launch of MW2.

If that is a fairly accurate assessment of how their network was configured, it would be pretty hard for an IT Director to truly "hack" his way into their personal systems remotely just because he has VPN access to the network. They don't teach you how to commit crimes in the average college course, which is what we're talking about here. Even the newer IT Security focused courses are not on the bleeding edge of the security war.

I'm sure Infinity Ward IT could have tapped that stuff in a few minutes, but they probably had no interest in giving Activision that much power over their studio, or opening their network up to such an obvious security hole. On top of that, the IT Team may have been loyal to West and Zampella.