warrenEBB

wow. I feel like the show only really blew it in the last hour of the last episode. right up to hero and villain fighting on a cliff in the rain - i was on the edge of my seat. then it offered a series of things I didn't want. I think it felt sour because we'd just seen a rad rain fight between neo and agent smith. and we'd just seen a great send-off concert on conan o brien's cancelled show. so the climactic things Lost was offering didn't seem big enough. think i'm mostly pissed about that concert. they should have hired beck and pearl jam to write a catch song that echoed the emotions of the ending, instead of glossing over the concert completely. bleh. but. i think the ending was also trying to be about how nothing can live up to what you expect.

If everyone hates season3 on, does that mean they don't care about mr. echo? or faraday? or miles? weird. weeeird.

Re: Nintendo

"...They were looking to be surprised, to see something other than what they were already expecting. Otherwise, why wouldn't they have bought a Wii U by now?"

I've been waiting to buy a WiiU, to see what Xbone and PS4 would offer at E3 (and to see if Nintendo would drop the price). Got a family now, figure I won't be able to buy all 3 consoles again, this generation.

Now that E3 is over:

I see I can get all the cool games announced for xbone&ps4 on my PC. Only the growing list of Nintendo games will be true console exclusives (and I know these will be polished. and each will have at least one interesting game mechanic innovation). So I'm buying a WiiU.

@o0o0jack_burton0o0o: I'm primarily a PC player. So each unique Nintendo game is something valuable - because I can't get it anywhere else. WiiU is the only 'next gen' system I want. (now that E3's dust has settled - the only XBONE/PS4 game that I want, which wasn't ALSO announced for PC - was Quantum Break. And I bet in time Remedy will bring it to PC).

Nintendo's "sequels" are polished and expertly designed. They are in a different class.

I think the hit or miss nature of sequels to most third party games (assasin's creed, mass effect, madden, Gears, call of duty vita, etc.) have trained mainstream gamers to poo poo franchises as cash ins.

but Nintendo designs games differently, by nailing down new worthwhile game mechanics first, then figuring how to work them back into existing franchises (instead of just adding more "story", spectacle, or some mode that nobody likes). I know it's not everyone's bag. but i wish people could stop appreciate the difference.

All Nintendo needs to offer is : the magic.

Wii offered the magic of playing a video game without buttons, and rode strong! Until Kinect came along and delivered even better button-less magic.

The wiiU is essentially just the gamepad. People keep pointing out that idiotic consumers are confused and think the gamepad is for the old Wii... Well, that's not the right story! The story should be that ALL THESE IDIOTS AREN'T BUYING IT for their old Wii! Because a gamepad isn't being touted as more magical than a kinect.

Whatever nintendo's marketing people are doing, they aren't focused on explaining why the gamepad offers magic gameplay you can't get anywhere else.

(before you say "smartglass" note that there isn't a single smartglass game, or announcement of any game, that comes close to the response and integration that the gamepad already delivers in multiple/all titles).

I'd say it doesn't even need to be true. They just need to market the mutherfucker as if it was true. "touch our new game pad : shit your pants!" it adds insult to injury that the gamepad is in fact delivering cool new game play innovations - but they can't figure out how to explain this to the public. fuuuuuck

thanks for posting this article/info! so inspiring and cool.

if it was $30 for Dishonored I would be signing up for PS+ right now. As it is, I'll wait for slightly more savings (is Dishonored coming to Steam? Is it wrong to assume so, and that it will have better graphics? and be cheaper than $50).

Wish there was some other way to show I support Sony's move here and want them to keep going with it.

huh. I haven't seen any mention that: maybe it was intentional?

Marketing can be a sort of black magic (or a giant war with many battles). Maybe some marketing guy was curious how an indie game would sell based on reviews and word of mouth, separate from front page promotion to the masses. the best way to gauge this would be to give word of mouth a few days before you drop the ad.

When Zero Punctuation videos pop up on twitter and facebook at different times, hours after the video debuted on the site, I assume it's an experiment in gauging visitor traffic. Seeing which push delivered the most eyeballs, each time. (I know it could be incompetence, or a way to stagger traffic so the site doesn't crash. but in this modern world of massive marketing power, I tend towards thinking Marketing was experimenting with something).

this game is so rad. It seems light years ahead of anything else I've played all year. haven't thought so much about my relationship to the game and my role within the character within the game since the first Portal. I hope it ends up there alongside big budget shooters and such, in the year end awards/lists.

(as for my playthrough experience rant: I usually try to play as the best person I can be, figuring i'll go back later and try the meaner options. but i never go back on any of these game. So I decided Lee was a bad man at the start, and have been purposefully picking the opposite of what I'd do in every dialogue. Which has made it wildly fun. Instead of picking "the right thing" as quickly as possible, I'm actively judging each option to see which best supports the character I'm trying to pull off. And I was often suprised to see my mean spirited attempts backfire. Fun to see how the game/characters won't let Lee be as bad as I'm trying to make him. Like I was trying to alienate Duck's dad, but my conflict with Larry somehow made us buddies. and I was trying to starve the kids, but many of the adults refused my offer of food.

... and somehow the Larry death scene just broke my mind. I can't remember what I chose first. But that was the only scene in the game where I've stopped and gone back and tried every other option. even tried not doing anything. that scenario reallllly got under my skin. in the good way. :)

OT:

@PandaBear said:

Also the court docs being locked behind a pay wall is pretty standard stuff. Try looking up stuff from the patent office. It's admin costs, nothing too sinister.

Uh, when I look up patents, i go to www.google.com/patents .(which offers free access to 7 million patents : free).Is this not as good as going through the patent office, somehow? (or is this a sign that google was willing to pay access fees for every patent?)

... Well, my point is more that it's a shame Dyack said we'd all be amazed at what comes out during the court case. but nobody seems to have bothered to report on whatever came out during the trial. Patrick seemed to be trying to do exactly that. but gave up?

the most detail I've read about the case was back in 2007, via gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14759 . HRUMF.

@PandaBear: TooHuman was NOT a bad game. I fundamentally enjoyed Too Human. Soo. I really don't know what you're saying about FUNDAMENTAL gameplay flaws. you seem to be saying parts of the gameplay were so bad (unfinished? ill advised? i'm not sure what you mean by flawed). If you were to say Tetris had fundamental gameplay flaws, i'd have to reply "what? i love that game."

Not sure if you mean the much hated Valkyrie death scene animation (which has been explained. an experiment in costing you time instead of making you replay the level). this ill advised gameplay choice is not a problem once you learn how to play (and thus: stop dying all the time).

or maybe you meant the auto camera was flawed. but. I only remember one camera fuck up which interferred with my gameplay. so that's hardly a FUNDAMENTAL flaw. eh.

maybe you mean it was too hard. or didn't explain itself well enough to be easy (same thing?). but. This doesn't ruin the game.

I had more problems with glitches within Eternal Darkness. beasts stuck behind invisible walls, so i couldn't kill them, so I couldn't leave room. confused level design that left me running around corridors repeatedly. but these flaws don't matter, because the rest of the game was so good. TooHuman was almost exactly the same package.