alanschu

Why do people think Max Payne 2 should be ranked worse than M? It's not like Oblivion, with the nake people, is now ranked AO. It's an M rated game, with a naked person in it. So it should probably be rated, if Oblivion is any indication, as an M rated game.

I figured she was more talking about this thread.

Because yet again you have just decided to apply whatever definition you like to a word.

I've heard that Twin Snakes is quite a joke compared to the original. They turned Snake into Neo from the Matrix. He was jumping off of missiles during the fight against the Hind D.

I did think the first (third) one was better.

Based on the precident and statements by the ESRB, yes. For what it's worth I don't agree with it. By that logic, Baldur's Gate 2 should have probably had an Adults Only rating for the hardcore porn video encrypted in the CREAnim1.bif file on CD3 with the Vernam Cipher. With the right Vernam Cipher key, you can "decrypt" any file into any other file (which is the reason that the cipher can't be broken by "brute force" techniques; any attempt to do so just creates every possible file of the same size as the encrypted file with no way to tell which, if any, is the "right" one). I could choose any file of 63,927,017 bytes or less and calculate a key that would "decrypt" CREAnim1.bif into my chosen file. If I create a decryption key that unlocks a hardcore porn video from CREAnim1.bif, and make that key available on the internet, should the ESRB change the rating of BG2 to Adults Only? If you rule that even content encrypted with the Vernam Cipher counts toward your rating, you're effectively ruling that any content that could possibly fit on the disc counts toward the rating. This is obviously an absurd ruling because every game would have to be rated Adults Only and the ratings would be completely meaningless. As I said in my previous post, a line has to be drawn somewhere between what is considered the developer/publisher's responsibility and what is considered user created content out of the publisher's control. The "If it's on the disc it's the publisher's responsibility, even if it's encrypted" standard of judgement clearly can't work, as I just showed. The "you can turn the gore/violence/language/nudity slider down in the options menu if you don't like that stuff" standard of judgement would make the ratings meaningless in the other direction because publishers could get a "Teen" or "Everyone" rating by just having options to disable all the objectionable material. The line needs to be somewhere between these extremes, and it needs to be clearly defined. -Kasoroth <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I was not familiar with the Vernam Cipher until you brought it up. Considering the exceptional situations at which the Vernam Cipher is used (given it's a one-time pad), I don't think it would be very hard to prove that the "hardcore porn" was not put on the BG2 disc 3 intentionally. But, since you mentioned: I'm not sure what you are saying. Why would a game developer encrypt its content with the Vernam Cipher? Especially seeing as that kind of goes against the purpose of the Vernam Cipher.

Convenient. Agreed.

Winnar!

Not a fan of the panoramic view?

Whaaaat? I'd be very surprised if ethanol wasn't discovered before the Europeans even crossed the Atlantic. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was an Iowa project I believe.....but meh..ENIAC was better "

So you're saying that even if the content is encrypted with the Vernam Cipher so that no one could access it without the key, they are responsible for disclosing its presence to the ESRB? -Kasoroth <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Based on the precident and statements by the ESRB, yes. For what it's worth I don't agree with it. If it marginalizes it at all. Free publicity is good publicity and all that jazz.

I like our chances against the Sharks. I think the winner of our series will be the western conference champs.

Dallas and Detroit of all teams screw everything up. Picks for Round 2: Ottawa/Buffalo .... Two close to call...I'm thinking upset...Buffalo NJ over Carolina Oilers over Sharks Colorado over Ducks

I'm not saying if it is right or wrong. Precedent was already set.

The Red Mile was the Dead Mile (ooooo *ZING*). The best part was that Oilers fan decked up with facepaint and the full Oilers gear.

Who makes it?

Never heard of it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's why you use Google. http://www.google.com As a result, you could have poked fun at him for spelling it wrong "

I thought it was pretty clear what the ESRB means with "locked out content" with the hot coffee incident. Developers are responsible for all of the content on the disc, regardless of whether or not it is easily accessible.

I disagree. Syntactically they are similar. Which makes sense, given that the idea was to make something that looked like C++ so that people familiar with C++ would have an easier time switching over. Technically pointers aren't removed at all, as everything except for a primitive is a pointer. Java really limits the direct access to memory, which can be an excellent way to speed things up. The built in garbage collector, while also a nice convenience, tends to slow things things down. The upside of course is that memory leaks are more difficult to come by. I'm not a 100% sure on this, but I think it is also easier to incorporate assembly code into a C/C++ program. AFAIK, everything compiled in Java runs through the Java Virtual Machine. Which is nice, as things such as little/big endian becomes a moot issue, as the JVM acts as an interface for the hardware. Theoretically, things that run well on one machine in Java shouldn't have much of a problem running on a different architecture that the JVM can run on (I say theoretically because I definitely am not an end-all/be-all user of Java. I haven't had a problems, and I know it is an advantage, but I'm sure there's some way to make sure this isn't the case). This can be important because optimizations on blocks of code that get used a lot can be made by coding it directly in assembly. All in all, C/C++ tends to beat out Java in game development because of the intrinsic speed advantages that it has. And with games (especially today), you want to get the most out of your cycles as you possibly can. I find Java very popular in business applications though.

Deus Ex is always a good choice.

I'm not sure how that really makes any sense. I don't recall any Ubisoft demos having me install Starforce.

I went and found that old Hot Coffee discussion and took a looksee through it, and came away recognizing that I should not argue with the internets. All I'll say is that it doesn't really matter if it is right or wrong. A precedent was set with the Hot Coffee mod that developers WILL be responsible via the ratings for ALL content on the CD, including stuff not directly accessible with a vanilla copy of the game. That's it folks, let's go home.

Google is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Well, AA can be enabled from your graphics card alone. I care more about playing the game than the graphics personally. It'd be nice, but not necessary. The only thing I'd like to see would be higher resolutions.

Why would a demo need Starforce?