alanschu

The one I got wasn't cloth. It was plastic. At least I'm pretty sure that was NWN. I can't remember. Could be IWD. Ultima had the awesomist maps! So soft!

I can quickly think of one off the top of my head. I know there are two people that die, but you can find a way to not kill one of them yourself, so "you" have still only killed two. The funny thing is, I could've sworn that I heard Warren Spector say that one of the biggest gripes he had about Deus Ex was that you had to kill THREE people, but I can't think who they are!

Hype takes marketting dollars. This increases the costs even more. The main reason why I've never really complained about the cost of software in recent years is because I too have noticed that, adjusted for inflation, they are much cheaper than they were a decade ago. The problem with the games industry now is that games need big time sales to recoup their costs. The development of the vast majority of games is supported by the sales of one or two big sellers. It's a gamblers market, where money is invested in a product with the hopes of it being a bigtime seller. It's part of the reason why many (including game developers) have begun to fear a regression in innovation, and more rehashings of the more established genres. It also means the death of the smaller developer, as the only way to truly compete is to have tons of money to make a game that appeals to the masses. Unfortunately the masses has a fixation on art content, which is where the bulk of the cost is. A game could be flawless in every sense of the word, but whether you like to admit it or not, if it has subpar graphics it will struggle sales wise. This is because at the current cost of games compared to the development of the games, the game must appeal to the masses in order to make money. Knowing people that do work in the games industry, higher wages is likely not a big part of the equation. The games industry is not an industry to be in if you're looking to make money. To answer Darque's question, the biggest increase in production costs is the excessive amount of art content. Art teams have become huge and expensive, and the only way to truly compete in a market of the masses is to have nice graphics. It's the easiest selling point of a game, and something the general public is interested in. In odd cases you'll get games like The Sims that are truly unique and appeal to traditional non-gamers (more women than men play The Sims), but those are odd. And even then The Sims was virtually cancelled on numerous occassions because it was preceived as being too risky. I'm looking forward to Spore, which utilizes algorithms for its art content and its physics model determines appropriate animations based on the physical structure of the animal. This alone will reduce the number of artists required on the game, and hopefully find a way to severe costs. Add this in to the fact that they hope to use user-created content to populate the various worlds, costs also begin to shrink.

There's a ton of variations on lethal weapons. Plus, if you want, it's very possible to go through the game killing I think only 2 or 3 people. And even then you can kill them in ways that don't even require weapons. Deus Ex is probably one of the most engaging stories that I've ever played, and there are many parts where I figured the game would easily be wrapping up, only to find out there was more game to come!! The ability to customize your character goes way beyond "lethal vs. non-lethal"

Oh, they tried, they tried. Remember Deus Ex: Invisible War? It had the exact same coding for Xbox and PC; but while this caused a great game for X-Box standerds, it was crap for PC standerds, and also gave loads of framerate issues for many PC users due to crappy X-Box optimisation... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I mean like with an emulator. Stick the Xbox disc in your drive and play it on the PC. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I would suspect that the code is not robust enough to worry about variable CPU speeds, memory, video card, etc.

The thing is, computers are capable of still working regardless of having 128 MB of memory or 1 GB of memory. Why does variable memory affect unified architectures more than the distinct architectures we have now? What you said is definitely an advantage of the constant parts of a console, but I don't see how it supports a unified memory architecture.

Good on paper. They've certainly been underperforming so far IMO.

The Core was a HIGH-Larious movie from a scientific perspective

The only reason why I secretly hope for the failure of the XBOX is because of Epiphany

Ovechkin is who I'm cheering for for the rookie of the year. I find his feats more impressive than Sid the Kid (who is playing well too) given he has a stunning lack of talent on his team. I'm not sure how Crosby would do if the situations were reversed.

I agree that T3 was much more comedy than the other ones. In my encounters, the only ones that really liked it were the ones that liked the first two.

I read somewhere that these courses dont really teach about hardware and software and just concentrate on using the most up to date equipment at the time. This is fine except once you graduate yoru knowledge is probably obsolete. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's pretty much what Buchanan said.

What Game Development University do you go to Kaftan? And what precisely do they teach you there? I've spoken with John Buchanan of Electronic Arts, and he basically said that EA has poor histories with typical graduates from schools dedicated to dame development. It seems as though he has the impression that they didn't do too well once a shift to new hardware came into effect. To be fair, he made these comments while giving a discussion to a CompSci department at my University. He did say that some are good though, and those were generally the ones that also offered graduate programs (a bizarre correlation IMO, but maybe it means the school is more academic rather than vocational??). In any case I'm not sure where you got your information from regarding PC "dominance." I'm a PC fanboy and don't even own any modern consoles because I hate them, but consoles totally dominate the market from the information I have heard (including information coming from Electronic Arts, and to a lesser extent Bioware).

Ugh. I couldn't stand that Dolph version of Punisher.

I think it's getting to the point where things won't be going "back" but we'll be seeing the war after Judgement Day.

Announcers are generally the worst people to interpret a penalty IMO. I'd much rather see it for myself on the instant replay.

I was always a fan of Michael Biehn. I liked him in Terminator, The Rock, and Aliens. Plays those roles perfectly and are some of my favourite characters (well, The Rock his role is a little short).

I like them, too. However, there should be greater variety, not just 'from blueprints to construction'. Some work better than others, and the Statue of Liberty is a bit annoying because I think it was crafted in France then shipped out to the US, not built from scratch in its place. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course. By the way, the game is really good. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That is true, but this is a new Civ. I mean, if you build the thing when you're at war with france, then what?

I'd suspect many of them also have additional overhead costs as well though. Gotta pay someone to ship those things across the pacific.

Marty is day-to-day, and I like Brodziak as his fill in. Kid seems pretty solid out there, and even gets PK time. Though I would rather have Marty.

If you just use a sample size of one then a conclusion cannot be extrapolated. When people say "Sequels are usually not as good as the first movies" it's an aggregate of the opinions of many people. It doesn't mean that no sequel is better than the original movie ever. Or that two people cannot disagree about whether it is or is not better.

I am all fo the Oilers and teh winning!

How is it so different? How does unified memory help a console and only a console, but not a computer? (Not just PCs. To reiterate, when Hades said "a computer is a computer" he was using the most basic definition of a computer, because consoles in fact are computers. If you want to talk about PC IBM/Compatible Intel/WIndows boxes, at least be consistent with your terminology and use "PC" exclusively. Once you use the word "computer" after somebody says "A computer is a computer" you are not talking about PCs exclusively anymore). But anyways, seriously. How is Unified Memory a clear cut advantage to a console computer, but a non-console computer is a completely different bag?

So, what do you guys think about Triple X: Cubed - More X than you can Dream about Vin Diesel with?

I notice he's been "unregistered." Whatever THAT means. I pray he turns up alive and well