Hell Kitty

Do you really think that Sony/MS/Nintendo are really going to make future consoles that are easier to pirate games for? That makes no sense. MS made piracy less desirable on the 360 what with the banning from Xbox live. I didn't say it would be intentional. So they would acidentally make a system that's easier for piracy? That makes even less sense.

The thing about "they wouldn't have bought it anyway" is that it's just as valid an argument as "every pirated copy is a lost sale", because there is no way to prove it either way. I suspect the truth is in the middle. It doesn't actually matter exactly how many legal copies might have sold without the pirate version, if companies like Crytek look at all the pirated copies out there and it makes them no longer want to develop PC exclusives, or worse, abandon PC altogether, then clearly piracy does have an effect on PC gaming.

That was a beautiful review pixies, totally unbiased and it's obvious you really care about gaming. Anyway, I've only played for a bit, and Niko looks odd when sprinting. That is all.

Do you really think that Sony/MS/Nintendo are really going to make future consoles that are easier to pirate games for? That makes no sense. MS made piracy less desirable on the 360 what with the banning from Xbox live.

The sex education we received at my old Catholic high school focused on contraception, pregnancy, STDs and peer/social pressure. Not necessarily in that order. Good times.

Those are the best kind of skulls.

Saint's Row 2 allows you to play as a woman, a fat woman if you so desire, and apparently is set to include co-op through the main story. Everybody wins!

If his feet were touching the ground that still doesn't prove that Six is just in his head. It could go either way. I think the reason they put in that shot was to cast down on Six purely being a figment of his disturbed mind.

Which means there's no way of knowing whether they were touching the ground.

I understand what you mean but how is that gaming? I mean, if I want to roam the country side on a motorbike I'll put on a leather jacket, jump on my motorbike and go for a ride in the country side. Being that I don't have a motorbike nor a licence, I guess driving a motorcycle around the countryside is as unrealistic for me as flying a helicopter for the sake of it, something I also do in the game. Besides, it's not something I'd load the game to do specifically, it's something done when taking a break between missions. It's the driving mechanics of the game that I enjoy, while sitting back in a comfy chair with controller in hand.

After watching it again I guess it seems less clear he was held up by someone else then I originally thought.

GTA is a game about sex with hookers in the same way that Arcanum is (to pick the first game featuring prostitution that came to mind). At least Tigranes admits he doesn't know what he's talking about. I suppose if you are opposed to playing a game in which the player is a criminal, like the GTA series, or Mafia, or Hitman, or Thief or whatever, then this might not be for you. Or maybe it's the combination of criminality and the general light-hearted tone of the games. If I was ever going to be morally outraged by something in a game, I think I'd put "killing humans" above sex with prostitutes or stealing cars, but then I'd need to find a new hobby. At least GTA has the police after you for killing innocents, in Deus Ex you can do it without consequence. Pop is right, GTA is a crime opera. It's also the best damn open-world sandbox game ever, so there. I always liked just getting on a motorbike and riding around the countryside in San Andreas, Good times.

This is the first time they've ever shown him being clearly manipulated by an invisible entity though.

I am a 28 year old child.

That's because you're the only one that can answer it, I don't know what goes on in that crazy head of yours. Besides you've answered it yourself in both this post and the next - there are types of games you just aren't ever going to be interested in, and there are types of games which don't get made as much as they used to (just as there are types of games that were never made in the past). The industry has changed, not for better or worse, but you haven't. If you aren't interested in a game, then of course you're not going to find it to be worth purchasing, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the game, how "good" the game is.

No it's not. All the games, movies, music, books, food, whatever else that you've consumed in your life, you like it just as much as every other time? Every game you've ever played you'd like or dislike just as much as you always did if you were to play it today? Maybe you're the exact same person you were 15 years ago, but I'm not. Of course 15 years ago I was 13, so I sure as hell hope I'm not that same. I loved the game Midwinter 2 back on the Amiga, but playing it now (though emulation) is pretty horrible, and that's purely a technology issue, with the core gameplay being so primitive compared to modern games. There are some games I no longer play because I know them so well that it's just not that fun anymore. Sometime it might just depend on my mood, there have been many a demo that I've tried and dismissed, only to try again later and think it's great. I have about 30 CDs in my music collection, and none were bought this century. Does that mean music today just isn't as good? That's just silly.

I buy just as many games in the mid to late 90s as I do now. That tells me that there were just as many games worth buying as back in those days. That there are just as many games worth buying then it is probably because there are just as many good games now as there was back then. I've played and enjoyed many games, and while there have been times when I have been less or more interested in particular types of games, or gaming in general, the hobby has never let me down. All I have to do is look at the game boxes on my shelf to verify this. So does my experience trump yours, and prove that games today are just as good as games of the past? Or does your experience trump mine, proving that older games are better than newer ones?

If back in the Olden Days all games were at the same level as something like [insert whatever old games you love here], then maybe all the folks complaining about Games Today would have a point, but the best games tend to be the exception to the rule, and that's probably as true today as it was way back when. Then again, maybe STALKER will end up in CrashGirl's garbage pile.

9, 10, 7, 8, 100%, it means whatever we want it to mean. To the people complaining, the number given at the end of a review is obviously Serious Business. What does a "perfect score" mean, anyway? That the game is the best thing out at the time? That it's the best game ever? That it has no flaws? That it's flaws don't detract? Honestly I don't even care, because the score at the end of a review means nothing to me, the content of the review does. If I'm not even interested in the game in the first place, I'm hardly going to kick up a stink when some game I don't even care about gets a specific score.

Why are these three games intellectually and culturally valuable? Giving them the labels without explanation makes those labels as meaningless as "awesome" or "crap". That is, it's just another way of saying I do/don't like this for whatever reason. If games are art then Daikatana is just as much art as Deus Ex. Bad art is till art, but people tend to use the term art to imply that something is important or valuable or just good. Personally I consider art to be that which is created with the primary purpose of being art. If intent isn't important then anything can be art and it makes the word worthless. I don't consider the work I do as a graphic designer to be art compared to the drawings and paintings I create for my own amusement, even though the act of creating them and the enjoyment get from the act might be similar.

Of course. When I say that I'm an art-illiterate I'm obviously directing it at people who seem to be using a realist or objectivist view of what art is. It is simply my way of saying that I have no idea what art is until it affects me, and even then I have no idea what part of it is affecting me, so I am illiterate. This also places me very deeply in a relativist position on the subject of art. So you don't know what it is, but you'll know it when you see/feel it. Seems like you possess the same level of "art-literacy" as everyone else in this thread. After all, anyone can claim something is art, but surely the important part is why.

Psyduck! I don't really know what that means. Edit: So I looked up Psyduck: Sounds about right.

I'm not referring to just "aesthetic appeal", I'm talking about the whole package. A game is the sum of it's parts, and for a game to be judged artistic as a whole you need to be able to look at all those parts. I don't care if people think game x has nicer graphics or game y has a more interesting story, I want to know why people think game x (and all of it's parts) is more artistic or artistically ambition than game y (and all of it's parts)? If you* think [insert game here] has more artistic/intellectual/cultural worth than [insert other game here], then surely you* should be able to state why? I just think that people are claiming a whole product artistic when what they really mean is something like it has a more compelling/less cliche/better written plot/story/characters or whatever, and overlooking others aspects of the game. Meshugger claimed that movies x and y were certainly less entertaining than movies a and b, and then Pidesco and Moatilliatta came along and proved that incorrect. The artistic/intellectual/cultural worth of a game/movie/whatever has no basis in how entertaining individuals will find it. *that's a general "you" folks.

So you're not a fan of art for arts sake? That's three different things you're talking about there, and the last two don't have much to do with the definition of the first. "Artistic" refers to the level of skill and imagination that goes into a work, and something can be described as artistic without being intellectually or culturally worthy. Absolutely, the idea that artistically lesser works are more entertaining is simply wrong.