J.E. Sawyer

Why not? Id has been doing it for years. Crytek themselves have released videos comparing DX9 and DX10 versions of the same scene. The DX9 versions look very nice, but the DX10 versions are the ones that look "super good". http://www.gametrailers.com/player/19967.html http://www.gametrailers.com/player/19965.html From the InCrysis wiki: We do not know how much processor power is needed, though in a recent PC Gamer UK magazine preview Cevat Yerli said an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 card could run the game at "ultra detail" settings. That's $250 for the CPU and $300 for the video card alone just to run it at that level of detail, plus Vista for DX10. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if you want it to run at a high framerate, you would need an 8800 GTX or equivalent. That's like $500-$600+ for just the card. I fully believe that Crytek is engineering a very scalable engine. The fact that they are supporting Shader Model 2.0 cards proves that. But I just as fully believe that the level of quality and speed we see in their best trailers isn't going to be reproduced on anything less than the most expensive PC rigs available. I'm not an Unreal fanboy, but Gears did come out a full year prior to when Crysis is scheduled to be released. And though some companies are having problems with the engine, there are a few other games out that use it. And until Crysis and CryEngine2-powered games come out, I'll be as skeptical of them as I am of Id Tech 5.

Crysis runs at an absurdly low framerate except when on very high end hardware. If you're running Vista with DX10 on a system with quad SLI, I guess it looks pretty sweet.

Textures have to fit into memory, and having tons of destructible objects means tons of unique textures. You also have to do things like texture the insides of things like concrete posts and the rebar supports as they get blasted to pieces. As things in the environment get destroyed, lighting is affected -- or logically should be affected. Entire fruit stands, fountains, piles of crates, televisions, and blocks full of street signs can be blasted apart in a single environment. The lighting either has to be fairly washed out or fully dynamic to avoid strange looking situations.

Broken except for the fact that the game is fully functional and is coming out long after Gears. The textures look strange because their lighting model and focus are different. Gears has virtually no environmental reactivity. Stranglehold is filled with destructible objects. It's not surprising that the textures and lighting look so different.

Since the Red Cross threatened legal action against various video game devs/publishers for using a red cross as a symbol for health in various games, I think they are fair game for similar action by others.

I don't play a lot of games for more than a few hours. Once I learn the basics and get a feel for it, I move on to other games unless I really want to dig for something deeper.

It has a Norsey-themed storyline, and the art is the sort of French fantasy/anime blend that I tend to enjoy (see Confrontation/Cadwallon). The 2D/3D execution is very well done and it's a great looking PS2 game. The gameplay was pretty fun for the short while that I played it.

If you like blowing things up and shooting people in the crotch, download the free demo for Stranglehold on the Xbox 360 Marketplace. Things like "Tequila Time" and "Precise Aim" have already been done in a bunch of other games, but it's still a lot of fun. It really captures the Hard Boiled feeling very well.

Well, both of my home monitors are still 21" CRTs. And I have a 26" widescreen CRT television.

A Dell 24" widescreen and a Dell 20". Both LCD.

Fatigue was a kind of "temporary damage". You accumulated fatigue on a positive scale, usually after having armor absorb damage. Someone shoots you in the chest with a shotgun for 18 points of damage. Your armor absorbs 12, so you subtract 6 points of damage and add 12 points of fatigue. Fatigue could also be inflicted by the "coming down" effects of various chems, such as super stims. Fatigue was depleted at your healing rate every round (on your turn). So it would go away quickly, but the effects of allowing too much to accrue could be very bad. When a character's fatigue passed his or her current hit points, the character was knocked out. He or she would automatically fall to the ground unconscious. It was possible for a character to become knocked out for only a round or two, but that could easily be enough to result in death at the hands of an opportunistic enemy.

Install E21 320i dogleg 5-speed, problem solved. No, not mine. It's my ex's Speedster replica. Also the car I learned to drive stick on. Buy multiple motorcycles so you only have to maintain each one half as much.

Does he ever ride it? Looks great.

Looks like an early 2002. Nice catch on a round taillight model. Is it Bronzit? I just saw a 365B being prepped for painting the other day. I like the looks of the coupes, but I don't think I could ever live with one; I can barely fit into a 356 convertible.

New gas tank. Leaking right now thanks to not being informed that this particular tank should not be chemically polished. I'm waiting for some epoxy to seal it up. For all the hassle, it should be worth it; the tank capacity has gone from 3.9 gallons to 5.8 gallons. I should have a range of over 200 miles, which is... quite nice.

My personal feeling is that it (custom spell lists) could be done in a patch. There are really three elements to changing how spell lists work: 1) Code has to allow data to drive arbitrary spell lists instead of forcing data to conform to code's (very limited) number of spell lists. That is, the class data needs to specify another data file that holds spell information for that class instead of simply telling the code that the class uses one of five pre-built columns in spells.2da. 2) All non-innate spell levels in spells.2da need to be blocked out in that .2da and moved to their own class-specific spell list .2das. All other data for a spell could be pulled from spells.2da, but what classes get what spells at what level would come from the new .2das. Translation: a human being needs to do lots of data wrangling. 3) Retrofitting existing characters that should have their own spell lists. I.e., allowing blackguard and assassin characters that people are already playing to have their own spell lists. This is probably the most obnoxious aspect of making these changes. As for domain spell lists... I'm not sure. I honestly haven't talked with programming enough to determine what would be required to make that work. It wasn't particularly hard in IWD2, but that's no guarantee of anything.

Custom spell lists and domain fixes weren't made a high priority early on. As time dwindled down, attacking something that design and engineering hadn't really addressed from the beginning didn't seem wise... unfortunately. We do have a re-design for custom spell lists, in particular, but haven't had time to move forward with it.

Yeah, that "mantling" move, which went mostly unused during Half-Life, made an unwelcome return in OpFor. I actually got stuck at the point where I needed it and never picked it up again.

I just received confirmation from the animation director of R6:V (through a co-worker) that it runs on the Unreal 3 engine. I've heard multiple Ubi employees say the same thing, so I was pretty puzzled by what you wrote. I don't know if the manual is in error or what but... yeah.

Well, Rainbow Six: Vegas shipped using UE3, so that's at least one developer who was able to make things work. I'm wondering what TCRs they are talking about. Framerate? There was definitely a big jump in framerate when UE3 moved to the Gemini renderer.

I really wish I could pay to download the hardcore version. I don't want to hunt around stores to get a copy. Maybe I should just order one from Uncle Flim's Online Game Emporium.

I did that in Oblivion, but I didn't really feel compelled to in DMoMM.

I recently tried playing Dark Messiah of Might & Magic but just couldn't get into it. I tried out the Project Sylpheed demo but wasn't a big fan of the controls (maybe I just don't like space combat games anymore). I also started playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Very nice. I bought Overlord and Armored Core 4 for my 360, but haven't been able to play them yet.

Huh. That's strange considering that this trailer supposedly consists of actual gameplay. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/6443.html