mkreku

"After all... I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her." - Julia Roberts in Notting Hill. I think that's a pretty memorable quote, but it didn't make the list either.

If I became a very attractive woman, I'd probably become the world's worst exhibitionist. As I am male now, I know exactly what to do to arouse men and I'd make it a hobby. Just walk around driving every man I met insane. Flirt, dance, wear short skirts & thongs, tight clothes and stuff like that. Then I'd spend all my waking time in the women's locker room.. just admiring the scenery. Oh, and once a month I'd yell and scream at everyone for being idiots, even when they're not.. just because I'm allowed to. Edit: Of course, I'd probably die of fear if I suddenly woke up one day bleeding profusely for no reason at all.

If I was twelve again it would mean it was the year 1985 again. I would tell my father, who've always trusted me 100%, to go and stop the shooting of Olof Palme (in 1986). I'd spend a lot more time with my grandfather now that I know what will (would?) happen to him. I'd probably use my allowance to buy some Nokia stock (back when Nokia only made tires..). I'd probably play a lot of Trivial Pursuit just to amaze my friends. And I would finally hit on Ulrika Larsson, something I regret to this day for never having the guts to do.

Rage Against the Machine Primal Scream Jakob Hellman Imperiet Therapy?

Giving recommendations to someone who thinks Gothic is a POS and Deus Ex isn't even worth keeping after purchasing.. uh.. right. Just stay away from anything exotic or unpolished and you'll be fine! You'd probably do best if you stay in the EA section of the game store. No surprises there. Battlefield 2 was just released and it's supposed to be good (standard EA quality, 449-499 SEK). Boiling Point is NOT for you, you'll just abandon it in a room somewhere (buggy and highly original). GTA: SA is probably not for you either even though it's extremely good (sandbox type of game). You'd probably enjoy World of Warcraft but I have a feeling you look at MMORPG's in the same derogatory way you seem to view console games. I just noticed Webhallen sells Fallout - The Ultimate Collection (Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics) for 149 SEK (~19.31 USD)! Far Cry is good if you like to be able to mod your games and a FPS in a huge, free world (159 SEK). Thief 3: Deadly Shadows is ok if you have a powerful machine (only 99 SEK, or ~13.83 USD). Beyond Good & Evil is a great platformer hybrid game (only 79 SEK, or ~10.24 USD) but it's also kind of weird. Mafia is a great story-driven action/racing game, kind of like GTA but with more story (119 SEK). Still Life is an entertaining adventure game, but I'd personally wait till it drops in price (249 SEK). Grim Fandango is a timeless classic from when LucasArts still released quality games (149 SEK).

Hey, no need to thank me! I am a games reviewer, that's what I do ..but I must admit I was a little worried after recommending it to you and then giving it 7.4/10..

Well, seeing as my heavyweight champion Prince Naseem III successfully defended his heavyweight belt for the umpteenth time, I'd say I'm quite ready for Fight Night Round 3 now. But since I'll be getting a PS3, I'm not too worried about it. I don't hate the Xbox 360 in any way, but it seems most of the games I like come to the Playstation first and it's neat to be able to play your old PS2 favourites on your new machine.

I'm supposed to review Cold Fear, but even though it's supposed to be a classic survival horror game, it feels much more like an action game along the lines of Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube. The monsters you meet aren't scary and the boat you're playing on isn't scary either. Also, you seem to get plenty of ammo if you just look around a little. Still, it's kind of atmospheric and dark, abandoned boats are always interesting somehow.

Yes, it is possible to take out entire gangs. If you 'eliminate' a gang from the map, you will never be attacked by that gang again. Although the gang will continue to exist in the main story and some quests. For the record: I always eliminate all the other gangs from the map (I turn the entire map green, instead of yellow or purple) because that way you'll never have to worry about defending the territories with regular intervals, and you never get shot at while driving through certain territories in, for example, missions.

Yeah, I'd much rather praise the companies that I really enjoy being a customer to. Webhallen.se: Supergreat (swedish only) source for ALL kinds of games! Great prices, great delivery times and GREAT support. One of my absolute favourites! Bredbandsbolaget: 10/10 Mbit for 295 SEK (appr. 38 USD) per month. Never had any problems, they don't harass you if you fail to pay a bill in time (er..) and they have no bandwidth limits. Super! Plextor: Not only is their DVD-burner the fastest little thing I've ever worked with (8x, that's faster than my friend's 16x NEC!), but their 2 year support is absolutely awesome. They trust their consumers, and trust is rare nowadays. Komplett.se: Very cheap prices, very good support, very good delivery times. They're not as dominant as they once were, but they're still good.

Who knows.. http://www.majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox...s3-part-1-of-4/ Major Nelson says the Xbox 360 will be 3-5 times as powerful as the PS3!!1!

Yes, I did. I also saw the 'Gears of War' demo (the soldier-hunting one, without a name, that's also using Unreal 3 tech), among other things, which is why I don't understand why 'some people' (read: Epiphany) claims the demos were all prerendered. I mean, how do you prerender the duck demo so you can control them like that in real time? How do you prerender a game demo so that you can change camera views on-the-fly like that? It's not possible, unless they were being rendered in real time. A good read for the PS3 tech-interested: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3140617

Isn't the survival bit coming from being low on ammo, alone and scared all the time? Horror games are bad for your nerves, but when you also have to deal with conserving ammo and deal with a twisted world when you're all alone.. it makes matters so much worse. I've only played the two first Resident Evil games and Silent Hill 2 on PC (I think). Unless Obscure can be considered a survival horror game..? Edit: I just read my own stupid definition, and that would make System Shock 2 a survival horror game! Maybe you have to deal with crappy controls too to make it a real survival horror game?

The processor used in the Xbox 360 and the PS3 aren't that different from each other. They are both multi-core processors, only the PS3 has more (but simpler) cores to consider. Right now it's impossible to say which processor will be the strongest. The only thing we can say is that the PS3 processor has the potential to be much stronger than its Xbox 360 equivalent and both processors will demand a new way of programming from the game developers. I'm quite certain the Xbox 360 will have a better SDK than the PS3 (Microsoft is admittedly good at these things), but if you take a long hard look at the games on the Xbox and the PS2, it doesn't seem to have mattered much that the Xbox is easier to develop for. I mean, the Xbox is a much more powerful machine than the PS2, but the games that are out on both platforms look very much alike (comparing Fight Night Round 2, FIFA 2005, NHL 2005, Burnout 3: Takedown, Colin McRae Rally 2005 among others).

In real life? Yes. In my PS2 boxing games? NO. But I guess you have to be finnish to appreciate the pixellated boobs wasting your precious time between rounds..

There are plenty of examples where concept art shows what kind of style the final game is going to have. I agree that it's definitely not as fulfilling as seeing real in-game screenshots, but you can still get a pretty good glimpse at what the designers are going for. Gothic 2 concept art examples: A dragonhunter (not as detailed in-game, but still very close): A holy paladin (very much like the one found in-game):

Right now I'm playing Fight Night Round 2. Before that I've played NBA Ballers and FIFA Street. All these contain vast amounts of things the EA head honchos consider 'hip'. Fight Night Round 2 is a really good boxing game hidden beneath a tasteless and unnecessary shell. The excuse they have for including half-naked girls is that if you buy an expensive ring girl, you get some sort of bonus in the fight (Heart? Can't remember.) but it's such a transparent excuse to show bouncing boobs in slow motion it only becomes more pathetic. I love boxing as a sport but I would not rate this game very highly anyhow because of EA's bad design decisions.

These titles are kind of interesting. Some more than others.

I love the PC version of GTA: San Andreas! The viewing distance is much further out than it was on the PS2-version, which actually makes the graphics seem better. But it is also true that this game does look dated right out of the box. I've completed 75% of the game as I'm writing this, and just you wait until you end up in a mission called "Supply Lines" before ever whining about a mission being difficult! I never managed to beat it at all on the PS2 and it took me probably 3-4 hours before I finally completed it on the PC! It's insanely difficult. I both love that the game is so much bigger than previous parts in the series, but it's also somewhat of a curse. In Vice City I used to just drive around and collect hidden packages and find Unique Jumps. Those are still in the game (as grafitti/photos/horseshoes/clams) but finding them all now seems to be impossible. Also, in Vice City you were rewarded for every 10 you found. That's gone in San Andreas, so unless you do find them all (which I doubt you will) you get absolutely nothing for it.

In Sweden we have this old and powerful phone company called Telia. They own basically everything related to tele-communications, either directly or through other means. The reason they came to power was that in the eighties, Sweden only had ONE phone company and it was owned and run by the government. In the nineties (I think it was) it was partly sold to private owners, but since they were alone on the market and operating on a the huge network that swedish tax money paid for (over 50 years or so!), they didn't even care about competition. And a privately owned corporation without competition sets its own rules, so prices quadrupled in a few years, service got worse and they could practically laugh in their customers faces. They're still by far the biggest phone company in Sweden, but at least now we have several competitors. So how does Telia feel about that? Well, seeing as they own the entire phone network, the other companies must hire space on their lines.. Of course, Telia then lowers their time based prices to an absolute minimum, but raises the price everyone has to pay to even be connected to their net! It's actually so bad that I usually pay 40 SEK per 3 months for the time I've used the phone for talking, and 500-600 SEK for just having a phone number. It's ridiculous and I hate it! Other than that, I mainly stay away from McDonald's (because I don't like the taste of their 'food') and I don't particularly like EA for making everyone of their new sports games into a 'Pimp My [insert sport of your choice here]' experience. Enough with the 'hip' music and half-naked girls in my sports games already, EA!

Nope. Not allowed in Sweden, which is why I only buy swedish meat (SCAN forever!).

I can't believe how short-sighted some people are.. Don't you remember Bill Gates saying "A PC will never need more than 640Kb in RAM" a few years back? Saying that a normal DVD is enough and to actually believe that won't change.. it's just.. wrong. Of course there's going to be a change of standards. It may take 2-3 years, and we may not know which standard will prevail, but my bet's on Blu-Ray and I see the PS3 already having it as a huge advantage.

Or, if you live in Europe, you could buy a Plextor DVD-burner and send a RMA to them. My Plextor started acting weird a few weeks back, so I told their support about it. They told me to send in the serial number of the drive, the receit and my name and adress. Four days later a brand new DVD-burner was delivered to my door, courtesy of Plextor! Also, the warranty lasts for 24 months! Best warranty I've ever seen. I still have the suspect DVD-burner in one of my drawers..

Hahaha, now that explains why Volourn always has to overcompensate in every discussion on these boards: he's a shrimp in real life! Also, I am now certain that eating too often at McD does damage your brain..

Yeah.. Unless you do what I did and order a Big Mac & Co Deluxe in France, and get treated a hamburger covered in caviar.. Yummy. NOT.