Quote from JJ72 :

That isn't a real argument.

Even if Crysis2 is PC exclusive they still have to cater for middle lower end PCs, older shader models, direct X 9 and all that.

Games uses graphic options to micro adjust performance for different hardware, and its no different for consoles. You can dish out the same game with fewer shaders, lower resolution and less detailed textures, it won't limit how detailed it is going to be in full detail.

But this most likely increases costs of production, requires additional testing and makes development longer as they'd need to make it on two different DirectX. Also, it increases the size of the final game, as you need to bundle the same game for everyone regardless of their hardware specs and everyone will have stored on their HDD low, medium, high and very high (as in Crysis 1) textures, DX9 and DX10 code, etc. For these reasons, having too many graphic options may not always be the case. Just Cause 2 and Stormrise are two examples of DirectX10 only games.

Although I'm pretty sure Crysis 2 will look awful on consoles (specially when compared to the PC), I always thought CryTek would manage to make some kind of balancing so that they'll have (much) better graphics on PC. However, after seeing their CryEngine 3 video in which they edit some game levels on the PC, X360 and PS3 at the same time, I get a bit worried, because by doing so the game will look exactly the same on the three platforms, making the PC game get leveled down because of console hardware.

Nevertheless, I hope they do a good job with it and I seriously hope Crysis 2 looks at least the same, or better than Crysis 1 on the PC.

How do you think game developers will manage to make, today, a great game that uses the latest effects and advanced graphics on a 2010 PC if they need to put it on some game consoles with 2005 hardware? Crysis 1 looked awesome because it was a PC exclusive game and they could do their best to make it look awesome on the latest (2007 - GeForce 8800Ultra 1GB and so on) hardware. But now that they want to put it on 2005 hardware, even Crysis 1 will look bad when ported to the X360 and PS3.

Quote from zeugnimod :

19.704 after 3 tries.

Moar tomorrow.

38.132 after 4 tries.

This game is freaking weird.

Quote from JasonJ :

And... yes i know it's a camera, but at that distance in the 'heat' of the moment it could be mistaken as a rocket launcher. I watched the full version first before the short version, and I thought it was a gang of guys with weapons. When you have the luxury of hindsight and freeze-frame, then it's easy to see it's not the case.

Me too. Actually I haven't seen the short version. In the full video I really thought they had weapons and rocket launchers. I didn't see many weapons thought, just a few, but they seemed like a gang, and I guess I'd have shot them too. That one guy (with the camera) was in a very, VERY suspicious position (as if he was going to shoot, hiding behind the wall and looking back, in the direction of the helicopter), and by the time I first watched the video I was very happy to see the army managed to neutralize them. When I saw the guy on the van, I thought "OH NO HE THEY'RE BRINGING REINFORCEMENTS! quick, give your team permission to fire before they run away!". I was actually hoping they could get permission to shoot because for me, while watching the video for the first time, I was certain that van was a real threat.

I for one didn't know what was going on (I hadn't read anything about it, I went straight to the video), and I've only watched the full video once (it's quite long, you know), so I was unbiazed by the time I watched the video. While watching it I thought everything was just fine, and they had just had a normal day and neutralized another real threat. The kids being there didn't mean anything to me, I thought "it is the criminals' fault to bring children into battle; they do this to create problems and make more difficult being killed, as if the children were protection shields".

If nobody had said anything about it I would never guess that was a camera just by watching the video just once (which is what the soldiers get - they can't stop the frame and rewind to check wether it's a threat or not, they see it real time and have to make do with what they have).

By the way, the guy in the van was not any smart at all. Actually, he is an idiot. Why the hell would put yourself and some small children in a fight you don't belong to, in order to help a random guy who, by the looks of the situation, is wanted dead by some other people?!? Come on! What was he thinking? "Ok I can see about 10 dead bodies on the ground, and this guy is badly hurt. Obviously, he must be just a normal person having a bad day, so I'll just stop by my van full of children to help him."

If I saw anyone who seems to be wanted for some reason (e.g.: by the police, by the army, by other criminals), I would run away heading the opposite direction, no matter how hurt is him. Specially if I were transporting children: think how scared the children could become by seeing a badly hurt, bleeding guy inside their van on their way to school? Even if the army hadn't shot, the children could have some kind of trauma because of that. I know many "grown up" people who just can't stand seeing blood (even getting to a point in which they faint), now imagine how a small child would react!

The only reason I can think of for him to have had that attitude is if he knew the other guy. Which, for the soldiers, is still a great reason to shoot: "if he knows the enemy and is willingly trying to help him, he's our enemy too".

Who cares anyway...
PS: I wasn't supposed to write all of this, I just wanted to say a single paragraph worth 3 lines.

[edit]

Quote from Xaid0n :

I guess anything that remotely looks like a threat is a target.

You know, there are no colored pointing arrows or red/blue nicknames above them to tell you whether it's a target or not.
[/edit]

Last edited by Velociround, Sat 10 Apr 2010, 18:06.

Quote from shashdev :

My reaction:




:hyper:

Thanks for a laugh on getting worked up over a silly song.

LOL!
By the looks of his post I thought I was in that "wow........." thread, because it's about war and everything.

I've never had that error... And I've just checked, YouTube is working fine here too.

LOL! Poor him! He's so stupid!

Quote from alex_ward :

win

LOL!

Notice it looks to be the same bird.
There are some options:
- The guy could have many birds
- It could be a fake video playing on webcam
- It could be someone who used the legit video live (see gif above) and used it against these poor girls. They fell for it lol.

Quote from DevilDare :

Pendulum - Watercolor

Its just epic

(Just make sure to turn it up as loud as possible to get the full pleasure)

Indeed! I'm listening to the same song at the moment. It is epic indeed. I love it.

Quote from Bose321 :

That's rockclan's name.

HAHAHAHA! that's even better now!

I have seen some very interesting here in Brazil too:

KKK, MSN, MSG, IMG, LOL
(plates here follow the format "ABC-1234")

I haven't even read the song yet (sorry, I don't have time now ) but I have already subscribed to the thread.

If this one looks like your previous ones, that's going to be great!

I haven't read the song yet (I haven't got time now ) but I'm really starting to like these kind of songs. Subscribed to thread

Last edited by Velociround, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 01:21.

Quote from Bose321 :

"Sorry, my name is walter"

I guess I quite don't get it, but found it funny nonetheless

Quote from logitekg25 :

so what do viruses have to do with it?

It means his computer is already screwed so it would make no difference putting viruses on his PC for a April 1st joke, so he just did something else: modified IE's name.

Quote from spankmeyer :

I'm sorry, I'm an expert and your arguments are invalid.

I'm sorry, but I beg to differ from you in every single one of your statements.
In my opinion, Half-Life 2 is the best game ever released. The way Valve managed to connect the Half-Life world in every single game of the series is, at least, astonishing. Plus, the release of Portal, which also takes place in the Half-Life world, and fits so perfectly the story. It amazes me how well everything is linked.

I have finished Half-Life 2 more than 50 times, and I'm not over exaggerating. I'm serious. But that's just Half-Life 2 alone; during the last years I even took my time to finish all HL, HL2, HL2 Ep1 and Ep2, one after the other. And I have done that plenty of times too. Not only that, but I have also finished the whole series online through Synergy with some friends. And every time I played it, I noticed something new I hadn't noticed before. Be it a easter egg, areas of the levels I hadn't been before or new ways to go through the missions, I always found something new. And Half-Life still amazes me today. My friends still call me to go for some rounds on HL2 online (or some of the episodes) when we have some free time. If the game wasn't so awesome, I would never do that. I don't do that with other games as well (most of them I finish 1 time, maybe 2 if I think it's awesome or up to 5 if I really LOVE the game, but with HL series it has been seriously more than 100 times in the last 3 years).

Even after playing so many times, I still cared a lot about all the characters in the game. I feel for them, I feel I am really Gordon Freeman, I really feel I'm in the Half-Life world and I love the storyline, it's simply outstanding. Ravenholm was a very, very scary experience and I loved it.

WARNING
[*SPOILERS*]
When Alyx gets taken down on the beginning of the game, a teardrop fell on my face. I was very sad about it. I kind of love her, she's so "natural" (for the lack of a better word; I need some new words on my vocabulary), she's a character I really care about. Well, I have actually cried when I finished HL2 Ep2. I felt so bad about her and her family, and the whole thing going on. I care a lot about all the characters, and I wasn't expecting for such an ending. That was really, really sad. It made me want to play more and to see what's coming next with Ep3.
[/*SPOILERS*]

By the way, talking about it made me want to play it again. I may start a new singleplayer career on it after I finish FEAR and FEAR 2, which I've been playing lately.

I don't have more time to write anything here as I have to go now, but I guess that pretty much sums it up.

Voting closed.
Zynga - 46.7% (22470)
Valve - 53.3% (25677)

The voting thread has 554 pages and growing. Wow.

The Twitter votes haven't been counted yet; we'll only see the results when they are. But it's pretty much certain Valve will win and compete the next (and last round) with BioWare.

By the way, that thread has produced some great material:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VLkbnp2uAE

Quote :

Valve Died to Zygna on Friday
Valve laid dead that Saturday without a prayer
and Today on the Sabbath, Valve rose again.

It's an Easter Miracle.

Last edited by Velociround, Sun 4 Apr 2010, 18:43.

Quote from brandons48 :

Heh, interesting.

I guess spam is ok, so long as it is funny/positive i.e not just throwing insults. If you and another member are just having a bit of banter (you and zeug for example) and people read it and find it funny (logitek) then everyone is happier, and it reduces the flaming and whining.

Yay. Group Hugs. The End.

I found it very funny too.
But I didn't feel the need to say so when they first posted it.

*hugs*

Woah, I guess my thread really made a difference!

Right now
Zynga - 50% (21309)
Valve - 50% (21287)

"Server overload"

DON'T STOP VOTING!

Edit: It seems like it's a server crash?
Fatal error: Database Error: Connection Failed in /sixpack/web_ramdisk/sites/global/classes/class.db.mysql.inc on line 74

Edit2: It's back online now.
"We're sorry but the current forum traffic is overloading the thread display hamsters. Your posts and votes will still be recorded, but may not be immediately visible."

Edit3:
Zynga - 49.9% (21314)
Valve - 50.1% (21381)

Go Valve, go!

Last edited by Velociround, Sun 4 Apr 2010, 06:35.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Even if Valve advances, there's no way in hell they can beat Blizzard!

Actually, if Valve advances, it won't even fight with Blizzard. Blizzard is losing to BioWare.

Blizzard - 47.7% (7786)
BioWare - 52.3% (8524)

Plus, if Zynga does defeat Valve, it will also defeat BioWare (or Blizzard). Look at how many votes it has received and compare to how many votes Blizzard and BioWare have.

Zynga - 53.1% (20581)
Valve - 46.9% (18205)

If Valve does advance, it will most likely beat both Blizzard and BioWare.

Quote from -NightFly- :

it was absolutely normal day for me, actually there was less jokes/funnies than on a casual day.

Me too.

LOL! That's great! We need a video clip for this!

So, while some of you may have noticed this, I believe most haven't, and that's why I'm posting this here:
http://bit.ly/aANIUR

The Escapist Magazine has created a contest in which 64 game companies have been chosen to "fight" each other in votings.

There are basically 6 rounds which will decide what is the best game company. They are currently on the fifth round: Valve vs Zynga.

Valve - very well known game producer who created the Half-Life, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead series.
Zynga - I hadn't heard of it before, producer of the web browser Facebook "games" FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Vampire Wars.

Please VOTE! Here's the link for voting:
http://www.escapistmagazine.co ... 7-Zynga-vs-1-Valve?page=1

You can either use your Facebook account to login or create a new Escapist account to vote.

You can also double-vote by following @TheEscapistmag on twitter and tweeting your vote:

Quote :

I voted for @steam_games in Round 5 of The Escapist's March Mayhem: http://bit.ly/aANIUR #escMM.

Please, vote for Valve! FarmVille and Mafia Wars can't win this contest! And besides, Valve is such a wonderful game company with brilliant games and care about their community, and surely deserves to win.

Zynga has already defeated Rockstar North (GTA and Manhunt series), Infinity Ward (COD series), Square Enix (Final Fantasy) and NCSoft (Lineage series)! We must stop that!

Thanks!

Sorry
Opera automaticaly makes pictures fit to the screen so I hadn't noticed that.
I've removed the links now. Click on thumbnails to see the pics.