Posts by Thrik

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Quote from Ginger Lord

    Consoles are good, but they do have plenty of hidden costs. Get a PC, its a big investment up front, then a few years down the line you could (not have) to upgrade parts.Consoles you pay less at the start but things add up. Want wireless with your 360? £50 please. Want an extra controller? £30 please. Games? £40-£60 please. Batteries in your remote need changing, best buy some more or an expensive rechargeable one!

    I think consoles get you in the long run. Especially when after the standard 5 year cycle the next one comes out.

    I think your criticisms are more specific to the 360 to be honest. To get a PS3 controller costs roughly the same or less than it costs to get a decent PC keyboard and mouse, it has wireless built in, the controllers have internal USB-charged batteries, and I've not paid over £40 for a game yet.

    Your big investment point is even more so with consoles, which typically go 5-7 years before they're succeeded. A PC will generally start to struggle with the latest games after only one year or so (anyone who doesn't acknowledge this is kidding themselves), regardless of how much you spend on the hardware. After just a few years you'll be effectively forced into upgrading due to a lack of emphasis on proper scaling for older hardware by developers (referring to both optimisation and looks here).

    Combined with the fact that at least the PS3 can save you a lot of money on other non-gaming activities (it can handle DVDs, Blu-Rays, audio, pictures, and data just as competently as most dedicated units), the value for money is supreme. The 360 is also great value for money, albeit slightly less so IMO due to an absence of various built-in functionality.

    If I had £400 or so to drop on either a PC of my dreams or a PS3, it'd go to the latter any day without a moment of hesitation.

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Quote from Ginger Lord

    At least PC games dont cost £50-60 to buy!

    Well, you can get a lot of console games cheaper. £30–£40 is the average I've seen on the PS3, having gotten most of my games for that or below (including GTA4). It's not too much more than PC games really, which are typically £25–£35. Consoles are for the most part excellent value for money IMO.

  • Battlefield: Bad Company Demo

    I'll probably play the single-player campaign, but I can't imagine myself getting serious about the multiplayer like I usually do for the PC Battlefield games. In that respect I'll hold out for when the inevitable Battlefield 3 comes along, which'll most probably have more fine-tuned infantry combat and all the destruction stuff they've developed on the engine.

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Quote from dux

    Seems like a brilliant waste of money to me, stick with gold old trusty PC

    Are you kidding? Show me a PC that can run the latest games for £280 (the current cost of a PS3). And then show me that PC still running them in a year, and in two years.

    Don't get me wrong I love the PC, but to use money as an argument in its favour is a joke of the utmost magnitude. The PC is without a doubt the most expensive, depreciative, frustrating way to game. Its only real pro is that it has a keyboard/mouse (although PS3 games are beginning to support these now) and that a select few developers work primarily on it (eg: Valve, Relic).

    HP don't get too blue, you may receive it quicker. Customer support always gives 'worst case scenario' answers just to cover their asses and lower your expectations. It could very well take little longer than it takes to post it there and then post a new one back.

    Regarding the 360, they may send them out for a week but that's because Microsoft has been forced into fine-tuning their returns system due to the slight issue of almost a third of their consoles failing, while the PS3 is by and large very reliable, solid, and has few issues — amazing considering it uses more unconventional and less-tested hardware than the 360. The 360 has better return support, the PS3 has less people who need to use it. Evens out pretty well.

  • What have you purchased recently?

    Ouch.

    I've heard of some first-generation PS3s doing that, something to do with the laser I think. Sony are pretty good with their support though, and some game shops in the UK will do the exchange for you and then sort warranty/etc out on your behalf. Might be worth seeing if the one you bought it from does, unless you got it online.

  • New Resident Evil 5 trailer

    GameCube and Wii versions are the best if you can get them, although I think even the Wii is beaten by the GameCube version (a lot of people prefer the original controls and it's better reviewed).

    The PC version did seem pretty poor, although I think a lot of the game's beauty also came from most people playing it on a non-HD television. It looks significantly less impressive on HD or PC screens.

  • Orphan Work Bill

    I think it might be worth researching the concept of orphaned copyright works on Wikipedia, and reading something from the other side of the bias fence:

    http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/042408e.html

    It seems like the article you linked to overwhelmingly focuses on the potential negatives that could arise, while the reality is much less severe. An important thing to clarify is that copyright will not need to be paid for, and that people wishing to use a work must perform a diligent search in good faith to locate the author for permission. If they are shown in court to have missed obvious credit and not acted accordingly, they'll face the same infringement penalties as before.

    Bear in mind that our countries work on a court system. If someone is going to be an absolute moron by trying to claim he created your work first, you can take them to court and conclusively prove that it was your work by using as evidence the source files you presumably kept to yourself, analysing the dates the images were first used, etc. No company with an ounce of intelligence would risk a competent lawyer forcing them to pay the guy they ripped off hundreds of thousands of damages fees just for the sake of stealing a small piece of work.

    It's important to remember that the primary point of the bill is to bring orphan works out of the darkness, which is in itself a nice thing.

  • Damn Germans are in my holiday resort!

    Sounds like the newspaper was way out of line IMO, by turning an incident of one unreasonable guy into an attack on the whole country.

    The lawsuit and the fact he won are ridiculous, but it's just one guy. If we're going to play the flip game, it's like a UK newspaper pulling every German stereotype out of the bag in a rant because one German was upset and sued because he couldn't find any decent German beer while on holiday in the UK.

    I suppose it's hard to look at the issue properly without knowing what kind of travel package was sold to the guy, of course. If it was marketed as an English-oriented holiday, he probably does have grounds to be a bit annoyed at his travel company. It'd be comparable to a German signing up for a UK tour sold in a German travel agency, and then once he gets there he finds out everyone else on the tour including the tour guide is Russian.

  • Crytek drops Crysis patch support

    Right, but don't forget that Crysis is a pretty stable product that's already had multiple patches. What exactly were people expecting from 1.3 that's worth being annoyed about it? All I can think of is new maps or something, which fit squarely into KFS's example.

    I agree with those saying that Crytek shouldn't have said anything, though. I guess they're learning that being transparent doesn't pay off when it comes to gamers, which is why more experienced developers just keep their fans in the dark. So far Crytek have revealed that a huge amount of people pirated their game, and that they're not developing a conventional third patch. Both announcements aren't particularly bad, but have been ripped apart by a lot of people.

    Lesson: Shh!