Gaming Tech to Watch in 20093D gaming, brain computer interfaces, OLED screens, Wii MotionPlus, the DSi, Windows 7, 48-core GPUs and more. The future is... soon!ign.com Iga_Bobovic
Funcom Posts LossStill busy with several MMO projects.ign.com Iga_Bobovic
Global Agenda Ready for Closed BetaInnovative game architecture combines fast-action character creation and personal interaction on a massive scale, eliminating geographic and server constraints.ign.com Iga_Bobovic
BattleForge Free MusicJust five weeks until March 24th launch of epic action RTS and fantasy gamers are gearing up to play online with friends.ign.com Iga_Bobovic
EVE Online Retail DetailsExtras include exclusive new ship, 60 days of free game time, instant war access and more.ign.com Iga_Bobovic
Evolution of Dual ScreenThe Nintendo DS was among many two-display systems in the company's history. Here's a look at the early days.ign.com Iga_Bobovic
Not only is it nice to see de Blob sell so well, it also seems that THQ might have just figured out a great mystery of the videogame world. . . if you make Nintendo-esque games of good quality you'll reach the audience that buys Nintendo's first party games. Brilliant deduction! Remarkably most other companies still haven't grasped that.
Hey guys, I know we've discussed it, but if that link for the new CC has already been posted, don't delete it. I need a link for the story to discuss on the podcast.
Did you guys hear about the lesbian Microsoft banned from Xbox Live? Her being a lesbian offended other people I hear and their complaints got her kicked off.
She had to have been prettey flagrant or had an offensive screen name no?
Did you guys hear about the lesbian Microsoft banned from Xbox Live? Her being a lesbian offended other people I hear and their complaints got her kicked off.
She had to have been prettey flagrant or had an offensive screen name no?
Nintendo will haveto sue right?
She probably wouldn't make out with other women on live. Lesbians not making out=lesbians that are not wanted on the internet.
Whipping mutant ASS would be good. Strategic dismemberment would take on a whole new meaning. Laser whip the weak spot to grab and dis.... member it.
AAA indeed. That's the kind of thing I would expect to see in HOTD Overkill.
Punk Rebel Ecks said:
Damn De Blob did over 700k!?
Yeah it's pretty cool, last I heard it was 560'000. THQ seem pretty happy that it was sold at full price for 4-6 months. They should re-advertise and try to get a longer term sales model. Shame more people dont buy this game, it's a great freeform plaformer with fantastic music.
aspro73 said:
gamingeek said:
Did you guys hear about the lesbian Microsoft banned from Xbox Live? Her being a lesbian offended other people I hear and their complaints got her kicked off.
She had to have been prettey flagrant or had an offensive screen name no?
Apparentely not. She says that she had herself identified as lesbian in her profile, people took offence, complained and got her kicked off. When she complained to Microsoft they said that her being a lesbian offended other people. I haven't read the full story yet, just snippets.
robio said:
Not only is it nice to see de Blob sell so well, it also seems that THQ might have just figured out a great mystery of the videogame world. . . if you make Nintendo-esque games of good quality you'll reach the audience that buys Nintendo's first party games. Brilliant deduction! Remarkably most other companies still haven't grasped that.
Rare had that down pat years ago. The problem was that no one else could be bothered. Diddy Kong Racing? Banjo? Starfox Adventures? These were great derivatives of Nintendo's work.
Part of EA's ongoing strategy is to better establish its Wii presence -- something that actually contributed to EA's troubles in the last year, Pleasants noted, as the publisher has struggled to compete with Nintendo's own heavily dominant position on the platform.
But the company isn't giving up. "We have this year 20 to 25 SKUs coming out on the Wii," said the COO. "They are not ports, they are all products that are developed directly for the Wii."
He even floated the idea of co-marketing between EA and Nintendo, or a marketing campaign by EA that trumpets the company's focus on the platform. "For the first time, the idea that EA and Wii are two powerful companies that support each other, is something that we can market," he said.
An audience member asked about the reasoning for that shift. "Nintendo now is almost 50 percent of the install base, and that is something you cannot ignore," Pleasants responded. "Electronic Arts' history of strength is on Xbox and PlayStation. If that's only half the market, you can only get so big. Our products have got to be able to play over there."
Mirroring changes to the company's broader product slate, some of EA's genres on Wii will actually shrink in size in order to focus more on quality: "The amount of sports titles we're making for the Wii might actually be down this year, because we're focused on making the big ones really hot. It's a focus and execution thing for the Wii."
The gay gaming community is in uproar this morning after word broke that an Xbox Live user was banned for identifying herself as a lesbian.
Ex-Xbox Live member, Teresa (that's EX member - hold onto your friend requests) says she was harassed by other players and later suspended from the service for noting her sexual preference in her Xbox Live profile.
Apparently, when Teresa appealed to Microsoft, the company told her that other gamers found her sexual orientation "offensive."
"I just recently saw a thing on your site about someones gamer tag being banned because it had the word gay in the tag," she told The Consumerist. "I had a similar incident, only my account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian.
"I was harassed by several players, 'chased' to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.
"My account was suspended and Xbox Live did nothing to solve this, but instead said others found it offensive," she added. "Today I received a message from another gamer calling me a fag. I am a lesbian, so they aren't too smart if they cant get their anti-gay slurs right.
"Microsoft does nothing to stop this or prevent it, but instead sides with the homophobes. No one will help me get the word out about Microsoft's anti-gay policy. Not even the HRC who says Microsoft has a positive image with them. Not to me it doesn't!"
Microsoft UK told CVG: "We're looking into this issue and don't have a comment to make right now."
It's not the first time Microsoft's angered the gay community, of course. Xbox Live users theGAYERgamer and Richard Gaywood - that's his real name by the way - were also suspended from the service
MTV Multiplayer: “Dead Space Extraction” has been announced as a first-person addition to the Dead Space franchise. I understand that that means the game will be on-rails, as opposed to being a standard first-person shooter, but can you clarify exactly what kind of game this is and how we’ll be playing it?
Papoutsis: “Dead Space Extraction” is a Guided First Person Experience.
MTV Multiplayer: Are we still going to be dismembering enemies in Dead Space Extraction or is this a more standard shooting game?
Papoutsis:You bet! Limbs and Sacks will be flying everywhere, plus we have all new enemies and bosses to test your skills.
MTV Multiplayer: The Xbox 360 and PS3 Dead Space gave gamers an excellent sense of horror through high-end graphics and surround sound. For those uncertain about whether the Wii is powerful enough to deliver similar scares, what can you say?
Papoutsis:It has been great developing ‘Extraction’ on the Wii. The system is very powerful and so far we think we are doing a good job of recreating the same great Atmosphere as seen in Dead Space. If you have a chance, take a look at our first trailer video, that is 100% gameplay footage. So far I’m very happy with the visuals the team has been able to achieve. We won’t stop where we are now though, we are always trying to improve.
DEAD SPACE DSH INTERVIEW
Dead SpaceExtraction for Wii has been announced. Do you plan to integrate any new features? Will map sizes and number of enemies have to be reduced compared to Dead Space? Will it still be physics heavy?
Glen: You should see it. It looks fantastic on the wii. In my opinion (and others) its one of the best looking games so far on the Wii. Obviously we will make a couple compromises but in other ways we can add more, especially taking advantage of the Wii controllers. There are new enemies, characters, story, puzzles, co-op and weapons. And yes, physics and even zero-g play a huge part in the game.
Q: Can we expect it to look as good as the recentely seen Dead Space Xbox footage?
original Xbox?
Glen: Better, I think. It really looks freakin great. I kid you not.
Q: How will you scare the player and use the Wii remote?
Glen: We will scare the player just as much as we did in Dead Space. We learned so much about scary, tension and horror that we'll put all that knowledge to use on Extraction. As I said above the Wii controller offers us some pretty cool innovative and unique opportunities for Extraction and we are taking advantage of every one.
(Also the DSH interview talks about the 360/PS3 game, story, development etc too so check that out )
Microsoft Apologizes For Xbox Live Ban On Gay Gamertags Spokesman admits policy meant to prevent abusive language is 'inelegant.' By Stephen Totilo
A recent complaint from a gamer has rankled thousands of people across the Internet who don't feel someone should be suspended from Microsoft's Xbox Live service just because she wrote in her profile that she is a lesbian.
The complaint hit the blog the Consumerist on Wednesday, sparking anger at Microsoft for a longstanding policy that suspends anyone who types into their Xbox Live Gamertag nickname or profile words related to sexual orientation like "gay" or "lesbian."
A Microsoft rep explained to MTV News today why the company has that policy and why it might be changing.
"It is true that as a matter of policy, the expression of relationship preference in Gamertag profiles and tags is not allowed across the board, whether that's heterosexual or other," Stephen Toulouse, program manager for policy and enforcement on Xbox Live, told MTV News in a phone interview today. "But as we saw when we ran into an issue with this [last year,] we started looking into that policy."
He acknowledged that the current policy could use improving: "It's inelegant. And it's inelegant because the text-box field is freeform."
The latest incident that sparked this debate was the account of the gamer Teresa, who wrote to the Consumerist blog about how including her sexual orientation in her Xbox Live profile left her hounded by other Xbox Live users who harassed her and reported her to Microsoft authorities. Subsequently, according to her account, she was suspended. Her story added to the publicity of an incident in 2008, when a user who just had the word gay in his real name, Richard Gaywood, had his account suspended.
Some gamers commenting on Consumerist and elsewhere think that Microsoft should simply allow people to use words like "gay." It's not that simple. "On the face of that, we have no objection to that," Toulouse said, "except for one simple problem." That problem? When Toulouse's team started combing through all of the complaints they were receiving last year regarding profiles and Gamertags using the word "gay," between 95 and 98 percent were using the word pejoratively.
The stated intention of Microsoft's policy is to prevent abusive language, something that Toulouse acknowledges isn't the case with either the Gaywood or Teresa incidents. His team now understands, he said, that they need to find a way to at let people express things like sexual orientation in ways that can't be abused.
"As social media has become more and more of a thing in the past six years, people are wanting to express more and more detail about themselves," Toulouse said.
One solution would seemingly be to allow users to select symbols or check off boxes that denote one's sexual orientation, gender or other defining qualities. "I think that's a great idea," Toulouse said. "That's the type of thing we're looking at as a solution. ... I can't talk about future plans, except to say we want to provide the capability for our users to express relationship preference or gender without a way for it to be misused."
As for the Teresa incident, Toulouse said his team was aware of the Consumerist post within an hour of its posting but has been unable to take any action because of the lack of details provided. "Certainly, harassing someone, even if they have the expression of their relationship preference in their profile or their Gamertag, even if that may be against the current terms of use in the current policy — that does not give the right for anyone to harass another player," he said. Those who do experience harassment like that should file a complaint via their Xbox 360 or post it on Xbox.com.
And now Phantom_Leo gives a Blow by Blow account of his first hour's experience with Killzone 2!
___________________
**Reprinted from last night from elsewhere for the benefit of people here who may be interested!**
Well, it's certainly purdy!
Kinda like COD with Sci-Fi elements.
The
animation is very realistic for a game of this type, but it has an
unnatural hiccup every once in a while where it goes from very smooth
to robotically stiff, back to smooth again. It's a bit jarring, but you
probably won't notice it when you get wrapped up with the game.
There's
some kind of graphical filter on the game that almost looks "glassy."
Sorry, there's no other way to describe it, but you'll see what I mean
when you play it.
Looks incredible for the most part though, but
I'm gonna go to bed for now. Maybe I'll play more in the morning and
post more then!
**I wasn't immediately floored by it!**
___________________
**Went back an hour later!**
Played it some more. (Can't sleep.)
It's funny. Killzone
started its life on PS2 as a "Halo Killer." Now as the COD games have
gotten to be more popular it seems to be a COD killer.
It has
lots of minute details that I know lots of people are going to
absolutely love. Bottles break, steel drums roll, buildings collapse...
The first time I shot a Helghast's helmet off, I couldn't help but
laugh to myself. There's LOTS of ambient lighting effects, smoke,
blooms, you name it.
The one thing that keeps on distracting
the HELL out of me is the very frequent loading... Right in the middle
of you running around a battlefield... for all of the game's
smoothness... it is absolutely distracting when it pauses for that
split second to load... Yeah. You even see a little "Loading..." in the
corner of your screen! I understand to get this level of detail, it's
kinda necessary, but it's somewhat annoying. As soon as you start to
forget yourself while playing... **zap** ...reality check...
"Loading..."
It's hectic, there's lots of stuff going on around
you. You hear your allies yelling (with lots of cursing). You hear the
Helghast yelling back and dying (with lots of cursing).
It does paint the picture very well though of a battlefield on an alien world, again, COD style.
___________________
**Returned to it this morning!**
Let's hear it for superfluous Sixaxis actions! Yay! Not only does the Load Screen between chapters TILT
if you tilt your controller. Oooo...! But, right in the middle of a
crazy battlefield you'll have to hold R1 and L1 and Tilt your
controller to grab a valve handle to twist it open! Oooo...! When are
they EVER going to learn? Ugh!
Got to the Assault on the Arc Tower stage. Very nice so far.
Controlled
a Tank. Cool. Shot down other tanks with an RPG. Gave support to other
pinned down troops. Very typical FPS action; just presented in an level
of detail not yet seen on a console (?).
The
cover system works well, and you'll be using it often. Hold L2 to hide
behind cover, use the left analog to peek up, over and around your
barrier. You can use R3 to zoom. Again, typical FPS action.
Got to my first chain gun wielding Heavy Soldier; also cool.
Like
Resistance there's Intel to find, but also Helghast Symbols to seek out
and collect or destroy in each stage for bonuses, so there's
replayability in there. I find these games sometimes frustratingly hard
to follow sometimes, though... The action is exploding around you, you
have people shouting orders at you from every direction, forcing you
forward --BUT-- there's always some kind of incentive to creep around
the stage instead... Make up your mind! Either balls to the wall action
or stealthy creep around and look for stuff action! I'm not a HUGE FPS
fan so this contradiction confuses me! THANK GOD there's a way point
arrow, pointing out your next objective when you press Up on the
directional pad. Without that, I would be completely lost!
The
game really is good and I know I am nitpicking, but it's the way I have
to play it. The countdown timer in the back of my head, counting down
the seconds before I eject this game and pop back in SFIV for the NEXT
indeterminate amount of time is ever present! I don't want to play this
game, not get a good idea about it immediately, then take it out and
forget about it, not after I just spent $60.00 and went to a midnight
release for it! The game is a great FPS, but SFIV is calling...
**Let's see if it has the staying power to keep an non-FPS fan interested. More later! Ummm... Maybe!**
___________________
**Almost forgot!**
As I said before, It's the little details that impress the most. The
way the Helghast die is kinda cool. One time I shot one of them, he
spun around and landed up facing the wall, dead. His glowing red eyes
were casting a red glow on the wall he was propped up against. Cool!
I noticed the glassy effect. I like the art in this game, its not all about pushing plastic looking shaders at incredible resolutions. You have to press 2 buttons at once and tilt for levers? Sounds annoying.
How does the game compare to the Resistance games?
You include Van Nistelrooy and fletcher yet not the Ronaldo Rooney blowjob? Shameon you. -_-
Btw, it looks like the latino guy is about to rape the black guy...but the gayer the better. I'm disgusted by lack of the blowjob, though.
Nice..
Hey guys, I know we've discussed it, but if that link for the new CC has already been posted, don't delete it. I need a link for the story to discuss on the podcast.
Much better.
Ah. Interesting colour scheme.
The update colours make things far less clear. Although I'm not completely oppossed to the comments colours. Interesting.
She had to have been prettey flagrant or had an offensive screen name no?
Nintendo will have to sue right?
She probably wouldn't make out with other women on live. Lesbians not making out=lesbians that are not wanted on the internet.
Whipping mutant ASS would be good. Strategic dismemberment would take on a whole new meaning. Laser whip the weak spot to grab and dis.... member it.
AAA indeed. That's the kind of thing I would expect to see in HOTD Overkill.
Yeah it's pretty cool, last I heard it was 560'000. THQ seem pretty happy that it was sold at full price for 4-6 months. They should re-advertise and try to get a longer term sales model. Shame more people dont buy this game, it's a great freeform plaformer with fantastic music.
Apparentely not. She says that she had herself identified as lesbian in her profile, people took offence, complained and got her kicked off. When she complained to Microsoft they said that her being a lesbian offended other people. I haven't read the full story yet, just snippets.
Rare had that down pat years ago. The problem was that no one else could be bothered. Diddy Kong Racing? Banjo? Starfox Adventures? These were great derivatives of Nintendo's work.
UPDATING NAO, STEER CLEAR EGGBALL LOVERS
EDIT: Done.
EA making 25 non-port Wii games
The Wii Issue
Part of EA's ongoing strategy is to better establish its Wii presence -- something that actually contributed to EA's troubles in the last year, Pleasants noted, as the publisher has struggled to compete with Nintendo's own heavily dominant position on the platform.
But the company isn't giving up. "We have this year 20 to 25 SKUs coming out on the Wii," said the COO. "They are not ports, they are all products that are developed directly for the Wii."
He even floated the idea of co-marketing between EA and Nintendo, or a marketing campaign by EA that trumpets the company's focus on the platform. "For the first time, the idea that EA and Wii are two powerful companies that support each other, is something that we can market," he said.
An audience member asked about the reasoning for that shift. "Nintendo now is almost 50 percent of the install base, and that is something you cannot ignore," Pleasants responded. "Electronic Arts' history of strength is on Xbox and PlayStation. If that's only half the market, you can only get so big. Our products have got to be able to play over there."
Mirroring changes to the company's broader product slate, some of EA's genres on Wii will actually shrink in size in order to focus more on quality: "The amount of sports titles we're making for the Wii might actually be down this year, because we're focused on making the big ones really hot. It's a focus and execution thing for the Wii."
XBL-bans-lesbians
The gay gaming community is in uproar this morning after word broke that an Xbox Live user was banned for identifying herself as a lesbian.
Ex-Xbox Live member, Teresa (that's EX member - hold onto your friend requests) says she was harassed by other players and later suspended from the service for noting her sexual preference in her Xbox Live profile.
Apparently, when Teresa appealed to Microsoft, the company told her that other gamers found her sexual orientation "offensive."
"I just recently saw a thing on your site about someones gamer tag being banned because it had the word gay in the tag," she told The Consumerist. "I had a similar incident, only my account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian.
"I was harassed by several players, 'chased' to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.
"My account was suspended and Xbox Live did nothing to solve this, but instead said others found it offensive," she added. "Today I received a message from another gamer calling me a fag. I am a lesbian, so they aren't too smart if they cant get their anti-gay slurs right.
"Microsoft does nothing to stop this or prevent it, but instead sides with the homophobes. No one will help me get the word out about Microsoft's anti-gay policy. Not even the HRC who says Microsoft has a positive image with them. Not to me it doesn't!"
Microsoft UK told CVG: "We're looking into this issue and don't have a comment to make right now."
It's not the first time Microsoft's angered the gay community, of course. Xbox Live users theGAYERgamer and Richard Gaywood - that's his real name by the way - were also suspended from the service
DEAD SPACE MTV INTERVIEW
MTV Multiplayer: “Dead Space Extraction” has been announced as a first-person addition to the Dead Space franchise. I understand that that means the game will be on-rails, as opposed to being a standard first-person shooter, but can you clarify exactly what kind of game this is and how we’ll be playing it?
Papoutsis: “Dead Space Extraction” is a Guided First Person Experience.
MTV Multiplayer: Are we still going to be dismembering enemies in Dead Space Extraction or is this a more standard shooting game?
Papoutsis:You bet! Limbs and Sacks will be flying everywhere, plus we have all new enemies and bosses to test your skills.
MTV Multiplayer: The Xbox 360 and PS3 Dead Space gave gamers an excellent sense of horror through high-end graphics and surround sound. For those uncertain about whether the Wii is powerful enough to deliver similar scares, what can you say?
Papoutsis:It has been great developing ‘Extraction’ on the Wii. The system is very powerful and so far we think we are doing a good job of recreating the same great Atmosphere as seen in Dead Space. If you have a chance, take a look at our first trailer video, that is 100% gameplay footage. So far I’m very happy with the visuals the team has been able to achieve. We won’t stop where we are now though, we are always trying to improve.
DEAD SPACE DSH INTERVIEW
Dead Space Extraction for Wii has been announced. Do you plan to integrate any new features? Will map sizes and number of enemies have to be reduced compared to Dead Space? Will it still be physics heavy?
Glen: You should see it. It looks fantastic on the wii. In my opinion (and others) its one of the best looking games so far on the Wii. Obviously we will make a couple compromises but in other ways we can add more, especially taking advantage of the Wii controllers. There are new enemies, characters, story, puzzles, co-op and weapons. And yes, physics and even zero-g play a huge part in the game.
Q: Can we expect it to look as good as the recentely seen Dead Space Xbox footage?
original Xbox?
Glen: Better, I think. It really looks freakin great. I kid you not.
Q: How will you scare the player and use the Wii remote?
Glen: We will scare the player just as much as we did in Dead Space. We learned so much about scary, tension and horror that we'll put all that knowledge to use on Extraction. As I said above the Wii controller offers us some pretty cool innovative and unique opportunities for Extraction and we are taking advantage of every one.
(Also the DSH interview talks about the 360/PS3 game, story, development etc too so check that out
)
You guys check out the EA Grand Slam Tennis character models? (Fridays updates) They remind me of SSX.
Yakuza 3 pics
Give me a night of pleasure Librarian.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Flaming knee? Is he auditioning for SFV?
Take that plastic DNA science class model. IN YOUR FACE!
I like Soccer too.
No eye contact made. Face to crotch, that's A-ok.
Here's me, dilligently adhering to my no eye contact rule.
Bin jump! Hoooooooooooooooooooo!
Doing!
I will pay you one american dollar.
Welcome to Club Tony Montana, Tokyo.
Is this suppossed to be a glass roof? Because it looks like a tent?
From now on this will be out secret 80s handshake.
I will pay you two amercian dollars. On second thoughts....... one.
Ahhhhhhhhhh, hoes.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1605966/20090226/story.jhtml
Spokesman admits policy meant to prevent abusive language is 'inelegant.'
By Stephen Totilo
A recent complaint from a gamer has rankled thousands of people across the Internet who don't feel someone should be suspended from Microsoft's Xbox Live service just because she wrote in her profile that she is a lesbian.
The complaint hit the blog the Consumerist on Wednesday, sparking anger at Microsoft for a longstanding policy that suspends anyone who types into their Xbox Live Gamertag nickname or profile words related to sexual orientation like "gay" or "lesbian."
A Microsoft rep explained to MTV News today why the company has that policy and why it might be changing.
"It is true that as a matter of policy, the expression of relationship preference in Gamertag profiles and tags is not allowed across the board, whether that's heterosexual or other," Stephen Toulouse, program manager for policy and enforcement on Xbox Live, told MTV News in a phone interview today. "But as we saw when we ran into an issue with this [last year,] we started looking into that policy."
He acknowledged that the current policy could use improving: "It's inelegant. And it's inelegant because the text-box field is freeform."
The latest incident that sparked this debate was the account of the gamer Teresa, who wrote to the Consumerist blog about how including her sexual orientation in her Xbox Live profile left her hounded by other Xbox Live users who harassed her and reported her to Microsoft authorities. Subsequently, according to her account, she was suspended. Her story added to the publicity of an incident in 2008, when a user who just had the word gay in his real name, Richard Gaywood, had his account suspended.
Some gamers commenting on Consumerist and elsewhere think that Microsoft should simply allow people to use words like "gay." It's not that simple. "On the face of that, we have no objection to that," Toulouse said, "except for one simple problem." That problem? When Toulouse's team started combing through all of the complaints they were receiving last year regarding profiles and Gamertags using the word "gay," between 95 and 98 percent were using the word pejoratively.
The stated intention of Microsoft's policy is to prevent abusive language, something that Toulouse acknowledges isn't the case with either the Gaywood or Teresa incidents. His team now understands, he said, that they need to find a way to at let people express things like sexual orientation in ways that can't be abused.
"As social media has become more and more of a thing in the past six years, people are wanting to express more and more detail about themselves," Toulouse said.
One solution would seemingly be to allow users to select symbols or check off boxes that denote one's sexual orientation, gender or other defining qualities. "I think that's a great idea," Toulouse said. "That's the type of thing we're looking at as a solution. ... I can't talk about future plans, except to say we want to provide the capability for our users to express relationship preference or gender without a way for it to be misused."
As for the Teresa incident, Toulouse said his team was aware of the Consumerist post within an hour of its posting but has been unable to take any action because of the lack of details provided. "Certainly, harassing someone, even if they have the expression of their relationship preference in their profile or their Gamertag, even if that may be against the current terms of use in the current policy — that does not give the right for anyone to harass another player," he said. Those who do experience harassment like that should file a complaint via their Xbox 360 or post it on Xbox.com.
Hello?
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
Is that right?
No, I'm sorry:
And now Phantom_Leo gives a Blow by Blow account of his first hour's experience with Killzone 2!
___________________
**Reprinted from last night from elsewhere for the benefit of people here who may be interested!**
Well, it's certainly purdy!
Kinda like COD with Sci-Fi elements.
The animation is very realistic for a game of this type, but it has an unnatural hiccup every once in a while where it goes from very smooth to robotically stiff, back to smooth again. It's a bit jarring, but you probably won't notice it when you get wrapped up with the game.
There's some kind of graphical filter on the game that almost looks "glassy." Sorry, there's no other way to describe it, but you'll see what I mean when you play it.
Looks incredible for the most part though, but I'm gonna go to bed for now. Maybe I'll play more in the morning and post more then!
**I wasn't immediately floored by it!**
___________________**Went back an hour later!**
Played it some more. (Can't sleep.)
It's funny. Killzone started its life on PS2 as a "Halo Killer." Now as the COD games have gotten to be more popular it seems to be a COD killer.
It has lots of minute details that I know lots of people are going to absolutely love. Bottles break, steel drums roll, buildings collapse... The first time I shot a Helghast's helmet off, I couldn't help but laugh to myself. There's LOTS of ambient lighting effects, smoke, blooms, you name it.
The one thing that keeps on distracting the HELL out of me is the very frequent loading... Right in the middle of you running around a battlefield... for all of the game's smoothness... it is absolutely distracting when it pauses for that split second to load... Yeah. You even see a little "Loading..." in the corner of your screen! I understand to get this level of detail, it's kinda necessary, but it's somewhat annoying. As soon as you start to forget yourself while playing... **zap** ...reality check... "Loading..."
It's hectic, there's lots of stuff going on around you. You hear your allies yelling (with lots of cursing). You hear the Helghast yelling back and dying (with lots of cursing).
It does paint the picture very well though of a battlefield on an alien world, again, COD style.
___________________**Returned to it this morning!**
Let's hear it for superfluous Sixaxis actions! Yay! Not only does the Load Screen between chapters TILT if you tilt your controller. Oooo...!
Got to the Assault on the Arc Tower stage. Very nice so far.
Controlled a Tank. Cool. Shot down other tanks with an RPG. Gave support to other pinned down troops. Very typical FPS action; just presented in an level of detail not yet seen on a console (?).
The cover system works well, and you'll be using it often. Hold L2 to hide behind cover, use the left analog to peek up, over and around your barrier. You can use R3 to zoom. Again, typical FPS action.
Got to my first chain gun wielding Heavy Soldier; also cool.
Like Resistance there's Intel to find, but also Helghast Symbols to seek out and collect or destroy in each stage for bonuses, so there's replayability in there. I find these games sometimes frustratingly hard to follow sometimes, though... The action is exploding around you, you have people shouting orders at you from every direction, forcing you forward --BUT-- there's always some kind of incentive to creep around the stage instead... Make up your mind! Either balls to the wall action or stealthy creep around and look for stuff action! I'm not a HUGE FPS fan so this contradiction confuses me! THANK GOD there's a way point arrow, pointing out your next objective when you press Up on the directional pad. Without that, I would be completely lost!
The game really is good and I know I am nitpicking, but it's the way I have to play it. The countdown timer in the back of my head, counting down the seconds before I eject this game and pop back in SFIV for the NEXT indeterminate amount of time is ever present! I don't want to play this game, not get a good idea about it immediately, then take it out and forget about it, not after I just spent $60.00 and went to a midnight release for it! The game is a great FPS, but SFIV is calling...
**Let's see if it has the staying power to keep an non-FPS fan interested. More later! Ummm... Maybe!**
___________________
**Almost forgot!**
As I said before, It's the little details that impress the most. The way the Helghast die is kinda cool. One time I shot one of them, he spun around and landed up facing the wall, dead. His glowing red eyes were casting a red glow on the wall he was propped up against. Cool!
The blue/green text on the forum is burning my eyes, as are the bright blue Quote/Edit buttons, but everything else looks good.
I think the new logo looks more professional, but the new colour scheme looks much less professional.
There is a Killzone 2 thread Leo, put it there.
I noticed the glassy effect. I like the art in this game, its not all about pushing plastic looking shaders at incredible resolutions. You have to press 2 buttons at once and tilt for levers? Sounds annoying.
How does the game compare to the Resistance games?