The entire game is a thrillsucker and I closed the window.

This is it. I'm sold. This game is great - totally worth US$60 (US$30 if you bought UT2k3).

The bots, the vehicles, the gametypes, the physics, the strategy, the everything. The game just reeks of quality.

There is more strategy here than most other FPS's. More than most other GENRES. This game is tactical bootcamp plus the satisfying up close and personal feel of classic FPS's.

No comparisons to other products. This game is in a league of its own. The differentiating factors are quality, BALANCE and LOADWADS of content.

Understand the threat here.

Moving to a local Miami court increases their odds of success by orders of magnitude. All they need is a sympathetic jury selected from the local population.

You fans don't even have the line right. It's:
"Kill All The Haitians."

If you cannot understand why this is offensive to some people or you cannot defend freedom of offensive expression in your consumer products, then you deserve to have the freedom ripped away by trivial lawsuits.

Defend or lose.

Of course, you are within the target demographic for the game. You understand the context underlying the remarks. You don't take offense. But then CABA isn't issuing statements based on your perception either.

Imagine the view from a non-English perspective. From the eyes of a wholly different culture. It's one thing to alienate millions of people for your amusement. It's another to take that utterly for granted.

I'm not worried about the Cubans. Just watch. The Far Right will come again to judge the living and the dead. They will take your games unless you can prove they deserve protection.

"Kill the Haitians". And why should a Haitian not take offense at that? Do they also explicitly say "Kill the Americans"?

Bigoted art is still bigoted.

...condemning the game's use of racially charged remarks promoting the hate and killing of Haitians and Cubans

Can any of you tantrum throwers identify the actual lines these people have a problem with? No? Laff.

You boys better learn to defend your freedoms better than that. I'm telling you, more deperate attacks than this are lining up for a crack at taking away freedom of expression.

You best swallow the bile and learn to defend with logic and patience.

And another thing:

Some people on Earth fight things tougher than end bosses. Maybe someday you sausage fingered consumers will grow up to see that these humans are struggling with demons of inequality and true race hatred. A nobler fight than any video game.

You'll need to do more than glower from your xbox futon littered with mini-snickers wrappers to convince the third world that GTA is art deserving of their respect with all the freedoms that accords.

Again, exactly which ingame remarks are in contention? Defend or lose.

In 1991, it was sometimes difficult to detect plot formulas in STTNG. It was "Great Trek". They'd blow up a fed ship for ya and it was just so edgy and new. We learned the jargon and poured over the Ocuda schematics. We weren't "fans" but we just loved this great show.

Then STTNG turned into a soap opera, DS9 gave us the 'Farengi Chronicles', Voyager was the damned Neelix show. And when Enterprise opened with that Bryan Adams song, it set the tone perfectly for the 'massage parlor in space' that was to come.

Aside from a few brief moments of brilliance, Trek sucks. It always has.

Game movies are proof that the games industry is out of touch with their market. There was a time that the PC game industry used free demos for product samples.

The Shareware model was an heirloom passed down to a careless industry playing to a clueless audience. As dollars continue to reward tireless greed and bad management, the industry will consume its own goodwill, leaving nothing behind but failed companies, disowned software and landfills of disposable hardware.

Until games are sufficiently diverse enough to appeal to a wide range of consumers as, say, movies are, they will not be able to get by on disingenuous marketing techniques (like game movies). In the near-vertical market of the boy-gamer, pay-to-preview will never work.

In this long adolescence of video gaming, free demos, developer tools and community involvement is core to building solid ground for an increasingly uncertain future.

Aah, the old, 'hide it in the faq' ploy, eh? Very sneaky. Very hip. No sale!

I was curious about the monthly fee for this game. For me, this is typically a good predictor for an impulse buy. I'd calculated the initial month's damages, and then I needed the monthly fee so I could complete my budgeting. I clicked every damned link in this story, following each for 3-4 clicks in. No monthly fee info. At all.

WTF? That basic piece of data should be part of the damn news release! At the very least it should be on the site somewhere. And it's no oversight that they don't even state this fee on the ORDER FORM! Kudo's to EA and Westwood for literally walking away from my money sitting there on the table.

Who are they trying to sell this to? People who don't have money?

Interesting story. I feel so shallow now. Was I really judging that game based on the name alone? You bet. A game title gets .6 seconds to make an impression. The impression I get from DD is: "foreign dev team leverages babelfish for English translation services".

The ridiculous title 'Divine Divinity' is a sign that CDW is completely out of touch and it's an argument for decreasing publisher input.

I'll check out the game on your recommendation though, thanks.

I think we can conclude with certain certainty that those screenshots are quite screenshottish!

I wonderingly wonder if this gameish game has excellent excellence? Or is the namish name an indicative indicator of the qualitative quality?

Hmm... most probably neither, Corey. Seems like you are misreading my tone.

Once again: year-off product announcements do NOT warrant victory dances. A wait-and-see approach is more rational in this scenario. Maybe you disagree. Have a latte.

Corey. I wasn't talking about the game. Halo looks great. It's not available on any platform I have interest in, so it is irrelevant to me. No, I was talking about your gullibility and/or product endorsement.

I didn't think you'd respond. I certainly don't expect you to retract your smaktalk here in a public forum such as this. Like you, I assume our discussion of video games is not one of vital importance. Still, let's observe a measure of rigor in our discussion.

Microsoft has no interest in welching, I agree. But what you haven't acknowleged is that MS is a profit seeking company in a fast-paced industry during an economic slump. This is about as unpredictable as you can get. And yes, MS (among other large software companies) has cancelled MANY projects after public announcement. Of course you knew that.

The road to hell is paved with "intent" and failed product announcements. A wait-and-see approach would be much more rational in this situation.

So to recap. Halo may be great, but an announcement of intent does not smacktalk warrant. Unless you are inexperienced or are whipping up hype.

And no, I was NOT serious about the million dollars (unless I could coax my company into lending it to me). BTW, OSX rocks! (I'm a FreeBSD man myself)

I believe the press release is adequate, reasonable proof that they intend to bring Halo to the Mac and PC.

-Corey Tamas

Corey. Do you seriously believe that a press release stating "intent" is justification of your neenerisms? I don't think so. If you have been around technology and the free market for more than a few months, you know that anything can happen. You're either sacrificing your credibility at the altar of Microsoft/Bungie, or you are just very green.

Here let me make your day. Corey, over a year from now, I "intend" to give you one million dollars. There now let me see your celebration dance!

"You will still be able to deathmatch, but don't expect anything revolutionary."
-Teh Cramack during Gamers.com intarview
http://www.gamers.com/news/1156460

It's not that the anon was wrong. It's that he was a smartass AND wrong AND hiding behind anon. Who has time for it? *shrug*

And this is why we go back to ignoring anons... ploink!

So who started the demo rumor anyway? I always enjoyed it best when demos like these came from nowhere, with no warning. I love waking up to another workday, but instead, getting that hyper-excited email/phone msg from my lan bud babbling incoherently about kicking my ass. And when I seek the BluesNews, the good link is right there. No muss, no fuss.

I hope this alternate plan of starting/stopping rumors weeks from release works out for Mark Rein.

No way. A halfway competent project manager would have detected this pattern and effectively decreased the scope of the project to a manageable level according to his knowledge of technology and what's reasonably feasable with available resources. Wait, on second thought this is probably why you are exactly right.