What they've done with the interface is interesting too. It really is a better implementation of what Microsoft did with IE7.

The page is really prominent. Toolbars and window headers are minimal. Even the status bar is just an auto-hiding pop-up. It feels really clean.

The thumbnail history of frequently visited sites it provides when opening a new tab is already working its way into my habits.
This comment was edited on Sep 3, 03:27.

> With second-hand sales, you at least have a proof that somebody was actually willing to pay for a copy.

Except that they weren't willing to pay the price offered. You might even argue that for some people the ability to resell the game is going to affect how much they're willing to pay. If they can't resell their games then they won't buy them either.

Of course then there's additional markets that spring up around games that will have a smaller number of customers: websites, strategy guides, peripheral makers, etc.

In the end adapting these restrictive business models will hurt the industry.

Exploit your friends for free shit!

Looks like Stargate Universe will be replacing Atlantis. I'm a little worried about this comment:

"It's going to build clearly off the existing franchise but with a cast that gives it a younger vibe."

I image the show being something like Sliders. Here's to hoping to doesn't end up unwatchable.

http://gateworld.net/news/2008/08/istargate_universei_has_a_go.shtml

It's based on the popular animated web-comic Homestar Runner.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/

It's not really know so much for plot as it is for wacky characters and cheap laughs. Strong Bad emails are really the best of Homestar Runner.

Just like the source material the game is a little short on plot. You play Strongbad and you're basically doing what you can to ruin Homestar's fun.

The demo is light on difficulty. Most of the enjoyment for this game comes from listening to character dialog, which is pretty much on par with the source material. Of course, outside of Strongbad emails, the web comic isn't always funny so that's not saying much.

Wow. They make Rez sound and look terrible, but it really is a unique game. It gets fairly challenging near the end.

> Unfortunately, these don't work for cable TV. It's only for over-air broadcast. Hence the need for an actual digital cable receiver box, or an adapter for cable-ready TVs.

Sorry. I was under the impression that these boxes could also tune QAM, but apparently they do not. ATSC can be piped in through cable though so it's still possible for the cable company to offer a selection of channels in ASTC digital.

I don't see why the cable company can't just encourage their boxless customers to buy the digital tuner boxes the coupons are being offered for. If you have a digital ready television you can already tune all the digital channels on cable except the pay-per-view or other channels (like many HD channels) that use switching digital video.

They could easily their non-premium channels all digital. The problem now is that the channels are far from being consecutive. One channel might be channel 75.4 and the next might be 125.2. If they offered them all next to each other it would be a win-win situation I think. The public gets clean digital channels and the cable company gets back all the valuable bandwidth the analog channels are using.

Really the biggest issue with a law like this isn't a 1st Amendment issue. This is just going to cost tax payers and small developers.

I detect a note of sarcasm. Well, practically anything can be exploited or corrupted. I think the theory is sound though. They can at least claim they're trying to bring in a certain industry.

The city I grew up in dumped millions of dollars into canal waterfront projects and gave tax breaks left and right to any big company that was interested. Nothing ever panned out. Some of it was just plain bad choices and the rest was corruption.

> Just like MN that caters to movie makers....lax laws for unions and HUGE tax breaks for productions that are done within our borders. More and more movies are being made in MN each year.

Here's what's on their info page:

* Anti Monkey Butt Powder is specially formulated to absorb excess sweat and reduce frictional skin irritation.

* Ideal for butt busting activities such as truck driving, motorcycling, bicycling, horse back riding, and extreme sports. May also be applied inside footwear, under sports pads, and other areas prone to chafing. Indoors or outdoors, work or play, or on occasions when you sit on your butt all day, don’t let your buns get red, use Anti Monkey Butt Powder instead!

It's really just an advanced form of the high-score screen on many video games. In theory it's an indicator of skill in a game or if that isn't a huge factor just the sheer amount of time played.

I like achievements because they give me secondary reasons to spend more time playing and exploring games. Provided the game is worth playing in the first place achievements keep me playing longer and increase the value of the game.

Most single player games have a definitely end-point to them. Players are working towards the end-point as a goal. Why not a few road-stops along the way?

Multi-player achievements are just more troublesome because of the unpredictability and difficulty of real people, making them potentially a lot more frustrating to achieve.

> Achievements are worthless anyway. You should be playing the game for its gameplay, not to win some little icon in your profile.

Tax breaks are one of the few ways a state or a city have to encourage certain businesses to come to their location. Also, they pass other preferential laws like lax environmental regulations and business friendly labor laws.

Really they're trading these taxes in the hopes of creating more skilled jobs, which hopefully pay well and bring in taxes from the workers. This industry and it's workers could encourage other supporting industries too.

It's really just a trick of picking the right industry or particular businesses to cut a break.

> What happened to our right to equal treatment under the law? Long gone.

Sometimes it seems like the developers themselves are coming here to defend their product the way some people push things and get defensive. It's not really hard to spot here. There are a modest number of people who actually post and I'm familiar with most of them.

> By the way, are you guys aware companies hire message posting shills?

I don't care much for it either but if it means Blue can pay his bills and keep providing the website I'll keep coming as long as this sort of thing doesn't start dominating the content here.

> Blue, your journey to the Dark Side is complete.

You've been chasing me your whole life only to fail now? I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard.

I guess if you're a fan of flash mini-games or you have children they might enjoy it, but it's not really my cup of tea.

The demo doesn't seem to run in Vista without me running it as Administrator. [edit: It appears now that I've run it once as Admin it's fine. I presume it was installing some DRM software for this eLicense technology it comes with.]

On a side note, it appears as if Blue has been forced by his UGO masters to promote this game.


This comment was edited on Jun 18, 15:26.

I'd love to see somebody legally do some sort of massive crossover game like Kingdom Hearts. I guess this is as close as we'll get.


This comment was edited on Jun 12, 04:20.

Just like you, I'm no expert, but I follow news on some TV shows and from what I understand the basics of the character to be played are often described, but on some higher profile projects they lie about names and occupations sometimes to protect against plot development leaks.

Kudos to Jason Hall for getting the one story that will guarantee him tons of viewers for the first episode of his show. Yes, now that he had his exclusive I expect an avalanche of Duke news is to follow.