That mission with the marines was the best one I've played so far. Running through the jungle with Izarians coming in from every direction and blasting them with the shotgun was a great rush. And just because the Marines can take care of themselves doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything.

In constrast the next mission almost made me fall asleep. Killing the same set of monsters in the same situations, with only button pressing and a jump puzzle for variety quickly becomes tedious and unrewarding. Good thing the boss fight woke me up.

So far it's been a mixed bag gameplay-wise.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Innovation in PC Gaming: Grand Theft Auto III?

They do know that GTA3 was a console game before it went PC right?

Actually, screw that thought. Not nominating Mafia says it all. I'll stick to Gamespot's yearenders thank you. It's truly a pity that such an authoritative-sounding body has succumbed to this controversy.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I think the "aimbot" impression was generated by the fact that a lot of the early enemy weapons appear to have one or several of these qualities combined:
-Large projectile radius (The Boss fight in the generator)
-Ricochet effects (Shock Lance)
-Splash Damage (Shock Lance Alt-Fire, etc.)

Thus the chance of them hitting you in close quarters is very high as I have experienced, even when using dodging or simple strafing movements (Although killing me is another matter entirely.) I'm still hoping to see the full capability of the AI in the latter missions.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Look at it this way: This is still much more tasteful than David Letterman's insutling 'jokes' about life in the Middle-East.

Agreed. Nobody ever said that videogames are the last bastion of political correctness, and I doubt any gamer would want it to be.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad
This comment was edited on Feb 3, 22:18.

Featurewise, what it lacks in originality it makes up for in quantity. Being able to utilize every object in the game and having them react to stimuli = Good.

The recently released screenshots also depict a predominantly gray, faded-out world oddly reminiscent of recent WWII movies, an interesting visual concept.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

9. Deeeaaattthhh

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Denali is a National Park in Alaska.

Hehe.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I'm just wondering how NVIDIA of all companies came up with that bizzare, inefficient and overly cumbersome system to begin with.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I used to be a regular at the AVSIM forums and I can most certainly attest to the fact that the people that hang out there are not your ordinary kind of forum goers.

Like in most game forums they also bitch about the most trivial of things and passionately nitpick every detail of their game of choice. Opinions are blatantly stated, opposing sides are formed, and fights do break out as they would anywhere.

The difference is that they are also a very mature and sentimental lot.

Opinions are commonly stated in a politically correct, eloquently worded, purely agumentative manner that borders on academic. Vulgarities and purile jabs are uncommon, impulsive behavior is taboo. When flamewars do erupt, they are more likely to ultimately resolve their issues in the end ("kiss and makeup") than resort to a brooding troll-like isolation ("shutup and die") that brews a cocktail of hate for later use.

Praise and counter-praise run rampant after a successful mod or commercial release. They'll write odes of spasmic joy at the initial release of a great product, and save criticism for later so as not to spoil the moment. This often extends to personal, real-life events, sending prompt congratulations on getting married, having a baby, getting your Pilot's License, etc. And as you may have seen in the linked forum postings, publicly announced dissapointments in life are met with copius amounts of that rarest of forum virtues, empathy.

It is in the AVSIM forums where I once found out that there is an actual human being behind the words and the alias. Is is also rather unfortunate, that for some reason this epitome of a strong forum community exists within the boundaries of a relatively obscure computer hobby.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

...That will make it like Diablo II.???

Sorry, couldn't help it.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

This talk about smarty-man time travel reminds of that Sealab episode where several Dr. Quinns from different time continuums meet:

Murphy: And.. we're sure you're not doppelgangers?

Murphy is hiding the pipe wrench behind his back.

Quinn: Yes! But think of the possibilities of multiple Quinns. With our combined brainpower, we could cure diseases. End world hunger! Why, we could even terra-form Mars, and do it right this time!! Huh? Yeah!!

Murphy: Nope. I've.. got a.. better idea.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad
This comment was edited on Jan 30, 23:29.

Is anyone else bothered by the airflow design of the reference cooling system?

While avoiding the warm air inside the case does have it's advantages, it would seem to me that these are nullified by the fact that the inlet and outlet ducts of the cooling system are beside each other.

Thus a good portion of the hot air coming out (whose column expands rapidly as soon as it leaves the ducts) travels a few inches and then just gets sucked right back in, especially in situations where the rear end of the case is only a few inches from a typical obstruction such as a wall. This problem is further excaberated if the case is configured to exhaust air from the back (The GFFX could be breathing the hair-dryer-hot air right out of your power supply.)

Yeah, and 70 decibels??? Jesusf**kingchrist! That's louder than the top of the line Delta 60mm fan.


"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad
This comment was edited on Jan 30, 23:13.

I wonder how or even if they're gonna discuss that whole issue.

From a negative perspective, I bet they'll either kill you off (ala Mafia) or make you go insane in the end. From a positive perspective, well I can't think of one for a questionably unnecessary war at the moment.

Striking a balance between the two could get difficult. Perhaps they'll make it less of a battle and more a descent into hell such as Apocalypse Now. Bah! Maybe they'll just make it pure action.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Yes, the MP5 may lack the sheer firepower of the P90, but the fact of the matter as I have stressed earlier is that it is much easier to master. It's high accuracy at sustained automatic fire makes headshots a breeze, and firing it in bursts can plant rounds over great distances. It is a reliable weapon whatever your skill level and it's cheap price makes room for more tactical ordinances like the various types of grenades.

The P90 and the UMP on the other hand would often require the player to crouch and/or burst (Negating some of the advantages of a 50 round mag) to get that level of accuracy at similar ranges. Skills that many players I know of would rather reserve for the deadlier M4 or AK.

I once went through a phase where I tried to master some of those odds weapons in bot play at home and hoped to convert the people I played with at LANs. Despite the fact that I was indeed doing quite well with those weapons, nobody bothered to follow in my footsteps. Perhaps your CS environment is more open to diversity. But wherever I go in my country, people tend to stick with what works.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

If they give it the same kind of historically-enlightened presentation they bestowed on Spearhead (Poems, Historial Pictures and Videos, etc.) I'm sold, regardless of how the gameplay ends up.

And some 60s music would be nice too...

This is the end, my only friend, the end....

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

The best (in every conceivable manner) review of Black & White was done by Firingsquad. I think they gave it somewhere around 70%.

I'm guessing all the others played it for like, 5 minutes before creating their conclusions.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

With at least a million people playing CS around the world (including LAN play) at any given moment, "lots of people" using only a few guns is really nothing less than THE overwhelming majority.

The weapons do seem somewhat balanced when compared side by side from a performance and handling perspective, but I think the monetary aspect of the game is rarely taken into consideration.

For example, with the MP5 costing much less than the P90, it is always easily purchased by anyone desiring an SMG and thus becomes THE SMG that everyone eventually ends up mastering.

Once you've realized how effective the MP5 can be even late in the game, would you even care to switch to a more expensive SMG with only a marginal improvement in performance?

Unlikely, either because you are already confident with your mastery of the MP5 (such is the case with the UMP), or because there are more potent weapons available within your budget (M4/AK or one of the new cheap ARs.) The same case can be applied for the AWP versus the G3.

Basically, it all boils down to simple cost-effectiveness. The more expensive weapons in a given weapon class should be better than the cheaper ones.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

If there was one thing in Urban Terror that should inspire the CS team, it would be the weapon balance.

It's neither perfect nor realistic, but by limiting the amount of weapons they'd have to work with they have managed to make all of them useful for various situations and playing styles. Even despite the fact that they lack the additional monetary variables of CS.

Each weapon in Urban requires a unique set of skills from the player that when mastered create a highly effective tandem of man and machine, both in killing and in teamwork.

IMO the CS team is completely lost concerning this issue. They've given up and have ignorantly contented themselves with simply releasing new yet untested weapons and letting the players sort them out. Perhaps it's simply the team succumbing to the tenacity of the hardcore fans who protect their beloved game from any change that would detract from their L337-ness with the handful of weapons actually being used.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I don't really believe any game is truly non-linear, but that there are some that excell in it more than others.

In GTA3 you are usually given objectives with very few restrictions on how to achieve them. The broad array of options encompasses not only weapons, tactics and your interpretation of the storyline (Such are the limitations in Deus Ex) but even mission planning and the general style of execution. Though of course the objectives are very simplistic and the storyline is facile and trite compared to Deus Ex's.

I think the ultimate non-linear paradigm is to create a game that evolves according to your actions, and not just merely accomodates them like in most "non-linear" games. But this would be difficult if not impossible to implement within the current state of computer AI and as stated, testing procedures.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad
This comment was edited on Jan 21, 00:09.

Or, in a nice chronological twist, with $ 100 Million I wouldn't need to work for money EVER.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad