What bothers me more about studies like this is that someone (or a group or a foundation) funded a study to tell us that kids that watch a lot of TV and play video games have a "strong association" with obesity (which in itself is a extremely broad definition).

I work for a publicly funded institution that does cancer research and we have to beg and plead for money to run studies on things like oh say, what causes cancer or what helps prevent cancer, which it seems more times than not get rejected. Yet someone somewhere thought they'd be better served with a study that I think everyone here could agree gave results that anyone with a dose of common sense could have come to anyway.

I suppose their next leap will be a study to determine a link between drinking heavily and sex with ugly people.

This comment was edited on Jul 1, 13:59.

Agreed. If I only have 15 or 20 minutes to play, and don't hit a checkpoint, WTF am I supposed to do?

Play Tetris?

I don't think this is a game meant to be played in short bursts. Save points are meant to increase tension in the game. That being said I never had a session where I didn't get to a save point within at most 10 minutes. There were some places where I had difficulty getting to the next save point, but half the fun for me was trying different tactics until I could reach it.

I would agree that the game isn't perfect and may not deserve all the "editors choice" awards it received, but it definitely is one of the most polished and entertaining FPS games in a long time.

This comment was edited on Jun 30, 14:23.

I'd agree with that. Bet I got killed 50 times by getting flattened by a manta last night.

Felt like Homer Simpson after a while. Mmmmm, pancakes...

I had issues with BF:V last night, but they were mostly punkbuster related. For no apparent reason I and the three guys I was gaming with would randomly get booted from whatever server we were on. I think we played on 6 or 7 servers (before the master server went down and couldn't find any to play, thanks gamespy), and after about the 20th time getting kicked gave up and went to UT2004 which had zero problems (other than getting my ass handed to me repeatedly).

Another rant about BF:V; the movement on foot seems a little sluggish, even compared to BF:42. Anyone else notice this?

Despite all this, I think they're both great games. It's a good time to be a gamer.

I live in eastern Iowa, where it snowed yesterday from 10:00 am until 11:00 pm. 3 days before that it was 55 degrees.

Regardless of the snow I drove to Best Buy and EB last night, avoiding several accidents and ditches only to find the games would arrive later today. Damn this insatiable craving!

Best Buy had pre-order boxes for Doom3 before Christmas. I'm somewhat skeptical that an ad for it in their flyer is anything more than an attempt by Best Buy to drum up more video card sales.

My question: is 4+ years going to become the norm for game development now? Just curious, so I can start saving now for Doom4 and HL3 in 2008.

to you and your family Blue.

Hang in there, tomorrow's another day.

Graphically it seems slightly better than the first. Indoor environments are nicer, character models are improved, and environment polys seem higher. Textures are a little nicer too.

AI is DRAMATICALLY improved over the first, but that still isn't saying much.

If I were to get this one, it would be because of the single player (multiplayer demo was subpar IMO), but this still needs a little polish before I'd spend $50 on it.

I'd be willing to bet a few weeks or a month after the release there will be a demo. Sounds like they're more worried about getting the game released than worrying about the PR, which to me is a refreshing change.

On a side note, what other type of media/entertainment do you generally get to sample something of the finished product for free thats as robust as demos from games?

I have to agree. I played IGI 1, and it's pretty fun for the most part, minus the lack of save games and multiplayer.

This "beta" seems to be a step backward from where the original was. The graphics, models, and animation seem about the same, but the gameplay for a "stealthy" shooter is completely out of whack. Who needs to sneak around when you can run at 30 mph while strafing and firing at the same time?

Some good ideas with it (like paying for early respawn) but it seems like it needs a little more time in the oven.