Xbox developers have used Macs for a while. If anyone watched the Halo 2 promo trailer where they interviewed some of the guys who work at Bungie, you can see Macs in the background. One guy was even sitting directly in front of one.

Has the world become so numb to adds being shoved up there ass that you are just going to lay down and take this?

No, it's that the smart ones among us have figured out how to neatly circumvent them. Commercials? TiVo, or an HTPC running front-end software that has commercial circumvention. Web ads? Firefox's popup blocker combined with the Adblock extension. How much more advertising is there? A logo on a pair of shoes? I'm not worried about that.

I said big-name. DBZ games have been crappy back to the days of the SNES fighters.

HL2 will be cool, but Masquerade will be cooler. At least Masquerade comes out first.

No, it doesn't. HL2 comes out first, and then the licensed games using Source are legally allowed to come out. Unless Masquerade got Valve/Vivendi's permission to release before HL2, which is pretty unlikely, you'll see a Masquerade gold announcement in the next couple of days, and a release date of November 17.

If Bush loses, November will be a good month for mankind.

You'll get one out of two.

As long as I don't have any tests or anything on the week of the 16th, I'll be up all night playing this.

I'm sure it was something they signed w/ Sony.

Yeah, Rockstar signed a time-limited exclusivity agreement with Sony. You can only buy GTA games on the PS2 for a certain amount of time, and then after that, Rockstar is free to port them to other consoles. The agreement used to be exclusivity to PS2, with the except of the PC, period. However, the agreement was modified so Rockstar could release the Double Pack on Xbox. And now there's a GTA game on the GBA, so it's pretty clear Sony's agreement is limited only to consoles--the PC ports take extra time to code in features like custom skins, the mp3 player, resolution changes, EAX, etc.

(I'm assuming it'd look better on the ex-box...)

You assume correctly. Just look at the Double Pack. It even has mp3 support, thanks to the hard drive. Sony doesn't want GTA on the Xbox, since it's bad enough they've been losing console sales since August due to Halo 2's impending release--their short-supplying the channel because of the PStwo didn't help either.

No more than HL2's release will be affected by GTA: San Andreas, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Metal Gear Solid 3, and every other big-name game that's coming out this month.

They could easily give an official comment on whether HL2 is gold or not to stop all the bloody hype and rumors but they don't care.

Lombardi has said "the game isn't gold yet" every time when asked. I really don't see what you're complaining about.

I don't know--there are already too many IM programs as-is. There's AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and probably more that I don't know about. I'm glad for the existence of Trillian, as it helps when you can use all four with one interface, but it's not exactly the most perfect software I've ever used.

I'll be glad when Google removes the GUID from its cookies and stops saving emails for eternity.

On a bright side, they are killing hype as we know it.

No, they're not. Valve is not making these announcements. The "gone gold" rumors are all coming from an "unnamed source," and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone was getting their news from just one guy. The last announcement from Valve was the pricing plans for the Steam packages, and that only came about when Gabe emailed an HL2 fansite--no official press release was made. They sure as heck aren't advertising the preloads--the websites are.

I hear Senator Kennedy at night behind the wheel is pretty scary as well, at least he used to be.

The truth is in the zinger.

The USA attacked Najaf.

If the US military truly attacked Najaf, there wouldn't be a city left. Now, with that in mind, a more accurate statement would be, "a small expeditionary force was sent in to Najaf due to the pressing need to kill the terrorists there."

As for your karma theory, um... no. Go learn some statistical analysis. Florida has been overdue in terms of hurricanes for a long time now. The Carribean islands got more storms than Florida did, but they didn't have troops in Najaf. There was a large storm in China, and it caused mudslides, killing a few hundred people, but China didn't have troops in Najaf.

I used to think Blue's News posters were smarter than Shack News posters. Lately, I'm not so sure.

I'm seriously torn on which version to get. I'm sick of waiting 6-8 months for a PC version, but I know the PS2 version is inferior. And I can't play other games, because in the back of my mind, I'd know that I would only be avoiding the question of which version to get.

Ah, what the hell. I'll preorder this and Halo 2.

Sorry Terp, but blue's doesnt come installed with an "ommit Half-Life 2 BS" thread.

That's right, there's built-in news filter on your account.

However, there is a built-in filter in your head. All you have to do is scroll down just enough to edge the HL2 story off-screen. Problem solved.

Hey Warhawk, ignore him. Mortis is quite the notorious idiot.

Wazootyman, that must mean you don't hate Bush--since I'm the next college student, and I'm voting for him.
This comment was edited on Oct 15, 18:12.

If you're tired of these stories, stop reading them. Simple.

got Broadband, still don't(and never will) want steam.

Hate to break it to you, but even if you buy the retail version of HL2, you're still going to have to install and connect to Steam in order to play the game. Steam functions as both a delivery service and a WON successor--and yes, to play the single player game, you must have Steam open. Having an internet connection is listed in HL2's minimum requirements.

anyone know if HL1: source comes with all the opfor and blueshift expansions as well?

No. Blue Shift isn't even available in its original form, due to neither Gearbox nor Valve wanting to take the time out to make it Steam-compatible (and it's not a simple matter of replacing WON with Steam.) HL:S is simply HL1 running in the Source engine. This means you get nice physics and water, but the graphics are 100% the same. Valve's probably waiting for the mod community to release a graphics pack. No OpFor: Source has been announced, but if they do, it'll be just like HL: Source--old textures, new water.

Easiest Game EVER!

Hah! It really would. Germany went around the Maginot Line, and France didn't have a second farm girl to lead their armies this time around, so the government surrendered instead of choosing to fight. I say 6-8 levels because I figure there could be one involving Poland, one through Belgium, and then some French butt-whooping.

The way I read it, RC5 had the three showstoppers. My mistake.

This just means the gold announcement is slightly more credible. Please, please, let EBGames and Gamestop's 11/1 release listings be true...

the graphics/hardware haven't changed

Uh... the graphics have indeed changed, and for the better.

you don't need to read anything in Halo.

You need to read your mission objectives, and you need to hear the dialog to know what's going on. If it's in another language, this creates a problem.

I'll still hold to my view of Nintendo as a true console while the Xbox is a cheap pc anyone can play, while the Sony system is just a plain overhyped machine that can play dvds...wooo !

They all have good points. Gamecube has excellent Nintendo games, and some high-quality third-party titles. Xbox is the multiplayer console of choice, better versions of PS2 games, and good for a few single-player romps (Ninja Gaiden!) PS2 is excellent for a mix of big-name titles and more niche games (what other console lets you run the gameplay gamut from GT4 to Disgaea to FF12?)

It's in your interest as a gamer to buy and enjoy all three.

The magazines reviewing HL2 got the same RC that Valve sent to Vivendi way back when. It is not a final copy. Lombardi says they're on their fifth RC, and the unofficial word is they've got three showstopper bugs left to kill.

HL2 is not ready. It is very, very, very close to being ready, but this is not the same as being finished.

Meanwhile, I've paid out for HL2 Silver, I've completed this preload, and I'm enjoying CS:S immensely when my university network doesn't suck and result in packet loss. Bring on HL2--when it's done.

To me that kind of pushes the "gold tomorrow" BS hype.

IMO, a more likely reason is that they were getting a flood of emails from new Steam users asking how to unlock their preload. Though I do think the rumor of a Friday gold announcement is somewhat plausible...
This comment was edited on Oct 15, 01:52.