It's very much what you'd expect an official prequel to Portal would be like (although the difficulty level is high, I don't know how much easier this patch makes it).

High Quality stuff, but if you didn't like Portal you won't like it.

"Dude, the Orion project would solve all our problems. Why prepare astronauts for a six-month trip to Mars when the Orion NPP ship could get them there in a matter of weeks? But we can't use it! It uses NUKES! So what? At last, our nuclear weapons would serve a practical purpose.

Edit: To add insult to injury, if I remember correctly this project was theoretically feasible and safe with 1960s technology."

Orion was (and still is) a really cool idea for travel to the outer planets, however they never did lick the two biggest problems with the design.

1. The crew would die of radiation sickness. Even if you placed them behind a massive wall of lead, the most energetic particles released by each nuke would still get them.

2. For the design to be really effective, the ship needs to be very VERY massive (thousands of tons, like as big as an aircraft carrier). So you either construct it on Earth and let it's first few hundred nukes go off in the atmosphere (believe it or not, that was the original plan, and the expected addition to the world's total cancer rates was about 1-3% percent), or you construct it in orbit. But we don't currently have a cheap enough method of orbital insertion or construction.

Now, if we had a space elevator and a new form of radiation shielding (or new nukes that somehow didn't emit as much radiation), then we could actually build Orion ships in orbit to go to Mars in a matter of weeks and the outer planets in a few months.

The argument about "no nukes in space" treaty, while it was used against the original design team, was always secondary to these other problems. And considering how we've already pulled out of most of the arms control treaties of the period (not a smart move, but that's another argument for another day) I doubt it would matter to American public opinion if we did use nukes for an Orion ship.

Both NASA and the RSA have been quietly re-funding nuclear-powered rocket development as a possible Mars exploration system, but that wouldn't involve bombs going off, instead a nuclear core would be used to heat propellant. NASA is still deciding if it should use one of these systems to get to Mars.

The news from SpaceX is amazing though, if the succeed in making their design safer private industry is really going to take off in Earth orbit. The cost reductions make all kinds of new ideas profitable (for instance, small orbital hotels that charge a fraction of what the Russians are charging for a stay on the ISS).

/nerd chad complete

I'm still not convinced there is going to be a real game (or even a simulation) at the heart of Spore. While the creature editor is interesting, it looked like the actual stats and abilities of the creations was just based on the parts you chose, not how you put them together.

I know some many people liked The Sims, but as a game I found it awful. I just hope this time we get something closer to Sim City in terms of having some fun, interesting gameplay.

If it ends up being another glorified doll-house (or playdough set) I hope the reviews aren't as high as they were for The Sims.

"I'm playing it on the PS3, and i don't fully understand the logic behind those sequences, where you have to hack the computer, and attempt to shoot this white cue ball into the green box... can someone enlighten me?

also, why is the overhead area map not numbered in sequence? the place where you get dropped off by chopper..."

The white ball will "fall" vertically when you tilt the cube around, you need to make it hit land on the red cubes so that they stop if from falling into infinity. Keep doing that until the ball goes into the green cube.

The only advantages to hacking are getting some info on how to kill the bosses and a rain of point-tokens/health power-ups each time you complete it.

The numbers on the overhead map don't really mean anything, you don't have to go in precise numerical order. If you follow the dialog hints it becomes clear when one zone needs an item from another zone in order for you to complete it (or even to start). Make sure you visit all the FSA bases as you come to them, you'll need the items they contain.

Also, there is a hidden powerup for the first gun in the training base, so don't skip it.

Wow, I'm really enjoying it, even more than I expected to! I've almost beaten it on easy mode, which is REALLY easy compared to the original version, I probably should have started on normal difficulty.

One thing I found was that it was much better to use the digital d-pad, the stick is too finicky for arm control. Just like in the original you have to think about what you are doing with the arm in order to move easily.

"Battletoads and Castelvania were two of the games I just flat out gave up on back in the day. "

Battletoads was just fucking unfair, I actually returned my copy to the store and told them it was broken. Such a hyped game, but basically unplayable it was so hard.

I'm downloading this as I type, I loved the original game and this new version looks amazing in the videos.

I too prefer Steam to Direct2Drive, but D2D isn't nearly as bad as some of the other systems, I've used it to buy Oblivion, and some Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia games without any problems, including re-downloading them a few times.

I can't believe all of these are going to have the same gameplay mechanics! What are they smoking if they think they are going to make any money from this?

The "Red, you lazy slut!" line did make me chuckle though...

Physics on the GPU is a good idea in general, all Nvidia needs to do is implement some gimmick effects that are optional on some new popular game (ie NOT UT3) and those people who have to see the new effects will buy Nvidia cards over ATI cards if ATI isn't willing to write these kinds of drivers. Of course gimmicks only go so far (witness the DX10 debacle), the quality and developer usability of the drivers is going to be very important.

It looks like the new trend for GPUs is going to be using their power for programmable non-rendering tasks, unless developers start going beyond Crysis-level rendering and give us a new reason to need more rendering power (but not quite ray-tracing yet).

P.S. You do have to feel bad for ATI, they now have a much superior card to the 8800GT but everyone already bought the Nvidia card to play Crysis (barely) and ATI is left without a killer app (because no one wants to play Crysis slightly faster and there is nothing currently more demanding).

Considering how well CoD4 did I can't believe the next IW game won't be very similar with just juiced up production values and some little additions (as opposed to the farmed-out game coming out first which will probably be mediocre on all levels).

A near-future infantry combat game would be interesting, the technology level of Deus Ex or MGS4 translated into the small/medium-scale battles that CoD does so well. It does seem like lasers are the kiss of death for FPS though, the last game I can remember that used them decently was ST: Elite Force eons ago.

Piracy isn't hurting DMC4 as much as the crappy demo they released. I couldn't even get that thing to change resolutions, let alone find a playable keyboard layout.'

But, there is no doubt that publishers and developers are going to feel like they are hurting from piracy whenever they see active torrents of their games. They just need to realize that the solution isn't going console-only or using draconian DRM, they HAVE to find a more profitable way of selling games than boxes at Walmart (which is such a loser for most publishers its amazing they haven't ALL switched to Steam or something similar).

Ray's review is pretty spot-on. It really comes off as a trifle, certainly no where near the level of S&M or Alice.

I don't have much hope for future episodes either now

Decent if bland graphics (no performance issues on my 8800GT of course), but bad controls and very little depth (less than the typical Diablo-clone).

Shadowgrounds Survivor and Alien Shooter: Vengeance (which I did enjoy) are both much better at this sort of thing.

I predict this is the last we will see of the Dungeon Siege games. On a purely name related note, I wouldn't mind seeing an Earthsiege or Starsiege sequel

License to print money: Renewed

And good god, the server hosting the trailer is getting hammered. You would have thought they'd have realized by now what level of interest this announcement was likely to bring.

Warning, long-ish analysis from a first-year business student follows, no one is making you read it if you don't want to!

Piracy is only to become a larger problem for consoles as they become more and more PC-like. The more complex they become and features they add (especially things that PCs already have like hard drives, internet connections, and DVD drives) the more piracy will become an option for the average user.

The NYTimes had an interesting article about the future of all creative media the day before yesterday, guessing that since DRM is probably doomed to failure all businesses that sell content are going to have to offer it free/cheaply because competition and piracy will not allow them to use the old business model. Doomsday scenario for content makers (not just large publishing companies).

This is pretty close to what NVidia is saying (although they seem to think the consoles will win against the pirates).

Of course, all these people seem to be completely ignoring the success Valve has had with Steam, and no one really knows what to make of WoW (an argument could be made that WoW is really hurting PC gaming by monopolizing so many players).

Maybe it just means that mediocre developers can't expect to make 50-100 million dollar games on the PC work. Big budget games on the PC have always been a more dicey proposition than on the consoles, and we may only now be realizing how much the major studios have bought into the big budget formula.

"Race Driver GRID is a console game"

Well, there is a PC version, but you are right in that this review seems to be limited to the 360 and PS3 versions.

It's not a bad review though, the reviews that cover the PC version (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/grid) have basically the same things to say about the game.

10 bucks says Bioshock 3 takes place on a space station taken over by a rogue AI...

Uh-oh, bad signs for BG&E2 already

The first game was too easy and too short already.

That said, Guillemot has a history of talking out of his ass, so maybe there is still hope.

What a wonderful surprise, BG&E is one of my favorite games ever!

Go Jade!

"Is this game any good? Anyone check it out?"

Just played through the demo, as a fan of the genre I thought it was pretty fun. It's clearly not a big studio game, the graphics and sound effects are OK/mediocre, the controls feel pretty good and aren't so complex that you need to crack open a manual just to blow stuff up.

Does a good job of making you feel like you are flying through space, which is what I like best in these kind of games.

Leftover April Fool's story perhaps?