with the jingle that went, "My friends are knockin' down my door! To get at my Commodore 64!"

And on cue a herd of kids stampede into the room to muscle in on some Centipede action.

None of the child actors in that commercial probably ever imagined slogging through a flooded basement twenty years later to get to their Commodore 64.

What's the record for number of patches released for a demo?

What is Telltale?

...the 5 minute connection period, the failure to load which crops up every other game...

That's what happens when you use the "play online now" feature, which isn't generally a good idea. I don't have any of the problems you've mentioned on any of three boxes with dramatically varying hardware.

Here's a little tip for returning regrettably purchased software: Wal-Mart will take basically anything back, regardless of where it was actually bought, as long as that particular Wal-Mart carries that particular item and you're reasonably competent in the art of conversation. You need a receipt, so go to Wal-Mart, buy another copy of whatever you want to return, and ask the cashier for a duplicate receipt. Check out, walk straight to the customer service counter and return the item. A day or two later, go back to the Wal-Mart with your original copy of the game and second receipt and talk your way into a refund. If this doesn't work every single time, it's because you just aren't a believable person.

WTF, LucasArts. Just make X-Wing 5 already.

Hopefully the French will do to EA what they did to the British at Yorktown.

They are just going to lose more money in the long run. [...] So much for competition and creative competition.

No. Actually, EA and the NFL are going to make a lot of money off of this deal, in both the short term and over the long haul. The concept of capitalism is based on the procurement of as much of the economy's available wealth as possible for your own benefit alone, not the benefit of the society which generates that wealth (that's us). This is exactly what EA and the NFL/PLAYERS INC. have done.

Creative competition actually stands in the way of that goal and so it is in their interests to cripple it, which they have also achieved. Diversity in the market may be good for the consumer, but not for those at the top of the corporate hierarchy.

Bottom line, your notion that the NFL actually stands to suffer financially is absurd.

All EA really needs to do now is pour unlimited funding and resources into Live 2006 so it does become the dominant hoops franchise on the shelves (assuming they can't simply absorb the competition). Like they said, this deal isn't happening only because the NBA won't be profiting from it...yet.

This is absolute genius on EA's part. The whore that is professional sports is lying with its legs spread for any and all takers, as long as the price is right. It should have been obvious to anyone who's bought a ticket to a game at the American Airlines Center or Lincoln Financial Field that this was inevitable and imminent. EA just happened to be the first to seize on the opportunity.

Now that I think about it, I think Age of Empires was first.

Age of Sail, 1996.

Age of Empires, 1997.

That's what mobygames says, anyway.

The WWII-themed FPS genre has become so overpopulated that now a distinct subgenre has emerged, dedicated to alternate realities wherein the Third Reich wields awesome future technology. With Mortar II imminent, the competition will be fierce. Can Burut unseat the reigning champion? Crossbreeding the concept with Universal Soldier, a true masterstroke, may tip the balance.

Only one thing is certain: in the coming year, all eyes will be turned to the East Front.

It's interesting that no matter how far the FPS advances in terms of narrative, flow and technology, we keep coming full-circle to Wolfenstein's Hitlermech.
This comment was edited on Dec 20, 04:15.

You must have blinked at some point, because the Anaconda sequel has already come and gone. Don't worry though, because you might still catch the newest Chucky variant if you run to the theater ASAP.

Really? I LOVED that part! It was like a Bruckheimer movie!

The key to the gunships is firing as they fly over head, and letting the rockets hit them from behind. If you fire when they're coming at you, you have to try and corkscrew the rocket to get it to hit (so they can't shoot it down).

Any parts where gunships pop up are my favorites. I never bother waiting for them to fly by in a certain way or anything. Anytime there's a rocket in the air the gunship(s) will focus totally on trying to outmaneuver it (i.e., not shoot at you) so there's really no point in not just shooting a rocket straight up in the air ASAP and looping it around and around until you get an opening to put it into the back of a gunship. Assuming you don't prefer to spend that time hiding behind walls (and no one else is shooting at you at the time, which in this case doesn't apply since you've got an army of antlions to deal with the soldiers).

Looks like shit, but you'll never need the flashlight.

Why not? I do.

My playing pattern with Doom 3 is about the same as it was for Far Cry. I plow through the first half or so before my interest peters out and it's in the drive less and less frequently.

I dropped FC for a month or two when it took all my guns and threw me out of a chopper into a mess of mutants. Doom pulled the same stunt on me the other day and it's been sitting on the shelf ever since. I'll eventually finish it, but fraggin' real people seems so much more satisfying.

I gib corpses with the BFG, for no reason. Also, I'm somehow bothered by skeletons that remain intact as I punch them around the room.

Still waiting for the game that lets me pick up a skull and beat people with it.

I've had a couple CTDs with the WWII mod but no more than usual (compared to vanilla BFV).

Being banned sends you to the front end to be greeted by a "BANNED FROM SERVER" notice. Being banned also has nothing to do with the mod; if you're banned it's because you annoyed someone or fell victim to an impish admin.

Lots of moaning about heavy lag with the mod. Absolutely none on my end.

The mod looks good from the half-hour or so I've been able to check it out so far. I was actually surprised at how much of a facelift the visuals have had over the original '42 versions, and they chose maps that lend themselves well to all the extra foilage being useful both asthetically and functionally (i.e. the physical terrain of these maps virtually negates the oft-lamented limited draw distance). I tried to play around with as many weapons as I could and it looks like this may be the first time DICE has struck a good balance of firepower on the first try (you'll never, ever be sniped with a Thompson again).

And yeah, the flamer is pretty fuckin' sweet. I'm glad they threw it in as a pickup instead of a selectable kit or it'd be the M60/LAW thing all over again. I scored one right away off some chump who was trying to burn me from 20 yards.

#24: The official forums are full of some kind of people who relentlessly mock EA for not incorporating whatever feature in one of its own upcoming games that someone else is. That could qualify for feedback, couldn't it?

I mean, it would probably stand up in court.

EA listens and responds to feedback all the time, although this is the first I'm aware of them doing it before the game is actually released. The real problem seems to be that the "feedback" EA apparently lends the most weight to tends to come from the loudest and most obnoxious segment of the community whose suggestions are typically those that end up ruining games for me.