At least Alien 3 is watchable. I wish I could travel back in time and prevent 4 from being made though.

Ugh, Alien 4 was on TV last night and I watched it until the end, but couldn't bring myself to finish watching it. I saw it when it came out in the theater, and it just sucks sucks sucks.

Poor Alien series. It was once a respectable franchise...

Xombie:

there are currently no plans to release the SDK. it would take a long time to get them in a stable, usable state for release, and right now we're already switching the company's focus to shipping thief 3.

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=45043

I didn't see a followup to this news post rebuking the claims, so I guess it still stands.

Along the same lines as Blue's admission...

• I watch Armegeddon every time I come across it on TV. And I enjoy it.

It's about time that someone took the best elements from Stunts and added to them to create a modern stunt game. The FAQ mentions not only custom maps but also custom cars and stunt pieces allowed, so there's probably going to be a pretty crazy community that springs out of this game. Looks very fun from the gameplay movie, and as long as they set the physics to "fun" instead of "real" then it should be a great game when it comes out.

Happy birthday, Blue!

(FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!!)

Hot damn! That's a nice system to be getting for free. How's the 5900 Ultra look?

... a game based on the Village People?

I'm trying to play Max Payne 2, but every time I run it, I get a message saying it needs a Direct X 9.0 compatible display adapter... Last I heard the Radeon 9500 Pro was DX9 compatible... Anyone got any ideas?

Hmmm... I really don't know the specifics of that card, but I'd say that your DX9 installation is b0rked or you don't have the latest drivers for the card or something. I'd check for known issues on the Max Payne 2 site or AMD's site, but then try a driver reinstall if you can't find any info. If you've got beta drivers, go back to the most-recent nonbeta release.

Well, the Max Payne 2 support site has a link specifically for this issue, actually (if the link doesn't work right, copy and paste):

http://www.take2games.com/index.php?p=support&id=1576&product=176%2C3%2CMax+Payne+2%3A+The+Fall+of+Max+Payne%2CPC%2CRockstar_Games%2Cmaxpayne2&section=issues

A little info on what "DX9 compatibility" means if you're unfamiliar with it:

When a card manufacturer says that their card supports DX9, it's that the DX9 functions (shader langugage, specifically) are implemented in the hardware, so the card is fast. However, any card that doesn't support stuff in hardware (9500) can still be a DX9 compatible card because it should support the exact same stuff in software (i.e., your CPU does the work instead of the hardware). The 9500 is a fairly recent card that shouldn't have any problem being compatible, even if it can't support the DX9 shaders directly in hardware.

Well, good luck with it.

I suggest going back and rereading the posts I made regarding that whole ordeal. When you are done, Ill help you pull your foot out of your mouth cuz Im a nice guy.

Ok, I'll bite. Here's the quote:

hey, thanks.

Im glad the destruction of my world is so entertaining to you.

I dont think people realize what all these fires are going to do to the area here. What the fuck ever.

I only laugh because I have the righ to.

You sound pretty upset. I bet there are some Russian soldiers who don't appreciate you thinking that the world of their "death and destruction" is so entertaining.

And no, I don't give a shit about the politics of the area. I'm just pointing out that YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE. That's it, so it's not necessary to tell me that I need to open my eyes to the situation over there blah blah blah.

YOU GOT MAD THAT PEOPLE WERE TAKING LIGHT OF YOUR UNFORTUNATE SITUATION, BUT YET YOU ENJOY POSTING LINKS TO OTHER PEOPLES' UNFORTUNATE SITUATION.

You are the biggest god damn hippocrite and I can't spell it out more clearly than that sentence in all caps, but you probably still don't get it. I suppose I'm being the chump here because you're probably just trolling or something (damn, skimming through your post history to find that quote was painful! The crap you spew...), and I'm just being a sucker for falling for it. So congrats for nabbing me.

Welcome to the real world, kiddo.

Natural disasters are part of the real world. Is it embarassing being such a hypocrite, or do you really not realize it?

This is not CNN footage of troops walking around, this is video taken by the Chechen Mujahideen operating against Russian forces that continue to invade, opress and down right murder the people of Chechnya. Limbs fly, bodies just drop, not for the weak stomached. It is actually pretty funny.

Weren't you crying like a little baby a couple weeks ago when people were taking light of the fire where you lived? Your "world of death and destruction", I think you called it. You got so mad when someone wanted to see pictures of the fire.

Interesting.

The programmers will provide you with a framework for writing scripting, and this framework may be in C, C++, or some language written specifically for the engine. The framework you get for scripting will be specific commands to make a game object do something (like make a character model sit down, for instance), make an event that triggers another one (like when the player crosses point x, make a different character model sit down), and other stuff like that.

I don't know what Troika's working on, so I can't comment on the tools that a scripter there would use. Scripting is like lightweight programming, usually. It's at a higher level than, say, writing AI routines. Probably Troika will give you some form of design document that says "this happens here, and that happens when the player does this...", and you'll have to make it work in the engine.

That's the general answer. Most powerful scripting languages are just like a C or C++ programs. Check out the UnrealScript Reference (http://unreal.epicgames.com/) for an example of a scripting language. Other scripting languages are much more simple and easier to use for people without programming skills. Depends on the company/game engine.

My question is, does anyone have digital speakers? Is there really a noticeable difference, and would it make sense for me to get some digital ones, considering that really the only thing I use that soundcard for is play games.

There's one thing to remember when shopping for a new sound system: Good sound systems produce good sound, bad ones produce bad sound. Buy good cables that are not very susceptible to outside interference and you probably won't notice a difference between the analog outs and the digital outs of your sound card.

I'd worry more about the frequency response of the system, how loud you can get before distortion, and the loudness of the speker "hiss" when there's no audio. And of course I'd worry about the cost if that was a factor.

However, most reviews for speaker systems are very, very shallow, and it might be hard finding out information about the speaker hiss and actual quantitative data about the sound quality when using a digital input versus an analog input. So good luck.

That being said, I'd go with a digital system. There's more room for interference with analog (e.g., cheap input/output connectors, poor board design, poor cables). With digital, you are almost guaranteed that the signal from your sound card will be perfectly intact when it reaches your Dolby Digital decoder. But then you have to be sure that the path from your decoder to the actual speakers (somewhere along the line the signal will be converted to analog anyway) is good--which brings me back to the first point I made about good systems being good and bad systems being bad. Even if your speaker system gets a perfect signal, if it's a poorly designed/manufactured system, you're not going to get a perfect reproduction of the sound.

As for recommendations, I would have recommended the Klipsch Promedia series of speaker systems if mine hadn't died within 3 months of purchase. They're very good systems in their price bracket--crisp sound, low hiss, optical input to the decoder, DIN to the subwoofer (control module for the satellites). The subwoofer could be a bit more powerful though.

If you have the opportunity to get a personal demonstration of various speaker systems, take it. Online computer speaker system reviews aren't very good.

edit:

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'd also look for a system (or at least learn of a software solution) that supports 5-channel stereo. I can't stand having 5.1 audio in some applications, but then having only 2-channel audio when listening to a CD or something. If your system supports 5-channel stereo, you'll still be using 2 channels of audio, but it'll be coming out of all 5 of your speakers for a much fuller sound.

This comment was edited on Nov 17, 00:45.

And shacknews/fileshack gets the 'Hypocrite of the Year' award. Well done, lads. What's next, Johnny Rotten advertising hair gel?

Yeah, no kidding. Doesn't really surprise me, though. Those shacknews/fileshack people have always seemed a bit shady to me.

And Blue, you forgot one more parentheses on the last line of the post (at the end of the sentence, right before the period).

Edit: it was fixed.

This comment was edited on Nov 15, 15:41.

Bah, as I recall reading yesterday these guys spammed through windows messenger. While it is a victory I doubt anyone even looking at this website will notice a change, since they have long since turned messenger off.

I just read the article and I'd say it's not even a victory. The only reason the company got shut down was because they were Messenger spamming to sell software that would stop Messenger spam... basically extortion. If they had instead been spamming something else (like, say, viagra or whatever), they wouldn't have been shut down. Oy.

I fail to see very much difference between complaining about the current sad state games are in, and complaining that other people are too negative about games.

Where did I complain about people being too negative? Oh, wait, I didn't.

Hahaha, nice try Creston.

Btw, as for everyone who complains that all the comments on the forum are only negative, I have a question. Why do you read the forum? Is there some strange power forcing you to do so? If you don't like what you see, why read it?

Because instead of letting the Blue's News forums go down the crapper with nothing but "I hate this game", "omg this game sucks!", and "roflomglol this game blows" posts, some of us like to interject more-intelligent discussion, or, god forbid, positive comments into the mix (thereby preventing this forum from becoming just like certain others).

Not all of us here are chronic complainers. Not all of us feel the need to like one game and hate all competing games. And some (few, it seems) of us even like playing games.

Well, at least according to Aqua Teen Hunger Force (greatest cartoon ever)

Good, yes, but better than Sealab 2021? I think not!

Blue said:
(so no explanation for them blurring his man-boobs).

I say:
I think they were just making a joke. They're saying that there's a certain threshhold between man boobs and woman boobs, and once you cross the threshhold, it becomes "obscene" and they have to blur it. They were basically making a joke that Brian was fat, and as such, it was obscene to show his man boobies. I thought it was pretty funny.

I thought it was interesting to find out that the Brian character wasn't just an actor, but was also a writer and collaborator on the show. Probably makes it sting all that much more for Matt that he trusted the guy, considering he wasn't just doing his job as an actor, but was probably helping orchistrate what was going on.

OOOH COOL! Look at that! More pictures!