...didn't Bungie say at one point they were done with Halo after Halo 3? Can we be done? Please? Seriously, you guys turned a mediocre piece of crap into something much better with Halo 2, then ruined it all over again because most of your target demographic isn't smart enough to realize there's no ampersand in the middle of "Master Chief" or that sniping with pistols is silly. Marathon, this is not. Could there at least be something other than a third prequel?

I seem to recall Bioware mentioning awhile back, when the first game's PC port was nearing release, that they intended to get the PC version of the second game out much, much closer to the console version, but it probably wouldn't be simoultanious.

I remember I resigned myself to the PC port being a good year away at best so I finally broke down and bought the console version. After opening it and playing for awhile, I took a break, opened Blues, and the very first news item was "Mass Effect PC in two months."

Do you guys who constantly add some word after "no" again after saying "no demo" either a) think it actually sounds like a burn at all as opposed to the type of wordplay a middle-school student would use, or b) play anything? Plenty of good games don't have demos, and most demos that make it out seem to be more a case of the marketing department thinking of it in the same way they think of television commercials; I remember how buggy and unreliable the Bioshock demo was, damn glad I never saw it until after I owned the game or I probably wouldn't have bought it.

And the fact of the matter is, as much as we want to sound all intellectual by talking about things being a matter of taste and "good" and "bad" being matters of subjectivity, you can form a reasonable expectation of how much you'll enjoy a given title based on the materials let out on them before release these days, and if that's not good enough, wait for a week after release and see if thousands of people are flocking to the forums with performance problems instead of a reasonable number. (Not even getting into demos, this is a good idea anyway.) The Internet is a wonderful thing, it's not like we need to make this guess based on four reviewers writing one paragraph each about a few games in EGM once a month anymore.

...graphics? Do what now? Deus-something or other? Sorry, I'm too busy playing inFAMOUS to pay attention.

But seriously: No, the graphics aren't Crysis-quality, yes, it's because the game has a version on both the next-gen consoles and the 360 is the lowest common denominator by a large margin. Why so much butthurt over this? It's hardly complicated.

So, uh, is the game fun? Anyone? Anyone. Bueller?

The science flew off Gordon Freeman's face!

Seriously guys, why the hell are you 'tarding out over reality when there's new Full Life Consequences going on? Jesus christ, Disney doesn't do acid sequences that good.

By "exception" I didn't mean my actual job, just the idea that what the article is saying isn't desirable is less undesirable compared to what I have.

Of course, there are exceptions to everything; after six years and one twenty-cent raise in my dead-end fast-food job, I'd kill for one of those cubicle-surrounded soul-killing better paying knowledge jobs to go along with my degree. The tourist packet for this place could read "Get a scenic view of an area where the economy went all to hell long before the economy went all to hell."

And even then, it's not like the same logic doesn't apply anyway. I could've made management a couple of years back if I wanted to, just like the two or three other employees that've actually lasted longer than a month and stuck with it for the long haul...and now they get to spend fifty hours a week ripping their hair out over sales they have no control over, the children, and the jerks like me who laugh at the idea of actually caring about the corporate side of things and their troubles. Even here, it's better for your sanity to keep the hands-on job.

- As the Marine, you’ll experience a claustrophobic and terrifying experience where light is your friend, but there’s never enough. However, the United States Marine Corps are humanity’s last line of defense, and as such they are armed to the teeth with the very latest in high explosive and automatic weaponry.

....you might want to tell your modelers to stop making them look like Colonial Marines with pulse rifles ala Aliens, then. And your writers that the point of the Marines is to deploy to anywhere more quickly then the other "lines of defense" until the Army can ass itself in with better numbers and assets. (Or the more likely solution: tell the PR guy writing this stuff to actually figure out what the hell is going on in the fiction he's supposed to be pitching.) Then again, if this plays as awesome as it looks just from those screenies, I'll live with a little timeline/setting confusion.

What are they making this on, anyway? I thought I read awhile back that the engine was being made in-house, but this looks a helluvalot like Cryengine 2.

Here's hoping that one multiplayer mode starting out with one Alien with a zombie effect on its kills makes it in. "I haven't seen all the other players in a few seconds, let me hit tab and see if they're still here. Oh THEY'RE ALL ALIENS NOW WELL THIS IS HARDLY IDEAL OH CRAP WHAT'S MOVING AT THE CORNER OF MY SCREEN."

It sounds like everyone's biggest beef with Christians is that they are close-minded and illogical, which makes them sort of like ... everyone else, just about different things. Why then are they always the target of such bile? I just don't understand it.

The word "Christians" is, first of all, the victim of slang; it essentially means "religion" in common parlance these days, and religion in general is what's pissing off more and more of the current younger generation.

My guess; religion is less and less tolerated by the younger generation because the type of religious people who are of a mind to talk about it are the type to make it very, very intrusive, the "I'm right and if you don't agree you're going to hell" kind, to varying degrees. The religion we have to listen to on a day to day basis is the stuff that's influencing how the world works and where the world is going because it's constantly a part of our leaders' decision-making process (particularly grating in the United States where the law explicitly says religion and politics are supposed to be separate and, yet, they're clearly not.) Frankly, people are sick of being told their behavior is wrong based on completely unprovable beliefs that, if taken out of the context established for them by their age and the institution, would be nothing more than high fantasy. (And of course, if you try to justify your unwillingness to believe based on lack of evidence, the natural response will be "You just need to learn to HAVE FAITH! Why can't you JUST HAVE FAITH?! You would FEEL BETTER if you just BELIEVED in god!" You just can't make it go away if you want nothing to do with it, it will force itself on you.)

Are all people who hold religious beliefs complete asswipes who can't think for themselves? No, and plenty of them think the kind of person I just described is about as religious as a thumbtack. Are the majority of them as I described? Hell if I know, but the majority of the ones in positions of power and authority most definitely are, so that's what we get out of it, it's what we have to put up with on a day to day basis, and, frankly, it's starting to wear thin. Tolerance only goes so far, you can only smile and nod at stupid people doing stupid things because it's what they think God wants them to do for so long before you lose the ability to give two shits about whether or not your opinions about their beliefs offend them.

This comment was edited on May 20, 2009, 15:49.