All I can say is this. I bought this game back when it was still called "Railworks" (at least 4 years ago) and I have received every version update on steam FOR FREE, since.

I get it. IBM joke. ;-)

"You wanta some wang?"

-line from the original game. Not very P.C. but still funny. I still have the game (and the box). heh.

Here is another one a good friend has pulled at weddings ...twice.

Buy a real nice "designer" bath towel set. Then go buy, and empty, about five spray cans of scotchguard into them. Wrap them up nice in gift wrap and give as a wedding gift. Once they realize things like "drying off in the shower is only moving the water from one side of thier body to the other", and handtowels under the sink with water running is "simply sliding off", (actual quotes from the prank-ees) you can then take them back, have them professionally cleaned and then return them (or wash them yourself about 10 times or so and they will be fine). No harm, no foul. ;-)

Suicide: A permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Gotta love the "First Persons Hooter" genre

REMEMBER: BF3 (Frostbite 2 engine) is DX10/11 *ONLY* No XP support ..period!

remember this: http://twitter.com/repi/status/20028015661#

AND THIS


"Well, it's not 2011 just yet here in North America, so I can't say this is the first bit of bad news of the new year, because it's very old news from earlier this year.

What?

...looks like those of us using XP will need to upgrade to Windows 7 and a DX10/11 GPU if we want to play BF3.

Johan Anderson, aka repi, a Rendering Architect at DICE who is working on Frostbite and future DICE/EA games made these interesting tweets recently:

DX11 by far, it builds upon DX10 and fixes some of the weak parts of it. FB2 will take it much further

Frostbite 2 only supports the DX11 API but both DX10 and DX11 GPUs. No DX9 support at all though, time to leave legacy HW behind.

Now that I look back, this is not necessarily "news" given that in the summer he had this to say:

Frostbite 2 is primarily developed for DX11. XP & DX9 is _not_ supported, 64-bit OS is recommended. Lots of time to upgrade if you havent!"

Etc..etc..ect. ad-infinitum. You get the idea.

Ok, so what smell do I get when I play "Leisure Suit Larry".. Fish??

Regarding the HDD failure sounds. A shame I could not have recorded this but I came across an IBM XT 20mb HDD (yes, you read that right, an IBM XT twenty megabyte hard drive, this was about circa 1991 lol) Anyways, it would not spin. So my coworker put a tiny amount of some oil on the bearing and lo and behold it started to spin. Then came the sound....literally sounded like a banjo. Boing-boing-BOING!! (the sound of the head arm actuators smashing up and down againsed two of the platters, one top, one bottom). We laughed so hard we almost fell out of our chairs. Too funny.

The reason that *I CARE* is that Kinect represents a $150.00 solution to a problem for homegrown game modders/developers. Anyone who has used a 3d app to create character animation by hand can tell you it's time consuming, difficult (especially for complex moves) and not the least of which, unrealistic (without a LOT OF TWEAKING). Mo-cap solutions are very expensive and tho there are college experiments using "cheap" video cameras and what not, it's still way more expensive than 150 bucks. I've asked about this over on the UDK boards (since Epic has a good relationship with Microsoft) about some kind of support for using the Kinect camera in Unreal Engine 3 (like say in ActorX plugin for 3dsmax/Maya) for creating your own character animation. Hey, I can dream cant I !

Pete Townsend was right...

I take great issue with that articles accuracy. Do I believe them to be true? Sure. Only one slight problem though. The survey was done between May 23 and June 5...OF THIS YEAR. Nearly a full year *AFTER* the product announcement. (at least in Natal's case) And that 2000 "gamers" were polled. (probably hard core gamers) Not the Casual market that these technologies are really going after.

And why not do the surveys AFTER this years E3, yes? You know, when there is actual *PUBLIC* publicity over the products? And then ask casual gamers or even non gamers what they think? This is really the people they need to be surveying. Last year at the Natal announce there was a demo on one of the late night shows, and CNN did a small bit I think. But not much else..public wise.

This years coverage (of the E3 demos/announcements)should be more widespread I believe. And Both Microsoft and Sony are going to be advertising to this exact population segment. Not the Halo and W.O.W. freaks lol. (No disrespect intended. Just making a point.)

All this is a grain of salt to be sure, BUT:

I have thought for some time (even before this whole portal 2 show/no show thing) was that the delay for HL2-EP3/HL3 was due to Valve updating the Source engine. Wether this means "Source 2" or not, I dont know. But what I THINK is that it is some kind of new Source..and that it is MULTIPLATFORM.

Without starting a piracy debate the fact is ALL major game engine developers are now in full swing of working on multiplatform support. It is the only way to remain profitable and viable in todays enviornment. The reasons for this are varied, but PC piracy is a big one (I know steam eliviates this SOMEWHAT, but expanding to support consoles is a logical step, and "everyone is doing it")

Second. It "gets them off the hook" with regard to HL2-EP3/HL3 delays. Showing off a new Source (and PERHAPS HL"3" running on it) would go a long way to appease (or at least "bait-and-switch") the complainers about the half-life delays. And gives them more time to now work on it without the naysayers reaching fever pitch, or at least, the inevitable comparisons to Duke Nukem Forever. ;-)

Third. That VG247 article did say something about the announcement coming AFTER Microsoft and Sony's keynotes. This may play into the hands of an announcement of Source becoming multi-platform.

That being said, apparently, Gabe Newell will NOT be at E3. I, for one, would think that if there really was an announcement like that, he would be the one to do it.

Fun to speculate,but I guess we will all know in a bit over a week...

PHJF wrote on Apr 12, 2010, 22:05:
"free version" does not mean "Cryengine is free".

The recently-freed UE3 comes with its own caveat:

According to the current EULA, game makers can sell their games by paying Epic a lump-sum of $99 at the outset, and 25% of all revenue above $5000

A full Unreal engine licence will set you back a quarter million dollars. Yes, I know UDK does not give you access to the source code. But still $99.00 is a bargain considering. And if you pay them the 5 grand up front, you can keep your royalties. Here's hoping Crytek does something similar. But it's clearly a step in the right direction for them to grow thier buisness and user base.

I had the distinct pleasure of being on hand at Lockheed's Skunkworks facility (birthplace of the SR-71) for the 25th Anniversary flyby. He was to make 3 passes at 500 feet on the Burbank Airport runway that butted up againsed the parking lot. Apparently, the pilot was the "SR-71 Top Gun" and was (Supposedly) going to break the old public speed record on it's way to Florida to be delivered to NASA. Well, the first pass he had the plane in a near stall at about 45 degrees...and he was 47 feet off the ground!..then nailed the afterburner directly in front of the plant. The heat/thrust nearly blew us off our feet and set off every car alarm in the parking lot. WOW!! When he left for good we got a nice wing wave goodbye. I'll never forget it.

This issue is huge. Seems (for many, but not all) that the stuttering/freezing happens usually when performing a scripted event like a TK, draining power, opening doors etc.

At least now, Haig is definitely *NOT* "in charge"

Damn..looks like the five dollar sale for Bloodlines on Direct2Drive...is over.

It's all over here in middle TN. 1.35-1.50 for 16 oz glass bottle.

The kids first coaster ride is priceless. I did not have a camera at the time but my youngest daughter did pretty much the same thing, and it was a triple looper..