Sad as it may seem, we've reached the point where games shipping with tons of bugs -- even outright showstoppers -- is not really news anymore. Not surprising news, anyway. Even sadder, I don't see the trend stopping anytime soon because publishers just don't see any negatives to releasing buggy games. The "hardcore" gamers may make a stink, but the publishers seem to believe the vast majority will just keep on buying. And they're probably right.

Has anyone ever NOT bought a game they wanted because of bugs?

"umm... this isn't the offical forums that got closed, #1, it's the forums on a fansite."

Gryphin, it is indeed the official in-game forums that are closed. I verified it myself yesterday.

Anyone who has played Tribes 2 from its release six months ago won't be surprised by this. The in-game forums were filled with racist, hateful nonsense. Sierra had moderators but the sheer volume of inappropriate messages was too much for them to keep up with.

The other in-game community features, like IRC, e-mail and private tribe forums are still up, so it's not a big loss. If people need to post, the official Sierra forums at their website are still available.

What's sad is that Sierra had to come to the decision at all. Here we are in 2001 and the online gaming community still seems to largely consist of childish idiots who say and do whatever they want because they feel they have immunity.

And the rest of us get to reap the "benefits" of their actions. :/

Where did Apache go?

Not sure. He mentioned on PlanetCrap that he had left VE. It sounds like whatever he has lined up, it's not in the gaming biz, so no more dozens of Apache-style screenshots for now.

Considering that Apache left, the promised Monday return failed to materialize, and the one surviving comment thread was locked to prevent further comments being added, it doesn't look good. OTOH, VE has had extended downtimes before, so who can really say for certain?

They may have cancelled SimsVille, but Sims Online is going to be their next big cash cow, anyway. Imagine converting those endless sales of The Sims into a monthly fee. I imagine it's an idea EA quite likes.

I had a blast playing through Serious Sam in co-op mode. Although the game was not that long, it was value-priced and I felt I actually got my money's worth.

I think it's cute the way he twice states there would be no Egypt levels in the next game. You think they got a few people complaining about that?

"In every saga their lies a journey of wonder and imagination." Um, Blue, it's "there", not "their".

Blizzard was hiring people with experience in 3D design/modelling and since it seems unlikely that it would be Starcraft 2, my guess is it's either a new 3D space adventure game or an FPS set in the future.

A quick search suggests that Barbara Eden is "only" 67, not 71, so maybe that will put a little bit of the skip back in your step -- or not.

I seem to recall hearing a short while back that Valve has multiple teams at work -- one is working on Team Fortress 2, another is working on their online components (ie. doing the voice comm, patches and enhancements for TFC, Counter-Strike) and a third is presumably working on Half-Life 2.

The multiple design teams was confirmed when people raised the idea that the TF2 team was wasting its time on updates to TFC and Valve stated that the TF2 team was a different group of people. I'd assume that they have another group plugging away at HL2. Given how they've clammed up on TF2, it wouldn't surprise me that they'd do the same with HL2.

You might be careful throwing your $10 words around like that when you don't know what they mean. Unless by "consecrated" you actually think Tribes 2 is "declared or set apart as sacred".

JDoom is actually pretty nice. Doom is still fun to drop in and waste 15 minutes on here and there and JDoom makes it look about as good as you could expect an eight year old game to.

Actually, Unreal came out *after* Quake 2.

Quake 2: December 1997
Unreal: May 1998

One other point...Epic is not making Unreal II. Legend is. The story and ideas behind Unreal II sound rather interesting, actually. It doesn't look like it's going to be "kill monster, find switch, proceed to next level" at all. And I don't think Legend or Epic have been overhyping this game. They say it's going to be cool and list some of its features and tech. Well, duh, what else are they going to do?

A large, floating Flash ad that directly covers content and can't be closed until it's finished playing *is* obnoxious. It won't keep me from the site, but I will pass along to Blue and any others that such obtrusive advertising will *never* prompt me to buy or even investigate the product being advertised.

It's probably a U.S. ad, anyway, which is another problem with Internet advertising. The medium is global, not local.

Isn't Rune a 3rd person shooter? I'm asking because I've never actually played it.

Wow, #6, that was a pretty hip and edgy post!

Saying online games are the wave of the future is like saying Solitaire won't be complete until there's multiplayer support.

Not everyone wants to play against other people over the Internet. The two biggest games of the last few years, Rollercoaster Tycoon and The Sims have *zero* multiplayer support. Of course, I say this when the game I currently play the most is basically multiplayer only (Tribes 2).

Tomb Raider has grossed over $115 million so far in North America, hardly what I would call "legless". It should easily be the most successful video game to movie translation to date.

I think a Diablo movie could do well, too, if done properly.