Wrestlevania

And so begins the renaissance - brilliant.

So I did. /me puts fingers in ears, shuts eyes and constantly chants, "La-la-la-la-la!"

What I want to know is: can you shoot/stab/kick your dog to death yourself? Having that much power - over something which appears to be so pivotal to the game - would help foster empathy in the player, and therefore strengthen the emotional connection Herr Mollynorks is so desperate to nurture. In my humble opinion.

People who skim read past all the duplicitous cheat listings in an effort to find meaningful* content. * Loosest sense, you understand. And you can stow that shit! Poor guy probably daren't ever post again after all this...

“And so it came to pass that one of the most recent interesting discussions on Thumbs was horribly derailed by a girl, a bat, a rabid chicken and half an unemployed ninja…”

If you Google for kick off amiga, Thumbs is the 26th result. Edit: And if you Google for amiga kick off, Thumbs is a respectable 17th. IN. YOUR. FACE. (or. something.)

Tiscali, like pretty much every "high street" (read: non-specialist) supplier, have a fair use policy. It basically states that there's a nominal GB limit on downloads per month, per user. They also reserve the right to reduce connection performance on certain technologies (primarily anything P2P) "at peak times" - which means whenever network load begins to mount. However, in my experience they very rarely limit P2P nowadays (for me at least). Moreover when they do/did impose speed restrictions on your connection, it was only on what they said it would be, i.e. P2P protocols; everything else (like streaming video) still flew along as usual. One of the best things about Tiscali though is the upstream on their connections. Unlike cable connections, where the upstream is 32kbits, Tiscali give you a juicy 256kbits. In plain English, you get 32kbytes/sec. dedicated uploads from your connection and also impressively low latency; last time I played Counter-Strike, for example, my ping was reliably bobbing around the 30-40ms mark. Big thumbs up.

Well, that's somewhat disappointing to hear. Hope it's picked up since you posted this. I'm still really looking forward to playing it, but I need to get my PS2 up and running first.

The only broadband provider I hear get more shit on a regular basis nowadays than NTL are BT, so I'd avoid at all costs to be honest. I've been using Tiscali for the last 2 years with no problems whatsoever, including their call package. In fact, BT just gave me a £101 refund this quarter because I'm spending so much less on phone calls.

Oh... go on then.

No, sorry, I'm calling bullshit on this. You do not spend hundreds of thousands of man hours to develop an overly complex imitation of a competitor's perfectly servicable menu system. Not unless you're a total fucking idiot, who thinks chrome is more important than what's actually under the bonnet. Home isn't some jaunty quaint alternative to Sony's now-established - and very elegant - cross menu system. For a fact, Sony will not be replicating PS3 menu functionality "but in 3D!" with Home. That, frankly, is an idiotic point of view. Media playback just reeks of "tacked on" but the other aspects (designing your own space, displaying trophies within this space, interacting with other players in their own spaces) are fundamentally important differentiations between Sony's competition this generation.

I really like the look of LittleBigPlanet and how it's going to "play". It reminds me of the stick man puzzles a friend and I used to make for each other back in school. We'd just doodle out a 2D side-on maze of sorts, then the other person would have to talk through how they'd get to the end and you'd say when traps would be triggered, etc. Nerdy, but great fun. I think that, too, is a little myopic (great term). I've heard several long-time industry pundits discussing Live's strategy going forward, and the only thing that makes sense is that MS eventually (in 12-18 months' time) make 'Gold' free for everyone. They can recoup a reasonable amount of the subscription cost per machine by reducing the percentage in price cuts year-on-year for the 360, whilst still remaining fiercly competative at retail. And let's not beat around the bush; Sony's online gaming strategy is only a little less wooly now than it was 12 months ago. MS will always beat them on quality of service unless Sony somehow, miraculously, trump the world's most prolific network software provider. I'm not saying it's impossible, but let's not pretend that all it'll take is a "silver bullet" from Sony either -- and Home certainly is not that silver bullet. Just wait for Animal Crossing on Wii to see some of the key ideas (trophies, chat) behind Home being used in a meaningful gamespace, rather than an extra option on the system menu...

Does anyone know of a website "live blogging" GDC this year? The BBC's Tomorrow's World blog is covering the event, albeit in a somewhat wordy and pedestrian (read: non-gamer) fashion.

It certainly looks like it... — “Sony and Immersion settle differences, PS3 tech collaboration imminent” Why have Sony turned the PlayStation brand into such a fucking joke?! As if it couldn't be worse for PS3's launch in Europe already, now we find out Sony really were lying about rumble being impossible within the SixAxis controller. Aaaargh!!

Interesting camera position - might actually work. It does look decidedly generic in that video though. Not followed Dark Sector (or should that be darkSector?) before now, so I'll go check out some screenshot archives and earlier previews to get a feel for what OftenK means. Update: Hmm, looks like a potentially-interesting mashup of Guyver, Prey and STALKER. I really like the updated look to be honest, as the original setting (shown in the original teaser trailer) was much too Quake IV for my liking.

You know what? I think this looks fucking great!

Lee & Herring's interpretation is simply brilliant.

Ah, well, that's one thing I really liked about the 360; the choice of racing games is getting better and better all the time. Back when I had access to a 360 on a regular basis, I played MotoGP '06 for about an hour pretty much every working day, and absolutely loved it. I often played two-player split screen races against a colleague too, and that was a lot of fun on a decent size screen. The other obvious racing titles out there (PGR 3, Test Drive, etc.) all sound great too, and - crucially - quite different in contrast to each other. And when Forza Motorsports 2 turns up later this year, I really think the 360 is going to be very difficult to beat in terms of racing titles. Well, I'm more than a little disappointed that it's not Rez; it's turned out to be Every Extend Extra Extreme* for XBLA, which isn't so bad in and of itself, but it's certainly no Rez. * Want to shoe-horn any more E's in there?! At least drop the Extra FFS.

If you're into multiplayer gaming, on- or offline, (and you simply must play a bang-up-to-date console) that's probably your best reason to get an Xbox 360. Otherwise I agree; there's nothing truly unique for the machine just yet. And no, Halo 3 does not count either in my opinion (over-hyped bullshit). I think the most interesting rumour I've heard about potential must-try Xbox 360 games experiences would be Capcom possibly rolling out a co-op mode for Dead Rising. Now, that would be special... Still?! FFS.

Very "meh" (not to mention months out of step).

Reading a little more into this - as much as not actually seeing the presentation at all will allow - it may be that the items discussed are how casual gamers might identify "non-casual" games. The (somewhat loose) context in which the point is made brings a little more clarity: To me, that suggests that the definition of "hardcore" games are those that have been conciously designed in such a way as to keep you sitting in front of them for extended periods of time. Whether that's grinding for levels in a MMORPG, or working out that you have to fit the pulley inside the rubber chicken, seems entirely academic. What might actually come out of this is the broadening of the definition "hardcore games" and "hardcore gamer". Does playing one or more of the Monkey Island adventures through to completion make you a hardcore gamer? Yes, I would say so, because it requires you to dedicate a decent amount of time and effort in order to see the ending.

Boxhead: More Rooms - it's got the Devil in it at any rate. (And shotguns.)

I was wondering exactly this on the drive in this morning, listening to the brief gush about GDC '07 by the 1UP Yours crew. It does seem, very suddenly, to be just everywhere this year. Every reasonable game site seems to be huffing and puffing about how fabulous this year's conference is going to be. I'm not convinced on the product placement angle though, not entirely. Sure, Sony will finally announce* their online social software for PS3, but within a reasonable context. Yes, it still reeks of PR, but social gaming isn't exactly on the back burner right now, is it? Other than that I've not heard anything that seems overly "producty" being covered this year. And they're still doing the awards, which is a definite highlight. * I have a friend who's an artist at Sony London, and she told me about this almost a year ago. I emailed places like Kotaku back then and got no response... :\

If they've prototyped it to that extent already, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo announced it for Wii very shortly--especially as the release schedule is all over the place at the moment in terms of pacing. Odama also didn't do very well on GameCube, so Nintendo may want another stab at releasing it anyway. Looks very cool, being able to use the Wiimote and Nunchuck instead.

Rob Fahey posted a superb editorial on GamesIndustry.biz late last week concerning Sony's current position with PlayStation 3, entitled Three Steps Back. As always (for GI.biz) it takes a mature and well-rounded look at the state of the games industry, encompassing not just proven fact but also the feelings of the community at large on the particular topic, without being unnecessarily bilious or contrived. It's just plain common sense coupled with fair observation, and it's pretty much how I feel about the whole PS3 situation at the moment.