Anyone play The Witcher 1/2? I never paid much attention to either until I started seeing really good reviews for the second one, so I figured I would give it a shot. However, I'm not sure if I should play the first one or just start on the second. The enhanced edition of the first one is on Amazon for $22 and I have a $20 credit on my account, so I could basically get it for free, I'm just not sure if it's worth playing or if I should just use that $20 towards the second one. Also, gotta love Amazon.com, amirite? Bought LA Noire with no tax, free shipping so that it arrived on release day, and I got $20 credit to use on any purchase sold and shipped by amazon.com.
Definitely play the first one too. It's a great game on its own (if you like RPGs) and the second will make much more sense if you've played it. Gameplay has been completely revamped in witcher 2, but they use a lot of characters and story elements from the first game.
You can get The Witcher on GOG for $10. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher/</a> Second one is there too, but it's $50. I'd pick up the first one and play it while you wait for the price to drop on the second one.
The same day I got my PS3 back from its temporary vacation (Brand new 60gig again I might add, not refurbed, brand fucking new), my laptop refused to turn on. I knew it was going to die as it was declining but finally tapped out. Now to take this shit to GeekSquad and threaten them not to fuck me over. I know they're going to fuck me but at least they'll look me in the eyes when they do it. HP told me they'd basically charge me to talk shit over the phone, and no matter what it'd be at least 300 to send it in with the possibility of more. No more League of Legends for awhile. Now I can catch up on the 8 games I was halfway through, before picking up L.A. Noire.
Every time I go on PSN, it says something about the customer appreciation thing, but if I try to go into the PlayStation store, it says "undergoing maintenance". Is it like that for everyone?
Yeah, the store isn't back up yet. It is supposed to be back up by the end of the month, but who knows, really.
Odds are they've DOS'd themselves with everyone hitting it at the same time, like a Tsunami. Bringing shit like this back online is almost as scary as it going dead, because it totally fucks with all of your sizing and resources and capacity. You're typically looking at having only a small percentage of your user base being actively online at any given time. With the EA Sports stuff, we were sizing shit for approximately 30% of registered users, while only really hitting 20% or so. That equates to millions of dollars in hardware, hosting costs, bandwidth, etc. Right now you've got everyone coming back all at once, so there's a good shot that the numbers could almost be double what they've got capacity for. Never mind that they're all heading for the gift shop. I'd bet that their eCommerce shit is only sized to handle 5-10% of their online users, but now EVERYONE is hitting it. The "maintenance" error is more like "we're fucked and we're melting".
Thanks guys, that makes sense. I know the game is probably ancient, but what do you guys think of Uncharted and Uncharted 2? I saw an ad for the third Uncharted, and it looks pretty cool. Are the first two decent, and should I get them?
Oh, on that note... one of the worst days I've had at EA was when shit was melting and we were trying to debug a DOS'd environment... it seemed that, much like this case, EVERYONE was hitting a part of the system that was nowhere near sized for that kind of usage. We couldn't figure it out, and thought we were hacked, or worse. Turns out that some fucking marketing "genius" sent out millions of emails saying "come here to claim _____, this day only". All without talking to the Ops guys, or warning anyone. All we know is the traffic went from 70% capacity (normal) to 2000% attempted capacity. Ops guys had a severe melt down, then blamed the code (my team), and shit got real serious real fast as we all got involved to sort it out. Too many EA Lifers tried to finger point and blamestorm, but we just tried to figure out the problem and find a solution. We never did... it just passed. Needless to say the Marketing team didn't do that again.
I actually went out and got the first two for pretty cheap, and I am really glad I did. The hype surrounding those games makes sense, I really enjoyed them. The story lines are simple enough to follow, but engaging enough to keep you playing, and the gun play is tough but fun. They were absolutely worth the cheap prices I got them at. They were both those kind of games where I kept wanting to set it down, but kept saying "one more chapter" until I was almost done. As for the Playstation Store, they're not back online at all yet, and I don't think they will be until the very end of the month. I do expect that they'll get swarmed with people wanting freebies once they return, so it is going to be a pain in the ass downloading those games, but I still want my free shit. Somewhat related: The identity theft protection offer is up and running, so people can go and sign up.
The only video game that made me regularly laugh out loud at some of the dialogue. I would definitely play them in order though. After playing the second one, they fixed some very obviously annoying things (constant stream of enemies in a single area, some hard to figure out climbing areas, etc.) that make it difficult to enjoy the first one again. But as far as story and graphics go, they're pretty much the reason to own a PS3.
Probably the 7th or 8th time running. There are two series of games I'll say to people "If you don't love these games, you can kick me in the balls." That is God of War and Uncharted. I've never heard anyone say "I don't like those games" that weren't complete fucking retards. They're actually not ancient. The first one looked great, and the second one looks better.
So I dunno if anyone has played Frozen Synapse, but you really really should. It's $20 on Steam and well... it's a tactical turned based bag of awesome.
EA released a preview of the new features in NHL 2012. Aside from the goalies being in play, it doesn't seem all that innovative. The Winter Classic is nifty, but not a huge selling point for me. Nor is the ability to pop off some guy's helmet or break the glass. These all just seem like finishing touches to me, not enough to make me stop playing my 2011 version and spend $60 on a new one. So far it looks like I'll be skipping this one.
I doubt very much you'll see any innovation from any EA sports game for a long, long time, if at all. As it is, the yearly deadlines, that are set in stone pretty well due to their direct relation to sport's season, make it almost impossible to get shit done in time with what's there. That's without any innovation or real advancement in technology. Sure, there are small little tweaks and shit, but true innovation takes a lot of time and effort and money, and I haven't seen EA invest anything close to what it would take to pull it off. Most of my friends I've known that have worked on the sports games do it once, and never again, because they are THE worst teams to work on. Stupidly long hours, incredible pressure, and the teams are filled with a ton of over-eager interns because not many others want to be anywhere near them. Never mind the fact that EA is more and more being run by accountants who have their heads up their ass, and, like I've said before, I don't think they'll be around too much longer. $0.02
I don't know if anyone else but Dmix3 plays Socom 4 but FUCK I SUCK. You realize how fucking lazy auto-aim is for CoD, when you don't have it you feel it. I also have a case of the Jimmy-hands. Unless I consciously try and avoid it I aim like Michael J Fox when an enemy hoves into my gunsight. I haven't got a lay of the online land yet. Couple of gripes. I don't like the ADS system that was mentioned. Clicking the R3 button will turn it on until you reclick it again. This fucking sucks because half of the damn time I just want a short zoom as a guy has just appeared in front of me and Im trying to suppress my jimmy hands. Hopefully this can be changed in the options? I need to turn the sensitivity down for sure. The spawn system is terrible as well. Your whole team spawns in one area and if an enemy is there he can rape face. Minor gripes, I seriously doubt this is 60fps as I had heard, not a fan of the new grenade lobbing (it's a lot easier and not as unique as the old arch system). Otherwise even suppression, TDM for S4, you need to be working with a team to even come close to winning. I finally started to get ahold of the controls and started gelling with a couple of team mates and we started dominating. You must have loved last nights South Park then. I don't see your reasoning though why you think theyll be out of business? Fuck Madden alone sells millions of units on EACH of the systems (maybe not wii who the fuck plays madden on wii?). Is there some sort of cash flow problem Im not seeing? I mean shit the money it would take a competitor to even make a yearly franchise as good AND being able to convert enough people just seems impossible...
I'm beginning to understand the frustration some of you experience while playing LoL. Last 4 of the 5 games I've been on a losing team. Each time we were all doing great, except ONE dude who a) had a horrible score and b) started yelling at everyone else for being "fkn noobs". Awesome playing mid lane with Ashe ( >=3/0/x ), seeing a side lane fall in under 8 minutes and then getting verbally abused for the next 30, because some asshole with 300+ wins still doesn't understand the basic concepts of the game. Let's hope the Tribunal will start weeding out these players.
No, it's not. The number one money maker for EA is the Need For Speed franchise, and it's not doing as well as it has historically any more. Madden is sucking more and more, and is getting nowhere near the sales it used to. Go look at the financials, and explain to me how a company can do stupid shit and lose almost a billion dollars, fuck up every internal new IP project they've had over the last few years (remember Spore? Gunhead?), and re-do the same game without improvements, and continue to thrive. Having worked there for 5 of the last 7 years, and been a consultant to the upper management on their tech, I can tell you that things are not all rosy. Their internal development practices that are run by accountants are costing the company huge, and it's not getting any better.