RavenOne

Not trying to be a dick or anything, but before you say I heard about a ps2 recall etc. etc. please just check the AP news, something of that magnitude would be released, or Even check sony's official playstation website and their archives. Yes the Slim Ps2 is incompatible with FFxi , sony let people know this, until they decide to release a hdsk for this. And No the slimline does not overheat when playing San Andreas, if your "friend" had that happen he may have a defective unit, and sorry to say it, a defective unit is not means for a recall.

I think a friend of mine said it best when he said, I love the ability to know I can plug in and be plugged in at all times, but I question now more than ever if I have lost the ability to unplug myself. Yes I knew about WiMAX, and I don't like it, more or less because I hate INTEL (love AMD) but I guess , now that we're really really off the topic here, could we or could be not argue now more than ever if we have or do not have the ability to get away from thigns the way they are. What should be said is that I am not against developing these things, Yes I think it's utterly amazing the fact that we can do so many different jobs with technology, but at what point does this thign that we have created really overstep its bounds and begin locking us into a situation in which we cannot live without it.

Hypothetical Was directed at the sitting down with 30 minutes of playing time, 10 minutes to connect, then 10 to find a game , etc. etc. not the technology itself. As far as military budget typed funding , You still have to contend with Murphy's law, and the simple fact that nothing is absolute. You have to think sometimes of the most insignificant of events that could cripple the industry , lets take something like a power surge, it affects one computer, but then 5 more rely on that one computer, then 5 on those 5 etc. etc. It just has me worried that no matter what budget you have theres always something that will go wrong. Given you could argue percentage rates of what does go wrong versus what could, and I also know we're not talking life support here ... (well at least for some gamers we're not) but it just kind of bugs me that with the way technology is reproducing that more and more we lose a little bit of control in our daily lives.

Maybe it's just me and the oldschool mentaility and such, I know that bandwith is prominent and getting better everyday ,and I appreciate the online Gaming technology etc. etc. But even downloading A Client or anything would just kind of suck , theres somethign to be said about going to a store , buying X game , coming home reading the manual etc. etc. You know having something to show versus the just the "Glorified Modem". Incidentally to that end, As far as coding games to work as Clients and having everything server side, i'm gonna have to say that Would Suck , and I mean big time, just to give you a little personal background , I'm head of IT at a small company and I do coding in PHP , etc. Not saying that it could not be done, it's completely viable and sounds at first glance like a feasable anti piracy solution. But what if those servers go down , which they will , I think someone quoted murphy's law earlier today. That kind of leaves alot of us with no gaming system. And I can't really see how anyone can claim to have this technology to the point where it wouldn't break, nor could they ever claim that. Furthering ( and no i'm not wanting to start a fight, more just offering contradictory thoughts) the argument , even at bandwidths current expanision rate that doesn't change the fact that people could overload those servers to the point where a gamer, you or I, as it were has approximately 12 an hour before we have to go do (x) thing , well now we have to wait 10 mintues for it to load etc. etc. leaving us with 20 minutes. Now this is not including whether or not the game is Mplayer and then it takes another 10 to find a rival. Given that situation is only hypothetical but with the way technology is expanding , instead of worrying about piracy shouldn't the industry be thinking about ways to make the games that you can sit down , plug it in , be up and running in about a minute, increasing game time efficiency. I mean you'd almost have to say , if people get more satisfaction from a game ,and the game is maybe better priced, then shouldn't piracy be decreased through alternate methods.

I don't know if you said you had beat the game or not, but I have to say something really quicky, as far as the game being too linear ... Umm, I dunno about you, but i've found multiple different ways to do one type of task to get to the next story point. Also as far as being restrained .... When Compared to the Other Masterpiece of this year, Doom3 , how can yousay Halflife is constrained, these so many open areas. Interestingly enough I heard someone else mention draw distance, I was wondering if you wore glasses in real life or not, I do , and hadn't noticed the draw distance, but I was just wondering if that's because my vision really bites it , and I can't see , etc. etc. kind of a little theory, if you wear glasses do you tend to notice draw distance more or less , anyone else is free to comment on that, in HL2 or any other game.

I have been known to get great information from members, such as my ability to buy HL2 at best buy on the saturday , even if I couldn't play it til 2 AM (Vivendi Bites it) and a couple of other hot tips, However c'mon lets be realistic about what should or should not be believed, I mean theres so many flaws in the guys original post it was incredible, had I spent more time or gone to the guy himself I probbably could've nailed even more. But Whatever I guess some people dig Tabloid Journalism.

Not to stray , but at what point did the phantom decide to switch from the traditional console games type issue to bringing all games online. It's an interesting Concept but it will fail miserably i'm thinking ..

just to clear something up , I never said Two Bit Forum , I said Two Bit , in a forum , meaning the person that posted it , etc. etc.

I'm gonna have to nitpick this one cats. First off he preordered his, wouldn't that mean that he would automatically have one of the first runs due to nintendo already knowing he wanted one , furthermore why is it that 6 of his friends in the same area manage to get really low numbers but he receives a high , you'd think nintendo would ship geographically or something along those lines. My guess is someone had a little bit to much to drink at this "DS release party" and just decided to be like ... hey .. my DS looks a little bit different, besides don't you think if it was really true we'd hear about it from a more prominent source, and not some two bit in a forum at Neo Geo ... c'mon guys

I think it's like someone had mentioned here earlier, How HL2 feels more cinematic than ianything else, And I think that's where the music helps, I guess when I played doom3 I never felt like it was Cinematic in the least, moreso that it was just a brutal old school shooter, which was awesome because that's what it was meant to be. However HL2 seems like very movie oriented and I love it.

So now it's time for the boyfriend to get his crack at reviewing the game after i've given it quite a good play so far. As GF had said , yes I am willing to say it's better than Doom 3, However I think there could have been a bunch of thigns added that would've made it more impressive. This is why i'm gonna nitpick a little before I sing the games praises. One , The activation and unlocking did suck , but well any MMORPG is the same way so I live , besides Office and XP themselves have activation. Next is the load stall Times, in Valves defense, they did that in the first HL as well so while it does seem like the places are a little bit shoddy , for the game to perform as well as it does, I do believe it's a necessary evil. Incidentally more Ram will kill that issue anyway for all you computer fanboys out there. My biggest nitpick however is something that I thought doom3 did amazingly well , and that was reflections and such , I haven't found a mirrior in hl2 but look at the water some time, I haven't noticed that you could see yourself, but you can see the city scapes etc. etc. So i'm kind of upset about that , but you know , with all the other stuff the HL2 does so well , i'm not gonna get antsy about it. So now , why is the game so much better than Doom3 and what makes it amazing by it's own merits. Let me first say , What a F* ing Amazing Physics engine , I am floored by it. Rag doll physics are incredible , for those of you who have started on the "logan's run, underground railroad" part at the beginning, watch the Soldiers fall and bounce like rag dolls when you shoot them from overpasses , it's just truly unbelievable, or watch as they fall and float in the water hanging what seems like limp. I'm not gonna say much about the graphics because well , take a look at the SS's they speak for themselves. What I did like however , and it was indeed a slight gripe I had with doom3 , was the fact that the evironments were very open and vibrant. Taking into account that doom 3 was meant to be played in the dark , because of the power outages, it just seemed to me that there could have been some more lighting, at least in some parts of the game. And I felt very cramped in the game. Maybe it's just me that i'm claustrophobic in general but you know. So the just the openness and the environments win over hl2 for me. Going into more about the engine, the interactivity is great, I'm sorry but bashing a guard with a soda bottle is classic, and the fact that they chase you is even better. It's just small things, like having to build steps with boxes , etc. etc. that make it feel much more realiistic. shooting explosive barrels and having them take out doors and bridges is great too. Incidentally did you guys notice that while the game is very linear, theres always more than one solution to get to the next line , which I thought was a nice change. My next favorite slot of this game, was music, there was a game released a few years ago called Messiah in which one of the bands I like , fear factory, did music for that experimented with the music rising and falling depending on the action level , I am pleased to say , HL2 does this flawlessly. the adrenaline flows when i'm taking on a group of the soldiers just because it's like a techno metal soundtrack that works fperfectly in it's application. Incidentally in the sound category if you listen to the head of city 17 it's interesting to hear his theories and it brings you more into the game because you get this idea that this guy is truly a nutbag and you can imagine someone thinking the way he does. So Graphics, Sound, Interactive gameplay, What more could you want, I guess is the game overall just a fun game to play. Absolutely , it seems at first like theres alot of tedious action but for some reason right when you start to get antsy the timing in the game throws something new at you to keep you playing, which I think works really well in this case. Also for all you cats that don't realise it by now, yes the AI is constantly adjusting to your style of game play to make it easier or harder on you depending on how good of a player like this, which is awesome because GF and I can play the game and both of us can beat it while both feeling challenged without having to adjust levels out the ass and what not. HL2 Pick it up now if you haven't already.

wanna hear the greatest joke ever .... Daikatana. BTW , I love doom 3, I think people were expecting a revolution in gameplay, and in essence it is, it takes it back to the roots of what FPS were supposed to be , absolute run and gun mayhem. i've seen way to many people knock the game over trivial crap like .. it's too dark ... the power on the station got destroyed and blew the lights .... I mean it was kinda supposed to be that way. Besides I mean , look at the alien movies ... or slasher movies .. why is it that no one ever complained about those being too dark. Of course with any game I do have my complaints, and really I only have one, the ambient sound and monster sounds are great, if you notice too theres a bunch of sampled doom 1 and 2 sounds in there kind of masked it's pretty sweet. but my complaint is with the weapons , it felt like to me that the levels could've been brought up a little, like I mean the shotgun sound is kewl and all but I mean , when you have a 100 watt subwoofer shouldn't you be able to feel that thing just going kaboom ... you know " This is my boomstick".

from what I heard , as far as the internet account, it's actually a phantasy star online thing. Once that dreamcast was registered with PSO you can't reregister it. That's where I think he got the can't reregister internet

If you liked FF Tactics Advanced, may I reccomend Shining Force and Sword of mana , both of them are great games. I love my GBA , even if alot of the games are rehashes of old SNES games, but you know, what's kewler than having a portable SNES