Video Game Thread 2.0

[syaoranvee]

EA appears to have started charging nearly 4 quid for demos now.  Words fail me.

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/07/04/looks-like-ea-charging-demos-now

How is this a surprising thing even if it was true?  We use to pay five dollars for a demo disc with a few levels from games back in the PS1 era.

[Askold]

EA appears to have started charging nearly 4 quid for demos now.  Words fail me.

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/07/04/looks-like-ea-charging-demos-now

How is this a surprising thing even if it was true?  We use to pay five dollars for a demo disc with a few levels from games back in the PS1 era.

Demo and Shareware diskettes also cost money. But the assumption was that we were paying for the physical item, the diskette and the covers etc. paying for a demo that you download just seems wrong. Stop calling it demo at least.

[chitoryu12]

Yeah, as long as you turn the options on carrying capacity and such up it becomes fun. There's a reason minecraft doesn't have realism, you couldn't even carry one block (one cubic meter of stone is heavy).

I think it was here that a comic was posted detailing how much weight you can carry in Minecraft, done by extrapolating the maximum amount of gold that can be carried. I think it was determined that you can carry something like three Eiffel Towers in your inventory and as armor.

[Katsuro]

EA appears to have started charging nearly 4 quid for demos now.  Words fail me.

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/07/04/looks-like-ea-charging-demos-now

How is this a surprising thing even if it was true?  We use to pay five dollars for a demo disc with a few levels from games back in the PS1 era.

Demo and Shareware diskettes also cost money. But the assumption was that we were paying for the physical item, the diskette and the covers etc. paying for a demo that you download just seems wrong. Stop calling it demo at least.

The only demos disks and shareware disks that I remember paying for were "free" with magazines...but you got a damned magazine with them.  I honestly don't remember if you could but just disks alone.

But even so, downloaded demos have been free for at least the last 6 or 7 years.  That's how things are now, it's what people expect and it's what every other developer has been doing.  To suddenly try and start charging people for something that's been free for the better part of a decade or longer would still be a really shitty and dumb move.  It doesn't matter if demo disks used to cost money in the 1990's and early 2000's, that fact would be almost totally irrelevant.

It's far from an exact or perfect analogy, but what if the NHS started charging for every single proceedure and GP visit?  I don't think people would be okay with it, nor should they be expected to be, just because you used to have to pay for such things before the 1950's.

[Askold]

Well, I was talking about early nineties back when we didn't have an internet connection. (Or CD-rom.)



I remember this one gaming magazine that was utterly rubbish but it always came with a game and I bought a few of them to get MDK and Fallout 1. There was also another rubbish magazine with a demo disk that sometimes had something cool in it.

[syaoranvee]

EA appears to have started charging nearly 4 quid for demos now.  Words fail me.

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/07/04/looks-like-ea-charging-demos-now

How is this a surprising thing even if it was true?  We use to pay five dollars for a demo disc with a few levels from games back in the PS1 era.

Demo and Shareware diskettes also cost money. But the assumption was that we were paying for the physical item, the diskette and the covers etc. paying for a demo that you download just seems wrong. Stop calling it demo at least.

The only demos disks and shareware disks that I remember paying for were "free" with magazines...but you got a damned magazine with them.  I honestly don't remember if you could but just disks alone.

They did put out standalone disks every season, this is the one of the ones I had:

[Katsuro]

Well, I was talking about early nineties back when we didn't have an internet connection. (Or CD-rom.)



I remember this one gaming magazine that was utterly rubbish but it always came with a game and I bought a few of them to get MDK and Fallout 1. There was also another rubbish magazine with a demo disk that sometimes had something cool in it.

Hah, glad I wasn't the only one who'd buy magazines just for the disks.  Though my disk buying days didn't start until cd-roms had almost completely replaced floppies etc as the medium of choice for games and software.  Damned clever strategy by the magazine publishers, I wonder how many magazines were sold that otherwise wouldn't have been if it weren't for the disk.

[Askold]

Update on the Mandate thing. People on the community forums are complaining that fat people are ruining their immersion. They complain that fat people have no place in front line combat so there should not be such character models in the game.

Apparently they are forgetting that the game also has civilians. And pirates and rebels. Two groups that might not be able to have strict physical requirements for their crews.

Also, the game does have ship crew other than marines and being overweight is probably not a disaster for some technisian.

[Katsuro]

Update on the Mandate thing. People on the community forums are complaining that fat people are ruining their immersion. They complain that fat people have no place in front line combat so there should not be such character models in the game.

Actually, I have seen fat frontline soldiers in real life.  Admittedly not many for obvious reasons but they do exist.

[starseeker]

Update on the Mandate thing. People on the community forums are complaining that fat people are ruining their immersion. They complain that fat people have no place in front line combat so there should not be such character models in the game.

Actually, I have seen fat frontline soldiers in real life.  Admittedly not many for obvious reasons but they do exist.

Hasn't there been a recent thing about British soldiers being overweight even when on duty?

[Askold]

Update on the Mandate thing. People on the community forums are complaining that fat people are ruining their immersion. They complain that fat people have no place in front line combat so there should not be such character models in the game.

Actually, I have seen fat frontline soldiers in real life.  Admittedly not many for obvious reasons but they do exist.

Hasn't there been a recent thing about British soldiers being overweight even when on duty?

There are variations on "overweight" and "fat." "Plump" as well I suppose.

The editor can make people "Baron Harkonnen" level of fatness which is a serious health issue if they were real people without antigravity or scifi medical technology. Meanwhile, a bit of a beergut does not mean that someone is really unhelthy and they may still be able to pass the physical fitness tests even in real life.

[Katsuro]

Update on the Mandate thing. People on the community forums are complaining that fat people are ruining their immersion. They complain that fat people have no place in front line combat so there should not be such character models in the game.

Actually, I have seen fat frontline soldiers in real life.  Admittedly not many for obvious reasons but they do exist.

Hasn't there been a recent thing about British soldiers being overweight even when on duty?

There are variations on "overweight" and "fat." "Plump" as well I suppose.

The editor can make people "Baron Harkonnen" level of fatness which is a serious health issue if they were real people without antigravity or scifi medical technology. Meanwhile, a bit of a beergut does not mean that someone is really unhelthy and they may still be able to pass the physical fitness tests even in real life.

Yeah but I've seen some soldiers (oddly enough they were British) who would almost certainly qualify as fat.  Again, not very many.

[chitoryu12]

The Something Awful forum has a "Goons in Platoons" board for discussions on the military, police, and emergency services life. The "Let's Talk About Idiots!" thread is very popular, and is one of the best ways to get a true view of how stupid soldiers can be. Firsthand accounts from soldiers all over the world (mostly the US) indicates that yes, overweight and at least chubby soldiers abound. Some guys manage to get fat enough to be visibly obese, even people who are shipped to war zones (though the really overweight ones usually stay behind at the base instead of actually leaving the wire).

[Dakota Bob]

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is fun as fuck, yo.

[IanC]

Well the Chars Counterattack storyline in Dynasty Warriors Gundam: Reborn is short. 3 chapters, 1 playable character, 2 mobile suits. Jee. I guess its because its based on a movie rather than TV series/series of movies (on that subject, they used the Zeta movies as basis for the Zeta storyline. Boo.)