The Alan Wake achievement was generally considered shitty, but that's the exception.

I don't play MMOs or even multiplayer games and really don't know or care how much my score is total or in individual games.
I can understand that it can be annoying there, though.

Actually, it'd be cool if the insulted player got the achievements ("1000 fathers", "well dressed").

Im not sure how achievements can actually irritate someone - can't you just ignore them? The only thing I could think of is that it disturbs your immersion in the game a little when it pops up, though it never bothered me.

There are many things going for achievements, even if you don't care (or track) how high your total is.

• They are often funny and self-referential ("press start to play" achievement for 5g in the simpsons game comes to mind).
• They're great for people who like to grind or just like the gameplay of a specific game and need an excuse to play it even after they've played it to death.
• I feel silly making a list of pros of that unimportant a thing, but i wanted to complete the 3 point list for the "Defended XBOX achievements on slashdot using a 3 point list" achievement.

Interesting facts: Chrono trigger cost 80 bucks in 1995 in the US (http://www.fantasyanime.com/squaresoft/ctabout.htm). And it took just 3 years for (at least) 30 devs to finish it (according to wikipedia, "Kato and other developers held a series of meetings to ensure continuity, usually attended by around 30 personnel").

Picking your comment to reply to more or less randomly.
- You can look at a house or make a photo of it. You can overhear a conversation. You're also not a massive database that lives on making everything they get searchable.
- People are not stupid because they dont know about router security. They know that they can access the internet if they connect those boxes to their phone line. You overestimate most peoples basic understanding of what the internet is
- In restrictive, fascist germany the Ministry of justice (or websites in general) is not allowed to store the IP Adresses of the visitors of it's website. I have absolutely no idea why they let google get away with storing them for SIX MONTHS so far.
- Yes, i used google translator for that link :)

Natal was also my first thought; I'd bet something like this will be among the first non-game apps on Live.

Source? Couldn't find anything on google news about this. And I'm outside the great australian firewall.

"So that's why they died out" I thought. Only 47 comments - this must truly be bigger news. Or... or am I really the only one who made the connection? Dreams of fame, suddenly so close to reality...

I was severely disappointed when re-read it carefully and the imaginary "i" after "Ant" vanished.

Uhm, what? The article summary starts with "too realistic" then suddenly turns to "not realistic enough" in terms of open-world gameplay. I dont really get the point, if there is one.

Im pretty happy not every game is a sandbox game, which mostly try to do everything but do everything mediocre (GTA, Oblivion etc).

BTW, nothing in doom kept me from staying cowardly in the first room of e1m1, not moving, shivering.

All with real world consequences if i choose so (boredom and starvation).

As would be a mistake picking the gender of the character - ouch.

It IS news since the genereal (and imo true) belief is that you can make up for hours behind your desk by exercising when you're not. From the article: "Avoid sitting for prolonged periods and keep in mind to move more, more often." I think Ill increase my smoke break frequency from now on.

Uhm, really? "New Ubisoft game" is, even for the average gamer, as informative as "New Warner Movie", meaning not at all.

"New bioware game" or "new id game" on the other hand... (though id is both developer and publisher i think)

I'd even say that studios are even less interesting to the average movie viewer, since marketing and interest is mostly centered on the director and actors (trying to come up with an example, i just had to look up that Spielbergs studio is Dreamworks actually)

I really don't understand how you come to your conclusion.

Do scientist have nothing better to do nowadays. Fear is an emotiona that could be the result of hundreds of different causes. Fear from stress, fear of losing money, fear of an individual, fear of going to an intervew etc, etc. How do these scientist aim to differentiate fear of criminal activity from other causes. Waste of time.

I am not opposed to paid DLC, though I usually have played the game to a point where some minor expansion packs can't rekindle that interest when they come out.

The most ridiculous PAID DLC was for Tales of Vesperia. You could actually buy 5 levels for your character. In a non-MMORPG. So you don't have to level up in a single player RPG.

That's a little like buying an autopilot for a Truck driving simulator.

The unethical part is that they want to add the arrogant, slow, chatty and (after purchase) unfriendly Apple store employees to their minions. Just my personal experience, may have been my bad luck.