Comment Interactive porn in... (Score 5, Funny) 160
3..2..1..
Comment Re:Natural Selection (Score 1) 192
Ive played NS quite a bit, and while it works in theory, several things can completely knacker a game: the most obvious of which is getting a noob commander in the comm chair. By the time people have realised the commander sucks and voted him out, its often too late for marines to recover.
Also, your argument only really works for NS_ maps: CO_ maps are horribly, horribly unbalanced, and unless the marines can get an early game spawncamp set up, aliens will pretty much always win. I realise that co_ maps arent "proper" NS, but theyre still popular: sometimes you just dont want to play a game that lasts ~2 hours.
Suspect Freed After Exposing Cop's Facebook Status
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longacre writes "A man on trial in New York for possession of a weapon has been acquitted after subpoenaing his arresting officer's Facebook and MySpace accounts. His defense: Officer Vaughan Ettienne's MySpace 'mood' was set to 'devious' on the day of the arrest, and one day a few weeks before the trial, his Facebook status read 'Vaughan is watching "Training Day" to brush up on proper police procedure.' From the article: '"You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street," Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. "What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room." Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena.'"
Comment Re:Has an MMO ever had an ending before? (Score 2, Interesting) 162
Fwiw, I was there for that, and all I saw of the attack on open citys was a few fellguard mobs spawned in city locations, boosted to about 500% size and no ability for players to respawn on death. The idea was nice, but the whole thing felt just a little underwhelming.
Comment Re:Still wired to wiimote (Score 2, Funny) 89
Sorry, but you clearly don't understand how technology works. If it wasnt possible to have a wireless gamecube controller 7 years ago, why should it be possible now?
Comment Your quest, should you choose to accept it... (Score 1) 54
Is to battle the giant flaming cocks of planet PEENZOR.
Which will no doubt make up 90% of the user generated missions (judging by pretty much all other user genrated content available in any game)
Comment Who is the 5%? (Score 4, Interesting) 281
Can let me know who the 5% that arent signed up are so I can transfer over to them? If i wanted censored internet, Id move to China.
Comment Such a mess... (Score 5, Funny) 121
According to one of the comments in linked article, the manager for Games for windows has been recently fired.
Im glad to see someone taking the fallout for such a mess!
Sorry, Ill go back to my corner now.
Comment As a hardcore gamer and wii owner... (Score 2, Insightful) 104
The problem I have with the wii currently is that I can count the number of games which I have enjoyed on one finger. (Fyi, super mario galaxy.)
The problem seems to be that for every "serious" game on the wii, 100 "fun/party" games are released. Sure, it was cute at first, but ~2 years later and I've pretty much not touched the wii since. Sure, a few party games are kinda fun (wii sports for example), but most of them fall into the category of "do something silly with the wii remote for a few seconds, and not much else". To say nothing of the fact that I DONT SPEND EVERY MOMENT OF MY LIFE SOCIALISING WITH FRIENDS. (I know, i know, typical slashdot crowd...)
Now, I realise that these games are probably selling left, right and centre, but it doesnt mean that you're not allowed to make decent, single player games. For chrissakes, I use the wii more as a gamecube emulator than anything else these days.
The wii is clearly capable of running halfway decent games, but unfortunately it seems no-one is interested in producing them.
*other note: im not including wiiware in this rant, as Im well aware that several smaller/indie developers have released stunning games, such as world of goo. But frankly, if I wanted a console with online capabilities that didnt suck, I would've bought an xbox.
Comment Could work... (Score 5, Funny) 290
Im sure that many aspiring dictators are foiled by the internet. Rather than stage political coups, they're all too busy trolling and participating in 4chan...
Amazon Launches "Frustration-Free Packaging" 353
mallumax notes Amazon's new Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. Over several years the retailer hopes to convince many of its suppliers to offer consumer-friendlier packaging. It's starting with just 19 products from Mattel, Fisher-Price, Microsoft, and Transcend. Until this program spreads to more products, better get one of these (ThinkGeek and Slashdot share a corporate overlord). From Amazon's announcement: "The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box. Amazon works directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used."
Programming .NET 3.5
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lamaditx writes "The world of the .NET framework is taken to the next level by the release of .NET 3.5. The intended audience of this book are experienced .NET programmers. There are no sections that tell you details about C#, SQL servers or anything like that. I don't recommend this book if you never worked on a .NET project and don't know how to set up a SQL database. You should be aware that the code is written in C#. You might use one of the software code converters if you prefer Visual Basic instead. I think the code is still readable even if you do not know C#. I appreciate the fact that the authors decided to use one language only because it keeps the book smaller. The authors assume you are using Visual Studio 2008. You don't necessarily need to update to 2008 if you are working with an older edition because you can use the free Express Edition to get started." Keep reading for the rest of Adrian's review.
In UK, 12M Taxpayers Lost With USB Stick 258
An anonymous reader tips a piece from the UK's Daily Mail that recounts another sad tale of the careless loss of massive amounts of private user data. "Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details. The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets. An urgent investigation is now under way into how the stick, belonging to the company which runs the flagship system, came to be lost."
