Fallout had the different Pipboy screens mapped to F1-3. Better than just tab, but only a little. Unfortunately, you needed mods to extend that any further.

There's nothing inherently wrong with cinematic games, though. Compare a snore-fest like LA Noire to the Mass Effect series. Both are very cinematic, but in Mass Effect, what you're doing feels like it matters. you're having fun because you're playing it. LA Noire was a barely-interactive 20 hour movie which ground onward inevitably with or without you.

This can easily be extended - with just as much basis in reality - that profit corrupts, regardless of the source. Or, to put it in a more classic phrasing, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." Microtransactions are just the latest variety of profit that can be turned to profiteering.

Chance+opportunity+rationalization-risk = criminal action. Even a weak rationale is better than none. "I deserve this more than they do" "It's a big business, they won't miss a little profit" "I'm not actually hurting anyone" See: Software piracy on that last point. And yes, I'm referencing personal experience.

The complaint was mostly on the scale of the transactions (i.e. anything but "micro"). But it was also fairly offtopic. And so is this, I guess.

I have absolutely no problem with a console that just plays games. Indeed, I say "good for them" in this decision, especially if it actually lowers end cost to consumers.

The problem with the Wii was never that it didn't play DVDs. The problem was that its catalog of games was lousy. Seriously, look at which games are still selling at full price, and which dropped like a rock two weeks after release. Hint: Twilight Princess is still one of the top-selling Wii games... and it was a GameCube game. They won't get anywhere without developer support.

Okay, I will admit, they rewrote the book on hype and mass-marketing, this generation. That, combined with actually making a profit on hardware sales, put them solidly in the black. I'm not sure the "Nintendo iPad" will manage the same feat, though. That controller is going to cost a pretty penny.

West USA... go to Nevada?

The speed-picking "delta" robots are a very specialized application. The same would be very difficult - or impossible - to apply to jobs like plumbing where the action is highly dependent on context.

The problem is that the intimidation tactics are working. It's getting more difficult to find a copy of the hack. Out of curiosity (I don't even own a PS3), I started looking for a copy of the file. It took me a good 10 minutes to locate a link to a good download. Now, you can say I suck at searching, and that may have some truth, but it means that Sony has made strides in preventing Average Joe Luser from jailbreaking his or her console.

It occurs to me after the fact that I should have probably been searching torrents instead of looking for a download from a website. Indeed, that search takes all of five seconds to bear fruit.

Did you play the DS re-release of Chrono Trigger? They added some new sidequests to it. Compare the production quality side-by-side, of the old content to the new in the same game, and it's shocking to see how low-quality and slipshod the modern content is. Square-Enix has simply lost the ability to make quality game content.

It's saddening that after 15 hours of XIII, I found myself missing X-2. Then I went back and played XII and reminded myself what real characters and storyline-depth were. Pity about that faux-victorian speech impediment they all seemed to have.

I'm assuming that AC up there missed the memo.

The problem is, Locke2005 wasn't talking about random games that you can find a dozen copies of with a simple torrent search. "As an engineer" he said. We're talking about the $1500-per-copy specialized software that nobody ever bothers to crack, so there's no recourse if the licensing servers go down, other than to look for some other company to shell out more money to.

Admittedly, half the time, with the company gone, you'll be looking for another vendor anyway, because you rely on the company's support line too regularly to continue using the software without them anyway.