How...About...A...Nice...Game...Of...Chess...

Agreeing with tuffy's quote for not being subtle, especially on a open source project where people can submit changes from all over the world, removing ambiguity in fundamental principles is vital. As an example of a problem with understatement (a typically British stiff-upper-lipped-trait) it caused a British military disaster during the Korean war as a brigadier reported their situation as 'a bit sticky' meaning things were extremely difficult, but which the US general took it as being a bit tricky but managable. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/14/johnezard). Sometimes you need to be clear. While as a programmer I'd be mortified to receive such a flaming response from Linus, if I'd allowed that check-in to go through, and tried to change the tests to fit the change (even though that changed error code didn't make sense) I'd have to accept he was right. It also serves as a reminder to others, to save the same problems reoccurring again.

There are two types of in-app purchase: a transient unmanaged one (eg for buying consumable items in a game) and a managed one (for buying content such as levels, etc which you would want to persist). I've worked on an Android game before that was a free download with some free levels, and minimum cost for extra levels. This uses the Android in-app purchase system which ties the purchase to your Google/Marketplace account. If you do the in-app purchase of a managed item, then uninstall and reinstall the app, it syncs up with the Marketplace and unlocks your existing purchases again. If you follow the examples from Google (http://developer.android.com/guide/google/play/billing/billing_overview.html), it just works, so there should be no loss of purchase problems.

So some poor mouse will be thinking he's going to The Island...

Now that's what I call black-sky thinking...or thinking inside the box!

If I had mod points I'd mod you up. I just nearly spat coffee all over the monitor on the last sentence. ^^

I'd played this from Beta and for the first 18 months or so. I had some friends who were on as well, and it was my first MMORPG game. I'm a fan of the film, but generally enjoyed the way the game was put together, the combat system (though never did quite get around Combat 2.0) and how a team could work together by changing specific skills for a mission or even on the fly, if you needed a medic etc. I liked that flexibility, and the ability to wander around places from the film(s), and particularly going to places you shouldn't be and being chased by agents etc was alot of fun. The live events were ok, but seemed to lag terribly at the finale, which caused the game to quit sometimes which was annoying. The thing that eventually killed it for me was the perpetual promised updates and new skills that never seemed to show up, and the ever rarer live events, it seemed once you hit level 50 there wasnt much else to do apart from start a new character. I did go back after 6 months for a little while, but nothing much had changed (the promised changes hadnt arrived) and many of the players I knew had gone so I left again. I kept meaning to have another look but guess that ship has sailed now.

Approach with gun-ports open as a sign of respect... What could possibly go wrong!

I too have mixed feelings about a sequel, particularly so soon. I'm a big fan of the first game, and agree with your comments on the chainsaws etc. Perhaps a half-way house where they work for a certain amount of time then stop (assuming they're powered by petrol, and would clog up with overuse), at which point you can lob it at the zombies. A further adaption of the Survival mode would be/have been good too, where you can lay traps similar to in the original Half Life 2 against the zombies, with shelves or barrels lined up to drop if you shoot what's supporting them, to really make good use of the great physics engine that the game has. Some people had critisized the frying pan addition, but in all fairness, I'd use anything I could get my hands on to increase the distance between myself and The Horde, be it a frying pan, chair, broom handle etc, but they could do it so the heaver the object, the more damage it gives, but the longer the time between swings due to getting tired.

Myself and a few friends used to play on the big open Battlefield 2 maps (was one with a river and a few bridges to crash into too), jeep racing from one corner of the map to the other with helicopters chasing them both. We'd have one guy driving and one guy with a rocket launcher in each, trying to take out the other jeep and choppers. Epic fun! :-D