CoD4 Dev Likes Microsoft's English Better Than Sony's
Comment by: floppylobster

When I worked for Sega in New Zealand we dealt with people in Japan who could speak English but things never went smoothly. Since then I've learned Japanese (and Sega crashed and burned) and now I understand how hard it is to communicate in a language that is not native. No matter how proficient you are, you will always lack knowledge of the cultural significance of certain words and may not fully grasp how they may have changed over time. All words come with connotations. And that is something non-native speakers will always struggle with. I will never be able to express myself better than in my native tongue (barring mistyping something). Sure you can have a conversation and get by, but every nuance of what you're saying and how you're saying it (tone, level of politeness, phrasing, etc) will not always be passed on.

2K on BioShock: "Why should your brother play for free?"
Comment by: edb87
Nominated by: dv8godd
Nominated by: Witzbold

@GSPanovich: Awesome.

"Is a man not entitled to the game on his computer? NO, says the brother in the living room, it belongs to ME. NO says the man at 2K, it belongs to US. NO says the users of torrents, it belongs to EVERYONE."

Sony Bans PSP Homebrew Talk on Forums
Comment by: Tarislar

1) Homebrew has many LEGAL applications. Not all of it is '1337 0hour warez lol'. And some of us like messing around with the technical sides of our consoles. We paid for the goddamned console damnit, nobody is losing money off of it.

2) Whether or not people can talk about Homebrew on other sites on the net, it's Sony's stance on this that is the issue. Once again, it's another big company going: "After you've paid for our product, you still have to only do with it what we say you can."

One less reason to buy a PSP.

Must say I'm getting really sick of the ignorant morons spewing about stuff they don't know on here. Homebrew, everyone goes 'PIRATE'! Freeloader disc? 'OMFG I PAY 4 MY GAMEZ U SHULD 2!!'.

Learn to read what other people write beside your own scribblings.

2K on BioShock: "Why should your brother play for free?"
Comment by: EvilJ
Nominated by: KaneRobot

Guess this is the year of 'Fuck The Gamer' from the development companies. Can we put this right next to EA's 'If you don't like the PS3 version of Madden, don't buy it' response to the question about why it was inferior in quality?

Live-Action Dragon Ball Z
Comment by: brachon

Well... 1) I'll believe it when I see the trailers start to come out.

2) I sure hope they're filming in Montreal because it has some good soundstages, because there's NOWHERE in Dragon World that looks like Montreal. There's a few locations that look like the classic Wild West, but most of it's Japan or China or somewhere tropical, and the cities are WIERD.

3)Cast choices will be deadly crucial here. The script - even if done well - can't help but be very hokey sounding unless you've got actors that can carry off the direct, simple lines with conviction. I've seen some excellent suggestions for casting, but of course one of the problems in this area is that even if you have the ideal choice (e.g., Wesley Snipes for Piccolo, Jet Li for Vegita), there's no guarantee that the actor in question is either available or interested).

4) You will need a director and effects studio that Really Understands the SCALE here. DBZ operates on a combat scale that makes most superhero movies look like toddlers having a shoving match. The recent Fantastic Four movie reached the scale with the Silver Surfer and Galactus (who would be respectable, though not overwhelming, early-on opponents in DBZ), but showed us very, very little actual action on that level. One needs to remember that these are individual warriors who fire blasts equivalent to the Death Star's main cannon. Routinely. One of the reasons they NEED the Seven Dragonballs is to be able to fix the damage they do to the world.

5) Perhaps the hardest part of adapting DBZ of all is the *WIERDNESS* of the universe. It does NOT take place in a universe anything like our own. This is a world in which super-mad-science is possible - capsules which hold entire houses, super-powered androids with infinite power sources, etc.; This is a world in which "God" is an *appointed position* which is periodically vacated and replaced by a new "God". This is a world in which the afterlife is run by a bureaucracy. This is a universe in which you can gain a Wish that will reshape the entire world... and you can do that once a year, if you can find the Dragonballs. This is a world in which human beings coexist with at least a dozen other anthropomorphic and nonanthropomorphic intelligent species, ranging from pterodactyl-people to talking turtles.

Without at least some of that bizarreness, it's not Dragonball Z. The quirkiness of the world is part of the charm and the essential nature of the show.

Overall, therefore, I think that - even if this actually goes forward - it's very unlikely to result in an actual decent adaptation. I can always hope, I suppose, and I'll keep an eye out.

Time Writer Halo, But Does He Really Not Like Halo?
Comment by: Witzbold
Nominated by: beeporama

Ill show him what halo is really all about!

*prints out the article and begins to teabag it*

Frankenreview - Lair
Comment by: StrikerGold

It seems Lair's development suffered from freedom of constraints in developement. Sony touts the PS3 as the ultimate powerhouse machine. Factor 5 had the tools to make amazing graphics, a rich gameplay system, and motion controls, and, by these reviews, did none of them well. They spread their resources too thin. Had Lair lacked motion control or Blu-Ray sized disk space, this clearly talented development house (Rogue Squadron) could have been more creative with less, rather than trying to brute force the entire production.

I always marvel at what old NES and Sega developers were able to do with so little bit-space. In this case, Factor 5 had too much leeway, and in the process got lost.

Rumor: Xbox 360 Fall Update to Bring Parental Timer
Comment by: RPharazon
Nominated by: wilbot

This is genius. Absolute genius. I can limit my Bioshock time now.
Fucking splicers.

Eds Note: This is nice. ChickenOfTheSea writes: "I'd like to nominate Noks415 for some sort of recognition on the site, maybe in a Multi-Tap context, for helping me out. I was having serious trouble figuring out how to change the video/audio output on my PS3 to work with a new TV, and the machine was set to output in HDMI. He logged onto AIM and proceeded to walk me through, step by step, how to change the video settings when I couldn't see or hear anything coming from the device. It was just a cool thing for him to do for a complete stranger."

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