I did; I gave it to my girlfriend. :3
(As it goes, alongside the slow-and-crashy - another thing that disappointed me earlier was that I just couldn't get the site to load at all on my phone; I don't know whether it's been fixed or whether it was just a network glitch before (I didn't have trouble with other sites) but I actually kind of like the mobile version, lack of commenting aside.)
I'm going to have to add my vote to the "ARRRGH GETITAWAYGETITAWAYGETITAWAY"s. :/ I tried the beta when it was mentioned a few weeks ago, and just last night I was happily thinking "hey, Kotaku seems to have decided against that horrible redesign after all". Damn.
I come to Kotaku because - aside from the character of the place - it's easy to browse, easy to read, easy to follow comments on and it doesn't require me to click much at all to get to the meat. When I do, I load everything up in different tabs and read at my leisure.
In this new redesign, it feels uncomfortable to read, even in 'classic' mode. I get the distinct impression that this is one of those "it works for the way I read websites" things on behalf of the designer; I'm sure it's fine if you're the kind of person who comes along and reads one or two articles by clicking on each one and then going back to the main page before finding the next to peruse, or if you read through absolutely everything obsessively, but it doesn't work for me.
I can't tell how to see replies to my comments, except by going to my profile to check, which stifles my interest in discussion. Not to mention that the first time I loaded this article it didn't have any comments at all and I had to go and click again on the article title to get them, I don't know why. And despite the complete re-jig, there's still no sign of a return of the 'Preview' button on comments?
The Nick Denton article on the reasons for the changes offers very little indeed in its favour for the 'loyal' reader/commenter, and the changes are rather antagonistic to us, it seems to me - he appears to be encouraging a transient readership... especially considering the password-hack debacle which is still in the minds of a lot of us.
Short version: if Eurogamer didn't also have a horrible front page design which makes it difficult to browse, I'd have updated all my bookmarks to point that way by now. As it is, I can't see myself coming to Kotaku as much as I used to, which makes me sad, 'cause it's otherwise a nice site with good character. Does anyone have any tips for gaming news sites which aren't a hassle?
I come to Kotaku because - aside from the character of the place - it's easy to browse, easy to read, easy to follow comments on and it doesn't require me to click much at all to get to the meat. When I do, I load everything up in different tabs and read at my leisure.
In this new redesign, it feels uncomfortable to read, even in 'classic' mode. I get the distinct impression that this is one of those "it works for the way I read websites" things on behalf of the designer; I'm sure it's fine if you're the kind of person who comes along and reads one or two articles by clicking on each one and then going back to the main page before finding the next to peruse, or if you read through absolutely everything obsessively, but it doesn't work for me.
I can't tell how to see replies to my comments, except by going to my profile to check, which stifles my interest in discussion. Not to mention that the first time I loaded this article it didn't have any comments at all and I had to go and click again on the article title to get them, I don't know why. And despite the complete re-jig, there's still no sign of a return of the 'Preview' button on comments?
The Nick Denton article on the reasons for the changes offers very little indeed in its favour for the 'loyal' reader/commenter, and the changes are rather antagonistic to us, it seems to me - he appears to be encouraging a transient readership... especially considering the password-hack debacle which is still in the minds of a lot of us.
Short version: if Eurogamer didn't also have a horrible front page design which makes it difficult to browse, I'd have updated all my bookmarks to point that way by now. As it is, I can't see myself coming to Kotaku as much as I used to, which makes me sad, 'cause it's otherwise a nice site with good character. Does anyone have any tips for gaming news sites which aren't a hassle?
@TheLongDarkRoad: I know it's fashionable to just go around bashing new consumer tech without understanding it fully, but seriously, the Kinect isn't "just" a camera, it also has that depth-sensing part to it. Which is pretty important for something like this.
Note how, on-screen in the video, you can see the black 'shadow' of the guy's hand when he draws, because the Kinect sensor is off to the bottom of the on-screen shot, off to the bottom-right of the main video's shot. That black part is the part that the sensor can't 'see'. Note how it doesn't play noises when he goes to press one 'button' and this shadow interrupts one of the other buttons. Note, in fact, how it doesn't actually play the sound until his finger hits the surface rather than just when it moves over the shape.
That's why the Kinect is actually a different piece of hardware to any old webcam - your webcam can't tell whether that finger interrupting the circle you drew is actually touching the surface the circle is on or whether it's ten centimetres above that surface, but the Kinect can get pretty close. It's not perfect in terms of depth resolution, but it's a hell of a lot better than any webcam you ever saw.
Note how, on-screen in the video, you can see the black 'shadow' of the guy's hand when he draws, because the Kinect sensor is off to the bottom of the on-screen shot, off to the bottom-right of the main video's shot. That black part is the part that the sensor can't 'see'. Note how it doesn't play noises when he goes to press one 'button' and this shadow interrupts one of the other buttons. Note, in fact, how it doesn't actually play the sound until his finger hits the surface rather than just when it moves over the shape.
That's why the Kinect is actually a different piece of hardware to any old webcam - your webcam can't tell whether that finger interrupting the circle you drew is actually touching the surface the circle is on or whether it's ten centimetres above that surface, but the Kinect can get pretty close. It's not perfect in terms of depth resolution, but it's a hell of a lot better than any webcam you ever saw.
@Don't forget to bring a towel!: This is exactly my problem with 3D TV. Over here in the UK, there are still plenty of TV channels broadcasting in standard-def, and most of their source material is probably already in a higher-resolution format. If I buy a 3D TV now I will probably be able to watch precisely 0 good things on it in 3D for the next five years - at least with the HDTV I bought a few years ago I could already hook it up to DVD players and videogame consoles and get a noticeably better picture than with my previous TV.
With the 3DS, it's pretty much guaranteed that there will be sufficient 3D content to justify the purchase in a short timeframe; with 3D TVs, I may as well wait - not just 'til the TV is cheaper, but also until there's something to watch on it!
With the 3DS, it's pretty much guaranteed that there will be sufficient 3D content to justify the purchase in a short timeframe; with 3D TVs, I may as well wait - not just 'til the TV is cheaper, but also until there's something to watch on it!
@Kobun: Probably because the set of people who have heard the name mentioned and heard that it was a cool game is larger than the set of people who actually did play the original and care about how faithful the remake will be...
@GluttonousGamer: Not really. I mean, the people who would care about battery life are the people who would be interested in buying one, and the people interested in buying one are reasonably likely to be the same people who already own a PSP (for similar reasons), so they must be used to it by now.
Whereas the people who are looking at buying a 3DS are similarly reasonably likely to be the same people who already own a DS/DSi, who will see a 3-5 hour battery life as a drop.
Whereas the people who are looking at buying a 3DS are similarly reasonably likely to be the same people who already own a DS/DSi, who will see a 3-5 hour battery life as a drop.
@Patches: If they didn't put it there, they wouldn't have been able to come up with the (still rather unbelieveable) excuse as to why the battery isn't user-accessible.
@FyreFlyeRush: I'd read it as "the time previous to now", but... still, there's that whole "Industrial Revolution" thing, I heard that was pretty... um... revolutionary.
What's actually pretty sad is all the time before the Renaissance when society as a whole wasn't having a surge of technological advancement...
What's actually pretty sad is all the time before the Renaissance when society as a whole wasn't having a surge of technological advancement...
@lordd.gee: I don't know... I bought my GBA and my DS within the first 1 to 1 1/2 years of their lives, and the fact that I'd been playing games on them for 1 to 1 1/2 years instead of waiting on the sidelines for an SP or Lite to come out has more than offset the little regret I had when it happened. It's true that a lot of launch titles are rubbish, but a lot of decent games were released before the SP or DS Lite.
On the other hand, I was still playing on my old ugly launch DS until about this time last year, when the touch screen started acting up during a Layton session and I figured it was time to replace it with a DSi. I just don't personally care much about the appearance of my console compared to its functionality.
On the other hand, I was still playing on my old ugly launch DS until about this time last year, when the touch screen started acting up during a Layton session and I figured it was time to replace it with a DSi. I just don't personally care much about the appearance of my console compared to its functionality.
@dnarnya: They're collaborating with several - only, they call them 'actors'. ;-)
@Adhominem: Well, strictly speaking it's entirely ranked by virus cycle/percent clear. But the percent-clear can't be a direct correlation to population, as (for example, off the top of my head) Canada, Sweden and the UK have all killed more zombies than their population, while countries like Russia are nowhere near their country's population - less than ten percent of it - but are still higher up the chart than all three of those >100% countries.
My guess would be a percentage of game sales to that region - meaning that, for example, Russia has very few sales per capita compared to (say) the UK, so even though they're on less than a tenth so many kills per capita, they're still ahead on kills per copy, or something along those lines.
Seriously, if the Finnish devs had rigged it, Sweden and Russia would probably be languishing around position #224... ;-)
My guess would be a percentage of game sales to that region - meaning that, for example, Russia has very few sales per capita compared to (say) the UK, so even though they're on less than a tenth so many kills per capita, they're still ahead on kills per copy, or something along those lines.
Seriously, if the Finnish devs had rigged it, Sweden and Russia would probably be languishing around position #224... ;-)
@Mykalwane: "the technology could put people out of a job if it works. I personally hate that. "
That's Luddite thinkin'!
The vast majority of technology could put people out of a job. We don't employ anywhere near so many people in the weaving or smithing industries as we did a couple of hundred years ago - but the technologies which have brought about that change have enabled lots of other things, and many new technologies create new jobs that never could have existed before. The computer might have killed a lot of professions, but now I can get a job programming computers that didn't exist a hundred (or even fifty!) years ago, and other people can make videogames and even more people can publish and manufacture and ship and sell those videogames, and small businesses can lower their running costs significantly using word processors and accounting software and so on and maybe stay in business where they previously wouldn't have been able to afford to.
Technology like this will still need some human control, it'll need more actor time, and from what we've seen of it quite possibly will still need character modellers and so on for any non-human characters anyway... which, let's face it, is a high proportion of the videogame population. And even if those character modellers were put out of a job, maybe they could retrain as environment modellers and do away with all that brown and grey junk...
That's Luddite thinkin'!
The vast majority of technology could put people out of a job. We don't employ anywhere near so many people in the weaving or smithing industries as we did a couple of hundred years ago - but the technologies which have brought about that change have enabled lots of other things, and many new technologies create new jobs that never could have existed before. The computer might have killed a lot of professions, but now I can get a job programming computers that didn't exist a hundred (or even fifty!) years ago, and other people can make videogames and even more people can publish and manufacture and ship and sell those videogames, and small businesses can lower their running costs significantly using word processors and accounting software and so on and maybe stay in business where they previously wouldn't have been able to afford to.
Technology like this will still need some human control, it'll need more actor time, and from what we've seen of it quite possibly will still need character modellers and so on for any non-human characters anyway... which, let's face it, is a high proportion of the videogame population. And even if those character modellers were put out of a job, maybe they could retrain as environment modellers and do away with all that brown and grey junk...
@NickIQ: My advice: don't bother. The probability is that everyone with an account on any Gawker site has had their username, email and password made public. The password is hashed, but that just means that there's a short delay before the scum of the world know what it is.
Go and change the passwords of every account you have associated with the same (or similar!) email address. Go and change the password of every site you use the same password on. There is no such thing as "in the clear".
Go and change the passwords of every account you have associated with the same (or similar!) email address. Go and change the password of every site you use the same password on. There is no such thing as "in the clear".
I see several people around mentioning that Google fusion table where you put an MD5 hash of your email in to check whether your account has been compromised.
Here is my advice: DO NOT TRUST THE MD5/FUSION TABLE LOOKUP.
Why? Three reasons.
1) By various accounts around the web, Gawker's servers could well have been compromised for a month or more. There is no reason at all to suspect that the attackers may not have found or may not have released all the account info Gawker holds. It is far more sensible to assume that the hackers got every email address and password on the server.
2) You don't know who produced or distributed that Fusion database. It could just as well be a deliberately-edited subset, or entirely fake. Maybe it's there to give people the false impression that they're safe and they don't need to change their passwords, to give the attackers more time to try and steal all your other accounts.
3) We know that the problem has been discovered, but we don't know that the security holes which caused the problem have been fixed. It's entirely possible that even if you registered after the password database was leaked, hackers will still be able to re-visit Gawker's servers and steal all the new account information as well.
(In fact, two of these are also reasons not to just place blind trust in the Slate tool, either - although at least we can be fairly sure it's not the work of malicious hackers trying to make you feel falsely safe.)
If you have an account on a Gawker site at all, assume that your email and password are public knowledge, and go and change your password everywhere else that you use that email address IMMEDIATELY.
(And for the third reason above, my other advice: DON'T USE THE SAME PASSWORD ON GAWKER AS ON OTHER SITES, at least not for the moment.
Change all those other accounts which had the same password as your Gawker password to one thing, and change your Gawker password to something else.)
You cannot be too careful.
Here is my advice: DO NOT TRUST THE MD5/FUSION TABLE LOOKUP.
Why? Three reasons.
1) By various accounts around the web, Gawker's servers could well have been compromised for a month or more. There is no reason at all to suspect that the attackers may not have found or may not have released all the account info Gawker holds. It is far more sensible to assume that the hackers got every email address and password on the server.
2) You don't know who produced or distributed that Fusion database. It could just as well be a deliberately-edited subset, or entirely fake. Maybe it's there to give people the false impression that they're safe and they don't need to change their passwords, to give the attackers more time to try and steal all your other accounts.
3) We know that the problem has been discovered, but we don't know that the security holes which caused the problem have been fixed. It's entirely possible that even if you registered after the password database was leaked, hackers will still be able to re-visit Gawker's servers and steal all the new account information as well.
(In fact, two of these are also reasons not to just place blind trust in the Slate tool, either - although at least we can be fairly sure it's not the work of malicious hackers trying to make you feel falsely safe.)
If you have an account on a Gawker site at all, assume that your email and password are public knowledge, and go and change your password everywhere else that you use that email address IMMEDIATELY.
(And for the third reason above, my other advice: DON'T USE THE SAME PASSWORD ON GAWKER AS ON OTHER SITES, at least not for the moment.
Change all those other accounts which had the same password as your Gawker password to one thing, and change your Gawker password to something else.)
You cannot be too careful.
@Cheese Addict: Sainsbury's meat really isn't up to much, in my experience. Maybe it's just the ones around here, but they're pretty blah.
If I want steak on the UK high street, it's M&S for me.
If I want steak on the UK high street, it's M&S for me.
@Jandau: Yeah, why no Rainbow Warrior love?
Seriously, there's a billion and one different marine chapters, they can't include them all and most people are always going to be left out. And some of them just suck.
Seriously, there's a billion and one different marine chapters, they can't include them all and most people are always going to be left out. And some of them just suck.
@Sloopydrew: I seriously hope you're joking...
@DalbyFM: I often don't understand it, but we're talking about Apple here. That means all the Apple fans are seeing it through their pro-Apple filter, which is approximately as hallucinogenic as one of those megatankers packed with LSD.
To them, Apple is like the cool girl at school who never gets dumped but always has a new boyfriend every two weeks, mixed with Duke Nukem, mixed with Jesus. Apple can do no wrong, never gets anything wrong, and doesn't take stick from anyone. If there was a business deal in the offing and it didn't go through obviously it must have been Apple deciding against it, because who would say no to Uncle Steve?
(I type this from a MacBook Pro, so it's OK, it's not racism. :3)
To them, Apple is like the cool girl at school who never gets dumped but always has a new boyfriend every two weeks, mixed with Duke Nukem, mixed with Jesus. Apple can do no wrong, never gets anything wrong, and doesn't take stick from anyone. If there was a business deal in the offing and it didn't go through obviously it must have been Apple deciding against it, because who would say no to Uncle Steve?
(I type this from a MacBook Pro, so it's OK, it's not racism. :3)
@NES8bt: GTA4 would be one of my examples. There is no story concept that a minor could not learn from this game that could not be learned from a book.
Just because it could have been told as a book, that means it has no artistic merit and therefore might as well be treated as if it were obscene?!
Twelve Angry Men could have been a book; Orson Welles' War of the Worlds could have been a book (oh wait, it was); Bohemian Raphsody could have been a book. Should all of these be considered "without artistic merit" as well?
I found GTA4 pretty dull myself, but it's undeniable that it has a story which has a beginning, a middle and an end, it has character progression and people are made responsible for their actions and so on. It doesn't need to be educational or novel to have artistic or literary merit, it just needs to give the player something not entirely mechanical or wanton. I don't see any 'artistic merit' argument against GTA4 that couldn't also be applied to - say - Scarface or The Godfather...
(Now, if you want to sponsor legislation outlawing unoriginal media works, then carry on. ;-)
Just because it could have been told as a book, that means it has no artistic merit and therefore might as well be treated as if it were obscene?!
Twelve Angry Men could have been a book; Orson Welles' War of the Worlds could have been a book (oh wait, it was); Bohemian Raphsody could have been a book. Should all of these be considered "without artistic merit" as well?
I found GTA4 pretty dull myself, but it's undeniable that it has a story which has a beginning, a middle and an end, it has character progression and people are made responsible for their actions and so on. It doesn't need to be educational or novel to have artistic or literary merit, it just needs to give the player something not entirely mechanical or wanton. I don't see any 'artistic merit' argument against GTA4 that couldn't also be applied to - say - Scarface or The Godfather...
(Now, if you want to sponsor legislation outlawing unoriginal media works, then carry on. ;-)
