J Marv

I understand why they're upset, but this is really kinda stupid. Maybe it is infringement, but come on.

Who was the heavily wrapped up guy with the sword?

Trailer.

I don't think a cure would make sense for the storyline, since they've already hinted at Wolverine vs Magneto (which I hate, because in a straight fight, there is no way Logan could take Magneto, NONE). And if the X-Men took an exception to a "cure," then surely would Magneto, especially in movie continuity since he tried to cause a vast array of world leaders to mutate. So what exactly would they have to fight about? Pyro?

More FilmForce stuff: MacTaggert is an odd character to cast. It would seem maybe we're getting a legacy virus storyline, as I really can't see them using Proteus.

Or how about cost. It is about the same just to buy the DVD and watch it at home, with not only movie tickets being stupid expensive, but gas and food and stuff like that. Then compound that with the fact that at home you don't have to wait in line or deal with the jackasses that populate the general public; there just isn't any reason to go out. I don't really see what that has to do with video games. Halo 2 made have made a lot of money but it isn't anywhere near the most popular game ever in terms of unit sales.

More from IGN Filmforce: Mahood = Dazzler perhaps? Stacy X is a really obscure character to put in the movie.

Oh... I shall seek out the book then.

While I agree that the film shouldn't have been edited because of it, I don't agree with some of the comments from the producers and director. Just because it's controversial doesn't make it a good time to come out, though I guess that does mean a lot of free publicity.

I'll do Goku, Kenshin, D, Ashitaka, and Wolfwood. One thing though, how much of Goku do you want?

Points? GTA has points now? And since when did killing a cop not equate to a 2-star warning level, and if you're caught, prison?

And I also have no idea what this means. He was bumping the thread (posting in it, so that it would show a new post whenever somebody logged on to the forums) so that people wouldn't forget about any promised bios, or in case others would like to write some more.

EDIT: Everything is clear now.

I'll do Kaneda and Trunks now that I'm finished with the ones I originally said I'd do. One question though: Which Trunks?

Picked up San Andreas for the PC this week. I keep dying in gang warfare. It's probably an unrealistic goal to eliminate all opposing gangs just after "Doberman," however. Oh, and Pulaski's white.

I have Baby's and Knives' done. PMing to you right after I post this. Let me know what you think.

I would have preferred Jason Statham, but Vin Diesel is a serviceable enough actor. I'm curious as to what storyline they're going to use, and what kind of movie it's going to be, as much of the games involve sneaking around.

For now, I'll do Baby, Knives, Sharon Apple, and Tetsuo.

I'd be happy to write any bios you need. (RE: I'm bored as hell, so please give me something to do.)

Well, in the context, I meant their employees. Due to success of Steam and the proliferation of digital delivery (at least on the PC and Mac), developers don't necessarily need huge publishers to get their games out there anymore. But now that you mention it, it is kinda curious to me that the larger corporations (Microsoft did recently with the Halo 2 pack, I know) aren't dabbling more into digital delivery. And more on this KOTOR 2 stuff. The unused content (the audio files, game scripts and animations) that was left on the disc mostly ties up these plot points, the rest is stuff that adds to the main plot and covers a lot of history that seemed to be left out. The ending really doesn't leave much, if any room for a sequel as it is, in fact if some of the stuff that was left out actually occurred in the game, it would actually expand upon the ease of story writing for a sequel. And I say revenue is gonna decrease for XBox 360 because Microsoft is making Live free (a great move, I think, but they're gonna take a revenue hit), and because they're eating so much on the hardware. Sony wasn't losing that much on the PSP, and I doubt a movie is gonna be a system seller, especially since it is going to be released on DVD as well. And I seriously doubt that all those games will outsell last year's holiday lineup, it is possible though.

It's obvious if this argument keeps up, we're just going to end up in circles, so I'm not gonna keep quoting, but I will make the following points. Holiday revenue is gonna be much smaller this year, recent information says Microsoft is gonna eat $75 for every XBox 360 sold. To make up for that in software, they're gonna have to sell a hall of a lot of games, just to break even. Revenue was up this April because of a system launch. No, EA souldn't have to give them time off, but then they should pay them for their overtime work, which according to the stories, they don't. I fully realize the difficulty that EA (and any other major company, including the three 1st party publishers, EA just the biggest target because people have already attacked them) employees would face if they attempted to form a union, however, digital delivery services (such as Steam, and IGN/Gamespy's Direct2Drive, both of which are fantastic) make it much easier for developers to break free of large corporations. They don't need EA, EA needs them. Especially when such services are going to be made available for consoles. As far as the tech comment, HDTV's are still prohibitively expensive for most people. Maybe they won't be by 2011, this is just speculation though. The fact that NFL 2k5 cost $20 has no effect on how much money the NFL gets from it, since they probably just license the teams and players for a flat fee. I would think competition would be good for the NFL, as they could continually drive up their asking price, knowing that both Take Two and EA would leap on it. But it's not just the NFL, they've got NCAA and AFL too (though I'm not sure if they're AFL exclusive). And I do use Linux/Unix at school for large portions of my curriculum. But gamers have to use Windows, they don't have a choice. As far as the car question went, there wouldn't be a point to trick out every car, other than bragging rights, but there would be good reasons to trick out many of the cars. For instance, you'd want to have a fully upgraded car for each competition class, as well as for any specialty races. For instance, in Sega GT, there is a series of races that require you to use a car with a Normally Aspirated engine less than 1000 cc. This, in the case of Sega GT, would be an E-class car. However, turbo'd cars are faster, so you'd want a turbo'd car for E-class races without the NA restriction. It's not inconcievable that one could run up a $20 tab just to have a fleet of cars that could enter and be competitive in any race you came across online. And KOTOR 2 was unfinished. It had a lackluster ending, which was lackluster because it was rushed so it could be on the shelf for the holiday season. There are places and events heavily alluded to in the story that never occur, but if you dig through the game code, you'll find scripts and audio files for these events. A bit odd if the developers just forgot about these plots, otherwise why would they have the actors record the dialogue, and then leave those files as well as the animations and character scripts in the release version of the game? Oh, and you read my movie comment wrong. Movies are making more money, with less customers. Not less with more customers.

We both have legitimate arguments about independent and smaller 3rd party developers, though I think they are more important than you, probably because I'm a PC gamer by nature, and smaller developers tend to deliver more PC games. Maybe so, but they put out so many games a year that I'm not sure how they'd do it otherwise. Other companies tend to force long hours in crunch time as well, but usually give employees a couple of weeks off after such a period, it was reported that EA didn't. I still think that those working for major companies should unionize, especially if what those people say is true. In truth I don't have any, as reliable game sales numbers are nearly impossible to find for all but the best of bestsellers. But look at the furor over the unfinished KOTOR 2. People are so ticked off that a group of angry players has actually set out to finish the game (it turns out that much of the cut content still made it onto the discs, but was untested, so it was left alone in the game). KOTOR 2 also sold fewer copies than the first game, for varying reasons, including some less than glowing reviews. Actually, revenue fell in 2004 compared to 2003 though, by about $100 million dollars. A relatively small drop, but a drop nonetheless, especially considering the flood of marquee titles at the end of the year (San Andreas, KOTOR 2, Halo 2, MGS 3 among others), and considering that Nintendo had its biggest year ever in the handheld market.Article More on this later. Yeah, and I would have been just as ticked off at those companies. EA signed for exclusivity, so they draw my ire. Just like Microsoft does, for being basically the only PC OS that matters for home users. It also seems odd that the NFL would seek exclusivity with EA, especially since NFL 2k5 sold better on the Xbox than Madden. I got those numbers from Gamespot. I didn't hear $20, I made it up, but it's not that far fetched. In the GDC demo, Allard used the microtransactions to increase the performance of his car. Forza has over 200 cars. If I wanted to set up each to be competitive in an online race, assuming one microtransaction at $.25 is required to max out each car's performance, it would cost me over $50. And who's handling these microtransactions, you ask? Why Microsoft is, not third party developers or publishers, which only exacerbates the problem in my first point. Unit sales are up, but revenue is down. Does that sound logical? I guess you could say that budget titles are popular, since both the original Halo (XBox) and NFL 2k5 (PS2) were both in the top 10 in unit sales for 2004, but that isn't necessarily good for the industry, especially since it is widely expected that the cost of new games will increase to $60. If cheaper games are more popular now, what happens when non-budget titles get even more expensive? Nobody really knows. And what about movies? Over the past few years, movie ticket sales have dropped, but revenue has increased. Just because more people are doing it doesn't necessarily mean that they're spending more money. From your dates, 1995. The past decade or so, either sales, revenue, or both has increased every year in the video games industry. No other industry has seen a period like that, ever. It's got to end sometime. It has to. It can't grow forever. Especially since the tech is getting way ahead of itself. How many people really have broadband and HDTVs? Really? Is there? There's more to different FPS's than weapons and environments. Give me a break. Play Serious Sam, then play Rainbow Six, and tell me that they're the same game with different weapons and environments. If you honestly think that, then I have no idea what to say, because that's ridiculous. Maybe you were just talking about the comment you heard, but just watch game commercials. They want us all to think it's the same game. The Killzone spot called it a "Halo killer." The Area 51 spot says its "the next Halo." Even if the games vary greatly, it seems the publishers don't want you to know that.

Sorry about posting this in regular Earth-2. The article was hosted on Earth-2.net, so I figured it was a mainpage article, and somehow missed the comments link.

Not so anymore. In the final book of the NJO Luke uses Force Lightning on a Yuuzhan Vong warrior about to attack Jacen and Jaina Solo. He extends his left hand and sends a tangle of blinding raw energy manipulated into being by the Force toward the Vong warrior. It is dangerously close to using the dark side, but no more so than Vaapad. Except, you know, Luke was a Sith once if we're counting EU. And we're not. So technically Yoda's point may still be valid. I prefer the RPG take, it is more exhausting for Jedi to use it than Sith, but it is available to everyone. The same goes for more light-sided powers, like force healing.

Yoda, I know this was pretty much an opinion piece, but I would like to present the case against, as it were. The cost of development of console games has skyrocketed, effectively eliminating independent developers and smaller 3rd party publishers from competing. EA works its developers in slavelike conditions, and there is no union to protect them from this treatment. Everybody's got a breaking point, and I'm shocked that EA hasn't yet hit its employees'. You point out that in the previous console crash, there were too many crappy games, it's beginning to happen now. Many games are being released unfinished to make holiday deadlines. It hasn't affected sales yet, but it will start to, and soon. LucasArts has nearly lost me as a customer over KOTOR 2, and I will read dozens upon dozens of reviews before I buy another LucasArts game (KOTOR 2 is a brilliant game and well worth its cost, right up until the unfinished climax, it feels like a premature ejaculation). EA has already ticked me off with their NFL and NCAA and AFL shit, and its only a matter of time before they begin to take advantage of the monopolies they have. Microsoft is pushing those Micro-transaction things on XBox Live, so that, after spending $60 on a game (which I don't actually mind, but a lot of people will), I'm gonna have to spend another 20 or so just so I can compete with other online players? It's ludicrous. More people may be gaming than ever, but that doesn't mean that's a good thing for the industry as a whole. Businesses move in cycles, and the gaming industry has been on the upswing for far too long. Don't get me wrong, I'm not predicting the end of console gaming. But there is a very compelling argument that it might implode, whether you believe it or not. And if all first person shooters are the same, then all 3D platformers are the same. Don't make asinine statements. You're smarter than that.