I'm sorry, but that's fucking lame.

Do you need XBox Live Gold to participate in the online portion?  I'm guessing yes, but I'm still not 100% clear on how that whole thing works.

What did 360 launch with in the US?

According to Bill Harris, 1.5 million.

Out of curiosity, how much does a year's worth of game insurance cost these days?

I've been known to bench a quarterback.  Sometimes a RB.  WRs I just won't throw to.

Yes.  That's what I figured.

Fuck EA.  Fuck them in their fucking faces.

Yes, the move on the NFL license was an unfortunate thing for the industry, but remember.. 2k Sports bid on that same license. If you're in a business, and you're making a product, and suddenly the person who controls your ability to make that product comes up and says "I'm selling the rights to making this product to only one company this year" what do you do? Do you not buy it and hope none of your competitors does either all for the sake of innovation in gaming and fair business? Or do you use every resource you have to buy the license for that product in the hopes of continuing the profitability of your own company? Tell me, which one makes more sense? EA is not to blame for this, the NFL is. The NFL created the monopoly on football games. Not EA. EA just happened to be the one with the most money at the time the license was offered.

I never thought of that.  I assumed EA was to blame because they're evil.  I discounted that the NFL is also evil.

Fuck the NFL.  Fuck them in their fucking faces.

This actually makes me feel a little better about buying Madden, which I imagine is inevitable anyway.  I am a weak man.

Edit:  Wait a sec.  What's the advantage to the NFL of selling an exclusive license?

Uh, you could always keep the ones you own, rent the new one to see if it's any good thus saving yourself both heartache and walletache.

Not this year.  Bought a new 360.

Just sayin' because as someone that in no way plays sports games, I would never pick up an EA Sports game if I suddenly went sports crazy.

No offense, but that's about the dumbest comment so far in this thread.  That's like saying "I'm not an alcoholic, but if I was, I just wouldn't drink so much."  I don't want to buy NCAA every year; I have to buy NCAA every year.

How much extra does that cost?

Farscry:  Agreed.  We shouldn't need to argue about the correct reason to hate EA.  There's plenty of hate to go around.

Ridah:  I play sports games.  I await the new college football game each year with breathless urgency like a high school boy awaiting his deflowering.  EA has gobs and gobs of money.  They could have put some of that into developing a better game and beating out their competition fair and square.  Instead they buy the exclusive license and say, "Fuck you all, gamers.  Buy my game or nothing.  If you want to play football this year, you will have to suck my giant taint!"

Fuck EA and fuck Madden.  Bad enough I have to buy NCAA every year.

I understand that Farscry.  I hate my job too and I can't quit.  But that's not a reason to not buy their product.  It's not, after all, like their some kind of Vietnamese child labor sneaker sweatshop.

I can understand your viewpoint, but I beg to differ.  If we go by the logic of "it could be worse", well, you can always find an excuse for poor behavior.  By that token, your manager could always tell you "hey, it could be worse" every time you were considered for a raise and they turned you down.

Again, the crux of my viewpoint is, by purchasing their products, I'm condoning and supporting their business practices.  Until I feel that their business practices are reasonable in all regards (not just employee treatment but also customer treatment and value for the price of their products), then I cannot in good conscience provide them with income that will further their practices.

I understand your viewpoint, but it doesn't move the ball anywhere.  There's always going to be better places to work and worse places to work.  If you're going to use bad labor practices as a reason to not buy a company's product, you've got to draw a line where you think acceptable practices are.  For me it's somewhere between EA and a Vietnamese sneaker sweatshop.  I think it makes more sense to not buy EA's product because I don't like EA's product.

I understand that Farscry.  I hate my job too and I can't quit.  But that's not a reason to not buy their product.  It's not, after all, like their some kind of Vietnamese child labor sneaker sweatshop.

A company should strive to make the best product possible at a reasonable price in order to maximize its profits.  Buying the exclusive NFL and NCAA licenses gives EA no incentive to make the best football games possible while simultaneously preventing anyone else from doing so.  It's like they are symbolically rubbing their balls in your food.

My understanding is that 3 months before launch, they still haven't begun manufacturing them.  At this point, the PS3 is a vaporconsole.

Fuck EA.  Fuck them in their fucking faces.

Their decision to spend untold gobs of money on the exclusive NFL and NCAA licenses rather than improving their games is a slap in the face to gamers.

I could care less how hard they work their employees.  Let them sacrifice a few to Satan if it means I get a better game for my $50 or $60.  If you don't like it, don't work there. 

second half of 2006

It is the second half of 2006.  No way this "PSP2" goes from something no one's ever heard of to something you can buy in the store in the space of less than a few months.  Don't worry about it.

http://bestpics.ru/full/10bq.gif

Ike I changed your picture to a link... it's not only creepy as hell but probably a bit too much... skin... or eyeballs... or something...

-warning

Ok, 2 questions:

What are the graphic options? I have a widescreen HDTV. Burnout 3 said it had progressive scan on the back, but I never saw an option for it.

I own but never finished Burnout 3. I really enjoyed the game (the racing parts anyway, I thought the crash parts were merely ok) but got distracted by something shiny. Is it worth sinking $50 on Revenge or should I just play Burnout 3?

Oh yeah, and how's the music?

So that's 3 questions.

They do all look the same.

What?  You know you were thinking the same thing.

So, what are the options these days? Once again, the arrival of the new college football game has sent me in search of a way to download correct rosters and transfer them to my memory card. In previous years, I used the Sharkport, but for some reason it quit working last year, shortly before my PS2 also quit working. I now have the new PS2 (the little one) and it's my understanding that the Sharkport will not work with that version. So, what devices are available these days so that I can download rosters from the interweb to my PS2?

Mods, if this is in the wrong forum, please feel free to move.

I played alliance in CB and now I play horde.  The character models aren't as "pretty" of course, but I'm finding myself liking them a lot more now.  They just seem more interesting.

I also agree that UC is the best city in the game.  I don't understand how people find it hard to navigate.  Once you figure out how to get downstairs, the basic layout is pretty simple and symmetric.  Shops, bat, bank, inn in the center, and then two concentric rings split up into 4 quadrants, all neatly labeled on the map.  The guards will tell you where to go if you're looking for a specific trainer, etc.

Thunder Bluff is also an excellent city.  Org's fine once you get used to it.

The buggy level, imo, was much better done than the airboat level.  The buggy level may be as long, but it's broken up better, with some really excellent things to do in between the driving parts.

linky?

I only started getting the stuttering problem bad after the patch.  I put the "mat_forcemanagedtextureintohardware 0" in a autoexec.cfg file and it's much better.

I have been unable to access the Wanderers forum for a couple of days.  What up wit dat?

Also, do I need a credit card to play my "free" month?

Doom3.  On its own, maybe not so bad, but between Far Cry, Painkiller, and especially Half Life 2, the bar has been raised.  Considerably.

IGN says it's a good game (9.2).

IGN gave MOO3 the same score.  Just thought I'd remind everyone.  IGN = whores.

I would also like to remind everyone that IGN game MOO3 a 9.4.  Because they're whores.

As somebody mentioned in the last GG thread regarding this "game", you would be better off paying somebody $5 to kick you in the nuts.

Jeff, go back a little ways the way you came.  You will find another jump to the left.

I'd say set up your steam account ahead of time.  Took me a while when I installed last night.  Btw, the game is excellent so far.

The sprint key (and flashlight) doesn't work until you get the HEV suit.

Sorry, being patient is BS.  This is not a MMO where you know that you are going to have to play in connection with the company's server going in.  My money is good the minute I hand it over to them.  I expect their product to be good the minute they hand it over to me.  The technology for making games work (generally) right out of the box has been around for years.  If they want to experiment with Steam, great, but I expect it to work at least as well as the prior technology.  Especially in this day and age where stores don't let you return software that doesn't work.

Except I think it's a train (to tie in with the beginning scene) and not an elevator.  I could be wrong though.

What's gonna happen on the 16th when everybody and their brother tries to authenticate the game at the same time and crashes Valve's servers?  I don't know about you, but when I pay cash money for a game, I expect to play it as soon as I get it home.  I'm gonna be pretty goddam pissed off if I install the game Tuesday evening and can't play it because Valve's servers can't handle the load.  MMORPGs are one thing.  Single player games are quite another.

I agree with Jake.  OU should not just be banned from the BCS; the entire state should be banned from the country.  I believe they intentionally lost to K State last year just to screw Texas.

I assume that like every other FPS, you will be able to configure your controls from the options menu.  That's the first thing I do anyways, after installing and configuring the other settings, so I'm not too concerned about knowing which button does what.

I got one.  I can fit it in my mouth!

Howdy, and thanks for welcoming all us GG refugees here.

Here's my question.  Do I have to buy the Sony headset for the PS2, or will any USB headset work?  Do I need to look out for anything?

TIA,
Ike

I am here now.  I had been holding out, hoping GG would return.