Yea, its 10 hours long...but man, how many games can you say had a GOOD 10 hours to it?  How many games have 20 hours of gameplay and 10 of it is treadmill?  I was very surprised at how very cool this game actually is...

Having played both I'd probably say advantage goes to the PC if you tweak the hell out of it and you have the gear to run it well.  If not, save yourself the frustration and just run with the Xbox version.

The review is up!  Any questions? http://consolegold.com/Reviews/review.php?ReviewID=219

A 'psychic' review?  I believe I've officially heard it all now.  If that isn't trolling for hits I don't know what is.

Well, there is always hope.  After Looking Glass closed I never expected to see Thief again....yet, my review for Thief: Deadly Shadows goes up tomorrow.

The graphics, sound, and control are the only factors I was looking at really.  Rating a product that isn't close to being finished, thats really all you can do.  You can't really capture the gameplay category because you haven't got the whole experience.  You can't judge the value/replay as you haven't seen how long it is or whether its worth replaying.  I made an educated guess how I expected it might turn out.  If I found a single hiccup that would pull the game into the 70s range...so thats probably about right.

Here is the skinny:

They don't have a copy of the game, they are doing it to simply get hits.

ID and Activision will NOT be giving out p/review copies, it will be going STRAIGHT to retail boxed copies.   They may have formed their opinions from the E3 demo, but how much do you wanna bet that they didn't get into the behind closed doors (and in the dark with only a dim red light) gameplay that Eldon and I got?  

I have to admit, I was fairly impressed with the title, and while the story is truly almost non-existent there is some actual gameplay that is fairly fun to be had.  If I had to rate it based on my E3 demo time alone (which I wouldn't certainly publish in a wide-spread format) I'd probably give it about an 80%.  5 out of 10 is just hit-mongering bullshit, and that's the fact, Jack.

Review will be up on the site on Monday.  I just finished the title, but Graham is reviewing it.

We were told "Nothing is final" at E3 but tenatively, you could play games for up to 6-7 hours or watch a 2.5 hour movie on a full charge. (Decompressor eats the juice)  Time will tell though.

Even better, look at the paragraph where he/she/it declares that they are smarter....smarter than WHO?  Smarter than yrou!

"Ok kid, I'm going to take your Xbox away because you toked all my ganja.  Bad!"   :roll:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8107675670&rd=1

What would you do?  I'd be far more concerned about the drinking than the monetary issue...

Definately.  If you don't do at least the MOUT and a mission or two you will be getting your team ripped up and spending a lot of time running back to the CASEVAC.

Done.  Oh...and the ability to make polls has been removed.

Easily done.  I'll get it tonight

Hmmmm....maybe this time I'll wear pants.  That might help too...

I was reading on DSLReports that Qworst is going to start offering RADSL.  Anyone have any experience with this?  I am currently on their 1mb/sec up/down plan but this sounds like it'd be a hell of a lot faster for less money.  I know there is no free lunch...what is the catch?

My wife has a friend at work who wants a ~100 - 150.00 autocad program.  They want to be able to show the placement of wiriing and piping and such in their home.  There are plenty that cost about 90 bucks, but I wonder what they do and don't have.  Any recommendations?

Well, here is an example where they MADE money from a used game.  I picked up Syberia for the Xbox used.  My wife and I loved the game and purchased the sequel on the PC sight unseen for full price brand newsky.  Because I gave the previous game the time of day as a used title, they got maximum gross profit from me for the PC sequel.

I planned on hitting the movie tomorrow, anyone else plan on going?  I always get the wierd looks because the wife and I don't have kids...

Well, I picked up the game yesterday and put in about 2 hours.  Thus far I'd have to say that I am very impressed with the title.  The camera is well behaved, the graphics are phenominal, the sound is good (I have some complaints about voiceover clash and volume levels), and overall I think they have a winner on their hands.  

I do wonder though, how long exactly should this game be if everyone is saying it is too short?  Its supposedly about 15 hours long + multiplayer.  If you take your time and keep your people from going home in a bag you probably will hit that 15 hour mark.  Then you can hop online and enjoy a more realistic experience with your friends and experience the frustration of battle as your second squad runs around willy-nilly with their head up their ass.   (Or you could coordinate and do it right, but thats just crazy talk)

I've played through the training mission and the first actual mission and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it...I'd expect a review by Monday after I've sank a weekend into it.  I'll answer any questions you have now though...

Cool Stuff:
- Voiceovers are great
- camera 'runs' behind you like an episode of Cops (aka shakeycam)
- weapons seem well modeled after their real counterparts
- tactical handmovements are mostly there (I'm a stickler for accuracy)
- Your junior members lack military bearing, just like real life
-  the destructable cover is cool
- the enemy will give up the ghost and run away for reinforcements if they see they are being outflanked (but not all the time, seems there might be some math behind the scenes)
More later...

BG&E was a fantastic game that was not marketed properly.  I had NO idea what the hell this game was about until I took a risk and played it.

There are some games I'll drop the cash on on day one.  Suikoden IV, FSW, etc.  There are many that I just can't risk it since there is no such thing as a return policy at Eb anymore. :/

Ok, I'm noticing a trend here...am I the only one?  IGN's Full Spectrum Warrior review slammed the game over and over and then praised it in the last paragraph, it gets a 9.2.  (We'll ignore that the writer has never even seen a gun up close...uh 'you don't shoot the trigger'  Well, that's right!  You don't shoot the trigger, you pull it.  Not a military buff by the writing)

Add the same sort of content on Riddick.  Name a FPS or Third Person Shooter that is longer than 10 hours long, maybe a handful...so why the complaints?  Then he praises all over the game again.

Now we have Front Mission 4.  A completely unflattering review with the reviewer expecting something that the genre isn't built for (action complaints on a turn based strategy game) and then complaints that the AI is dumb but battles can last for 100 rounds.  Well...I suspect if you have some skill, the battles would be shorter.  

I dunno....I just seem to see a drop in their ability to objectively review games, even lower than it was before.  I don't say this as a competitor,  (we can't compete, they get 13X more traffic than we do) I say it as a writer and a gamer.

Am I all alone in this?

I found Tenchu lacking compared to Ninja Gaiden.  You have to remember that Gaming Age gave NG a low score before anyone else...smacks of publicity stunt.

No need to justify.  Just trade away...its yours to do with as you please.  heheh

You think M.Night has another twist ending for us or is he tapped out?

Its crazy, but I'm looking forward to Riddick and Sky Captain.  I'm tenatively looking forward to AvP too though.  Its a busy year for movies

Well, I'll be reviewing Fable.  I was badly burned by Black and White (stuck with the 'to complete the game, start over at the beginning after patching' bug) so I'm not going in blind.  What I saw at E3 was promising and I liked the way they had changed things.  Granted, the automatic progression that it interpreted from your gaming style was cool, but the way they allowed you to modify that by hand was cool too.  We did see that you could pick up scars and such from fighting so some of that automation that would change your 'scary' factor (I think they are calling it 'scaryness') is still in-game.  I'll see if I can't get a preview copy to get the lowdown for you guys...

Absolutely.  We will set up some multiplayer times too...

I'm with you Hrothgar, with the massive list of games upcoming in the next few days and the gravy train not seeming to end soon I'll probably have to pick this one up when its a greatest hit.

I had that happen with Soul Reaver 2 one time.  Fighting the last boss and all of a sudden the camera backs out as far as it could (I was a little tiny speck at the bottom) and won't move other than left or right.  Couldn't get it to refocus until I guessed my way out of there and into the next room.  Kinda hard to do by 'feeling'.

Well, the GOTY edition that I bought only had Half Life in it, but you can download CS for free.  It'll take you a month of Sundays to patch everything up to the current but the price is right.

I have both.  The review will be based entirely on the Xbox version.

I'm writing a full review this weekend.  To address the 'chugging', occasionally you do see some framedrop in some of the more pretty areas.  It seems that they traded some frames for some of the real-time lighting systems and such.  Its not very frequent and it wasn't enough to really bother me.  If this were a FPS twitch game it'd probably be more of a problem, but given the speed you should be moving in this game, its no biggie IMHO.

Well, the spirit of the rule was to prevent folks from pimping their personal site as their only point in being here.  Believe me when I say that I've seen that before.  We can certainly re-evaluate it if there is an interest...

I beat it on all weight classes, that help ya with the purchase decision?  I really liked pretty much all of it except the music.  Rap just isn't my thing.  (I swear one guy is yelling "Dreidel" though) If the deal falls through I might have an Xbox copy that we can negotiate.

Not a bad idea, let me look into that.

To answer your question, I did receive yours.  I'll be announcing the winner for this last contest tomorrow morning.

Hehhehe...ssshhhhh

You didn't think that because I have Console Gold to run I suddenly became less instant-gratification-needy than the rest of ya do you?!

Sadly, because Sony didn't want ANY of the storyline to be 'ruined' the game wasn't playable at E3.  That said, the gameplay that I have seen is pretty awesome.  I'm supposed to get my hands on this before release, so I'll give you the skinny before you have to lay the cash on the counter.  I figure it'll be soon as the movie is coming up REEEAAAAL fast.

Thankfully the emoticons are easy to change.  I didn't plan on keeping the lions share of these.  I mean really....just WHAT is this icon for:  :idea:   I don't think "Idea" when I see that icon, I think 'peeping tom looking through a keyhole', 'ironsights on a rifle', or 'confused cyclops'.  Maybe that's just me.  :wink: