There's a scale between 1 and 5 stars for a case.  Is there any difference between getting 1 star and getting 5 stars?  Or any of them in-between?   What is the motivation to get more than 1 star on a case besides "I got more than one star!  Woo hoo!"

Did you buy Dragon Age 2?  Do you want a free copy of Mass Effect 2 for PC?

http://www.gamingtrend.com/News/news.php?NewsID=16186

a new AI feature announced!

http://blackprophecy-game.com/index.php?id=14&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=219&tx_ttnews[backPid]=30

(you'll have to cut and paste it since there are brackets in the address)

I hate April Fools Day....

[too]

It definitely seems like a cross between The Sims and The Guild series.  I think I'll enjoy it.

That's a hell of a tag line.  I almost want to try the game just based on that.

I will say that it's on the lighter side of The Guild.  Your off-spring aren't growing up and inheriting your position.  There are territories that you can make agreements with, and the Monarch can issue edicts with those territories.  I have liked what I've played so far.  Just don't come into this expecting the freedom that you have in Sims 3.  I actually like Medieval for this.  Sims 3 has too much freedom for me, which makes me never stop playing it.  That's bad for me.

I got Sims Medieval today.  Now I see how it's all set up with choosing the ambition, how the other ambitions are locked, and the quests that you put your characters on.

It definitely seems like a cross between The Sims and The Guild series.  I think I'll enjoy it.

I played this last night.  It felt like a re-hash of Wing Commander.  The missions were uninspired, there didn't really seem to be a point to doing anything.  The control scheme for non-piloting control is abysmal.  I'm not so sure there's anything here that would make it worth playing on an extended basis.

That's the kind of overview I've been looking for.  Thanks for that!

So each 'game' is composed of spending quest points and moving toward your ambition goal.  If you spend all your quest points before realizing your ambition, you lose.  If you realize your ambition before running out of quest points, you win.

It sounds like every quest in the game can (probably) get completed by any of the heroes you can eventually create, which would bring in the variety of how you go about completing those quests.

Then, once running out of QP or completing your ambition, you can start the game over again, choosing a new ambition.  The base quests you get will be the same, but you can choose to have the mage do a quest instead of the monarch, or another character if you have them.

Does anything carry over when you start a new ambition, or is it completely wiping the slate clean and starting with all new heroes?

What is keeping me from getting this is the reports of the repetitiveness and resets of work done.  Here's a post from the Gamespot forums:

I just finished the first ambition/level and decided to go on to the next one. I am quite disappointed that the next level is just a reset of your previous town. You have to go through the same process of naming your kingdom and designing your monarch. What's worse, is it still has that tutorial quest as the first one available.

Are people like this missing a part of the game?  Are they just playing the same area over again?  I don't want to spend all of the time playing a level, only to have the next level reset everything I had done.

I think you only reset your previous town if you start a new game. You only need to start a new game after you run out of Quest points or win the game which pretty much mean you finish the game, just like playing any other game, you finish then if you want to play, you restart from beginning.

Ok, I see what you're saying.  So my question is - about how long does it take to play a 'game' from start to finish?  And if you start over again, is there enough variety that it feels like a new game, or are you just doing the same stuff over again?

What is keeping me from getting this is the reports of the repetitiveness and resets of work done.  Here's a post from the Gamespot forums:

I just finished the first ambition/level and decided to go on to the next one. I am quite disappointed that the next level is just a reset of your previous town. You have to go through the same process of naming your kingdom and designing your monarch. What's worse, is it still has that tutorial quest as the first one available.

Are people like this missing a part of the game?  Are they just playing the same area over again?  I don't want to spend all of the time playing a level, only to have the next level reset everything I had done.

While it does look like a fascinating game, I'm not sure I want to play a card game that is single player only.....

Alright guys, the Minecraft server I set up is now running!  It's on a hosted VPS, running Ubuntu linux with 4 gigs of dedicated RAM and a quad core shared Xeon 2.27 ghz processor.  The world is 4000x4000 in size.

Currently to gain access, we have a whitelist in place.  Register at http://craftersrealm.forumer.com with your Minecraft user name, read the rules, and post in the Whitelist Requests forum.

This is a survival server with a medieval theme for building.  Anything you construct must be structurally possible.  For some examples, no single block towers to the sky, 150 block overhangs, or 128 block tall walls that are one block deep.  We are also restricting "megastructures", because they just get to be too gaudy.  Try to keep constructions blending in with the surrounding areas.

Buckets are reserved for VIP status (donators) to prevent griefing, and higher donators get protected areas that no one else can build or mine on.  Donations go directly back into the monthly server costs.

Mirror's Edge is tempting...'meh' otherwise.

I thought the same.  I dunno though....

I am actually grateful for this, because I was on the fence about Bad Company 2.  And now I've jumped over that fence.

I think they have some dates mixed up....

Flatout has a release date of February 2, 2007

Flatout 2 has a release date of December 21, 2006

........

The sequel came before the original?

This thing is going to be Nintendo printing money laughing execs guys huge.

My 65-year-old mom told me yesterday that she wanted to buy herself one of these for Christmas, and was bummed she couldn't find one anywhere. 

I went into Best Buy for another item and they had at least 10 Kinects on the shelf.

Overlord II for $1.50?  Can't pass that up.

Tradeable - If you haven't played any of the Overlords, spend the $3.

Any words for Patrician IV?

I shelved OpFor: DR after finding put the enemy AI could see me laying prone in deep grass at night and not firing yet my guys couldn't find an enemy sniper doing the same thing except actively firing at me during the day

Booo!  No $3 for you, OpFor:DR!

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising for $3 ?   Was this a really bad game?

Patrician IV for $7.50.  I do loves me some trading sims.  Is this one worth it?

Today's temptations:

Aliens vs. Predator for $5
JC2 for $7.50

Yep.  I'm right there with you on that.

I think I'll be spending $12.50 today....

So, that free episode of the game?  I received an email on the 17th (missed it until today) that said:

Thank you for registering to receive your episode. Your free episode -- Episode 1: It's About Time -- will be available in February. We will notify you when it is ready for download.[/b]

Booooo!

Might as well break down and finally give Burnout Paradise a shot.  Won't get much cheaper than that.

I grabbed that, plus the rest of the indie packs I wanted.  I figure outside of any OMG daily deals I'll be grabbing a few more games off of my wishlist towards the end and that's it.

Yeah, I would have got Paradise, but I already have it on the 360.

The Witcher super mega ultra deluxe edition for $5.

I never played this, but I hear I should.  I'll take it!

[more]

Wow -  *every* Square Enix / Edios game on Steam for $75.

Arkham Asylum
Deus Ex Series
Hitman series
Just Cause 1 & 2
Kane & Lynch series
Tomb Raider titles
Thief: Deadly Shadows

and more

That is crazy....

The time has come for the Wii and our household to part ways.

I am selling the following:

Wii Console - Launch system.  The system is in excellent condition.
2 Wiimotes with Wii Motion Plus
1 Wiimote Nunchuk
1 Classic Controller Pro (The black one that came with Monster Hunter Tri
1 Wii Balance Board.  The board is in excellent condition.
1 480p audio / video cable (You get the composite video/audio cable also)
1 Sensor bar and Wii Speak (The Wii Speak channel had been registered to my console, but the memory has been wiped for sale.  I'm not sure you can get the Wii Speak channel back.  But it doesn't really matter, since Nintendo isn't going to support Wii Speak anymore anyway.)

Games:

Monster Hunter Tri
Wii Fit
Wii Fit Plus
Endless Ocean: Blue World
Wii Sports Resort
Pokemon Battle Revolution

I am asking for $300 plus shipping.

Anyone interested?

I can take and post photos if needed.

I am working on a multiplayer server right now.  It'll be open to the public as soon as we have the main city / castle constructed.

It will be a Survival server, with monsters on.  Building will be restricted to realistic structures of a medieval nature only.  No single block towers to the sky, or office buildings.  I have some cool plugins like working gates and bridges, and the ability to protect areas from other people destroying it.

I'll give more information once we go live!

[both]

I have a feeling that ping'll tell you nudge is absolutely key to pinball.  I almost never use it.

Nudging the ball is very key to pinball right up there with learning to cradle the ball with both flippers and shooting it where you want.

Hm, I know how to trap the ball with a flipper.  I'm not sure what you mean by cradling it with both flippers...

They call it a trap I call it cradleing lol.

Oh ok.  When you said both flippers, I thought you meant trapping/cradling one ball with both flippers at the same time.  Which I don't think is physically possible. 

I do trapping all the time. 

[both]

I have a feeling that ping'll tell you nudge is absolutely key to pinball.  I almost never use it.

Nudging the ball is very key to pinball right up there with learning to cradle the ball with both flippers and shooting it where you want.

Hm, I know how to trap the ball with a flipper.  I'm not sure what you mean by cradling it with both flippers...

[turns into:]

http://technabob.com/blog/2010/12/09/microsoft-kinect-rc-flying-bot-autonomous-flying-machine/



turns into:

But what or who is he cheating? If you glitch in CoD you are cheating to win a match. By doing this, is he taking away the world Portal speedrun title from someone? If the rules for the world record (if there even is such a thing) allow for glitches it doesn't matter. If they don't, then this doesn't count. He's really just demonstrating some odd stuff you can do with the game.

They're showing a "speed run".  They're cheating at the speed run, which is normally done to show how quickly someone can beat the game within the rules of the game.  Using bugs to do this isn't anything special.  It's no different than turning on noclip in a game to get to the end and then proclaiming how you made a speed run.

I still think FF XIV has a decent game buried underneath head-scratching design decisions and layers of unexplainable (and completely unnecessary) complexity.  I'll probably be going back to it in 6 months or so to see if/how it has improved.

I'm not so sure it'll be around in 6 months....

Glitch is just a dressed-up word for bug.  Exploiting bugs is cheating.

[doing]

I appreciate the hacks that people have, but is anyone other than the person who made the hack using it?

Are there other people out there who have applied the hack to play air guitar, or control hand puppets, or move Super Mario around?

I know people say:  "But look at what Kinect can do!  Isn't it great?"   Not really.  It's not doing any of that in any actual form of usage.  It's like people playing Wolfenstein on the TI calculator.  It's neat that it can do it, but it's not doing much else.

 Red Dead Redemption    36 days 
 Borderlands                    24 days 
 Assassin's Creed II        18 days 
 Mass Effect 2                  16 days 
 Dragon Age: Origins      13 days 
 Battlefield 1943             10 days 
 Pinball FX2                    10 days 
 BioShock 2                    10 days 
 AC Brotherhood            10 days 
 Ghostbusters                 9 days 

Hm, these stats don't seem right.  It says I played Rock Band 2 for 3 days.  Bzzzt, wrong!  Maybe it'll update later....

Never had that issue, and used Station a lot - And you are sure you are using the correct user name, and caps lock and the like is set as it should be?

edit: I know the question is annoying, but the system has been in place for many years by now, so the easiest place to look for errors is at the user at first of course ;-)

Oh, I've been using Station for years also, and this issue has recently appeared.

Yes, I'm using the correct user name, because it's the name I entered to get the email sent to me for my temporary password.

Caps lock doesn't matter in this case, because I'm cut/pasting directly from the email.

I'll also mention that a few months ago, I received an email from Station thanking me for my Star Wars Galaxies purchase.  Someone had hacked my Station accoun t, put in a bogus credit card, and purchased the complete Star Wars Galaxies set.  That's the reason for changing my password the first time.

What boggles me more is why someone would hack a Station account just to play SWG.....   

This is only related to PotBS because I went to sign into my Station account to try the game out....

Fuck Sony and their user system.  I had forgotten my password, so I did the "Forgot Password" option on Station.  I received an email with my temporary password.  I go back to Station, put in my username, and put in the temporary password, which I copy / pasted from the email.  It tells me "Invalid Password".

I request another temporary password, and I receive an email stating I have requested my password too many times.

I waited about 12 hours and tried the whole process again.  The same outcome - I received a new temporary password, I enter it in, and Station tells me incorrect password.

I'm trying to locate a number where I can call Station Support to get this worked out.  All I can find are numbers to call for specific games.  Maybe I'll consider this to be an issue with PotBS and talk to someone there.....

[first]

No no, this is good.  This is very good.

The first Ghostbusters game was a top-down / side scroll game.





I like the way this new one looks.  I'm interested!

Yeah, I'm psyched for these pinball tables.

I wrote up the review for Pinball FX2, and I don't know if I'll be doing these tables, but I think these are the best tables yet.

I think I'm setting down Minecraft until Notch can get organized again.  Right now it feels like he's taking a shotgun approach with bug fixing, and the "fix a bug, create another bug" just doesn't work for me.

Well, you did pay for it and such, and more than likely put more hours into it than every other game in your collection (I know I have, at least anything I've played recently).

So give it a few months and it'll be brand new again with a ton of fun and new changes.

Oh yeah, definitely.

Of course, I haven't stayed away for long and have been checking out multiplayer now that monsters are enabled and damage happens.  Definitely changed the online server game.  Once he officially marks it beta, I'll probably open up a server.

It's getting more interesting with OnLive.

OnLive PlayPack - unlimited game play with select titles for $9.99 / month