+1 to Hrothgar for a very fast and great trade.

Having never actually met a scientologist I'm not sure how true this is, but I have heard that it's hard to find one (who isn't a celebrity) that doesn't look like your average Trekkie who hasn't gotten laid in about 6 years.

Got any tips on recognizing a baptist or methodist?  I want to make sure my field guide's up to date.

These are people who are desperately trying to fit in and find a cause they can believe in and Scientology offers them that in Spades.

Remind me how that's any different from any other religious organization?

No I don't have any tips.  , Except for the usual fish stickers and such on the back of peoples cars. I personally prefer the fish sticker with the legs coming out of it.

The point was I don't know if that stereotype is true, but it seems reasonable. It's a "religion" based on the writings of a bad science fiction writer. Just imagine if George Lucas decided to make his own religion, I would bet that enough people would buy into it that we would have herds of dorks running around with Jedi Robes, fake swords, bad personal hygiene and Gamorian Guard outfits. Oh wait we already have that at various trade shows and movie premiers.

I saw the collector's addition of this game for $20 yesterday and I almost bought it. I tend to play MMORPGs for about 3 months before I get bored with them. The one thing that will keep me playing longer is solo-ability. So is this game solo friendly or after say lvl 15 do I need to constantly be grouped to have fun?

Having never actually met a scientologist I'm not sure how true this is, but I have heard that it's hard to find one (who isn't a celebrity) that doesn't look like your average Trekkie who hasn't gotten laid in about 6 years.

These are people who are desperately trying to fit in and find a cause they can believe in and Scientology offers them that in Spades.

If you want a BC version you better not wait too long as they aren't being made anymore with the chip in them. The best thing about the chipped version is that it is 100% backword compatible and it actually upscales the games to whatever resolution your TV accepts. I played through FF12 at 1080p, it looked pretty good.

That's pretty much how I feel about NG, I beat it on normal and I know I probably couldn't beat it on anything higher, and If I could I would probably end up destroying my controller. Anyway YGM.

I happened to catch Jammie Kennedy (Yes the actor, but he is also the grandson of L Ron Hubbard) on a radio show last week and this guy absolutely HATES scientology. The things he had to say about it are incredible. Apparently the rest of his family won't talk about the "church" because of threats and actual assaults that have been made against them by the church, but he didn't seem to have a problem talking about it.

He is convinced that the church is nothing more than a pyramid type scheme that is designed to beneift those at the top. The guy talked for about 40 minutes straight on the subject and seemed pretty knowladgable. Even if only half the things he said are true it's pretty scary.

I've been itching to play this one before the PSP prequal comes out.

I could offer a trade for it:

Things I could trade:

PS3:
Ninja Gaiden Sigma
MLB 2007
Enchanted Arms

PS2:
Valkylre Profile 2

I also have several PC games I could trade but you would have to ask about titles.

I have the 37" model and I love it. Blu-Ray movies look amazing with it. PS3 games don't look shabby either as the motion blur is really minimal on that tv.

+1 to namatoki for the X-Fi card.

I recieved the card over the weekend and tested it out. It works fine for me, no crackling or any intereference. Thanks for the card and I'm glad I could help you as well.

+1 to Poomba

NAMATOKI, do you want to sell that card? If so I would be interested. Give me a PM is so.

I'm thinking about taking the plunge into Vista. I have all the necessary hardware, with an AMD 64 4200 dual core CPU and a Radeon 3870. So which is the best Vista Option to go with? Is it the 32 bit Vista Home premium? Or will the 64 bit version improve performance?

It's official Warhawk told me this morning in the news section in the game that the patch is coming on the 20th as well as the expansion. both great news.

On a side note they are updating Warhawk on Thurs to version 1.2 and releasing the first expansion on the same day.

Before I googled it I thought of the worst possible thing that could happen on video with a description of "2 girls 1 cup" sadly my guess was right. I'm not sure what I'm more disturbed by, the video or the fact that I guessed its content before seeing it.

I found two at a Gamecrazy. I wasn't really looking for one, but at $20 it makes a cheap gift for my son for Christmas. I also, bought Resident Evil UC and Ghost Squad while I was there to go with it. I wasn't going to buy Ghost Squad but it was only $30, so once again I shelled out the cash for it.

I never had to grind. As long as you do some of the optional hunts then you should level up enough with those that you wont really ever have to sit in one spot and grind. Whenever I found myself going into an area with strong monster I would take that as a sign to go and finish up some hunts that I had. Not only do you gain lvls, items, and gil that way, but you also "grind" in a fun way. 

[05]

Just checked online and I have a new serial # and a notice that it's been shipped.  Reasonably fast turnaround time too.

I hope this new one doesn't suck.

gellar

Just received mine and it looks like I received the exact same machine back (with a build date of 11-3-2005).  That, uh, doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies. Might consider selling this one in the near future and buying a new model from Costco. 

Do I get a new three year warranty now or do I have just one more year? 

On the bright side they included one free month of Live with it.  Guess I can use it if I ever want to download some demos

I'll take it off your hands for $100 plus shipping.

YGM

^{Well, I give up on this at this point. Maybe when I get a new PC with the dreaded Vista, Windows Live won't crash the game every 10 seconds.  icon_frown I was able to get it to run maybe once or twice, but even then I'd briefly glimpse a "wargame_windowsLive.exe" file crash message in the background briefly. Now I can't get the game to run at all, it just won't avoid crashing to desktop long enough.}

I haven't confirmed this myself, But I have heard that the newest ATi drivers do not support AGP graphics cards and will conflict with them. I am currently running catalyst 7.8 drivers with a Radeon 1600 AGP card and I haven't had any in game problems, but I haven't tried Gears on them. So if your card is AGP then that may be your problem.

I really like warhawk, but I was hoping for more than one new map in the expansion. As it is the expansion will bring the total maps up to a whopping 7, that's just not enough variety. Sony should have a team of people working soley on maps for the game and not new vehicles.

I had a tech geek at HHgregg try to tell me that the PS3 was less reliable than the 360. I looked at him and asked if he was joking. He said "No, I still have my launch unit and it works just fine". The whole time I'm thinking it's only a matter of time fanyboy. I walked away from him praying that he would go home that night with his red ring shining bright, especially since he trashed both the PS3 and the Wii all the while being an Xbox fanboy.

I had this happen twice before, through Ebay no less, the biggest problem with it is that the games may save just fine for a month or two, but then you won't be able to save them after that because the batteries in the fake carts are really bad. It happened with both of my fake GBA games.

Figures, I just bought the same one last month for $250.00, but it did come with 300 and the Bourne Identity. Damn Wal-mart.

it is my understanding that PS3 games can support 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p, BUT it is up to the developer to make the game run at all of those resolutions.

For instance, Ninja Gaiden Sigma runs at all of those resolutions because Team Ninja was able to code the game to run smoothly at all of the resolutions.

Also, I recently read an interview about Drakes Fortune that stated that they originally planned to only run the game in 720p, 480p and 480i, but after some people in the PS community brought it to their attention that many older HDTVs support 1080i and not 720p the developer simply added ability to run the game in 1080i before going gold.

I have a launch unit 20 gig version. I don't worry about storage space because I installed a 160 gig HD in it. This install is extremely easy, the PS3 instruction manual tells you how to do it. Needless to say I haven't run out of space yet. I do DL a lot of the game trailers, I have several games installed, and I have about 5 demos installed. If you save that many things you will run out of space with the 20 gig version.

The best part is that the 20 gig version is $350, add in a 160 gig HD for about $100, and you suddenly have a lot of storage space for about the same cost as the 60 gig version.

The one thing to remember though is that the 20 gig version doesn't have all the memory card slots, it just has the USB slots (with which you can use a USB flash drive with) and it also doesn't have WiFi, but it does have a hard line LAN connection.

I don't regret buying the 20 gig version one bit.

^{but last year there was also the frequent swings where you would completely lose any connection to your on-screen golfer at the top of your swing. You'd be coming down and he'd be stuck up at his head.}

I have played several rounds as well as some of the tiger challenge modes now and I can honestly say that I havent had that happen once. The swing has always been smooth.

I'm digging this game a lot more than I thought I would. I think some of the negative press it has gotten is unwarrented. Especially if you can look past so so graphics.

If you go in thinking the graphics are Me, then you probably won't think they are too bad when you actually see them. The courses look ok, with grass textures and sand, water etc, the problem is that the far backgrounds look bad and they didn't enable anti aliasing. The  character models would be decent if they didn't have jaggies all over them.

I did go home at lunch in put in another 18 holes, It was fun and I didn't get too frustrated, my amature golfer needs some practice and stat boosts though. The god thing is that after every round you get xp and can go in and increase stats, like power, accuracy, chipping, spin, etc.

Overall I'm not disappointed and I had the sinking feeling when I bought it that I would get disappointed.

I went ahead and bought this one yesterday on a whim.

I have only played the opening tutorial and one round of golf but so far my impressions are good.

I went in expecting terrible graphics and I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by them, they weren't as ugly as I thought they would be, in fact if EA would use anti aliasing the graphics wouldn't be bad at all. Granted it's no Tiger Woods 360, but it's not terrible either.

The controls have been pretty good too, I did find that the swing mirrored by motions and there wasn't any delay, when using Tiger I was instantly able to hit the ball 300 yards and straight, so I think once I lvl my custom character up and increase his stats I should be pretty good.

I've been putting this one off, but I really have the itch to try it. Has anyone played it for the Wii yet? If so is it better than o7. I know 07 had a lot of problems, not the least of which being the controls. So are the controls better on 08 and have the graphics been improved at all?

Is this the same game that was supposed to be a MMORPG or is it a completely different game?

I like the PS3 and I still think it will be a great console one day, but good lord every single game is being delayed. Stranglehold for the PS3 has been delayed at least twice now and its not slated to be released until November now, I will be surprised if Ratchet and Clank releases on time. I will say this, if Uncharted, R and C, and Assassins Creed get delayed it is going to kill me.

^{just wait until he goes off over Halo 3 getting perfect scores}

As bad of a game reviewer as that guy is, I actually find myself agreeing with a lot of his basic comments about Lair, Gears, and Halo.

I will say this, his reviews are at least entertaining.

Scraper

I'm about 3 hours in and I think the gamespot review is pretty accurate.

The controls are much improved over other gamepad controls and yes they take a little bit of getting used to, but once you have it you will be moving and strafing all while being able to aim fairly accurately. It isn't as good as the keyboard and mouse, but its the best there has ever been on a console.


A lot of the people are gushing all over the graphics. I will say this they are the best graphics seen to date on a Nintendo console, BUT you won't confuse it for a PS3 or 360 FPS. It's a weird thing, I thought the opening level graphics were ok, a step above the cube versions, but then after that the graphics improve a lot and I would say they are better than anything I expected out of the Wii. The level design and artistry is really good. It reminds me of WoW, the graphics engine alone isn't that great, but the artistic design puts it a step above what it otherwise would be.

As far as the gameplay, this one actually has a story that is presented with cutscenes and voice, so it is much more in line with other big budget releases as far as story and presentation goes.

All in all I can easily see myself playing this game all the way through.

If I had unlimited money I would be getting:

Warhawk
Metroid
Tiger woods for PS3
Lair
Two Worlds

As it is I will probably still get:

Warhawk and Metroid this week, then wait for sales on the rest.

I'm at the final boss now and I think this games combat and difficulty is one of the most rewarding systems to come around in a long time. The game rewards you for becoming a good player and getting better at the game.

My suggestion to anyone who wants to play this but has doubts about the difficulty I would recommend playing through lvl 7 (which I believe is the first fight with Alma) if you don't have the combat down by then, you probably won't get it.

Also, once you have the game down you should be able to get through the lvls without using health potions or by using very few of them.

The only time I notice fan noise from my PS3 is when I forget to leave the cabinet door it is in open during play, then it gets hot and the fan really kicks up. If I leave the door open the circulation is good and the fan never really gets that loud, I can't compare it to a 360 but I would say that it is definitely louder than the Wii.

Also, I still don't understand why Sony decided to put the power brick inside the case, I assume that the power brick is a large source of the heat and placing it outside like Microsoft did would certainly help with fan noise.