Discussions work better if people don't skip half the words the other says.  I'm arguing that the entire test city scene made the movie worse.  I enjoyed the movie, but I enjoyed it despite the aliens, despite the CGI zoo, and despite the test city + refrigerator.  Note the plus sign indicating that I'm including the nuclear test city along with the refrigerator.

Why did that make the movie worse?  Were there no test cities around nuclear bomb sites? 

For me, I groaned as soon as he got into that test city. Not because test cities didn't happen, but because there was no way for him to escape a nuclear bomb in a way that made the scene good. If jumping into a fridge is the best they could come up with, the entire scene should have been left on the cutting room floor. It would have been perfectly fine for them to go from Indy escaping on the rocket to Indy talking with the government agents about what happened. They just tried to fit in a nuclear bomb somewhere in the story, because it is set in the 50's

Nice Achivements...none that look impossible to complete either and they all look to be completeable wether you play single or multi:

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/sid-meiers-civilization-revolution/achievements/

There is one that looks hard. You have to beat the game on King difficulty by 1000AD...the demo goes to 1250AD, and I can barely take out one civilization let alone beat the game.

This thread reminds me of MTV. Started off fine but after awhile it turned to crap. Now I don't watch except when I'm flipping channels.

It has jumped the shark so many times that they are now building a bridge.  However, despite all the comments earlier from Rip, et al that they realize that communication is really important, the communications have dried up again.  Besides the rare "it will be back soon" comment that never turns out to be true.  I'm really starting to get bitter about this, and I don't know why!

I would suggest that it is because if OO dies and no one can provide verification then we will never know who lost the ThreadKillah contest.

Awesome.

Well done, republicans!  *golf clap*

Since we are at it:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080611/ap_on_go_co/congress_oil_profits;_ylt=Av31RmLloA1bIMeoQM.Dg8Cs0NUE

Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

Explain to me how this makes ANYONE happy?  Republicans?  Democrats?  Independents? 

The Republicans argued that the oil companies would compensate by charging us even more at the pump. Unless there is language in the bill that prevent this (doubtful), then it is likely to happen. Since when have the oil companies done anything to hurt their bottom line?

Well with games like Rock Band you have to decide whether or not you got enough play time for what you paid for. But most of my games are RPG's which mean they're story driven- if you miss the ending of the story, what the hell is the point? 

Looks like you found your answer!

Personally with games like FFX and FFXII, I thoroughly enjoyed playing both games. I got hours and hours of enjoyment out of them, even though I never finished either.

Of course, I like short games too. If the gameplay and story are good, or one of the two is exceptional, then the length of the game is indifferent to me.

Did you enjoy the 70 hours of gameplay, or hate it?

I spent, what, $170 on Rock Band? A game that can never truly be beaten, and yet I don't regret it at all. It has provided a ton of entertainment, and even the few times I had company over to play was well worth the price of the game and all of the DLC that I have purchased (which I noticed last night was way too much).

Compare that to Rainbow Six Vegas 2, which I played maybe 6 hours total for and strongly disliked most of the time. Yeah, THAT is buyers remorse.

I have about 30-40 PS2 games, and I bought the 60gig version specifically because I wanted a PS3 and I wanted to keep access to my titles.

same here...own about 30-40 PS2 games, and therefore bought a 60gig PS3

last thing I want is to be forced to keep my PS2 out in my entertainment setup and taking up sources/space

Wow. I've had the 360 since launch and I own like...maybe 10 games. At least six of them were purchased the end of last year. The rest of my gaming comes mostly from Gamefly.

Of those games, how many are you realistically going to play again though?

then again, why would you deliberately limit yourself, gaming-wise, to whatever's currently easily available?...

I wouldn't say I deliberately limit myself to what is currently available. I spend anywhere from 1-2 hours at least playing games when I get home from work. The weekends I usually play more unless I am traveling or the girlfriend gets the weekend off work. Even with all that time I feel I can barely keep up with all of the new games.

i guess, basically, it's all about why & how you play games. in the same way people value old books, music, & movies, some people value old games (many of which have a way of either disappearing altogether or only being available at grossly inflated prices)...

Absolutely. I know personally that I never re-read books, and only watch movies more than once if I really really like them or a lot of time has passed between viewings. I know others will watch movies and read books over and over and over again, so it is no surprise to me that others do the same with their video games. What surprises me is that people can juggle playing not just a couple of games at a time, but dozens of games at a time. I must be doing something wrong 

I have about 30-40 PS2 games, and I bought the 60gig version specifically because I wanted a PS3 and I wanted to keep access to my titles.

same here...own about 30-40 PS2 games, and therefore bought a 60gig PS3

last thing I want is to be forced to keep my PS2 out in my entertainment setup and taking up sources/space

Wow. I've had the 360 since launch and I own like...maybe 10 games. At least six of them were purchased the end of last year. The rest of my gaming comes mostly from Gamefly.

Of those games, how many are you realistically going to play again though?

I have about 30 ps1 games and over 50 ps2 that I don't want to lose immediate access to...

This completely boggles my mind. You have 80 games from previous generations that you don't want to lose the ability to play? I can understand a handful of games, but 80?

And, see, this is why this is always a thing.  You don't have that many games that you want to play, but someone else does. 

Not saying you were making a criticism, m, but this kind of thinking leads many people to dismissing the importance of BC to others.

It was a genuine question. I can't fathom even owning 80 games, let alone playing them all enough to the point where I would feel uncomfortable "losing" the ability to play them.

Godfather (360) was the only sandbox style game that I continued to play after I completed all of the main story missions. Even with GTA4 the moment I finished the storyline I saved it and turned it off. But Godfather I probably played for a couple more weeks. Great game.

I have about 30 ps1 games and over 50 ps2 that I don't want to lose immediate access to...

This completely boggles my mind. You have 80 games from previous generations that you don't want to lose the ability to play? I can understand a handful of games, but 80?

I have this on my gamefly queue hopefully if I'm super lucky it will be in the mail in a couple of days. I'm gona give the demo a try tonight I think.

   The full game doesn't come out until end of July, IIRC.

July 11th in North America I believe. But it comes out in a couple days for the PAL region.

If you're not interested in using this to play music or songs, is there any reason to get the 16GB version?  I just want a good phone with kickass internet and office apps.

I saw a story on Kotaku where they are selling games now for the iPhone, and those will most likely eat up some memory.

Anyone here have the 8GB? Did you find that you could put a decent amount of songs and stuff on it, or did the memory used by the OS, phone numbers, and other applications drain most of the memory?

Gamertag: msteelers

Easy enough...

I downloaded the demo and last night I tried out the MP...man, I was terrible. I never even saw anybody, but I would die after taking a couple steps. The only kill I got was when I spawned behind someone who was camping our spawn points...so he got what he deserved. I also killed myself in the tank probably three times. I would shoot at an enemy tank, and if I was close up it would say "suicide" and I would be dead, while the other tank would keep going.

I hate to admit this, but Attack of the Show and X-Play are guilty pleasures of mine. X-Play I find is good to turn on while I'm doing something around the house, or folding laundry or something. And I watched Attack of the Show last year for awhile, mostly for the first 20 minutes or so where they show the internet videos. If they tease something for later in the show that looks interesting, I'll keep watching, but usually I turn it off after awhile.

Of course, I haven't watched either show in a couple months now. But with almost all of the shows I like finished for the season, I'll probably start recording them again.

There, I said it. 

Wow. I downloaded the demo and tried it out over the weekend, and this game went from almost no interest to a day 1 purchase for me. I think I played the demo all weekend long. The controls are excellent. You can tell this was developed specifically for consoles. I haven't played a civ game since Civ 2. I was hopelessly addicted then, and the demo easily sucked me back in.

There's another reason why this likely won't happen though.  Remember all the bluray drive speed problems with the PS3, it's the thing that's causing all the HD installs on the PS instead of being able to stream directly off the drive.  Well, even though bluray drives have advanced quite a bit, I'm not sure the drives would do all that well reading 360 dvds.

Is that because of the drive or because the PS3 games are on blu-ray discs? MS would not be able to allow their games to ship this way, because most of their customers don't have the blu-ray player.

Or am I completely wrong and there is no difference between the discs that the 360 and the PS3 use?

It's a big improvement over the health bar and magical first aid kits, IMO. It depends on the game. For Halo the regenerating health worked and made sense. In COD4 it makes less sense, but as others have said the game wouldn't be any fun if you got shot once and was down. There has to be a way to absorb some damage and keep going.

I'll finish up Half Life 2: Episode One either tonight or tomorrow depending on when the girlfriend gets home. Then after that it will be a toss up between finishing some achievements with GTA4, Rock Band, winning the cup with NHL 08, or moving on to HL2: Episode Two.

Or, none of the above in the unlikely scenario that my copy of Devil May Cry 4 will be delivered by Gamefly.

Crap! 9 out of 10 but I missed Metroid 

Thanks for the link Brendan!

simply because they are an atheist.

God, I'd vote for an Atheist in a heart beat.  Somebody please stop the religious folk from ruling this country!

Not going to happen. The study Brendan linked to has the question "It’s important to me that a president have strong religious beliefs. Do you completely agree, mostly agree, mostly DISagree, or completely DISagree with it?" 69% agreed with the statement, while 27% disagreed with it in some way.

Character is extremely important.  Would you want to do teamwork with a wife-beater who is an ass-hole to everyone to boot?  Someone who thinks they can do what they want and not stand up for the same societal values as everyone else should - all while making millions and millions of dollars?  No.  Not only that, they have an honororay influence on kids because of their well-paid positions and should take pride in being good role-models - or at least be neutral if they don't give a crap.  Just don't set negative role-model incentives - like Amy Winehouse and the young girls who adore her.

None of that matters in the NFL. It should. But it doesn't. Players don't care normally because if the person is really good at what they do, it helps them achieve a life long dream, while also the potential to earn millions more dollars than they could have otherwise. Players also can't affect who is around them, or at least it is rare for a player to actually have a say or influence.

Terrell Owens in Philadelphia.  His presence did far more harm than good.  And before anyone argues that he was one of the main reasons why Philadelphia earned a place in 2003's Super Bowl, he missed a good portion of the season and the playoffs due to injury.  While his contribution helped, it was far from being the deciding factor.  While character may not matter to the NFL as a whole, it certainly matters to Philadelphia.

GM's who control who is a part of the team have a better say. Some care about character, most are willing to look the other way if they are a more competitive team, which is their ultimate goal. And Owners just want a license to print money. They wont step in until the printer gets jammed.

Fortunately Philadelphia does not follow this paradigm.  While Terrell Owens is a talented receiver, following his antics and negative influence on the team, he was benched and forbidden to ever again don Eagles green regardless of season standings or financial consequences.

You obviously remember that situation better than I would, but I thought the year they went to the Super Bowl he was playing nice, and didn't turn nasty until the following season when they went 8-8. That was also a situation where it became apparent to all it would either be him or McNabb left in the locker room. In that situation, TO will lose every time.

Character is extremely important.  Would you want to do teamwork with a wife-beater who is an ass-hole to everyone to boot?  Someone who thinks they can do what they want and not stand up for the same societal values as everyone else should - all while making millions and millions of dollars?  No.  Not only that, they have an honororay influence on kids because of their well-paid positions and should take pride in being good role-models - or at least be neutral if they don't give a crap.  Just don't set negative role-model incentives - like Amy Winehouse and the young girls who adore her.

None of that matters in the NFL. It should. But it doesn't. Players don't care normally because if the person is really good at what they do, it helps them achieve a life long dream, while also the potential to earn millions more dollars than they could have otherwise. Players also can't affect who is around them, or at least it is rare for a player to actually have a say or influence.

GM's who control who is a part of the team have a better say. Some care about character, most are willing to look the other way if they are a more competitive team, which is their ultimate goal. And Owners just want a license to print money. They wont step in until the printer gets jammed.

[for]

There are plenty of people who will vote for Obama because of his race. And there are plenty of people who will not vote for Obama because of his race.  No big surprise there.  It is what it is.  As foolish as it sounds today, there there were the same feelings about JFK being a Catholic in 1960.  Hopefully 50 years from now if a black man is running for president, talking about his race will sound as silly as talking about Kennedy's religion sounds today.  But anyone who thinks race will not be a factor in this year's election is naive.

Well put. Unfortunately though, that isn't that foolish today. I remember seeing a poll done where over half of the country would NOT vote for a person, even if they were well qualified, simply because they are an atheist.

I can't find the poll itself, but here is an article that references the poll.

A Gallup poll in 1999 asked American voters the following question: "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an X would you vote for that person?" X took on the following values: Catholic, Jew, Baptist, Mormon, black, homosexual, woman, atheist. Six out of the eight categories secured better than 90 percent approval. But only 59 percent would vote for a homosexual, and just 49 percent would vote for an atheist. Bear in mind that there are 29 million Americans who describe themselves as nonreligious, secular, atheist, or agnostic, outnumbering Jews tenfold and all other religions except Christianity by an even larger margin.

As an Obama supporter, I think it is valid to suggest that ONE of the reasons he is getting such a big portion of the black voters is because he is also black. To deny this is the equivalent of closing your eyes, covering your ears, and shouting "NO,NO,NO,NO,NO" over and over again in denial.

At the same time, this does not mean that this is the ONLY reason people are voting for him. Clearly, there are numerous qualities that make him a desirable candidate. I would imagine that the percentage of people who vote for Obama, and that his skin color is their #1 reason for voting for him, would be very low in comparison to other reasons to voting for him.

That was one of the coolest endings to a Stanley Cup Finals I've seen.  At first glance, I seriously thought that desperation attempt went in.

gellar

Me too, and part of me wondered how horrible/wonderful it would be to have to reign in all of the Red Wings players celebrating in the corner, because the game wasn't over and was going into overtime.

Congrats to the Red Wings. As much as the Pens were able to make this an entertaining series, the Red Wings looked like champions throughout.

And the officiating was terrible all around. Blatant penalties committed by both teams would go uncalled, and then the penalties that were being called were weak at best. The only good thing is that it seemed to go both ways. It will be interesting to see if this is addressed or not in the offseason.

You did the right thing. Hopefully his family will be able to help him and he wont just take advantage of them like he would have taken advantage of you.

If I have no other option, I will record a sporting event, and go into lockdown mode. I had to do it with a lot of the Pens games this year. It sucks when I'm at work, because I can't go to ESPN. But most of the other sites I frequent wouldn't have any spoilers. I also have to send out a text message to a couple of people before the game starts and tell them I am not watching it, so they know not to send me any messages.

If I am able to watch the game at home, I will watch it live if I know that someone else I know is going to be watching it live, because I'll most likely be sending text messages to them about the game. If it is a game nobody else cares about but me, I'll record it and start watching about halfway through so I can cut through most of the commercials.

One thing I noticed though is that if I am watching a game live, I am reluctant to pause the game, or rewind it to watch a play again. I don't know why this is, because if I have recorded the game I do it without hesitation.

I really don't understand how anyone in their right mind would want to continue down the same path we have been going down for the past 8 years of this asshole in the white house.

A lot of us don't feel that McCain = a continuation of Bush policies. Before McCain was ever considered anywhere close to being a nominee, he was painted as a maverick who scored better with independents than his own party and was known for his moderate stances. Even when he was fighting with Huckabee for the nomination, he was painted as a guy who would have an extremely difficult time appealing to the more conservative base of his own party.

Then he clinches the nomination, and all of a sudden he is portrayed as a Bush lackey who will constitute a third term of Bush.

Sorry, but if you believe that, then you are freely buying into Democratic spin. In reality, it doesn't make much sense. 

Something happened and he became a pet of Bush and the Republicans.

That "something" was him clinching the nomination and the Democratic war machine going on the offensive to paint him as a Bush clone.

I think your timeline might be off.   If you made this 2000 rather than 2008 then I would agree with you.  McCain was totally the Not Bush Republican (in the way was presented) until he lost to Bush in the primaries.  Then something happened and his presence changed.  He felt like he didn't want to become the Not Bush Republican Whipping Boy and became the Bush Thrull instead.

I was going to post something similar to this. Before 2000 I would have voted for McCain in a heartbeat, and is was probably the only republican I could stand. But since he lost the primary it has felt like he believed the only way to win the primary is to appeal to the same people that voted for Bush.

I'm far from an expert on politics, but I have still had the impression of McCain as a "Bush Clone" years before he won the primary a couple of months ago.

How many people live in your house, how many shows do they record, how often do they watch the recorded shows, how long is your own backlog, and how much space do you have left on your DVR?  I keep an extra 90 minutes off all the hockey games I record, but recording that much extra, in HD (sorry, kratz), rapidly eats up what little space we have left.

Okay, what little space *I* have left.  My girls hardly watch any TV programs...

We don't record many shows, but we barely ever watch TV. I have entire seasons of Lost, Supernatural, Smallville, Grey's Anatomy and several other shows that my girlfriend records and never watches still on my DVR. I know most people that have DVR run out of space fairly quickly unless they watch everything, but I rarely run out of space. Then again, I set a couple shows to not be deleted unless manually erased, and let a bunch of other shows purge off after awhile.

I'm with you on wanting it over in G6, however.  We're camping/rafting this weekend, so we wouldn't be able to watch G7 until getting back in town on Sunday night (and if it goes to OT, no guarantees that it'd be recorded on our DVR).

I've had to record several games this postseason. I always tell it to record an extra 3 hours after the scheduled ending so that I know I get everything, even if it goes into multiple overtimes.

I think it also depends on what game you are playing, as well as the game mode. A game that is a little bit more on the realistic side like COD4, it is a valid strategy to sit and defend a position, especially one that is important to the map. I might have a problem in a game like Halo under certain situations, but I think I have changed my views on camping since playing COD4 so much.

Each NFL team is a big corporation. All they care about is making money. And if they have the option to bring in a talented player with some personal issues, or a stand up citizen that is an average player, the talented player will win every time, unless the backlash from the fans is going to be big enough that it is going to be a problem.

The only way character will ever truly matter in the NFL is if it matters to the fans, because they have the power to hurt the teams in the pocketbooks. But right now that blind regional loyalty wins out almost every time.

Good review. After the demo I lost interest in the game, but I think I'll rent it now.

That was a game that ought to get NHL ratings up again. It was still on at 11:30 here, which means people tuning in to Leno and the nightly news got an amazing game instead.

I've read that the ratings have been up pretty big in the US all series. The two games on Versus were up well over 100%, and I think Game 3 on NBC pulled in a 2.4 share or something, which is the biggest game since 2000 or 2002.

And apparently Game 4 pulled a 2.3 share, but Game 5 was way up.

The Pittsburgh Penguins' 4-3 win to avoid elimination against the Detroit Red Wings earned a 4.3 overnight rating and an 8 share on NBC. That's a 79 percent increase over last year's 2.4 for Game 5 between Anaheim and Ottawa.

It was the best Game 5 rating since the Carolina-Detroit matchup in 2002 drew a 4.5.

Keep in mind,the Pens played almost 3 full periods without thier #1 D-Man in Gonchar, that is of course going to cause issues with the Pens trying to get out of thier own end.

Did they ever say what his injury was? I immediately thought concussion, because he looked out of it when he was sitting on the ice and later on the bench. But if that was the case I doubt they would let him come back even if it was just for the power play.

Yeah, it amazes me how this show could be all about these chicks' relationships and sexual escapades when 3/4 of them are completely unattractive.

I'll give you a hint, from the linked article:

Women made up 85 percent of the audience on Friday, Fellman said.

The other 15% were gay guys, pets and eunuchs.

And the poor schmucks who said ok Honey, if you go see Indy with me this week, Ill go see SaTC with you next week.   

I did this for Superman Returns and The Devil Wears Prada. Unfortunately for me Superman Returns sucked.