James

By Pentadact

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	Let Tom Francis tell you all what it's like, being male, middle-class and white.

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	"Am I the only one who enjoys the mako combat? I found it nice to be in a pretty easy and fun situation after slogging through all the awesome, but tiring foot combat. I think I had..." Weird Fish on 2008 In Games That Were Better Than Other Games

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	Deadly Toads Of Death

	Planet Diablo’s hands-on with Diablo 3. On the plus side: On the down side: The most interesting aspect of the character screen is that the stats are automatically assigned upon leveling. Jesus Christ, really? Why even have stats? This, and the fact that you could just buy all possible skills at every level, were the most despiritingly grindy things about World of Warcraft. Meanwhile, back on the plus side: When you level up in Diablo III, it does a massive damage area-of-effect skill. Unrelatedly: This popped up last night, but I’m still not seeing a lot of linkage this morning - Eurogamer have reviewed Little Big Planet. Not quite the score I was expecting. Oli has an interesting thing to say about how it compares to Spore towards the end. Updatedly: I no longer care about the stat stuff. The Skill Runes sound like they’re a much more meaningful way to customise your character. You can slot skills with runes, the way you slot items with gems. There are just five or so different types, but any can be slotted into any skill, and they genuinely seem to subvert the skill’s effect rather than just altering its stats. Comment

	Seniath: <Obligatory "It's too colourful" comment> Did I get them right this time? Dante: Nice to see someone actually acknowledging the existence of Spore in relation to Little Big Planet. Honestly it's been bizzare reading all the hype for it, especially on console dominated sites, where they all act as if user generated content is a completely new and original thing that's never been done before. Pentadact: That always makes me laugh. Diablo 2 was spectacularly colourful, this looks muted by comparison. Much as I like the dappled watercolour style, though, right now the models don't look like they're touching it. The idea is to make them stand out clearly, I know, but there's standing out and there's sticking out, and I'm not sure you want the latter. Possibly they just haven't got to adding shadows outdoors yet. Pentadact: Yeah, though to be honest Garry's Mod is the more deserving point of comparison. Seniath: For the record, I should've included <sarcasm> tags in that last comment ;). Also, the little level-up shockwave present in Crackdown was a lovely touch, so it's nice to see other games doing something similar. Pentadact: Wait, I no longer care about the stat stuff. The Skill Runes sound like they're a much more meaningful way to customise your character: http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/video.phtml?id=5065 You can slot skills with runes, the way you slot items with gems. There are just five or so different types, but any can be slotted into any skill, and they genuinely seem to subvert the skill's effect rather than just altering its stats. Dante: Hell the mod market in general is the best point of comparison, what is Little Big Planet but a regular game with an extremely accessible map editor? As for Diablo 3, Ludo is very enthused about it, I am not. I enjoyed Diablo 2 at the time, but I was young and stupid when it came out and I can't help but feel if we saw these trailers for a game without a history we'd think it looked rather rubbish. Roadrunner: some RPGs are extremely boring and grindish- sure fun for the first 10 minutes, but bah, so boring. But on a totally different note, do us PC people get a beta of CoD5 like the xbox people? Because that's another game which is fun for 10 minutes or so. :D J-Man: I never actually played Diablo, I grew up as an FPS-er. Is it too old to try out, or should I just buy Diablo 3, bearing in mind the only RPG I liked has been Oblivion, and even then it had the shittiest levelling system ever. P.S. The 'Thus spoke Zarathustra' button says 'Thus spake Zarathustra' Lack_26: I grew up as an RTS-er, never got into RPGs' in a big way. @J-man, Spake is a perfectly acceptable replacement of spoke, it means the same thing. peterd102: I own Diablo adn a freind has Diablo 2. Sadly neither of them work. Diablo was good though, i got stuck eventually, i never could understand why the items you could buy from vendors were so crap and so expensive. Dante: @Lack Not quite the same, it has the same meaning, but it's far more... epic. Octaeder: The comments thread on that Little Big Planet review is just horrifying. Worst advert for gamers ever. Also: Ever since the LBP hype machine hit overdrive I've had an uncontrollable urge to dig out my old copies of Little Big Adventure and sequel. Second Also: Diablo III... Woo! Devenger: On LBP: Heh, I'll stick to my Garry's Mod where I have the power of the Lua scripting engine at my fingertips rather than being spoonfed capabilities by developers. Diablo is one of those things I've missed! I think it's very probable I'll be giving D3 a test drive at the oonest opportunity - I like a shiny action-grind RPG as much as the next sentient being. I'm hoping character customization in abilities will be sufficient to promote long play with one given class. J-Man: I only mentioned the 'spake' thing because the title of the book has 'spoke' and I thought it was an error. Pentadact: Well, the title of the book is Also sprach Zarathustra, because Nietzsche was German, but the first major English translation used 'Spake'. Nietzsche is mocking the style of the Bible, so the archaic language is truer to what he was going for. Mind you, the standard of English translations of German philosophy in general is terrible, partly because our language is so wretchedly imprecise. I got so irritated trying to sort through the Schopenhauer text we were given in Continental Philosophy that I eventually gave up and just learned some German. Devenger: Learning a language to be able to read German philosophy texts... man, that's dedication. O.o Sadly I am a monoglot (get it?) so no German texts for me... Mark: I'm pretty happy about the D3 stat changes. I always felt like I was permanently screwing myself whenever I chose stats in D2 (and experience demonstrated that was usually the case.) If there are many "wrong" answers and failure is permanent but not obvious, I'd just as soon not be asked the question. Pentadact: Well put. That's pretty much their rationale for cutting stat choice, but I don't condone it. I think if freedom of choice is leading to some players to gimp their characters, you need to do a better job of communicating what the stats do and the consequences of upgrading or neglecting them - not just give up on the core concept of all role-playing games because there's a downside. Kotaku have a great quote from Diablo 3 lead Jay Wilson today: "We have a saying at Blizzard when something looks like too much work. How about we pay you? You can work on it, and every two weeks we'll cut you a check." Jason L: I'm pretty good at Progress Quest but Statbuilder's too complicated, so this is perfect for me. Justice: Having missed out on the original Diablo and Diablo II, yet knowing the storylines of both, will it be worth me obtaining a copy of Diablo III? Justice: Realised that's a bit vauge. I know the endings of both games, yet not any narrative during the game. I know Diablo III will be a worthy game, just wondering if I'll be able to appreciate it fully, story wise. Dave: The comments from the Little Big Planet review are atrocious. My favourite one is probably, "Wow these comments are insane. And inane." 01d55: D2 stats were terrible: You got just enough str/dex to use the gear you needed to use and then put every point you could into STA. If you ever spent a point in energy you were WRONG, energy didn't do anything for you that you could do better with mana potions. D3's stats are much more useful, and remove the game balance horror that is stamina-stacking. I played the demo at blizzcon - took me a few rounds to finish before I got called off to make way for the next set, and I really like the new skill system. At blizzcon usable skills had 1 rank and passive skills had multiple ranks, one of the panels said that they're planning on giving the used skills multiple ranks in future versions. Being allowed to have more than 1-2 skills is a huge step up from D2. Also something that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere - the Barbarian used rage rather than mana, like WoW warriors. Also, you could remove runes from skills non-destructively, but only wizard runes worked in the demo (even though they demonstrated wdoc runes in a panel). Also awesome: The wizard trailer. Try and find the panels on youtube. J-Man: So, I'm 50 pages into Zarathustra, and I now believe Nietzsche is the greatest writer ever. We all know that incredible passage of 'god is dead', but I wasn't expecting every single page to be just as well written. I can't wait to finish Zarathustra and start on Beyond Good and Evil (book, not game). On a side note, did you take philosophy at uni, Tom? Pentadact: I know, right? It's like philosophy, only not hopelessly dry, fussy or redundantly overlong. Yeah, I did Maths and Philosophy. My dissertation was on the morality of teleportation. Dante: I always wondered about that, if I'm being teleported, is it the same 'me' coming out the other side? Ludo: No, it's the evil 'you'. Half Loaf 2: On the subject of deadly fauna of death, I just saw a trailer for Dawn of War 2. OMFGWTFBBQ! Tyranids! The one thing that tom was asking for in a game of 40K. It showed that they were very powerful. However that may of been a slight modifying of the game to make them appeal if they are going to be a race you can play. That was my witty news anecdote. PS: I think sacred 2 looks like a copy of Diablo 3 Ludo: I just figured out what's been bothering me about that picture. Those toads cast no shadows. I know they're probably made of magic or something, but still, it's a bit disconcerting. Pentadact: Neither does anything in that shot, that's what I mean about the models not looking like they touch the backdrops. Hopefully it's just early days. CloakRaider: God, undecided whether I should get this game. I'm not exactly a fan of what it is trying to be. J-Man: I like the sound of your dissertation, Tom. A friend of mine did his on presidential policies and their effect on the Die Hard trilogy (trilogy at the time), as there was a different president each time a Die Hard was made. Continuing on an irrelevant tangent (reminds me of the PCG podcasts), just got to the one niggle in Zarathustra. Ol' Nietzsche wrote it in a time of incredible sexism (I think), so I just read a chapter where Zarathustra says women should be discussed only with men, and should stay at home while the men go out. I was also reading an old PCG and noticed The Sun (eeeevviiilll) have a golden joystick award. Now the Daily Mail just need to sponsor the whole thing. Justice: It's strange that this topic of teleportation should arise. I've long felt against it for the exact reason proposed by Dante: under our knowledge of quantum teleportation, then you are 'deleted' and an EXACT copy is reproduced on the recieving teleport. Yet, while this EXACT copy retains every memory and every physical condition you had, so to all third parties would act EXACTLY like you, even believing that it had experienced a successful teleport, I can't shake the feeling that somehow it wouldn't be ME... Pentadact: It gets interesting when you consider cases like, what about a test version of the teleporter that just makes you vanish and reappear in the same place a moment later? What if it's instantaneous? And if that's okay, what's so different about it zapping you a few feet away? And if that's okay, what if the teleporter now has a 1-second delay after materialising the new you and before removing the old one? Does the moral status of disintegrating that original person change from "Eh," to "Murder!" because of that one second delay? If one day the teleporter you're used to using suddenly fails to materialise you at the other end, did it murder you? If one scientist designed the entrance pad, and another designed the exit pad, which one should your family blame for your death? What if we haven't got a teleporter working yet, but we can use the same technology to rebuild any part of your brain should it be damaged in an accident? What if a car crash crushes a third of your brain, and the machine rebuilds it? Have you died and been replaced, or is it still really you? What if, on the way home from that operation, you crash again and the other two-thirds of your brain are crushed - rebuilt in an operation the same day? Is that entirely different from you being killed outright and rebuilt by the machine? The Prestige is a good film. Dante: What really gets me is what happens if the teleporter fails one day and materialises you several feet away without the original vanishing? Which one is you? Is it the one on the pad? And if it is, wouldn't 'you' be dead if it had worked right? As Justice says, from an outside perspective you've got a man who remembers being teleported, but is that what it's like from the inside, or is it just lights out? Disappointingly, no Star Trek transporter malfunction episode ever grappled with these issues. Ludo: The duplicate would immediately start experiencing the world differently upon appearance, viewing the room from a different angle, breathing different air. So experientally the two would divide and become increasingly different people as time passes. Of course the urge would be to get rid of one of them because having two almost identical people in the same world seems wrong because, well, it's freaking wierd, but at that stage they are both valid and separate individuals and euthanising one of them would probably be murder. It reminds me of a great scene in a Richard Morgan book where two clones of a man get drunk together, weighing up their relative experiences in order to decide which one gets to live on. Jason L: Or Rimmer and Rimmer in Red Dwarf. Star Trek transporters largely get around the primate moral issues by doing it atom by atom. Ludo: And by making a funny noise. Jason L: We underestimate the role of funny noises in moral philosophy at our peril. BOINK! I imagine that Kant would have had serious trouble if Yackety Sax had been discovered at the time. J-Man: Heh. And this was supposed to be a Diablo III post. Bret: Too true. The fart noise has undermined many once promising moral philosophies. Roadrunner: Hey Pentadact do you like Boris Johnson? Or are you a socialist/communist like many of the other hardcore gamers out there? I used to until he refused to answer my questions I sent him. ...Which I made a blog post on my site about. Jerk. peterd102: My Polotics: Nothing is certain except death and respawns. What if someone is standing on the tel exit? - IT counts a KILL with extra gloating rights (i dont even need to shoot you to kill you). ENGIS FTW What the hell are we being existential for: DIABLO 3!! RED ALERT 3!!!!!! LEFT 4 DEAD!!!! (and thats a years supply of excalimation marks spent lol. (damn should've planned ahead wanted a couple there as well)) P.S for some science to those who thought i might be a troll - we are all different matter to that which we were years ago, so a tel would just do what happens normally over a very short timespan. Jason L: I'd hauled myself back from a complicated non-joke on things being 'undermined' by a fart and the expression 'hoist on his own petard', but now it works on more levels. Hoborg: All of this is irrelevant, because if you are being teleported then you are in an episodce of Star Trek and, since you are not William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy, will be dead just a few scant minutes after reaching the planet's surface. I reckon that's why they give the rookies red shirts - hides the blood stains. Bret: Hey! Scotty wore a red shirt and sometimes survived teleporting. And there was a gray haired redshirt once. He must have been a wily one. The_B: Gratz. As they say. Dante: Tom, are you going to be joining the PCG WAR guild anytime soon? Ludo: Massive congratulations on your massively deserved award, sirrah! J-Man: Gah! mmorpgs (pronounced m-m-pur-gurs) are the evil we, as gamers, must destroy, and replace with good ol' FPS's, that actually, y'know, require skill. Jason L: Let's see you main-heal B'uht T'roqq and say that. Dante: Well done on the award Tom! Roadrunner: To Jason L: I don't wanna go near anyone's B'uht T'roqq, sounds like a prescription pair of underpants. What is it with MMORPGS and stupid names with pointless apostraphes? I mean, it makes it harder to type, and harder for me to complain while still spelling apostrohpes wrong. DoctorDisaster: J-man, I think it's muhmorpuggers. I refuse to acknowledge them by any name that starts with the Campbell's soup sound. TooNu: Gz Tom Lack_26: Woo, one of my creations (The Hand of God. My sporepedia name is Lack-) showed up as a picture in one of Tom's articles in the new PCG UK, this has made me very happy. J-Man: Ah, the joys of corruption. Aeneas: Well done. You certainly deserved the award.

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	Previously, On James...

	2008 In Games That Were Better Than Other Games GTA IV Shorts: Cut Off PC Gamer Podcast: The Future’s Dim Thoughts On The Team Fortress 2 Christmas Changes Dear Sir Extra Mirror’s Edge Levels Blocky, Unrealistic Dead Space: The Right-Hand Side Of A Good Game So My Vesper Became Your Chariot Fallout Girl: The Road To Tenpenny Towers Revenge Of The Psycho Graverobber I’m Not Making The Plan Next Time HERO CLOSET The Gold Ribbon Goldberg Device Fallout Girl: Anywhere But Megaton Bethesda Ruin America Fallout Girl Left 4 De- The American Public Announce That Tom Francis Is Right Right To Live Far Cry 2: What I Do Like Far Cry 2: What I’d Like Far Cry 2: Impersonation Of A Buddy New PC Gamer Podcast: Eau De Toilette Radioactifs Far Cry 2 Released, Forest Fires Up 8000% ! Deadly Toads Of Death World Of Goo Is Coming To Steam, Gentlepersons Trust Me With Your Ears: Volume Three Plan B Is Complete The Fate Of The Nation And, More Importantly, My £5 Multiwinia Mathematics A Stab At Meet The Spy Clear Screen Trust Me With Your Ears: Volume Two Retro Team Fortress 2 Sounds Like The Spy Update Is Next Status Report Field Studies 6: The PC Gamer Sporecast I No Longer Feel I Have To Be James Dean Plan B Chapter One Is Complete Field Studies 5: My Spore Review I Read A Thirty-Eight Page Comic About Google’s Browser Heroes Of Medicine Red Versus White Soviet Power Plan B Is Live Trust Me With Your Ears: Volume One He Looks Truly Mortified Lumber Yard Wallpapers Heavy Update Thoughts So Far Relic Announce That Tom Francis Is Right Team Fortress 2 Goes To The Rockies Steel Yourself Vote Tom Francis In The Games Media Awards Heavy Update: Sandwiches And Fresh Green Grass Chris Livingston Stops Considering A TF2 Comic Seriously, Buy Braid Braid Is Out On Filthy Consoles Film Catch-Up Tweak Fortress Field Studies 4: Vu To A Thorough Game Demonstration The Middleman What’s Happening In Kansas Mirror’s Edge Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Weltpolizei The Prop Cigarettes You Smoke, They Show Who You Are Cutting Verses Down To Size The Sun Is Shining But We Stay Inside Mrs D Mrs I Mrs F-F-I, Mrs C Mrs U-L-T I Propose A Less Serious Vote Valve Completely Out Of Weapon Ideas, Beg For Help I Know The Commander Because He’s My Pal Blizzard Announce That Tom Francis Is Right Regarding Matt’s Location Oh My God What The Fuck Barbecue Cube In Memoriam Pyro Flare Pistol Thingy Shown In Meet The Sniper Field Studies 3: My Pretties Field Studies 2: I Will Save You From The Wangs Field Studies 1: Sporegasm Muxed Feelings You Don’t Have To Be An Engy To Work Here But You Do Someone Already Made An Ubersaw Team Fortress 2 Unlockable Ideas A Riposte To Valve’s Defense Of PC Gaming Randy Smith Has The Worst Game Design Ideas Ever Sire, My Regard For You Is This Big Crysis Suit Modes Revisited Fractal Hasselhoff And Football Management What A Shame The City That Rarely Enters Sleep Mode The Most Needlessly Complex Terror Plots In Film History No-One Drove In New York, There Was Too Much Traffic In One Thousand Two Hundred And Ten New York Minutes That Band You Like Has A New Thing Coming Out A Slice Of Fried Gold Rush Achievement Unlocked: Typed Achievement_Unlock Bracing Oneself It’s A Democratic Gaming Landscape, Bitches Non-Problems Of The Obscenely Over-Privileged Wanking ‘Not Inappropriate’ To Government Commerce Dispensing Justice Getting Owned This Just In: Frogs Aren’t Morons Der Uberdoktor Jon Stewart On Presidential Elitism I Actually Can’t Stop The Music Offlyin’ The Life And Inevitable Death Of Bloopi PC Gamer Blog: Five Years Of Foolishness Anne Diamond Reviews Games Fail Dogs Review: Soulstorm (Fire Indeed Hot) There Will Be Country For Old Men In Real Life, Baby The Far Cry 2 Team PC Gamer Tells Greg Costikyan To Shut The Fuck Up Valve Decided Against The Overhealer Austin Translation Preview: World of Goo ‘Meet The Scout’ Imminent PC Gamer Blog: Greatest Videogame Weapon of All Time Bill Hicks: Another Dead Hero Vortessence Hangover Nick Montfort On Portal Vs The Passage I Eat What I Slaughter Jonathan Blow On Making Enough Money For Food Audiosurfing The Shipping News Team Fortress 2 Badlands Exploit Patched Lost, Season Four, Spoilers, Obviously Badlands James 2.5 Explained PC Gamer Podcast: March Chris Livingston Considering A TF2 Comic Come In Actors Out Of Context Murder Incorporated Books That Make You Dumb Powered Down For Redesign New TF2 Maps And Medic Change In Two Months Molecular Gastronomy Blog Team Fortress 2 Update Reactions Things Round Here Have Changed My Goatee Things I Forgot To Talk About Round-Up GalCiv2: Still Genius Analysing Team Fortress 2 Gamespot Finally Do The Logical Thing Deus Fucking Ex Fucking 3 Crysis Week: The Endingening Episode Two Death Maps Masq SO… MUCH… CAKE… On Rock Review: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare I’m Not Allowed To Do This I Played Through The Crysis Demo Holding A Surprised Korean Guy The Greatest Spy In Team Fortress 2 FEAR: Perseus Mandate Is The Best Game Ever Hellgate London Thoughts Beautiful Piano Rendition Of The Portal Song I Played Through Episode Two Holding A Goddamn Gnome Pushing Daisies Continues To Be Incredible Ten Minutes To Go The Best Three Things On TV Life Complete This Just In: The Scout Is A Dick Not Being A Spy SO… MUCH… BLOOD… Weirdly, You’ve Been Tanned - Suspicious For The Winter Structurally Superfluous Top of GameTab: Wikipedia Edits From Sony IP Heroes Season Two My Favourite Disaster Quick BioShock Warning Rock, Paper, Shotgun British Airwaves BioShock Review Review Gollum Beat Box Like You Never Seen The Machine Of Death Winners System Failure The Order of the Phoenix The Completist: Tribes: Vengeance Quickly Boston and Bioshock Cloak And Tagger Gamespot Finally Do The Logical Thing The Completist: Far Cry This Month In Terrible, Part 2: London Olympics Logo This Month In Terrible, Part 1: Anti-DRM T-Shirts The Finale Post Not The Finale Post Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa- Starcraft 2 Grrraaahahahahaa! Mystery Trip Access Denied Invasion of the Body Snatchers New-Album Deathmatch Can I Just Say (3) Back! ‘Iv’ Desktop Tower Defense Whoa Noble Jedis I Don’t Know About You Folks Infinitely More Exciting Than Anything Exploded A Couple Of Things! This Is Taking Ages Best Interview Ever Let Them Eat Facts He’s Gone Too Far Highlight Of 2006 (3/3) Highlight Of 2006 (2/3): Snowboarding To Safety Highlight Of 2006 (1/3): Previewing Oblivion Yeah, Me Too Somerfield 24 iPwn 2006 First Screenshots Of Introversion’s Next Game Dexter: Series One Woo Dexter Again Primer Just ‘Cause Spoiler Test Heroes Not Everything You Find On Flickr Makes A Lot Of Sense Right Away Posts About Games Writing Suck So I’m Writing A Post About Posts About Games Writing Supreme Commander A Weak Russian Sunset Event-Inspired Idea: Cellphone Breathalizer I Am About To Play One Of These Games Dexter Bad News 24: Drink When… Blood Money And Sex Veronica Mars Too Zune Something I Didn’t Understand But Still Feels Right James 1.0 Dangerous Animals Found Dangerous, Term Remains Mystery Don’t Blog While Stupid Should I Hit The Weak Spot For Massive Damage Now? 25th Hour Porn Shoes A Life In Questions Paris Laptop Consciousness Drip This Next Test Is Impossible Found And Lost Team Fortress 2, Episode Two And Portal Not Lasting Pandora’s Checkbox Episode Three Conjecture Episode Two Conjecture Trivia: My Firefox Extensions Half-Life 3: Episode 1 Can I Just Say Top 100 Musings #1: Battlefield 2 Maths Cop 2: The Revengening Waa? Out Of Office Auto-Blog Oblivion Review I Took A Photograph Of You In The Herbacious Border If Things Go Right New Ritual Favourites World Of Lifecraft Elsewhere Some News, JC This Is The Winter Of Our Disco Tent Villainy Like It Oughta Be FEAR Battlefield 2 Stats Brain Storm’s New Clothes Fahrenheit Sorry Quote From What I’m Watching NaNoWriMo - Hard FAQs Mockba SWAT 4: The Game First Night, Second Life Disappointing Results Maths Cop! NaNoWriMo Google Oozes Connectivity Lost Season 2 Serenity Oh Screw It, I’ll Mention The Revolution Flying Introducing: Brain Storm Concerned This Month In Awesome Rain SWAT 4: The Movie On Bringing It State Of Things Quest Ideas Quest Que C’est? WordPress Wizard Reasons To Freeze To Death Phew Futurama The West Wing Firefly Lost The Great The Fantastic The Top Few Mulholland Drive