AndrewTS

I didn't notice any references (although to be honest I wasn't really looking for them) but I did hear Adam Baldwin and Nathan Fillion as soldiers. Alan Tudyk did some voice work as well, but I didn't notice his voice to be honest. There's apparently a Red vs. Blue easter egg in one of the scenes. I think it's at the beginning of the stage where you look through a doorway and you see a Warthog getting 'naded. You're supposed to turn off the main hallway and down a path until you come to a locked door where apparently two of ther RVB characters (it changes depending on the difficulty level from what I've heard) arguing about getting let in. It's supposedly pretty funny, I'll go back and see if I can find it for sure. Then of course there's the skulls scattered throughout the game. Haven't heard of anything else for sure though. .......do you mean the one I posted here?

Random thoughts: Whatever happened to the Grunts, Hunters, and Elites banding together to oppose the Brutes, Prophets, and the rest of the Covenant? After the civil war erupted back in Halo 2, I thought those others would be working with the humans. Yet, here I am again, sneaking up on and killing Grunts. Hunters I can see, maybe they were just being taken in by money or just blindly believed the Prophets, but the Arbiter was like a warrior Jesus to the Grunts. It seems odd that they'd be fighting against him and the Elites. Anya mentioned that there's some Firefly actors along with some Firefly references in the game. Music is one area where Halo continues to trounce Gears of War. At least until Gears gets more than just, like, one song during most gameplay. Tossing a grenade at a ROCKET POWERED Brute just as he's landing, having it stick to his groin, and getting to watch him freak out for a second or so, before he explodes, is really f'n funny.

Thoth: there's also a terminal right before you get to the cartographer where the fonts and look is very similar to Marathon as well. I doubt it's the scores as much as the advertising campaign. It's a bit much.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/big-in-japan/micr...ease-298968.php Microsoft started with a pre-show press event. That's a lotta shooters. But hey--freakin' Rez!! Most interesting item, curiously glossed over in the press release: http://kotaku.com/gaming/pardner/microsoft...ners-298918.php An (apparently exclusive) Tri-Ace RPG for 360?! Completely real-time? Ok, I'm intrigued.

Considering how few of us probably ever owned Macs or downloaded the later Windows ports, why don't you elaborate (with spoiler tags, of course)? I've tried to get into Durandal (the demo at this point), but it gives me headaches, so I doubt I could put any major effort into trying to get into the trilogy. Especially with the rumors of full-on remakes for the series. When was the last time you tried it? They did make updates to reduce some of the.. issues with nausea and such. I don't think they'll let me make updates on an XBLA demo. It's good to hear I'm not the only one, though.

Except that the Rock is a better actor and has alot more charisma. And this movie doesn't look like shit. It looks like a fun family movie. Well, Pacifier made a ton of money, regardless... While it's hardly likely to usher in a bunch of 'em, look forward to the new Rambo. Even with the stupid title.

Hands-on impressions from another site (one that I don't normally approve of, but it's a good read): http://www.seganerds.com/2007/09/25/tgs-20...-of-dreams-wii/ Seems like nunchuck style (or the rumored classic controller support) is going to be the best way to go with on this one.

Am I the only person that thinks BRUTES USING JET PACKS is just about a dozen kinds of silly?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163198

Yes it is, and I recommend it. However, if you have any doubts it's an essential item or process, google it. I recommend especially doing it for startup items, because you never know what crap might have latched onto your system.

No problem. You're only mistake was mixing up two awful mid-90's game systems. And it is 3D*O*, the letter. Besides the obvious 3D in the name, it is supposed to stand for "3 Dollars only," the licensing fee for publishers per game disc. You're welcome for this stupid and useless bit of trivia.

Considering how few of us probably ever owned Macs or downloaded the later Windows ports, why don't you elaborate (with spoiler tags, of course)? I've tried to get into Durandal (the demo at this point), but it gives me headaches, so I doubt I could put any major effort into trying to get into the trilogy. Especially with the rumors of full-on remakes for the series.

I remember SSFII getting "more of the same" comments for the SNES but SSFII: Turbo getting rave reviews for the 32X. There is no SSFII: Turbo for 32X... You're thinking of the 3DO, which got good reviews, but cautioned with "the controller sucks, buy the special offer capcom pad or a stick!" However, that was because it was offering a near-arcade-level port in an era where heavily compromised 16-bit translations were the norm.

"Hey, open up!" "Password, please!" "You've got to be kidding me, what password!?" "The password so we don't open the door for Brutes!" "Do I sound like a Brute to you?" "Well, you could be held prisoner by Brutes." "If I was held prisoner by Brutes, and knew the password, then the Brutes could just force me to tell you the password so, you know, you'd open the door for them." "....okay, now I'm definitely not going to open the door." "But we need ammo!" "Well why don't you ask your Brute buddies, then?!"

Why does a game have to be innovative to be a great game. The two things don't necessarily have to go hand in hand. It doesn't have to be. However, a lot of the 9.5+ ratings were largely because of how "innovative" Bioshock was.

Maybe one of those was actually an innovation, the rest were things that were innovated by Half-Life 2 and copied by many, many others. Who said anything about Zelda? You. I honestly don't care about the 8.8 business, but rather some of the things that Gamespot published regarding the whole matter, including that childish tirade the head editor put out. But hell, I'm biased of course. My point is that First Person Shooters aren't a tiny genre with only a select few good titles. The field is jam-packed with many,many other similar games. I'm saying the competition is stiffer for a FPS, and Halo isn't really forced to meet or exceed its competition in the genre, because it's Halo. Likewise, Bioshock...which I absolutely *love*, and probably is my Game of the Year...got ridiculously high scores. 90s. 95s. I think an 100 here and there. I think it's a great game. The atmosphere, visuals, art design, controls were all great, but its core gameplay elements were very derivative. It was an outstanding game to be sure for lots of reasons, but it wasn't nearly as innovative as every review outlet gave it credit for. Maybe it deserved a more humble score for it...but nobody really gave it one, except for Edge. OTOH, there aren't many games that directly position themselves to compete with Zelda on its own terms, it being a mesh of an RPG, action, and adventure title. Ever since Ocarina to present, the list of similar titles is small and relatively lacking in quality. The only similar titles on the same level as far as quality would probably be Beyond Good and Evil and Okami. If the games are still among the/the best around (they are), it doesn't matter what system the last game is on. Similar games may not have evolved much either, perhaps; what standard are you holding it to, then? Criticizing a game/series for lack of innovation when it retains solid gameplay and incredible polish is a cop out. While I disagree with AlexPuma a lot, the fact that it's solidly a good thing in one review and a bad thing in another is hypocritical. Yes, it is obvious there's a different reviewer, but that just betrays the loose or non-existent standards of the publisher. And in the case of Jeff, it is one reviewer using it as a point against a game, and then letting a ridiculous score slide for some roster update sports game. This would probably be the correct answer. Review scores are a complete joke. They're arbitrarily assigned for the sake of people with short attention spans, written mainly from writers with short attention spans and questionable credibility and credentials.

The (entire) Halo series is "more of the same" if you play much in the way of FPSers... Core gameplay definitely is a strength for Prime 3 because of the controls. Halo's strength is its core gameplay? I'd dispute that. It's solid, but it's not innovative, the level designs are often good but not exactly mind blowing, and of course it has more limited scope than Prime as far as objectives (go here, blow this up. Kill this guy). I can't think of anything the Halo series did that Half-Life didn't do 9 years ago, except for the massive firefights, recharging shield, vehicles, and dual-wielding. Besides, you said yourself that no Halo 3 scores are going to be bad, nor even above average. They will all be extremely high.

So, Metroid Prime 3 is "more of the same" and gets docked for it... and Halo 3 "stays true to its roots" and gets praised for it. I see double standards here. You left out the funniest part about that, in the Halo 3 review:

You don't have to, because it's wrong. The Wii discs are not DVDs, but Wii Optical Discs. It and Gamecube discs use the exact same technology. It's similar to a DVD, but the format is designed to provide faster loading speeds. This extends to the Wii discs, and has nothing to do with the size of the actual disc. The Wii discs are basically just larger, but provide the same benefits.

I still remember my friend and I playing it just about straight though, getting to the ending, and simply dropping our controllers and walking away when that travesty of an ending came up. Of course, it helped that we couldn't understand a damn thing the Gravemind was saying, so it's scenes we're pretty much lost on us. Strange; I actually caught just about everything Gravemind said. Anya was bitching about the sound mixing, but except for one cutscene I didn't really notice any major problems.

That's awesome... ...if it's the PS2 game that came out a few years ago. I'm guessing it's the crappy new one based on the movie, though. I beat Halo 2 campaign last night, and I'm really pumped Halo 3 now. Although I guess I'd be ticked if I had to wait years for the sequel after that non-ending.

The levels are larger and have more detail, or at least thats what I figured. I don't mean the *obvious* reason, I mean how they'd spin it to make it seem like it isn't a serious deficiency of the hardware. All the talk about "innovative control schemes" and "offering an experience the other consoles can't provide" is all well and good until the Wii is gasping and wheezing to support a game that looks like nothing more than a gussied-up last-gen title. Thankfully, we have next-gen consoles to support games like that.

They didn't get Dana Delany for this? WTF. Her returning was one of the only good things about BA, even if it emphasized all the more how shitty the writing was. IMDB gives Bruce Timm a writing credit, so I assume this being better has a lot to do with him helping to save Capizzi's script.

I guess I didn't expect a localized American game to show up at TGS. I thought it was Gyakuten Saiben 5 being shown...

Bloodrayne 2 comes with a copy of the pc Bloodrayne...1. Kind of like Bloodrayne the movie came with Bloodrayne 2 for PC. That's real value.