MG's panel-based quiz game thread thing #4... GAME THREAD!

[Jason]

Righty, you know the drill gents - answer the questions, feel free to bash others should you deem it necessary, and pander to me at all times. :p

Question 1:
Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves this week to widespread acclaim and massive sales figures, yet BioWare co-boss Ray Muzyka is confident they can top it with their future work: "The way we approach it is that each game has to be better than the last one", he says.
So, MGers, share with us those rarest of games where the sequel was considerably better than the first one, or better yet, where the third in a series was the best.

Question 2:
The PS3, despite several years of stubborn resistance was finally hacked this week, by 'GeoHot' - the same guy who cracked the iPhone. Despite the potential this has to be the first step that would allow nefarious pirate-types to play copied games on their consoles, GeoHot insists that his intentions are strictly benign and that he is merely interested in unlocking the potential of the PS3.
So, MGers, do you believe him, and is this the start of a wave of piracy for the PS3?

Question 3:
Amid much fanfare, Apple launched the iPad this week. Despite high expectations about it being Apple's long-rumoured entry into the handheld gaming market, at first glance it's little more than an iPod Touch on steroids with a bigger pricetag and no major developmental support. And it *still* can't multitask. Share with us some other examples from gaming that promised much, delivered little, but still sold by the bucketload.

Question 4:
Below is a quite marvellous video from a guy named 'SandyRavage' who spent a few hours the other night hunting 'boosters' in Modern Warfare 2. It's worth watching just for the rage voicemail at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NITwwUHwy4
Anyway, share with us some other classic examples of when cheats DON'T prosper in gaming.

Question 5:
Now, in a rare sentimental note, I'd like to wish a big 'congratulations' to Avalee and Erandel, who married earlier this week. Yes, you guessed it - they met in World of Warcraft. So, in celebration of their union, let's hear about some other bizarre outcomes from chance meetings in-game. Bonus points if they actually happened to you.

[Jason]

Ahem. I forgot the deadline, didn't I?

We'll call it Thursday 4th February at 23:59 GMT.

[Lance]

Guess I'll go first huh? :)

Question 1:
Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves this week to widespread acclaim and massive sales figures, yet BioWare co-boss Ray Muzyka is confident they can top it with their future work: "The way we approach it is that each game has to be better than the last one", he says.
So, MGers, share with us those rarest of games where the sequel was considerably better than the first one, or better yet, where the third in a series was the best.

I think sequels are a mixed bag when it comes to games, with some doing poor, but surprisingly a lot (unlike movie sequels which generally suck) improve with each game in the series.
I think each game in the GTAverse is the prime example – every game is a massive improvement over the previous one. Rockstar tend to out do themselves every time, especially with IV.

For me though, it's Medieval II: Total War. Not taking in to account Total War: Rome, and focusing soley on Medieval I to II, from what it was originally (a good game in it's own right), II was just mind blowing graphic wise, and the modability of the game (play with King Kong's Stainless Steel mod and you'll know what can be done by game fans) allowed the game to be one of the best I've played. It will forever rank in my Top 5 games.

I'll go you 1 better on the 3rd game as well - Hitman: Blood Money (the 4th game) was also much better than the previous games and was a joy to sneak around killing the hell out of people or just walk in and blaze away.

Other future sequels I'm hoping surpass the original are Starcraft II and Airline Tycoon II (if it ever comes out, and not to be confused with Airport Tycoon :))

The only games that come to mind right now that didn't live up to the original for me, were Star Wars: KOTOR II and Super Mario II. While I loved Sith Lords, it just didn't have the feel of the original and the plain green/black interface was annoying (and I don't feel they wrapped up the Revan storyline well enough either).
Don't even talk to me about The Old Republic either.... I still feel like acting like that german kid smashing his keyboard on the desk when I think about LucasArts/Bioware's monumental stuff up in making it an MMORPG and not the third in the series. For me, I see the same thing happening to KOTOR that happened to the Warcraft games when they made World of Warcraft.

As far as Super Mario II.... well, let's just thank the video game gods for Super Mario I and III


Question 2
The PS3, despite several years of stubborn resistance was finally hacked this week, by 'GeoHot' - the same guy who cracked the iPhone. Despite the potential this has to be the first step that would allow nefarious pirate-types to play copied games on their consoles, GeoHot insists that his intentions are strictly benign and that he is merely interested in unlocking the potential of the PS3.
So, MGers, do you believe him, and is this the start of a wave of piracy for the PS3?

ll I can say is Death to the PS3!

This is all pretty much hype and goes to show every will get hacked eventually. While it is hacked in a sense, it does nothing for anyone at the moment. You can't pirate games (and probably won't for a long time) or do anything useful. It just allows the hardcore hackers an avenue to explore in eventually getting to that stage. It's enevitable that it will happen since NO system is hackproof, and saying it is only encourages people out there to try harder, but Sony now have a good chance to put plans in to place when it does eventually happen. I'll be more interested in seeing Sony's response to this and whether they'll implement a 360 style console ban for pirated games.

The question isn't whether this will be a start of piracy wave, but rather, "WHO CARES?" – it's only the PS3 :) (kidding of course - I don't have anything against the PS3, I just like to play up the rivalry)


Question 3
Amid much fanfare, Apple launched the iPad this week. Despite high expectations about it being Apple's long-rumoured entry into the handheld gaming market, at first glance it's little more than an iPod Touch on steroids with a bigger pricetag and no major developmental support. And it *still* can't multitask. Share with us some other examples from gaming that promised much, delivered little, but still sold by the bucketload.

Anything from the Wii to start with (not that I'm one to talk – I have one, and quite a few games. They're good when you're drunk, but that's about it)

For me though, it's World of Warcraft (see a trend yet? Wait'll question 5). It promises the best gaming experience ever. Hell, if you believe some people it's better than real life. It's one of the best selling games ever (as far as PC games go it's only 2nd to The Sims 2 I believe) but what does it really deliver? A gaming experience with for the most part whinny teenagers are both sore winners and sore losers. I have fond memories of the RTS Warcraft games that preceeded World of Warcraft but even that's only a vague memory because of the blinding light that is WoW. Games like WoW have become mostly about social interaction (only Second Life has no pretenses at being a "game") and not about the game itself. Yet people buy it, become addicted to it, and love it. I still struggle to understand it :)


Question 4
Below is a quite marvellous video from a guy named 'SandyRavage' who spent a few hours the other night hunting 'boosters' in Modern Warfare 2. It's worth watching just for the rage voicemail at the end.
Anyway, share with us some other classic examples of when cheats DON'T prosper in gaming.

An example of cheater's not prospering for me was in an online browser-based strategy game (country building). There were a few servers that you could play on – the main server (called Primary) you were only allowed 1 account per person. Every round there were always major wars, and funnily enough every round, a major alliance of some sort was caught with "multis" and got mass deleted, usually causing the said alliance become targets for everyone else.
But the one incident that stood out to me was a particular person (I can't recall his name) that use to be a "great" player. He got caught repeatedly with multiple accounts and got repeatedly deleted. His response... to create a bot program and for 3-4 rounds, spanning a year, mass created accounts to such a degree it completely threw off the balance of game power during those rounds. Eventually he'd always get caught, but not before the round was ruined. It's a shame, because he had been a good player with a good reputation before he sunk to cheating.
He eventually threw a hissy fit and left the game forever, acting like people actually cared that he left.

The other, in same said game, was "spying" – creating false identities to infiltrate other alliances and use information against them. I saw quite a few players get run out of the game when their identities were found out (which they invariably were) and loose good friends in the process.


Question 5:
Now, in a rare sentimental note, I'd like to wish a big 'congratulations' to Avalee and Erandel, who married earlier this week. Yes, you guessed it - they met in World of Warcraft. So, in celebration of their union, let's hear about some other bizarre outcomes from chance meetings in-game. Bonus points if they actually happened to you.

Firstly, I have no idea who Avalee and Erandel are, but congrats- real love stories are few and far between, but always a good sight :)

But now I'm going to go on another WoW rant. There's some nice examples of great romances that really work from WoW – but a lot aren't. The one with the Australian 31 year old woman flying to the U.S to 'abduct' a 16 year old and being arrested, then just a few weeks ago the 42 year old woman going to Canada to abduct the 16 year old and get married. And that's just 2 examples. In a few rare cases it works. It just seems that most of them are these sorts (and typically it's the older female and younger male strangely enough)

To be honest, I've not personally seen an experience that has ended well. In the internet gaming world where it's so easy to be something you're not, it's a massive risk to try and find love in gaming.


Anyways, that's my two-cents worth - and now I feel like getting a pitch-fork, torch and town rabble and going to lynch the creators of World of Warcraft for destoying humanity :)

[MyNameDidntFit]

Hey, Brett, you got some brown on your nose; want a tissue to wipe that off? Or perhaps just to wipe Jason's ars-... boots for next time? :hammer:
Question 1:
Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves this week to widespread acclaim and massive sales figures, yet BioWare co-boss Ray Muzyka is confident they can top it with their future work: "The way we approach it is that each game has to be better than the last one", he says.
So, MGers, share with us those rarest of games where the sequel was considerably better than the first one, or better yet, where the third in a series was the best.I'll just go out and start with "I've got no bloody idea what I'm talking about here". With that out of the way: Final Fantasy VII. For all I know, it isn't even the seventh game in the series... but meh: I've wandered the internet extensively in my time and the overwhelming majority of opinions on the FF games I've seen are something along the lines of "VII is the best".

Basically... well, it's a damned seventhquel (or whatever you'd call it) and it's better than the first through sixth games, as well as the eighth through thirteenth. Can you get much better than? Probably, if you delve into Jason's favourite genre of Japanese Homo-erotica ;)

I almost forgot, but... GTA IV? A massive improvement on the previous ones? I'm just glad I wasn't drinking when I read that, or I'd have messed my keyboard up. All I need to say to prove this as a fallacy is one word: Roman (I could also use "gritty realism", "anti-fun", "lack of creativity", or a myriad of other phrases).
Question 2:
The PS3, despite several years of stubborn resistance was finally hacked this week, by 'GeoHot' - the same guy who cracked the iPhone. Despite the potential this has to be the first step that would allow nefarious pirate-types to play copied games on their consoles, GeoHot insists that his intentions are strictly benign and that he is merely interested in unlocking the potential of the PS3.
So, MGers, do you believe him, and is this the start of a wave of piracy for the PS3?To start; yeah, I believe him. His work will likely be used for piracy at some point, and he would surely know that, but I really doubt he cares -- from what I've read, he hacks stuff because he enjoys it.

I really doubt this will have a significant effect on anything at all for some time. With the PS3 some way into its fourth year and the development of any effective and accessible pirating technique some way off (let's say the end of the year), it doesn't exactly strike me as anything to worry about -- or even anything I'd expect Sony to respond to until it becomes something more than hype.
Question 3:
Amid much fanfare, Apple launched the iPad this week. Despite high expectations about it being Apple's long-rumoured entry into the handheld gaming market, at first glance it's little more than an iPod Touch on steroids with a bigger pricetag and no major developmental support. And it *still* can't multitask. Share with us some other examples from gaming that promised much, delivered little, but still sold by the bucketload.Spore. A game where you can create a species from scratch and drag it through the puny stages of single cell organism up to being a galactic tyrant... sounds like that wet dream you had the other night, right?

Yeah, but it's a pity that about the best thing you could do in Spore was shape your monster like a penis, put a horn on its head and have it run around raping things... and EA banned you from doing that online.

To sum it up, spore is like a prosthetic arm; it's a frigging brilliant concept (robot arms? Awesome), but once you have one, you realise they're actually pretty shit.
Question 4:
Below is a quite marvellous video from a guy named 'SandyRavage' who spent a few hours the other night hunting 'boosters' in Modern Warfare 2. It's worth watching just for the rage voicemail at the end.

Anyway, share with us some other classic examples of when cheats DON'T prosper in gaming.Counter-Strike. Probably one of the most heavily hacked games there is... but the hardcore nature of its community means that there are plenty of instances of hackers getting the shit owned out of them to the point of rage quitting by players with skills beyond mortal comprehension.

Back in my own days of being a reasonable CS:Source player, I frequented several scoutzknivez servers and, scoutzknivez being a game mode to attract many brilliant players, I got to watch with extreme pleasure as aimbotters, speedhackers, scripters and all manner of hackers run/glide/fly/hack their way out of spawn only to be headshotted. Repeatedly.

Ah... the memories...
Question 5:
Now, in a rare sentimental note, I'd like to wish a big 'congratulations' to Avalee and Erandel, who married earlier this week. Yes, you guessed it - they met in World of Warcraft. So, in celebration of their union, let's hear about some other bizarre outcomes from chance meetings in-game. Bonus points if they actually happened to you.Actually, I didn't guess it, but hey, let's just pretend I did, eh?

As much as I hate myself for it, I simply have to stoop to using WoW for my example... but, really, there is no better example of online gaming going real than that woman who offered a to be someone's epic mount in return for an epic mount (http://epicslut.ytmnd.com/). To be frank, I wouldn't tap that, but hey, someone did, and paid for it too.

(and, really, who ever thought they'd hear "WoW" and "sex" mentioned in such a manner?)

The only redeeming quality that woman has, is the last line of her second posting:
I got MY Epic flying mount AND I got laid which is more than most of you failures can ever hope for.Why make fun of WoW, when you can poke fun at the people?

Oh and, Jason, for the record; if you let me win, it's going to be hard to claim that you're not an Aussie sympathiser :lol:

[Konrad]

Question 1:
Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves this week to widespread acclaim and massive sales figures, yet BioWare co-boss Ray Muzyka is confident they can top it with their future work: "The way we approach it is that each game has to be better than the last one", he says.
So, MGers, share with us those rarest of games where the sequel was considerably better than the first one, or better yet, where the third in a series was the best.


Falloutgrgghhhh. The first one was epic, a redefinition of the genre and the word RPG. The second: improved upon it in every aspect, it was Bigger, longer, epicerer, more refinerererd. It was the fanboys dream. The third game is, by most gamers (granted this majority is largely made out of people who were still pooping in a towel when the original came out) considered to be by far superior to the original two games. While I think the 9001:1 ratio of playtime Fo1&2 vs Fo3 speaks for itself, the majority consders the series to have gone through an exponential impovement.

And so therefore as it is to be when such anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like the majority is always right.

And oh yeah... Hate to be pressing my body so hard up against MNDF and rubbing up and down sensually to express that I could not agree more but that GTA thing... Son I am disappoint.


Question 2:
The PS3, despite several years of stubborn resistance was finally hacked this week, by 'GeoHot' - the same guy who cracked the iPhone. Despite the potential this has to be the first step that would allow nefarious pirate-types to play copied games on their consoles, GeoHot insists that his intentions are strictly benign and that he is merely interested in unlocking the potential of the PS3.
So, MGers, do you believe him, and is this the start of a wave of piracy for the PS3?


Yes and no. I do believe that the talented crackers who get inside those consoles such as the X-Box, PSP and PS3 are truly dedicated to seeing what's inside, and seeing what can be done with it.
However, does it mean that piracy will not develop? No. That's more likely than MNDF ever being allowed to play something other than Hello Kitty Online.

No matter what the intentions, greed will always take over. But who knows, maybe it's not all bad. Maybe Sony will see a much needed increase in sales now that their console joined the ranks of "play for free".


Question 3:
Amid much fanfare, Apple launched the iPad this week. Despite high expectations about it being Apple's long-rumoured entry into the handheld gaming market, at first glance it's little more than an iPod Touch on steroids with a bigger pricetag and no major developmental support. And it *still* can't multitask. Share with us some other examples from gaming that promised much, delivered little, but still sold by the bucketload.

Spo-

Damnit.

ANY company that promises revolutionary content a week into development is bound to be full of shit. Especially considering that this happens to several releases each year. But that's just not how the industry works. When gaming was born, it took everyone years to change it's diaper. And when they did, turned out it was the same diaper just a different colour. It took 20 years to make the switch from 2d to 3d, and even then it was "pretend". Games evolve slowly, and gradually... every once in a blue moon there will be a title which does something significantly better than others. Doom. Half-Life. When you hear something along the lines of "revolutionary system of healing which forces you to fix your own wounds and remove individual bullets if you wish to keep fighting (oh yeah, and your guns jam so you will have to realistically fix those" you can bet that actually means "same old thing with new animations", as it was with Far Cry 2 and...

FUCK IT I HAVE TO:

Spore. How these people managed to spend all these years gluing together a set of minigames that bored me after the first playthrough is beyond me. The whole point of mini-games is to be fun over and over again, they did not deliver even in that. Shit fucking sucks man.


Question 4:
Below is a quite marvellous video from a guy named 'SandyRavage' who spent a few hours the other night hunting 'boosters' in Modern Warfare 2. It's worth watching just for the rage voicemail at the end.
Anyway, share with us some other classic examples of when cheats DON'T prosper in gaming.

Any game, like the Aussie mentioned, where the players are better than the cheaters is win in that regard.
But also, folks who cheat in single player games don't prosper. Case in point: My cousin. A child who buys video games with his hard earned christmas-money, only to go home, look up god-mode and never finish it because he's bored.

Cool shit broheim. You just paid to ruin your own game.

Now, I completely understand cheating AFTER you're done with the game. It's a way to extend its lifetime or see things you otherwise might not have, or just fuck around for a bit. But cheating just to win a game against nothing and not win anything? Sounds like a blast.


Question 5:
Now, in a rare sentimental note, I'd like to wish a big 'congratulations' to Avalee and Erandel, who married earlier this week. Yes, you guessed it - they met in World of Warcraft. So, in celebration of their union, let's hear about some other bizarre outcomes from chance meetings in-game. Bonus points if they actually happened to you.


No. You know why not? Because it's a stupid question.

Instead, here is a picture of my sp-cheating cousin a month after I bought him a guitar:

Crazy little fucker.
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5691/8439aa8759.jpg

[Jason]

I'll give CemeteryGates another 24 hours to post his answers, then I'll start scoring these babies. :)

[MyNameDidntFit]

Lazybum. Get to it!

[Konrad]

Hurr. This is like me all over again.

[Jason]

Right, our man has missed an extended deadline, so we'll continue without him. :)

Question 1:
Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves this week to widespread acclaim and massive sales figures, yet BioWare co-boss Ray Muzyka is confident they can top it with their future work: "The way we approach it is that each game has to be better than the last one", he says.
So, MGers, share with us those rarest of games where the sequel was considerably better than the first one, or better yet, where the third in a series was the best.

I think sequels are a mixed bag when it comes to games, with some doing poor, but surprisingly a lot (unlike movie sequels which generally suck) improve with each game in the series. +1
I think each game in the GTAverse is the prime example – every game is a massive improvement over the previous one. Rockstar tend to out do themselves every time, especially with IV. -2 Never. GTA 2 was rubbish, and whilst I guess you could argue GTA IV was an improvement over San Andreas, that had more to do with the leap in generation rather than any of Rockstar's doing.

For me though, it's Medieval II: Total War. Not taking in to account Total War: Rome, and focusing soley on Medieval I to II, from what it was originally (a good game in it's own right), II was just mind blowing graphic wise, and the modability of the game (play with King Kong's Stainless Steel mod and you'll know what can be done by game fans) allowed the game to be one of the best I've played. It will forever rank in my Top 5 games. +2 - Good answer.

I'll go you 1 better on the 3rd game as well - Hitman: Blood Money (the 4th game) was also much better than the previous games and was a joy to sneak around killing the hell out of people or just walk in and blaze away. +2 - Good shout - the Hitman series has improved immensely over the years. Blood Money was a great game.

Other future sequels I'm hoping surpass the original are Starcraft II and Airline Tycoon II (if it ever comes out, and not to be confused with Airport Tycoon :))

The only games that come to mind right now that didn't live up to the original for me, were Star Wars: KOTOR II and Super Mario II. While I loved Sith Lords, it just didn't have the feel of the original and the plain green/black interface was annoying (and I don't feel they wrapped up the Revan storyline well enough either).
Don't even talk to me about The Old Republic either.... I still feel like acting like that german kid smashing his keyboard on the desk when I think about LucasArts/Bioware's monumental stuff up in making it an MMORPG and not the third in the series. For me, I see the same thing happening to KOTOR that happened to the Warcraft games when they made World of Warcraft. -1 - they'll get massively popular and basically be a license for the company to print money?

As far as Super Mario II.... well, let's just thank the video game gods for Super Mario I and III +2 - hallelujah.

Oh, and +2 for you for having to go first despite being the newbie and therefore exposing yourself to MNDF's sniping.

Hey, Brett, you got some brown on your nose; want a tissue to wipe that off? Or perhaps just to wipe Jason's ars-... boots for next time? :hammer: -1 - crawling to the judges is a perfectly acceptable tactic. :p

I'll just go out and start with "I've got no bloody idea what I'm talking about here". -1 - Never admit this when I'm judging - it deprives me of the fun of doing it myself. With that out of the way: Final Fantasy VII. For all I know, it isn't even the seventh game in the series... but meh: I've wandered the internet extensively in my time and the overwhelming majority of opinions on the FF games I've seen are something along the lines of "VII is the best". +3 - It is. Or was. XII may have beaten it. It's close.

Basically... well, it's a damned seventhquel (or whatever you'd call it) and it's better than the first through sixth games, as well as the eighth through thirteenth. Can you get much better than? Probably, if you delve into Jason's favourite genre of Japanese Homo-erotica ;) +-0 - on one hand I should give you points for attacking the host, on the other hand, at least I researched the question, which is more than you managed for this one. ;)

I almost forgot, but... GTA IV? A massive improvement on the previous ones? I'm just glad I wasn't drinking when I read that, or I'd have messed my keyboard up. All I need to say to prove this as a fallacy is one word: Roman (I could also use "gritty realism", "anti-fun", "lack of creativity", or a myriad of other phrases). +1 - mandatory point for attacking other contestants' answers.

Falloutgrgghhhh. The first one was epic, a redefinition of the genre and the word RPG. The second: improved upon it in every aspect, it was Bigger, longer, epicerer, more refinerererd. It was the fanboys dream. +3 - that's the answer. The one correct answer to this question. First was awesome, second was better. The third game is, by most gamers (granted this majority is largely made out of people who were still pooping in a towel when the original came out) +2 - attacking huge numbers of people will always equal big points. :pconsidered to be by far superior to the original two games. While I think the 9001:1 ratio of playtime Fo1&2 vs Fo3 speaks for itself, the majority consders the series to have gone through an exponential impovement.

And so therefore as it is to be when such anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like the majority is always right. -1 - I have no idea what you just said. If you'd have made a couple of those words links, I'd have probably banned you as a spammer.

And oh yeah... Hate to be pressing my body so hard up against MNDF and rubbing up and down sensually to express that I could not agree more but that GTA thing... Son I am disappoint. +1 - mandatory point for attacking another contestant

After Question 1:
Brett: 6pts
Konrad: 5pts
MNDF: 2pts
CemeteryGates: 0pts

A solid start from the newbie, with Konrad keeping him firmly in check. MNDF talks bollocks, and pays the price.

Question 2:
The PS3, despite several years of stubborn resistance was finally hacked this week, by 'GeoHot' - the same guy who cracked the iPhone. Despite the potential this has to be the first step that would allow nefarious pirate-types to play copied games on their consoles, GeoHot insists that his intentions are strictly benign and that he is merely interested in unlocking the potential of the PS3.
So, MGers, do you believe him, and is this the start of a wave of piracy for the PS3?

ll I can say is Death to the PS3! -1 - Nice fighting spirit, but if you kill off the PS3, Microsoft dominate the console market, and that's good news for absolutely no-one apart from Microsoft.

This is all pretty much hype and goes to show every will get hacked eventually. +2While it is hacked in a sense, it does nothing for anyone at the moment. You can't pirate games (and probably won't for a long time) or do anything useful. It just allows the hardcore hackers an avenue to explore in eventually getting to that stage. It's enevitable that it will happen since NO system is hackproof, and saying it is only encourages people out there to try harder, but Sony now have a good chance to put plans in to place when it does eventually happen. +2 - they can't do much worse than Microsoft, to be fair. I'll be more interested in seeing Sony's response to this and whether they'll implement a 360 style console ban for pirated games.

The question isn't whether this will be a start of piracy wave, but rather, "WHO CARES?" – it's only the PS3 :) (kidding of course - I don't have anything against the PS3, I just like to play up the rivalry)

I really doubt this will have a significant effect on anything at all for some time. +2 With the PS3 some way into its fourth year and the development of any effective and accessible pirating technique some way off (let's say the end of the year), it doesn't exactly strike me as anything to worry about -- or even anything I'd expect Sony to respond to until it becomes something more than hype. +2 - you're bang on.

Yes and no. I do believe that the talented crackers who get inside those consoles such as the X-Box, PSP and PS3 are truly dedicated to seeing what's inside, and seeing what can be done with it. +2 - not all of them are just dedicated to playing with the hardware, but most are.
However, does it mean that piracy will not develop? No. That's more likely than MNDF ever being allowed to play something other than Hello Kitty Online. +2 - one for your point, and one for mocking MNDF.

No matter what the intentions, greed will always take over. But who knows, maybe it's not all bad. Maybe Sony will see a much needed increase in sales now that their console joined the ranks of "play for free". -1 - PS3 sales have been steadily increasing for over a year now - I'd imagine purchasers will be more driven by the price of the console than the ease of which games can be pirated.

After Question 2:
Brett: 9pts
Konrad: 8pts
MNDF: 6pts
CemeteryGates: 0pts

Good answers from all three contestants there - MNDF managing not to lose any points, and therefore catching up a bit.

Question 3:
Amid much fanfare, Apple launched the iPad this week. Despite high expectations about it being Apple's long-rumoured entry into the handheld gaming market, at first glance it's little more than an iPod Touch on steroids with a bigger pricetag and no major developmental support. And it *still* can't multitask. Share with us some other examples from gaming that promised much, delivered little, but still sold by the bucketload.

Anything from the Wii to start with (not that I'm one to talk – I have one, and quite a few games. They're good when you're drunk, but that's about it) +1 - Difficult to argue with that, to be fair.

For me though, it's World of Warcraft (see a trend yet? Wait'll question 5). +1 - you've read my judging before, haven't you? It promises the best gaming experience ever. Hell, if you believe some people it's better than real life. It's one of the best selling games ever (as far as PC games go it's only 2nd to The Sims 2 I believe) +1 - which is also god-awful. but what does it really deliver? A gaming experience with for the most part whinny teenagers are both sore winners and sore losers. I have fond memories of the RTS Warcraft games that preceeded World of Warcraft but even that's only a vague memory because of the blinding light that is WoW. Games like WoW have become mostly about social interaction +2 (only Second Life has no pretenses at being a "game") and not about the game itself. Yet people buy it, become addicted to it, and love it. I still struggle to understand it :)

Spore. +4 - oh my, that's a good answer, right there. A game where you can create a species from scratch and drag it through the puny stages of single cell organism up to being a galactic tyrant... sounds like that wet dream you had the other night, right? +1 - How... how did you know?

Yeah, but it's a pity that about the best thing you could do in Spore was shape your monster like a penis, put a horn on its head and have it run around raping things... -1 - the creature creation system was absolutely awesome - shame they didn't give it a good game to put your creatures in though. and EA banned you from doing that online.

To sum it up, spore is like a prosthetic arm; it's a frigging brilliant concept (robot arms? Awesome), but once you have one, you realise they're actually pretty shit. +2 - I lolled. Points for that.

Spo-

Damnit.

ANY company that promises revolutionary content a week into development is bound to be full of shit. Especially considering that this happens to several releases each year. +2 - this is one of my pet HATES. But that's just not how the industry works. When gaming was born, it took everyone years to change it's diaper. And when they did, turned out it was the same diaper just a different colour. It took 20 years to make the switch from 2d to 3d, and even then it was "pretend". Games evolve slowly, and gradually... every once in a blue moon there will be a title which does something significantly better than others. Doom. Half-Life. +2When you hear something along the lines of "revolutionary system of healing which forces you to fix your own wounds and remove individual bullets if you wish to keep fighting (oh yeah, and your guns jam so you will have to realistically fix those" you can bet that actually means "same old thing with new animations", as it was with Far Cry 2 and...

FUCK IT I HAVE TO:

Spore. How these people managed to spend all these years gluing together a set of minigames that bored me after the first playthrough is beyond me. The whole point of mini-games is to be fun over and over again, they did not deliver even in that. +2 - technically it's repeating an answer, but you're right, and I agree with you, and I'm host, so there. Shit fucking sucks man.

After Question 3:
Brett: 14pts
Konrad: 14pts
MNDF: 12pts
CemeteryGates: 0pts

Big points in that round with some awesome answers - MNDF is creeping closer and closer to the front two with just two questions to go...



Question 4:
Below is a quite marvellous video from a guy named 'SandyRavage' who spent a few hours the other night hunting 'boosters' in Modern Warfare 2. It's worth watching just for the rage voicemail at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NITwwUHwy4
Anyway, share with us some other classic examples of when cheats DON'T prosper in gaming.

An example of cheater's not prospering for me was in an online browser-based strategy game (country building). There were a few servers that you could play on – the main server (called Primary) you were only allowed 1 account per person. Every round there were always major wars, and funnily enough every round, a major alliance of some sort was caught with "multis" and got mass deleted, usually causing the said alliance become targets for everyone else. +1 - it always seem to be the large groups in these types of games that get caught doing this...
But the one incident that stood out to me was a particular person (I can't recall his name) that use to be a "great" player. He got caught repeatedly with multiple accounts and got repeatedly deleted. His response... to create a bot program and for 3-4 rounds, spanning a year, mass created accounts to such a degree it completely threw off the balance of game power during those rounds. Eventually he'd always get caught, but not before the round was ruined. It's a shame, because he had been a good player with a good reputation before he sunk to cheating. +2 - Always a shame when the good players turn bad.
He eventually threw a hissy fit and left the game forever, acting like people actually cared that he left.

The other, in same said game, was "spying" – creating false identities to infiltrate other alliances and use information against them. I saw quite a few players get run out of the game when their identities were found out (which they invariably were) and loose good friends in the process. +1

Counter-Strike. Probably one of the most heavily hacked games there is... but the hardcore nature of its community means that there are plenty of instances of hackers getting the shit owned out of them to the point of rage quitting by players with skills beyond mortal comprehension. +2 - I tend to find many of these people on the servers I play on. As a result, I die. Lots.

Back in my own days of being a reasonable CS:Source player, I frequented several scoutzknivez servers and, scoutzknivez being a game mode to attract many brilliant players, +1 - I played on a scoutzknivez server once by accident. I was slaughtered. I got to watch with extreme pleasure as aimbotters, speedhackers, scripters and all manner of hackers run/glide/fly/hack their way out of spawn only to be headshotted. Repeatedly. +2 - I actually looked up videos of this, I was that intrigued by it - I had lots of laughs.

Ah... the memories...

Any game, like the Aussie mentioned, where the players are better than the cheaters is win in that regard.
But also, folks who cheat in single player games don't prosper. +2 - nice angle on the question. Case in point: My cousin. A child who buys video games with his hard earned christmas-money, only to go home, look up god-mode and never finish it because he's bored.

Cool shit broheim. You just paid to ruin your own game. +2 lol-worthy. I used to do this when I was younger, too. Seems so, so dumb now.

Now, I completely understand cheating AFTER you're done with the game. It's a way to extend its lifetime or see things you otherwise might not have, or just fuck around for a bit. But cheating just to win a game against nothing and not win anything? Sounds like a blast. +3 - You just threw your cousin to the wolves for points. I'm so proud.

After Question 4:

Konrad: 21pts
Brett: 18pts
MNDF: 17pts
CemeteryGates: 0pts

Konrad scores huge points for ripping into his own family that round. With only one more question to go, he's got a three-point lead. MNDF moves to within one point of rival Aussie Brett with a good answer of his own.


Question 5:
Now, in a rare sentimental note, I'd like to wish a big 'congratulations' to Avalee and Erandel, who married earlier this week. Yes, you guessed it - they met in World of Warcraft. So, in celebration of their union, let's hear about some other bizarre outcomes from chance meetings in-game. Bonus points if they actually happened to you.

Firstly, I have no idea who Avalee and Erandel are, but congrats- real love stories are few and far between, but always a good sight :)

But now I'm going to go on another WoW rant. +1 There's some nice examples of great romances that really work from WoW – but a lot aren't. The one with the Australian 31 year old woman flying to the U.S to 'abduct' a 16 year old and being arrested, then just a few weeks ago the 42 year old woman going to Canada to abduct the 16 year old and get married. +2 - although in fairness to example #2, I believe he told her he was 20. And that's just 2 examples. In a few rare cases it works. It just seems that most of them are these sorts (and typically it's the older female and younger male strangely enough)

To be honest, I've not personally seen an experience that has ended well. +1 - Me either. Never seen one end well online.In the internet gaming world where it's so easy to be something you're not, it's a massive risk to try and find love in gaming.


Anyways, that's my two-cents worth - and now I feel like getting a pitch-fork, torch and town rabble and going to lynch the creators of World of Warcraft for destoying humanity :) ...and a +1 for that.

Actually, I didn't guess it, but hey, let's just pretend I did, eh?

As much as I hate myself for it, I simply have to stoop to using WoW for my example... but, really, there is no better example of online gaming going real than that woman who offered a to be someone's epic mount in return for an epic mount (http://epicslut.ytmnd.com/). +3 - :lol::lol::lol: To be frank, I wouldn't tap that, but hey, someone did, and paid for it too.

(and, really, who ever thought they'd hear "WoW" and "sex" mentioned in such a manner?)

The only redeeming quality that woman has, is the last line of her second posting:
I got MY Epic flying mount AND I got laid which is more than most of you failures can ever hope for.Why make fun of WoW, when you can poke fun at the people? +2 - Classy lady. Classy, classy lady.

No. You know why not? Because it's a stupid question. -1 - YOU'RE a stupid question! :angry:

Instead, here is a picture of my sp-cheating cousin a month after I bought him a guitar:

Crazy little fucker.
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5691/8439aa8759.jpg +1 - at least you're better looking than he is.

FINAL SCORES

:1st:Brett: 23pts
:2nd:MNDF: 22pts
:3rd:Konrad: 21pts
:upset:CemeteryGates: 0pts

Congratulations to our newest champion, Brett! - a superb performance from the debutant, although it should be noted that Konrad threw a three-point lead away going into the final question. Credit should also go to MNDF who came back well after a bad start.