Kernel

Fresh from PC Gamers' twitter feed. Here's two new XCOM Enemy Unknown design and art videos. http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/02/new-xcom-enemy-unknown-design-and-art-videos-released/ Not watched them myself as I'm at work but I thought I'd post them here anyway.

No problem Pete. I did post it in rather a hurry during my excitement at hearing the news. I actualy first heard it from Notch's (the creator of Minecraft) twitter post... I think he got rather excited too.

Been a while since I've been here but once I saw this news I just had to come back and post it here. Firaxis are re-making UFO: Enemy Unknown ... aka X-COM: UFO Defense... and they're calling it XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Rock Paper Shotgun article: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/05...-enemy-unknown/

* wanders in covered in cobwebs and dust * Wow, this place has changed a lot. How long have I been asleep?

Game arrived on the doormat a day before UK release. Started playing early that evening and next thing I knew it was 1am in the morning. Did the same thing the day after. Last time that happened to me was when I first played Civilization. It does have it's flaws but damn it's addictive.

Nah, it was definatly paypal. I got the original message when I tried to log onto my account. It basicaly told be my account was deactivated due to unusual activity and told me to fill out an online form to reactivate it. I did that and then it told me to phone them to authorise the account. That's what started the e-mail coversation with them.

I used to have a PayPal account, until they canceled it due to "unusual activity on the account". Ok, so I hadn't used it for about 3 months but how do they call that "unusual activity"? After various e-mails I basicaly got told that the only way to reactivate my account was to call a premium rate phone number and give them various personal details, including my CC card number. My response to them basicaly began with the letter F and ended with Off. Not had an account with them since and I don't plan to have one any time in the future.

I'm with slaughter on this. I've been waiting for a remake of Colonization for a LONG time.

I said exactly the same thing about 6-8 years ago with ATI when they had really crappy drivers and they caused me no end of hassle. I switched to nVidia cards and now look at the turn-around. nVidia now have the bad drivers and ATI have probably some of the best around. You need to be careful when saying you'll never buy something from one company just because of a bad experience. You can never tell how good that comapny's future products will be, nor the ones of the company you currently buy from.

I'm still excited about Spore and definatly looking forward to it. I think what will make this game great is the same thing that made The Sims great. It's the fact that you are playing with a creature/person that YOU created, not something that the creators of the game have simply given you. As Will Wright says, it's the fact that you yourself are creating the story, not the game creators themselves, is what makes it fun. The RTS game that is the Tribe and Civilision part of Spore is simple because it doesn't need to be complex. They are but a small part of the game, they arn't supposed to be played on their own like a game of C&C or Warcraft. The Space phase is more like a God game where you can do anything you want. If you don't want to conqure the galaxy then you don't have to. If you want to stay in your little corner of the galaxy and teraform the plants around you and settle them peacefuly theny ou can. If you want to destroy every other creature in the galaxy then you can. It's your choice, do what you want. A great game can be made of mediocre parts as the XCom games shows. On it's own the tactical game isn't that good. On it's own the geoscope part isn't a good strategy game. But combine them and XCom becomes a legendary game. The "player creating the story" part of Spore also exists to an extent in the XCom games. They are YOUR soldiers that you've taken through the game, it's your base you've built up as time goes on. You're telling their story as you go through the game, and you feel for them when they get injured or killed. Just as it will be with Spore.

Review scores are pretty much pointless anyway IMO. I think Yahtzee put's the point across about scores quite well in his video article here: Zero Punctuation

Never had a problem with youtube links in Live Messenger before, in fact I sent one to my friend yesterday with no problems. One thing I do know it blocks is a message that is just a link on it's own, which is done in order to block spam.

PC version is not confirmed yet as far as I aware. It was going to be a 360 only game but Sony complained and so Rockstar ported it to the PS3. It was also delayed at the same time so it could be launched on both consoles at the same time. I believe another one of Sony's "requests". This is also the reason why the 360 version has better graphics than the PS3 version (the game wasn't originaly written to take full advantage of the PS3's graphics), and also why extra downloadable content will definatly be available on the 360 but as of yet, unconfirmed on the PS3. That and the fact that the PS3 is STILL lacking a decent way to handle downloadable content. I've got the 360 version and while I wouldn't give it a 10/10, as some reviews have done, I'd still give it a 9/10.

While on my miscellaneous wanderings of the net, I came across this little news item on Kotaku about a rumour running in the latest Official XBox Magazine. One can only hope it's true...