| UPDATED!
You thought the two-strip week was bad -- how'd
you like the no-strip week? Yeah, I'm ready to take it to the next level,
any time, any place. Boo-yah, suckers.
So, boring explanation for my absence short
-- ended up having to go outta town, came back, then took care of some pressing
deadlines. Not that I COULDN'T have been fighting a pack of nun-abducting
terrorists if I'd really wanted to.
Anyways, the gears are back to running, so
-- cross your fingers.
In the news -- hardcore 24-year-old gamer Adam
Mapleson of the UK took a bullet in the chest trying to defend a female security
guard from a couple of muggers. He's in stable condition, right now, and
whether the major news outlets will make as big a deal of this as they do
when a former Counter-Striker goes mad and starts picking off classmates,
one thing's for sure -- giving or receiving, we videogamers sure do love
us some bullets.
Also new -- well, as of last week, anyways
--
screenshots
from Grand Theft Auto 4! In particular, check out the level of detail
going on under the bridge in
this
shot. The PS2-era Grand Theft Auto titles were VERY advanced,
technologically, but always got flack because they didn't look as
good as other 'driving' games. I'm happy that this avenue of criticism will
no longer be open in the next-gen iteration.
Not that I'm against criticism -- the GTA series'
dramatic writing, for instance, really could use some major work -- but I
thought the whole graphics argument was unjustified, since people were looking
at the game against, like, Gran Turismo, which is technologically similar
only in that they both have virtual cars, and virtual people are conveyed
in them. Otherwise, we're talking a game consisting of closed courses further
split up into individual levels, and a game featuring an entire state's worth
of land, streamed seamlessly on the fly, in which driving is only one of
numerous gameplay components. GTA wasn't as pretty as Gran Turismo, but in
terms of graphics technology, Gran Turismo is pulling a rabbit out of a hat,
while GTA is making the Taj Mahal disappear, then reappear upside down, balanced
at its topmost spire on the shell of a single sea-turtle.
I'm also looking forward to Fable 2, but I'll
get to that later.
| Norm's Link-o-th'-Moment: |
| Drew's Script-O-Rama |
| Home of the original, better
"Day of the Dead" script! |
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