PixlBit

Big WT fan and this is one of the best concert DVDs I've ever seen, it's a great experience and very well done. It's hard to imagine Sharon was sick when she went on stage to perform this. She's my favorite singer, and even when she's sick she seems to knock it out of the park.

Before Halo 4 came out I finished Cryptum which I loved. Now I need to get Primordium and Silentium, oh and The Thursday War too. So far I've read Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx, Glasslands, and Cryptum. I'm also missing the Harvest one, but for now I want to focus on getting up to speed with Greg Bears series and the Kathrine Traviss series.

As soon as I get the chance I'm going to buy the box set with the first four books of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, so I may have to take a break from the Halo novels. We have a little time before Halo 5 comes along, so I'll have some time to get Primordium, Silentium, and Thursday War in at some point.

You're the man. It was just yesterday I was on Amazon looking at this game and I didn't know anything about it but I thought it looked really interesting. I wanted to know what it was like and I wanted to hear from people who played it and behold you do a blog and review of it lol. I trust your reviews because I know you love strategy games, simulation games, and you have a lot of experience with them. I've never played any of the games in this series before, maybe this is the game to get me into it?

I really want to see the economy system they built for the game. I need to learn more about how these systems work, and it sounds like the people who make Port Royale really know what they're doing. I want to get this game as soon as I can, I believe this will be a perfect type of game for me to have over the summer you know? When things get slow and quiet in the gaming world and we all look for something to play, I'd like to add this game to my collection so I can study it over summer and enjoy it. Love the reviews, keep it up!

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how cool the suspend/resume feature sounds. I need to see it in action, it sounds like a huge improvement to user experience. I hate the process of booting, signing in, loading games, waiting for logos, loads, and doing a handful of things just to get to the main menu, then load my game and wait to get into the game. Anything that gets between me and the start button gets annoying over time for me. The ability to just suspend the game, turn off the system, walk away, come back later and jump right in with the press of the resume button would be a great improvement in the user experience for me.

Glad that Tomb Raider has apparently turned out so good. I've really liked what I've heard about the combat systems, the bow, the ability to silence the pistol, rope arrows, and the like. I think it sounds like a lot of fun, I would like to get around to playing the game some time.

It's cool you liked Deus Ex Human Revolution, I recently finished it after taking a break from it for a while. I really enjoyed the game a lot and they earned a bit of respect from me and showed they can make a really nice stealth action game. Do you have any thoughts on them (SquareEnix/Eidos) making the next Thief game? I personally don't have much experience with the Thief franchise so I'm trying to learn more about it from Thief fans. I set up an account on Good Old Games recently and I'm going to buy and play through some of the old Thief PC games because I've heard a lot of good things about them.

I understand what you mean and I agree. Developers and publishers should know what they're trying to sell and give it what it needs. Ambitious design demands ambitious testing. The only part of your comment that I disagree with is using Blizzard as an example, you shouldn't use them or even Valve as an example of how to test right and release right. Those two companies are unique and exceptional in their circumstances. They both have steady money streams from STEAM and WoW. They take all the time they want, and they spend as much money as they can afford to as long as they allocate the resources from the money stream appropriatelty. Technically they can develop a game indefinitely for all time as long as their money streams continue to bring in resources that can be allocated to development.

Most companies don't have the security, flexibility, and money streams Valve and Blizzard have. What I would say is that developers and publishers need to be smarter about their budgets and about their expectations. People who want to make a Skyrim style game, which is not only complex in the system design and quantity, but is huge in the narrative design and quanity, should have equally ambitious testing demands. If you're going to make a huge game, give a huge testing effort. Know your expectations, know your budget, and if you can't give the proper testing needs, don't make the huge game.

The sad thing is that in the current age, if you don't have internet you're likely in the minority and most companies can probably afford to loose your business. If you tell them, "What if I don't have internet?" they may tell you, "Then get it and play the game. If you don't, I guess we will have to be okay with the millions of other consumers that do". I don't like always online requirements in games, I won't be playing Sim City, I'll stick with Sim City 3000 or Sim City 4 but as internet becomes more accessible the connection requirements may be more common. I hope that always online games are a minority of games in the coming generations. Going online should be an option, not a requirement, especially for single player games. If I'm trying to have a single player experience in solitude I shouldn't have to have internet, access a server, turn down a mailing list offer, and do 3 different things before I even press the "Start Story/Campaign" option in the menu.

Skyrim is such a fantastic game when it's working, which is a big reason why I think that relying on day one patches and releasing excessively buggy games is terrible. Because of the type of game Skyrim is, they should've put even more time into testing, the game needed it. Just because we have the modern infrastructure and can do day one patches and release games that aren't tested well enough, doesn't mean we should. They did a lot of testing at Bethesda, they fixed a lot of bugs, but it obviously wasn't enough. With these types of system heavy games that are purpose built for emergent gameplay, emergent narrative, plus embedded gameplay, and embedded narrative all in massive quantities, these games are different from your 12 hour linear adventure. These games need the extra love and time, you have to pay for it, and put the extra time into testing. The game would've still sold gangbusters anyways, it did even when it released buggy. I doubt another month or so of testing would've bankrupted the company, they should've just put more time into it. The design of the game demands it, and you should do what's best for the game.

All games release with bugs, the only differences are in quantity, rarity, and severity. Some people will go 100 hours in a game and it'll be flawless, then one person across the world may have their game be wrecked in some rare bug. If you put more time into testing, chances are you'll reduce the quantity and severity. Every game will always have weird rare bugs nobody can explain, I've heard developers refer to some bugs as "Solar flare bugs" because nobody can figure out a logical reason to why they exist and how to fix them. But with more testing time you can reduce the amount of bugs and severity, release the best product you can, and then patches are there for if the masses find more problems. The point should be to make it as clean as possible and not have to rely on day one patches as the actual "end" of development. Development should end and the game should be as clean as possible before release. Skyrim could've been released cleaner, it should've been released cleaner.

A lot of games, especially the great games, release pretty buggy. Last years GOTY nominations from every site were littered with some of the buggiest GOTY contenders I've seen in a long time. I hope this trend isn't here to stay. I don't want to have great games be suffocated by bugs and an over reliance on day one patches. Gamers are treated like testers when people rely on the day one patches too much. The launch week shouldn't have to be part of the development cycle and gamers shouldn't have to be unpaid testers who are relied upon to report an excessive amount of bugs that may have been found if more time was put into testing. Being the the type of game Skyrim is, it was destined to have bugs, and patches would've been necessary regardless, but the quantity and severity of bugs could've certainly been reduced. If they wanted people to be beta-testers they should've released the game like Minecraft or something and build as they went. If people want to release full priced games they need to be finished and not overly rely on day one patches and the release audience as part of the testing group.

Modern games are better than the games I played as a kid, but there's a catch, user experience has suffered for me in a lot of ways. My games feel less personal, intimate, and engrossing when I have so many online features, distractions, requirements, popups, etc. When I start up Mass Effect 2 and I have to wait 30 seconds for it to connect to some EA server then show me all the latest news and scoops, the game has already lost part of me. ME2 isn't an always online game so I don't know why I bring it up, but it still pisses me off. Anything that comes between me and the start button pisses me off.

The experience is already less appealing as a single player adventure. I should boot the game, wait for no less than 10 seconds to get to the main menu, not have to suffer through a bunch of overly long company logos, get to the menu, and hop into my game as fast as possible. The fact you can patch games is great, it benefits everybody, but day one patches are different, they're using the system wrong. They're using our interconnectivity, user feedback, and the ability to patch as an excuse to cut costs in QA and leave some of the testing up to players.

Jason & the Pixlbits lol, that's actually pretty great. I like it. Or J-bone and the Pixies. Jammer & the Pixies.

There's a lot of good ones, Pixlbits is nice, everybody can use what feels best. I'm going to go with Pixies because it's cute. It makes me want to jiggle everbodies cheeks like Adam Sandler does to that kid in Billy Madison.