What vitriol?

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So about $1.50 an hour worth of an enjoyment. About the same as most people got out of most games. I don’t see how this is worth the amount of vitriol you’re spewing about it.

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When I was given the chance to work with some of the finest videogame journos in Portugal, I was kinda held back. Since I always thought of myself as a talentless hack (and in videogame writing, too), I figured my jig would be up pretty soon. These were people who kept a previous magazine in circulation for over 10 years. These were people who worked on another short-lived project that gathered tremendous good will and talent, including Kieron himself as a correspondant. I was a guy that ranted on RPG Codex about the purity of number crunching. This was so not going to last.

Yet, the fourth edition of the mag is already out and I’m still part of the staff. I’ve even gotten a semblance of a salary, with more coming my way if I pour my heart and soul into it. There’s always two sides, really. I’ve already had my fair share of fame and infamy, with people on message boards claiming my articles were something of an eye-opener or pointless controversy. It makes you feel warm inside but also wakes you at night. They’re on to you, waiting to draw that dagger. Meanwhile, I’m out partying with the PR of Nintendo at Portugal, getting my first taste of exclusive games, meeting like-minded fellow gamers and people who’ve been writing about games in their own unique ways.

It’s going to be one hell of a ride but it’s true – nothing beats that moment when you first got the ticket.

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Or indeed, the fact that noone involved actually looks Persian? I thought the whole “300″ kerfuffle was a bit silly, but if you’re going to set a film in a named country, at least have some people who look vaguely like they may be from that country.

P.

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They just announced two addon packs, which most successful RTSs are getting. Not every race having its own campaign in SCII isn’t a disaster either, it didn’t exactly hurt DoW as well, isn’t it?

L4D2 seems to become more popular with the Xbox360 crowd, not a good thing if you ask me because any extra L4D content has to be released on both platforms simultaneously by MS’s demand. Clarity on those issues (is there a max amount of DLC the PC and thus also the Xbox360 version of L4D can receive? Or will some if it be shipped with L4D2?) is what inspired the boycot, Valve have only themselves to blame by being so incredibly vague all the time.

I am buying the sequel but I can’t fault anyone for feeling a bit betrayed. Keeping up the boycot after new promises were made (“something” is coming, sigh) isn’t useful anymore imo, also because yeah, L4D2 looks good. But just taking it all in like nothing is wrong (which even the PC press are doing now without blinking) while nearly every paid reviewer clearly mentioned new campaigns were on the way… talk about selectively forgetting your own writings. There’s a lot of stuff wrong with the current L4D campaigns (closet camping) which are going to be fixed in the new L4D2 campaigns. Will those fixes ever come to the original game? So many questions, so Valve.

Again, announcing L4D2 at the Xbox360 conference didn’t help things at all, it only steered the direction of the franchise even more to consoles (proof are these stats) and that’s something we all have to worry about because games coverage in general these days is already way too centered enough on console titles as it is and any platform where people see paid DLC as a standard… it’s giving me shivers.

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The reasons behind that bit are dead-on for me as well. Recently started to see my name in print in PC Gamer, and I’m really glad the buzz doesn’t wear off, even after ten plus years doing it.

Something about the blast of information that print magazines provide stays special – blogs and websites are important, sure, but it’s a dripfeed of information, something to keep the sugar levels up. The monthly print outpouring is something to be looked forward to, to be savoured.

For me, anyway. I couldn’t cope with only online games writing sources, but so much of my writing and taste has been informed by wonderful magazines and writers – PCG, Super Play and N64 Magazine in particular.

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Granted, some of them are dumb, like moving an embargo and messing up editorial planning, but still, it does need someone to sift through the shit and remove the whinier, less reasonable complaints.

Actually, one of the stupider embargoes I saw was for a Nature paper on the most distant quasar found. Firstly, who gives a shit about quasars, and if they break an embargo over one? Secondly, this embargo was printed above the entire paper, for free to anyone, on the online repository arXiv.

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Somewhere in the ballpark of 30, why? I played about 20 hours on the original maps, and managed to squeeze another 10-ish out of survival mode when it came out. I should probably go have a look at the SDK stuff now that the modders have had a little time to work. I’m sure the L4D2 announcement is stifling output to some degree but I’m sure there are some things worth playing anyway. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s the gameplay I (and my friends) are tired of or just the shortage of maps.

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Just out of curiousity, how many hours have you played Left4Dead, total? Just a rough estimate — hours per week, number of weeks you’ve had the game.

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