“The Special Forces are essentially the ultimate infantry in the modern general's arsenal. You didn't get the SAS abseiling in a tank down the front of the Iranian Embassy back in the counter-terrorist day. However, if you come expecting a radical reworking of Battlefield's mandate, you're in for a disappointment. While the sides are various counter-terrorist groups (SAS, Spetnatz, Green Berets, The Girl Guides) and Evil Members Of The Axis Of Evil (Insurgents, Terrorists, obsessive-single-next-generation-format advocates), expect the same flag-capturing conquest style of play.”

Review - Battlefield 2: Special Forces // PC /// Eurogamer

I don't know whether it's a consequence of the improved graphics in more modern MMOs which don't allow many opponents on screen or the slavish devotion to matching levels which means you should fight one-on-one or you're a bad person, but you don't seem to get things like this in the newer games (or you can't survive them):

“As of today, Account Creation and Billing services have been suspended for AC2. Players can no longer re-subscribe or create new accounts for the game.

Players who currently have subscriptions to AC2 will no longer be billed (effective today, November 28th) but may continue playing through December 30th.”

Asheron's Call 2 Forums - AC2 Billing Shut Down

• Impossibly-thin supermodel character - check
• huge tits - check
• costume that only covers limbs and naughty bits - check
• fake nipple effects - check
• extensive “up-skirt” camera angles - tbc
• male teenage market sewn up?

(thanks Kotaku)

Penny Arcade! - Even PA Has Limits

“WHAT: Nintendo's E3 Media Briefing

WHEN: Briefing begins at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 9, 2006.

WHERE: Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards), Hollywood & Highland Center, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028

WHY: You know why.”

Revolution Unveiled on May 9? - Kotaku

“Revolution Report recently came across a patent filed by Nintendo which may possibly be related to the Virtual Console function of the company's next-generation console, code-named Revolution.”

Revolution Report - news - New Patent Details Virtual Console Interface?

The Movies - A Lionhead Production

(ends with a dance number)

Be glad there aren't any winds in Azeroth (via The Cesspit):

Jonathan Hanna, Turbine: “There are many factors that contributed to AC2’s ultimate fate, and it’s really hard to single one factor out above the others. [...] One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful.”

Raph Koster, SOE: “Well, it helps for [EQ and EQ2] to be different games! We spent a lot of time during development to ensure that EQ2 was its own thing, a concept deserving of its own game while still in the EQ tradition. If it had been just EQ reskinned, I'm sure that it wouldn't have its own fan base that way. But we built it to attract a different audience, and it has.”

I've always said that AC2 was designed to appeal to different players than AC1 was and the marketing efforts directed at AC1 players were a mistake. Not that is was the only, or even the primary, reason for AC2's slow death - but I've never held the belief Turbine should have made AC1 again and it appears Raph agrees. Of course, EQ has suffered a loss of players after EQ2 launched and EQ2 has not seemingly been doing WoW-level numbers, so it may be that EQ's original large subscriber base hides the fact that sequels simply split your community.

Was pootling around in AC, learnding a few spells when one +Turbine Sappho popped into general. Initially I thought it was because a few people had decided to take their petty argument public, but in fact Sappho was after “brave warriors” (and, despite the name, not just female ones). As sort of an apology for, largely, cancelling AC2, sticking AC1 on “hold” whilst they made Throne of Destiny and then inadvertently gutting the development team by closing their Californian office, they've been running live events a lot recently - this was one of them and Sappho wanted people to take part.

Read more »

I didn't find these myself - they turned up in my cottage's chest; I guess left by Casper:

Rares:

I just found the “StarMaker” program that comes with The Movies. In it you can design the look and temperament of your leading actors and actresses. Like the game though it doesn't differentiate on gender issues...

Says Kotaku:

“Lord of the Rings Online has recently announced its player classes: from Burglar to Champion, Lore-Master to Minstrel, they're certainly not going down the usual hunter-ranger-wizard-bard route, at least not quite so obviously, anyway.”

LOTRO: Classes Announced - Kotaku

Hopefully they're being sarcastic since the classes - listed on Turbine's site - are in fact dead-on hunter-ranger-wizard-bard-etc types.

I Picked up Lionhead's The Movies from the Post Office this morning. An interesting concept, half machinima, half The Sims, half Theme Park. You set up a movie studio with sets, script rooms, staff training facilities and lamposts and make movies. There's some degree of micro-management: you have to make your studio look purty or no-one applies to be an actor with you, so you have to keep putting grass down as well as various flim-flams like water fountains and basketball courts. You also need to supply your staff's needs in the areas of intake and output - though having too many dunnies lowers the look of your studio (so far I'm just hiding them behind trees - seems to be working).

You'll need to pamper your stars even more, giving them make-overs and expensive trailers - or they throw hissy-fits. You can also send them to the bar, though there's a chance they'll get addicted to drink or food (but not drugs, because that would be bad™ - so they don't seem to be part of the game).

Once your scripting slaves produce a script, you assign a director (who hopefully has experience in that genre) and a star (likewise) plus any crew or extras the script calls for and they go off and shoot it. You can then view the results - I'm still in the 20s era, so everything's silent anyway, but I don't know if you get any dialogue in later shoots.

One of the amusing things is that, like The Sims, gender is not taken into account for jobs and roles. As a result, I accidently made this lost inter-racial lesbian classic by dropping a female star into the lead role of a romance.

Not long after starting you get the advanced script complex where you can specify the exact scenes for the movie rather than just the genre. I'm not certain how much control you have though - I tried making a Sci-Fi on the Western set and couldn't see how to change costumes at all - the resulting mess I sold to another company for a few thousand dollars. Be interesting if the other game does have that company try and make it...

Six today.