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He knows the grass is greener over in Playstation Land.
More dedicated people here.
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So I picked up Hitman: Blood Money a couple of days ago and have been playing it off and on since. It's a very good game, and exceptional at times when you consider it came out 6 years ago. I can see how if Absolution does things right, it will be fantastic. The freedom that you have even in this game feels like it could be expanded upon so well with the right tech (i.e. -- not being what is basically an HD PS2 game). I got my first silent assassin on the opera mission and just the shit you can do to complete it is awesome.
Opera dude (target 1) is rehearsing his execution scene, I swapped out the executor's gun with blanks with a gun with real bullets in, opera dude gets shot, opera dude's buddy (target 2) realizes he's actually dead and not acting and comes running down the auditorium frantically, trips, and I detonate a bomb that is attached to the light structure above him. Light structure falls, killing him too, I walk away without anyone even knowing I was there.
The downside? This took about 4 restarts to pull off perfectly. Ah, stealth games. How I love to hate you.Comment
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E3 2012: How Samsung Joined the Console Wars
Owners of Samsung TVs will be able to play top games like Mass Effect 3 via a free streaming service.
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft aren't the only companies in the games hardware business. The newest entrant is Samsung, the world's biggest manufacturer of TV sets. But Samsung isn't launching a dedicated games 'console'. It's making war on the incumbent powers in gaming by simply adding a cloud service to its newest generation of Internet-connected TV sets.
Anyone who owns a new Samsung TV will be offered a games service app and, assuming they have a PC-standard controller, will be able to play a selection of games via the TV. The service, from cloud gaming company Gaikai, offers up playable demos and trials of games, and the consumer can then pay to stream the full game. Publishers set the prices of games. It's not unlike watching a movie on Amazon Instant Video. Games available on Gaikai include Mass Effect 3, Rayman Origins, The Witcher 2 and FIFA 2012.
Gaikai's CEO David Perry (a game designer himself, he's best remembered for creating '90s platform mascot Earthworm Jim) says all TVs in the near future will come with Internet-connected games streaming services and, like games consoles, with joypads as part of the hardware offering.
He says, "I would expect the TVs in the future to include controllers. I'd be stunned if they don't put controllers in with all the TVs. So it'll just become a piece of the packaging, you know? You'll get your remote control and you'll get your game controller."
Since it launched in 2008, Gaikai has managed to secure content deals with leading games publishers including EA, Capcom and Ubisoft and distribution deals with the likes of Wal-Mart, which runs Gaikai-powered playable demos via its online game center. Gaikai's games library is also streamed via Facebook and YouTube. Back at CES, the firm also announced a deal to run a games streaming service through LG TVs. Also at CES, notoriously, its (then) chief product officer Nanea Reeves predicted that at least one console company would be dropping out of the hardware game by the end of this generation.
OnLive, a rival to Gaikai, has also been busy with its streaming service, offering its service via Google TV, for example. Recent rumors have suggested that a games streaming deal might be imminent with Sony. And Apple has long been rumored to be entering both the TV and the streaming games business with one strike. That company's Tim Cook recently confirmed that Apple would not be launching a console, but when asked about games-enabled TV he said, "It could be interesting."
Although games-streaming TVs seem like Kryptonite to dedicated games machines, Perry is not predicting the imminent death of consoles. He says they still have a role to play, and are becoming useful entertainment hubs. But with cloud-gaming overcoming business and technical hurdles, the clock is ticking on dedicated gaming boxes. "Long-long-long-term, everything will end up in the TV" he says. "At some point it all goes into the TV. But that's looking out quite far."
He adds, "Samsung are number one in the world, so to get them to commit to cloud gaming is a big milestone. This is their cloud gaming strategy. They are now going to participate in gaming properly, and that's a big milestone for them too."
Perry says entertainment companies outside the games business are tired of pressing their noses against the windows. "I keep reminding the set-top box companies, the digital TV makers that Call of Duty was the biggest entertainment launch in history, and they didn't get a cent out of it. They didn't participate in any way. That's going to continue unless they embrace cloud gaming, it's the only way they're ever going to get the state-of-the-art games onto their devices."
But he also argues that there's an even bigger win for games companies. "My analogy is Avatar, which was on everything, every tablet, every set-top box. Call of Duty was not on any set-top box, any digital TV, the real game doesn't work on any tablet. All these devices failed to support the games business. And that's a bit sad. You look at a game like World of Warcraft, and that isn't even supported by our consoles. Even the game industry doesn't support World of Warcraft, it's just riding on the PC."
There's always one issue that proponents of cloud-gaming face - lag. Perry explains Gaikai's approach which, he argues, is a plan of action that brings more improvement every time a big player like Samsung gets involved. "We've launched 24 data centers. The closer you are to our servers, the faster the connection. The more data centers we add, the more economical the whole network becomes, and the better the experience for the users."
He adds, "If you don't have a fantastic ping right now, you will have one, because we're actually collecting all the data and we're working out where to put the next data centers to keep giving more and more people faster connections. It's an ongoing thing. This is still the early days of cloud gaming to some extent, but very quickly, you can see the adoption picking up. These aren't small companies, these are some of the biggest companies in the world getting behind it. So you can imagine that that spread is going to be pretty rapid."
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NO TROPHIES!!!
:brown:Comment
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That seems like a pretty big catch for Samsung considering almost everyone thought Gakai was on the verge of being acquired by Sony.E3 2012: How Samsung Joined the Console Wars
Owners of Samsung TVs will be able to play top games like Mass Effect 3 via a free streaming service.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/...e-console-warsComment
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I just beat Assassins Creed 2 last night and then 100% the game and got all the achievements today.
Should I play Darksiders, Alan Wake, or start the God of War Collection?Comment
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just picked up diablo 3 and arkham city game of the year edition
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