That seems really scketchy to me... I get Gamestop helps the industry, but why is Sony giving away consoles to their managers? I think Gamestop should decline the gift, as accepting it destroys any sense of credibility the store managers would have when selling games to people.
I still don't see what makes this game special or unique. Just looks like a generic action game that happens to be set in ancient Rome that has pretty graphics. Not exactly something I'm going to go out of my way to buy.
The features getting cut aren't a big deal. I don't know of any unions I'd consider active, and I never was a user created board type person. I'm a little disappointed emblems and levels are going away, but I'll reserve judgement until I see what will eventually replace them. I'm interested to see what features will be added to the new Gamespot, and hopefully it's better than Fuse, which I don't know if anyone actually uses.
Always-online should never be a requirement outside of games like MMO's that are designed to be played that way. Perhaps SimCity was designed that way to a degree, but I when I look at the game I see online cooperative city building as something that should be an option, not a requirement. The real motivation is to stop piracy, but I'm not convinced that will ever happen. Instead, leave the player the option to play offline if they desire, and focus not on technology that punishes the honest consumer, but on building the trust and good will that builds a fan base that wants to pay for your games rather than pirate them.
If gaming continues down the path of treating the customer like a potential criminal and restricting a practice pretty much every other industry on Earth deals with in used product sales, I may have to call it quits with gaming. Gaming is probably my favorite hobby but I can't condone these business practices by giving these companies my money no matter how much I may enjoy the games.
Just a question to pose: how does DLC effect the games as art argument, if at all? If Mass Effect 3 is a work of art, does adding to it change the piece of art it represents as a whole, or does DLC act as art of its own, or is it even art at all? Mass Effect 3 will certainly be expanded upon multiple times before it fades away, and some of that DLC could play off the controversial ending in some way for all we know, which could have been part of Bioware's plan all along. If something like that happened, how would that change things, and would the artistic work of Mass Effect 3 be compromised?
All those screenshots look kind of blurry to me.... not sure why. The games seem to look better on my TV than they do in these screens. But that aside, I think Reach looks a little bit better. The vehicles have more detail to them in some cases, and in others the simplified look is superior to the slightly jaggy look of some of Halo 3's vehicles. The environments look only a slight bit better, nothing really stands out. All in all, while I think Reach is a bit better, Halo 3 looks almost as good. If I played one game, and then the other, I probably wouldn't notice any difference between them.
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