I would like to see a required post by the Game Reviewer **BEFORE** they start playing the game. The post gets it's own section in the final review post. The post should answer this question, "What are my expectations of this game?" Then the review should hit on all the points mentioned in the expectations.

What you expect out of a game may be very different from what the reviewer was expecting. It is important to set the stage, identify where the bar is set, before going off on how some game is not up to your high expectations.

For example, Eye of Judgement. It may get the same score as a game like R&C, but that doesn't mean they are equally as fun/quality. If you ask any reviewer of EoJ about their expectations, they will say they figured it would be a simple card game with good depth and pretty on screen animations for the actions you take. Some reviewers maybe expected more out of the online experience than others, which mostly explains the ups and downs of the scores between the main review sites. But a game like R&C tends to have a wider array of expectations. Some reviewers are expecting the game to be simply the best game in the series but did not to differ from the formula set in the previous volumns. But then you have the other end of the spectrum where the reviewer is not terribly entertained in general by platformers and expected the PS3 debut of the series to be an experiment in change and vastly different than the tone and gameplay of the PS2 erra of the series.

I honestly believe forcing the reviewers to post a little paragraph about what they are expecting from the game they are about to review before they play will help to justify and explain the review. To say a review is just opinion makes it useless as information to be used for purchase decisions. Yet to say a review is not based on opinion is simply a lie. But with a little more information about the reviewer's and what he/she expects will help make the review more usefull. In the old system, you at least had the Tilt to help you identify the harsh reviewers from the "Everything's a 10" reviewer.

Not to mention, a few little points about expectations of a game will help make the writing of the actual review go faster. Kinda like an outline helps you write an essay.

I would like to see a required post by the Game Reviewer **BEFORE** they start playing the game. The post gets it's own section in the final review post. The post should answer this question, "What are my expectations of this game?" Then the review should hit on all the points mentioned in the expectations.

What you expect out of a game may be very different from what the reviewer was expecting. It is important to set the stage, identify where the bar is set, before going off on how some game is not up to your high expectations.

For example, Eye of Judgement. It may get the same score as a game like R&C, but that doesn't mean they are equally as fun/quality. If you ask any reviewer of EoJ about their expectations, they will say they figured it would be a simple card game with good depth and pretty on screen animations for the actions you take. Some reviewers maybe expected more out of the online experience than others, which mostly explains the ups and downs of the scores between the main review sites. But a game like R&C tends to have a wider array of expectations. Some reviewers are expecting the game to be simply the best game in the series but did not to differ from the formula set in the previous volumns. But then you have the other end of the spectrum where the reviewer is not terribly entertained in general by platformers and expected the PS3 debut of the series to be an experiment in change and vastly different than the tone and gameplay of the PS2 erra of the series.

I honestly believe forcing the reviewers to post a little paragraph about what they are expecting from the game they are about to review before they play will help to justify and explain the review. To say a review is just opinion makes it useless as information to be used for purchase decisions. Yet to say a review is not based on opinion is simply a lie. But with a little more information about the reviewer's and what he/she expects will help make the review more usefull. In the old system, you at least had the Tilt to help you identify the harsh reviewers from the "Everything's a 10" reviewer.

Not to mention, a few little points about expectations of a game will help make the writing of the actual review go faster. Kinda like an outline helps you write an essay.

I spent a bit of time on the 2k8 and Live08 demos before deciding to get 2k8.

I can say the 2k8 game looks and plays pretty much the same as the demo. But you can turn off the tilty support on the free throws and just use the shot stick.

Now, there is no cross over button, but you can do a cross over. Try just tapping the boost button (r2) while changing directions with the left stick. Layup, just tap the shot stick up at an angle left or right for a left or right handed layup. If you have boost (r2) pressed and/or the lane to the hoop is free you will do a power or finesse dunk instead of a layup.

It is a little strange when you want a dunk and you get a jump shot, or try a layup but lunge for a dunk, but it mostly does what would make sense for the player to do given the situation.

The graphics on the player faces may be better in live08, but animations are so much better on 2k8. Besides, the camera where it is I don't see player faces often enough to care.

Off the ball (L1) controls, the Defense stick (right analog) waving hands around and the Lock on D (L2) make the 2k8 gameplay pretty complete but it's gonna take some getting used to since the manual sucks.

edit your desktop shortcut.

"C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\BF2.exe" +menu 1 +widescreen 1 +szx 1920 +szy 1200

First off, I'm not a PS3 fanboy. I am a programmer. I have been writing code since MS first stole DOS.

I just like the ideas behind what the CELL can do, not just for gamming but for Cell phones, appliances, and other devices.

No the CELL is not able to become a fully functioning standalone graphics card replacement. BUT it can be programmed to handle the same functionality the a GPU can do. It is in fact designed specifically to handle graphics type calculations best. The same way your GPU encodes and decodes video, a Cell can do that. The way a GPU renders a 3d environment, a cell can do that. Again, is it better than a real GPU? No, or else Sony wouldn't have put the RSX in the box with it. But it is CAPABABLE of doing it. It doesn't have the extra shaders, fast access memory, or other "amenities" you get on the graphics card along side of the actual GPU.

"A graphics card's processor, called a graphics processing unit (GPU), is similar to a computer's CPU. A GPU, however, is designed specifically for performing the complex mathematical and geometric calculations that are necessary for graphics rendering."

I never said that the PS3's Cell system is "Better" than PC, I just said you will be able to see the differences between them better after more programmers figure out how to best code the cell SPE's to handle specific calculations faster than an x86 can.

A Cell SPE can be and is currently being used for physics, AI, Sound, Graphics, and even assisting in network communications. This is NOT a "probably" or "extremely unlikely".

Now, is the Cell handling all these systems better than an x86 right now? No. It does better at some things than others.

I think you are taking what I'm saying as some kind of F-U to x86/PC/Xbox360 and that is just not what I am about. I think every technology has it place. The Cell has some nice new things to play with that developers will find plenty of things to love about it once they get past the initial learning curve. And as a programmer myself, I am more interested in where that can lead us, than I am interested in putting down the old architechtures. In the home PC world, x86 is KING, just ask Apple who finally learned their lesson. But the x86 way is not the best way for everything.

So who is really the fanboy here?

You the "My way or the highway" consumer?

Or me, the "Everything has it's place to shine" programmer?

This is a "No Contest" discussion and you are all WRONG!! haha!

The most important controller of all time is the first one. It had the burden of proving the concept.

I don't agree that the PC blows the Cell/RSX out of the water.

It's all about programming.

Which is better? Having four identical CPU's so you can program with the same theories accross all your systems (Sound, Graphics, AI, Particles, Physics, etc.) and just have 4 places they can run and spawn threads. (XBox360/PC method)

Or would you get more out a system of 7 Cell processors that can be reprogramed to be functionally different but share a single main core? (PS3/Cell) The benifit is in the reprogrammablitiy of the Cell and it's raw power.

So you can write your main game thread, a sound engine, a physics engine, and an AI engine and put them on identical CPU's and they work as best they can. (Xbox360/PC)

Or you can write the main game thread, reprogram a cell to do cloth and hair physics calutions 10x faster than the x86 CPU could ever calculate those numbers, reprogram a cell to be a GPU to assist in rendering (acting like SLI/Crossfire), take a Cell to do AI calculations, take a Cell and convert it to do sound filters, take a cell and reprogram it to do terrain deformation, each of these reprogrammed Cell engines will handle the calculations much faster then the generic/compatible x86 methods. However, they are all tied to a single CPU main core. (PS3/Cell)

So right now, games are designed with x86 methods so you can put out PC/xbox versions out about the same time. Then they port that to ps3 and the single main core isn't designed to handle a ton of threads. But in the end, once people learn how to really take advantage of the Cell power the dramatic differences between architechtures will be more visible to the consumer.

But it's all about the programmers, and they desire to break away from the confort zone of the PC/x86 and think a little different.

I can't speak for Gothic, but Oblivion works fine on Vista. Even if it's not Officially supported.

Most people's so called "Problems" with Vista are not really issues with the OS.

I suggest getting something like TweakVista from Stardock and have it turn off some of the services you don't need to improve perfomance in Vista, but most XP games work in Vista just fine without these changes.

Also, you can try and set the properties on the EXE (right click on EXE, click properties) and have Vista use one of the compatiablity modes and have the game run as an administrator.