Mullet with headlights

In case you forgot how much the 80's sucked ... even the stuff you liked:

OK ... I'm interested

First, a tip of the hat to Terminator: Salvation for the very helpful reminder that you can't trust trailers fer shit. That said, the E3 trailer for Pandemic's Saboteur, a WWII stealth game due out this year, has a couple of things going for it. One, the choice of music is outstanding. Two, it has an uncommon competence of style.

And three, I've never, ever seen a glass of whiskey rendered this well:

Out with the new, in with the old

"Govno! Not another sandvich!"

On top of some fixes for the Spy, the latest Team Fortress 2 update restores the previous achievement/milestone system for unlocking the new gear for Spies and Snipers. The random drop system is still in place, but those of us that haven't picked up much of anything so far can get our stuff in the "traditional" way now.

This is good news, as far as I'm concerned. I liked the old system, as it gave me a reason to give a damn about getting achievements. I'd rather earn that shiny new thingy, rather than just hoping it drops in my lap at some point.

Make music

I've already wasted too much time on this. You really have to work hard to make something that sucks.

You can right-click on the flash window and copy the tune you've created, then paste it in a text document. You can then paste the text-string back into the flash.

If you come up with anything cool, post it in the comments.

Perfect realism, in a decade or so

From Shack News:

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney now estimates that videogame graphics will reach the point of realism in as little as 10-15 years.

When asked for an estimate on movie-like photorealism by Gamasutra, Sweeney replied: "Probably 10-15 years for that stuff, which isn't far at all. Which is scary--we'll be able to saturate our visual systems with realistic graphics at that point."

"We're only about a factor of a thousand off from achieving all that in real-time without sacrifices," he said. "So we'll certainly see that happen in our lifetimes; it's just a result of Moore's Law."

While graphical fidelity might be perfected, Sweeney noted that mastering actual human realism will be a more daunting task.

"There's another problem in graphics that's not as easily solvable," he added. "It's anything that requires simulating human intelligence or behavior: animation, character movement, interaction with characters, and conversations with characters."

Sweeney explained that simulating human behavior is not "a matter of computational power," saying that "we just don't have the algorithms; we don't know how the brain works or how to simulate it."

"And if you could simulate it all, how could you train it to be realistic like a human? Those problems are probably decades away from being solved. Those are things that may not occur in our lifetimes."

BioShock 2 due on November 3

So Shack News tells me.

Save your money, or burn it, but whatever you do ...

... don't buy what Grin are selling:

It's easy to be bitter about seeing Grin's name at the beginning of a game. This is the developer behind the recent Wanted movie tie-in, the updated Bionic Commando, and now Terminator Salvation. These are three big-name licenses, and each one is ripe with potential and promise. What have we seen? Grin has squandered them all, never rising above a "Rent" rating.

ArsTechnica's full review is here, but the opening says all that needs to be said. Well, except for this: "You can beat it in under five hours, if you take your time."

This is why it pays to remember the names of developers and publishers. If you don't have a blacklist in your head when you're scanning the shelves for something new to play, you'll have no one to blame but yourself when you get burned.

I speak from experience.

TF2: growing pains

Since May 21's mega-update, Valve have released two additional sets of bug plugs (on May 22 and again today). Nothing, as yet, for the new unlock system, which many are finding to be rather stingy.

For the moment, it seems that the only solution to a perpetually empty backpack is to sit idle on a VAC-secured server for several hours at a clip.

Modern Warfare 2 trailer

The marketing onslaught begins: