doubleyewdee

"Electronista was able to maintain a similar framerate in Portal just by disabling two levels of anti-aliasing."

That's ludicrously bad. Having to turn off AA (I assume you mean 2xAA and not 4xAA) just to get comparable framerates? That's pretty unacceptable. Even having to disable 2xAA essentially means you're getting half the throughput of the gfx subsystem (since 2xAA renders 2x the area to do its AA work). That's not particularly close, if you ask me.

I guess this isn't a gaming blog, but I don't think "all you have to do to get close *on the same hardware* is turn off AA" is gonna fly with people who are serious about gaming. They'll just play on their hw with better performance in Windows.

Yes, well, I will be throwing down with the BBMT Boogie. Top that, McElroy.

Rumor: I just entered the Bone Zone.

Is this a strictly legal arrangement? Especially if Google is found to have a monopoly (natural OR unnatural) in online advertising it may not be legal for them to influence other markets unduly using those dividends (by essentially paying people to exclude their competitors or marginalize them.

Or maybe it is totally legal... anybody actually know?

@coolbho3000 I'd just like to point out that the W3C will require *3* released, conforming implementations of HTML5 in order to ratify the standard. Folks clamoring for everyone to get behind a single rendering engine often forget that if everyone used WebKit, HTML5 could never even be ratified as standard (it's not a standard yet, another thing people don't understand) under the W3C's rules.

This really needs to stop, people who don't understand the standardization process should really stop commenting on it (hint, Engadget). ACID3 continues to test *proposals* and *draft standards* and is not even an official test from the W3C point of view!

@Mack Stone It seems to me that this article is very clear that the pictures were "leaked." There is a big difference between a set of unintentionally leaked pictures and a company "promising" to do something.

Just sayin'.

I'm already >$1k deep (serioously!) into said Rock Band franchise, so news like this warms my heart and makes me feel even better about sticking with HMX.

Really? Gene Simmons? Wow.

Honestly I just can't agree. I haven't touched FF2, but I suspect it has the same issues as FF1 which are embarassing for a $10(!) iPhone game:
- No accelerometer support! Have headphones in and find that holding the phone and using the touch-based d-pad while finagling your fingers around your headphone cable is a pain? Tough! The easy solution of flipping the phone doesn't work in this app. Really, $10, no accelerometer? Really?
- The fonts are painfully small and there is a huge amount of wasted screen space. It's pretty clear FF1 was thoughtlessly ported from a device with a bigger screen without considering the UI implications.
- Fight UI is a real drag. Taps require slow, deliberate holding (it purposefully ignores light taps) which means a lot of needless tapping. A simple "repeat last action" button or even "double tap to attack any enemy" button would have gone a long way.

$10 is too much to pay for a lazy port with a poorly thought-out UI in my opinion. To each his own, but if you really want to play through FF1 you should get it on a more capable system where the experience won't be quite so frustrating.

On the plus (and minus) side, if you hit the home button in mid-fight the game will bail out to the overhead map and your position just prior to entering combat. It's a great "oh crap bad fight" button. On the other hand, the same is true when you get a phone call or switch out for any other reason -- if you're mid fight, your progress has been nuked. Again, this just strikes me as lazy/bad porting.

I've always wanted a box full of stuff.

Good job pointing out that it was one of several attack vectors used. Excellent, balanced reporting here.