CrumbBum

@grumpyzrp Completely agreed. Early in playing Fallout 3 with my wife, we both noted the soundtrack making it a clear Bethesda game.

+1 on Castlevania having a great soundtrack, too. IMO, I haven't heard anything yet that takes the mantle from the Silent Hill series - the use of sound & silence was absolutely inspired.

For a site-appropriate plug - the recent Joystiq show on soundtracks had fascinating details on game soundtracks, which (apparently) get more composer attention than movie or TV shows.

I'm confused. The article claims this is Skyrim, but each kill wasn't followed by 3 minutes of looting, sorting which item is now the new lowest cost/weight ratio, and dropping just enough to pick up another Leather Jerkin.

-Someone who spent 100+ hours in Morrowind, Oblivion, and the DC Wasteland

Until minutes ago, I didn't think there were good jokes left in the SSB well, particularly after 3 years of near constant mining.

My hat is fully off to BiTF.

Also, you totally mine wells.

@whatisdelicious I applaud Justin for reclaiming the word. For four years, it's only been used to describe "damage".

Too bad this review didn't precede the box design. I'd buy several copies of any game whose bulleted list of features included "strongest punch in the history of punching". Considering the unmitigated punchfest of the 1300s, that is quite an accomplishment.

That is the most effective video game advertisement I have ever seen. Bungie should look into getting Sir Mix a Lot on retainer.

As for games, if I can get 30 minutes of Borderlands in, I'll call it a win.

Through all 20 hours of NG1 and 2, I fist pumped every Izuna Drop.

@Alexisonfire Technically, you could count one of them as a "half" by the end of the game, too.

@Tachyonic Cargo (and PointLessPuppies) - both completely legitimate points. Clearly OnLive have phenominal engineers onhand to develop industry pioneering technology. It is easy to say anything isn't possible and they have proven this is.

The challenge I didn't articulate very well is that their costs have to be high. To compare OnLive to Netflix (admittedly it may not be an apples-apples comparison):

1) Netflix only needs servers capable of serving up bits. OnLive has roughly this same bandwidth need, but also requires consumer hardware. Video cards (at least the ones I've bought :)) do not maintain a heat profile or QOS of traditional server hardware. More flaky hardware in your datacenter will increase costs to stay running.

2) Unless they developed an incredibly deep platform, OnLive servers are likely running a client-targeted OS. Windows server has many notable differences than client in order to reduce downtime and streamline management. Notably: video card drivers are not installed by default, since they are traditionally the least reliable piece of the system. Again, I haven't seen their datacenter, but if they are running client OS in their farm, they are now further from best practices of running a cost-efficient datacenter.

Netflix manages to be a profitable company by extracting ~$8/month minimum. They have the benefit of tremendous scale due to their established customer base. My comment about "Phase 1" was just that they are trying to get enough of a footprint that the fixed costs are offset by the recurring revenue. I would imagine the margins are much thinner for OnLive without introducing comparable monthly fees or ad funding. This is the direction Hulu & Pandora have both gone, which are to their credit hugely successful at attracting users.

Again, this is all conjecture and, as a gamer, I love nothing more than to see innovation succeed. My point was just that it seems the technology may be easier to nail than the business model.

I know phase 1 of the OnLive strategy is to achieve critical mass, but I really doubt the long term viability of their business unless they radically change their pricing model.

Giving away this unit (even if it is only ~$40 for parts + manufacturing) is only rational if they anticipate extracting lots of money from participants over the lifetime of the service. Given their pricing structure and the cost of bandwidth & hardware, I will be surprised (but delighted) if this device is anything other than a piece of history in two years.