The Souljourner

It is really too bad that Nintendo decided to skimp so much on the hardware this time around. I really don't understand it. I get that it's all about gameplay.... but why can't it be about gameplay *and* have decent graphics? If they'd debuted the Wii at $299 and had some modern hardware in there and maybe a slightly slimmer profit margin, does anyone doubt it would have been any less successful? I don't.

Graphics aren't everything, but come on... a 2D platformer tasks the hardware enough to not allow voice communication? That's some seriously weak sauce.

You obviously haven't played the first game. The claim to fame is not that it has great graphics (though it does). It's that it has a great story, really great gameplay, and more than anything else, fantastic dialogue and acting (not just voice acting, but also facial expressions and body language during voice acting).

Is it superficially similar to Tomb Raider? Absolutely. And a Model T is superficially similar to a Ferrari.

Hear hear! Uncharted is still the best game on the PS3. Not that there aren't many other good ones, but damn, Uncharted was awesome. The story, the action, the acting, the graphics, the gameplay. So damn polished and so well done. I can't wait for this one, because I know that, unlike almost every other game out there ---

It. Will. Be. Just. As. Good. As. It. Looks.

They specified in the post that they weren't allowed to show pictures of the screen or setup. Take their descriptions to heart - they said it worked amazingly well, far better than you'd expect. I was really skeptical before this post, since all I'd seen was the obviously scripted demo video, and my personal experience with Sony Eye games (which suck). But this sounds like it's the real deal. It's the IR that makes it believable. You can blast out a powerful beam of IR so that the machine doesn't require a ton of light or contrast. Brilliant, really. And this coming from a Sony fanboy.

I'd love to see Natal in a real world situation. How well is it going to track a black guy in a black shirt and blue jeans in front of his navy blue couch with the lights dimmed? My guess? Not at all.

Sony has had several camera-only games in its arsenal... they all sucked, because the imaging technology just isn't good enough.

It is all about the games, that's totally true.. and so far Sony has failed with PSEye games. Total bunch of crap, besides the Eye of Judgment, which, while a neat idea, didn't have enough play to be terribly interesting, and the eye is pretty much completely unnecessary for the game.

Here's to hoping for better games... but I wouldn't count on it. Look at what nintendo has done with their entire system dedicated to it. The best games barely even use motion control.

Very difficult to do in indoor lighting situations. You tread the line between depth of field being too small and blur due to camera shake at low shutter speeds. The only solution is upping the ISO which results in noisy, ugly photos. I think they look pretty good, given poor lighting conditions.

Guess I'll throw my hat in the ring. I'd love to have one of these :)

50 hours a week is the low end of average of what I've seen in the Boston area, working in 4 different companies over the past 10 years. 50 is what is expected, with more during crunch times.

And thank you for the people pointing out that programmers make a salary. Just like 95% of other white collar jobs, we get the same paycheck each month whether we worked 80 hour weeks or 35 hour weeks (man would I kill for a 35 hour week).

One of the things I've learned is that you don't have to work 80 hour weeks very often if at all. Your bosses would much rather have a steady output of work than spikes and stress like that. Work with them to make realistic deadlines and everyone will be happier.

Gah, first thing I thought was ytalk too. I rather like being able to gather my grammar before I submit my phrase. It also makes for more coherent conversations, so you don't have people responding in the middle of someone else's sentence... that was always confusing. Are you responding to what I'm typing now-now, or then-now?