Hello. As you noticed, there aren't many decent games coming out at all. Most of it all is just hype and fancy graphics. Battlefield 2 was huge let down with game crashing bugs and insane loading times. I can't play WoW due to monthly fee and the fact that the last MMO I played(FFXI) basically consumed my whole summer and I am just not interested in MMOs anymore. The last great game I played for PC was Riddick, which a game-stopping bug in which I couldn't talk to Jager Valance. Call of Duty 2 was really good looking but nothing special. FEAR was really all hype for just another lame average game(it's multiplayer is bogus IMO due to melee equalling one hit kills no matter what). The only games I play now are CS:S and Splinter Cell:CT online until the new Guild Wars comes out.

This year only a few worthy games are getting a look at in my opinion. I don't have a rig to play Elder Scrolls 4 so that's out of the book. The only games I look forward to are Splinter Cell 4, UT2K7(which probably will run like crap) and PREY. As you can tell I like the shooters but I can go for an awesome RPG here and there.

So my question is: Did I miss out of any really good games lately? Are there any upcoming really worthy games worth 53 dollars from me? I am sick of pissing away my money on mediocre games, especially when they cost $50 for 7 hours of a average gameplay.

Well hope you read this.

-- Dave.

Not sure I entirely agree with you there Dave. I see a lot of good stuff coming down the pipe. Shooters like Quake Wars, SiN Episodes, Half-Life 2 episodes, and Call of Juarez all look at least decent on top of your suggestions of UT2007 and Prey. There's also games like Project Offset, Savage 2, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, and Commandos Strike Force to keep us busy.

There are a few good RPGs coming this year (most likely) like The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age, Titan Quest, Hellgate: London, and Gothic III. All of these games should last a lot longer than seven hours. And this isn't even getting into RTSs since it doesn't seem like you like them much.

Of course, there's always My Fantasy Wedding and Cinderella's Dollhouse of Dreams if you need to remind yourself that a lot of games are actually pretty decent.

-- Dan

---

Hey, any news on Spore?

-- The Payette

Not for you.

-- Dan

---

This pertains to the article about the "second coming" of ilovebees. If you look at the source code (ctrl+u in Firefox, View->Source on IE) for the following link: http://www.ilovebees2.com/login.html

There's clearly a URL to BUNGIE.NET!! :

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=weeklyupdatemarch03

I believe that this ilovebees2 has more than meets the eye. Could the countdown possibly, remotely, CONCIEVIBLY pertain to a Halo 3 announcement!? (OMG)

I would suggest updating your article about this, and warn the masses. Surely the more people that know, the better chance we have of getting to the bottom of this! GOOD LUCK!

-- Bryan


Concerning the ilovebees site, I've got some more info backing up the Oblivion case. If you view the pages source code, and then use the "find" in the edit tab, you can search for specific words or phrases. Search for Oblivion. See what else you can find, too..

-- Justin


if you go to www.ilovebees2.com, look near the bottom left of the screen. You'll see a little dot. Click it! it will take you to a black sceen. THEN hold the left moust button down, and drag it across the screen to light up hidden things.

-- Kevin


Rather than simply tell you guys we think this whole thing is just an effort to screw with people on the Internet, I'll include a conversion over IM that I had with Charles on the Xbox sites about this (and no, those aren't our IM names dinguses):

Dan: have you been writing about this ilovebees ****?
Charles: yeah
Charles: i think it's probably a load of crap
Charles: but it seems to get hits
Dan: is it supposed to be some viral marketing thing?
Dan: i don't even understand what it's supposed to be
Charles: allegedly
Charles: possibly to eventually unveil new game details, that's the hope
Charles: but now it doesn't make any sense what game it's related to
Dan: not at all
Charles: so i'm not writing anything else until something makes more sense
Dan: the link to bungie is just a joke
Charles: yea, i think so, Bungie already posted it's not affiliated with them
Dan: nice
Charles: might be resident evil 5 or something
Dan: i think it's probably people just ******* with gamers
Charles: yea, that's what i think too
Charles: especially because of this
Charles: http://ilovebees2.com/ONAS/onas.htm
Charles: check the source code
Charles: there's a bunch of phrases in there about it being a trap etc, so it just seems like someone having fun screwing with people
Dan: yeah
Dan: what about that crappy "game that kills people" movie?
Charles: ehh
Dan: stay alive
Charles: the ring?
Charles: oh i don't know
Dan: the one that's not out yet
Charles: i don't know about that one
Dan: that's because you're an IDIOT!!

Hope that didn't help!

-- Dan

---

I just recently read a review of the Unreal Tournament 2007 game on your site, and it mentioned three new vehicles that haven't been talked about the SPMA, the Paladin, and the cicada. These vehicles are in UT2004 there not new. You should really clearify this.

-- Bill

Yeah, what Tom meant were that they were newly shown in 2007. Not new in the overall idea of Unreal Tournament. Don't worry though, I've beaten him and he seems to have learned his lesson.

-- Dan

---

Hey,

I really enjoyed your article that you wrote on the Oblivion preview. I am curious to know,what type of computer you were using and the specs on it.

Thankyou for your time

-- Ryan

Thanks for the ass kissing Ryan, my butt was getting lonely. For your info, though we did recently publish the specs of the computer running the game in the PC vs. Xbox 360 story, I'll give them to you again here:

3.2 GHz processor
2.0 GB of RAM
ATi X1900 video card

As you can see, it's not a weak machine. There are better, but not by a whole lot without plopping down a bucketful of cash.

-- Dan


Hi, i'm IGN Insider "rluto" and I have been reading some negative comments about Oblivions graphics, in particular, the forest scene. One person who says that he was at the same event that you attended said that buildings were popping up out of nowhere in front of him, that the game would pause to load very frequently, and that grass and foliage was only drawn in about 10 feet in front of you. Are these things true? Did you notice any issues such as the ones I mentioned? Any info in regards to this is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

-- Rob

You know, I've read a bunch of these as well, but I really didn't have much of a problem with the popping that did occur. Buildings weren't popping out of nowhere for me unless they were far in the distance. The distance is where people are probably going to have their most problems because as I mentioned in the preview, any hills outside of the level of detail are going to be blurry blobby areas that are downright ugly. This isn't a product of having a worse video card either, anyone who plays the game will see this. Basically, when running around the world, Oblivion will load up new areas around the player that are full of foliage, buildings, and so on. When you cross a line, the next area will also load up, which on occasion brings a millisecond stutter and objects popping into view, should you have a clear view into the distance. When in the middle of town or a forest, I didn't see a lot of popping as there were too many objects in front of me.

It didn't really bother me, but that's not saying it won't bother you. There are obviously a lot of mixed opinions about how important and annoying the graphics situation is in Oblivion. I was having enough fun that I didn't notice, but I can see how some people would find it tiresome. It's also worth taking into consideration that I've see a bare fraction of the environments and only played five hours of a potential two hundred hours which means things could potentially get on my nerves eventually as well. I don't think it will, but I won't know until I try.

-- Dan


Hi, I just read both previews of TES IV: Oblivion (both yours and your Xbox 360 counterpart's), and I had a simple question with a not so simple answer, as I've found out. You see, I'm extremely excited about the game, and I've been wondering which platform to get it on. I have both a PC and an X360, and I want the best visuals that I can get. However, you said in your article that you received slightly better visuals on an awesome rig. What exactly were the details on this awesome rig? I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (which is equivalent to a 3.8ghz or higher) with a GeForce 6800 GT on my system- and I have about a gig of RAM. Do you think that with this setup, I would get better visuals and performance for the X360, or my computer? Thanks.

-- Dylan

That's a good question and one that I can't necessarily accurately answer since I've only seen the game running on one machine. You'll see the specs for that listed above. Your processor is terrific and your video card is pretty good (though now a generation behind… though like I said, how much difference that makes is still uncertain) and a gig of RAM is decent (though I'd probably recommend 2 at this point) but as we said before, the difference in quality really wasn't very noticeable even with that rig we had at the event. It's really hard to say as I haven't seen the game running on a 6800, but I'm guessing it'll probably be very close to the same as the X1900 with perhaps a bit of an edge going to the 360 version. Sorry I can't be more helpful. We'll make sure to test the game out on several types of machines to see how it runs when we get the boxed copy.

-- Dan


I've been following the updates for Oblivion for some time now, but one thing still bothers me. When I was playing Morrowind, I'd often wander into a place that had an attached quest, only to find out after getting the quest that I couldn't complete it because the targets of the quest were already dead. Have they fixed this problem for Oblivion?

-- Jason

I briefly touched on this in the preview and it appears to have been fixed. Certain areas in dungeons to do with quests may be blocked off and unreachable until the quest is activated. Or, if you've found an object in a dungeon and have it in your inventory when beginning a quest, you'll be able to automatically complete it. That said, I don't know about named people. We'll make sure to find that out for the review of the game whenever we get a copy.

-- Dan