CP3S

They did it to us again!

Portal 2, $34.99 at amazon. Just two weeks after its release. A nice massive rock hard phallus penetrating the collective anal cavity of those who flocked to buy the game on release...

http://www.amazon.com/Portal-2-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0J9M0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1304270949&sr=8-2

Johnny Ringo said:

You misunderstand, when I say expensive I don't mean full price, i mean full blown ripoff.

$109 AUD - which if i did the math right would be $119.50 USD given the current converstion rates. Does that sound fair to you?

Brand new suggested retail price on games in the US is typically $60 USD, you say Portal 2 cost $109 AUD which is roughly $120 US

60+60=120

If you consider that then you guys are getting ripped off big time! "Full blown rip off" is an under statement! You pay twice as much as we do! Ridiculous! Right?

No. Not so ridiculous. Pretty reasonable, actually.

It is all relative. Sometimes comparing the cost of one thing in one country to the costs of that same thing in another country is like comparing elephants to monkeys. When you consider that the Federal minimum wage per hour is $15 AUD in Australia verses $7.25 USD in the States (7.25+7.25=14.50)... Yeah, you're menial laborers are making a little over twice as much as ours... err, silly me, forgot the exchange rate... no, your minimum wage is 16.46 USD. A minimum wage employee would have to work around 8.5 hours (not taking into account taxes deducted from his pay check) in the United States in order to pay for a brand new release video game. If you got games at the same prices as us, it would only take your minimum wage worker four hour of work to more than pay for a brand new release video game. As it is, an Australian minimum wage worker could afford to dish out that $109 AUD in less than 7.5 hours.

Cost of living and standards of pay vary greatly from place to place, all things being relative, you guys are paying about the same as us, if not a little less than us, for brand new video games. That is actually quite remarkable when you consider the expenses involved in shipping things down to Australia AND any government imposed importation taxes those games may be subjected to. Breath easy, Munckinlanders, you're not being ripped off as badly as you think you are.

doubleofive said:

 

While free DLC on the Steam-powered PC and Mac platforms is nothing unusual coming from Valve, DLC #1 will notably be "free of charge" on Xbox 360 and PS3 as well. Of course, adding Steam to the PlayStation 3 release was always intended to allow for this scenario, and we can only imagine Microsoft didn't feel comfortable with the Xbox 360 being the sole platform charging for otherwise free content.

Free DLC with more test chambers? Yes please.

 

Free DLC on 360? I'll believe it when I see it.

So far the only times I've see DLC free on the 360 has been when it has been extremely minor little updates. Like a couple of free plasmids (and shockingly, and extra achievement) for the original Bioshock. Even though I would have never paid even a dollar for that DLC had it cost something, the fact that it was free on the 360 was still stupefyingly incredible. There was a free DLC for Left 4 Dead as well, but again, it wasn't even the sort of thing I could imagine paying, and even then it was still shocking.

We never got extra maps for Team Fortress 2 on the 360 because Microsoft wouldn't let Valve give them away and they refused to charge for them on the 360 when they were free on the PC.

Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2's DLC packs were also free to PC/Mac users, but cost money for 360 users, again, not because of Valve, but because Mircrosoft. While L4D's DLC packs are among the cheapest I have ever seen, paying for something that was intended to be free just because of the platform you are using is a bit irksome.

Valve usually doesn't release their games on PS3, so Portal 2 is new ground there. If Microsoft's only reason for letting Valve get away without charging for the DLC on the 360 is that they don't want to be the only platform charging for them, it never stopped them in past.

Johnny Ringo said:

sounds like the stuff that was severely lacking from the game proper. At least it's free.

I don't care what anyone says - the game was just too short and too easy compared to what it SHOULD have been. I wouldn't have minded so much but it was also EXPENSIVE.

What other types of games do you play? There are very few games I'd consider being worth full price, and Portal 2 is definitely one of the ones that I think is 

I couldn't imagine paying $60 for a game like Assassin's Creed II. I paid full price for Fallout: New Vegas, and it would have been worth it had it not been too buggy to really enjoy. Black Ops I paid full price for, and it most definitely wouldn't be worth it for the campaign alone, but I've had enough fun playing it with my friends over the months since its release that has made it well worth the price. Usually I won't spend more than $20 for a game.

What makes a game's value? Content? Longevity? Re playability? The vast majority of games out there are absolutely shitty and poorly developed, a rehashing of old tired ideas, or extremely repetitive, etc. but they still all start off with a $60 dollar price tag. I feel Portal 2 is as worthy of that initial going rate of $60 as any of them, and much more so.

Hey, C3PX still posts! Wait... never mind. No he doesn't.

^That is the only episode of it I watched the whole way through. That was actually an unused/uncompleted episode of the original BSG that they reworked to explain what happened to Starbuck. In the original BSG script for that episode he got rescued, of course.

Leonardo said:

Saw the new South Park episode yesterday, a huge thumbs up, if just for the scenes with Cartman alone! ROFL!!

I don't know... I've absolutely loved the last few years of South Park, rarely a bad episode, but the second half of last season was dud after dud after dud.

Though it was much better than the worthless humorless episodes of the second half of last season, I really didn't think Wednesday's episode was that great overall, and in fact, I found it downright disgusting to a large degree... However, yeah, all the stuff with Cartman was pretty much fantastic.

TV's Frink said:

I can't remember who it was, but I remember a thread where someone claimed that "fucking" only meant oral sex in their country.

That was this thread... and it wasn't country it was town (he is an American)... Chalts was pretty young. I thought it was really funny.

Oh yeah, and TK-949 just won the thread!

Aww, this thread makes me miss Chaltab. I remember when this was first posted. Excellent choice for a necro post, Bingo.

Bingowings said:

In Darth Chaltab's defense it isn't possible to procreate that way around.

The F**er is the 'putter in' so presumably if the thread title is accurate...

I've never heard it defined as the "putter in" before. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "to have sexual intercourse with (someone)". And since a woman can have sexual intercourse with a man, I'd argue that she can fuck him.

I guess everyone has there own meta-definition for the word. For example:

Tiptup said:

Anyways, I'm not sure I'd classify fuck as merely meaning "to have sexual intercourse." I'd probably add some words to say "particularly in a crass, uncomfortable, or perhaps even threatening manner."

Tiptup felt the word should be used to indicate sex that happens in a crass, uncomfortable, or threatening matter.

Bingo felt the one "putting in" is the one doing the fucking.

Personally, I tend to see the one doing the action as the one doing the fucking. For example, if she is on top then he is the one being fucked.

Johnny Ringo said:

okay so I've started watching the 1978 Battlestar Galactica - from the start.

...

has anyone seen Galactica 1980?

I love the original. As for the special effects, you have to understand the show was made just shortly after the first Star Wars film, and was a TV show and not a big budget movie.

As for Galactica 1980, absolutely awful! The original Battlestar Galactica ended on a perfect note, IMHO.

Bet he got grounded. Poor little tike...

xhonzi said:

I would recommend picking up ACB as soon as you can because it does directly follow on the story of ACII and I think you'll remember the story/characters better.

Oooh, do you still have Altair's armor at the beginning of AC Brotherhood then? Or did they pull a Metroid and take it away?

Johnny Ringo said:

the COD series of games look like shit and play like shit yet people flock to them. I'll never understand that.

I love them. But I love them for what they are.

The main reason I like the COD games is that the veteran difficulty in the campaign gives me a very enjoyable challenge. Every time a new COD game comes out, I looked forward to playing the campaign on veteran. By far my favorite part of the COD games are the campaigns. They're enjoyable, nice and short, and challenging. Nice mindless light entertainment for a guy like me who doesn't have a lot of time to get lost in larger, more involved games.

I find the online multiplayer mostly really boring, unless I am playing with my friends on my team with mics, then it is always a lot of fun. Also, on very rare occasions you'll get in a room with some cool people with mics, and that can be an enjoyable experience.

I guess it probably has something to do with the fact that there's always another installment right around the corner, so people reach for their wallets when there's nothing else decent coming out..

That is kind of the nature of the beast. It is the kind of thing you play the hell out of, so frequent new installments with new features is always something to look forward to.

As for Portal 2, beat the co-op, not nearly as short as I was afraid it would be. Felt a lot longer than the original Portal. Of course, I wouldn't have mind if it had gone on longer, but I felt content. I haven't played much of the single player myself, but have been watching my girlfriend play parts of it and assisting in brainstorming solutions to the puzzles on occasion. I have to say I think it more than fullfills all expectations I've had for it. My one and only gripe would be that a level editor on the console versions (with the ability to upload and share your saved levels) would have been amazing and added countless hours of reply value to the game.

A: Your mom.

Q: Who the man?

A: Actually, yeah, I've met a handful of people that dislike it... and those are just the ones I have talked to that happen to have seen an episode or two of it. It really is kind of a niche thing.

Q: Why can a bird fly while a fly can't bird? Hardly seems fair, does it?

Have you ever played COD zombies? Awesome is a word that isn't really aloud within an mile or so radius of it.

I hadn't heard of it. Sounds interesting, but had it existed we might never have gotten Bioshock.

Are wormholes kind of like doughnut holes? Or Life Saver Holes (anyone else remember those)?

A: Not likely. It doesn't feature near enough LOL cats, bet he'll get bored.

Q: What are money fighting snapes? Might they be the solution to my simian infestation?

Awesome! I bet you'll be able to enter one end of the wormhole and come out the other! That's be totally sweet and original! Nobody has ever done anything like that before. Now if only they made it really shallow and pointless and hire well known actors who don't get a lot of work these days and/or make the characters a comical combination of historical figures... then it might be the greatest aspect of any Call of Duty (nay, video game) ever!

Okay, so that totally read like an April Fools joke, but is actually legit. I am not going to say I am not amused, at least they are doing something amusing with the whole zombies thing (and no, the dumb Pentagon level was not in the least bit amusing).

However, Call of Duty's zombie game modes are ridiculously unenjoyable. Call of Duty has this reputation of being a game for the dumb inbred masses, and the whole zombie mode definitely supports that notion. It is the pointless, shallow, Michael Bayesque answer to Left 4 Dead.

Shortly after Blackops was released, I was in a Gamestop and overheard a forty-fifty year old woman who was purchasing the game. When the clerk asked if it was for her son, she responded with, "Oh no, no, it's for me! Nazi Zombies! Best part of that whole game!"

:(  Wow. I didn't even know what to think in response to that... still don't.

For all the work they put into this stupid zombie crap, I'd so much rather just have one more multiplayer map... or a more reasonable price tag... $15 for five maps and an incredibly worthless new zombie level. Might be worth it if they actually did something new and exciting with the additional zombie levels, but it is always the same thing with some new voice over slapped on and a newly designed map. I guess if it provides countless hours of entertainment for inbred children, then it has a charitable purpose at least...

^My most Skyjediesque post yet! I am quite proud.

A: No, it isn't worth it.

Q: What happens when you fight strangers in the alps?

Oops! is actually quite a brilliant little film.

It in its entirety:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4M2vcspuas

Saddens me to see it given such a lousy following in these parts...

I still think Boba Fett deserve credit in the title... maybe Gromit too... at least an "& Friends" sort of recognition seems appropriate....

Ric & Bob: Freelance Bounty Hunters

I love thoughtful Gromit standing behind Boba Fett witnessing this whole thing and contemplating if he should do anything about it. I can easily imagine him shrugging his shoulders in the next scene and trotting off deciding to mind his own business.

TV's Frink said:

*doing math*

17.09 minutes?  Wow...I don't even.

I hope you tweeted your score.

I don't Twat. The cat's hat changed somewhere in there, that was a bit of a shock. I was doing a great job blocking the noise out, then suddenly my resolve broke down and it was like an icepick stabbing my brain repeatedly and I had to quickly close the window. Phew.

Been watching/listening to the Ricky Gervais show a lot over the last few days. Now every time I say something "annoys" me, I can't help but hear myself saying it in Karl Pilkington's voice.