Video game thread

[The BIGSTUD]

I'm going to take him if I get the first overall pick.

[mussa]

i can't wait to see which bone breaks!

[SD_Eagle5]

Call of Duty 2 for Xbox -- bleh. Enemies were terrible, weapons were bland, storyline - there was none, graphics were nothing to be excited about.

Far Cry Instincts - Very fun FPS. Very open game, you can roam around the island basically at will. Cool weapons, great graphics, different enemies. Will definitely check out FC Predator once I get the 360.

[mussa]

I had BLACK all but beat and then I accidentally saved over it from the 2nd level.  I was angered.

[SD_Eagle5]

I had BLACK all but beat and then I accidentally saved over it from the 2nd level.  I was angered.

Damn, that sucks. The last level is pretty tough.

[mussa]

Yea, I think i was on the 2nd til last level.  crossing the bridge. man that was tough 

[mussa]

they really need to make a sequel for PS3, with multi-player options.  that game would be so fun shooting at each other.

[SD_Eagle5]

Yea, I think i was on the 2nd til last level.  crossing the bridge. man that was tough 

You know you can climb the bridge right? There's ammo and RPGs up there. The next level is much harder, especially the very last part, it will take you a couple times to beat it.

[mussa]

yea, i ran up there the first time i tried it cause it was insane.  those guys with the shields are so hard to take out.

[SD_Eagle5]

yea, i ran up there the first time i tried it cause it was insane.  those guys with the shields are so hard to take out.

RPGs and grenades. Some of your weapons have an alternate grenade launcher attached if I remember correctly.

[hbionic]

I had BLACK all but beat and then I accidentally saved over it from the 2nd level.  I was angered.

Angered. 

I feel your pain.

[mussa]

yea, i ran up there the first time i tried it cause it was insane.  those guys with the shields are so hard to take out.

RPGs and grenades. Some of your weapons have an alternate grenade launcher attached if I remember correctly.

yea i know how to take them out, but throwing a grenade and expecting it to land on the arms(lack of a better word) of a suspension bridge is next to impossible.  its will be awhile before i get to that level anyway. regardless, its a badass game. 

[Diomedes]

EA Spouse's identity revealed.

EA Spouse shook up the video game industry in November, 2004, when she posted an anonymous letter that detailed the harsh working conditions that led to overtime lawsuits against Electronic Arts and other big video game companies. Her actions have changed the industry. The impact remains to be seen, but what can we say about someone who stepped forward and took her husband's employer to task? At the time she wrote the anonymous post, some speculated that EA Spouse wasn't a real person. In this exclusive interview, Nicole Wong reveals the identity of EA Spouse for the first time and what led her to take on the game industry. Tell us your thoughts on this.

By Nicole Wong (photo: Erin Hoffman and her husband Leander Hasty, photo by Richard Koci Hernandez)

Erin Hoffman's heart was breaking. She hardly got to see her overworked fiance, a video game software engineer who was working 85 hours a week at the industry's premier company, Electronic Arts of Redwood City.

   Yet they didn't clash over it -- because she was so grateful for the few minutes she could spend with Leander Hasty. And he was too exhausted to argue anyway.

  So Hoffman, then 23, poured out her frustration -- under the pen name EA Spouse -- in a November 2004 blog that resonated so strongly with other video game developers that it helped spark an employee uprising inside EA and six lawsuits for unpaid overtime against three of the industry's most prominent
employers.

    Hoffman wrote on the blog that EA's attitude toward its workers was: "If they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else.''

   Now, more than a year later, game developers have won settlements in three class-action lawsuits alleging EA created exhausting work schedules without paying overtime and successfully pressed employers to ease unrelenting workloads. And EA Spouse, whose true identity has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork.

   "We had received so many excuses, and they had done so much overtime and everyone was so tired,'' Hoffman said. She told her fiance, "I need to write something about this. It's not right.''

  Jesse Schell, chairman emeritus of the International Game Developers Association, said "the EA Spouse letter kind of created an atmosphere where a lawsuit like that would be taken more seriously.''

   Round-the-clock work schedules have long been common among game developers. Some say the overwork epidemic in the video-game industry is spreading to other professions as financial pressures intensify.

   The $10.5 billion U.S. games industry is "kind of like the canary in the coal mine,'' said David Fugate, an independent literary agent who is helping Hoffman find a publisher for her book about overwork in America.

   EA, the world's largest video game publisher, on Tuesday announced it settled the third lawsuit brought against it for not paying employees for extra hours worked. The original plaintiff in that lawsuit, which covers programmers, was Hoffman's then-fiance, Hasty, now 26.

More at link.

with nod to fark

[Feva]

The "EA Spouse" can get it.

[Wingspan]

Madden 07 is getting a complete and total makeover...on the Nintendo Revolution only...for those who dont know...the Nintendo rev will have a 3-D motion sencored controller....

Players will hike the ball by mimicking a quarterback receiving the ball from the center, and then pass it to a receiver by making a throwing gesture with the free-hand controller. The faster the passing motion, the more of a bullet pass it becomes (in previous Madden editions, bullet passes were made by holding the passing button down longer).

Kicking the ball will be accomplished by sweeping the controller up as if it were a kicker's leg striking the ball. A fast, level swing will make for a hard, straight kick.

The Revolution controller will also come into play when running the ball, as jerking the controller left or right will make the ball-carrier juke to either side, while shoving it straight ahead will make him stiff-arm the opposition.