Wisborg

http://kotaku.com/370013/activision-force-sierra-to-sing-for-their-supper

No good comes out of an aversion to originality, an allergy to innovation. Overall, the titles in the Sierra pipeline easily outshine the titles in the Activision pipeline in terms of quality and originality. Hopefully no layoffs will occur.

I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

1) A little title called The Godfather II will feature a deep online component somewhat akin to Grand Theft Auto IV.
2) Up until sometime last year, Mass Media was working on ports of Saint's Row and The Outfit, for Wii and PSP, respectively.
3) Some more about L.A. Noire:

• Team Bondi's goal is to have every NPC in the city feature a distinct personality and different knowledge sets
• The game is not being funded by Sony, who dropped the title (Phil Harrison and Brendan McNamara (Team Bondi head) can't stand each other, McNamara & Company's tendency to miss milestones did not help either, but had very little to do with Phil's decision), there is nothing stopping a 360 release.
• The amount of music in the primarily jazz soundtrack is "comparable to GTA."
• The detecting mechanics are described as "an analysisfest" to which reaction has been polarizing, one calling the detective elements "fatally boring" and another remarking that the mechanics are "absolutely innovative." The former dubs the game "Assassin's Creed: Noir Edition" and the latter went on about "investigating the social structure of 1947 Los Angeles."
• Finally, information about at least some of the crimes you will be investigate in the game can be found here.

Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom Statistics

Also, a little tale about Blizzard Entertainment and Star Wars.

UPDATE: Sony stopped funding the game when Phil dropped it years ago. The bad blood between Brendan and Phil, which began during the development of The Getaway, is the primary factor in the game being dropped. Team Bondi would likely still be with Sony if Phil never took control of WWS, there is a reason that Brendan affiliated Bondi with SCEA rather than SCEE, who has authority over Australia.

There is no indication that Team Bondi are going the route of Ratbag, whose title Ikon (later became Scavenger, which never made it to stores) was dropped by Rockstar after being dropped by Sony, Brendan is quite amiable with the Housers.

Those detective elements are so polarizing that the implementation of them is cited for the reason of at least one resignation and there has been a number of departures at Bondi. Internal horror stories about Bondi appear to be plentiful.

In case you are not yet convinced.

The Obama I know

Terrific listener goes wherever reason takes him

By Cass R. Sunstein

March 14, 2008

Not so long ago, the phone rang in my office. It was Barack Obama. For more than a decade, Obama was my colleague at the University of Chicago Law School.

He is also a friend. But since his election to the U.S. Senate, he does not exactly call every day.

On this occasion, he had an important topic to discuss: the controversy over President Bush's warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists. I had written a short essay suggesting that the surveillance might be lawful. Before taking a public position, Obama wanted to talk the problem through.

In about 20 minutes, he and I investigated the legal details. He asked me to explore all sorts of issues: the president's power as commander in chief, the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force and more.

Obama wanted to consider the best possible defense of what Bush had done. To every argument I made, he listened and offered a counterargument. After the issue had been exhausted, Obama said he thought the program was illegal, but now had a better understanding of both sides. He thanked me for my time.

This was a pretty amazing conversation, not only because of Obama's mastery of the legal details, but also because many prominent Democratic leaders had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal. He did not want to take a public position until he had listened to, and explored, what might be said on the other side.

This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years -- a careful and evenhanded analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.

The University of Chicago Law School is by far the most conservative of the great American law schools. It helped to provide the academic foundations for many positions of the Reagan administration.

But at the University of Chicago, Obama is liked and admired by both Republicans and Democrats. Some local Reagan enthusiasts are Obama supporters. Why? It doesn't hurt that he's a great guy, with a personal touch and a lot of warmth. It certainly helps that he is exceptionally able.

But niceness and ability are only part of the story. Obama has a genuinely independent mind, he's a terrific listener and he goes wherever reason takes him.

Those of us who have long known Obama are impressed and not a little amazed by his rhetorical skills. Who could have expected that our colleague, a teacher of law, is able to inspire large crowds?

The Obama we know is no rhetorician; he shines not because he can move people, but because of his problem-solving abilities, creativity and attention to detail.

In recent weeks, his speaking talents, and the cultlike atmosphere that occasionally surrounds him, have led people to wonder whether there is substance behind the plea for "change" -- whether the soaring phrases might disguise emptiness and vagueness. But nothing could be further from the truth. He is most comfortable in the domain of policy and detail.

I do not deny that skeptics are raising legitimate questions. After all, Obama has served in the U.S. Senate for a short period (less than four years) and he has little managerial experience. Is he really equipped to lead the most powerful nation in the world?

Obama speaks of "change," but will he be able to produce large-scale changes in a short time? What if he fails? An independent issue is that all the enthusiasm might serve to insulate him from criticisms and challenges on the part of his advisers -- and, in view of his relative youth, criticisms and challenges are exactly what he requires.

Fortunately, the candidate's campaign proposals offer strong and encouraging clues about how he would govern; what makes them distinctive is that they borrow sensible ideas from all sides.

He is strongly committed to helping the disadvantaged, but his University of Chicago background shows he appreciates the virtues and power of free markets. He is not only focused on details but is also a uniter, both by inclination and on principle.

Transparency matters

Transparency and accountability matter greatly to him; they are a defining feature of his proposals. With respect to the mortgage crisis, credit cards and the broader debate over credit markets, Obama rejects heavy-handed regulation and insists on disclosure above all so consumers will know exactly what they are getting.

Expect transparency to be a central theme in any Obama administration, as a check on government and the private sector alike. It is highly revealing that Obama worked with Republican (and arch-conservative) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to produce legislation creating a publicly searchable database of all federal spending.

Obama's health-care plan places a premium on cutting costs and making care affordable, without requiring adults to purchase health insurance. (He would require mandatory coverage only for children.) Republican legislators are unlikely to support a mandatory approach, and his plan can be understood, in part, as a recognition of political realities.

But it is also a reflection of his keen interest in freedom of choice. He seeks universal coverage not through unenforceable mandates but through giving people good options.

It should not be surprising that in terms of helping low-income workers, Obama has long been enthusiastic about the Earned Income Tax Credit, an approach pioneered by Republicans that supplements wages but does not threaten to throw people out of work.

But Obama is not a compromiser; he does not try to steer between the poles (or the polls). "Triangulation" has no appeal for him. Internationally and domestically, he is willing to think big and to be bold. He publicly opposed the war in Iraq when opposition was unpopular.

He favors high-level meetings with some of the world's worst dictators. He would rethink the embargo against Cuba.

He proposes a $150 billion research budget for climate change. He wants to hold an unprecedented national auction for the right to emit greenhouse gases. He has offered an ambitious plan for promoting technological innovation, calling for a national broadband policy, embracing network neutrality and proposing a reform of the patent system.

His campaign has spoken of moving toward "iPod government" an effort to rethink public services and national regulations in ways that would make things far simpler and more user-friendly.

A new tone

These are points about policies and substance. As president, Obama would set a new tone in U.S. politics. He refuses to demonize his political opponents; deep in his heart, I believe, he doesn't think of them as opponents. It would not be surprising to find Republicans and independents prominent in his administration.

Obama wants to know what ideas are likely to work, not whether a Democrat or a Republican is responsible for them. Recall the most memorable passage from his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention: "We coach Little League in the blue states, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq."

In his book "The Audacity of Hope," he asks for a politics that accepts "the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point." Remarking that ordinary Americans "don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal," Obama wants politicians "to catch up with them."

After he received an e-mail from a doctor who opposes abortion, Obama recalls how he softened his Web site's harsh rhetoric on abortion, writing: "That night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own -- that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me."

In short, Obama's approach is insistently charitable. He assumes decency and good faith on the part of those who disagree with him. And he wants to hear what they have to say. Both in substance and in tone, Obama questions the conventional political distinctions between "the left" and "the right." To the extent that he is attracting support from Republicans and independents, it is largely for this reason.

Natural born leader?

From knowing Obama for many years, I have no doubts about his ability to lead. He knows a great deal, and he is a quick learner. Even better, he knows what he does not know, and there is no question that he would assemble an accomplished, experienced team of advisers. His brilliant administration of his campaign provides helpful evidence here.

But there is some fragility to the public fervor that envelops him. Crowds and cults can be fickle, and if some of his decisions disappoint, or turn out badly, his support would diminish. Some people think it might even collapse.

My concern involves the importance of internal debate. The greatest American presidents (above all Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt) benefited from robust dialogue and advisers who avoided saying "how wonderful you are" and were willing to say, "Mr. President, your thinking about this is all wrong."

Because Obama is exceptionally able, and because so many people are treating him as a near-messiah, his advisers might be too deferential, too unwilling to question. There is a real risk here. But I believe that his humility, and his intense desire to seek out dissenting views, will prove crucial safeguards.

In the 2000 campaign, Bush proclaimed himself a "uniter, not a divider," only to turn out to be the most divisive president in memory. Because of his certainty and lack of curiosity about what others might think, Bush polarized the nation. Many of his most ambitious plans went nowhere as a result.

As president, Barack Obama would be a genuine uniter. If he proves able to achieve great things, for his nation and for the world, it will be above all for that reason.

All right bro, let's do it

1) Coup d'etat in the nation of Worst "Game" I Have Seen in 2008 (that I had not seen last year), Guinness World Records for the Wii has overthrown Space Chimps. The publisher and developer of this blasphemy should consider yourselves lucky for me forgetting you.
2) I'm told that Limbo is still in development and looks quite similar to the target video. This piece of information, please do be true, I really want this to be more than my favorite piece of vaporware.
3) What do you think of Army of Two?
It is amusing how the attempts to divert attention from the terrible and offensive plotting (how was EA to know that Dooma and Corey were not mavens of the military shooter and could not produce anything beyond an eighties action film rip-off?) found in EA's attempt to grab some of that Tom Clancy market differ. If it is the gaming press, Army of Two is a probing satire (which it is not); however, if it is the non-gaming press, Army of Two is an entertainment product that does not sway to one side or the other (which it is). The game made me sick to my stomach five months ago and makes me sick to my stomach today.

Also, below is half of the greatest recording in the history of music as a number of you have probably never heard Mingus' musical mastery.



Finally, someone requested that I help out:

Dear surfer girl,

I am making a game about my favorite recreational interest, marijuana, and am having a hard time getting publisher interest. I was wondering if you could help me out.

Thanks,
James
ps plz dont publish my mail address