Comments from RabidWombat

RabidWombat commented on Rogue Trooper Getting Wii Release

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:49:09 PDT

I liked Rogue Trooper, though I probably won't buy it for Wii, but here's hoping for a sequel. I would've loved to have a larger "tech tree" with the item creation system, so I'd actually have to think about how to spend my resources, and end up customizing my trooper and such.

RabidWombat commented on UK Mother Blames Nintendo For Badly-Behaved Kids

Mon, 05 May 2008 13:45:25 PDT

Heh, my mom was always of the opinion that she'd rather have us playing games than just idly watching TV or something, because at least they get us thinking. I think she had the right idea.

RabidWombat commented on Why The Bad Company Win Isn't A Win At All

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:44:09 PDT

I think one thing you fail to consider here is the possibility that EA looked at the $XX they'd make from the DLC weapons, compared it to the $XX they'd lose from the general outcry, bad publicity, blah blah blah, and came to a decision based on that.

RabidWombat commented on Robo-Bear Armed with a Canon Awaits His Perfect Shot

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:58:18 PDT

The words "armored polar bear" cause a strange tingly feeling in my pants

RabidWombat commented on Get Your Steampunk Freak On With New Webcomic

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:58:28 PST

This seems like it could be really good. I like the artwork, and I'm a sucker for steampunk. The only thing that annoys me is the part where it's weekly, and seems to move sort of slowly, so I'm afraid it'll lose me.

RabidWombat commented on Week in Games: Devil May Cry 4 Edition

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:38:58 PST

@RabidWombat: Oh wait never mind. I missed it the first time. Oh well, it still has my support.

RabidWombat commented on Week in Games: Devil May Cry 4 Edition

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:38:19 PST

You guys missed one! Sins of a Solar Empire! It's basically a space based 4x game, except real time, from the same people that made the underrated Galactic Civilizations series.
[www.sinsofasolarempire.com]
I've played the beta, and it's pretty good, partly because it's very different from anything else out there. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes both 4x and RTS games.

RabidWombat commented on Did You Know WoW Has A Gold Limit?

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:18:01 PST

@WhiteTree: My guess is that this is to make it so it could be used in conjunction with other signed ints. In addition, unsigned ints are actually troublesome for certain programming tasks, such as a loop which decrements the variable and checks if it's >= 0 (will always be true), even worse if you're not decrementing by 1. Also, if used in conjunction with signed ints, I believe the default C behavior is to cast the unsigned int to a signed int, which causes a horrible mess because it keeps the bits the same, which means for numbers with the most significant bit set, the result will be negative.
I actually had a professor tell us just yesterday that "just because a number doesn't need to be signed doesn't mean that it should be unsigned. In this case, it seems like the gold cap is high enough either way, so there's no real reason to use a signed int, but many not to.

RabidWombat commented on Crysis Running on $900 Machine

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:25:39 PST

I built a PC for about $1000 last June. I can run Crysis on it with the settings pretty high. Though that's with an 8800 GTS, which is a damned nice GPU. But still, this really isn't all that impressive, mostly because I think my machine probably would've cost about that had I built it now.

RabidWombat commented on THQ Snap Up Rise Of Nations Devs

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:19:47 PST

THQ seems to be a pretty good publisher with respect to letting devs actually finish their games, so I was actually sort of happy to see this. THQ has put out what I believe to be the 2 best strategy games in recent memory, Company of Heroes and Supreme Commander, so another strategy dev added to the picture is probably not a bad thing,

RabidWombat commented on The Price of Making a Real Gundam

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:32:32 PST

@muscrat_01: BattleMech would probably be cheaper, too. They seem to be more realistically and simply designed.

RabidWombat commented on Where to Get the Best Scifi T-Shirts

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:14:59 PST

@NefariousNewt:
ThinkGeek also has a pretty great CosaNostra Pizza shirt
[www.thinkgeek.com]

@Seth L:
That "Toaster" shirt just made my day and I may have to buy one

Also, I guess not so much for sci-fi shirts but just good shirts in general, you can't really go wrong with [shirt.woot.com], which runs one shirt design each day for the ridiculous price of $10 (shipped!), at least for the first 1000, and then reprints the most popular ones for $15 (shipped), which is still a pretty respectable deal.

RabidWombat commented on Kotaku's GOTY Finalists

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:12:32 PST

Decent list, but I have to take issue with any list of Wii GOTY candidates that doesn't have Metroid Prime 3. The game pretty much proved that the Wii could be a superior console for shooters if the controls were just done right, not to mention just being all-around a great game. I think it deserves Super Paper Mario's spot, not to say that that was a bad game (it's pretty fun), but I think Corruption's better.
Also going to chime in in pointing out the inconsistency of nominating the Orange Box for 360 and Portal alone for PC. Other than that, decent list.

RabidWombat commented on Newegg Honors Canceled PayPal Promotion Transactions

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:39:47 PST

Newegg comes through yet again. Seriously, I love that site. Like Bix said, even if Newegg is a little more expensive, I'll go with them because they're just that much better. I've had responses from Newegg service mere hours after contacting them, and they've always been incredibly helpful.
Example: I ordered an LCD monitor from them which was (erroneously) pictured as coming with a DVI cable. When it didn't actually come with one, I contacted them, and not only did they send me the cable and a free hat, too! Another time, I got them to pay shipping on an RMA for me. Their customer service people really are great.

RabidWombat commented on Presidential Candidates Talk Video Game Censorship

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:01:14 PST

I liked how Obama actually knew enough to be able to talk about games being moving to downloadable models over traditional brick & mortar stores. Of course, I just like Obama in general. But still, I think he had the most well-reasoned and feasible positions of any of the candidates here.

RabidWombat commented on THQ CFO RES(igns)

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:36:42 PST

@taftsearlobe23: Let's not forget that they have the rights to Homeworld, now, too.

The fact of the matter is that THQ is one of the few really good, actually innovative RTS publishers out there nowadays. It's been my experience that their games, esp. Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, and Supreme Commander, actually offer something significantly different from the standard RTS model, and are just plain good games.

RabidWombat commented on Link's Crossbow Training Final Impressions

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:57:25 PST

@chinesedentist: I just punched myself in the head. That was better than CDI Zelda.

RabidWombat commented on GHIII Wii Only Offers Mono Sound

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:10:48 PST

OK, posting on Kotaku that you're pissed off is one thing, but why not actually contact Activision and tell them that this is unacceptable and false advertising, and therefore quite possibly illegal.
[www.activision.com]
Look, I even did some of the work for you. Just click that link and fill in the boxes.

RabidWombat commented on Empire Earth III Graphics

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:57:52 PDT

So, this basically looks like Age of Empires III. Which was a pretty good looking game by all means, just it's what, 2 years old now? Nothing in there really looked like what games like Supreme Commander have today (and that was released over 6 months ago anyway).

Also, did anyone else notice that it actually looked a little choppy sometimes, with not too many units on the screen? I mean, I know it's a beta build or something and we're not supposed to criticize it, but they chose to show us this particular footage, so I think it's fair game.

I've never been a really huge fan of Empire Earth anyway. Games always seemed pretty repetitive, so it got pretty boring after a little while. While the original kept my attention for a bit, 2 lost me almost right away. Rise of Nations and Age of Empires are, in my opinion, much better choices.

RabidWombat commented on With "Free Pita" Promise, Citi Lures Students Off-Campus To Skirt On-Campus Solicitation Ban

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:04:36 PDT

Oh dear sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, they do that other places, too? I'm a Carnegie Mellon student, and have been had twice by these people. They give you a coupon for free ____, and then you get there and there they are with the little palm-type computer things with the signup form. Now, had they just asked for basic contact information, I may have considered doing it for the free food, but no. They ask for your SSN, which is completely ridiculous.
I asked the guy to justify this once, and he said it was "in case you wanted to sign up" (since the info was purportedly only so they could send you information). Then why don't you take it when I sign up? It just felt a little sketchy to me.
Basically, these people are evil and have wasted at least 1/2 hour of my time walking places to get "free" stuff I didn't end up getting because I don't give my SSN out to just anyone...

RabidWombat commented on Universe at War Faction Trailers

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:14:22 PDT

@Cirrus: That's probably because Petroglyph has a large number of the people who made the old C&Cs :P

@people who criticized it: It's 2 short videos. You don't really see much (though what you do see is darned pretty, and I think that's a lot of the point). I'm looking forward to the game for the asymmetric gameplay, which Supreme Commander really doesn't have, and, if you liked Dawn of War, that's part of what made that game good (though it looks like Universe at War is going to do it to a greater extent).

RabidWombat commented on Table Tennis Coming To Wii

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:18:12 PDT

Everyone who's trying to criticize the Wii controls is pretty much wrong. As long as Rockstar gets this right (and they're Rockstar, so they oughta), the controls should work great, as anyone who's played Wii Sports should know.

Using the Wiimote to control a paddle is, if done even remotely well, better than a controller, for the simple fact that it's much closer to what's actually happening than pushing buttons, moving control sticks, etc. is.

RabidWombat commented on New Final Fantasy Potion Dated

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 06:35:41 PDT

Further proof that rabid FF fans will buy ANYTHING

RabidWombat commented on Soul Calibur Legends Confirms Fears

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:11:13 PDT

The graphics are really pretty unforgivable. It looks like they used the SCII engine off the GameCube, or maybe worse... Seriously, the Wii may not have a ton of graphics capability, but it can do a lot better than that. At least put some friggin' bloom in to distract us.
As for the gameplay, seems like another gesture-based game, which could be cool if the gestures are done right, but I was sort of hoping for something close to 1 to 1. Oh well.

RabidWombat commented on Call of Duty 4 E3 Trailer

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:43:46 PDT

It would've been nice to see more actual gameplay in their video of "gameplay footage" as opposed to in game cutscenes. Still looks pretty good

RabidWombat commented on Metroid Prime 3 Delayed! By A Week!

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 10:05:42 PDT

Oh god no... I was counting on this thing being released a little before classes start for me so I could just get through it and get on with my life, without it completely destroying my grades. Now it's a week later, and classes will have started. I'm screwed. Because honestly, if it's as good as it looks, it's gonna be awful tough tearing myself away from this to do homework and the like. Or eat. Or sleep.

RabidWombat commented on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 10:01:13 PDT

I think either Crecente may have got the concept of the previous ET wrong or I have the wrong impression of how Quake Wars works. The original ET was all objective based, and I'm under the impression that Quake Wars is territory based, like the BF games. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
If this is the case, then I have to say I thought the objective based maps in ET added something to the game over something like the BF games, they kept each map different and interesting, though I suppose BF did a pretty good job of that anyway.