Mailbag

More people get schooled.

Burnination

Okay, this really confirms it. You guys ARE taking money for review scores.

Everyone and there mother knows that Tribes:Vengeance is a big piece of steaming dogs---. Tribes 1 and 2 players a like recognize that all the things that made the past games great, are now gone or significantly reduced (except maybe the jetpack concept). In trying to dumb down the game to make it "more accessible" (ie make more greedy money), they took out all the complexities that made the game great. How you guys can POSSIBLY give it a 9.0 is beyond me.

And what about the new Leisure Suit Larry game? Sure, you guys gave it a fair rating, but you hyped the hell out of it for MONTHS.

I don't know, I'm getting pretty fed up with the site. I think I'm going to discontinue my Insider Subscription and convince all my friends to do the same.

I can't get over you guys recommending T:V so highly... what a crock.

RC

I guess Vivendi must have paid off the six other sites that have reviewed the game and given it high marks too. Gee, I wonder why they didn't kickback a little cash to improve the Larry score. Maybe they could have split the difference and made us give each game a score in the low 8s. Seriously, any accusations about us taking money for reviews should safely be put to rest by a quick look at the cars in the IGN parking lot.

Have you even played either of those games?

Steve

As for "hyping" Larry, we did the usual E3 and GDC coverage, and a preview last month--three articles over the space of seven, almost eight months. There's one video interview and one developer commentary on Insider, and judging by the file size, they're pretty short. Believe it or not, this is actually below average for an anticipated game.

In contrast, take a look at our coverage for:

Rome: Total War

Warhammer 40k

Sims 2

Far Cry

By comparison, the Larry coverage is rote, even when you add in the Ladies of LSL pictorials. We thought Larry looked like a great game. We were wrong and scored it accordingly. It really doesn't go deeper than that.

Thanks for writing in, though.

Tom

His name is teh Butts! Roffles!!1

I just finished the Leisure Suit Larry review by Steve Butts and was confused. You should have had the target audience review the game. The fact is a gay man wouldn't get much out of it, Steve Butts is clearly not the target audience for the game. Not that I have a problem with him being gay I really don't care. It simply affected the quality of the review. Now I don't know Steve's situation he might be trying to fool you into thinking he is straight just to do more game reviews. The signs could have been there all along, like when Steve was really excited about reviewing Pole Position then all of a sudden got very upset when he found out it was a car racing game. Lets not get started on the last name, Butts come on that's too easy. If your still unconvinced all the evidence you will ever need is in the following statement, of which no man who is attracted to women would ever say:

"The wet T-shirt game is probably the sorriest of the lot. All you have to do there is wait for a girl to stop in front of you and then shoot her with the squirt gun. Interactive it might be; interesting it ain't." Yes Steve for us straight men that is pretty much the point. Buy hey to each is own.

I wish I was straight like you so I could like boring games too.

Pole Position! Snort!

Love,
Steve

P.S. Up yours.

Never Question the Butts

SPQR ist senatum popolusque romanorum.

pls get it right. It looks incredibly stupid the way ist written in your review

bye
pc

You're wrong.

You could make an argument that Romanus should be in the gentitive case (Romani) since we're talking about the Senate and People "OF" Rome. But we're using the adjective Romanus here; not the noun Roma. Hence the Romanus here isn't "of Rome" but more accurately "of the Romans." It's usually just translated "of Rome" because that sounds better in English and still gets the point across.

Since the adjective takes the same case and number as the objects, it should also be in the nominative. Hence Senatus Populusque Romanus. You're using the accusative for Senatus, the nominative for Populus and the genitive plural for Romanus. All three words HAVE to share the case and number here.

Thanks,
Steve

Steamed about Steam

This annoys the heck out of me, everywhere all I hear about is the Steam version of Half Life, I dont freaking care, see, As far as I see it, games should never go the download route. Anyone who has older games that they tried to reinstall to play again know this. When they go looking for the games inevitable patches, they're hard if not impossible to find. Now say, 10-20 years from now, I'd bought the Steam Half Life 2 and I want to play it again cause I'm feeling all Nostalgic, will the servers still be there serving up the game? Doubtful, so in essense, if I bought the game through Steam I'm screwed. But if I have a holy game disk, I'm fine, I'll at least have access to the game itself, if not the dozen or so eventual patches.

So, while its nice that you and everyone else are reporting on the steam downloads of HL2, I want to know what the hell is going on with the retail hard copies of HL2, (the one that years from now I'll actually still be able to play if I ever uninstall it or get a different PC.) what are the pricing schemes what do they come with, and yes, even what extras do they come with in comparison to the Steam versions?

Jason Z.

Well, even the retail boxed version of Half-Life 2 will have to connect to the Internet once for authentication. Several months ago, Valve said this would only be the case for the first few weeks, but that was several months ago, so don't hold your breath. Regardless, I'd rather deal with having Steam send me my account info in the event that I forget it, rather than having to pay more to get a new CD key to replace the one I've lost. We're also told that you can burn the Steam version onto a DVD, for archiving a backup copy. Even if your hard drive gets erased one day, though, you can still re-download everything from Steam. Personally, I think it's a better system. If Valve did ever go under, it would never disappear. Someone else would buy up the rights and continue distribution.

Tom

The Commie Opinion

Just to let you know, by the time D-Day happened it was a question of if, but when Germany would be defeated. Stalingrad, had occurred, Kursk had destroyed Germany's best armored divisions. Like the guy in the letter says, this takes nothing away from the accomplishments and sacrifices of the brave men that landed in Normandy, but by the Summer of 44 the had been decided.

Oleg

So now we can go tell those soldiers buried at Normandy that they needn't have bothered. Too bad this email's about 60 years too late.

Steve

Sphincta say wha?

In your article "Full Spectrum Warrior First Look", you said, "Since most serious PC gamers are rolling with a mouse setup with two buttons and a clickable wheel in the middle..." That is now the "average" gamer or anyone else who buys a PC (unless you are on a *MAC* in which case you are gimped with 1 lame button). The "serious gamer" nowadays is going to have something like the MX-510 or at least something close to it. Thanks for reading this. (1 question, why is there a "contact the editors" link on the "contact the editors" page? :P

Nirvelli

What in hell are you talking about? The MX-510 TOTALLY has two buttons and a clickable wheel in the middle. Look at it. It's right there.

As for putting a contact the editors link on the contact the editors page...well, how else are you supposed to contact them?

You're really confusing me.

Steve

Watch my Apartment Style, Grasshoppa

So I played a bunch of Counter-Strike: Source, and man, that's pretty neat. Anyways, I'm moving into a new place this weekend. Huge, quiet bedroom, huge kitchen, cool roommate, and a more urban area of the city. It's amazing what a difference a few blocks will make. Got a club on one corner, a coffee shop on the other, and a phat cheesesteak place across the street. There's also a touchless car wash a couple blocks down and a liquor store right nearby. Does it get any better? I think not.

Well, I could use millions of dollars and some guitar lessons, but one thing at a time. You can't rush a thing like this.

--Tom McNamara