Lol, but yeah...we need more subforums like a drunk needs more booze(speaking of which, where is Antimateria? 0.o).
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It's good to stand by one's own morals, but not so good to let one's own morals limit what they can/can't do in life to an extreme degree.

Also no......making actual day 1 DLC as extra content(not the ones who actually cut stuff from the main game to make such content) isn't being ridiculous. :p
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And several day 1 dlcs(non-cosmetic, I mean) ARE irrelevant to the base game-play experience(If one can finish the game and enjoy it without a piece of DLC then imo it fits this "definition") of the games they're made for, imo.
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I knew what you meant. ;)

Also as for skin/weapons packs: If they're worth what they're offering(like say a pack of new weapons for a dollar) then I have no problem with them.
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Imo it's better they develop such content and have it ready on the first day than to hold off it's development until later and spend more time/resources(when they could be patching the main game/etc) to create it then. This also allows them to sell it the same day and get more sales from early buyers(and possibly invest such profits into new content & game development, paying worker's salaries, hiring new talent, etc), and also to allow us to play it earlier as well(if we want to.)
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>:-)

I'm not sure that inability to buy some games is 'Limiting life to an extreme degree' you know :-P

By extreme I meant the level of reaction(not playing a game/series at all, if ever) level of stimulus(some minor thing done be a dev related to a game/series).

It's impossible to get a good, simple, solid analogue joystick these days.

What are you using right now? I'm curious as I might be getting one in the near future.

Hmm I don't get it. How come the old fat PS2 is also on its side in that picture? At least my fatty PS2 (which still works fine after all these years, luckily) has the PC desktop CD/DVD drive kind of tray which I think isn't even supposed to work on its side. If you try to put a CD into it when it is on the side, won't the CD/DVD just drop down from the tray?

I'm not going to even try. With the slim PS2 though, I think its DVD tray is similar to those in laptop DVD drives (or the old fat first Playstation) where that knob keeps the DVD in its place even if you put it upside down.

Some like to stand it up(they even sell accessories to keep it standing upright/people from knocking it over if it's out in the open), I guess. :|
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I believe the way the tray is designed keeps this from happening(if you insert the cd properly and then close it)....I might be wrong, though.

(And I love the fat PS2s....they are so robust, and last much longer than the slims[Well besides the annoying tape ribbon used to connect the front-side buttons with the circuitry, that is.].)

The newest joystick I own is still using a MIDI port so yeah, I haven't used one in more than ten years. I own a few gamepads though, two Xbox 360 wireless controllers as well as a Logitech Rumblepad 2 which I use for older games. However, gamepads are awful for flight and space sims and I'm especially interested in playing the latter, most notably the Wing Commander series, perhaps also X-Wing and Tie-Fighter which I still have lying around somewhere in their Collector's CD-ROM editions.

However, I ordered a simple joystick a few minutes ago. I chose this ugly mother. I really don't need an expensive hitech joystick, I just want an analogue stick with at least four buttons so this one should do.

Edit: Crap, just noticed that this one has a circular... uhm, "area of something"? Don't know how to call it. :P Hope that's not gonna be a big problem in case of those old games which were designed for joysticks with rectangular... areas... of something.

I've got the Logitech Rumblepad 2 myslef and I love it, or course I only HAVE older games and it works perfectly for X-Wing and Tie-Fighter.

And nice purchase; Thunderbirds are go!

Now I am somewhat annoyed that the Philips 4000-series LED semi-Smart TV I bought and thought was a great deal does not apparently support ViaPlay, Netflix etc natively..At least the ViaPlay homepages tell that all all 5000-9000 Series Philips Smart-TVs support it, and I presume it is a similar story with Netflix.

So far I haven't found anything worth using in the Philips 4000 series Smart TV features. It offers some adult videos for premium price, hard to use Youtube application etc. But being able to directly use ViaPlay or Netflix with the TV would have been quite useful.

If I had waited for a couple of weeks, I think I could have bought a 46" 5000 Series Philips TV instead of this 47" 4000 series for the same price. But then, it might be that newer model doesn't have VGA in PC output anymore IIRC, which I prefer still to have for my older PCs/laptops, just in case. So it would have been possibly a trade-off.

So if I want to get either IPTV service now, I think my only option is either to use it with my PC (connected to the TV with HDMI), or buy some console (cheap PS3 or XBox360)... but then I recall that with the consoles I'd have to get their Gold Membership or somesuch in order to use the 3rd party IPTV services? No thanks, I think using a PC is the only option then. Now I'm contemplating whether I should buy some cheapo PC laptop just for that purpose, so that I wouldn't necessarily have to reserve my gaming laptop for it.

Next thing is that I can't make up my mind whether to get ViaPlay or Netflix, but fortunately they both offer a free month to test it out. The devil is in the details:

- ViaPlay says that you can use it on four different devices (at the same time? It doesn't say that.), and if after that you want to use in another device, you have to unregister one of the earlier devices. Such unregistrations can be done only once every three months. This doesn't sound too bad as long as all those four devices could be used even at the same time (e.g. if there are several TVs/monitors in the household, each wanting to look at different series/programs).

- On the other hand, for IP rights reasons the ViaPlay service will not work abroad, if you'd like to watch some movie abroad from your laptop or something. Too bad, but understandable. I wonder if it would still be usable by using proxy servers?

- Netflix doesn't mention any restrictions to either number of "registered" display devices nor whether you can view the programs abroad, but it does say that you can watch Netflix only on one device at a time. The ViaPlay approach sounds better, if it is up to four devices at the same time.

Oh well, decisions decisions.

Well, the problem is that gamepads are not well-suited for games which additionally need a lot of keyboard commands. I tried playing Wing Commander with the Rumblepad 2 a few weeks ago and it just didn't feel right. I mean, I actually have beaten the game with a Rumblepad 2 years ago but I want to be able to press something on the keyboard without having to let go of the controller. Hope it's not gonna be too much of an issue that the joystick I ordered has a circular... area of something.

Also yeah, the Rumblepad 2 is awesome. I've had mine since 2005. The design is timeless (it's the PS2 layout, after all) and it's incredibly solid. I've dropped it like a zillion times and it still works perfectly fine after all these years.

What's the matter? I can play such games pretty easily with such controls....heck, I cna play them pretty well with mouse/keyboard. 0.o

Freespace 1 and 2 and ID War work GREAT with a mouse and keyboard but I've heard the WC games are a super pain doing that.

It's all subjective and varies depending who's playing what, I guess.

An aside: I forget which game it was, but(imo) it played fine with a mouse/keyboard but it was unnecessarily difficult on some missions: In one mission the game placed two objectives far apart with no way to complete both easily(a ship needing to be destroyed in one area being far from another ship that needed to be protected, iirc.). As far as that game went, I don't think it would've mattered what input method one used(short of HAXXXXXXXXX!). :\

It's not about whether they can be played, it's about how enjoyable they are. I also used to play Tie-Fighter with a mouse and it was fun - but playing it with a joystick is a zillion times more fun. And I must also say that the mouse controls of Wing Commander aren't remotely as good as those of Tie-Fighter. And generally the older space sims were pretty much always designed with joysticks in mind and that's the best way to play them.