Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Infrastructure week. at last.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Not all heroes wear capes.

He really is that stupid.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Let’s finish the job.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    scarshapedstar

    God dammit, and here I have a video card with a broken fan that can barely play Youtube without overheating.

    FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU

  4. 4.

    ProudCynic

    *Sighs*

    And the best computer I’ve got, the one I’m typing this on right now, can barely run Spore on the lowest setting without overheating.

    I second scarshapedstar.

  5. 5.

    BombIranForChrist

    As a hardcore gamer, I OBJECT to you calling me a dork! I’m a nerd, goddammit. Al Gore is a dork. (I said it). Bill Gates is a nerd. There’s a difference!

  6. 6.

    Origuy

    If they’re releasing in a week, shouldn’t they be able to specify the system requirements by now?
    I’ve got a six-year-old laptop that isn’t up to most recent games.

  8. 8.

    ruemara

    Nice pre-render. Waiting for Cata and trade chat when one of the race’s name spelled backwards is negrow.

  11. 11.

    mitch

    damn you, cole, i’m on the fence about getting it, trying to resist for the good of my social life but slowly succumbing to the pressure of mindless hours of fun…

  12. 12.

    Bostondreams

    That is one BFG there at the end.

    And as always, my attraction to the post-transformation Kerrigan worries me.

  13. 13.

    General Stuck

    Thunderstorms – Comcast Kablooy – finally back on line. Missed all the Sherrod nonsense. The Obama crew flubbed it with the mother of all kneejerks. Brietbart is a malignant asshole among many other asshole right wingers on the buttocks of America, but everyone already knew that.

    Doesn’t mean democrats have to fall for it. but O and company surely did this time.

  14. 14.

    scarshapedstar

    @QuaintIrene:

    This is the sequel to the best game ever, 12 years in the making. To put that in perspective, I have played Starcraft off and on for about half of my lifetime now. I was in sixth grade when I first bought it and I am now in graduate school.

    This is the iPhone of gaming.

    Quoth the trailer, “Hell, it’s about time.”

  16. 16.

    Allison W.

    Vilsack apologized. Very sincerely. Is there gonna be a post for this or was it discussed in the last thread?

  18. 18.

    Davis X. Machina

    I already have the computer game.

    It’s called Civ. There have been a couple of versions.

    I think someone told me about some others once, but I’m not sure.

  19. 19.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    @Dave C:

    Anybody know what the hardware requirements are for this thing?

    This question is like asking the price of a luxury car. If you have to ask, you probably can’t run it.

    Here are the requirements

    PC Requirements
    PC Minimum System Requirements*:

    Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
    2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor
    128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better
    12 GB available HD space
    1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)
    DVD-ROM drive
    Broadband Internet connection
    1024X720 minimum display resolution
    PC Recommended Specifications:

    Windows Vista®/Windows® 7
    Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
    2 GB RAM
    512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better
    *Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.

    Mac Requirements
    Mac Minimum System Requirements:

    Mac® OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
    Intel® Processor
    NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT or ATI Radeon® X1600 or better
    12 GB available HD space
    2 GB Ram
    DVD-ROM drive
    Broadband Internet connection
    1024X720 minimum display resolution
    Mac Recommended Specifications:

    Intel® Core 2 Duo processor
    4 GB system RAM
    NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT or ATI Radeon® HD 4670 or better
    :

  22. 22.

    Dreggas

    *DROOOOOOOOLLLLLL*

    That one and Transformers, Battle For Cybertron are calling me.

  23. 23.

    Zifnab

    SQUEEEEEEEE! DO WANT!

    I enjoyed the beta quite a bit. Looking forward to Zerg-stomping you newbs from Lost Temple to whatever the name of an 8 person map is.

  24. 24.

    PaulW

    @QuaintIrene:

    The first Starcraft was a RTS game involving base-building and mission objectives between three races. What made the game stand out from other RTS was the narrative, which had more plot twists than other games of its ilk (Command and Conquer series is the only one to compete on that level).

    Especially with what happened to Kerrigan.

    The anticipation for Starcraft II is pretty high because the popularity of the original never waned even after 12 years.

    Personally I never got into Starcraft. I may be the only person left sane on July 27th after the Zerg Rush hits the stores.

    Oh, and one more thing.

    Brietbart Delendus Est.

  26. 26.

    PaulW

    @Dreggas:

    I already got Cybertron, but for the PC. Game controls don’t translate well to keyboards, you might wanna consider a console version…

    Breitbart Delendus Est.

  27. 27.

    Paul W.

    So freaking excited to return to the world of Starcraft, I’m suddenly having flashbacks to how GOOD the story was in the single player. I imagine it is a good thing that my girlfriend is leaving soon after this game comes out or there would be some serious ire coming my way. Oh, and I already pre-ordered the collectors edition.

  29. 29.

    Dreggas

    @PaulW:

    thanks for the tip, may be a good reason to buy a controller for the PC hehehee. I am still enjoying Age of Conan too much to bother with two other games, Starcraft II will be an exception. Definitely picking up a copy.

  31. 31.

    scarshapedstar

    @PaulW:

    I’d have to say that the three races really made it stand out. Before Starcraft, you had basically two models of RTS:

    1) Command & Conquer, where the two sides were pretty different, with one ultimately being better.

    2) Warcraft / Total Annihilation, where the two sides were damn near identical – with one side still being better (bloodlust).

    With Starcraft, though, there was the paper/rock/scissors aspect, with one big caveat (zerg >>). But then Brood War came along and gave Protoss some great ways to deal with hydras and mutas, and it was good.

  33. 33.

    kdaug

    Man, Blur does some nice work. We used them on Tabula Rasa, and Bioware’s new Star Wars MMO did, too, for both of their released trailers. The latest one got some “Best Trailer” awards at E3 this year.

  34. 34.

    Deimos

    @kdaug: Are you sure Blur did this? I was under the impression that Blizzard does all their own cinematics. They both use Studio Max, so I can see the render styles being similar.

  37. 37.

    Alex S.

    Last year, I was going to buy this, but then I fell out of love with World of Warcraft and had a bit of trouble with Blizzard, so I think I pass for now. However, that trailer is all kinds of awesome… maybe later…
    However, I am looking forward to Civ5, also Fallout: New Vegas. And Half-Life 2: Episode Three is still in the works. That should keep me busy.

  38. 38.

    Fax Paladin

    I would note after seeing the hero’s reaction to the politician (having never played the game, Kerrigan is the only character I know by name) that, somehow, shooting a flat screen monitor is so much less satisfying than shooting a CRT…

  39. 39.

    pharniel

    @Bostondreams:

    That is one BFG there at the end. And as always, my attraction to the post-transformation Kerrigan worries me.

    There are *cough* entire communities dedicated to monsterous girls.

    And she’s supposed to attract / repel at the same time.

    It’s similar to the vampire and other body horror schtick.

    I’d say it’s massive praise of Teh Bliz’s art department that they can make that work.

  42. 42.

    ruemara

    @pharniel:
    The universe has to make up for the Airbender movie to them somehow. And fuck nick. they took off the best cartoons and filled the space with their dreck teen programming.

  43. 43.

    kdaug

    @Deimos: Max, Maya, Softimage – doesn’t really make any difference anymore. They’re all owned by Autodesk, and you can use Mental Ray rendering with any of them.

    But business-wise, it makes no sense to have an in-house cinematic team anymore – too many highly-paid artists sitting around waiting for the storyboards to be re-written/finished. Simple stuff, sure – especially if you’re using in-game assets.

    The cinematic stuff Blur does just takes a completely different approach to making art assets than making games does. You’re not concerned with rendering in real-time, you don’t have poly-limits, you can build your own shaders, you don’t have engine restrictions between you and the output, etc.

    Oh. And you don’t have to worry about fucking “Minimum System Requirements”. It’s a real bitch, especially on MMOs.

  44. 44.

    AnnaN

    Overwrought dialogue, starts with a rip off of the BSG opening music, mouths not quite in sync with the voice-overs.

    Mmmmm, loved every minute of it.

  45. 45.

    Malron aka eclecticbrotha

    Since my main pc (or should I say, the refurbished backup pc I had to beef up when my main pc died a few months back) suddenly decided it didn’t want to boot up a couple days ago, I’ll be building my newest rig in the next few days. I already found a sweet mobo with an onboard graphics processor that will allow HDTV and high end gaming without the need of an expansion card.

    I wish gaming companies would expand trailers like this to create feature length films based on their gaming mythology. That would be sweet.

  46. 46.

    PDXChris

    So, for the life of me, I went to Amazon’s site to preorder so I can have it on the 27th (yes, I am that geeked about this), but I worry about getting a Windows version when I’m running a Mac. Am I to understand from the site that they’re probably shipping in the same box the necessary disks that run on both?

  48. 48.

    pcbedamned

    Damn. Just watched this with my boy. Graphics look awesome, and he wants it so bad. Unfortunately, I just pre-ordered “Halo Reach” for him, so this one is going to have to wait…

  49. 49.

    Crza

    Never mind us geeks in the Western hemisphere… I wonder how completely South Korea’s real-life society is going to evaporate the day this is released. I mean they turned the original Starcraft into a goddamn professional sport, ridiculously huge salaries and all.

    My guess is the streets of Seoul are gonna look like 28 Days Later.

  50. 50.

    pharniel

    @ruemara: Honestly that’s what Nick does.

    The Nick Giveth, and The Nick Taketh Away.

    (Still bitter about 7 cities of gold not being in reruns)

  51. 51.

    Deimos

    @kdaug: I understand your point, but you’re wrong. ;) Blizzard does have its own cinematics team.

    I understand the difference between real-time and pre-rendered; I’m an effects animator. It’s not a stretch to imagine effects animators working on both in-game and cinematic effects. With Blizzard doing it, they have more control with changes. If the game holds true to form, there will be quite a few cinematics, and be a lot longer than the 2 minute typical Blur variety. That’s a lot of work to be done and I doubt paying a company like Blur to do them all would be a good business practice.

  52. 52.

    kdaug

    @Deimos: Ah-ha! You thought you had the last word, didn’t you? :)

    Yeah, effects are a bit different – procedural content scales fairly easily up or down. I was speaking more from an character/prop/environment perspective, although if you do your high-rez in Z-Brush/Mudbox for your normal maps you have your pre-rendered mesh already.

    And with a company the size (and with WoW, $$$) of Blizzard, and considering the number of cutscenes they use, they can certainly afford to have an inhouse cinematic team. Just had the look and feel of Blur’s work (and perhaps they have many of the same artists).

  53. 53.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    @PaulW:

    You might want to invest in an Xbox 360 controller for Windows – they’re well worth the money.

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