Originally Posted by Ruud

Fable 2's albion orb system is pure genius and the new LIVE Party plans are a step in the right direction for the gaming generation.

I loved the idea that you could invite any of your friends into your game and just go do stuff. I wonder if you can invite more than one person.. anyways the game looks great so far. Makes me wish I hadnt sold my 360 =(

Originally Posted by Meta Knight

I want to know why they settled on 256 players.

Has to do with networking functionality and factors of 8. 256 is a nice number that just happens to be a factor of 8.

I loved the idea that you could invite any of your friends into your game and just go do stuff. I wonder if you can invite more than one person.. anyways the game looks great so far. Makes me wish I hadnt sold my 360 =(

I'm sure it's only one extra person, if it was more then one it would have been a large selling point to make that obvious I believe. Even so, one person extra, is more then none, although the game still needs to not fail like Fable 1 did to actually matter :p

Sega continues to make me weep. For those of you who haven't heard of it, they're making yet another 3D Sonic game, called Sonic Unleashed. The gimmick this time is that some device of Robotnik's has turned Sonic into a werehedgehog. Here's a scan for those of you who haven't seen it.

Well, Sega has put out a trailer of decent length for it at E3, and for a good while it actually looks promising. The graphics are pretty and the speed is phenomenal, it looks like they managed to capture the feel of the old 2D games. And then Sonic turns into a werehedgehog and it goes to hell. And really, I'm not even that upset about his transformation, it's the gameplay that disappoints me. Combat looks clunky, everything has a health bar over its head and it looks like it's trying to be every other action game out there by tallying up combos. At 1:46 it looks like there's minor puzzling going on with Sonic slowly hobbling around carrying a stone over his head. And why is he fighting creatures spewing darkness? He should be fighting robots.

Maybe I'm too picky, but I just don't like it. Mega Man is still fighting 8 more robot masters Wiley created, Mario is still saving Peach from Bowser, why can't Sonic still just be fighting Robotnik and saving the denizens of Mobius from being roboticized? Why needlessly complicate the matter? I don't want gimmicks in Sonic, I just want blindingly fast action.

Also, DAMN YOU RESIDENT EVIL 4 AND GOD OF WAR. I love those games, but they've popularized a blight among gaming: reaction buttons. Aren't developers aware that it's boring to just mash a button before it flashes off screen? It breaks up the action and just looks out of place to suddenly see buttons flying across the screen. Like in that Sonic trailer, when he's sliding along the rails, the buttons showing up on screen went by so fast I couldn't even tell what they were. Why bother with that? It would be easier to just, oh I don't know, PRESS THE JUMP BUTTON TO GO TO THE NEXT RAIL. Ratchet and Clank can do it, why can't Sonic?

/rant