Be Excellent To Each Other

Much like the Xbox One, they've released something demonstrably worse than its predecessor - only 12 months later is it anywhere near as good and feature-rich.

What Is happening at Microsoft?

In what way? It's only been out a few months so obviously has fewer games. It's loads better in every other way I can think of, though.

In case you're interested though BootCamp is an application made by Apple that allows people with Apple machines to run Windows on the same machine. It essentially walls off a section of your hard drive so you've got a certain amount of space for your Apple stuff and another amount for your Windows stuff dependant on what you specify. As your PC is a pure Windows machine you don't need to worry about any of this.

The other part of that post is referring to the fact that zaphod's plugged an external hard drive into his machine to supplement the amount of space he's got on there by default. It's exactly like plugging a huge USB drive into it and the external drive will appear under My Computer as a separate item that files can be copied onto/off of just like with a USB stick. zaphod's then told Origin (which is EAs digital distribution platform so their version of Steam; a way to buy and download games published by EA specifically unlike Steam which covers all publishers/developers) to install games onto the external drive rather than the 'default' internal drive. Some applications are okay with that whereas some of them expect to be installed on the default drive and will complain or act oddly otherwise so it remains to be seen whether Origin will accept this state of affairs or be a dick about it.

Respawn's explanation of accommodating dual-core CPU users might make more sense if we'd heard of any other game using this technique, or if MP3 decoding wasn't as cheap as it is (for reference, a single PS3 SPU can decode 300 MP3s simultaneously). Practically, while 35GB may not sound like much of a big deal in an era where a 1TB drive is almost £40, it is a clear concern for gamers who use SSDs instead, where the gig allocation is much more of an issue.

It currently costs a rather offensive €60 on Origin,

I don't have that much space free on my SSD,

and stories abound of hackers on the PC version - on top of that me and the guys are still having an absolute blast with BF4 (last night's session was awesome) so I simply don't have an itch that Titanfall might scratch.

Titanfall For The Xbox 360 Pushed Back Two Weeks

Originally scheduled for release next week, the Xbox 360 version of Respawn Entertainment's mech shooter has been pushed back to April 8 (April 11 in Europe) to give port developer Bluepoint Games time to make it better.

The Titanfall 360 delay news comes from a post on EA.com from EA Studios executive vice president Patrick Söderlund, who says the game is fantastic, but not quite fantastic enough.

Now, I want to update everyone on Titanfall for Xbox 360 in development with Bluepoint Games. I've been playing the game a lot, and it is fantastic. But we see a few things that can be made even better, so we're giving Bluepoint a little more time to do just that and deliver an epic Titanfall experience for Xbox 360 players. Titanfall for Xbox 360 will now be releasing on April 8 in North America, and beginning on April 11 in Europe. The game will feature the same 6v6 gameplay, maps, modes, weapons and Burn Cards as the Xbox One and PC versions of the game.

Whatever the problems might be, they can't be too bad if they'll only take two weeks to fix. Xbox 360 gamers eagerly awaiting Titanfall's release can rest assured they'll receive a completely flawless product come April 8. There is so much confidence being bred here right now

Funnily enough, when I went that gaming show thing it was thought that we were playing the 360 version. I'm a bit hazy now but I'm sure someone asked or saw the 360's...

I think all of the shows last year were using the PC build but with 360 controllers (which might explain why you thought it was the 360).

Titanfall's Anticheat Is Now Being Enforced

Titanfall uses FairFight to detect cheaters on PC. Since the launch of Titanfall, we've been collecting data on people who are cheating on PC but not immediately enforcing bans. As of Friday, March 21st, that has changed and we have started banning cheaters in Titanfall.

We will be continuing to tweak the algorithm over time to catch more cheaters.

FAQ:
Q.) How do I know if I’m banned?
A.) Here’s what you’d see at the Private Lobby screen:

If you don't see that, then you aren't banned.

Q.) So what happens if I get banned?
A.) Great news: you get to keep playing Titanfall! Less-great news: you only get to play with other cheaters. You can play with other banned players in something that will resemble the Wimbledon of aimbot contests. Hopefully the aimbot cheat you paid for really is the best, or these all-cheater matches could be frustrating for you. Good luck.

Q.) If I’m banned, what happens if I make a party with my non-cheater friends?
A.) When anyone in your party is banned, then everyone in your party will be treated as banned for that play session. If you are a non-cheater and you invite a cheater friend into a party, you will be stuck playing against cheaters. If you stop inviting your cheater friend, you will once again get to play with the non-cheater population. You do not get permanently tainted just by playing with a cheater - you are only banned for cheating if you are actually cheating.

Q.) How do I get unbanned?
A.) You can contact [email protected] if you think you've been banned unfairly.

Brilliant. What a fab idea.

It's not new. Rockstar did it with both Max Payne 3 and GTA Online.

I thought I'd invented it when I did it for my LSav2 forum.

Per this amazing MetaFilter discussion, it turns out the roots of hellbanning go much deeper – all the way back to an early Telnet BBS system called Citadel, where the "problem user bit" was introduced around 1986. Like so many other things in social software, it keeps getting reinvented over and over again by clueless software developers who believe they're the first programmer smart enough to figure out how people work.

It's also called Hellbanning (it's a teensy bit different, but the main principal is the same), and it's been around for donkeys. I thought I'd invented it when I did it for my LSav2 forum.

Are there any rumblings over the difference in quality between this and the other two versions? This looks good (and fast) but it's hard to tell on the youtubes.

There are times when the game feels uncannily close to the Xbox One version (especially during the less taxing training session) and across the entirety of the clips measured above, we end up with a 46.5fps average - not bad at all. However, different levels exert varying degrees of stress upon the engine, and as you can see from the analysis, performance is variable, perhaps explaining the "above 30fps" marketing. That said, frame-rate does creep below on rare occasions (similar to Xbox One, we can see the odd freeze - a small clutch of duplicate frames) but there's nothing game-breaking.

In summary, after a day with the Xbox 360 game, the big takeaway here is that this is Titanfall, and it does appear to be feature-complete on the older console. With just one tenth of the available RAM and far less capable silicon, it's safe to say that Bluepoint Games has more than exceeded expectations.

Origin are still gouging €60 for the fucking thing as a digital download (or €80 for the deluxe edition which includes the season pass), although I do realise there are many cheaper options besides that to get hold of the game.

Installing now, fifty fucking gig! No chance I'll clear that much space on my SSD so it'll have to go on the clonky old 500GB hard drive

And a large chunk of that is uncompressed audio so that it doesnt tax the system very much :-)

I was vaguely tempted, it's £27 on the uk store. However I'm not going to buy any DLC, so as soon as the first lot comes out, then that will kill off my ability to play online really.

just finished downloading it, Origin is a total pile of shit isn't it, my PC is running slow as fuck as soon as it started up.

just finished downloading it, Origin is a total pile of shit isn't it, my PC is running slow as fuck as soon as it started up.