@Keatto: It's easy to argue anything should be free. It always amounts to absolutely nothing, though... LIVE is a product, and they're welcome to charge for it if they wish. I'm not much fussed over it, anyway... I just figure if you do away with one distinction (silver) you'd do well to vanquish its counterpart...

@Dynosaulo: That makes it sound like they're eating something! And the only thing you could be full of on LIVE is ads. And we're all full of those. So, so many ads.

@Char Aznable: Certainly not. I hope you don't think that's what I'm saying... I just can't understand how these guys keep lucking into good properties, as they consistently display an obvious lack of technical proficiency.

@The MSJ: I'm not sure I draw the line at attempt. I appreciate that Avellone tries to make an interesting tale each time out, but it's obvious these guys are bush-league at best. They haven't shipped a finished game in years, let alone a good one. There is a wide space between "mindless fratboy games" and "creative,…

How is #goddamnitObsidian not a happening hashtag? I'm confused as to how one developer as determined to ship buggy, half-operable games as Avellone's crew is could possibly continue to stay afloat. The idea that they're still in business while companies like Pandemic and Free Radical (although yeah, Haze was a huge…

@Hazeman25: Agreed. What a consistently inept developer. Obsidian apologists make Lucas apologists look like nothing at all.

@Ninja Tree: Seriously, this. I know these are pretty early screenshots, but this looks rough. The textures look pretty awful, too.

I approve of the change. Silver made it feel like people were actually members, instead of just visitors.

I can't imagine, now, that I could have ever cared exactly what the sheriff's association of San Diego County thought of Meg Whitman. That concern was happily wiped away on a bassline wrapped in a tutu. Thank God for the Internet.

I'm OK with both the site redesign and the 360's UI. I just wish there were fewer ads. I'm cool with there being ads in the marketplace sections of the dashboard, but now the entire dashboard is the marketplace, and it's irritating.

@ranmisael: The IE9 beta is fantastic. I'd say at this point both Chrome and IE9 have passed Firefox on by... and Opera's still there, chugging along on a I'm awesome, but no-one considers me a threat path.

Welcome back, McWhertor. Glad to hear you had an enjoyable few days of relaxation.

My best friend and I have Evos, and we used Qik to keep in touch via video chat while she was in Norway for a couple months during the summer. No CDMA support in most of Europe meant no calls, but wifi worked fine when it was available. Qik saved our skins in that instance... but we don't use much, if ever, otherwise.

That is such a weird commercial. I've never seen the show, but I've never really liked so-bad-it's-good stuff... a lot of it makes me cringe.

@Xyberfaust: I don't know. Maguire had outgrown the role, physically, Kirsten Dunst looked totally uninterested by the end, and the third film was awful. I'm not sure there was any logical way to make a fourth film that could only serve to further damage the franchise in the longview.

@crizzyeyes: I never had any huge issues with the first game, honestly. I preferred both the combat and the general mechanics. I mostly felt irritated by all the stuff that I knew was supposed to be in Project Ego but ended up on the cutting room floor.

@Toshi: I can't wait until they reboot the Prince of Persia film franchise with Antonio Banderas as our intrepid shirtless hero.

@Befitzero: Redbox is incredibly good about offering free credits for damaged discs, though. I've had it happen two or three times, and each time it's a simple call and they hook you up with a code to enter for a free rental.

@BlockDodgeSHANK: No, I think he means the snow effects are somehow lacking, and that they're not at the level of expertise we find in Blizzard's cinematics for their products.

I'm looking forward to it— if only to see if they can fix all of the second game's bugginess. The first game was great, if severely limited by all the stuff they forgot to put into it... but the second just felt like an amateur production in the extreme. Wasn't polished at all. The content was OK— even great, at…