YES

I had been wondering about the legality of that clause in the USA, seeing as a limitation of litigation rights like that wouldn't fly where I'm from. Happy to see someone is challenging Sony's draconian policy.

Is item number 2 a reference to Modest Mouse or was that just me?
Anyway, great game, great article, and I'm loving the week of hate.

Christ, I actually watched this series as a kid. And the MK4 endings just reinforce the nostalgia, I played it on my PSX a lot.

B. Buttercup.

I just finished it.

I found DA2 to be an extremely hit-and-miss game. Some aspects are innovative and good, some feel like a step backwards; in fact, I have a hard time separating those, because some of the elements in it differ from the first games in good and bad ways at the same time.

DA2 looks okay.The new art style has some great stuff, like the new look of the Qunari, and some weirdness, such as the Na'vi looking elves; however, I can understand that they meant to make the game look less generic than its predecessor. Character animations were vastly improved (particularly the new mage attacks), and it all feels a lot less clunky altogether.

The score is exciting (the new battle theme is always on my mind) and the voice acting is as one expects from a Bioware game. Having a fully voiced protagonist is a welcome addition, but the dialogue system is too simplified and your choices usually don't affect the outcome of a conversation.

The writing is definitely well-done and the story, though sometimes lacking a bit of motivation and the epic scale of the first game, is indeed brilliant, despite feeling a bit rushed towards the third act.

Gameplay-wise, the game falls terribly short. The combat feels less varied and less tactical, with enemies being thrown at you wave after wave after wave in order to extend it, skill trees and character development are streamlined to the limit and the carefully constructed dungeon crawls of DA:O are replaced by generic spaces used on every single quest that you'll literally memorize by the end of the game. The PC version also suffers from the lack of the isometric view available in the previous game, making it feel very consolized. Battles are noticeably easier this time around too. It's significantly shorter than DA:O.

So overall I'd say it's worth an 8 or a 7, yeah. It's definitely fun to play, but it's just not as good as the first one, to me at least.

Oh christ. The derpy faces in Bloodstone. I LOL'd so hard.

Brilliant article.

Well, I'll still play the crap out of it.

But was I the only one who kept punching the air in front of the BatMobile for a few minutes in the first game, trying to get in it?

Great. I played PE2 to death on my PSone back in the day.

Like I said towards the end of my little comment there, I don't agree with this decision and I think I made it pretty clear that the judge shows herself to be quite ignorant about gaming and technology, however knowlegeable on Law she may be.

Also judges here are anything but stupid, gigiosantos.

It's not often that a comment section offends me to such an extent (I am brazilian, you see). I understand the judge's decision was lousy (considering I'm a law student), but that's no reason to get people saying (and I must quote here) that we are "lazy fuckers" who "just got ps2s", that "no one cares about Brazil" or that we would "chuck spears" at anyone. That's just hurtful, folks. Shame on you.

Anyway, here we go into a legal analysis: first of all, the father sued two companies, Rockstar and the German ringtone company that Rockstar bought the song's rights from.

Problem is, the contract presented by Rockstar and that company has signatures that don't match the father's. Now the father claims he never signed the song's rights over to the german company, which allegedly was in negotiations to buy them but decided not to do so after recording the boy's song.

The father is now asking for a R$ 500,000 reparation for financial and moral damages. To complement this request, he asked for a preliminary decision suspending the game's sale in order to prevent further misuse of his copyrights, which the Judge granted.

Now I need you guys to understand this decision was taken as an emergential measure, and may be revoked at any time if the judge decides so. Also, due to its emergential nature, it was pronounced "inaudita altera pars" (latin for without hearing the other part, literally), which means Rockstar had still not presented its defense (considering they're they're a multi-million dollar company, I'm sure it won't be long now).

Brazilian courts, just like any court in the world, do have the power to command a company to cease the sale of a product that infringes copyrights. How Rockstar is gonna get its games back from its regional distributors all over the world is their problem (this decision also applies to the digital version of the game).

Of course, it becomes evident from this decision that the judge in question probably doesn't understand the absolute commercial success of the company and the world-wide spread of its products. I mean, a R$ 5000,00 fine per day means nothing to a company like Rockstar.

But don't tell me the guy has no right to demand that his song not be used in a game when he didn't allow it to. And don't tell me he's trying to cash in, because R$ 500,000.000 is also nothing to a company the size of Rockstar.