Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

A year later the real set we all know and love came out, and Uni did a great job on it. Maybe someday it can get the same treatment Star Trek did and get a full-on FX upgrade for a nice Blu-ray release (with branching of course for the brilliant model work by Dykstra and Co)

Problem with the FX isn't the quality, it's them using the same shots over and over and over and over again. At least with Trek remastered they mixed it up a little and had some "new" shots & flybys. BSG was basically done by ILM (if not in name) so the FX should hold up quite well in HD. What I would suggest is some new shots.

Incidentally, Mojo (an FX artist who worked on the remake that you...strongly...dislike) did a test of a classic Viper in CG: you could not tell the CG model from the original in a side by side comparison.

[PeterTHX]

From the 2/17 Bits:

In other news today, it looks like we're only a few short years away from being taken over by Skynet and HAL-9000: IBM's Watson super-computer crushed the two best human Jeopardy! players ever yesterday to achieve a new level of A.I. gameshow domination. More here at ars technica. Next stop: A computer that plays Call of Duty better than YOU! Hey, I wonder if Watson can be trained to quarterback the Minnesota Vikings? Hhmmmm...

Bill: probably not. But on the chance it can I do know this: it won't be texting pictures of its "plug" to anyone...

[Jeff Kleist]

You can tell Bill's not a gamer Most computer AI on a consumer machine can cheat its way to dominance past any human gamer easily That's why chess and other AIs need to be taught how to be dumb to actually give humans a chance. My 20 hours or so to beat Black Ops on Veteran (fighting past Treyarch's poor game design in 3 key sequences is about half that time. Total actual gameplay time of those sequences when done right was probably 10 minutes or less)

[Arkadin]

have coined a phrase for these Warner releases that start with a regular case and then get released in digibook form with the same transfer--
reverse digibook.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

You can tell Bill's not a gamer Most computer AI on a consumer machine can cheat its way to dominance past any human gamer easily That's why chess and other AIs need to be taught how to be dumb to actually give humans a chance. My 20 hours or so to beat Black Ops on Veteran (fighting past Treyarch's poor game design in 3 key sequences is about half that time. Total actual gameplay time of those sequences when done right was probably 10 minutes or less)

Blacks Ops was probably the best CoD I had played since the original Modern Warfare. Certainly better than MW2.

I am going to take a guess about the 3 sequences you are talking about:
1. The ridiculously hard corridor sequence in Executive Order. I must have done that part 50 times.
2. The napalm barrels being pushed down the hill. I didnt have a real hard time with this part.
3. The tank part where you are hopelessly exposed to enemy fire and have to hope that you dont get cheaply get hit. If not for the generous checkpoints this part would have been next to impossible.

Aside from that it was actually not too hard to beat on veteran. Nothing will compare to Blowtorch and Corkscrew though.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

have coined a phrase for these Warner releases that start with a regular case and then get released in digibook form with the same transfer--
reverse digibook.

Opportunity wasted is always a solid phrase, as well.

[Arkadin]

lol!
that works too!

[Jeff Kleist]

3. The tank part where you are hopelessly exposed to enemy fire and have to hope that you dont get cheaply get hit. If not for the generous checkpoints this part would have been next to impossible.

Did it about 20 times but only about 30min

No it was the run out if Kowl

[Jeff Kleist]

3. The tank part where you are hopelessly exposed to enemy fire and have to hope that you dont get cheaply get hit. If not for the generous checkpoints this part would have been next to impossible.

Did it about 20 times but only about 30min

No it was the run out if Kowloon Bays buildIng where you have to pick up the ir sniper. Random magic bullet headshots taking me out

At least with the much better designed Infinity Ward titles, there isnt unlimited respawns in bottlenecks, and well placed checkpoints

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Did it about 20 times but only about 30min

No it was the run out if Kowloon Bays buildIng where you have to pick up the ir sniper. Random magic bullet headshots taking me out

At least with the much better designed Infinity Ward titles, there isnt unlimited respawns in bottlenecks, and well placed checkpoints

Yeah, the part I hated with the Kowloon Bay was where you have to pick up the pistol in slow mo. The part where you have to hold off enemies while your partner blows open the door was easy since I just fell all the way back to the room and just picked people off from there.

Did you find veteran on Black Ops to be harder or ME2 Insanity?

[Jeff Kleist]

Did you find veteran on Black Ops to be harder or ME2 Insanity?

They're not really comparable. ME2 doesn't cheat as hard or have infinite respawns

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

They're not really comparable. ME2 doesn't cheat as hard or have infinite respawns

I agree. ME2 doesnt have cheap deaths nor do the enemies have an uncanny godlike aiming ability in Insanity. I was hit and killed by an enemy who was blindfiring from across the map on several occasions in CoD. ME2 is all about understanding the situation and knowing what you and your squad can and can't do.

By the end of the game insanity was actually not all that hard.

[Doctorossi]

Jeff, can you ask Bill for me, in what universe are 35th and 45th "major" anniversaries?

I love the whole 'anniversary' release concept- there's always another once-in-a-lifetime event just around the corner.

I'd like to share Bill's optimism for future 35th and 45th anniversary re-releases, but if his game is to extrapolate on the established pattern, that only gives us more releases like this new Clockwork disc, anyway (ie. a couple more featurettes that coulda/shoulda been on the earlier release and the same old master despite the fact that they've already made a new one).

Whoopee!

Thanks for the update, anyway.

[Jeff Kleist]

Multiples of 5 are considered major as far as marketing goes

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Multiples of 5 are considered major as far as marketing goes

Conveniently, about the same amount of time it takes the typical video consumer to begin to retch a little less at the prospect of re-buying a title anyway...

[Q?]

Hey Jeff, you have any idea if we'll ever see region B friendly releases of Breaking Bad?

[Jeff Kleist]

Couldn't say, I don't have very many contacts in region B

[Q?]

Oh well that's too bad, I've heard so much about the show, sounds awesome.

[svenge]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Disney has a standard template. English lossless, dubs lossy where space is an issue. No one thought to tell the authoring house on Ponyo or the HK films they did. Sadly, the majority of people will watch the dub, but as I pointed out: The majority of people who care about the quality of the audio presentation will NOT.

I was asked by one of the people who worked on the Ponyo Japanese Blu-ray to purchase it and compare the two. There is actually a difference between the two discs, a "house style" is the best way to put it, that only by comparing a large number of their titles to the US versions did I start to notice. It's extraordinarily subtle

This disc should be sourced from the same masters as Japan, The audio issue was an honest mistake. I'm sure that people will be very happy with the US disc. I'm hoping I can get a look at it soon.

They're never going to do a replacement program for Ponyo then, I take it?

[Jeff Kleist]

Well, there's many options for you. Buy a BD-ROM for your computer and set the region to A, or order a US Blu-ray player