Frenetic Pony

EEEuuurggh! This game needs... Some of it is so cool. But it really needs variety. "Hey look, it's the same cave I've been in a hundred times!" "I like that boulder, it's nice boulder, it's followed my all over the island!" "Oh look, another perfectly sunny day! And with the exact same blade of grass that's everywhere!" And the RPG's disappoint me every time I shoot a building and it doesn't blow up. Starting a fire disappoints ever time it stop 30 seconds later and buildings that were on fire are totally spotless. Every time I use the bow I have to recover my arrows within about a minute or the bodies disappear. Curse you limits of current gen consoles! Ok, yes part of it is the developer. But a lot of it, can be, or could be, or at least in large part is thanks to 512mb of ram and very limited processing power of seven year old consoles.

Jennifer Hale is actually Nolan North when he went back in a time machine and switched his Y chromosome with a nearly identical X one at birth, just so he could be in MORE video games. But seriously, it's partially because video game creators aren't directors. Most movies don't even do that, to the point where the only director to do so regularly, Robert Altman (see Gosford Park btw), was famous for doing so.

"I was blown away, dead body scattered across the hotel room floor. Tell my wife, I died bravely" Kris Kohler, IGN.com

Gods below, the pirates in this game. Pirates across a river, they start to cross the river, see me. The driver drives straight at me, OFF THE SIDE OF THE BRIDGE AND INTO THE WATER, killing himself and his mate. Good job. Driving around, run across a pirate jeep. Chase time! It's going alright, I try to go off road to ditch them. Another god damned cliff! I ditch the ride and roll to safety, the pirates of course drive off the cliff, don't see me, drive off the next cliff, catch their jeep on fire. One of them screams "shit, fire!" and runs away, the other dies when the jeeps explodes.

Oh I'm not arguing the exposition in Jackson's films couldn't be better at times certainly. For all his wonderful talent at action and fantastical wide shots he sometimes slips into not knowing exactly where he's going with purely dialogue sections with only people to look at. But what I am saying is that what we're both trying to get at is the classic creators dilemma, of what it is exactly that resonates with people. Surely all such products have concrete portions that are good or bad as valued by individuals and even the vast majority of people might agree on whether those things are "good" or "bad". But if we enjoy something it can be downright terrible in some of its sections and yet we don't mind. We get past it because of what it is we are enjoying, even if we don't know exactly what those things are. We all have our own reasons for enjoying such things, but even knowing what it is that hits it off for ourselves can be difficult. I often have to stop myself if I'm ranting about something I dislike when I catch myself pointing out some flaw I willingly accept elsewhere, as if that flaw was the reason for me disliking it when clearly I can tolerate it. Which I suppose draws us to what exactly suspends disbelief. I posit it's most often characters. Writing, the directing of such, the acting, their struggles, that drive us to either accept a movie and all its flaws or to not and start noticing them more than we might have. And DI, good or bad, just as CG good or bad (unless it's a CG character of course) probably doesn't have the strongest impact on the characters and our suspension of disbelief, even if it detracts or adds to our enjoyment of a movie otherwise.

Just... it's a "boyfriend" game from Japan. It's pulled from the Appstore, which is why it's in this forum. And this is why it was pulled from the appstore: http://boyfriendmaker.tumblr.com/

Yes, I am Al Gore. Also, I'm taking notes. "Horsebag" good, "on a mobile device" "potato". THAT will really throw them for a loop!

Nah, I'm good with any translation. Like I said, I've adapted books, I know what goes on and that you aren't getting an exact translation no matter what you do. I loved the LOTR movies! But every review pegs it as too slow. Think King Kong or the end of Return of the King. "What am I doing, where am I going? Can't we just get on with it?" Also, I fail a bit to understand anyone that thinks the LOTR films haven't aged well. Watched the entire extended trilogy with my little sister (her first time seeing it) and I still enjoyed it! (Fifth time watching them?) Maybe, probably, they're just not something YOU enjoy watching several times, and so you miss what it is you actually aren't enjoying and pick on ridiculous things like "the digital grading hasn't aged well..." Don't worry, it happens to everyone. Most people miss why they don't like something, and hone in on the details to find some sort of explanation to satisfy yourself as to why instead of seeing the real reason. What you're really, probably missing is the suspension of disbelief. As in, you aren't empathizing with the characters anymore. That's the real key to movies and books and etc. Because, in the human brain, if your "empathize with X" brain section is turned on, then your analytical, logical section is turned off. So if you're not empathizing with the characters, you notice all the little niggles and details that no movie gets right, and think that THAT is surely why you're not enjoying this. Think about Jurassic Park. "Best CG in any movie ever!!!" Right? Of course not! It's 1992 CG and looks it. The key, the magic, was that Spielberg got you to BELIEVE that there were dinosaurs there, that you were actually seeing them. He got you to empathize with the characters seeing these things, and so you see them too. That's the real "movie magic" that goes on. So anytime you notice the "ugh CG" or "wow that's totally faked!" in a movie, it's almost certainly because you aren't engaged with the story and characters, and so have time and brain power to notice those things.

Always has for me, you don't even loot them, you just walk over your arrow. Also, I've seen the "If you die on the island..." loading tip several times. I really wanted it to be completed "If you die on the island, you die in real life." And the story is actually this crazy cyberpunk thing where you've accidentally mindjacked into this crazy game that kills you if you don't complete it successfully. You wander around the island, learning your goal is to escape the game by winning, and seeing messages from players that have tried to come before you. There's one guy that seems to have made it out alive and you go around finding clues to what he did to get out of the game. You get to the end of "the game", about to escape, when you hear a mysterious voice. It tells you not the complete the final challenge, you'll die if you do! The game is just a trap, but he's a programmer on it. He's sick of being forced to work on it. But there's a glitch in the games networking. If you complete the right series of tasks it can elevate the programmers monitoring it security clearance in the program. If you can get him all the way to the top he'll shut down the game and free you. You complete the challenges and the game gets shut down. You're free! You meet him in real life, and he reveals completing the game would have set you free. But he needed someone capable of completing the tasks to shut down the game for good. You're now a hero in "real" life, you saved everyone from the game! To bad the mysterious figure lurking in the digital shadows has noticed you and your skill at games. His plans are sinister indeed.Oh yes, there is a sequel coming...

Then we agree to disagree... and that you are a horrible person with no taste coffee. But no, I've never tried Philz even though I've heard of it. Maybe next time I get to SF, Christmas or something.

I think I'm 98% done with my patent application. I just spent a paragraph describing "The Internet". Literally, I could have just said "the internet" and it would mean the same thing. I'm wondering if, in some alternate universe where karma changes your body, an alternate me doing the same thing has just sprouted whisker like things and has a strong desire to suck eggs.

Tmobile seems fine when I'm in SF. Weather is... pretty much covered! And if you like coffee I recommend trying both The Blue Bottle Cafe and Ritual Coffee.

Looking Glass? Random Words? King Kong? Am I buying a chair? Am I buy a chair?

Not here! Infinitely respawning dudes in one camp I found, whoo! I tried, I tried for half an hour on one camp alone. Thirty plus bodies later, I poke into a cave that's in the camp, turn around and more dudes standing 15 feet from me where they weren't before.

I don't think I've ever seen a game that does so much I enjoy, and yet so much I don't at the same time. Watching a tiger wander around, eating people is great fun. I love that I can kill people silently with the bow and then grab my arrows back, I love some of the design choices in telling you where interesting things are. The smoke pillars and camp fire are just great little touches that scream "hey there's something here!" without actually being terribly obvious. And yet there are so, so many problems that frustrate me, occasionally to the point of quitting for a while. I accidentally wandered into a mission zone, which now means I MUST complete the mission or it forcibly reloads the game for me. WTF, I didn't want to do that mission yet! Another time I wandered into a camp, trying to remember how to "free" it and have the rebels take over (hadn't done that since the tutorial). Kill all the guys right? Well, they just respawn indefinitely, I can't kill all the guys! The basic premise is great, everything builds on itself. You need more money to get that flamethrower so you need a bigger wallet to get enough money so you need to find the right animals to get a bigger wallet so you need to take down the radio tower. A long series of short terms goals, building towards the ultimate goal, which is something you chose, whoo! And yet... ugh. I turned it on hard and turned off weapon marking but... Ok, the game looks great on occasion, but has some of the worst pop in I've ever seen. Things disappear and reappear sometimes at random, trees literally grow bigger as you approach them. Occasionally it looks like a PS2 game, and a bad one, if you're in the right spot. The water sometimes looks like someone barfed up a lot of gushers, and while the faces are friggen awesome the variety in terrain is "tropical island jungle, to MORE tropical island jungle!" And then there's stuff like the mini map. Which I wish I could turn off, because no, I don't want all seeing god vision. Or the AI, it is, as always, just awful. Oh sure, sometimes it seems rather good. But then you "figure it out". I've done that. Keep to cover and wait. I've managed to stab over a dozen guys in a row, most of them attacking at once, just by sitting in a shack, waiting for one to approach, running out to stab him to death and then running back in. Over and over and over. And yet some of this game is SOOOO good. I am the king of ridiculously bad driving in this game and I love it! Another cliff WHEEE! I actually enjoy dying from fire and falling simply because it's so... physically attached. Your character always feels like a dude and not some invincible, physics defying thing like in other games. I even managed to drive a jeep off a cliff, have it land vertically, face down. The windshield cracked, the guy braced against the wheel like he was actually vertical, it was awesome! This would be, could have been, one of the best games I've ever played; if only it didn't have so many oddities (douchebag story, etc.) dragging it down all the time. Hey look, do you remember what the main quest is, you should since we REMIND YOU IN BIG FRIGGEN LETTERS EVERY FIVE MINUTES BLINK BLINK BLINK YOU ARE AN ADHD MORON BLINK BLINK!!! Still, I'm going to enjoy getting back to it later.

I agree with this, and am more concerned about the generic character design. Hey look it's Nathan Drake again! Man, that guy gets around, to like every friggen shooter this generation. Why, WHY do designers do this? Frankly, if I had to take a stab, I'd say it's almost too much time, too much second guessing yourself, and too much compromise. Given enough time in the collaborative, everyone gets a say on everything game development strategy we use today everything ends up looking the same, like a lowest common denominator. I was interested in FUSE when it was called "Overstrike" and looked stylish: Seriously, which one looks more interesting? I'm pretty sure I've already played the above one, several times this generation. We need more than just new consoles, we need new ways to make high end video games. Something where a game doesn't lose all originality and personality the longer it takes to make. I miss the weird Anime/Bobbledhead Elizabeth design... now she just looks like any other woman.

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This always a concern, but if popular enough multiplayer games NEVER die. There's still Command and Conquer: Renegade servers going. Wanna pick this up. But I've go The Walking Dead, Saints Row 3 from a sale (it's alright enough), and Xcom. Maybe if there's a sale in the winter.

I choose both and fuck yo minimum requirements!

I'm only to episode 3... Also, this stuff is too damned depressing! I'm taking a break and playing Borderlands 2 and shit.

So the world isn't perfect, and neither is this. The point I believe is that Tim and the senior staff have picked it before. It's worked out alright, but it would be hard to say if it's actually better than this without trying it. It's not just about who might be best to lead, there may be a whole host of subtle affects that will change how these prototypes vary from past years. Knowing that the public, or the section that voted anyway, supports you has to be encouraging even over and above knowing your boss does. This might not be THE BEST way of going about things, but it might be BETTER. So it's worth trying at least once.

High hopes are definitely to be had, but I'm disappointed they're STILL going for really tiny areas. 2x2 kilometers isn't a city, it's a tiny town of less than a thousand people in North Dakota.

Thanks for the recommendations (sooooo many!) And I did enjoy the first season of Suzumiya, and didn't mention it only because I watched 1 episode of season 2 before realizing they'd lost whatever it was they had from 1 and quitting.

Predictions based solely on my own experience: Space Base and Black Lake get the nod towards most likely to come out as something able to be made into a game. Their concepts seem realized, solidly "game" like, and have the most obvious path towards what has already been established as "fun". The White Birch: I don't know about this. I voted for it, but he seemed really vague about what it was he wanted to do. "Something like Ico or Journey" isn't something I imagine is easy or direct to pull off. It's not like a resource/people management game where you can just say "oh, I know a lot of what I'm doing!" And his extreme vagueness on it makes me wonder how it'll turn out. Still hope it does turn out well of course, definitely wouldn't mind more Journey/Ico type games in the world. Hack'N'Slash: This sounds, terribly ambitious, which is why I didn't vote for it. If you are given tools, how do you make sure they just don't break the game entirely? How do you continue to make the game fun for more than 15 minutes? I played with coding and even a friggen game genie just like this guy. Infinite health, deleting stuff by accident, the actual "tools" are going to need to be very specific. But my biggest concern is how it would actually appeal to a mass audience. I'm certain there are enough people out there who might enjoy the concept to make it a niche, cult game. But I'm wondering how you make it accessible enough to make it even a small scale commercial game. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, and that at least I'm interested to see! Autonomous: I... this stuff has been done before. And never really turned up well. Pulling from my memory, there's definitely been "build your own robot/AI/machinery" type games, plenty of which have come before and none of which I can remember having been terribly fun or successful. Can anyone correct me on this?

My guess is they'll make whatever works great of the prototypes. I mean, if all 5 end up being fantastically fun you don't just toss 4 out and say "welp, we're only doing one ever, goodbye!" But certainly Doublefine isn't big enough/probably not budgeted enough to make all 5 games at once either. So, probably just a "wait and see" thing. How many people they have available now/soonish, how many (if any) work out well, etc. Total guess of course, but I doubt there's any "hard rules" that couldn't be broken under the right circumstances.