Frenetic Pony

Yep yep yep! Gonna grab this, was tooling around with a game concept and using Unity, but I didn't like how it was going in my head. When I think I've got the idea straight I'll grab UE4 instead, I love the look of the interface and Blueprint scripting sounds awesome. I wouldn't be surprised to see this end up available at the next Molyjam, and other game jams besides.

Oh get over yourself.

I'm tentatively interested. Black Flag was solid enough, but wasn't really an Assassin's Creed game. Then again I really enjoyed 2, including the kind of virtual tourism aspect, which I think I could enjoy even more with some super pretty next-gen shininess. I'll wait for reviews though, Ubisoft's PR machine can be quite a bit better than their actual games. At least The White Terror is a really interesting time in history. And Paris is famous for parkour. I do wonder what, if anything though they have up their sleeves to, I don't know, change the game mechanics.

I just watched Face/Off again for some reason. It's kind of hilarious to go back too. The beginning is awesome, crazy John Woo gun battle and Nicholas Cage in full on losing his shit mode. Frankly I think Cage at his best could've been as good as Ledger if he ever played the Joker. He's just so damned fun to watch. But then the middle hits, and our hero and villain swap faces in a hilarious bit of sci-fi mumbo jumbo (sidenote, Cage with his face off is pretty much the damned Joker for a scene). And then our bloodthirsty insane villain sets himself upon our hero's innocent family, promising dreadful and dastardly deeds including: Treats the estranged wife to romantic candlelight dinners, actually connects with the troubled teen daughter, defuses terrorist bomb, becomes nationally renowned hero, get's massive promotion, connects with his employees as a personable guy, saves the daughter from rape and then teaches her how to defend herself... In short he's, for the most part, a way better good guy than the "actual" good guy. It's utterly bizarre to watch a supposed character represented as a psychotic child killing lunatic murderer suddenly decide to be a generally better person than the actual "hero" is. Honestly, it's still a fun dumb action movie for the most part. But it's just such an odd, incoherent, and sudden character change that it ends up entertaining in a truly "watch the dumb movie be dumb" way rather than something more sinister and exciting.

Can pretty much confirm a wingsuit is in the works for Just Cause 3. But yes this game is inspired by the "Like Skyrim with Guns" quote. The writing will be even worse than FC3, there will be tons of load times, and you will spend hours wandering collecting cabbages that roll down hills.

Jimmy Carr explains it best I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzb_p1mRW1M Tl;Dw Anything, anything at all can be the subject of a joke.

As Gormongous pointed out, I've a feeling the words "South Park" should've tipped you one way or another already. If you like South Park and "Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo" Guess what, it's South Park! If you don't, well it's still South Park!

South Park: The Sticky Truth Well I'm about done with it, and that's one solid and funny (if relatively short for an) RPG. It really does nail South Park, all the right voices are done by Trey and Matt, the humor is spot on in both South Park type jokes and simultaneously making fun of video game tropes while also being a kind of interactive humor. I.E. if you take too long wandering around grabbing stuff while "Princess Kenny" is getting "raped" Butter's just blurts out "I know you want to get the most out of this game and all, but uh, our friend is getting raped up there." It's that kind of cleverness, where they point out the things people do in games that undermine the conceit (EG it's a seriously pressing situation!!! Let's take the next hour to wander around and ignore it) are mocked. Sure the fanservice is overdone, I didn't really need to help Al Gore find Manbearpig. And at sixteen hours the game is shortish for and RPG. But hey it's funny, and the turn based combat is actually pretty solid and fun, and there's enough humor/light puzzles/exploration in between to not feel monotonous. truly.

"It will blow you away... with ghosts." IGN.com

Some young park ranger with the last name of Greenbriar helping with the fire, mentioned in passing, anyone? Anyone?

The whole "quit your company to go indie" thing just keeps getting bigger, I imagine this is a good way for all those guys to get press without costing a lot of money. Frankly I don't go to Gamasutra anymore though.

I would honestly hope for a large fire at the end. Maybe something distant, with a bunch of particles in the sky and that weird lighting you get in the middle of a huge forest fire. EG Wouldn't be too hard if it's distant, animated smoke billboards and some fire particles and you're done. Also the mystery better be:

Pick a party, crash a party, Wizzzaaaards . Honestly I dont know. Whatever.

Man Cineaste, I can relate in my own way I get bored too easily, I spent the last Econ class I was in, my major, half paying attention and looking at recently published physics papers. I nigh bombed out of the college I liked best for simple lack of motivation. The first class I failed was a GE political science course run by a machiavellian woman so inanely stupid I'm convinced to this day that Political Science is the least scientific, least useful subject on the planet. That PS as a major is the least hireable degree in the world may support my hypothesis, but it didn't help my grade or my lack of motivation to just drop the class when I had the time like I should've. Motivation is a big thing, and if you don't have it feeling ashamed isn't going to give it to you. I'd say Bjorn has a point, if you feel like you need to drop out do so, and without feeling terrible about it. Plenty of people go back to college later in life now, it's become a common thing. Go back when you feel like you're ready and willing to do what it takes, from a positive point of view and not just because you feel pressured to do so.

I am sooo tired. Yesterday morning I went on a hot air balloon ride,for free! Well free in exchange for some photography. Except I go to bed late usually, and I had to get up at 6:40am for the balloon. Leave it to say I've had about 10 hours sleep over the last 60 hours of my life, and am somehow still muzzy despite caffeine now running through me. Ohwell, it was fun and the photos came out fine:

Frak I want to see that movie, but it's not playing anywhere that's actually close. I really don't want to drive half an hour just to see it in a crappy theater : (

It better turn out that the person on the other end of the radio is you from the future, come to save you from the past from your own horrible mistakes. But since your current actions affect future you, the game only tells you you've made a mistake after you've made it, because otherwise how would future you know it was a mistake???

Argh that's where I'm stuck at now! I can play it for about 40 minutes then just "eh". "Oh look it's Al Gore and he wants you to find Manbearpig. Ha ha ha." I'm glad it gets better. Not that it's even bad now, it's just not totally gripping.

I wish I was attending GDC But I live close enough anyway.

Wait, the internet is inside the phone???

I watched The Postman the other day. Directed by and starring Kevin Costner. And honestly it was fairly entertaining in a kind silly, corny way. I honestly don't see what the problem was with him wanting to just be a postman, or with Tom Petty showing up as himself. Seriously, do people expect the celebrities to somehow be the first to go during an apocalypse. And certainly "I believe in the United States!" was groan worthy, but in a fun way. Not that their weren't actual problems. The feeling of time in the movie is entirely off. It will go from a nice sunny day in what seems to be summer to pouring snow with several inches on the ground in what seems like no time. And how is it that the refugees of the apocalypse have so much to write to everyone all of a sudden? The clothing was all patched and dirty all the time like people suddenly forgot how to sew or wash clothes, etc. etc. But really I can see a heck of a lot of influence from this movie on other, far more popular post apocalyptic stuff. EG The Last of US There were several things I noted that just seemed to appear wholesale from the movie into say, Fallout 3, New Vegas etc. I really don't see why it was bashed to hell. Heck it was in parts a rather thoughtful, winding, and interesting movie. I'm not sure Will Patton ever gave a better performance, he was quite good as the kinda fraudulent, sneering bad guy. And I really appreciated how they patterned him off Hitler in the mans pseudo intellectualism. I also appreciated Costner as not being "Joe Average" for the good guy. A smart enough reluctant hero rather than "Yipee Kay Yay motherfucker." Not that this makes up for the corniness and silliness, which the movie doesn't do a great job of reconciling the two tones. But it still wasn't bad.

Uplay sucks, but delaying it to make it better doesn't seem like "Development troubles". It's "Well we hyped it too early but we're going to take the hit and wait to make sure it's good enough." That's awesome, and it makes me sad they're getting punished for it. It's not just you either, people seem skeptical all of a sudden when they saw this on every site I've seen while they were ready to go for it months ago. Delaying it can only possibly be a good thing.

Nah, we'll all live forever, and then the population control laws will set in. There will be riots, the police will be overwhelmed, sympathizing with the rioters. At first we'll try robots. Oh they'll be the first. But after the revolution, once humanity rebuilds and the same problems occur. That's when we'll start it. We'll need a new type of police. Better, smarter, faster than any normal human. Able to withstand the greatest punishment, endure the greatest trials. And most importantly look like a total badass while doing so. That's right, we'll that him out of cryo and clone him. A motherfucking Kurt Russel will be on every street corner, every bank, every pharmacy. Because ask yourself, no matter how badass you are, would you mess with this face?

It's a simulation to you, because you are treating it like a simulation. Others, who enjoy it, treat it like an abstraction. You can look at it either way is my point, but the way you get fun out of it (unless you actually are a psychopath) is to just look at it like an abstraction. While I suspect Rockstars intentions are obviously making it the way people have fun with, it's art so it honestly doesn't matter what their intentions are, what matters is how you take it. Many people find Trevor hilarious, because he's a kind of representation of how they play GTA brought into a character. People don't see him as vile, they see him as all the chaos they have fun creating, and then turned into a satire, like what you might view how other people play GTA as. But to most it's just a satire, they actually aren't living out a fantasy of being a deranged mass murder, which they would be if they had your point of view. But do you honestly think so many people enjoy it by doing that? Of course not! They enjoy it the way I enjoy it, the way I'm getting you to try to view it. You can view GTA any way you want, just like you can view a painting any way you want. I'm saying my way, viewing it as an abstract playground full of toys that sort of resemble the real world, is probably a lot more fun than yours.

I'd call your problem, not a case of playing it wrong, but of perceiving the game wrong. It's not actually supposed to "put you in the shoes of" your character. You aren't actually supposed empathize with any of the NPCs. They're more of an abstraction, you don't care if you kill orcs in a game do you? Well the NPC's in GTA are just as fake. Just as non existent, the only real difference is the mesh, some texture work. A lot of games have you play a murdering asshole, to call out GTA for it just because it models more on familiar life is... it's a problem of personal perception rather than anything objective. Not that I don't get it. I used to not hunt in video games, because somehow my brain empathized with the animals even though they were virtual. But eventually I realized I was just being kind of dumb. Those animals no more existed than any of the people I'd run over in GTA Vice City or blew away in any number of other games. So there was no objective reason to treat them any differently. Which made the hunting part of The Last of Us awesome. Or think of it this way. If you play Counterstrike: That's a "real world" setting, with real world looking characters, that doesn't even try to be an abstraction like GTA does. Odds are you don't care how many people you shoot in CS. So why should you care about the "people" in GTA? If you are on the T side your, hypothetical window dressing, job is literally to murder and terrorize, but you don't care. GTA is similar, if you think about the world as some attempt at presenting a real world analogue your missing the point. It's really not, it's more of a familiar abstraction and sandbox. A chance to let that little insane voice in your head loose that says "I should ramp off that" or "I wish I could just run this light" or "man that guy that just cut me off is an asshole."