TychoCelchuuu

Back then at least it was the new shit.

That's definitely the best definition of What Is Game since Idle Thumbs discussed this a few episodes ago (via [url=[url=http://harmonyzone.org/video games.html]thecatamites' website[/url).

Maybe the message here is that progress through life is, of its own accord, worthless, because nothing really happens just by moving time forwards. Life is nothing without experiences in life, and a game about life is nothing - it would have to be a game about anything else to attract your interest. If that's your idea of getting nothing out of a game then I wish I could get nothing out of most games I play. There is not much art in the world that will just straight up give you an interpretation without you having to put any work into it. The most beautiful painting is just a pretty picture unless you actually look at it, the most affecting film is just a bunch of stuff happening on a screen unless you let yourself get emotionally invested, and The Passage is just pressing the right arrow until the game ends unless you think about it enough to move past the "this is boring" stage. But that's not to say that's wrong to have an initial "this is boring" reaction and in fact I think that's one of the most justified and interesting reactions to the game. What I would criticize you for doing is stopping at that point and saying "if a video game is boring then there is nothing there." The real message you should take from it is "what does it mean that this video game is boring, and what does it say about me/gaming/life in general that I don't want to play a depiction of a human being's entire lifetime if that depiction is boring?"

(I was joking)

You're joking, right?

I played Dead Pixels a bit when I got it from an Indie Royale. Didn't find it very much fun at all. I don't think Steam should have a "fun games only" policy but yeah in this case the game got in before the whole Greenlight thing.

Individually sculpt little bras for each of them. edit: actually clicked on the link and saw the Kickstarter. It's fucking breasts everywhere. What the fuck. Why is this called Kingdom Death? It should be called Kingdom Death and Tits. I guess objectifying women is the best way to earn sweet board game cash on Kickstarter.

Great podcast. For whatever reason, in the discussion about G. Oatse when he wrote "Sometimes I wish my ancestors had harvested barley" and Chris said "no, you don't, it's better this way," something about the way he said it made me laugh so hard I had to pause the podcast for a moment. And the sponsored ad segment was great. I'm not surprised to see some disagreement about The Passage here - I think it's almost impossible to make a game worthy of being included in a curated collection at the MoMA without it being at least somewhat controversial, either in terms of "does it belong" or "does it say anything useful." Like, Henroid, what you got out of it was way different than what a lot of people got out of it, and maybe the interpretation "everything in life is futile" isn't something The Passage was trying to convince you of but rather something you were already convinced of that you brought to the game and saw reified in the way the game worked. That's what often makes good art - people have widely differing interpretations but they also think they have good reasons for having those interpretations. I do agree that Canabalt is kind of a weird choice - the art is stupendously evocative but the whole "keep restarting" thing and also the "keep jumping!" thing sort of kills the atmosphere for me. I mean, in terms of fun it's an objectively delicious dish of a game, but "press X to jump at the right time" is hardly a revolutionary concept or even a very interesting one.

A Visit from the Goon Squad, rather.

Contributions aren't about quantity, they are about quality.

http://twitchfilm.com/2012/12/an-unknown-journey-the-hobbit-brings-high-frame-rates-to-the-masses.html (you can paste anything you want into Google and it will find the website with that phrase)

"Cheering for victory" is not the same as "having a more realistic conversation." If you think splicing together Altman style dialog is as easy as layering one voice track onto another, open up Audacity and give it a try. It's not that easy.

Chris interrupts everyone all the time on the podcast. It's just a thing. Idle Thumbs is a conversation, not an interview. If you don't like people interrupting at all then I guess I can understand that (I don't mind it) but it's not like Chris was particularly interrupty in this episode.

IGN headline generator.

It's not just interpolation on HDTVs that makes movies look fake. When widescreen movies get chopped down to pan and scan, the "pan" is typically done at higher than 24 FPS, so every time the movie pan and scans it looks weird to me. I think. I haven't watched a pan and scan movie in years.

If TV soap operas had been widescreen for decades already then I think people would've been justified in complaining that introducing widescreen to movies ruins them because it triggers the "looks like a soap opera" reaction. I've seen movies interpolated to smoother frame rates on newer HDTVs that do this stuff and they look exactly like soap operas. I can't stand it.

From the article: They have to be financially successful to keep getting made, so clearly the best route is "let's make our game appeal to the masses" rather than "maybe every game doesn't have to be a photorealistic multimillion dollar production. When the only games you can imagine making are AAA games, then the only games you can imagine making are going to have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I guess if it's a matter of tweaking box art then who gives a shit, but it's hard to imagine this sort of thing doesn't creep into game design. We're 18 years past System Shock and almost nobody is making games anywhere near that detailed anymore. Thank god for indie games, which have ambitions the size of the moon and realistic expectations and budgets to fit those ambitions, rather than things like Infinite, which, for all their "1999 mode" shenanigans, are far from the ambition of those games of the past, because those kind of ambitions entail a kind of complexity that your average person isn't really looking for. Basically, I like video games more when they don't need their box art to look like the film posters for big budget movies. I like video games when, to break even, they only need to sell copies to the people who appreciate the interesting stuff, even if it doesn't look photorealistic and even if it doesn't have an orchestral soundtrack and hours of professional voice acting.

Hoverboard replica.

I don't want to get rid of all that YouTube crap, but the comments need some work. Ever wonder where all the space on your hard drive has gone? Shop at Ethnic Markets Seriously everything is much cheaper. Just go wherever there aren't any white people and your food expenditures will drop by half.

"We regularly murder infants fresh out of their mothers' wombs." - IGN.com

Samuel L. Jackson is an amazing actor who knows exactly what character to be in every situation, and in this case he knows exactly how awful the VGAs are so he's acting exactly how you would expect the host of the awards to act.

Some of the nominations are really exciting: Best XBOX 360 Game • Assassin's Creed III - Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal • Borderlands 2 - 2K Games / Gearbox Software • Dishonored - Bethesda Softworks / Arkane Studios • Halo 4 - Microsoft Studios / 343 Industries Best PS3 Game • Assassin's Creed III - Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal • Borderlands 2 - 2K Games / Gearbox Software • Dishonored - Bethesda Softworks / Arkane Studios • Journey - Sony Computer Entertainment / thatgamecompany Look at all that diversity! And there's this mystifying category: Best PC Game • Diablo III - Blizzard Entertainment • Guild Wars 2 - NCsoft / ArenaNet • Torchlight II - Runic Games • XCOM: Enemy Unknown - 2K Games / Firaxis Games So I guess Dishonored, AC3, and BL2 all suck on PC then? And PCs are mostly just good for playing action RPGs? Gosh... Linkin Park is up against Austin Wintory and HEALTH for best song. If Linkin Park wins that is going to be hilarious. Journey is up for best indie game but... is Journey an indie game? "Raul Menendez" from Black Ops II is up for character of the year! I bet he's a character alright.

You can even watch them yourself: http://www.spike.com/netstorage/events/video-game-awards/live/