Colourful Stuff

It's a very slick tactical squad based game unfortunately hampered by an incomprehensible story and at times restrictive level design. Gearbox needs to make another one!

Zeus, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway has the health system you're describing. Taking fire when not in cover causes the screen to desaturate and reduces weapon accuracy. After a length of time determined by the difficulty setting, enemy weapon type and range one lethal bullet will hit you. It is a very effective system which completely negates the need of a contrived health system and lends a sense of realism. It is just strict enough for the enemies to feel very threatening without leading to constant reloading (a problem RSV has on harder difficulties, especially when encountering snipers).

Moka pot, classy.

Does it matter if the big budget, top down developed games don't directly aim to achieve more muted, mature or worthy goals if beautiful worlds are generated regardless? Skyim is a failure narratively and many systems are simply terrible (why do you want me to forge a trillion daggers?) but every inch of that world is beautifully crafted by shear brute force. No matter how trivial making geometry becomes it will always take a huge team to create a world that massive and detailed with such a strong sense of history. I think I'm comfortable taking what I want from games and excusing the crap, for the time being. I'm excited for the potential of the 'narrative installation' genre of games and art more broadly. Imagine a generation of game designers and fine/visual artists growing up with exposure to Gone Home, Dear Ester and 30 Flights. That has to influence the development of both mediums in profound ways.

That's reasonable considering how some games with explicit objectives are played. GTA is the obvious example, most people using it as an emergent violence toy. Until I was a teenager playing through games was just something I never did. Being in a world with a means of interaction was enough. Codemaster's PS1 Toca Touring Car games for example. I'd just set up the largest and longest race I could then cause crashes. Even now I'll load up the Arma 2 mission editor and blow up tanks or land LZs while listening to podcasts. Making a game without an explicit objective is novel but could reflect how many people already experience games.

Why do public toilets remind you of your childhood? Is it best not to ask? I do quite like how the fuzzy autofocus makes it look like a shitty, low res video game mirror. Did it have a low frame rate as well?

"Why did you put Christmas Duck in the toilet?"

His expression is pretty great. Would you call that mild contempt or fear? He definitely sees something the others don't.

Scoops² http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/scoops-vs-hot-scoops/1600-454/

I was born in Birkenhead, nuking it is a reasonable solution.

Self refection is important and difficult TP, well done. I moved here from the Giant Bomb forums under similar circumstances. A dispute over me not liking QI and thinking Stephen Fry should do fewer adverts ended with a stranger sending me a sweary pm. It shouldn't bother us, but is does so it's best that we make the changes necessary. Thanks for playing the loveable misanthrope.

Slides? Idle Thumbs is embarrassed by your professionalism.

Neil Gaiman always has beautiful special editions. I just can't justify spending over £100 on a book. His paperbacks look great as well, in the UK they all use the same metallic text on a black background. I was reminded about how gorgeous the original Hobbit design was by the recent reprint. My mum's copy always seemed like a strange, timeless thing, especially with a child's limited sense of history. Also notable for including the literary equivalent of a cloth map.

Can we talk about book covers a bit more? I got my partner the B&N leather bound Jane Austen collection for our anniversary. It's a very beautiful cover with just the right amount of camp whimsy. The whole B&N leather bound classics collection seems really thoughtfully designed.

Great list Sinsofa, I've been meaning to get Suburbia. What many tile laying games don't have is a clear sense of history or time. Carcassonne is obviously a much simpler model but what I love about it (especially with the first two expansions) is the feeling of living with your own and other people's decisions. Accumulating ambitions and intentions, delicious. How familiar are people with SimCity 4? I played a city a few weeks ago and it very successfully accomplishes the ambitions of 5 with abstraction and suggestion. Take the simulated individuals of 5. In 4 you can simply move Sims into specific buildings. They will live a life representative of the area. It achieves everything it is intended to, giving a granular picture of what a specific area needs and helping to create a sense of a living city. It is a very simple and economical solution.

I didn't say anything about teens. You said it's soapy, soaps are basically the mum genre and ITV is the mum channel. I'm not sure what the target demo is, I just don't think it's Chris Remo or the other Americans I've heard talk about it. It seems like an odd thing for them to latch onto.

I find the difference between the UK and US audience hilarious. It is pretty much aimed at middle-aged mums here but it seems to have quite the following amongst more discerning viewers in America. Maybe it has something to do with the ITV stigma (which is justified, what a depressing channel) or the ubiquity of that sort of period drama on British TV.

Quebec is a board game which is thematically about the gradual evolution of a city. I haven't played it and suspect in practice it is just an area control, worker placement game. That said it does seem like a fertile medium with which to represent the evolution of a city. Permanence is a more manageable idea in a one to two hour game. Maybe a phase based system whereby players cycle responsibilities, meaning they inherit other idiots' poor planning. It would also alleviate Chris's asset generation concern.

I'm afraid in that instance you are her labour saving device.

In a modern western context in which labour saving devices eliminate the advantage of physical power. Physical differences do not equate to differences in capability, that is what I was taught to believe. This can be extended to the physically disabled. The Zelda example is interesting as Link is not physically strong, he is often portrayed as a child. So it is not his physical maleness which makes him capable it is his heroism. Zelda is only heroic when in her androgynous form. This is problematic. Also societal pressure encourages us to contradict our evolutionary biology in numerous ways. That is what laws are for. We are dumb animals, but we are well trained dumb animals.

I would like to see heroins explored in future videos. Specifically the sort of female characters commonly permitted to express agency in games. Zelda's empowered alter egos are tentatively presented as positive alternatives to the damsel archetype. These Zelda characters are deliberately androgynous, even masculine. Empowerment via the minimisation of femininity or the reappropriation of typically male characteristics is an interesting area of discussion. I personally find this difficult to resolve as I'm caught between my belief that there are no fundamental differences between men and women and my recognition that adopting typically male characteristics serves a utilitarian function within the context of a sexist society.

Oh my, Shadows of the Empire, my white whale. I could never get past the AT fight in the second level.

... or your canvas is at the end of a long queue. This canvas metaphor is being STRETCHED a little too thin, don't you think?

... but it isn't really massively multiplayer is it? From what I've read (which is very little) the multiplayer is confined to the region map. The online requirement is a drm and cloud save thing. On the game itself and that QL, I found Jeff's compulsion to optimise very frustrating. It does seem to have been designed as a set of expressive tools. Curved roads are less efficient, but cities aren't efficient. I am the person who deliberately inbreeds my court in Crusader Kings 2 to make a dynasty of dwarfs, maybe optimisation is what most people want.

Creative director Ocean Quigley claims, "We’ll eventually get around to expanding the city size, but I can’t make any promises as to when.” Maybe between promises for larger cities and server problems it would be advisable to not buy SimCity for a while.