plasticflesh

I've just noticed GTAV's Snapmatic photos are available in the social club. Here's my most interesting one...

For parachutes,

I concluded some missions with a terrible feeling of antithesis...

Oooh right I forgot about how it's loaded with QTE events. (quick time event events)

Based on the conversation about Maniac Mansion, I am ready for a immersive simulation remake of Maniac Mansion.

That is definitely a gross mission.

as they say, "Kifflam."

Lvl 99, that's very true... And totally true about making money legally being discouraged through low profits.

I have voraciously consumed the content of this video game. Here are some thoughts. I'm trying to spoiler-proof the right stuff, but I probably missed a lot. Read with caution, and please message me if there's an egregious spoiler that needs blocking. I really enjoyed the multi narrative aspect. It was my favorite part of L.A. Noire, Im glad it's here in GTA V too. There were certain missions early on where the characters intersect with each others lives in such a way that was compelling and fun. Near the end of the story, The multi-part Heist missions are great, and reminiscent of research for Assassins Creed 1 research missions, in a good way. They are not super interactive, each has 2-5 variables of plan of attack, and selection of support crew which allegedly changes the way missions pan out. Most missions keep the tone of a 80's action movie, which supports using all sorts of vehicles and extreme setups, with early missions having a pretty front loaded variety of vehicles. The implicit violence could have had better efforts to walk the audience into the business of mass murdering the community, with two specific instances where I thought 'this is some gross violence': The racial nature of most gangs is really aggravating to me. The way the game frames certain more 'arcadey' missions is interesting. Then there's the first mission with Dom. There's a lot of collectables. There are certain specific aspects of GTAIV that I missed. There was a loop in the game mid-story where I was obsessed with buying the Cab Company Tried to mess with the stock market, but no huge turn outs. This game has not helped my cynical view of stock markets. Driving feels nice, not as wobbly and wild as GTAIV, more reminiscent of Sleeping Dogs, but not nearly as toy-car feeling. What Sleeping Dogs obviated to me was the need for not just good car driving, but a dense and varied map. Which this or any GTA is all about. The last weird thing is the undocumented tackle animation, where when running forward and hitting (X)jump then (B)punch, you cancel your jump animation and flail forward, face planting or tumbling away. It is fun slap stick, but seems like a un-polished thing they kept in from LA Noire or specific parts of GTA IV. I don't recall tackling being an all the time thing in those two? For a game about driving cars around big cities like a jerk, this one is pretty neat. As for women characters and the way they're treated or portrayed, Technically, I do notice pop-ins, especially at the peripheral vision when turning quickly. Only occasionally do I crash into an object as it pops-in right in front of me, but I'm off roading at those points anyway so it's of acceptable. As for the dry sales pitch, I am creeped out by all advertising. All of it. It is creepy. I don't need to be determined for it to irk me, advertising is creepy by design. Hopefully that wasn't too spoiler-y, or too verbose, or too repetitive of existing input.

Frenetic Pony, many apologies for missing your point about GTAIV vanilla's admitted flaws. Level of Detail models can look funky (exemplified in your daytime screenshot), and there's all sorts of pop-ins to always crash into. And I have no idea what size tv screen Niko's cell phone is meant for, it's small on every screen I've used. It's sort of interesting how Ballad of Gay Tony managed to clean up the shaders a bit. And the font size on the cellphone in that and Lost and The Damned is a mandatory improvment. And being a xbox player I'll never persue the pleasures of sweet sweet mods. Only the ocassional benevolent modder in freeroam and their "Trials HD"esque constructions. Modders are common place, and frequently annoying (warping you around, trapping you in jail, attaching geometry to you). But when they're benevolent it's funny(giving you sweet indestructable cars, attaching geometry). Sadly I've never felt ready to pull the trigger on the Saints Row series. Everyone looks like a WWF actor. Its just has too much machismo for my taste? GTAIV has its sexism but not ALL the women are in thighhighs. Sleeping Dogs was a fun ride, for GTA-likes. /me hops in a airport golf cart, does back flips off the curved airport walls

I've only ever played ck2 on 'no input accelerated time warp' and its still pretty compelling. Hearing about my lord spawning baby after baby, getting and recovering from head colds, throwing feasts on his own, and so on...

Late entries on satisfying game endings that are certainly heavily tinted by nastalgia. The ending to 'zelda: a link to the past' had a wonderful epilogue cinematic showing all the characters going about their lives. 'Super mario world' also did a similar nice thing. As did toe jam and earl. Most of this content occurs during the credits, and feels optional. But endings change with the times. In elementary school I recall being taught dramatic 5 act structure of prologue, exposition, conflict, climax, epilogue. It was hard to think of a movie with falling action longer than a minute. I could only percieve 3 acts of exposition, conflict, climax. But watching many films from the 30s through the 70s, they might seem to drag on after their ending, because they actually had falling extended epilogues, for better or for worse. The core period of interactivity in games typically is the conflict act. If a game *wants* to mimic dramatic structure it adds conceits like time limits, ticket amounts, end bosses (or ancients) that need defeating, a sequence of linear capaigns/levels, and so on. But typically the journey is the destination. By this analogy, sandbox games could be argued as one act plays. Pure conflict. But I probably have a misinformed idea of dramatic structure.

As far as bluffing in online games, it just occurred to me the R.U.S.E. strategy game seemed to be built with that intention. 3 Moves Ahead have discussed that and its 'Wargame' sequels for sure. I can't recall any useful juicey tidbits at the moment though...

Thanks for indulging my fan mail about a hypothetical gritty military FPS DOTA-likes, Thumb powers-that-be. It strange that I offered this suggestion since I myself am not in love with even FPS shooters. But the occasional multiplayer thingy has drawn me in, like MNC or BF3. BF3 has a weird balance between the arcade goofiness of upgrading your kit of COD but with the traipsing around the bush realism of Arma. And it's a nice way to conference call with my brothers while they curse at the enemy. I can see the dis-taste for expendable creeps being why Portal 2 made their multiplayer personas robots, or why MNC uses robots. Watching the AI controlled representation of a living creature inevitably lead to its repeated death is trying. But when it's a player controlled representation of a living creature having their skills put to the test, it's drama.

I still adore Gta4's vibrant city, its prolific signage, its unique districts, its weird shoe-horning-in of NYC landmarks. But I guess NYC is a much uglier source material than LA. Like in "Annie Hall," Allen's character Alvy visits LA, and they talk about how dirty NY is, so Alvy remarks, "I'm into garbage. It's my thing." (and ) /Kneejerk apologist for GTA4's "ugly" environment

Apogee's had great use of the internal speaker. So did the intro for .

What if it was " Swappin' " ? "Swap Quest" ?

Gateways on Steam and XBLIG is a great Portal-like Braid-like side-scroller platforming with a metroid-like contiguous world layout with ability gates. The main gimmick is the crazy split-screen rendering of entering the next portal. .

In reply to the absurdity of cathedrals next to industrial zones and skyscrapers, I give you the Hearst Tower. And here is a great documentary on the building of the skyscraper where I learned about this majestic abomination. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA5O0uNfcmE Full video http://watch.wliw.org/video/2290092353/

Thanks! Actual laughter was produced. This is also the only footage I've seen yet of this game.

Anybody have a link to the "Qwop 2" / Metal Gear gif?

What is "it's the wave of the future" a reference to?

Hi Idlethumbs Forum! A friend sent me this random interesting link of screen shots for a fake game "Battlekid". I don't know a good place on this forum to put it, so I am making a new thread for it. http://www.monogocoro.jp/2012/11/20/battlekid.html

Steve Jackson Games had a pen and paper RPG called "Tooned" I think, or something similar. It had 'hammer space' inventory where you could pull anything from behind your back. And a 'cosmic shift' ability which enabled you to do the wackier cartoon things like run over thin air or walk into a painting or something. I had many books for it but no friends to play it with

Some multiplayer examples I recall easily, Team Fortress Classic had escort maps where one team escorted a VIP from the start of the level to the other, while the other team targeted him. It relied heavily on the VIP player not being foolish. But I recall it being a good time. Payload is basically TF2 super simplified variation of this. GTA4 has the Cops N Crooks All for One variation, where "one team is made up of Crooks and a Boss, and the other team is made up of Cops. The Cops are trying to hunt down and kill the Boss while the Crooks are trying to protect him. The Cops win by killing the Boss and the Crooks win by getting the Boss safely to the getaway vehicle and escaping." via. I only played it once or twice, and recall the mob boss getting away pretty easily, but I'm probably piss pour at it. non multiplayer, Earthworm Jim had the "For Pete's Sake" level where you escort a puppy equivilant of Dr Jekyl across some terrain, if he falls he becomes a bulldog Mr Hyde and chews some life off of you. Frustrating but OK.