Jake

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Everything posted by Jake

  1. Sorry, Chris re: cutscenes... I wasn't referring to pre-rendered vs in-engine, I was referring to the post-half life desire to eliminate non-interactive moments from gameplay. I think the term "cutscene" has taken on the meaning of "pre-rendered video moment" but I've always thought a "cutscene" was any non-interactive (sometimes cinematic, but not always) moment usually used to move the story along. I really can't think of a game other than Half Life that's truly never broken out of the in-game camera for the full duration of the game, but lots of developers got obsessed with this model as "the future" and "the true way to do storytelling in games." Even Tim Schafer, king of the cutscene, talked about wanting to move towards this model.
  2. Well, even the Half Life 2 videos had people with slightly larger than life eyes and things, they were specifically designed to be emotive. That stuff is stylized differently than the others. The survival horror and "EA real" visual styles (hitman comes to mind too) in my opinion seem to always have this obsession that "real" somehow equates to really dark small somewhat sunken eyes and overly pronounced cheekbones, which seems to boost the "death mask" look a little.
  3. F.E.A.R. - first person combat meets Silent Hill?

    Sounds pretty cool actually. Too bad it's called "FEAR," and they've tried to stretch the definition of the acronym to something within the story...
  4. Ha ha! QuakeIII raytraced movie

    If I'm not mistaken, Jim's (over on the AG forums) biggest complaint with the realtime Myst games is that they can't use the beautiful perfect raytraced graphics of the pre-rendered titles, so in a way the realtime Myst games aren't really Myst games at all.
  5. Ha ha! QuakeIII raytraced movie

    Now they just need to use this for the next realtime Myst game and, hopefully due to some complex logical jibba-jabba and a bit of luck, Jim will suddenly cease to exist.
  6. Welcome, "thejizzer!"

    Three cheers to our newest forum member who happens to have the most unfortunate username ever. ... Unless someone can find a less fortunate one?
  7. Welcome, "thejizzer!"

    More early 90s really... and yes. http://www.fatman.com/
  8. The Geneology of Games

    So its all really iterations ("with enhancements," of course ) of punching each other? That sort of defeats the purpose of this discussion... In terms of "what came first" didn't Bungie's "Pathways into Darkness" predate wolfenstein, or do they just like to claim that at mid-90s trade shows? Also I remember a first person shooter PC game themed around Terminator 1 where you could play as either Arnold or Reese or whatever his name was - it looked like it used a flight simulator engine but was based on the ground. No textures really to speak of, but it was all polygon based (or a total hack to look polygon based)... I think it predates wolfenstein as well, though it's pretty different in structure (mission based) and speed (really slow) and funness (it's not fun).
  9. Where do you work/study?

    Attention: That said, I approve of Jack in The Box ------ That said, I work for a publishing place which writes and publishes three extremely local newspapers (the Aptos Times, Capitola Times, and Scotts Valley Times - three small towns that circle Santa Cruz and all actively try to deny that Santa Cruz exists). The domain name of the place that I work? http://www.CYBER-TIMES.com ... The future! I am the editor of all 3 papers. Fear me. I do other things with my time as well.
  10. This is old news to some (or all?) but for the ones who don't read the AG forums, I figured I'd drop this link to DHTML Lemmings here. I've found this to be the ultimate at-work or homework distraction. DHTML Lemmings Its just what it says it is: The first Lemmings game, with its giant pixels and all, but written in ... DHTML, not even Flash. It works surprisingly well* (* on the one G5 we have at work. Slower computers beware). Remi would be proud.
  11. CASH IN?? The game was made by two or three fans because they were bored. Valve thought it was fun and offered to put it on Steam. What are you talking about?
  12. BUY games? what are you, stupid?

    Yeah. If for you it's somehow really an issue of "the publisher has made the game unplayable, only the pirated versions work" you should still be buying the real thing and then obtaining whatever it takes to make it work, be it a patch, crack, or the full-on bootleg you would have got in the first place before turning over this new leaf. Otherwise you're just completelely rationalizing and lying to yourself.
  13. Yeah its on non-steam file sites, too. You just need to poke around a bit.
  14. Yeah its incredibly cheesy and dumb, but its cool that it exists at all. Its too bad the play control is so clunky, the frame rate is so low, and the enemies are so dumb. At least it looks really good, and is real.
  15. Welcome, "thejizzer!"

    Okay maybe intelligent wasn't the right word to use, but bullies are noted for their ability to properly cut you down, and following that up by kicking you while you're down. Calling a single non-fat person "Jake and the fat man" fails to do either of those trademark bullyish things. That's all. Jeez guys.
  16. Welcome, "thejizzer!"

    I used to occasionally be called "Jake and the Fat Man" by the uncreative bullies at my elementary school (I was neither fat, nor did I have a fat friend standing nearby the few times I was called that).
  17. I'm all about the Quattro Pro, personally.
  18. Traditions and Customs of your country.

    Whoa is this a tradition of your country?!
  19. Just what ARE you playing right now?

    Here at the Thumb we prefer to leave our reviews unscored. ¬
  20. Just what ARE you playing right now?

    Aye. He did the Rob Blanc games and Odysseus Kent and some other stuff... he used to write a decently entertaining column for Adventure Developers, back when that was a site. I don't know if anyone else actually found it entertaining, but Yahtzee's column is what got me interested in amateur adventuremaking int he first place.
  21. Just what ARE you playing right now?

    1. Beyond Good and Evil (almost done finally, Chris) 2. Half Life Opposing Force (woo PC ownership) 3. GTA Vice City 4. Gish (thanks to all here for recommending) 5. 5 Days a Stranger
  22. Is GameSpot Complete worth it?

    A very important point Erkki and Chris have vaguely brought up which has been ignored in this thread is that Gamespot Complete's content can be found on a lot of other sites across the web if you really want to look for it. Wait, you say, isn't that exactly what the GS Complete detractors have been arguing? Yes, yes they have, but they're missing the point. It seems to me that having all the same news from those other sites all in once place is the point of getting Gamespot Complete. You know, the "Complete" part of it. Once you pay for Gamespot Complete, you don't need to scour a dozen gaming sites to get all of the news and videos, you get it all from Gamespot. It's not for "the hardcore who want to pay for it." The "hardcore" gaming news people are the ones in this thread complaining about GS Complete - the ones who like browsing numerous sites in a day to get the full scoop on the news. Its in fact for the casual readers who don't mind paying for simlicity and ease of use. If you want an effortless one-stop at-a-glance take on the days gaming news and media, GameSpot Complete seems like a good idea, Ice skin or no. (For the record, I'm not a Gamespot Complete subscriber. I don't personally feel the need, but I'm not blind to its potential appeal, and may someday subscribe.)
  23. Blue Shift: postcards from Barney

    Faulting the game for things like that means to me that you're really looking to get the wrong things out of Half Life. Same with that one guy who consistantly posts in HL threads about how the story is bland. It seems like you're coming at it wrong, you're expecting the wrong thing, and then when you don't get it you write it off as bad. Its like my friend who played Beyond Good and Evil and turned it off after 2 minutes because she "doesn't like video games where you have to fight someone before the game tells you if they're good or bad." What? just give it a chance, it plays by different rules than other games. Seeing that as a negative instead of a positive is extremely limiting.
  24. Blue Shift: postcards from Barney

    This thread was one of the things majorly responsible for me finally getting off my ass, buying a used near-current PC, and installing the full half life platinum collection. I haven't played more than 50% of HL in my life and now I've played a bit more than that. I'm currently in the Lambda complex, being extremely pissed off at the rotating "teleportation lab" atrium area, with all the floating platforms and the 9 teleportation gates. Argh. So good though, I clearly missed out when I only played the first part. Though I already knew it as a fact, finally seeing it for myself I am impressed with how fresh everything has remained so far. They're amazingly good at mixing it up. Tired of the sterile lab environment? Now you get to ride around in a crazy car, and then the abandonned industrial "old lab" area, then the cliffs, then the supersterile lambda complex... Also, hi there everyone I'm generally a Mac user and console gamer (well, for the last 8 years or so) but now I have a PC in addition to the above systems, if that wasn't super obvious.
  25. Is GameSpot Complete worth it?

    They clearly work for GameSpy. No, you probably think that because Gabe did some contract illustrations for GameSpy back in the day, and up until just like a year ago, they were still using them in places on thes site... but PA and GameSpy are pretty unaffiliated, obviously.