Marek

HOLY SHIT!! (Note: These immodest and wanton images are offered not to titillate or excite prurient tastes, but to edify the reader and alert him to the unspeakable sights to be found within one of our society's most prominent video games.)

I wasn't actually serious though. I'm pretty frustrated with people who talk about "[insert some fairly creative dude]'s brilliant vision", and bitch about how nothing should ever waiver from that brilliantly inspired dream that person once had. Gene Roddenbery's work bleaks in comparison to what Dorothy Fontana, Ira Steven Behr or Michael Piller did for Star Trek. Ron Gilbert was a great designer, but so were all the SCUMMites who added so much detail to his games. People just need easily recognizable names so they can complain on forums about how his vision has been compromised or other such bullshit. Sorry, I ranted there for a bit. It wasn't intended towards you.

I agree about Ron Gilbert, but Gene Roddenbery still kicks his ass any time of the day.

Yeah, that was at E3 when I mentioned seeing a guy from The Bitmap Brothers at the airport.

Hey anyone here remember Monkey Island? I think it was released in 1990. IMHO it was a complete ripoff of Sid Meier's Pirates.

There's only one thing that Flashback does better than Another World... and that's the character animation. Most notably the "roll then pull out gun and shoot" move. Oh man, when I first saw that I nearly died on the spot.

I thought Settlers II was pretty cartoony? I mean, erm, probably more "storybook"-like, but whatever. I thought those little guys with blue shirts were at least somewhat funny.

I'm sure the new Settlers will be a good, balanced game, but yes it's losing a lot of its original charm not to mention the things that made it unique. The interconnected logistics of the first game were a bit over the top of course ... sometimes having a well run dry could completely mess up your entire civilization, and if you didn't spot the problem soon enough you'd end up in a deadlock situation with clogged distribution channels. So it's nice to know they're again opening that up a little more. Sadly, the RTS stuff is not so hot.

It amazes me why no one has thought of re-doing Stunts except with gimmicky things like real-time physics models blah blah. It could be really great. Of course, it would need the option to upload your stunt movies to a website.

That it has.

If carnage means "kill up to two monsters in one area" and "compete with more than two (three) other players in multiplayer deathmatch", then yes. That's why I think the story will be extremely important. The game needs some good pre-scripted scares and a strong suspenseful atmosphere, or else gamers will buy other games with more interesting gameplay. Unless they're all a bunch of undiscerning fanboys, of course.

I usually skip the typically business-oriented interviews with analysts, but this interview with a guy named Michael Pachter is really good and serves as a nice look back on E3. E3 recap: Are sequels and WWII shooters enough? Some interesting quotes:

Yes, that goes some way to explaining it

Heh. Oops. By the way, since when does everyone have the power to split threads?

Although I played the first three one, I didn't play them all the way to the end, and they didn't excite me as much as the Duke Nukem side scrollers. But then I found the second trilogy. Oh man. It was so good. The worlds were so imaginative and fun. This was back when id Software still made games instead of tech demos. *sigh* Does anyone know if the GBA Commander Keen game is any good?

I briefly played Doom 3 at E3. Take away the sugar coating of your initial excitement about the graphics, and you're left with a really standard game. I really don't know what this game's unique selling points are. Hopefully the story will be somewhat good.

I think vimes meant to say GTA 1 & 2 vs. GTA 3. Could someone remind me why the first games encouraged violence more? I remember you could drive over pedestrians and since the streets were so narrow, you often had to (and got points for it). Were there other issues?

Sid Meier's Pirates! ? I personally love the GTA series and love the fact that they're taking GTA:SA to a higher level instead of making Vice City 2.0. The game actually has me quite excited, moreso than I expected. It seems San Andreas, besides being bigger and offering more modes of transportation, gives you a sense of being in control. Vice City made you feel slightly less like an errand boy, but hopefully the feeling will be gone entirely in San Andreas, as it will be possible to control gang members more directly and purchase buildings that aren't just a number of pre-determined mission hubs.

The summary of the keynote was available at the E3 press room, but will also be released on theesa.com (the page it links to now in the recent news section is blank). If I remember correctly, Doug Lowenstein did admit that there's a lack of innovation in the games industry. He thinks the shifting gamer demographic will fix this problem by itself as more mature gamers will demand new experiences. I'm not sure if things are just going to fix itself without some major industry reform or crisis, but Lowenstein probably wanted to give his speech a positive note -- it being the 10th E3 and all.

WTF IS GOING ON?! This is totally surreal hahaha. Very awesome. Though I also feel like killing myself.

Is invisibility ethical? I say yes.

Hmm interesting. What about invisible ink? I think that's probably the greatest source of invisibility abuse.

Well, they can also just kill him. We already have the soundboard, so I don't really care.

I have a plan. Tomorrow-morning, all the boats in the world will converge in the Pacific and attach themselves to Californa. According to my calculations, the combined horsepower of these boats will tear California apart from the rest of the USA. Towing it to Europe should take no more than 18 months. This gives ample time for secret operatives to abduct Arnold Schwarzenegger in his sleep and place him in a small biosphere modelled after Planet Hollywood, where he can spend the rest of his natural life. California will then be stuffed into the euro canal, right in between France and England. Then I'd take a train to Double Fine and rule. All I need is the boats, and a megaphone.