Marek

Happy birthday Spaff I'm sorry I wasn't there!!!

I wonder if they could have created another New Caprica fallout episode after Torn somehow. I wouldn't have mind if they used some internal political issue (something on a civilian ship for instance) as the A-plot while the B-plot revolves around repairs, civilians on Galactica, reshuffling of the crew, etc. It's like the series skipped a beat. But I agree it should be smooth sailing again now that the new pieces have been set up.

Heh. Opposite reaction here. I think this was a nice, though average BSG. It occasionally had a bit too much technobabble, but it wasn't the festival of info dumping we had last week. I don't think the genocide story worked at all, and the Helo/Athena thing was kind of a rethread, but at least it was an episode focused on telling a story as opposed to last week's Cylon Inner Workings 101.

n0N00oooooooo0oooooo!!!

But a blog would be public! I should really have a personal game industry rant diary on my nightstand.

For some reason I missed this thread after I first replied. This topic always gets me ranting, so here we go! Publishers are in it for the money. (As well they should!) And in order to make more money, publishers should more often innovate on the core premise of a game and not just the execution. The industry has grown and everyone has gotten a lot more experienced, meaning the quality of the gameplay has gone up with leaps and bounds. There's small innovations everywhere. Even things like the timed-button-press reload in Gears of War, or the way cover works in that game -- it's not really "sweet jesus never seen that before!!" but it's very well put together and it makes that game unique. And besides gameplay innovation, there's a huge degree of polish everywhere. The production quality on average has never been this high. But on the surface games are all extremely alike. There's problems with that. Most obviously, it makes it harder and harder to innovate and polish the details within a generic premise. You're just going to hit a creative ceiling eventually. And with a generic premise you're also less likely to capture and hold a unique audience, because there's so much games competing for the same market position. So it's actually critical to find and hold new positions on the Big Grid Of Games. New combinations of themes, gameplay, target audience, etc. It doesn't have to be freakin' Spore. I think another great example is actually Bully. That game decreases risk for Take 2... it gets them a new IP, they knew in advance it would probably do well, but it's still a brand new proposition (a theme that hasn't really been done before, mixed with some solid gameplay). Dead Rising is another good one! Zombie game + mall + hundreds of zombies instead of just a few + you can use anything as a weapon = new formula. If publishers gave more trust to their game designers and their creative directors (the latter is actually way more important), perhaps the industry would figure out how to create new properties that have a higher success ratio than licenses!!11 I've heard horror stories from several creative directors (about politics, crazy product approval, execs thinking they know about games, etc.) but I think in time it can be done. It's just going to cost a lot of money, and investment in talent for a company to get good enough at the process of consistently developing and marketing new IP, but if they do get to that level, the profits will be much higher. I agree that Capcom seems to be taking a few baby steps in that direction and they're reaping the rewards. There are occasionally new AAA games with a unique core concept but they're extremely rare and still too conservative (not saying they should be weird or way out there, just some more calculated risks). I also sadly don't see any small games transitioning into significant AAA games. (That's actually kind of how Grand Theft Auto 3 got created, but I can't think of any good recent examples!) BTW, I don't think the issue is individual talent (or needing indie devs for that). There's already more than enough super talented designers working at large companies that can pull original stuff off. The crux is recognition of such talent, and having some guys at the top that know what they're doing. It would also be great if the retail side would lose its enormous influence on what gets made and what doesn't, but I think that's already gradually happening. Maybe I should start a personal diary for this shit.

Heh yeah Eternal Sunshine is not a head-fucker movie. It's a story about a relationship (a romantic comedy, even) that uses an unconventional plot mechanism. I hope you'll adjust your expectations and give it another go cause it's a really good film.

Well, a few days ago I looked at page 1 of this thread and decided to check out Brick. Holy fuck. It's instantly my favorite movie of the past two years. Totally fucking amazing. I mean, high school film noir... that puts up a thousand warning signs. But it's in fact the opposite of the disaster you expect that to be. Love it, love it. So, thanks for that recommendation. If anyone spots another neo-noir of this calibre anywhere, let me know!

I also personally enjoyed the ad with the squirrels, but I seriously doubt it's good advertising. Using in-game footage is better, though there's been controversy over many ads using prerendered footage and making it seem like it's in-game. The best ads, in my opinion, are the ones that use actors but are a metaphor for specific games or playing games in general. The early 360 "Jump In" commercials were genius. As was the Nintendo ad where someone throws a banana peel in a desert and a car on the other side of the world slips. I also loved the original Playstation "Double Life" ad, truly groundbreaking at the time. Those ads all say something about the product or the act of playing a game, while still offering opportunities for general image building.

Oh man even the Roman orgy pics.

You looked in a place that was labeled "secret". Oh, the humanity. (In case everyone else is confused by this thread, the staff forum was briefly accessible today due to my incompetence, although I actually blame the incompetence of whoever made vBulletin's admin interface.)

NOT MY PROBLEM.

There's about six episodes of the sixth season so far, according to an episode guide I saw. I watched Scrubs in reversed order: first season 5, then 4 and then I think I saw 3 (not sure anymore). So comparing them confuses me. I watch the show purely for the comedy.

Anyone watching season 6 of Scrubs? Is it the same quality as season 5?

Well, I saw this as a very troubled episode. Way down there with some of the pre-Downloaded season 2 episodes. Although admittedly this episode was better than BSG's worst, I dislike it much more because of its greater importance to the ongoing story. The episode was just so awkwardly plot-driven. (Plot as opposed to story or character development). All the ham-fisted dialog trying to explain how the Cylons work made me cringe. The Starbuck/Tigh storyline was completely rushed through, i.e. I didn't feel like matters had believably escalated to such a point that Adama had to come in and kick their ass. I guess this episode just had a very poor script. It was 90% info dumping and/or obligatory scenes. Maybe the barrage of exposition and plotpoints did it for you but I honestly only liked them in terms of potential future stories, not in the way they were introduced and handled in this episode at all. Bah. I know I'm being harsh. And I'm hopeful for next week.

W........ what. What happened to my show? Oh man. Torn is a disaster. Which by BSG standards means it's still OK television, but geez, this is not a proper BSG episode. How much fucking exposition do you need to cram into 40 minutes? I ..... Aw fuck. I'm a bit depressed now.

Could this be in any way related to that politically charged game Lanning wanted to make before the studio shut down? I recall something like that. Edit: erm yes after actually reading GameSpot's description, it appears to be just that.

The EW&F one looks like an absolute blast. I'm glad that through Elite Beat Agents more people will get to experience the awesome that is Ouendan. YMCA is a terrible choice for the soundtrack though...

Wow that was a more interesting roundtable than I expected. Very cool. I think Jason Rubin is still 100% on the money. Yes, there's plenty of gameplay innovation, but not a lot of conceptual innovation, by which I mean innovation is to be found inside well-known existing games but is rarely part of a unique brand new IP & gameplay proposition. While small digitally distributed games are really awesome and a godsend for the industry in terms of generating new talent and diversifying the medium, it's only one part of the puzzle. Because, as Rubin rightly points out, small games are unlikely to convert to new AAA franchises. What's interesting is that a lot of lip service is being given by publishers to expanding the market and reaching out to new consumers. If that's truly what they want to achieve, they have to get a lot better at mixing and matching characters, brands, gameplay innovation and talent and then properly positioning them both from a marketing and creative perspective. I see a couple of games that were quite deliberately positioned (most obvious ones are Spore, Viva Pinata, Brain Training, maybe LEGO Star Wars, etc.) but it's not enough. Publishers are really driven by genres and brands ('new FPS for next fiscal quarter' and 'we need a new strategy brand, let's acquire strategy maker X'), but if you really want to create new pillars you have got to be able to step away from that mindset more often. Overall I'm pretty positive about the state of the industry though.

Yeah that makes more sense. (Welcome to the forums btw.)

Yesterday I had to briefly appear at the college exam of a programming intern that I had supervised to talk for 5 minutes about what he'd learned. Then I had to put my signature under some documents. Since I am in fact one year younger and wasn't wearing a suit, several people congratulated me on my graduation, which was kind of funny. Starting at around 2.30pm I was forced to sit down and drink beers continuously. It soon became evident that my original plan of going back to the office in the afternoon would have to be abandoned entirely. So I just sat in that bar for 10 hours. Eventually we got free shots. I also asked the waitress for whipped cream in my beer, and I got it, and drank it. Delicious! Then the waitress got a marker and drew hilarious stuff on my face.

Sam and Max, More Like Sam and Minus lololololoool.

Yeah during the New Caprica episodes they were apparently just burning through cash. They had to wrap it up soon and get back to using the standing sets. According to Moore they would have in fact gotten into real budget problems in the later episodes if they hadn't decided to split Exodus up in two. I agree though, it seemed like things folded back too neatly. Clearly a lot of things changed (Galactica is way more busy, is in terrible shape, some crew will get shuffled around, etc.), but it's still an inelegant transition. Oh well. Not complaining too much, as other series wouldn't have done the New Caprica story in the first place.

Zombie In The Fog could be a good movie though.