Alex

I was always doing that, the chainsaw in Vice City was my weapon of choice. Sometimes i fear myself.

Right, well i'll try to make this reply a tad less 'eloquent' than my previous one. Starting off with Homoludens, I accept that you cannot possibly state all of your feelings towards a subject of such complexity in a single post and that you are aware of the publisher/consumer conundrum that i was outlining. I felt however that, with particular reference to your quotes you were strongly projecting an image of developers which I don't happen to agree with. However, now that i understand better what you were saying, i can say that i agree wholeheartedly with you about the endlessly circling turn that the games industry is taking when it churns out yet more copies of itself. I do have to say, however, that i disagree with you on some of your specific examples of games that try to break from that mould. Syberia left me cold (no pun intended) and felt forced, ungainly and stagnant. As for Hitman 2? The irony is that, for me, that game is a prime example of something which could have been so much more if it hadn't been trampled by the publishers. The premise of being a paid killer with no moral obligations was a fascinating one to me when it was first presented as Hitman, but the sequal felt far far too involved in a battle of good against evil. Suddenly the protagonist was no longer an indifferent murderer doing a job, it was essentially for the benefit of mankind, bless him. That soured the whole experience for me. I would have liked to have been given a contract to kill a billionaire who had dedicated his life to supporting orphaneges. I wanted to be the murderer of Martin Luther King. Not, you understand, because of any disturbing qualities in my own psychological makeup but because that would really make me think 'hang on, can i do this? should i do this?' in spite of the fact that it was only a game. Now for Vimes. Firstly, i wasn't saying the technology was relaxed, i was saying that the relative speed at which it was advancing was relaxed, which is true. When i was talking about the limited styles of games, i wasn't talking about their premises or execution, i was talking about the way they looked. Everyone was painting a different picture but they all used the same brush. When it comes to this: I'm afraid i don't have an answer to that because i don't understand what you're saying, so i'm sorry about that As for Call of Duty there was nothing new in there, it was just more of Medal of Honour; set piece after set piece with only just above-par AI. I'm not saying it was bad, i loved it, but there was no innovation there in any sense. As for saying there are a ton of ancient games where newer ones fail, the reverse is also true. it's a meaningless statement. I don't know how you can say this when it's the developer that puts their neck on the line with every game. Until you become a hugely respected and successful company, practically every game you make is "life or death of the company" that's my point. If one failure could break you, why should you take the risk?

It seems to me wholly unfair for you to blame the relative immaturity of games solely on the developers. There are other factors which bring much more weight to any design decision than the designers themselves. Yes, there is a high degree of whoredom when it comes to graphics but that should not be treated as some sort of affliction to be hurried out of the way as quickly as possible. It is because of these graphical processes that whole new areas of design possibilities open up which will allow for a greater variation in the sort of scenarios we can expect to see in a game. Any sort of personal connection, especially when it comes to sex, is practically an impossibility given the current standard of graphical capabilities, even with the likes of the Source engine around. I wouldn't even be using the word 'practically' if it wasn't for the fact that I happen to have one personal experience of feeling empathetic horror on the part of a game character. People say "oh in the old days, we didn't really give a toss about how a game looked, it was all about the involvement, man" that is because the different styles between games were extremely limited and the speed at which that technology advanced was a very relaxed one indeed. What with Moore's Law, however, that speed has been increasing exponentially and we are suddenly seeing huge advances in the realism of game worlds every few months. As we haven't yet adjusted to this sort of technological growth it is hardly surprising to find a lot of companies trying to sell their products on that basis alone. While that is discouraging in one sense, it will also stimulate further progression which is, in my opinion a very good thing as it will, yet more quickly, allow developers to do what they actually want to rather than having to make do with what they've got. 'Making do with what they've got' is having bad consequences. As has been stated here already, trying to develop any sort of subtle emotional context, erotic or otherwise, when the characters involved are, to all intents and purposes, glorified Lego men is, quite frankly, laughable. It's like having to watch the most terribly acted movie of all time. I admire what the developers are trying to do, of course, but when the results are uniformly bad, can you blame them for showing a preferment of, shall we say, less 'subtle' entertainment? But this is all by-the-by, and I suspect I am straying from the central issue I'm trying to make here which is that just because developers aren't making these stylish, sexual, emotional, whatever you want to call them, games, it doesn't mean that they don't want to. There are two very big and very important entities stand in the way, publishers and consumers. The publishers, I will assume most of you guessed. They are very rarely interested in the artistic possibilities of a game unless it pertains to that rather fine picture of George Washington on a green background. Propose the gaming equivalent of Psycho (a violent film with no actual violence) and they will stare at blankly wondering whether the safest option would be to jump you or humour you. Publishers are stifling beasts and if they say 'we want XYZ' very few developers will want to take the immense financial risk of defying whichever part of that demand is in conflict with their own interests. To ask what is preventing talented writers, artists and directors from circumnavigation censorship of games is susceptible of a ready explanation i.e. the man who pays them. He is only interested in shifting units and will, as a result, only back those designs which have 'fiscal possibilities' written all over them. He will not go out on a limb with risky games because the industry at the moment has huge development costs and low returns. If a game flops, millions are lost, it's as simple as that. Which leads on rather nicely to my next point, where the publisher gets the idea about what will sell and what won't: the consumers. Yup, it is because of us and what we buy that we are constantly feeding our own demons. A publisher looks at the numbers and says 'look at all these games, isn't it interesting how their grossing profit has a direct correlation with the amount of blood discharged in each?' and you end up with yet more and more of the same. The problem is that while you talk about the industry which needs to mature, to seem to neglect the public which that industry serves. Does it not also need to mature? When you think about it, from the point of view of the majority of publishers and gamers, things are looking pretty damn good. It's only from suffocating developers and people like us who crave nothing more than to be taken seriously who are left out in the cold. But that's quite enough of me being insanely long and tedious for the moment. If you managed to read all the way to this point I congratulate you, and offer you this as a reward. I think you'll agree it was worth it

I also like the pun. In fact all puns are pleasing. Mostly. Anyway, you're not alone. We all want good AI in games but the actual implementation of that is pretty fucking tricky. What's more, when developers have to spend three years just making sure the thing can display on your damn monitor not a lot of time is left for the other parts. Outsourcing is the key, share your resources. Amen.

The point i was making was just that a movie doesn't have to be sophisticated or mind-bending in order to be good. They can be brainless and look pretty but still be enjoyable.

Shit 3D is possibly one of the worst afflictions ever borne by humankind. For games like adventures where you actually have to spend time looking at the game in order to proceed, they should never have considered using a sub-par engine.

That's deep. (Fruitcake)

I suspect that moby games are on to you. run now for your life or, alternatively, host those pictures somewhere else.

Ah yes but gratuitous coolness has it's place, don't you think? I mean, do you really not enjoy any of those 'blockbuster' type movies and games? Ones which have all the muscle power and brains of a herd of angry yaks? I think that they too can possess a certain level of depth in that they can elicit base human emotions and wring them out like a damp cloth. To say that they are shallow and meaningless just because they have big explosions would be, i think, missing the point. People watch them because they don't want to have to think, but that doesn't mean they're stupid, it simply means that they want to (on a subconscious level) experience something which they will probably never know in real life. They want to feel those raw survival chemicals searing their brains. Is that so wrong?

That's deep man, deep. Oh I know! maybe you should get some sort of job...

Oh for fuck's sake, POP3D may have been the root of steve's personal problems, but you have just brought home to me some of the darkest hours of my life! I remember...I can see the colours...so...so bright...burning my eyes...how...how so ugly... that was bad, so very very bad. But on another point, i don't think broken sword was absolutely reamed. it wasn't as enjoyable as the first two (leave out the fucking box puzzles you mongs) but i wouldn't say it was an unbearable horror. It should have been darker.

Heeeeeeeeeeey, Met, my man. Good to see you here, and yes you are, pizza is required en masse.

I really liked Clive Barker's: Undying. It wasn't a game that pandered to the whole cheap 'BOO!' technique as favoured by resident evil. In fact, it wasn't really scarey, but after a while, the atmosphere just started to get to me and i'd begin to get crap at aiming and get sweaty hands and have to stop for a bit. Also there were some absolutely spectacular weapons. The one where you could get people to kill themselves? fucking genius.

Take a look at Prince of Persia 3D and you'll find out soon enough that another dimension does not a great game make.

According to my girlfriend (who did A level french, so she knows that of which she speaks) he's saying: GP: What are your projects at the moment? Have you completely abandoned the video games sector or do you still maintain links with it? E.C : I'm not working on any game-related projects at the moment. I'll go back there, though, that's certain. Currently the corporate situation is not great. It's too big and soulless. Mind you, the...alledged success of HOD seems a little dubious to me considering the fact that it was a 2D PC game when the likes of giant 3D monoliths to contend with. Anyway, i understood that it was pretty poorly received all round.

Beyond Good and Evil rocks a multitude of socks! Just finished it. If anyone here is into anime and has play this, did it remind you of those old school Studio Ghibli productions?

KOTOR wins hands down in my opinion, if only for the inclusion of the HK-47 droid. I played through NWN completely but found it ultimately unsatisfying, it became really easy really quickly. I was only about half way through before i could mash absolutely any monster in the game (except for those big fuck off dragons). I think the lack of real distinction between environments was also a turn off. KOTOR had a sense of genuine social and political presence on each of the worlds which i really liked. The NWN missions just felt like i was dancing with the same pig but wearing a different dress each time. I daresay KOTOR was guilty of this too, but not to the extent where i noticed it or felt it impeded my experience, which makes all the difference

At least flashback didn't kill you every time you moved. If i was you, i wouldn't waste my time with Heart of Darkness. 8 years on from AW, it advanced very very little. One might go so far as to say not at all. There's a shit load of repetative monster bashing and arsing about which, once the inevitable death ensues, places you miles away from where you were when you died. Such design may have been acceptable in AW when it was introducing lots of new concepts and a genuine game experience, but to make no improvements upon that idea thoughout a 5 year development, to almost appear to regress...sod that.

it's not how many you leave, it's how much you pay

yeah i mean, they wouldn't provide bullshit news would they? they'd be lynched

yes you must. It's simple but oh so effective

We require further examples of such nonsense. Good work, soldier.

well that was fairly vomit-inducing

Certainly made me laugh

i guess that's what they mean by tragi-comic