vimes

So, I agreed with the "I don't want to be part of a revolution if I can't dance" and apparently it was said by an anarchist; which made directed me to the rotting homepage. It's funny : I do agree with what she meant when she said that, but don't agree with her ideal, ethos or way of doing things... Do anyone remembers where the previous answer question/led ? Maybe it was a bit more ambiguous than it seems...

Mmm, pretty weird, I just realized that 4 out of the 5 Summer of Arcade game are 2.5D game.

Wow, thanks for that tip, I beat the boss in 5 minutes thanks to that! So, the visual cue of the laser being interrupted by the platform is some sort of platforming game red herring ?

Errrr, credits where it's due : that was ysbreker's idea.

It felt simplistic, contrary to the rest of the character development. What I liked about the film is that it never pretends to be a coming of age movie, where the cast is enriched by what they went through. So, from the point Ned took that helicopter till the beginning of the end credit, it's like Anderson suddenly felt that he had to come up with some sort of morale/conclusion, or some sort of insight, and frankly is such a cheap shot that it looked like they didn't know what to make of the character and decided to to provide the others some sort of reason to put their shit together and sort out their lives. And the final Shark scene was completely cheesy - at least from the moment they reach the ocean floor, before, it's quite ncie - what with the painfully woven metaphor and all. The only bit I like is Gambon's failed attempt at philosophy, which, without modifying the ending content, really should have been the movie conclusion.

So, I've bought Splosion Man this afternoon, playing it in between watching the other thread approaching fission point. So far, after 15 levels (and 14 cakes collected,), my impressions are mixed : the game is fun, no doubt, the controls are perfect, the animations are pretty cool and the soundtrack is bebopy as I like but I wish they'd introduce some of the late gameplay mechanisms earlier to densify the experience (which Braid did wonderfullu). As is, there a few redundant sequences(nitro shot under spikes, raising water) and some 'I just don't know what I did, but it worked on the first go' sequences. I like the core gameplay though, and the challenges are just the right difficulty except ... for that fucking damn boss battle, at a point of which you need to be on an exact pixel to avoid laser beams anot not be instantly killed:frusty:. Very frustrating and a complete 180 from the rest of the game. Plus, I don't have subtitle and I keep hearing strange french sentences from the boss like " J'ai sommeil" "Chérie , je suis là!" which sounds like weird, round about taunts to my hear. Anyway, thank god for the coward option I may definitely use. I'm considering buying Trials, the demo was fun but it felt a bit 'empty' and seems to be a targeted at manic gamers and mad completionists. Am I wrong ?

I've just got back on the habit of drawing (a few years ago, it was more like a compulsion than anything else); and bought an awesome pen tablet for the occasion... except, I can't really get used to it. Maybe it's the config or the ratio, but I can't get the line I want with the damn tablet. So buying a small sketchbook is in order for next week. Anyway, I'm trying to get better at anatomyand get the basis of coloration (I'm completely tasteless when it comes to this) which is a bit of hassle since - as a friend artist likes to say - drawing is like sport, you need to go through painful stuff and never stop training to get to a proper level. So, I do a bit of boring, tedious technical exercises and then sketch a lot of unplanned stuff because I really get a kick out of it..

Bastille is a nice place for student bars and cheap beers, but other than that it's meh. I love the neighborhood of rue Mouffetard and as far as parks go, Les Buttes Chaumont is the best in Paris, providing it's not being renovated, which it shouldn't be during the summer. I also quite like the part of the Canal St Martin near Republique along the Quai de Jemmapes. At night, it's quite awesome with a small bunch of nice, crowded literary coffee with pop or retro bands. I also enjoy going rue des Rosiers, because the best falafel in town is there. A few weeks ago, I also ended up near Les Invalides coming from l'Avenue de la Motte Piquet, and the sight of the building appearing from this perspective is amazing. Plus the gardens of the Rodin museum is on the way, and that's definitely worth a look. Also, if your sisters and mums are into museum they might want to go to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, which makes you feel like you're in Bioshock's Rapture or a weird steampunk memorial. The homonymes subway station is worth a look as well as the neighborhood.

Rarg, I didn't mean they weren't looking for return, I meant that I think that the people putting money in Gilliam's movies certainly haven't the same requirement about investment return that the guys financing, say "Meet the Fockers" have. And that between a pedestrian movie that's going to make a good bit of money and a creative movie that's going to break a little more than even, I'll bet they'd chose the latter. But he did put his money in The Piano Tuner Of Earthquake , didn't he ? About Gilliam's involvement with the Potter franchise, the story is all over the place on the Internet and I remember quote from the New Yorkers, but I'm still looking for a good initial source (not wikipedia or imdb, that do mention it), so disregard this for the time being.

Then explain to me why Gilliam was rejected as a director for Harry Potter? At the time, you couldn't find a bigger financial safety net for a movie than this brand and he had the support of Rowling, right ? My opinion is that he was rejected because Warner is concerned about investment return and, as a money making machine, Terry Gilliam does not perform as well as Columbus. Hence my point that people who did put money in his more recent movies cared far more about the final product than the possible financial profit it'd create. I haven't made any statement regarding this topic! And to answer you, if my mission statement was to make money yes, and if it was to shop for movies that would boost Paramont's artistic or street credibility and the movies were critically acclaimed; then no. Anyway, my sole and unique point was to say that you're wrong when you state that money making is the major incentive in the mind of people investing in Gilliam's or Gaspard Noé's movies . On that, I'm dropping the ball, I'm not pugnacious enough to debate a topic that's going in 1000 directions at once.

I've watch all the documentaries your mention but what you say here doesn't quite match up : if the companies only cared about money then why, given Gilliam's record of poor box office performances, his tastes for expensive sets, the troubles he gives in the editing room - would they bet their money on him rather than, say, a straight or romantic comedy, which are far safer bets. And it's not like any of Gilliam's movie has had the 10x profit ratio of surprise hits Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting and Blair Witch. The only rationale is that they are attracted by the vision or the project.

I just watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and despite being a weird movie made by Wes Anderson - king of awkwardness - I liked it. I guess I enjoyed it because it has very little of the relationship awkwardness that made The Tenenbaum an 'Errrr, okaaaaayyy:shifty:" experience for me. Also, the 60's aesthetic was played down a bit, which made for a more believable movie. What really sold me was the actor's performance, which are the best I've witness in a long while : not only Murray, and Huston are good but - and god, I never thought I'll say that of a post 1995 movie - Goldblum and Dafoe are completely hidden behind their character. The end is bit of a wet *ahah* fart, but the movie is a very peculiar piece of characters depiction (I kept being surprised by the character changes and in a good way) so I'm willing to forget the last 5 minutes. I wish there were a bit more of the stop motion sequences and that they'd be a tad more crazy, but I loved the side set of the boat. Plus Seu Jorge singing Rock'n Roll Suicide!

Well, I was only talking about people who put money in games while not being a developer ... so if I got what you said, it's a pretty bleak landscape : nobody awards money based on the belief that they can be proud of what comes out of it. Depressing. If I was completely dishonest I could say I don't understand why games don't get funding from people who invests in Gilliams' movies or well known author films ... but the game productions that would need that kind of investment are nowhere near having the kind of - for lack of more fitting words - cultural significance or artistic boldness of these. I mean, I guess the financiers of those are either compelled by the artistic view of the author or the statement made by the final piece; and I don't see a lot of mainstream games carrying those forward. I know, I know, Grim Fandango, Braid, The Path, Passage or whichever awesome game I've not been exposed to, blablabla; but for a reason I can't pinpoint, they don't seem they have the same potential society resonance that movies do. Who's still talking about The Path, 6 months after its release? EDIT : video games are awesome, they change the world as we know it and are alos a good way to have a great time!

This debate makes me schizophrenic and thus is tiring to follow : I love Kingzjester's and Chris' opinion, and still, when I read Thunderpeel stuff, it does seem naive; but then again, I'm only 25, 2 years making games professionally, no loan to pay, no family to feed yet, so I feel just dumb, retarded and lazy to consider game making under the lens of money making issue. That's definitely not why I got into making games, so why should I care? ... But I can see that I maybe should, if I want to keep on earning a living by doing stuff I love. So, ArrggargagAagrgagr:( Anyway, for anyone who had to experience game making business with investors first hand, are they really like what we're painting them out? Are they, in their vast majority, people who are there to make money as in : they could be investing in toothpaste for all they cared, but since video games are successfull, that's where they money go? Is it the same for movie ? I've think I've heard that despite Gilliam's trouble with box office he always gets backing from the same handful of European investors on each of his project ... is there any similar investors in games ?

So, is multiplayer and (possibly singleplayer) anything like Shiny's Sacrifice ? *I suggest to mute the video before playing it* 0PL5TWd_uxw

Well, good luck with that; if there's anything I can do, just tell me. I'm deeply sympathizing because when I was 11 the family LiteAce*'s engine completely melted when we were trying to get to England for a summer of fun. That never happened. And we were near Calais, so the area must be cursed. *my older sister and brother and I were pronouncing it "lit ass" back then; but it was a wonderful car.

I don't know anything about cars, so I tried to ring three random Mitsubishi related garages/scrapyard as well as the only Mitsubishi official retailer/repairer in Paris, but the latter seems closed for the week-end (hold on the line for 15 minutes without anybody picking up) and the garages don't have the part and couldn't tell me where to fetch it. If you've got an address or a phone number for a particular store, I don't mind calling them on your behalf. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Well, there's a bunch of thing you can do : it's rarely used but, depending on the concept, you can roleplay a game (i.e. in a dialog with user you simulate the game) or paper prototype it to some people very early in the design phase. At the beginning of pre-production, bits of fake footage ( ) are usually produced - they take more resource than they should, but they convey the flow of the game pretty well - and most of the time, a team spends 4 to 6 months creating an FPP (First Playable Publishable) that shows core gameplay elements.All of that can happen within the time it would take to shoot and edit a pilot for a TV serie.

I wasn't bored by it and I don't know where you saw these 'horrific sexual violence', since . It's true that it is a pretty disturbing and horrific take on war; even more so shocking that the art design is kind of naive.

It will creep you out like Perfect Blue did but it also has some room for a light humor like in some places of Millenium Actress.

I'm really confused at what Molyneux is trying to say. At one point, I though that Molyneux was going to make a case for finding ways to shape or display a crazy, unpopular concept and make it accessible to a wide audience. It's a 100% creative process that most creator should be bothered with since it ensures that a lot of people are exposed to their idea. I, for one, find it interesting and difficult because it should only alter slightly the concept without loosing sight of its original uniqueness and quality. But then again, Molyneux seemed overly pleased with the interviewer mentioning 'Market research', so Also, I don't think that a user centric approach to game design is Evil : talking and prototyping with potential users all the time is great if only for the fact that their misunderstanding and preconceptions about your stuff are awesome pools of new ideas. Plus, it's always refreshing.

Happy Birthday. Do bring us more picture of awesome costumes! And comics! Still, not the kind that have a french title but dutch texts!

I disagree with Chris.™ While it's true that 90% of anime is crap and derivative and that the art is design is somewhat pretty uniform, anime still cover a wide range of genres and tones - the same as western animation, weirdly enough. In the few years of the 21th century I dug into the media, I still found jewels that made me think anime was a unique form of expression; here's a few you should be able to watch pretty quickly (most of them are 6, 13 sometimes 21 episodes): Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō FLCL Paranoia Agent Mushi-shi Here & There - Now and Then (suffer through the 1st ep) Kino's Journey Planet-es Monster(70 episode and apparently not so good to watch straight though)Dennou Coil Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex the original Gunslinger Girls After those, you'll have the right weapons to pass a definitive judgment. ... then there are the omnibus I was talking about a few weeks ago and an insane among of shorts and feature films where the innovative stuff usually lies. It's true that Ghibli is a pretty peculiar voice in the anime 'industry' and I should strongly recommand all of the people scrolling over this bit to watch the Takahata movies - first and foremost Omohide Poroporo - because they are just perfect.

... and why they keep on nailing their characters : Gabe Newell talks to a group of deaf/mute for 30 minutes to gather information about deaf/talking communication. It's surprising - in a good way - to see Newell appear not as a spokeperson or a tech guy but more of an inquisitive creative mind. The second and third videos are the best. j2LnP3JgbM0 Np5KTAm7kac Xy8xjOChxtY Also, if I got that right, the last guy in the video made Gollum's face animation for LotR and is now working at Valve; no wonder their facial expressions are the best out there.