vimes

Back to the topic, I saw Red Belt,which is it a blike Kick Boxing if it had been script-doctored by Ken Loach... Frankly, because it's been shot by Mamet, I don't know if it's a complete mess or if it's a pretty good pessimistic movie about corruption. However, I do know that the soundtrack - a cheap mix of Japanese melodies and patronizing spanish guitar solo - is horrendous.

But.. but... you don't have the 'physique' of either of the Napoleons! I mean, Clavier and Ian Holm were good representations. Come on, you've got to be The Joker!

You know a brand is being milked when the name is kept despite the fact that it has little to do with the final game : Guitar Hero IV, now with drums, are you kidding me ?

Bundling necessary hardware with software is the only good remedy against piracy, that's why ?

So next year, a Joker cosplay ? That would be awesome!

It's been a while since Idle Forumers treaded on the dreaded lands of discussing some cures for a problem video games don't really have. Sooo, I decided to give it a shot : the following is the first part of a far longer blog entry I should be finishing while I'm on the road - it contains a more in depth analysis of what is ambiguity for video games, how to apply it and what pitfalls not to fall in... if you're interested in these, make your voice heard, I'll paste some of this stuff in.I'd like also some critic of the form in PM, since this is supposed to be read by regular internet people and not intellectual geniouses like all of you are (except Wes) A few weeks or months ago - I can't seem to count anymore since I fell asleep for two hours under the hard hitting sun of Chicago's Millenium Park - Chris Remo posted an interesting article and an equally interesting appendix about subtext in games. Remo suggests that to craft 'deep' games, you've got to use Transformers' motto, you've got to inject 'more than meet the eyes' (yeah, that was a lame one, but I blame Marek who is, after God, the only one to blame for this heinous joke). In short, shooting aliens should mean more than just that and living the life of a biker should tell something meaningful. I really wish Remo would be heard because that subtext raises the player to be pro-active in an intellectual way; which is always good. However, subtext is hard to achieve in all mediums and most of the coded game genres don't really allow for subtle subtext. So maybe, a less ambitious tool should be first used. And maybe, we should talk about nobility for a second : Baron Munchausen by Terry Gilliam and The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino. Both of them are great and entertaining adventures and they both convey a subtext. The first one deals with death and its acceptance while the second deals with integration in society. They go in different direction but they've got one common idea that prevents them from hammering their subtext : the story is introduced through the eye of a child. It's not , but the slightly unreliable narrator leaves room for this fundamental question : are we depicted the reality or just the wild fantasy of a child? This is ambiguity and I think it's one of the thing developers have to learn to use if they want to create more complex games. Ambiguity as I define it - and correct me if I'm wrong - is the cohabitation of several valid models for the representation of something based on subjective perception as well as clues and internal knowledge. I find ambiguity in non-interactive narratives interesting and powerful because it manages to involve the user in ways that are usually incompatible. On one hand, ambiguity requires the user to commit to a point of view that is partial - most of the time the eye of the narrator – and conjecture ' what does an event mean for this character'. On the other hand, the user's own point of view is also stimulated : ambiguity calls to meta-knowledge of the plot, of story structure and expectation, thus the user must answer 'what does this mean to me'. It gives non-interactive narrative a fuzziness that makes them less linear... imagine what could be done with interactive medium such as video games : ambiguity could appear in content (story, character,event), in gameplay and it could be managed to always be conserved. What d'ya all think ?

Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Of course, the people involved are brilliant actors, but in Batman Begins, they are only decent they don't deliver the amazing performance they are known for.

Watched it yesterday, and it was great fun, I agree, mostly because the dialogs were brilliant. The superb thing about Downey Jr. is that not only deroes he create an awesome charact but he also makes all actors act better in the scenes he's in. Jeff Bridges was ok, but I expected him to be awesome and there's this weird thing about Palthrow that makes her act like shit when Downey isn't in the picture - during the final 10 minutes, it's excruciating. The music of the movie doesn't really qualify as a soundtrack as it's only a 3 seconds guitar riff (ta-tatata ta-tatata wuiiiiiiii) repeated over and over.

Don't you have song to write or something ?

It's a 2 year old discovery, but I love Alasdair McIntyre's homorous approach and his use of diorama I assume this doesn't have to be recent, so I'm gonna plug Egon Schiele

1 minute in or so the piano kicks in and the song really takes off! Thanks for the link! If you're into Jazz and you're willing to listen to people singing waves of French words then you need to try Paris Combo ( - Fibre de Verre and ) and San Severino (Maigrir)

After really enjoying Toonstruck's soundtrack, I'm listening endlessly to Ren & Stimpy Unofficial Production Music : they've got most of the classics from 50's/60's cartoons which gives the whole thing a nostalgia bonus but if you're into light jazz you'll find the pieces themselves pretty amazing,.

By the way, I'm going to sell my 4 months old Xbox 360 Premium at the end of this month - with Assassin's Creed, Forza Motorsport and Ultimate Alliance. If anyone is interested, PM me.

Could the president be a cylon ?

I really enjoy playing the Sam & Max games, but Telltale's finale/climax always appear dull compared to other gameplay sequences and "What's New Beelzebub" falls into the same trap. The first half of the game is a succession of awesome and diverse puzzles culminating in a psychonauts-like sequences and then, they come back to the traditional three ordeals structure. The final showdown is a huge let down considering the characters and locations that Hell provided.

Is this going to turn into a patronizing contest of my-movie-knowledge-is-bigger-than-yours ? If so, let me know, I might need to cheat my way out of this one.

So that was intentional? I don't see any point in putting humor in in BSG.

A sack of vomit? That's a bit strong, isn't it ? I find this trailer funny and while there wasn't anything redeeming in Alone in the Dark - the only Boll movie I saw, because I'm not fucking masochistic - I'll be waiting to see the final movie before making any statement. Does that make me a freak that should be eradicated or am I still allowed to have an opinion without being shat on ?

All Ghibli's - except the last one and Howl's Moving Castle - are awesome but among the Miyazaki' movies I've got a soft spot for Kiki's Delivery service which has a slow pace, a surreal European feel and really touching characters.

It's been since the second season since I had watched the show and I was a bit surprised by the amount of religious or supernatural/mythical plot points there seem to be ... I nearly watched the whole first season but only caught some episodes of the second one; when did this happen ?

That caused a bit of a 'debate' with the people I went to watch the movie with

I really enjoyed the movie until the scene in which one of the military men let them through the blocus : to this point the amount of silliness was reasonable but after that it was just completely ridiculous : . On the whole, the movie felt like it didn't know how to choose between hollywood standards and a more gritty/realistic setting. For instance, I really enjoyed the characterization of the 'party' segment of the movie but I don't understand how they managed to bring these characters to perform heroic deeds similar to the hollywood canons. I mean, I think the movie could had been largely superior if they had remove the 'fat' from the scenario, canned the this 'rescue' plot and make it only about survival. One thing that surprised me though was that the narrator was a complete distanced jackass ... which, however you look at it, is an interesting choice.

I mean, she's got half dead rising going through her right shoulder!

There are so many things that are wrong in this picture... or I didn't get the point.