vimes

Good cast with some great discussions but, if you don't mind me saying, casting a pod every 5 days or less seems to dilute the content quite a bit. The discussion about realistic shooters and the schizophrenia of pacifist/freewill FPS was very interesting. It made me wonder how little needs to be changed in the FPS genre to escape this obvious contradiction and if this change is very small, doesn't it mean that we're just hiding the issue under the carpet? Like Jake said (if I'm not wrong) what's OK about realistic shooters anyway? For instance, let's say we keep all aspect of a tactical FPS the same except that, for the main character, hitting a target translate to tranquilizing it rather than killing it. If all NPC keep their gun and the gore level is the same, it might lead to the player to want to steal target from the rest of his squad or trying to resolve the situation differently to diminish bloodshed. In turn, that would have greater chance of putting his allies at risk. That sounds interesting to me, but does that really change the nature of the game? Isn't it just a skin of a normal shooter and if so, doesn't that mean we're still avoiding the issue? I want to say no, but that change is so insignificant (basically, no blood for your kill) that it still seems like it advocates oblitarating people as a valid solution for real world conflict. About the realistic shooter genre and Sean checkpoint anecdote, my main belief is that winning/losing conditions come in the way of telling combat related narratives that are thought provoking and thus, worth telling. Saying the winning condition is 'not killing the guy' would be the most straightforward way to turn Sean's anecdote about the checkpoint into a Video game sequence. However, it probably defeats what Sean meant to say with that anecdote. Leveraging Video games technology would allow the designer to craft a more nuanced message: you could procedurally reveal the Koran if the player decides to shoot or replace it with a gun or a bomb, if the player decided not to shoot. You could have a parallel activity of trying to calm down other soldiers around you as the situation gets more stressful, thus demanding to focus on monitoring the guy or your teammates. Having that, plus long term consequences of that choice, would allow to convey a message that games are better at telling that any other medium. But that would also mean getting rid of clear winning/losing condition in the minute-to-minute gameplay loop which is something games are really attached to. That is possible, but probably not in games like CoD or Bioshock whose high fidelity relies on predictable and limited branching of in-game situations.

Yeah, that's the frustrating bit: I don't think he understand how core to educational tool the presentation is...actually, how your present your information as well as the causality or correlation links between those is pretty much the difference between education and information. I pointed to him the shortcomings of his presentation and suggested he should look at the wave of infographics from the past few years; and I was disappointed that the extent of his imagination around this aspect was 3D pie charts and smiling/frowning face. Ah well. To FesteDaFool and RoutineMachine: you should be a bit more curious about Crawford - at least check his Wikipedia page -; the guy has some pretty solid and seminal achievements both in terms of released games and academic works on game design.

That's a really interesting line of thought. I strongly backed up The Oculus Rift about a week after it started: I think it's an area that hasn't been explored very seriously yet and this team, this tech angle and its announced high-profile users represents the best opportunity to do that. Still, what you said made me realized that the extrapolation of that technology to the whole medium is something I strongly disagree with: I'm not into the social or game everywhere trends, but the prospect of future Video game being even more of a closed, ostracized/ing activity goes against my hope that they can be more than a time cannibalizing activity. It's probably a dystopian view of VR, but having a device that physically and completely occults reality is a bit terrifying in that respect. To sum up, I want this experience to be made, but I don't want it to be so successful that it takes the medium by storm. That's weird, right?

Arg, I downloaded and installed the game before the free week-end, but I got caught up in other stuff and couldn't play any of it. Well, I might just subscribe for one month.

Same here, all those month passed looking at Muybridge stuff never paid off.

It might be oversharing and but after reading this, Anyway, I agree that the 60s had their share of very dark movies - Peeping Tom is probably one of the most unsettling movie I've watched. But I agree with 'much shorter' in the sense that "Lawrence of Arabia" is a case of its own. Back when I was a kid, I remember it being broadcast every summer and being sold as an adventure movie and certainly not as a cold look at a tormented and fundamentally dysfunctional character that it actually is. Admittedly, I only understood that aspect of the film when I watched it again when I was a teenager, but still, it was very surprising that such a big studio movie used that kind of angle.

I really don't like post-modernist approach to games: I find it's always too early and too easy to go down the 'self/medium aware or self/pop referential' route. If you do, you better have some good reasons. For a while Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP stands as a good exmple and uses its self-awareness successfully; notably in the session system and their Mr Loyal as well as , which pace the experience perfectly.Sadly, the game crumbles pretty quickly under the weight of its high-school-ish writing style and idiosyncratic elements, as it systematically attempts to mesh them into a mythology. That's where it failed for me: the result is a mess of bits and pieces that rarely work on their own and made little sense to me as a whole. I find it very strange for a game to be that blunt and crass (maybe this qualifier is too strong) in the writing department when it's definitely elegant in its art, animation and music direction. In any case, the gameplay is so-so both in its design and execution but I can see the latter to be actually very good on iPhone/iPad (I played the game on PC) Deus Ex: Missing Link smells like a team designing an experience with mature tools after a production rich in trial and errors. For those who don't know, this smells like success: Human Revolution was very good, but crawling in vents, hacking and learning background info from terminals, taking down guys, analysing patrols or facing a few baddies while being low on ammo and energy was never as satisfying as it is here. It's funny though, the DLC also underlines the limits of mainpath linear missions in the Deus-Ex gameplay and narrative paradigm: it's enjoyable, but even polished, it can't match the small scale, not 'Mission Impossible' stuff of the hubs that offered more thought-provoking themes, branching situation and confrontational characters. So, hopefully, the next step for this team is to apply those honed craft-related skills to more potent narratives. Still, Missing Link a blast. Steam Catchup: 5 games down, 67 to go.

It's a pretty nice view though: the buildings and their layout are pretty interesting and typical of what I imagine the UK to be.

I haven't played Dust 514 and very little of EVE; but I always thought that the whole game-design point of making an FPS and releasing on it on console was to have 2 radically different community, with vastly different skillset and network structure work/bargain/fight against each other ... sort of emulating the difference between order givers and grunts. I mean, that's the main reason I'm interested in that project; but maybe I'm wrong.

It's apparently an android the player is trying to piece back together and power up again.

I'm finally going through my Steam backlog seriously, having vouched to not buy anything on sale until I've played at least 90 minutes of the major games and 30 of the gimmicky ones. My method consists in playing my most recent acquisition then going back in time. The first one I cleared was Tiny & Big: Grandpa's Leftover which is a . When its everything-slicable physics, quirky Crumb-like aesthetics, alternative rock soundtrack and puzzle design click together, it's quite a wonderful experience. But that happens only 3 times. Literally. The rest of the game is plagued by frustrating, ill designed controls, unimaginative puzzles and the randomness of a very nice soundtrack that sadly spoils the atmosphere. Still, the engine is impressive in its ability to deliver its promise in the smallest details and there's a lot of charm all around... so, despite the clonkiness, I'm looking forward to whatever BlackPants is doing next. And I wouldn't mind if they just iterate on that recipe. I got given the gift of Terraria last Christmas but I never got the guts to play it until now. Terraria, Minecraft and simulated worlds in general have been terrifying me ever since I got caught up in making bread instead of following the story of Ultima VII. Those are games that could never end, perpetually renewed by intricate layers of brilliant self sustaining systems. This frightens me. But what I discovered after playing 40 minutes of Terraria solo, is that I'm not fond of the result (not this one anyway)0: I'd love to create those games and study their systems, but I'm not engrossed in the experience they create... hacking away at stuff, constructing a shitty house, vanquishing blobs ... made me realized that I missed story, external motives and intermediary objectives; emergent or otherwise. So , but given that the rest of the world loves it, you can probably ignore it. Void definitely deserves the media attention it got 9 months ago: it's 30 minutes of varied, balanced puzzles with nifty little secrets, awing tech achievements and a coolio credit sequence. One of my favorite side-things is probably the dangling specs, forgetting that I've got them equipped and then falling into a hole (this is not sarcastic, it feels very much like it might happen if I was given that kind of tool). It's clearly a must play Incidentally, Void is the DigiPen senior project of a few of my awesome pals at Ubisoft Singapore (the two GDs), so if you like it, don't hesitate to drop them a mail/whatever to encourage them to restart. So, yeah, 3 Steam games down. 69 to go.

That's not entirely true, I suggest you browse to the end of the wikipedia article on organic farming to learn about the benefit it has on soil conservation. Organic farming is not the panacea since it doesn't scale very well and could never be driven by demand; but it does offer efficient answers to small/medium scale problems

This is the sort of structure I've hoped for in the Sam & Max episodic franchise since a while back. Please push for it!

I agree with the point, not at all with the tone, because you're probably typing this on a device made by people who are basically slaves, a device whose production, delivery, use and waste also have a very significant impact on the environment. . And I know that it's my case too and 2 wrongs don't make 1 right; but the fact that you're labeling people eating meat carelessly as 'not giving a shit' about animal when others of your consumption habits might say the same about you and human beings is a strong enough contradiction for me to be ticked off by your 'you have no excuse!' tone. That being said, you're right about the rest and I can only commend people who are trying their best to avoid animal suffering or over consumption of meat; their ethical and ecological arguments cannot be disagreed with - their health related ones probably can though. Also, I agree with Sal's post; anthropomorphizing animals is one of the thing that really ticks me off: I wish we stopped at recognizing their sentience, and on that basis, not to treat them in ways that make them suffer. That makes sense; that's us using reason successfully. But obsessively linking their behavior to human ones (do they dance? do they have relationships? are they faithful?) is a misguided, childish shortcut that leans toward saying that animals who don't display human-like behavior don't deserve similar treatment. As for animal rights, I really don't know because my perception is split between thinking of some animals as individuals and some other as species with no real individual components. So in one case, right for each animal make sense to me, but in the other no. It's one of those case when I'll let somebody more educated - an expert - decide on my behalf because even though I can be more educated about the issue, I don't think I can devout enough time to build an informed-enough opinion that can stand serious examination. And honestly, I'd rather spend this time examining other issues, ones that I find more crucial.

Oh, can we please not enter another rhetorical/meta argument? We got so many of those recently...

I watched House of Five Leaves a few weeks ago because the character design fascinated me and I'd say that, like Mushishi, it does work better as an anime: the consistently good direction and subtle animation really help presenting the stillness of the world in an appealing way. However, the series ultimately disappointed me because all aspects of the narration were eventually driven by the will to tie all characters together in a single web of stories and to give them all a likeable quality. This homogeneity worked against the up-in-the-air moral ambiguity and behavior, that the beginning of the series established. Because of that, the 6 first episode were way more appealing to me than the rest - the final arc cimented part of the shady background and knowing those elements for sure ruined the potency of most of the characters. That being said, since the series is quite short and a bit unique, I would recommend giving it a try.

To me, it doesn't matter that the action is pressing X. What matters is that, by requiring different classes to perform that action in different context (e.g. static or moving target), you ask the team to reorganize itself to catter for it: if the guy is a engineer or a medic, you'll have to play in a very different way to bring the player to the point and support him there. Having a function monopolized at that point, also means that whatever perks/advantages that class/guy was bringing to the battle normally won't have much an impact anymore. Also, most of the time, the steps can be solved in two ways, and deciding which way to prioritize in attack and monitor in defense gets pretty interesting. It also creates pretty awesome narratives. More so than TF2; which is pretty cool already. As for the class being 'barely' different I don't it's a fair description: operative does overt stuff like infiltration/diversion by hacking and rarely enters direct combat medic does energy/health resupply and his basically always right behind the front line; but will need to dive into it to revive key members. engineers are mostly about securing positions or extending the front so that a defending can't just barricade themselves the soldier shoots people in the face and resupply everybody Of course, if everybody is playing every class as the soldier; it doesn't work; but I'm not sure you can blame SplashDamage for that: they are doing what they can to entice the players to 'roleplay' their class, but breaking habits taken up on of CoD or TF2 is probably tough. I mean, I'm not giving them any slack, they need to find solutions for that; but I know it's complicated. As for the map not being fun, I disagree but I can't challenge you on that, it's a matter of taste. And in any case, I know a significant amount of people who share your opinion.

Brink is great in multiplayer, not in solo (I mean, it works, but it's not worth mentionning). I find it the best SplashDamage to date, on par with RtcW:ET: it's a refined version of their team-play recipe, applied in levels architectured to make this gameplay look good (as opposed to 'Quake Wars Enemy Territory', where, I feel, the huge levels were a detriment to the game flow). This games does a lot of smart things in terms of immediate feedback and minute-to-minute loop that encourage and reward teamplay like no other game. I just love those multiplayer scenarios in which each steps put the responsibility on the shoulders of different classes. But it takes players who are willing to follow others for a while to know what to do next... basically, it'd be best for newcome to play medic (I mostly play medic myself); so that they NEED to stay with other players and focus on the situation rather than mowing down the enemy. I didn't play a huge amount of it though, so I can't talk so much about the evolution/skill system; but it seemed decent enough

"Sometimes, when it's quiet, I can still hear the Monkeys". - Opening Line of Escape from Monkey Island. But I'm a sucker for 'Harris-Burdick' style of sentences "Love? Love, is for the Living, Sal. I'm only after her for one reason... she's my ticket out of here. " - Grim Fandango And in recent books, from people whose view I probably disagree with: "Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it. " -Louis Ferdinand Celine, a big bastard, but a genius writer according to a lot "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects" - Robert A. Heinlein

I'm thinking of buying the Walking Dead on Steam to just to get away from the sub par and frustrating in-game download feature of the Telltale. Is it possible to carry over the savegames? Also, I probably will post something a bit more detailed later but I really, really liked episode 1 but found the writing and direction of the second not so great: Also, I saved Doug! I wished there was a way to not show the stats at the end of the episode; I'd rather know that either at the end of the season or at the beginning of the next episode.

It's probably the biggest pain in the ass as far as game management (activation/login/saving) are concerned and it will get on your nerve every time you need to setup a new game. However, if there's a great GFW game that's only available that way, you should probably go through the pain.

For no real reason except that the sale allows for it, I'm giving away 15 "Time Gentlemen, Please! and Ben There, Dan That! Special" from Steam. First come, first serve, PM me with your steam ID so I can gift it.

Yes.

I'm usually not into Video game parody/nostalgia/hommage, but that Offspring Fling trailer is great! There's even a VHS Version.

4 million dollars and 36 000 backers ... I feel like I'm missing something, because to me, Ouya seems like a platform that wants to be a PC/Console/Mobile but does not have the powerful retail chain of traditionnal console makers (which, as I understand, the chief reason of their success) does not have the flexibility of PC gaming (what with developer having to go through a marketplace) does not have the huge reach of mobile (which means, no overnight million+ cinderella story ala Angry Birds) does not come from people with a serious track record in game dev tool (Their member page on Kickstarter states 'There are plenty of other people involved, but some of them would get fired if we tell you who they are.' Truly mature and reassuring statement) What surprise and bothers me is that there are 550+ developers out there who thought it was a good idea to invest 700$ and more to have early access to a yet-to-be-talked-about SDK for an Android platform when there are free or cheap existing solution for that problem. I'm confused.