Intrepid Homoludens

You don't want to know.

What the funk.

Well, funk you!

I could be a funky virgin mom myself, but I don't meet at least two of those requirements.

You mean wormsie has breeder wishes?

Great. That simply means more room for spam and other crap.

Your thumb has ears? That's, um.....fascinating.

He's drunk alright.

[Trep stumbles out, stage left, does a very bad mambo, coughs, then....] Trep: "And then - you're gonna love this - the secretary says 'You can't make a watermelon out of a sparkplug!'" [stumbles out, stage right]

I think he's just perpetually hermes.

And STFU!, graphics slut gamer whores*!! * Well, I'm kinda one myself, part-time, but I never let that supersede what should be the most important aspects of any game: gameplay and fun.

Well, so far from what little hot, wet information Monolith has secreted to us drooling public*, the idea involves an unnamed special** member of the clandestine government organization, First Encounter Assault and Recon (think X-Files but with assault weapons and combat uniforms). He is sent with teammates to investigate an apparent hostile takeover at a skyscraper in some city where, to his shock (and natch his team and handlers), all the hostages have been slaughtered, truckloads of blood everywhere, and strangely, there are no evidence whatsoever of them being being shot (no bullet holes, no shell casings, etc.). Worse still, the team's radio communications are intermittently aflutter with constant static (Ha! Remember the radio in the Silent Hill games?). Even worse, that mysterious and creepy little girl, and deeper into the plot some of the teammates are unexplicably ripped apart to death whenever the girl appears. [cue Twilight Zone music] * That's sounds deliciously disgusting, yes? ** Special in that key members of the squad possess their own little psychic talents. This explains the 'bullet time' in the game.

Actually there are already a handful of games out there that are thoughtful enough to include idle animations, if not the suggestion of body language. Check out: No One Lives Forever 2 - characters smoke, walk around, sigh, roll their eyes, shift their bodies, etc., possibly the most sophisticated so far out all the games Silent Hill 2 and 3 - your avatar stands contrapasto, looks around, etc. American McGee's Alice - she plays with her toy/weapons and generally fidgets Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time - leave the Prince and Farah alone and watch what happens (no, not that you pervert!)

Heh, you AG guys already saw this over there, but I thought I'd share it those here, too. Clockwise from top left - Freedom Fighters, Hitman: Contracts, Minority Report, and Messiah. Fun!! I've just been listening to some of his original compositions for games on his website. Quite a talent. He's done the scores for the entire Hitman series, as well as MDK2, Minority Report (the game), Messiah, Shattered Galaxy, and Gore: Ultimate Soldier. His style as of late combines moody electronica with the voices of the Hungarian Radio Choir, but he's also done pure techno, industrial, symphonic orchestral, and other styles, usually mixed. So far my favourites that I've heard are: Main Title, Freedom Fighters; most of the music from Hitman 2 and Hitman Contracts (particularly Winter Night, featured on the site); Main Title, Minority Report; Max1, MDK2, and ReactionQ3Title, Reaction QuakeIII.

A pink Rolls Royce.

Oh, there always are. You've hung around AG enough now to know that... Luddites, I tell you! Luddites!!

But those examples you gave are third person. There's also the Hitman series. For FPS, or at least the ones in first person view, there's Thief and Deus Ex, both atypical of the genre and inspiring subsequent games. There are also the upcoming ones, like Call of Cthulhu, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and Xenus. In America's Army there are combat modes where the game treats it so that your [online] opponents look like terrorists to you and your mates, and likewise you to them. There are also other recent and current handful of shooters where you get to play 'freedom fighters'. Then there was the fairly recent (and ill received) Devastation, where you play an Eminem looking rebel leader organizing a group of ragtags against the currently imposing corporate government. And Beyond Good & Evil touches a bit on this theme as well, except you're in charge of up to two A.I. mates, in third person view. Well, the last thing I'd want is to make a controversial online game just for its own sake. That's a cheap shot, even if it is independently produced. I'd stick to conceptual originality, for example, focusing on story and its complexities and giving each player a 'personal' reason to complete missions and, if necessary, killing for it. I'd introduce the quandary of ethics and cultural and religious clashes. Unfortunately, too many young and ambitious developers fall into the trap of "wouldn't-it-be-cool-to-make-a-game-that-would-get-all-the-soccer-moms-totally-pissed-off-and-my-game-would-be-outlawed-and-I-would-be-on-the-FBI-wanted-list'.

Quake III raytraced movie Cute, a little eye candy indulgence for us.

Click for large title - F.E.A.R. genre - First Person Shooter, Survival Horror developer - Monolith (No One Lives Forever, Blood, Aliens vs. Predator 2) launch date - 2005 teaser trailer (you must watch this, looks excellent if you love story/action intertwined. I recommend d/l it and playing it full screen) Full preview, Gamespy THIS game is on my list. It's from Monolith, it combines a few of my favourite elements like combat shooting horror, and plot progression entirely in first person, and the teaser trailer, imo, is far more seductive looking in concept and narrative premise than Doom3.

Clockwise from top left: Hitman Contracts; Beyond Good & Evil; Silent Hill 3; Deus Ex. To start, I have a propensity for story driven action. The story (not score nor bonuses) is really what motivates me through the gameplay. That said, I do like a few types of gameplay. Pure stealth is one of my favourites (Hitman series, Thief series), love the idea of using wit and cunning and planning my maneuvers after gauging the situation and weighing the possible pros and cons from a mutltiple of choices within a mission. I also like a light level of customization and resource management, tailoring myself to specialty and to a style of accomplishing my goals (Deus Ex). And then there's the style of playing based more on the given atmosphere and theme, like being low on resources and having to depend on things like evasion, when I'm on the edge of my seat, and a bit of exploration, finding bits and pieces of the story, and puzzle solving (Silent Hill series). Finally, I love it when a game combines all the above skillfully and effortlessly, to where it all balances out and avoids confusion, where I can manage different things and meet different challenges without having to concentrate too much on one thing (Beyond Good & Evil). What I don't like is being forced to pay too much attention to managing resources and levelling up, too much platforming, beating levels just for a high score, and repititious crap (nothing but killing, etc.). Sooooo, what do you guys like in your gameplay?

My avatar is Garrett, the hot sweaty man-taffer of the Thief games. Because in the shadows, anything can happen, baby!

Aw man, Yufsielicious, that sucks! I would have loved to have played with you and a few others here (I wanna kick Chris's awesome obstacle ass so badly in deathmatch!). I myself haven't played the full game yet, I'll wait until it's dirt cheap and I have extra cash. Yeah, I'm not so much discerning as jp-30. Maybe it's 'cause I'm haven't been so used to cel shading and all those other 2D visual look stuff, but I really do love XIII's visual style. From the consensus of many reviews the gameplay is solid but predictable. Still, I'd play it through just for the cool looking graphics.

It's ultimately a matter of personal preferences. I personally loved the look of XIII, not just because it reproduced the look of highly stylized comic books, but also for how it brought that look to life by including those big words exclaimed when characters die and dynamically appearing mini-panels showing related scenes within the main scene. These screenshots do nothing to convince, you really do need to see the game in action to discover how visually cool and dynamic it all is, sooo.....download and play the single player demo AND the multiplayer demo! Hmmm, in fact I think I shall re-install the singleplayer demo and run through it again just for fun! EDIT: That was fun. I forgot how tricky the second level of the demo was. Got killed, will try again later. Hey, if anyone here is interested, let's do some multiplayer XIII! Just d/l the multiplayer demo and we can meet up for some cel shaded mess!

Well put, Marek. jp-30, if I could only import the frying pan from Adventure Gamers forums I would beat you completely senseless with it.

What's wrong with Hitman's forehead? I think it's sexy!! We have to remember that technology is probably the most influential driving force behind all these trends, making the games industry and the experience of gaming (i.e. interactive entertainment) rather unique and distinct from other industries (movies, literature, fashion, architecture, art, etc.). Thus it's technology - its speed of progress and advance - that shifts and changes and ultimately catalyzes our experiences of, concepts of, and perspectives on gaming, including what constitutes styles and trends and what is good. This can have its perils, do doubt, a double edged sword, mainly from the fact that technology today advances obscenely fast. Too fast, in my opinion, so that considerable new possibilities are introduced and pimped and whored as 'the next big thing', thus often do not have time to crystallize and be subject to refinement and improvement by more talented development houses. Many publishers and developers, fearful of being left behind and accused of using outdated technology (even when they truly are studying it and want to improve and refine it for a better gaming experience) and thus branded as unsalable, may have no choice but to run onto the next new, bleeding edge, and trendy idea in technology just to sell more copies to the techno whore hardcore gamers who, like it or not, really do have a sizeable influence on how the rest of the world (i.e. mainstream) will perceive the new games coming out. Companies like nVidia and ATI don't just race to come up with better ways of presenting games, they want to be the first with next technology in order to make the most money, and that in turn helps shape our ideas and points of view. In the end it's the inevitable combination of technology, marketing, and commerce that can have a great impact on trends and the 'zeitgeist-du-jour'. As far as the latest fashion in realism, we all here know that that in itself doesn't necessarily constitute a good game. It can, however, augment it. But it really depends on the concept of the game itself, what kind of idea the game is about. Take the Max Payne series for example. The concept was to reproduce the intensity and visual style of a Hong Kong action thriller, but as an interactive experience where the player has a key involvement in progressing the story. Developer Remedy decided to go for the literal visual look: photorealism. The technology was of course available, a game of this caliber and of this depth in richness (on all levels) would have been impossible to create ten years ago. The available technology was stretched to its limits. On this note, I think they ultimately were not trying to be fashionable (although the series did end up being masterpieces in how to do realism most effectively), they were trying to give the player a solid foothold into being in and participating in the world of the action thriller.