Thrik

Apparently Kane and Lynch are in Hitman. Best you're gonna get!

Depends on the clients. Not that I'm trying to start a pissing contest but the clients I work with measure their profits in billions, and I can assure you that the tiniest details are signed off on and they're not passive shmucks who have nothing useful to contribute like 99% of the small business clients I had to tolerate for years. We're getting sidetracked here, though. Like I say, regardless of where the idea originated it's an unoriginal one. I have no real sympathy for excessive derivation regardless of medium or circumstances, whether the fault lies with the designer or client. It's shitty and when you put together a graphic like the one above any layman would agree. People not noticing is no excuse for complete unoriginality.

I understand all this because, well, I'm a designer too. I was only being a git when I said the designer's unimaginative, in reality we have no idea what decisions led to these — could have been a retarded designer saying "This is rad and totally now" or something the client pushed. Who knows. Either way, it's shitty and unoriginal, just like when in my particular field everyone had to have a 'web 2.0' design. Piss off is what I say to such trend whoring. Broader trends like the old 'desaturate and increase contrast' trick I've been using since I was 15 and orange/real bother me less. They're more just common manifestations of very old principles of tone. This 'sparks/flames at the bottom with debris further up and clouds behind' thing is much more specific and clearly the work of one work essentially copying another.

Not very bloody imaginative then is he??

Agreed. Excellent contribution.

Hahaha oh god. The mouths as eyes thing never gets old.

OK my opinion of the box art just dropped about a thousand levels.

Forums and communities can be great for networking. For example it's no secret that a lot of people from the Mojo/AdventureGamers soup that founded Idle Thumbs have gotten each other jobs at Telltale Games or other companies those communities have ties with. Similarly, all the guys on my forum have helped each other get jobs across the whole industry. It's definitely useful to say the least.

I played through about 2/3 of Final Fantasy 8 without a save card, pretty much constantly playing between sleep and school. At some point I came home to find my PlayStation switched off, at which point I basically killed myself.

Quite a lot of the guys on my forum are very experienced with Unity, see my signature if you feel like asking there.

I'm enjoying that the pirates are apparently a suicidal group of nutcases in this game.

Yeah they got the balance about right with Aragorn. As a LotR virgin I was definitely expecting him to be a git for quite some time.

Let's lynch this fuck some more!

Which one? In all seriousness though, I absolutely loved the LotR films and can't even begin to agree with anything brkl is saying really. I suspect he's coming from the perspective of a fan of the books though, and I think most of us should know by now that devoted fans of something are statistically more likely* to not be too fond of other adaptations, regardless of quality. Even if they did the most perfect Metal Gear Solid movie imaginable I'd still be sat there like a big, fat nerd criticising it because it doesn't stick to the game which is in my mind the perfect rendition of that work. Try as they might, someone who was a LotR book fan will never convince me they're giving a fair and unbiased review of the work based on its own merits. I base my judgement of the films purely on the films, so any comparisons to how they miss the point of the books, etc just doesn't wash with me. Who even cares if The Hobbit as a film series is different in tone to the book if it's awesome as tits? Of course it might be brkl isn't a fan of the books at all and my entire last paragraph should be omitted from the record. Also I just watched all the LotR movies' Blu-Ray extended releases and they're as awesome as I remembered. Noticed they've changed the colour grading too, seeing as someone mentioned that aspect (greeted with even more fan whinging, naturally). In fact I honestly think it still looks better than most films made before and after. * Based on my arse

So pedestrian in what sense? That they're absolutely awesome and garnered acclaim throughout the world from both critics and casual viewers alike — including me who was decidedly not a Tolkien or even a fantasy fan — while netting eleven Oscars in the process? That's a kind of pedestrian I can get behind.

One good reason is that I never check that thread and wouldn't have ever seen this discussion. Not a fan of megathreads.

I'm trying to keep my expectations in check considering how incredibly awesome I consider the Lord of the Ring films to be, and the chances of The Hobbit equalling it — especially considering that's it's also contending with my nostalgia and utter surprise at how good LotR was in the first place — are slim. That said, I can't imagine it not being a great experience for anyone into Tolkien's lore, and I've enjoyed every Jackson film I've seen thus far including King Kong and The Lovely Bones. As I understand it the reason it's become three films is because it actually steps considerably beyond the scope of the book, swallowing up all the other Middle Earth lore Tolkien wrote and building additional sub-stories around it. So in a way this is less 'The Hobbit', and more a last chance to incorporate all the cool shit Tolkien wrote outside of LotR into one last series, including epic battles and shit never really depicted in the namesake book. Assuming they can pull it off, I'm totally happy with that. I'm not letting the reviews influence me because critics can be dicks, plus many people watching The Hobbit will likely be existing LotR fans so there's going to be more fan service and inaccessibility that probably wasn't there in LotR, something critics often whinge about.

Sounds like an excellent decision.

Everything I've read about this game (albeit mostly limited to Edge) has given me the impression that the people behind it really know what their vision is and seem to be doing a great job of realising it. It's kind of incredible how Tomb Raider has transformed from originally being pretty much the worst kind of male fantasy-orientated shit imaginable to something that's coming from almost the precise opposite direction and could be a great step for better depictions of women in games. Also this new Lara is well hot.

Yeah, it is somewhat relieving to know there are male equivalents. For a while there it was looking like their marketing department has somehow attracted all the misogynistic fucks of the games industry, considering the whole 'sexy nun' thing that kicked off before.

Hahaha, wow this is absolutely splendid. Seems to have been down now though, although the button for it is still on the Hitman home page. Holy shit. How does this even make it through the channels?

Maps in games like this are something that bother me to an extent, I'm pleased to know there's the option of just not doing the radio thing to make them too detailed. One of the things that's always made MGS3 (a game I can't help but compare this to) so appealing to me is the feeling of being out there in the jungle it instils, and the lack of guidance. They even do away with the 'cone of vision' markers that were so traditional in the previous games, and you literally have to rely on what you can see. Absolutely brilliant. I'm hoping I can gain a similar level of immersion from Far Cry 3 by not unjamming the towers and not using the tagging shit. How are the difficulty levels? Is it like Crysis where higher levels fundamentally change some things, for example making all the enemies speak Korean instead of English and making them significantly more aware of their surroundings? Or is it basically just a 'less health and saves' type approach? I love well-executed difficulty shifts like the former and will happily play on hard during my first playthrough if they've taken that approach.

Wow, this looks great! Looks like exactly the kind of witty adventure-platformer I've been waiting for Gilbert to make since, well, Monkey Island. I also approve of the trailer's Wilhelm scream.

Not understanding the issue myself either, perhaps not here but I think a lot of people let link-baiting sites like Kotaku influence their opinions too much. I personally find myself immediately drawn in by the box art. The guy doesn't look at all like your average sci-fi/military protagonist — I really like his depiction actually— it's extremely colourful, and there are hints of the setting in the form of a burning US flag, his clothing, and a zeppelin. I'm sure the rear will provide more specifics. I dunno, seems like another of those 'controversy over nothing' things gaming blogs love to stir up. It is not an unappealing cover.

Coincidentally I've been playing MGS3 HD the past week or so, which is of course stealthy, jungle-based, and full of biting fuck animals. Putting me well in the mood for FC3! I'm a bit concerned about the difficulty. I like a challenge, currently playing MGS3 on extreme. I don't want it to become impossibly unbalanced in the later game though, so keep us posted on that front.