Thrik

Yeah I've got to agree, Twin Snakes is an excellent remake that compromised almost nothing about the original yet gave the game a lot more atmosphere and pushed it past the magical graphic mark of around the year 2000 where games suddenly became a lot more timeless-looking. It's actually the best and most respectful of game remakes I can think of, and the cutscenes in particular — a big part of any MGS — are more in keeping with the series as a whole and the dramatic timing is waaaaay better. For example: http://youtu.be/K7bkBzMVGgk http://youtu.be/SMnv08UEc0Q I was a 100% PSX Metal Gear Solid fan, but I've actively recommended Twin Snakes over MGS1 for years. Even the voice performances are better — David Hayter in particular has clearly warmed into the part a lot more, evident in the videos above with the 'big boy like you' line. Also, holy shit I need to get that emulated HD version now that few kinks remain.

Man, I wish I could experience MGS2 for the first time again. What a bizarre but highly refined game. But if you think it's different compared to its predecessor, wait until MGS3 comes along! I might have to replay those two in HD before #5 comes out.

Was walking back into work after my lunch break, only to be greeted by the sight of my ex who after several years I broke up with just over a year ago (and haven't seen since) walking through the main entrance in the opposite direction. Bit weird, I thought. Decided to put her name into the employee search once I got back to my desk — she recently started and is working in the other wing of the floor I'm on. Shit.

Oh god, you must continue with Snake Eater. That is such a satisfying, great game. I think it's still my favourite in the whole series. I'll add you to PSN, but it's probably unlikely I'll be available to do co-op. I tend to play games in a pretty weird way, taking lots of random breaks to mess around with my iPad and such — it's all part of my demented process of relaxing. I can make myself put time aside for multiplayer games though, so when MGS: Online comes along for MGS5 I'll probably be more likely to be around for that.

It's not that that I dislike the cutscenes, I think they're very nice once you adjust to the high disparity in visuals between them and the in-game stuff. The art does sometimes end up looking a little less great on my huge TV than I imagine it does on a handheld, but it's good stuff and I've always enjoyed the signature hand-drawn art style that the whole series has had. The main reason for me preferring in-engine cutscenes is the same as why I like the home console mission structure, which is that for the most part the games are one big uninterrupted experience. Obviously it's nothing like Half-Life where everything occurs within the player's control, but it helps attain that similar feel of a long adventure. MGS5 bringing more of the codec conversation in-game will hopefully further accentuate this immersion. I was delighted to see the series' elaborate 2D visuals and infographics making a return in Peace Walker's cutscenes, when it comes to that stuff it's very similar to the other games. It's definitely not missable in terms of story and such, but I think as an overall package one could skip it if put off by the graphics and simplified gameplay. In my opinion the overall feel of the gunplay and stealth isn't as refined as MGS3's, and they clearly struggled to get the game looking good on a big screen — it's probably the weakest-looking home console release if we substitute MGS1 for Twin Snakes. But that doesn't bother me! I love MGS enough to overlook these shortcomings, and I'd imagine that most dedicated fans can too. What I meant was that if people just can't get on with it, at least check out the story. I know a lot of people won't though, so hopefully The Phantom Pain will have a really good overview of what happened in Peace Walker and possibly even Portable Ops. I'm familiar with the Portable Ops story, but it seemed conspicuous in its absence to me that Peace Walker began with quite a detailed retrospective of what happened in MGS3 but completely skipped mentioning anything Portable Ops. Makes me wonder how canonical/relevant Kojima considers it.

Ah, shit. I'd better look more closely at that, then. I hope that it doesn't become too grindy. There's been the odd time where I haven't had an item I need, so I've had to kill some time doing side-missions until it's stocked. I don't particularly enjoy that, as I'm pretty much just blowing through the main missions. It's very fun, but it's not quite there to the point where I want to spend as much time with it as I do the home console MGS games (playing on maximum difficulty with masochistic gameplay rules, exploring absolutely everything, etc).

Due to my increasingly profuse salivation over the looming MGS5, I decided to give Peace Walker HD a shot to get in the mood. I have to admit, while the gameplay is clearly very simplified and that extends to the level design too, I'm enjoying it. The storytelling is potent and without a shadow of a doubt something that will enrich the enjoyment of both Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain — something which is highly apparent even after just watching trailers for those games — and it introduces some nice mechanics that I can't wait to see expanded upon. The base building stuff is undoubtedly cool. It says a lot about the current state of iOS/Android games that this simple microtransaction-free management game is a lot more fun than almost anything I've played on my phone or tablet, even if it is largely just managing numbers and upgrades. What'd really make it sing is the ability to do fine-level customisation of your base, and the opportunity to walk around it rather than just look at it from a helicopter above. MGS5 is delivering both of these, and I cannot wait to be building security cameras and such around my base, and defending it from attacking bastards. The codec is a bit of a disappointment, largely being devoid of the immersive conversations about plants and military equipment that made the previous games and their characters have such depth. However, the codec now working in-game is a splendid way of killing time while you observe enemy routes and such, or just chill out in the jungle atmosphere. If MGS5 can get more conversation happening and allow you to target who you speak to, it'll be really good. Unsurprisingly for a handheld game, the shooting mechanics are the weakest link. It seems like the hitboxes for enemies' heads are the size of my entire screen, which makes taking people out stealthily a bit too easy for the first several hours of the game, and they're positioned so that you're virtually forced to shoot them. With that said, once you get towards the third boss in the game it definitely kicks thing up a notch in terms of difficulty. Suddenly enemies all have helmets so they can't be one-shot killed, forcing you to use proper stealth and choking to take them out — and the level design changes to suit this, becoming more MGS3-like in terms of complexity. The balloon extraction thing makes it very easy to avoid enemies spotting other neutralised enemies though, so I hope that gets restricted more in MGS5. Mission structure is interesting. It's obviously handheld-friendly, with each one being relatively short (15–30 minutes) and with a distinct 'begin' and 'end' point where you jump back to the mission selection menu rather than having the ongoing experience you get in the main home console series. I'm not entirely keen on this as it kills immersion, but it's completely understandable considering the game's primary platform. Oh, and the cutscenes. These are all handled as comic book-style animations, which aren't great but once you get over the initial shock of them they become quite entrancing just like their in-engine brethren. Despite what I just said about the game having bite-size missions, the cutscenes are still god damned long and are filled with the nuclear deterrence theory and long monologues we all know and love in an MGS game. My overall conclusion is that this is probably a missable experience, but you'll be much better off having played it before MGS5. To put it into context, playing MGS5 without having played Peace Walker will mean that you miss out on as much of the Big Boss narrative as if you were to have not played MGS3, such is the extent to which is bridges the gap between the two in terms of character development, story, and also the tech found in the world — not to mention the fact that many of the characters in MGS5 are straight from Peace Walker. My recommendation would be that if you can't be bothered with the gameplay, find a video that compiles all of the cutscenes into a single video or something. To finish, two quick videos of the game that I captured: "Ha ha. Can't wait to see these ludicrous mechanics expanded upon in Metal Gear Solid 5." "OK, giving a gigantic murderous robo-tank a singing voice isn't creepy at ALL."

Enthused by David Wise's wonderful DKC: Tropical Returns soundtrack, I decided to see what else he's been up to. The answer is, sadly, not very much. But he did do the soundtrack for an iOS game called Tengami last year, which is a charming highly atmospheric blend of traditional Japanese notes and electronica. The whole soundtrack is on Spotify and YouTube, but here are some of my favourites:

My super-geeky Donkey Kong Country article just got spotlighted on Kotaku. See? They're not so bad. (To me.) http://kotaku.com/todays-selection-of-articles-from-kotakus-reader-run-co-1687301484 http://ryanjw.kinja.com/solving-donkey-kong-countrys-great-dk-island-mystery-1686648924

I'd be playing it right now if it were on iOS. Are there any good builder/sim games on this damn platform? Every single one just seems crafted around mugging you with in-app purchases.

Another week, another musical fart. I found this one really challenging due to trying to avoid it sounding as synth-saturated as my others, and I'm not going to be happy with the mixing until I get some replacement headphones later this week so I can actually hear the damn shit properly. Still, it was fun throwing the slow/flowing approach out of the window for a while. Heavenly Showdown (Boss Level) - SoundCloud

I'm probably losing my mind but that first 'Fever' track completely made me think of the Guybrush/Elaine music from TSOMI. The other track isn't really my thing but that one is a winner. It's nice, you should definitely take that further. It doesn't seem fair to criticise an early jab but some of the later vocals do sound a bit too close to crying. If those were reigned in a bit it'd be a great base for some further instrumentation. :tup:

What about the PC version which doesn't have the micro-transaction shit? I mean, how does it hold up as a computer-based alternatives to things like Populous (which it was touted as a spiritual sequel to)? I ask as I'm not playing it until it gets a final release — the iOS version surely has to be considered an alpha at best — and am curious about its current state at the time of all this controversy. It doesn't surprise me that the iOS version is bollocks because despite iPad being the most splendid device for strategy fans ever created, I'm yet to find a good one not saturated with horrible in-app purchases and compromise. At this point I've kind of just accepted that my tablet is going to be useless in this regard until there's eventually some kind of revolution against this crap.

I've thoroughly enjoyed every Molyneux game I've played apart from Curiosity, and I haven't played Godus yet. But I've never really paid much attention to Molyneux's ramblings, and in all honesty they're pretty much inconsequential. Lots of developers oversell their games prior to release, not to mention their marketing campaigns. While Molyneux has clearly struggled with 22cans, I think that throwing in his prior actions like he's the worst man in the world and some serial master manipulator who's been getting away with it for years is over the top. This is what's always distinguished Molyneux for me, and is undoubtedly why he is so revered despite his problems: he strives for perfection and achieves merely greatness. Still more than most designers manage. At present I'm affording 22cans the same courtesy as Double Fine, which is letting them finish their significantly delayed game and I'll judge the end result. The slow development sucks, and there might be less resources attached to it than is ideal, but the same goes for all kinds of projects. To continue with the probably inappropriate Double Fine comparison, Grim Fandango Remastered looks to me like it was done with a skeleton crew (ha ha); Broken Age is also massively delayed even though the studio has lots of staff who've been working on Space Base, Massive Chalice, and whatever else it's working on. But I don't factor any of this into my opinion of what's presented to me as a finished product. Right now, Godus is just a delayed game. There have been many of them over the years, and there'll be many more. Some of what's going on within the studio might be questionable, but how many studios would we say that about if we had more insight? Obviously the release date was a broken promise, but there's a whole wagon of Kickstarter projects like that. Everything else is TBD, and actually if you go back to the original Kickstarter the game isn't a million miles away from what was presented. I mean, I for one never expected this to be the next Black & White, even if I would love it to be. Did anyone, really? The only completely indefensible point is how much of a damp squib the whole 'this will change your life' Curiosity prize has turned out to be. This is obviously related to the delayed development, but I really feel for the guy whose elation turned to apathy. It's probably for the best that the guy was never much of a Molyneux fan or even a gamer to begin with, although that doesn't stop gaming journalism from trying to turn his plight into a Daily Mail-esque sob story. But even that situation could be salvaged if 22cans has indeed been stockpiling his earnings and delivers on the multiplayer feature. OK, the Linux thing is pretty lame too. I'll speculate that it was probably overlooked that the engine didn't support Linux, and that with the game already being in development when the Kickstarter was launched it was too late to start over from scratch. From looking at the engine's supported platforms, it's actually really surprising that it doesn't support Linux — because it supports virtually everything else, including OS X, Android, and even Roku. This is being paraded as a shining example of Molyneux's deceit, when in reality I think that it was an honest mistake.

I'm mostly avoiding discussing this whole palava because I haven't played Godus, and I expect that the same applies to at least half of the people lambasting Molyneux about its lack of quality or broken promises. In other words, a lot of people getting angry on other peoples' behalfs. Regarding the whole F2P thing, that's disappointing but unsurprising considering what mobile games have to do in order to be profitable. The community funding the game was just to get it out the door — and even that was clearly vastly underestimated by the ludicrously optimistic Molyneux. One very personal thing that repeatedly stops me from laying into Molyneux too much is that — as an apparently sometimes frustratingly optimistic person — I see a lot of myself in him. I too am often borderline stupidly over-ambitious when it comes to project timeframes and what I can achieve, even though I have the experience and sense to know better. It isn't born out of a desire to dupe people, it's actually more of a personal motivation technique to make something lovely. I guess the problem is that Molyneux also lets the world in on this, whereas if he just kept quiet people would probably be legitimately impressed by the random wares he shares once they're ready. Oh, and I also think that putting the game on Early Access was a huge mistake that it seems clear sapped a huge amount of momentum and motivation out of the development team. As a developer and creative I personally can't think of anything that I'd want to do less than ship out an unfinished work that will inevitably cause lots of disappointment unless it's basically just a beta, so why this has recently become seen as a good idea baffles me. If cannot go well!

Weird. Maybe you could capture your screen capture with FRAPS or something?

I'm using Logic Pro X. I'm really liking it, the UI is a dream to work with and the sample/synth quality is largely excellent. I didn't expect Apple's application in this area to be so strong, actually.

Thanks very much I_smell. I'm still quite fond of that one and will revisit the style at some point. I was quite inspired by the atmospheric music of DKC when doing it. I did go for an intentionally smooth sound Problem Machine, but I would like to do something with much bolder synths and beats. That'll be some future thing for sure, as I'm experimenting with all kinds of styles right now with 1–2 minute concepts. I must have about 20 now, but I'm only developing some of them further. So many ideas to explore, it's really fun. So glad I decided to invest in this hobby. I'm doing a boss level type thing with real-style instrumentation at the moment, and am well outside of my comfort zone. Hopefully I'll get it sounding decent in the next day or so.

Oh yeah, I noticed when talking to a colleague that the iOS version seems to be a lot better than its Android counterpart. No ads, pretty much just works fine. It sounds like the way they're able to offer it for free with no apparent monetisation strategy is that in fact the ads are all on Android, which is pretty shitty. I do believe that they open up their API for their food database, which is in all honesty what makes it so powerful compared to its competitors. If you can find another app using that API or a comparably broad database (if they exist) then you might find that app's user experience better.

It's definitely a pain in the ass when not buying pre-made food, but MyFitnessPal in particular has a very strong database of stuff that makes it easy to find approximations. For example, if I go to some random chicken joint in town I can just look up stuff from another chicken joint. It's best to be very strict about counting everything precisely for a week or two, but beyond that you should get an idea for how to do approximations with a reasonable level of accuracy. One thing to bear in mind is that it's impossible to be 100% accurate no matter what you do. For starters, unless you're a madman you can't precisely account for every bit of energy you burn every day, and this will vary for all kinds of reasons. As such, don't get too caught up on not getting the calories quite right — and if it really bothers you, just overestimate so you know you won't end up eating too much. Geting too obsessed with the tracking has made me more likely to give it up 'because I can figure it out in my head' (yeah right). I've been counting calories off-and-on for the last year or so, and so far I've lost about 35 pounds when I've been doing it. When I've stopped counting, suddenly my weight loss has stopped. I think that it's so much easier for me to trick myself into believing that I'm eating an OK amount when I don't bother tracking, which I guess ties into the bullshit rationalisation and self-delusion that leads to gaining weight in general. It's been a steady but effective process that's continuing to work for me, so I'm sticking with it. FWIW, I've lost weight aggressively on numerous occasions in the past — for example, the same 35 pounds but in a few months — but it's always come back. I think that truly developing better life-long eating habits is a slow process, and a 'quick fix' approach leads to those habits falling away once it seems OK to start pigging out again (it never is). I've been told countless times over the years that aiming for two/three pounds of loss a week is the way to go, and while I've dismissed this previously I'm now firmly behind the notion. I've never felt as effortlessly comfortable with eating sensibly as I do now, unlike in the past where despite what I've said I've found it difficult.

I thought I could do better with my last musical attempt — that it'd be nice to get some strings in there rather than wall-to-wall synth pads — so I just blew my afternoon reworking it from scratch. I'm still feeling hopelessly out of my depth, but actually putting stuff on SoundCloud so I can call it 'done' is very motivating and keeps me focusing on making something better. Rising Joy - SoundCloud

I'm sure it's in at worst the top 5000 results for 'art deco font' on Google Images.

The in-game commentary and unlockable concept art is a good incentive too.

Bluetooth headphones in general seem like an excellent idea for outdoor use. iOS at least can easily stream to any accepting Bluetooth device via a button in the slide-up control panel. I have a receiver in my living room sound system that will accept any sound coming from my iPhone (games, music, videos, etc).