Salka

People say so much with body language than they don't say with words. Like my mouth twitching before I found out that Milica is your sister. That kind of thing. If I was in a video game, since I wouldn't have enough detail in my facial animation to twitch my mouth, I would have had to say something unsubtle like, "Oh, Milicia. Who the hell is she?" Which could be said just as easily by twitching my mouth. And is probably a lot funnier that way. Now you can have enough detail in a character for small things like this. And not just details like that, either. I wish a little more thought would be put in to things like how close characters stand to each other, or things like that. Are they crossing their arms when they speak to each other? Are they looking at the other person or away from them? Do they try to avoid contact with that person or are they friendly and close with them? At the moment in video games I've noticed that characters movements don't depend at all on the people around them, but on the ongoing 'personality' of that character. I don't know if I'm making much sense, here. Hm. I mean, one character might be a 'strong, determined character'. She might cross her arms determinedly while talking. But let's say her love interest is the person she's talking to; in real life, she's not going to cross her arms, because it's quite a hostile action. She's going to have her arms folded slightly in front of her at most. It might seem like a small detail, but I love small details. And it would make character interactions with each other so much more interesting.

Characters have various idle animations including "take out your phone and SMS", "Yoyo", "Picking nose" and "scratching butt". I am half serious, though. Idle animations mean a lot to me. I'd rather not have a character standing staring into space. Also, body language when speaking to other characters. Too much needs to be said through the script in a game. In real life, a lot is said through body language. I wish game characters would use more body language.

You should. I love hearing different accents. Which is funny because, since I am a waitress, I hear a lot of tourists. I force them to speak. Once, this New Zealandic couple (I just read an article about Serbia, and everybody's name ended in 'ic', and now it's stuck in my head) came in and ordered breakfast and lager. "What part of America are you from?" they asked. "I'm not. Wow! You're Australian!" I said, my eyes lighting up because I like other accents very much. "No, we're New Zealandic," said the woman, although possibly she didn't use quite that combination of wording and non-words. "People often get our accent mixed up." "Like mine," I agreed. "So do you guys watch Home and Away?" "Oh sure. You guys are so far behind us, you know. So, what part of America did you say you were from?" "I'm not. God, you know the way I thought you were from Australia? People think I'm from America all the time. It really starts to piss you off after a while, doesn't it? Did I piss you off, much? God, sometimes I just want to--" And I made stabbing motions with my order pad. In retrospect, it might have made more sense to do that with the pen, instead. "Jesus Christ," said the woman. Then, she spoiled the next years worth of episodes of Home and Away for me.

Excellent. My username is Yufster. Is that my phone number, too? Because that sounds kind of lame. "Here, let me give you my phone number. Y-U-F-S-T-E-R. Yeah. Call me." Should it be called a Phone Letter?

Bleh! Agreed! I was confused with G&E and Beyond G&E at first, and then I kept thinking people were talking about G&E when they were talking about B&W... But remember that Ron Gilbert's came first!

Like Clowns? Are there Clowns in the shadows, Treppy?

Marek's new avatar is awesome!!! 10/10!!!! Ha ha haaaaaaa!!! This has got me thinking of avatars, appropriately enough. Perhaps I should change mine? People are beginning to suspect I may be gay. Or maybe I just like the flag, eh? Did you ever think of that??? Ha ha ha, stupid Pikachu!!! Stevan, what is your Avatar from? And Treppy, yours too.

Do you think I'd be able to legally park in Disabled spaces in car parks, on account of having Dial Up? I'd love to have played you guys in a lot of things, but my connection speed does not permit. I'm going to go and check whether broadband is available in my area yet. In other news; something that does irritate me, though, is when people use graphic styles just for the sake of using graphic styles. I mean, I think in Zelda it was a careful choice they made that, in my opinion, benefited the game. Again, in XIII, it was perfect for the comic book style. In Futurama, however badly done it is, it is of course supposed to simulate the style of the TV shows. But, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head because I only remember games that are excellent... sometimes I'll pick up a game and think, 'why the heck is this cell shaded?'. It's not done to particularly benefit the game, it's just done because Cell Shading can be done, and it's new and cool at the moment. It's not just cell shading, either. It's done with a lot of styles, but I just noticed it particularly strongly with Cell Shading because when done wrong, it does tend to look crap (But then again, so does 3D). What's an awesome obstacle ass?

Gah! If you are referring to that awful, awful, awful TV show, I hate you.

I was joking. My sense of humour (?) is dodgy today on account of being at work. But.. there actually really were people that didn't want it to go from Sprites to 3D? Ha ha ha. That's crazy!

[quote name=Intrepid Homoludens 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! You have no idea how much I want to do this right now, especially as I have been deprived of playing XIII at all. Except, on my connection which I believe I have mentioned before... it would take approximately three days and cost me about E30... But I agree, the graphics in XIII stunned me. It's a brilliant example of cell shading used right. Does anybody remember early 3D? Remember Alone in the Dark? Stiff, blocky characters, odd 'special effects'... even the prerendered backgrounds were not to the standard of today. Give Cell Shading a chance. It's early days for it yet. And man, I hate to bring Zelda back up in this conversation but... if this is the fuss they made about the transition from 3D to Cel Shaded graphics, I hate to think what Zelda fans made of the transition from sprites to 3D...

'errrr 2001 - A Space Odyssey' what? You say it like it proves a point... I would prefer an original soundtrack in a game or a movie, regardless of what game or movie it is. That's my opinion. This isn't a good thing to admit right after I admit not liking loom, but... I hate 2001 - A Space Odyssey, anyway.

Another nosey thread so that we can get to know each other, supposedly. Where do you work/study? Do you enjoy your job/study? I work at Little Chef, which is a little restaurant that's part of the Travelodge company. It generally gets busy for two hours in the morning, at lunch, and at dinner, and about two minutes before closing time. I'm a Waitress. We get no tips, but we do work exceptionally hard. Overall, I enjoy my job, but the first hour of each shift passes excrutiatingly slowly. I'm in college/high school/whatever it's known as in your respective country, still. But I hope to study animation or programming. I enjoy study. Can't wait for Uni. Okay, next person.

...They did.

http://www.sherlockholmesgame.com/ I loved the Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes (even though I can't remember it too well as I was just a wee one), but I was never fond of the Sherlock Holmes adventures that were released after it... bland, unexciting and not particularly innovative either. Despite the awful, awful website which reminds me off my old house in London... I investigated. Adventure fans will be delighted, maybe, to hear it's point and click. It has 3D rendered graphics and the original orchestral score by Nicolo Paganini and Felix Mendelssohn. Unfortunately, the graphics don't look particularly special. Frogwares have released two adventure games previously, neither of which I have heard of, and have two (including Sherlock Holmes) under development at the moment. Anyway, Adventure Fans might be glad to hear this... I'd rather Frogwares work on something more innovative and exciting, but hey... (Does the Frogwares logo remind anybody else of the Bullfrog logo?)

It's too similar to be a coincede-- oh, this is gross. A moth just crapped on my monitor. Geee-ross. Anyway. It's a looks a little too like the Bullfrog logo to me. Hmmm. They seem pretty mediocre... Although I will be keeping an eye out for Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or whatever that title is. Anybody played it? Bullfrog was awesome. I was so sad to see them go. They seemed to get it right time after time. Now I'm panging to play Theme Park or Syndicate again. Only my Theme Park diskettes stopped working years ago

I agree to a certain extent with Arrrr. I would, in most cases and where possible, be emerged in a whole different world from our own. On the other hand, that's not always possible. Some games just can't be done in a style other than realistic. Half-Life, MGS, etc. These games just wouldn't be the same if done in 'unrealistic' styles.

Some of Ireland may be wired, but Piltown certainly isn't. Piltown. Could it sound any smaller, or any more obscure? By way of getting back on topic; P.H.3.4.R!!! (Or something).

Yes, but you live in chicago and I live in the back arse of nowhere in some obscure village in a remote, distant country. There may be quite a difference in the speed of dial up there, in comparison to the speed of dial up over here... ...I want to live in Chicago

Oh... that's good too... I suppose... I did so love Parasite Eve... Good question. I think I will.

Ha ha ha, maybe that's why my sister was so useless at it. She's tone deaf.

Looks/sounds a bit Parasite Eve-ish, and I love that game. On the other hand, I can't download the trailer on account of dial up, so maybe it doesn't.

I don't agree... I think that when an entire soundtrack is taken from another source, that's overdoing it. I'd rather hear an original soundtrack than recycled classical music. And though I loved the original pieces used... not in MIDI format I didn't. I like Moonlight Sonata, but not every time my cel phone rings. (Note to self: change ringtone) Also, I found the world similar to the fairytale world of the Kings Quest games (and probably some other games that I haven't thought of yet), so it didn't seem particularly unique to me.

Well, I guess I didn't play an awful lot of it. But I heard a lot of people praising it for having a wonderful original storyline and a fantastic soundtrack, and I never really understood that because I could see a lot of the story borrowed from various fairytales and legends and the music borrowed from classical composers. So the praise seemed a little undeserved, if anything. Although it did have a great, original interface which I appreciated. It also had a very LotR-style feeling to it, sometimes, and I was never crazy about LotR. But like I said, I never played far in to it. If anybody thinks I would enjoy it and they can prove me wrong, sure, I'll dig it out.

Your chin shall be thrust proudly forward, and your face somewhat shaped like that of Ben Throttle. Squint your eyes a little, and you could almost pass for his facial double.