syntheticgerbil

Yeah, I think what he did in Larry 5 was a major failure in that term because you could skip almost 80% of the game without any repurcussions, but Larry 6 and especially 7 show much better design than most or any Sierra games outside of Gabriel Knight. I've always liked how nonlinear those last two Larry games could be and not feel so aimless. Well it's a little bit different because Torin's Passage was for kids (or a family game) and extremely rough around the edges while King's Quest 7 fixed all of the design problems of the previous games by becoming incredibly simple. But yeah, Larry 6 and Space Quest 6 also had the "Try Again" deaths added as well. I'm not sure how active Josh Mandel counts because the last thing he worked on was writing for Insecticide. Insecticide was nicely written, but I think a lot of that came from Mandel having to actually contain his constant verbiage in a manner in which the game was playable. As fun as Space Quest 6 and Freddy Pharkas are, I think they are both completely hindered by long ass paragraphs on unfunny description or droning dialogue that the man seems to have a penchant for. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is an incredible mess of a game because of this, but for whatever reason it seems many others love it. But if Josh Mandel were to start working for Telltale for whatever Sierra series, I doubt they'd let him get away with writing an obnoxious amount of extraneous dialogue because then they'd have to have voice actors in the studio for double time just finishing one of his nutty scripts. I almost wish I had the time to click through this site and figure out what the hell is going on here, but I don't.

Wow! This game looks like an amazing way to get into a huge multiweek fight with your girlfriend! BUT BABY! IT WAS JUST A GAME! I DIDN'T MEAN IT!

Jake, are you using Premiere CS4? Maybe it would be good converting it to mp4 first. For whatever reason whenever Premiere is a bastard to already made movie clips, mp4s of the same movie clips makes Premiere stop being so much of a bastard. Even on simple things like jpeg sequences, Premiere loves to render them at a slower framerate that doesn't keep up with the audio sometimes and I just have to rerender hoping the clip will magically be in sync (which it sometimes is). I don't know if this has any effect whatsoever on the final export. I don't know if any of this is similar to your problems or if your original mpeg file I see up there is out of sync before being put into Premiere. Also it's possible the project is at a different framerate than the original footage and you might have to reinterpret the footage so that it matches the audio up in the project file folder, but I'm probably assuming like crazy at this point.

Now just drop that to the timeline and press file > export.

I'm pretty sure the only Leisure Suit Larry collection with the talkie version of six, besides possibly the newest one released by Vivendi for dollar bins, was the Ultimate one that included Larry 7 and Casino as well. I don't know how I feel about Telltale hinting at more Sierra adventure continuations. I feel King's Quest was a terrible first choice or any choice, but on the rest, I guess I would want the original designers to be involved. But I would also worry about the old Sierra designers being involved because besides Jane Jensen, everyone else has altogether stopped working on games it seems, unlike the ever active LucasArts favorites. Before most of the major franchises ended, they only had one installment, if any of streamlined LucasArts influenced designed before being told by the Sierra top dogs to make some half assed action adventure which I think none saw the light of day except Mask of Eternity. Leisure Suit Larry 7 probably was the most evolved in terms of Sierra design and interface, but it seems like any new Leisure Suit Larry installment Telltale is incredibly unlikely.

And then stalk a woman in a dark alley way on the way home?

Ahahaha, I'm honored to become a movie critic over such a trying saga.

Dat Zanthia.

I can't play the Little Bigs (besides Adventure) because they will suck my time all way, but I have a good friend really into them that is incredibly satisfied with all of the additions to the creation mode. Besides going back and adding things he wanted in the first place to the levels he made the first go around, he's tweaking minor things to make them more enjoyable. He also has these plans for three different styles of gameplay, one of which he's experimenting with creating a sackboy that can do all sorts of fighting moves in a beat 'em up style. To me when he goes on and on about his ideas for what his levels could be like, I think he's having a blast.

Haha, that was depressingly funny Noyb. I'm really glad the editor didn't go as far as I thought he would, as it was getting sort of nasty for a second there.

I went to a career fair in Austin today and while I have a great idea I think of what most people want and have three basic choices picked out where I figure I have the skills for at least one to hire me, I was kind of frustrated with the lectures there and how conflicting everyone was on what you should put on a portfolio website or how you should present. So the Bioware type guys would say they don't have time to read anything you write about your work so don't put it and keep image galleries short, but then Powerhouse studios who does just 2D animation for games and whatever else says that the galleries need to have extensions of certain types of work still on the site in case they want to see more. So I have sort of have little idea how to do that and not add clutter or confuse the types of art directors who are reviewing a portfolio and only have 30 seconds total to check you out. I can kind of see maybe where this hastiness is coming from, because not to be arrogant or overly negative, but a lot of other people's demo reels and portfolios were just coming off as incredibly strange or bad where there are major technical mistakes with 3D models or video editing even that makes it seem that they are just severely not aware. I guess recruiters just get annoyed when they have to look through so many submissions. Anyway, I don't know why just simple lectures and seeing who was hiring made me feel this way, but I don't like when I feel incredibly encouraged and disenchanted at the same time. I'm so confused. I suppose I'm white trash because once they roll away from me when I get a flat on the freeway or something, I never replace them. I'm sure it makes most girls groan when I pull up in my dirty car with mismatched wheels.

Oops, I suppose I should have realized the first part, that would make complete sense. I'm definitely going to be up for that challenge when I play Limbo, it looks enjoyable overall and I can't wait. I guess in a way, I automatically get the sense that the achievements and trophies are almost set by a different entity sometimes. The way Brutal Legend's were written with the aside comments and all make it seem like Tim Schafer himself set them all up.

I think the first two guys in the article get it, but I really don't agree with the not dying more than five times Limbo thing. I have not played Limbo but will definitely get it when I finally get around to buying myself a 360. How hard the game is or how long it takes and whether or not you can save and retry certain parts without your deaths counting probably makes all the difference, but often those are very torturous achievements. Earthworm Jim HD had the not dying once trophy on hard mode (normal in the original game), which is a painful trophy I don't look forward to repeat. It all came down to luck basically as I had already known the game inside and out from my childhood. When someone who knows the game well has serious trouble, it just shows me that some dickwad at Gameloft assigned the trophy to some arbitrary task without even thinking. Then there's Prince of Persia Classic which thankfully comes without trophy support on PS3, otherwise I would have another unachievable trophy that severely bothers me: finish the original Prince of Persia without dying once. I actually probably could finish certain versions of the original game without dying as I know the classic portions inside and out as well, alongside things like the Sega versions have a broken combat system where you can just win by repeatedly pressing the slash button. It's possible even the original PC version could be figured out. Classic could hypothetically be finished without dying, since it has all the extra life saving moves where falling into a pit becomes very difficult, except for one thing: Prince of Persia Classic revamped the combat system to a bunch of flowery idiocy with quicktime events and all sorts of silly moves. It seems the enemy AI is a bunch of random elements like aggression, defensiveness, and swiftness are combined in different ways each time. I tried looking for ways to efficiently finish off guards just playing the regular game, but I could not find a sure method. I'm assuming this is just an impossible achievement, but if someone finished it, I would love to hear about their struggle or possible lack thereof. Go figure, Gameloft did that one too.

Aussie Ben! You are back! Hello there! Haha, nothing like starting a new game in order to solve a puzzle!

I ended up doing a 48 hour thing a month or two ago working on my artwork and switching between Metal Gear Solid 2. It was unintentional, but I kept staying stimulated for a while. Also I've been really messing with my sleep schedule lately on purpose because I keep getting distracted or not working on my portfolio, so it's been a way to put my nose to the grinder and get things done, but I can't really go into much of this publicly.

The bottom right portion of the hard drive looks like the top of a grand piano.

It would be Vivendi, but if I recall anytime the name Space Quest is used, permission must be granted to a museum who trademarked/copyrighted the name first. On topic, I would love for King's Quest to stay buried. I really don't want this series to come back. Once I started to gain the ability to more objectively compare and contrast game design as I moved out of my preteens, I just shake my head in shame of hours spent wasted on these idiotic games. Besides King's Quest 6, which is most obviously redeeming because of the Jane Jensen factor, I can't think of any King's Quest that did much right in terms of story, design, art, animation, character development, humor, puzzles, draw of exploration, originality, or just about any factor that one could think of that they like in adventure games. If any single game in the series (gain outside of King's Quest 6) did excel in one of those categories, the excelling element was still mediocre at best. I would guess Telltale would do a fine job and all, but I can't imagine why in the first place. Because it was one the most popular adventure series in the 80s and 90s? If anything, it seems to me that King's Quest has almost completely disappeared from most gaming rhetoric even if someone were bringing up classic adventures, and justly so. Now multiple LucasArts adventures nearly always get the token mention for missed DOS adventures. I suppose there are still small circles of the most hardcore adventure players clamoring for it, but really... Now I've probably offended a few Sierra nuts out there, but there are a few series I do enjoy immensely outside of their bread and butter. Even though this is just asking for more licensed games, I suppose my hopes are completely dashed of a Loom continuation from Telltale. I remember a Grossman interview where he expressed interest a year or two ago as well as on the forums he answered my question on whether or not he would contact Brian Moriarty about it as well. He said yes and I've been pathetically clinging on to overblown expectations.

I'm not excited about this news, probably because I'm not interested in either franchise. Yeah, about that...

Did someone else live with you previously?

BURNT AND ERNIE!!!

I think it was almost completely anecdotes about being on the set with his wife and son or going back and forth with Terry Jones. I think there was a lot of talk about set designs too. Sorry I don't remember a lot of specifics. I do know he actually did not go very deep in design beyond the set or maybe the original inspiration for some of the goblins, so there wasn't any talk about drawing, painting, or character design. Funny enough, you'd think this would equal long silences, but he talks sort of slow and calm with a slight nervousness, kind of having the ability to put you in a trance. I don't think anyone has ever asked me about commentary before. Most of the time it equals getting made of fun of...

How strange... Is that gallery actual images from Double Fine? I can't seem to tell. They look pretty neat either way. Yeah Pajama Sam is great, but I am going to take a guess and say that this probably does not involve Ron Gilbert, who is probably tired of kid games at this point. Also it would seem odd for a licensed game to be a part of the whole amnesia fortnight thing, since the way they described it on the podcast seemed to be a time for the staff to think of original ideas from scratch. It is possible though. I guess whether or not two more PSN titles come out before this with say so.

Wow, great fucking job Sony. Does your country have one of these, El Muerte? http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx Sometimes just someone from this agency following up on on a complaint is enough to get your money back. Only had to use them once though. If not try calling them and asking them to repeat that they are incapable of doing something as simple as refunding a credit card, then say you are recording them. It's worth a shot. Check out this episode of This American Life and the producer dealing with Sprint for reference: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/253/the-middle-of-nowhere

What confuses me is that Sony has such a stupid and unsecure setup where the easy way around any content restriction is having a different free account and that people also complain that the US gets a certain PSN game first. I suppose it's good that Sony has such a setup so people don't have to deal with a full secure region lockdown, but at the same time they are selling a console with region free games, so it would be nice if the PSN store matched in terms of availability of content. On the idea of people unwilling to do what you have done in order to get a game from another region, Tanukitsune, is it mainly because they have to play the games on a separate username meaning trophies and friends lists won't carry over? If you buy a game from the US store set for that region, can you then log on to your normal account on the system and play the same game without problems?

Yeah I guess I misspoke. It was still a great collaboration but I suppose I'm replying to the press more than what actually happened where people dismiss Gondry's input on the film. To me, if you've seen a lot of his music video making ofs or the documentary that came with his Director's Label DVD, you'll see a lot of the silly old school techniques Gondry loves using repurposed for the movie, so I get confused why most critics seem to think Eternal Sunshine was such a hit on script alone. I like the visual flair that he has going, but I suppose we all sort of agree the guy doesn't have much going for him at all in terms of storytelling and writing by himself. Also, can I get thoughts from you guys on the Science of Sleep story? I feel like it sort of made sense coming from the main character suffering from an onset of a mental disorder, possibly schizophrenia, where he has acute anxiety not allowing him to function and he's constantly having to fight conflicting ideas of reality in his head, but it seems some viewers don't see that at all. Without that explanation the movie doesn't hold together for me at all even if dream logic were supposed to be applied all over the film. I do think with Science of Sleep it feels like Gondry was trying to make something clear about what was going on with the main character and the story but by not wanting to obvious about it possibly, he left things kind of half explained or not coherently linked.