syntheticgerbil

As long as one of the roses are blue. I don't own an Xbox 360, but that sounds about right.

She writes 3 minute pop songs for cotton (the fabric of our lives™) now, SHE DOESN'T NEED THIS STINKIN' ACTING CAREER.

Yeah, they are textured with the original drawings through Maya's camera mapping, but I'm referring to his models only and they aren't exactly as characteristic as the original drawings, so it gets a little bit more muddied compared to the objects in the back that have to move a lot less. Hah, but he works at Crytek, why would he want to go to LucasArts? It appears most of the art for the first Special Edition was farmed out to Singapore anyways, so I'm sure that says something about how much money Lucas would be willing to put into it.

If I'm not mistaken, I think you just need to put on your 3D glasses and everything will be fine again.

I like this new one as well. I wish he hadn't modeled the stuff in the foreground though since it doesn't fit with the style of everything else, but I guess he had to since he's moving the camera inside and everything.

Holy crap, that sounds like a horror story! I had hundred of termites swarm in my bathroom this year during the spring because I left the light on at work (they love light), but it's an apartment so I don't care. But a swarm of wasps?! Augh, that sounds like a friggin' nightmare!

Well the save early, save often really applies to the Sierra games before VGA became common. All of that getting stuck stuff affected Leisure Suit Larry less because those games tended to be much more open and nonlinear, not that that helps you since it's not on Steam right now. Dying is a major part of Space Quest, because in a way, it is considered an essential part to having fun in those games. But really the first two can be incredibly unforgiving. Luckily those two games are fairly short. Space Quest 3 is much more nonlinear, not allowing you to get stuck as easily and dying mostly being from doing dumb things. SQIV I think has a few puzzles and things you need to grab in the beginning that will just piss you off later if you do not, while the last two games had very little dying, with letting you start from where you last were. King's Quest up until the sixth game was mostly just a mess of unforgiving puzzles, time limits, and deaths for exploring. Haha, apparently they took out all of the death sequences in the new special edition of Broken Sword. I guess when you are at the edge of a cliff with a thug about to shoot you, he just waits now until you decide to act.

Ah okay, I see now. Well I certainly learned a thing or two that is very helpful for me in the future in determining what games an OCD weirdo should buy. Also it's nice to understand what a creative director is akin to in plain terms over those long hard to follow articles I had found beforehand trying to understand. Thanks!

But creative direction is a relatively new title when older games used to have only a lead designer or sole designer as the "gatekeeper" with no one credited as creative director. Even older on games where there is only artist and one programmer credited and no designer, I guess you could consider the programmer as the "lead designer." That's why I brought up the adventure game point, even though you did not respond to what I said about Grim Fandango being the exception. So I guess to me it seems odd when there is a creative director trumping a lead designer. It's even more confusing if sometimes the producer trumps the creative director over the lead designer as being the "gatekeeper" but also apparently not every time. I meant I was already following Tim Schafer previously where he was credited as a designer or "project lead" (since there are no credited designers on Grim Fandango otherwise, besides "assistant designers," meaning to me the project lead is basically the designer to whom these people are an assistant to). So I really got Psychonauts more for his writing credit, not to follow the lead designer Erik Robson. I don't know how to address your Bioshock point, since you condescendingly told me to start naming other games the designer has done (quick!), which I don't know. I also haven't played Bioshock and am not interested in it, so I would look stupid trying to force myself to say anything about it. But, I do maintain just by looking at a lot of credits, that sure, this appears to be a common structure, but it's definitely a newer one. So I don't understand fully what a creative director does and I have looked up many articles and interviews before getting on the topic with you trying to figure out what their job entails, which all sort of gave conflicting answers, so in turn, I opted not to follow creative directors. What I was trying to say is that I'm already made to follow lead designers or sole designers from a time where there were no creative directors. So if you are saying the "gatekeeper" idea is akin to what a creative director does currently that I mistakenly think a lead designer does currently, it would then make sense to use the lead designer or designer credit (when one or a few are credited with no lead) in games where there is no existing creative director as a good indicator then, right? Also then since you explained it, if there is a creative director and a lead designer, then I should go from now on with the creative director. Makes sense. Well you misunderstand me. Of course I can't follow each designer in an AAA title with one lead designer, six people credited as just designers, and fifteen more people credited for additional design... I brought up the term designer, because many games often do not have a lead designer, especially smaller games, and on many LucasArts games there often ranged 1-3 people credited for just "designer." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH LONG POST

I did understand what you said the first time, I'm not sure what this follow up post was about. I actually did already know that Tim Schafer was not the lead designer of Psychonauts. Also he does have a writing credit, which is also enough reason for me to follow someone around. If I'm not mistaken, creative director is a newer term, but I find it to seem more nebulous than the other lead type of credits of the past. Well what you are saying here is mostly inaccurate with Grim Fandango being somewhat of an exception to the rule if you check the credits to LucasArts' adventures on Mobygames. Project lead seems to be a later term used by the company. Besides Grim Fandango, it is usually coupled with designer or lead designer in the same line or as another credit. I should note I don't only follow someone around if they are "lead designer" as plain "designer" will work just fine as well for me. Well as I already said, I do understand that. I did say "better indicator," not as if it is a failsafe indicator. I would imagine in most cases, the producer credit is more often less useful.

I don't necessarily hate the context sensitive pointer, but I think it works better in Broken Sword where the right click at least lets you examine if you want, even though it went a long way in making the game easier. Although I can see it, I don't exactly know if that was an important step in the death of adventures as I prefer my verbs "dumbed down" like LucasArts adventure games following Sam and Max, since I don't necessarily need 9-12 functions like early Scumm games, considering you focus on Pick Up, Look, and Use for nearly the whole game anyways. The dead end stuff in KQ7 was annoying though, not that I liked it at all anyway. It showed up in the first Gabriel Knight as well when you were constantly trying to make the days finish early on. Really I feel the problem with talking to the jester in the shop in King's Quest VI is that it is required so early in the game without much exposition on saying why you should show him that ring in the first place. In a way it was an early type of adventure puzzle that should have been done away with at that point in time. It's closer to holding onto the data cartridge at the beginning of the first Space Quest up until the end of the game, without it being a requirement. Although from what I remember, just a paragraph was altered in the end sequence for SQ if you did not have the cartridge (or stupidly left it in the reader like I did once halfway through the game). The rest of King's Quest VI game was pretty intuitive and allowed you to solve at your own leisure besides the copy protection puzzles and that one where you have to trigger a cutscene to know which genie lamp to pick. Haha, that makes sense. At that age, I also used to have fun walking around the beginning of Space Quest 2 continuously floating away out of the sweeping area or falling to my death in the work place. I think it says, "You are only x minutes into the game and you are already dead?" Yikes, Amazon dealers are nuts when it comes to classic games. I'm guessing that comes with the original manual and box? There's a good DVD case repackaged version of DoTT they sell in Europe and on US Ebay that includes Sam and Max Hit the Road that goes for pretty cheap alternatively.

Oh damn, can Full Throttle take the cake for best intro as well? I really can't think of a better one. Maybe Grim Fandango? I prefer that game overall, but Full Throttle starts so perfect in terms of set-up and explaining the world without some lengthy exhibition and backstory (Why didn't you pay attention Ragnar Tornquist?!). Then right off the heels of such a strong intro you are telling this jerk bartender what might look better on his nose. Come to think of it, I enjoyed the beginning credit sequence to Day of the Tentacle as well. So almost every game Tim Schafer was involved with? Actually all of the Oddworld games started off very strong with little backstory and tons of characterization, I think every single one of their intro movies made it into the following year's SIGGRAPH. If I recall correctly, Abe's Oddysee's intro appeared on MTV's Liquid Television as well. Beyond Good and Evil works really well by letting you play the intro... Gosh I could just go on forever, so I'll stop. One thing is for certain though, the strongest game endings generally don't match the best intros.

Ah thank you. Creative director is another ball of confusion I necessarily don't get either, but I probably won't be following any creative directors in general. I tend to follow and buy games going by their lead designers, seeing as they generally get much more credit and seem to be a better indicator of a game's success (much like a movie director, I guess to draw an easy comparison). I guess this is more of something adventure games have taught me to pay attention to with the way Sierra and LucasArts touted their designers, but I sort of figured everyone's role tends to be nebulous and change from person to person and company to company. I also failed to mention he was the project director on Deus Ex in the original post, even though I saw that as well. This is really more from what I've seen and heard in various blog comments, not really me thinking of System Shock as "his" game.

You walk into town from the beach? Seriously though, that game has some really bad design choices now that you bring up the ring. Be sure to show the clown in the bookshop that ring as soon as you can in the game or you are cursed to have the "bad ending" no matter what.

You know what's been bugging me? Why are we supposed to get excited about Warren Spector as a producer? Aren't we supposed to be more excited about who would be the lead designer? What exactly does a video game producer do? I get the feeling it's similar to a movie producer as major person who manages, grabs the funds, and supports the team, but doesn't do the actual creative work. The movie producer is used for marketing purposes though and sort of held of as a creator for commercial purposes ("from the makers of," "from the people who brought you..."). The podcast had the short discussion about Miyamoto's override this week on the lead designer, but would an American video game producer do the same? I mean this may be in a way working like the frustration I had over the announcement of The Goon CG movie which David Fincher is producing. Blur Studios is doing the animation with some as yet unnamed director and the comic book artist Eric Powell writing the script. Almost instantly after the announcement of David Fincher as a producer, everyone all over the comments sections of various blogs was talking about how they loved Seven, Fight Club, or Alien 3, so this should be amazing because he's such a visionary. But the guy is a producer on The Goon movie, not a director, yet Fincher fans were eager to increase his overall relevance to the project way beyond past a guy putting up funds. Is that what happens with video game producers? With Warren Spector? Harvey Smith was the lead designer on Deus Ex, so should he be more of the "creative head" and the person to thank for the success on that project? Excuse me for my naivete in advance here. Especially because I'm kind of going beyond the topic and not understanding why he's supposed to be the brilliant mind behind System Shock and Deus Ex.

Yeah that sucks since I prefer the original SQ1, but I'd guess for new adventure game players, the clunky parser/walk interface of the first half of all Sierra series isn't the way to go, unless you want to catch up on story. Really I too would also recommend skipping every King's Quest except VI, which is the best one, but still not as good as the Gabriel Knight games, which could really use a DVD re-release. I would love to replace those 10 total CDs with only a few DVDs. Maybe re-encode some video?

My dad blurted out the situation in the first link while we were eating dinner for my mom's birthday, but the really weird part is this quote from your second link: There is a string of this sort of behavior?! I'm going to be sick.

I wonder if they can rescan all of the original backgrounds and hopefully show LucasArts a thing or two? I'm betting this version gets a Wii release somehow. Dave Gibbons also did all of the character close-ups for the Broken Sword special edition as well, so I'm guessing that's what he's doing here besides the movies? EDIT: I saw this screenshot for Broken Sword 4 on their website and I thought it was hilarious.

I didn't want to have to be the one to say it... but I agree. And to derail the thread further, not that I like much of anything Disney related, I prefer the Sonny Liew art for the Disney licensed Wonderland comic. But he's one of my favorite artists, so I'm biased.

Comic?

"Mini graphic novel?" The thing was like 16 pages or less! I still don't understand the appeal of this game beyond the art and atmosphere though. It literally feels like the whole middle of the game is missing. You start off slow and don't really find out much about what is going on until you are abruptly thrust into the end game area where all is revealed quite suddenly. When I first played it as a younger version of myself, after finishing the game I checked the contents of the game folders thinking maybe my version of the game was missing portions somehow. Maybe they can fix that this time around?

Nerding out to the adventure game talk at the moment, Grim Fandango and Full Throttle also (less) coincidentally at the top of my pile... but to chime in on the Broken Sword recommendation, which is pretty much the only Revolution game I enjoy, everyone should avoid the GBA port, since apparently it has many game stopping bugs that shouldn't be in there otherwise. The Wii and DS ports are both "special editions" that add more game and puzzles, but may bother older fans. Probably the most jarring thing is just the mixing of old dialogue with newly recorded dialogue. Nico having two different voice actresses playing her in the same game was probably an ill thought out idea. Hardcore Gaming 101 goes over the versions pretty well here: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/brokensword/brokensword.htm

7.5 huh? Oh my. Half score or below in my book. MY BOOK OF GAME REVIEWS

This should be interesting, the list of games discussed seems really all over the place this time...

Yet you still look like Metallus.