baconian

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by baconian

  3. Posted

    Some places, you never get everything done, and in case you do ever want to come back (the weather really was quite good a month ago...);

     

    http://megalithicireland.com/

    - go looking for any of these places, and you'll probably find some helpful locals.

     

    And some amazing donegal beaches worth a visit;

    https://www.google.ie/search?q=donegal+beaches&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=aND7U-WvK6qg7AaMloGABw&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1423&bih=1083

    That you may have missed.

     

    Hope you had a good time!

  4. Posted

    I started working for Zynga last year, so naturally I started to consider the remote possibility that free-to-play games are not inherently evil. 

     

    Jon Blow made the point that the limitation of free-to-play mechanics on games was akin to the limitations imposed on 80's sitcoms, it's a great talk you should see;

    http://the-witness.net/news/2013/11/a-speech-about-free-to-play-game-design/

    But it started me thinking that actually as a kid, I did really enjoy the A-team, and is the A-team evil???

     

    Maybe it's only free-to-play games that can never be art - and the sort of cynical consumerist attitude of the games industry as a whole can sort of migrate to that space and let the more traditional pay-to-play games develop and flourish as an art form.

     

    Anyone here have any mad opinions on this that will get me re-thinking my life?

    That's always welcome.

     

     

     

     

  5. Posted

    Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge would have to take the cake. It's just impossibly before its time. There still does not exist as good a combination of hilarious and thoughtful storytelling, difficult but satisfying and original puzzles, sweet ass tunes and incredible 2D art.

    Also, Thief: The Dark Project and Super Mario 64.

    Actually I'm going to fix this, one reason I replied to this thread is that Minecraft displaced Mario for me in my top 3. Not unlike the O.P., somewhere between my lava moated Ice Fortress with attendant tentacles of exploratory mining leading to The Extended Nether Adventures, and exploring Stevan's museum on idle thumbs world 2 or 3 (?), Minecraft blew enough fuses in my head to topple even Mario.

  6. Posted

    Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge would have to take the cake. It's just impossibly before its time. There still does not exist as good a combination of hilarious and thoughtful storytelling, difficult but satisfying and original puzzles, sweet ass tunes and incredible 2D art.

    Also, Thief: The Dark Project and Super Mario 64.

  7. Posted

    I'm going to go against the consensus and say play all the pre-Monkey Island 1 titles starting with Maniac Mansion, even if it's just to clear them all in an afternoon-long binge session with walkthroughs in hand.

    This is a great Idea, do this. I want to do this now too. I only finished Loom out of those, do not skip Loom, it's wonderful.

    The feeling you get after each of the later games up to escape is that of sadness of never being able to experience them for the first time again. Lucky you. =)

  8. Posted

    Thanks Twig, tegan, Rodi and Nappi!

    I had a chat with my mother about it, initially she wanted me to go ahead but after a bit more talk I understood that she simply wanted the best for me, and she accepted my issues. I've decided to respectfully bow out. Seems like it wasn't as big a deal as I thought, my dad would understand, you guys are right.

  9. Posted

    Kind of a very different situation to Tegan.

    My father died on Saturday 5th April last. I'm not posting this for sympathy though. I have an important moral life decision to make and for some reason I think you guys might be able to give me some help.

    The day before my dad died, I had my last conversation with him, it ended with me agreeing to start working with him in his new company. This was to be the third computer company my dad started up. I had been unsure about joining him in this venture for the previous month or so but the funding had just come through and I had to give him a straight answer.

    I had been worried about joining because I thought it possible that the software we would be working on would have military applications. In our last conversation, dad assured me that he had looked into this and it was possible that someone might use it for this purpose, however it was not the intended purpose. This was good enough for me so I agreed.

    My father has always been a great role model, kind, gentle, never abusing anyone in the family, always supportive. He never complained and died suddenly leaving my mother without any financial problems. I want to emphasise how great he was - it always takes me a while to accept when people hate their fathers, some of my friends have serious problems with this and I always initially try and suggest reconciliation. This is usually followed up by said friend's litany of patriarchal sins that I am always shocked at, given what I see as my own more or less idyllic family life thanks to such a great dad (and mum).

    I have been unemployed for a year working on my own, admittedly self-indulgent, video game and art projects in a kind of half ass way. I now need cash to pay the rent so I had thought that working with dad's new company would be good for me, especially after he alleviated my previously mentioned concerns.

    Now here's the rub; after the funeral, at which I confirmed to dad's business associates that I would honour my father's memory and my commitment to him, I went through the available info I could find on the new venture. I found mentions of intended military usages and the fact that the software would quite possibly be a tool in creating missile control programs.

    I find myself in a raw emotional state with the prospect of either going back on my word, betraying my father's last request of me that I confirmed to his friends and colleagues on the one hand, and betraying my own most deeply held principles about personal responsibility and non-violence. 

    I remember my father telling me multiple stories about choosing not to work on military applications during his career, and find myself in the position of not being able to do the same in future; I plan to start a family with my partner soon enough. It's possible that my father had not discovered the info that I have, that has my head so wrecked right now.

    I am not really religious but although I am fascinated with religion, morality and spirituality, this decision is weighing hard on me. Any advice?

  10. Posted

    ...

    As for the rest of this: ThunderPeel, you are undeniably the center of the majority of dust-ups on this forum. Maybe it's not every other person here's fault.

    ...

    I would like to add that Thunderpeel was not entirely at the centre of some of the Feminist discussion threads, I noted that relative newcomer Luftmensch along with a couple of other new users would not let certain controversial issues drop that should have been dropped quickly, thereby goading our more unsuspecting members into raising their genuine issues, and seeming to take a lot of undue flak.

    MY 2c, get well soon, Thunderpeel!

  11. Posted

    Ok, Luftmensch, I'll bite seeing as everyone around here is too nice.

    I'm glad there's attention being brought to women empowerment in games, comics, films, &c. Great stuff. Now that it's something that's being studied and recorded, even if the goals and standards are fragmented, everyone's seeing improvement. Yippee.

    I still don't buy the idea of the Patriarchy. As far as I can tell, the Patriarchy essentially refers to a state of culture where there's an imbalance of power skewed in favor of men. Its anthropological definition is more niche and defined, but as a catch-all explanation for feminist frustrations, it's fair. You can look at the public data and see that, worldwide, women hold relatively little public power. So in that sense it's valid.

    Where my beef comes in is where people use "The Patriarchy" to refer to a huge amorphous evil that's responsible for all the problems in the world. The most telling thing, for me, is when people throw out slogans like "Misandry is just The Patriarchy biting men back!" That's absurd. It's come to a point where The Patriarchy doesn't represent anything that can be defined, and without definition it's just a meaningless rallying cry.

    To give some examples of what I mean, here's some quotes pulled from Tumblr searching for Patriarchy:

    ...

    The first two are just vapid slogans that don't make any sense. The third says that the very existence of cultural gender norms, the existence of sexism, the existence of misconceptions based on sex, is the fault of men. It makes the bald-faced assumption that because stereotypes are harmful, and because men apparently benefit, that they created it and its their fault. Hell, the first two quotes basically say "I don't like this thing and it's all men's fault".

    Encouragingly, I'm not alone in thinking it's all bullshit.

    You are on these forums.

    Also, did I see something in your blog about how hitler was really a misunderstood nice guy? Hmm.

  12. Posted

    Just to not repeat what's been said, I'll leave out lots of what I agree with above, and mention a game no-one seems to know about: Cursed mountain. It seems a bit clunky and drab at first but in fact is atmospheric, beautiful, and has an interesting and genuine-feeling take on aspects of buddhism.

    And as it was designed for the Wii late in the cycle it has some nice motion control aspects including a thing like Okami's brilliant drawing mechanic. Okami for the Wii, yes. I know it was a PS2 game first but only because Sony nabbed it with a cash advance. Perfect use of the Wiimote.

    Playing NES donkey kong was cool too. And Mega Man 9!

    I liked the Wii.

    Also

    It's funny how the GameCube has become a critic's darling after death, while everyone trashes on the hugely successful Wii. I'm not saying it's wrong to do so, but I definitely recall the gaming press starting to write off the GCN circa 2004 as a joke, despite Nintendo's slow-and-steady stream of fantastic releases.

    I seem to remember this too.

  13. Posted

    I'd guess that there is currently a huge hump in the number of indie games being made and the guys at Valve are just trying to figure out a way of handing off a chunk of the evaluation work to the community.

    The worst thing for indie games in general I would have to say has been minecraft, even though I'm a huge fan of it, there seems to be a ton of people now assuming they can make whatever shit they want and call it a game...

  15. Posted · Edited by baconian

    Just to let peeps know about this great new Adam Smith article, spending a lot of time dwelling on Looking Glass's Thief series' 'The City' and relating this awesome atmospheric setting to strands of thought ranging through Dickens and GTA to literary tropes about decay and curiosity...

    It reminds me of a Will Wright talk in its coherence and free intuitive association.

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/13/outside-influences-of-crime-and-the-city/

    This sort of thing is why I check RPS most days...

    EDIT: HUGE Thief spoilers!

  17. Posted

    RPS: Are you tempted to try to get Dave Grossman on the project?

    Tim: Well, you know, he has a job.

    RPS: I know, I know, but…

    Tim: I can’t poach people from my friends’ companies.

    RPS: But I feel like it would be putting the three Transformers together that form the super-giant robot.

    Tim: Maybe they’ll give him an exchange student visa for a couple of meetings.

    I really like this idea. Maybe they could use Telltale's engine, it's pretty top notch at this stage. and Jake could do UI!

    :stan:

  18. Posted

    I don't think I could get into Zelda 1 if I had played it for the first time at my age, and I don't know whether that should sadden me or not.

    This is key, you need to have been a kid at that time, when the NES was state of the art graphics. There's not much point going back to it on an emulator, it just won't grab your imagination the same way.

    Zelda II was amazing at the time for me, but mainly because it was my first zelda and my first action rpg. You really get drawn into fictional worlds more at that age.

    One way to think of it is imagining if every diamond in minecraft was signposted and placed on your map. The feeling of discovery is gone. This is kinda what Aonuma did since he took over the zelda series (after wind waker).

    Not gonna say it's a shame cause whatever, but skyward sword is the first zelda I ever played that I didn't want to finish. It's gone to shit.

  19. Posted

    Hey wow that was quick. Congrats!

    It feels so much easier to give people money on kickstarter than on other sites. Humble bundles too. I'd like to see how many people use amazon payments for these, it is very handy.

    Nice set of rewards. That blendo game. Tshirts, shitty wizard prints, wow - just nice.

    Also, puffins.

  20. Posted

    It wasn't as horrific as you might be thinking, maybe. My mum was sexually assaulted in front of us, but we weren't.

    Hang on. This is a whole different ball game. You have a serious problem here. Your dad is supposed to be your role model for men. I fucking hate it when I hear that shit like this happens to people I know. Goddamn.

    Sorry about maybe saying shit that was kinda sexist to you when I met you that time.

  21. Posted · Edited by baconian

    Man Stranger's wrath has been a bugbear for me for a while, I got the original xbox version just before the 360 came out and I been sitting here for a fucking decade waiting for the 360 compatibility patch, and there's a PS3 HD remake but still no goddamn 360 update patch, Motherfuckers.

    I was really e-joying it until I got to a part where I just had to quicksave it but They sniped me every time just after the quicksave. I gave up quicksaving becasue of this fukcing game man.

    It's only important to me because Stranger's wrath is a great game, I want to get around to finishing that one.

    EDIT: Hey hooly shit I already done bought that in that oddworld steam sale that I saw on Idle Thumbs! Wuxtry!

  22. Posted

    I also really want to to start building my own effects pedals. Does anyone else have any experience of doing this? It seems like something that would be fun to experiment with.

    Hey wow that sounds great. I got a moogerfooger ring modulator a few months ago. My first pedal in years but it was such a good idea. Check it out. Completely ridiculous. If you're building effects it had better be more insane than this thing or you're wasting your time. Delia Derbyshire all the way!

    ED4ugecZm0Q

    I only buy analog effects. You should only buy analog effects too, they're much much better.

  23. Posted

    Holy shit the fly episode my god it's amazing. I love that show.

    I hate Walt now though. No redeeming features left. It's mad the way TV shows can pull that off so well these days. Complete bastards as the main protagonist, how does that work? Doesn't work for movies...

    Party of 5 is well acted anyway that's all I remember, did anything actually happen in it??

  24. Posted

    Not really interested in this.

    I didn't play Brotherhood because I was looking forward to skipping to a new time zone in each game and I thought it was a bit of a jip that they stuck around in the same place for the next game after AC2.

    Seemingly unlike everybody else, I really bought into the Desmond storyline and the Animus conceit and was looking forward to getting him wallrunning around in the not too distant future. I thought the end of AC2 was a kick in the teeth though. What the fuck? Why can't all the conspiracy shit (that I really dig) get by without

    blaming aliens for everything? Did they ask George Lucas for advice or what?

    Hopefully the next one gets on with it...