Jaero

Greatest. Thread. Ever.

I don't know about hubbub myself. But for folks who played Star Wars Galaxies more than they should have... and thus had our entire love for the SW universe spat and shat on all at once (thanks Sony!). Well, I'm going to sum this up and just say, Knights of the Old Republic single-handedly restored my faith in Star Wars, and I'm drooling on myself while I wait for the sequel to come out for PC in February.

Admittedly, I am a cool person. I have almost all the Invader Zim episodes on my comp - and I discovered it before that thread! Isn't that great!? I'm going to go wipe my face now.

Not to be confused with the flaccid version.

Ah, yet another thing that merits a Cantankerous Rant™! Kolzig, here's the thing. This is not a racing game. This is a game, sure enough, and it has many elements of a racing game, and damn good graphics. What it lacks is a design team with the ability to depart from the meaningless adolescent power-fantasies, in which I throw the 'gratuitous violence' concept. See, to have a racing game, you have to get one thing straight. Nascar is a bunch of left turns, it isn't very exciting. NFS Underground and especially Burnout 3 have really hit it right on, to give the player a profound sense of freedom (this is very much what sells the GTA games). That you can basically do anything within the outline of the game's concept. Well, whatever - what I'm getting at is this - those games are Racing games. Why isn't Flatout? Gee... could it be... 'racers' are smart enough to wear freaking SEATBELTS? Not even seatbelts, a harness! To me, this game is Manhunt. A game I haven't played, nor will I ever. Why? I've been desensitized enough through TV and movies that aren't even a fraction as violent. There's no reason or value in it. Maybe I would see it differently if I weren't in a long-term relationship, and had little need to show my more sensitive side, but maybe not. I hope one doesn't justify the absurdity of Flatout by saying "but Burnout 3 was a crash-test simulator!"... the thing is, it didn't involve hurting people. It involved inanimate objects. Sure, the crashes were violent and all, but sane people find that when you're not mowing down hookers in your Miata, or seeing how fucking far you can fly out your windshield, it can be fun instead of border-psychotic. I appreciate that some companies like Rockstar and (whoever is making Flatout) are trying to push the boundaries. That's great. The industry really needs to expand its horizons. But here's the thing. It's games like this, Leisure Suit Larry, Grand Theft Auto, and Manhunt that are being used as scapegoats by the media, in cases of murder and equally despicable acts, and it's not just the game companies that suffer - it's the entire industry. We wonder why there are states in which the First Amendment has been ruled to not apply to video games because someone declared that they are not capable of 'presenting ideas' (other than of course, how far one can launch a corpse, or how many blood sprites can you pile up before your framerate drops). It's games like Flatout that push the bounds in the absolute wrong direction, which draw us ever closer to having to need to call and pleed with our Congressmen to save the medium in which we love. I pray it never comes to that. It's a damned shame that these children have spoiled their entire game with one 'cool' feature. If not for that, I too would have played it on day 1. Yes, I play First Person Shooters. I'm not preaching that violence in video games is the Devil™, but this kind is more senseless and needless than anything. The game would be absolutely fine, and awesome, without it. I shutter to think at the faces of all the mothers and fathers, and people who possess an actual sense of right and wrong, when they see this game in action.

***** *****.

Ooo! Adventure Gamers has a review of it! http://adventuregamers.com/article/id,300 Look at the date, reviewed last year. And it's still almost the best game ever.

*pulls something out of his pants* Uh... Ryam, I think I just had an orgasm that belongs to you. Here ya go.

Yeah, you can find the demo via google. Microsoft I think published the game originally, way back when. I'd do a search in the bowels of that demon so see if it's available from them. Glad you like it, Manny. I did a run-through of the whole game a while back. It took me a little less then 3 hours to get through it all, even when I knew every puzzle, where everything was, etc - so there's a lot of gameplay packed in there - and a lot more humor. Ok, sewiouswy you guys. I'm goi'g to bed.

Heh, I made the mistake of taking off my shirt. Heading for the shower now... must... stop.. arbitrary posts... can't.. make it... ughn. *thud*

Nah, I'll take a look at it. I've been writing a design document for the last two days, and when I get a fire lit under my ass, I'm the most driven person there ever dun was. Right now though it's time to simultaneously hit and befowl 'the sack', as I haven't showered, and I'm too tired to care. Good thing I have clean sheets waiting. I wonder how many people I can offend or make vomit tonight...

-cough- Ahem. That's 'cantankerous'.

Thanks for the referal, Intrepid. But I do favor listening to myself rant, much of the time without all the proper facts, instead of listening to others' criticisms or trying to educate myself. You might say that in that way, I'm very much like a syndicated game review. You might also say that I haven't slept in two days and that I'm full of shit, but I thought that was funny for a second. I'm too tired to delete it though. I'm glad you like it, Manny. It's really a brilliant and hysterical game. If you get to the big long hallway (which you have to walk all the way down and back - takes like ten minutes) they have a fully-realized parody of Creation itself, their own clay 'Bible' written on the wall of that hallway. I haven't read the whole thing in about 8+ years, but I remember that it was entertaining. One thing I love about the game, is that it's not a game that's really 'for the player' so much as it is meant, like A Bard's Tale, to mock games - often to tick a player off, like a bad game, but bring them back to loving the game with the in-your-face humor of it. People who lack personalities may not be fans. I will say, it's puzzles are difficult, and given that it mocks Myst, I can't always wrap my head around them without getting a hint online. However - in the first room you start in, if you go down the ladder and check the mail, you will get hints that way as well, ingame. Nice little helpful feature. As for the music, I think it's brilliant in the same way that it was brilliant to make a game out of 50,000 tons of clay (!!!). I've got the full two-disk soundtrack, which is actually where my avatar comes from. The reason why I maintain that The Neverhood is my favorite game is that as a future game designer, I think it's important to have games like this to keep things in context. I've seen too many cases where designers start to get so involved in designing that they lose sight of their original objective, and however that fares, the game is likely to suffer in some way or another. Of course, our favorites like DOTT or Sam & Max can serve the same purpose. I choose the Neverhood though because it's so unique.

I volunteer any admin to change Emo's avatar from nothing to a hi-res version of my favorite icon: Any takers?

Somehow I'm doesn't faze nor convince me that "emo" and Idle Thumbs are two things that would mix well. Seems to me, combining the two is like wiping your ass before you take a shit. Of course, I say that because due to the asterisks, I can only tell what kind of plug this once was based on the terribly clever name of he who started the thread.

I don't like supporting big conglomo, but Gamespy does things right. I heartily approve of their review/ranking system, moreso than the others. They've posted a fair review of A Bard's Tale here: http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/song-of-the-bard/560494p1.html?fromint=1

I once watched Jake eat a fetus.

D'oh! Forgot my woot. WOOT!

Well said. What's interesting to me is that American McGee really isn't any Sid Meier. If I may paste a bit about Sid Meier from his company's website, and a nice little snipit from Gamasutra's Designer's Notebook column (by Ernest W. Adams) about Game Designers in regard to this topic: Now then, I don't know if a case can be made for American McGee tooting his own horn by putting his name on his recent works. The last snippit from his site lists most every title id Software has ever put out, but says he's "contributed" to them. Somehow that doesn't convince me that he's right up there with Sid Meier. Even Ernest Adams, a candidate I find much more worthy of the boast of putting one's name on a game, does not put his name on his titles. But it's late again, and I suppose I've nothing better to do but pick on designers that I wouldn't measure up to in ten years, and only wish I could be...

Aye. However, at places such as Amazon, you can get such a wide spectrum of opinions, and it isn't about the 1/5 star rating they're given. At Gamespot, I think it's interesting to pay attention to the ratings of the fans - however, you're right, they should be taken with a big grain of salt. Most are reactionary, and often votes are cast while the fan is still high from the fumes that emerged from the box whilst they opened it. Good ol' fumes. They always make the fans vote extremes, such as a perfect 10, or in the case of the people who have no sense of humor and play A Bard's Tale, an abysmal 1. Yeah, it's folly to put faith in them alone, but user feedback can still be taken in stride with other reviews (by that I mean to repeat and drone on about how it's good to get either a lot of opinions and reviews, or find some truely unique and honest ones, such as here). Damn, I'm boring myself - someone make a topic about something other than game reviews, please.

Manny, I dount it will be too similar to Morrowind to stomach. Hopefully they will take the faithful path and remain true to the license, but if they take the high road, they would likely base it more on Oblivion than on Morrowind - which, by the way, made me crap my pants the other day.

Oh oh oh! Well, the IGN Review of A Bard's Tale does prove me wrong in many ways. The exception to my infallable rules in my recent posts on this topic, is as follows (yes, that was a joke)... As you read more and more reviews, it is inevitable that you will find a few, several, many (whatever the sum, you will find them) that you agree with on well nigh every point. Where the author says everything you think about the game, and gives it the same score you would. The IGN review actually is one that comes pretty close for me. Reviews are rarely spot on matches, as there is always the factor that the final judgement comes from your own first hand experiences with the game - but I find the review very fair. And Hilary Goldstein (the author) might be lurking around here and reading what I say, because she gave the Overall Score the average of the other rated categories with no "reviewer tilt" - yet at the same time very clearly stated her reasons for her ratings, and her recommendation of the game, even though her score is an 8.2 rather than, god forbid, a 9.9. Something interesting to note: Gamespot gave it a 6.7, but still it's important to remember the reviews of the customers themselves, rather than those who are bound to the job of 'reviewer' (as I said before, it is possible for agendas to influence them when dealing with big sites, but not often. this is why its best to get a second opinion, and a third, and a fouth). Often times, when one is working as a Reviewer, he/she doesn't always get to pick the titles they review. In fact, there's usually a race or fight to get a hot title first - they would get it free from the site/network, and get to play it. So there you can see both 'favoritism' and 'skepticism' enter the text of a review where they are not due. I suspect that's what happened with Gamespot's review of The Neverhood - I can't find any other reason why it was given a 4.9 and the popular rating was 8.8 - the gap should never be that great unless your reviews are spun (for example, a Christian review site - I always like looking for those and seeing what they say about Diablo). Gamespot's customer review ratings for Bard's Tale though, are at 7.6 instead of 6.7 - oddly enough with 37.5% saying "Perfect" (10), and 8.3% saying Abysmal (1.0-1.9). It seems as though since this game has features such as humor, there's a great divide between what's funny (maybe that was why their Neverhood review was so low). I wonder what the pie chart would look like if A Bard's Tale had an abundance of dirty jokes and toilet humor. Nevertheless, I'm just thankful Gamespot is certainly not the only source of reviews, let alone the leading one.

Point taken. I was speaking generally about games, not specifically about San Andreas.

I'm guessing Jake missed out on the beer and/or pizza.

Nick said he was having a bad day, and even though I enjoyed the Press Release, he needed to rag on something when he found it. I always love encounters like that, as they present the opportunity for both parties to either become good friends, or quite the opposite. Warcry's got a lot of good people (especially me!), so it'd have been hard for me to believe that the latter would have occurred. Now, as for the web design skill of Warcry...