Noyb

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Noyb


  1. Ending spoilers:

    Because your character suddenly forgot about the 50+ Rad-X and Rad-Aways you had stockpiled to that point. And didn't feel like ordering the radiation-proof Fawkes into the final chamber in your stead. Seriously, are there any Video game sacrifices that don't feel horribly contrived? Even the father's was contrived, since at that point the Enclave didn't pose any danger to me or my followers.


  2. Ye Gods, that trailer is awful. I am 75% certain that the plot will more closely follow the myth of Orpheus than anything resembling the actual book. :shifty:

    The EG preview did mention quick time events (a'la God of War).

    Press X to not faint.

    Ahahah I'd love a game that had a different game design horror for each circle of hell. When I say love, I obviously mean, hate.

    5th circle: terrible voice acting.

    Maybe we should make it, collaboratively. Like the podcast guys pointed out, Dante's Inferno is public domain, right?

    :tup::tup::tup:


  3. I agree on You Have To Burn The Rope Chris, and was quite surprised to see it in the IGF nominations.

    A bunch of people wanted me to show it at the Eurogamer Expo, and every time it was mentioned started throwing words like "Genius!" around. It's witty, but it's a five minute diversion, not a masterpiece.

    Same for me. It's polished and makes its point, and the developer seems cool, but I wouldn't call it especially innovative. I guess most of it depends on how much one enjoys the end song, which I found moderately charming. :blink:

    Compare this with 4'33" of Uniqueness by the developer of Crayon Physics. As a game, it's barely interactive, but the concept (which I won't spoil) is fairly interesting.

    Also, even though TIGSource's Bootleg Demake contest was briefly mentioned in a tangent to a tangent, my ego feels hurt that you didn't mention my entry. :frown:


  4. To see how badass Dante is, all you need to do is look at the text itself. For reference, Dante is the first person narrator, the poet Virgil (writer of the Aeneid) is his guide.

    A she-wolf

    Was at his heels, who in her leanness seem'd

    Full of all wants, and many a land hath made

    Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear

    O'erwhelmed me, at the sight of her appall'd,

    That of the height all hope I lost.

    While thus one spirit spake,

    The other wail'd so sorely, that heartstruck

    I through compassion fainting, seem'd not far

    From death, and like a corpse fell to the ground.

    "O my lov'd guide! who more than seven times

    Security hast render'd me, and drawn

    From peril deep, whereto I stood expos'd,

    Desert me not," I cried, "in this extreme.

    And if our onward going be denied,

    Together trace we back our steps with speed."

    Thereat a little stretching forth my hand,

    From a great wilding gather'd I a branch,

    And straight the trunk exclaim'd: "Why pluck'st thou me?"

    [...]

    I, letting fall the bough, remain'd as one

    Assail'd by terror.

    But he whose succour then not first I prov'd,

    Soon as I mounted, in his arms aloft,

    Embracing, held me up, and thus he spake:

    "Geryon! now move thee! be thy wheeling gyres

    Of ample circuit, easy thy descent.

    Think on th' unusual burden thou sustain'st."

    "If thou be willing," he replied, "that I

    Carry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,

    He of himself shall tell thee and his wrongs."

    Suddenly my guide

    Caught me, ev'n as a mother that from sleep

    Is by the noise arous'd, and near her sees

    The climbing fires, who snatches up her babe

    And flies ne'er pausing, careful more of him

    Than of herself, that but a single vest

    Clings round her limbs.


  5. Picked it up way back on Amazon's Black Friday sale, but only played through a few single player campaigns while I wrangled some driver issues that caused the game to recoverably freeze every so often. Haven't tried multiplayer yet, but it looks really fun.

    Funniest AI moment: Herding my teammates into the boathouse you defend in the climax of the second campaign, and watching helplessly as the college girl methodically broke down and climbed in through a heavily barricaded window next to the open door.

    http://steamcommunity.com/id/realnoyb


  6. http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2009/02/activision-brutal-legend-is-ours-ea-activision-is-a-jealous-exhusband.html

    Looks like ignoring and mistreating Double Fine gave Activision the feeling like they were still in negotiations with them over Brutal Legend. :finger:

    Quote of the Moment:

    EA Representative: "We doubt that Activision would try to sue. That would be like a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy."


  7. GH:WT is in the Casual category while Rock Band 2 isn't? From what I've seen it isn't very casual gamer friendly. :erm:

    Guitar Hero World Tour: If any one person fails, everyone fails.

    Rock Band 2: Can save any person twice without penalty. Also has no fail mode.


  8. The weirdest karma value came in the main story quest Tranquility Lane.

    A mad overseer has trapped his subjects in a virtual reality simulation of an idyllic 1950s neighborhood. He refuses to let you leave the simulation unless you do his bidding, beginning with making a child cry, and leading up to mass murder of all the civilians. You get negative karma for this, but the game makes it clear that such torture is only to the vault dwellers' minds as the simulation can always be reset. The other option is to call in the override, which kills every vault dweller in real life *except* the overseer. This gives you *good* karma, even though you slaughtered an entire vault in order to trap a man alone in a computer simulation for eternity. I couldn't find a way to save everyone from continued torture or death. Both options are morally vague and not clear-cut good and evil, though the karma associations assign a clear moral stance.


  9. "Squids are technically not animals." - IGN.com

    "It's PSP-licking good!" - IGN.com

    "Would we publish an exclusive review if it didn't blow us away?" - IGN.com

    "It blew us away to an equal or greater degree than every other game that blew us away within the last few generations." - IGN.com

    "It will blow you away [provided that the many bugs in this early preview code that I don't feel like reporting are somehow fixed before it goes gold]" - IGN.com


  10. Eurogamer didn't like the expansion. 2.5 hours on a leisurely playthrough. Focused on action more than story.

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/fallout-3-operation-anchorage-review

    I'm not picking it up. From what I've read, it doesn't seem to tell a good story for the price, which is pretty much the only thing that would get me to buy new content since my level 20 character is so rich and god-like that any additional items would just break the late-game economy and difficulty curve even further.


  11. Anyone get a real anti-science vibe out of fallout.

    - The fire ant mission is all about cleaning up after a mad geneticist.

    - Doctor Lee is a cold and calculating bitch.

    - Your dad abandoned you for the sake of science.

    For a game that runs on such high tech equipment I don't know why this game takes such an anti-technology slant.

    You ever notice how games always portray scientists as an ethically challenged, emotionally stunted stereo-type?

    I think there's an important distinction between the failures of science and science in general. The scientist wanted to use genetic modification to reduce the ants' size, but failed. I don't see this as criticizing science as a whole, just a bog-standard Frankenstein message of scientific responsibility. It's pretty easy to sink into an exaggerated Luddite view when writing about the aftermath of the dangers of science (as in a terrible, terrible scene in The Sarah Connor Chronicles where Oppenheimer turns into a Terminator), but I don't see Fallout going quite that far.

    I do agree that a few of the characters you mentioned are lazy stereotypes, although I disagree to an extent with the father figure. He didn't abandon the player for pure scientific research, rather to use science in order to better humanity with Project Purity. Science in the form of atomic weaponry is the reason for the post apocalyptic wasteland, but it is also its best hope for salvation. Would you say a fantasy game with a similar plot is anti-New Age beliefs if the father abandoned you to search for a magic crystal?

    Science and Medicine are two important skills the player can pursue, and both the presence of the Daddy's Boy perk and the father's importance to the main questline imply that scientific research is a valid way to roleplay in addition to dumb brute strength.

    To be fair, though, Bethesda seems to reuse the mad scientist cliche far too often in the game, which probably speaks more to laziness than any arching theme.

    Every single vault except your own tells a similar story of a dangerous experiment on its residents. Every. Single. One. :shifty:


  12. The vita chambers are still there on the pc, but I resorted to compulsive quicksaving anyway to specifically avoid using them because they felt too cheap. Ironically, I avoided an in-game difficulty modifier by using a meta one, breaking the game's flow to do so. Player psychology is a funny thing. :erm:

    Actual question: Anything new from the City of Metronome team? You guys did an E3 preview on them ages back, and I vaguely remember hearing about some funding troubles, but not much since.


  13. Great interview, but I would love him to have been asked how he felt about the story in Braid and what it meant to him. As much as I love Braid there's only one word I can use to describe the whole "atomic bomb" thing: Pretentious.

    I wish it wasn't, though... so maybe his take would have enlightened us?

    I thought it might have been a reference to physicist Richard Feynman, who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was obliquely referenced in the early level called Three Easy Pieces, but other than that I can't remember any especially compelling evidence.


  14. On the topic of silent protagonists, I thought the short IF game Gun Mute did a good job of making the player character's muteness into a character trait as opposed to the blank slate approach.

    And thanks for the Spelunky recommendation. It's such a difficult game, but the deaths are hilarious enough to keep you going. Keep with it, though, since later worlds have different traps and enemies and reaching them enough times gives you a shortcut to later levels.


  15. Have you ever wanted Randy Neuman to make a generic muzak soundtrack to your life? Have you previously let lack of musical talent or friends with musical talent hold you back from the songwriting that will undoubtedly rescue you from a poor, monotonous lifestyle? You're in luck! Microsoft Songsmith takes in a vocal track and automatically generates a backing track.

    Key quote: Microsoft, huh? So it's pretty easy to use?

    Ad:

    Demo: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/

    Snark aside, it's a neat idea coupled with a hilariously bad ad and iffy implementation (be kind. I'm no Chris Remo.)