LOPcagney

Yeah, I reread my comment and I was making pretty rash judgments. I meant, like you said, that a good game will pull you in or that you shouldn't have to work to find the merit in a good game, but like you said, thinking back, there were many games that I despised at first but learned to love. I think I'm going to stop talking about Crysis, since I've hardly even played the demo...

With all this GOTY buzz this time of the year, I don't think I've heard Episode 2 mentioned once. I guess it's not viewed on the same level as other brand new, truly next-gen games, but if the idea is to look at games based on design, playability, and overall enjoyment, I don't know why Ep. 2 is any less qualified than any other artistic, fun single-player game (like, for example, Bioshock).

But shouldn't we judge the game not by the content itself but by the motivation to explore it? And to ThunderPeel2001, I'm replaying Deus Ex GOTYE, and it may just be shear luck, but I've started leaving bodies around left and right since I haven't once got buzzed having an opponent spot a body. They should sound the alarm right? I may just be getting very lucky...

Welcome to Thumbs!

I want the DVD of "Noiseman Sound Insect" so badly. I've only found pirated versions online, and it's not for sale in the US.

I liked the pacing of the last sequence.

I saw Tokyo Godfathers too. Not quite Millennium Actress, but very good.

Wow. I watched the trailer and it looks incredible. Satoshi Kon is amazing. I got Millennium Actress a couple years back and it was really interresting. It was really a very human drama.

My mom got it for all of us for Wii for Christmas. We have yet to try it. I'll tell you all what I think when I do.

Just watched that scene on YouTube, and yes, with some CGI to make it more spectacular (but not enough to give it away) that could work really well.

Yeah, I see that. I'm just one of those people who's prejudiced against CGI because it so frequently misses the mark. Some part of me wants to say that they should use animatronics over CGI in the case of the bears even if it adds a certain camp aspect to the movie. Somehow it's easier for me to suspend disbelief when the animal at least looks like something out of our physical world, even if neither CGI or stop-motion have been proven to be able to realistically render movement. It might be something to look at on a case-by-case basis. The CGI didn't bother me in Jurassic Park, but it did 12 years later in Narnia (and 13 years later in The 300).

Does anyone else think they should have used real bears, like they would have in the 90's? People over-estimate computer animation in a live-action movie. We've gotten to a point where inanimate objects can be rendered realistically, but animals still fall into uncanny valley. It was the same with Narnia.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9144735653577231860&q=tradition&total=85180&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

I think I missed Duke Nukem' 3D when it was first released. I wasn't playing video games at the time. I really do think it's one of those games that's going to ride on the nostalgia factor alone. Maybe I'm being judgmental, but I can't imagine myself getting into it now not having the memories of playing it then. =/ It just looks shallow...

Interesting little concept game. I thought someone here might like to try it out: Soup v 0.9 I really love the idea. Some of the rooms are really evocative, and it's all extremely personal. I won't spoil too much of it though.

Hmm. I've heard it compared to LSD on the Dreamcast. Has anyone played that?

Honestly, Bioshock for GotY, but one thing that bugged me was how black and white the game's morality system was. Maybe choosing between varying degrees of evil is a better approach? I don't know, I haven't played the game.

It's quite canny.

I agree, but didn't she look more Muppet than human before the retouching as well?

Haha, absolutely. I love the West Wing, but over the past 3 years it's become about as far removed from the actual White House as Lord of the Rings. I immediately thought of the opening sequence to , which I've grown to love.

It's not that they remove design from the game completely. Everything is designed. But they tried to remove, and I can't remember the exact words they used, but I think it was "artistic design" (meh, it might not have been "design"). But the idea wasn't that things weren't going to be designed, but that the artistic flare was going to be replaced with realism. Clearly with the alien levels, they still had some of that going on, and they may have abandoned the philosophy early on in development, but going into the game they contrasted Crysis to Far Cry in that Far Cry was very stylized because they didn't have the technology to create immersion any other way, and that Crysis would instead have its artistic influences stripped down from it.

So yeah, I agree.

yeah! i was wondering who Ca$h was. my reaction upon seeing "his" profile was utter hatred. fortunately i couldn't figure out how to delete him from my friends list glad all that got sorted out!

Watching the trailer, I thought for the first time about the irony behind the realism in Crysis and how different the criteria for realism are in games and movies. Crysis is considered the most "realistic" game on the market right now because of how realistically the graphics and physics are handled. However, seeing the game play, especially after the "twist", the actual content of the game is so stylized and spectacular itself that if it were a movie, where visual realism is to some extent taken for granted, we'd call Crysis ridiculously unrealistic.

Respectfully, what do console shooters have to offer that PC shooters don't?