Wrestlevania

Gamma Bros. is monster-good.

Very good. On a somewhat related note; have you guys seen the Twighlight Princess fishing demo yet?!

I'm only seeing yours too, Oath. Edit: OK, n0wak’s card just showed up whilst Oath’s has now disappeared. Still nothing for you though, miff. Sadly, I’m going to be leaving my 360 days behind very shortly. I’m starting a new job in a couple of weeks, and the 360 I play on at the moment lives in one of the conference rooms at my current employer. Here’s my card anyway, for posterity’s sake: In reality Dead Rising, Rockstar presents Table Tennis, MotoGP ’06 and LEGO Star Wars II should be on there as my latest games. But they don’t connect it to the network much, so that’s why my Gamertag is heinously out of date. Fair thee well, 360 – it was good while it lasted. I've actually got a bet on with a colleague that we can finish most of LEGO Star Wars II in co-op mode before I leave. At any rate it’s a decent excuse to make sure we play every lunchtime. /me secretly hopes they’ll give me it as my leaving present, considering the obscene number of hours I’ve played on it… fat chance.

There’s a

I used to like the stuff Brian Crecente posted on Kotaku. I binned their RSS when they suddenly seemed to go hell-for-leather on the tabloid crap at the start of this year though.

…and there was me hoping this was the equivalent of those dinosaurs in Tiberian Sun.

I’m very interested to see how Hotel Dusk turns out – the theme and art style are really my sort of thing.

You can have my job if you like – I just got a new one!

If it breeds diversity and fresh ideas, then yes. If it simply breeds more annual rehashes of rigid franchises – just with a girly slant – then no, we’ll still be in the same rut as we are now. Except with more pink I guess.

Peter Molyneux did.

No.

Don’t you mean, “One ‘lump’ or two?”, Marek?

Remember to stir well.

Yes, my point would also be that – for whatever reason – the deliverables rarely match up to his still-great ideas nowadays. Maybe it’s the focus on style more than content when it comes to publishing a sellable product, but you’re not coming through very clearly, Mr. Molyneux. And if I could get it to run, I’d still be playing Syndicate at every given opportunity.

My point was about engagement of larger audiences. I can’t recall the article right now, but I remember reading about how Spore is an exciting prospect for educators, because its content and themes cover diverse subjects such as Geography, Cosmology and the core Sciences (Biology, Physics & Maths). The University professor reference was not meant to be, “Hey, even stuffy old farts want to play it!” It was that many people are looking at games to improve teaching: In my opinion you can only achieve this through the engagement of broader audiences – which includes girls, obviously. Remember how Furbies and Tamagotchi sold like crazy, irrespective of the sex of the owner? It’s because they both had mass appeal and a very strong endearment factor. But they also focussed on themes that everyone can universally identify with; learning to speak, caring for a pet, play in general.

I would refer the right-honourable gentleman(?) to a near identical thread posted just last week. From a personal standpoint though, LEGO Star Wars II is turning out to be quite fun in co-op. Assuming you and your brother are into the whole Star Wars thing.

What I mean is that I don’t believe there’s any precise formula to solving this supposed problem, beyond simply making games much more varied and accessible. Both aspects will benefit the games market in general, because they will inherently attract new players from both sexes. Of the two I think accessibility is the biggest barrier to entry – whether that be thematic, the prerequisite skill set or genre experience, the control system, whatever – which is what, as we all know, Nintendo has banked the farm on. It’s also why people from far wider spheres than gaming (i.e. University professors) are going justifiably ape-shit over Spore. And I also believe that’s why The Sims sold by the truckload.

No, no, no! The way forward, you idiots, is celebrity all-girl development teams! I mean, there’s that ex-porno bird that was involved in the production of FAKK2. John Carmack’s wife, who can animate and stuff. And I’m sure at least one of the Frag Dolls must be able to type – just give the rest some crayons and a flip chart. Lock them all in a nice sunny room full of kittens for a morning, then market the shit out of whatever they come up with. Problem solved (as any room full of all-male brainstormers will soon be telling you). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On a somewhat more serious note, I’m finding this continued “female gamer (assumption-based) problem solving” really fucking offensive. My 3 year old daughter and I sometimes play Ecco the Dolphin on Dreamcast, and the reason she likes that is because she finds it interesting. Quite a revelation, I’m sure you’ll agree. Now, whilst I appreciate one 3 year old is no yardstick for the female demographic, by any stretch of the imagination, it still proves one simple fact; it’s about engagement above everything else. Not what a bunch of blokes locked in a room might simply guess at (however close they might be).

Isn't that PM to a 'T' though?

Um, possibly because the original Darklands game appears nigh identical to Oblivion anyway, ergo making it a redundant proposal? Just sayin’ like…

I’m certain this isn’t the case. The disc is readable, but not bootable. I’m trying to get hold of an alternate PAL-based copy to see if that will work instead. In the meantime I’m going to see if I can get my existing NTSC copy booted using version 1.1 of the Dreamcast Utopia boot disc. I’ve tried v1.2 in the past with no luck, but stumbled across a forum post somewhere else that suggested that version 1.1 offered better compatibility overall. Seems bizarre, but I’m keen to try it anyway. You just want to see my bitch-tits.

I’m surprised how slow larger, non-associated bodies (i.e. governments) have been to spot this happening in the entertainment/games industry – and identify it as being a viable, taxable revenue stream.

I appreciate the suggestion, but it’s a pretty dirty alternative to the genuine article. Going by my past experience with console emulators, there’s bound to be imperfect support for the less common / more unusual titles anyway, and you can’t get much more unusual than Rez.

Just wanted to update this thread, as I’ve tried out the Action Replay CDX disc finally. (My DVD±RW drive ‘sploded, so that’s why it’s taken a while). It didn’t work. :\ The Action Replay CDX disc loaded fine, I was able to setup a new CDX “game record” for Rez on my memory card, but I couldn’t get the game to load – even when I switched the Dreamcast to NTSC mode via the Action Replay settings. My Dreamcast insists it’s just an audio CD. Any other possible solutions, please?!!

This aspect of the game presents opportunities for some very rich, RPG-like story telling and questing -- that's definitely something I could get excited about.