Thyroid

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Posts posted by Thyroid

  4. Posted

    On the other end it might be 2 wholly inaccessible pretentious hours of Hoffman flopping around. That's pretty unlikely, but you know, just tempering things a bit.

    It's...

    Well.

    It's depressing. But good. But not fun. How do I explain this film?

    Two hours of frustrating entertainment. It's a very ambitious film.

  9. Posted

    So there's this kid up here in Canada that's been making the news lately: because he skipped school to play Call of Duty 4, 15-year old Brandon was grounded and his Xbox taken from him. Nothing wrong with that.

    But what Brandon Crisp decides to do in retaliation is run away.

    There's been no trace of him since, with the exception of his bike being found along train tracks.

    The parents are rightly worried, and are concerned he might have met someone online who tricked him, lured him and then harmed him. As a result, they've put-up a reward for his (safe?) return: USD $19500. What Microsoft does is they add another $25000 to the reward money.

    My question: has it not occurred to them that someone could exploit this, pretend they've lost their child and get a free $25000 from Microsoft later on? I'm sure they're doing this to cover their asses so they don't get sued but it's still a very stupid thing to do.

  12. Posted

    Interestingly, all the bosses in the MGS series serve a huge, symbolic purpose. In MGS3, the fact that the Cobras are named after emotions but with so little history, and the order in which they are presented, symbolizes Snake overcoming his emotions as he proceeds towards his goal: Eliminating the Boss. By succeeding, he has become the "ultimate" soldier.

    Think about it.

    Pain is first overcome, the the fear of it. His numbness (end) to orders is overcome then, and after that his fury at betrayal. The Sorrow, based on a Japanese myth about death (whole other article), is the final and most difficult obstacle to overcome, before he meets his true goal: the joy of battle.

  15. Posted · Edited by Kroms

    Now that we're all fine, upstanding adults with no great amount of time on our hands because of work, we're all looking for some games that we can finish in a matter of a few hours. The new Sam and Max episodes are a wonderful filler of this.

    These episodes form a series, in a way, where each episode is a different story but there might be one adventure through the whole thing. But I was wondering, what if someone wanted to make a game where it was like a show (i.e: the camera worked a lot like in Sam and Max 2, with the close-ups and stuff), but there was one arching story through the whole series?

    How would you make a good, story-heavy game where we would spend more than one hour a day on it ... where we would watch it - play it - like it was a show, but where it was rich in interactive storytelling?

  17. Posted

    Day of the Tentacle? Really?

    Yes ... especially since I got Laverne walking early-on, so everytime I'd think I got all the areas I'd climb-up the chimney or discover that I hadn't fully explored with Hoagie yet.

    Why would you do that? There is no good reason. It's a lot closer to six short games than one game separated into six parts.

    Well, I don't do it. I'm saying he should if he can't wait.

    Let's see. Ben is at SEGA, Alex at EA, Steve at Perpetual Entertainment, Lawrence at Namco, Spaff and Nick at NCSoft, Rusalka did a thing at Climax, Bob is ... uhh, going to London (shit I totally forgot what his new gig is), Jake and Doug are at Telltale, Chris of course went to Shack, and I'm working at a game dev in Amsterdam. It's the Idle Thumbs exodus.

    :finger:

    Now, in seriousness, what's working in the industry like? I'm wrapping-up my highschool years in July, and I want to work as a game designer, so help would be appreciated.

  18. Posted

    From what I understand enough people are buying Sam & Max and Telltale are doing fine. But maybe Doug, Jake, or Emily can tell you more given that they actually work there.

    Oh, man, I knew the Thumb was cool. Time to suck-up. Well, no. I hate sucker-upers.

    There's a little kernel of truth to your rant (there was a lot of opposition to 3D, for a time) but I disagree that this has anything to do with the current state of the genre or the current state of its followers and in fact I disagree with your characterizations of both. :) Incidentally, adventure games are the topic of our next podcast, so maybe I shouldn't post too much in this thread.

    Mmm ... I dunno, I was pretty furious around the time I wrote that post, and the Ron Gilbert interview on the site wasn't exactly a mind-changer ... I should re-consider, then.

    I saw a lot of people on AdventureGamers with those damn "Purist" badges, too.

    As for why I'm with 3D:

    "3D does a lot for us. Primarily, it enables us much more freedom while making the game. We can try all sorts of camera angles and animations to see which ones work the best. Doing that kind of iteration in 2D is much slower, and even then you only get to see it on paper. I've been in a lot of situations where the concept art looked great, but the final art just didn't have the same impact, and another iteration was needed. In 3D you can see the results of a creative decision right away, and it's much easier/faster to iterate and get it right." - Kevin Bruner, who works in Telltale.

    Telltale's doing fine. The games are doing well and everyone is happy.

    I'm happy too, now.

    I always liked adventure games because they had characters and stories unlike any other in the entirety of gaming, but still offered challenges and interactivity that I couldn't get from a more passive medium like a book, comic, or film.

    Yes, exactly. Tension works for FPSs (which could have a good story, by the way) the same way humour and exploration works for adventures (adventures). That's the reason I liked Day of the Tentacle so much, because there was an unlimited possibility for exploration and several types of humour strapped into one package. I think it kind of failed on the puzzles-bit, where it would strap too many puzzles, frustrating you (an "easy" mode would have been wonderful, and how was I supposed to know that I'm supposed to paint the damn fruit?).

    As for the episodic content stuff, I don't like it (not even in the Telltale approach).

    Do what I'd do if I weren't such a sucker for hype; buy the whole thing and then play it all at once by May 2007.

  19. Posted

    I hope Telltale Games are doing fine, but there's no way to tell. I was wondering if anyone knew a way that would help me know?

    Adventure gamers are total jackasses (I wrote about it), but in the case of Sam 'n' Max 2's they're also major jackasses for not buying the game because its lack of budget meant they couldn't higher the original voice actors, so it "wasn't as good."