gdf

I've been listening to a lot of Hardcore History, just worked my way through the Ghosts of the Ostfront series. Dan Carlin really is awesome. Common Sense is interesting too, but it makes such an effort to escape bipartisanism that it becomes effectively a third partisan component. It's good to hear, and therefore consider, political viewpoints you don't necessarily agree with though; being on the far left makes only conversing, watching and listening to others on the far left very tempting. Then again, I guess we all seek out things that reinforce our views, so Common Sense is worthwhile because possibly nobody else in the world agrees with him.

The first paragraph has a lot of interesting chicken and egg stuff going on. Of course I'd rather have a game with mechanics built around a premise, but there's a risk you could end up with something equally unsuited to the medium. Ideally, I'd like to think designers only go with concepts they are confident would work within a certain video game framework, established or not, but I fear most literally are just "we want to make a shooter and here's a guy we employed to tack on a story". We could also get into a massive tangle about the use of the word game. It's no longer an appropriate descriptor for some interactive experiences (though sadly for the majority it probably is), but it's the established name of the medium, thus difficult to shake off. It doesn't explicitly mean "game" any more anyway. There's probably some proper way to describe what I mean, for I feel I've failed to articulate it properly. And I think, rather than "story", which a lot of gamers on the internet purport to value but are never quite sure what they mean, Half-Life 2's success lies in the narrative techniques Valve use rather than any sort of complex plot. It feels like a more organic, player-driven and adventure style experience despite being very, very linear.

I want to say something really cool and emergent like Far Cry 2 or Noby Noby Boy, or something that is more traditional but awesome like GTA IV or Metal Gear Solid 3 or Shadow of the Colossus. What I'm really going to pick though is Oblivion. Sorry.

Hey Toblix, my package arrived on Monday. I got excited because I thought the face on the stamps was Lenin, then I realised it wasn't, and then I realised it was probably a video game. Thanks very much!

It's both old-school and thoroughly modern. Actually, it's a kind of conciliatory game. It strikes an incredible halfway point between the progressives and the hardcore traditionalists, between Japanese and Western design philosophies, between intense difficulty and candid playability, between co-operation and competitiveness, between reserved, brooding atmosphere and overblown craziness, between role-playing and action, between risk and reward, and dare I say, life and death. Basically, it's the kind of game the entire internet can get behind. And it's the kind of game that's FUCKING AWESOME!

Demon's Souls is the first PS3 game I've imported, and even then it was from a UK ebay seller who had a bunch of them. I've bought a few games for my NTSC SNES as well, but again, UK sellers. If I lived in North America I doubt I'd bother importing, you guys get everything relatively quickly.

I'm in a similar situation to DrStrangePork. This game is so, so, so fucking good. Well worth the eight or so months of longing after screens and gameplay videos. Y'all are right about the Quick Looks, great way of getting buzzed for/checking out a game. Gerstmann is definitely one of those "just for fun" gamers, but he doesn't pretend otherwise. If you are part of the arty-farty crowd, here's some excellent Demon's Souls analysis by Quinns.

I rarely get excited about games any more, but I'm piss-my-pants excited about this one.

This is what I think Hocking himself, Takahashi, Rare, Frozenbyte, and to an extent Rockstar and Media Molecule try or have tried to do. Give the player the tools (i.e. systems) with which to explore a universe which itself is a product of authorship, but without imposing bullshit restrictions on them or forcing everyone to have the same experience a la Uncharted to pick a recent, rather egregious example. In many ways, I appreciate the author's intentions and what he/she/they have created so much more when I can express myself creatively or within them or the systems behind the world come together to deliver some kind of incredible chance event that is - or at least feels - unique to me. Because of this, my investment in the experience increases and I might actually start to care about what happens.

It's like Jake 2.0! I made some podcasts with a guy (plus guests) I know online from about October last year to March-ish this year with some sporadic ones since then, but it was actually surprisingly easy. I found that a consistent core team was important, after a couple of episodes - even over Skype - it becomes way more natural than you'd expect.

Nuts & Bolts does have multiplayer! It's a blast as well, though kids could struggle with the vehicle handling, especially on a tiny screen. If they like Banjo, though, I'd recommend getting one of the old ones off of the Marketplace. The first is single-player only I think, but its puzzles are more contained and, well, easy. Tooie's structure is far more obtuse and it's a lot less focussed (for my money it's better on the whole, but probably too tough for younger kids), but it has varied and enjoyable versus modes that showcase a wide variety of genres, including a basic form of FPS, racer and football game (it's like Super Soccer fuck yeah!)

You guys better be as good and regular and hilarious as Idle Thumbs: The Official Podcast. If not I will cry. I imagine the first episode will go something like this: WizaaaaAAaaaaAaaaaAAARD, the WizA-A-A-Aaard. Far Cry 2. The Wizard. Wizard. Video games. The Wizard.

You have to get Up and teach your kids about teamwork like Remo said! Use your kid to use the kid to kill the snake! Maybe something freeform like Noby Noby Boy - though that could be frustrating to control - or even an old side-scroller. If you have a SNES kicking about, get them onto some simple platformers (the first game I played to a significant extent was Capcom's Aladdin, and I was 6 at the time). If not, then I guess there's the Wii Virtual Console. If you have Guitar Hero give them a pop as well. Some of the really young kids at my old work liked to play beginner mode where it's just strumming. Good luck! If they all take to gaming, you could have Goldeneye multiplayer on standby for the rest of your life. Remember to report back with the results.

Google wasn't as helpful as I'd have liked, so I came here! Right, so I was on the internet the other day and the graphics went all scrambly. I could glitchily move the mouse around but it had clearly crashed completely, so I restarted. Twenty minutes later, same thing happens. I thought it was the graphics card, so I turned it off to do my essay yesterday - fine the whole day, no issues at all. This morning I played Far Cry 2 for half an hour and smugly thought I had solved it by doing nothing. I got back to Windows, opened the browser and it did the same weird thing. I restarted and during startup it did it again. I tried again, opened the control panel to turn off the card, but it did the weird thing again before I could. Opened the case up and it was seriously roasting. I suspect it may be dust buildup, because I haven't done anything about dust since I got it a year and a half ago. The problem is I don't know where it's going wrong, and because I didn't build it I'm scared to remove the card. Alternatives I've thought of are 1) a fan isn't kicking in when not in a game 2) a fan is clogged with dust 3) the card is busted. It could be number one, because it was fine playing the game. Anyone have advice? What's it most likely to be? I think I'll get some compressed air and have a blast around the case with it, and if that doesn't work I'll have call up the people who built it for me. I was thinking of reinstalling Windows in case it's some kind of fan killing virus or software issue, or maybe even some kind of OCing programme (though I never really pushed the card, just put it slightly above clockspeed) that I've left lying somewhere, but I'm really scared it would do the thing during the fresh install and die forever.

I'm aroused. Okay, so spray the shit out of it basically. If we get a day soon that isn't freezing or rainy I'll do that. Anyone know a shop I can get some cans from? Oh, and do I need to worry about static while blasting it? Thanks guys I'm fairly sure the card is fine. It was pretty hot but not melting shit hot, unless some stuff has been cracked in the cool down, but it was in an warm box, you know?

I want a "cry" button. On the horse bag.

I might grab Dragon Age when my pay rolls in, hopefully before the 30 hours are up. Also, fuck you Valve!

Interestingly enough, Far Cry 2 did something amazing and revelatory to me the other day. I was about to drive away having secured a checkpoint or safehouse or something, when I saw one injured guy hobbling away into the distance. At the time I had the scoped rifle equipped, so without thinking I zoomed in and shot him right in the back of the head. The moment I squeezed the trigger I was horrified. Though he had suffered a lot through the loss of his friends and a terrible injury, he had still been alive. I acted through instinct more than anything, and games have conditioned me to just do that, which is probably a bad thing. I began to think of the possible outcomes, and then tried to justify my actions by convincing myself he was going to die slowly and in terrible pain, or that he would have shot himself because he had nothing left to live for. He almost certainly wasn't, though, was he? I thought about that for the next ten minutes of play. The next time that happens, if it happens at all, I'm going to think about it carefully before I just murder an escaping man in cold blood. More of that please.

I think about this all the fucking time, but I don't have the creative vision or the skills necessary to make a game. There are so many barriers to what we want, one of them being that "we" in this case constitutes possibly less than five percent of the gaming audience. I even made up a name for people on the internet who know about gaming but just want to have fun all the time: "hardcore traditionalists". It's not necessarily a negative label - Jeff Gerstmann personifies it and I think he's cool, but a lot of forum assholes are exactly that. For the last month or so I've had the first few paragraphs of my next GSW column down but I haven't had time to finish it and I discuss something like this. It's about Shenmue (a game Gerstmann hates), and why being actively not fun for about nine tenths of the experience makes it great. It's totally flawed obviously in terms of flow and narrative and several other factors (the design ethic may be immoral in that it's just leading you on an endless stream of minor Macguffans), but it's one of the few examples of a game that isn't trying to amuse you constantly. There are more out there, though. Horror games, for example, aren't often much fun on a moment to moment basis. Resident Evil, up to and possibly including 4, is fucking terrible in terms of "fun factor", but you play it because it's atmospheric or scary or whatever. All of those tens for Gears, Killzone and Uncharted (all number twos) pissed me off, because those games are just constantly slapping you in the face with "ISN'T THIS SO MUCH FUN! KABOOM! WOOO! FUCK YEEEEAH!" and it feels so fucking patronising. Yes, they're fine within the scope of what they're trying to do - well, maybe not Killzone - but that's not nearly interesting or fresh or meaningful enough to be worthy of a top score. Gears 2 got on my nerves as well for having the cheek to make you give a shit about Dom's wife. I don't watch action films for that and I don't play Gears of War for that. If they know their limitations and operate within those, fine, be as fun as you want, I just won't bother playing all but an elite few of you. If they're pretending they're all artsy-fartsy and the next minute you stick a fucking chainsaw up a guy's ass, they can suck my balls. Then you get games that aren't necessarily fun on a fundamental (fundamental!) mechanical level but do something incredible with narrative, or art direction, or atmosphere, or themes, or mechanics, or morality or any number of design decisions - some indies (Glum Buster, fucking go play it), Far Cry 2, possibly Half-Life, parts of the Hocking Splinter Cell games, parts of GTA IV, Ico and to an extent Shadow of the Colossus, the gunship and nuke levels in Call of Duty 4, Another World (though crushing difficulty hampers it), Stalker, bits of Metal Gears 1-3 and a few others that include some culturally relevant or artistically worthwhile content. None until now have been faultless, it must be remembered. The entire adventure genre, in fact, isn't "fun" per se. It can be funny, but you play them to advance a storyline or experience a world or characters, even if all you're doing is clicking around the screen. If we're being literal, I could include a lot of strategy games, fighting games and - gasp - JRPGs, though the first two are more about the long term satisfaction of beating an opponent and mastering a system and the latter rarely does anything well. I liked what I played of Lost Odyssey because it seemed like it had really well captured a world and storyline using this fucking ancient template. I like Final Fantasy VII because I find the world utterly fascinating, it's so rich and interesting, but running around and fighting random battles is by no means fun. Additionally, I have way more respect for games that are fun in a satisfying way than these big blockbuster types - stuff like Trine, Noby Noby Boy or Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. The player creates his or her own fun because they're given the agency and tools to do so (to varying degrees) and they're all so satisfying for that. I still wince when I hear podcasters go on about how something was "not fun" and therefore worthless or "super fucking fun" and therefore clearly great. Even you were occasionally guilty of a mild form of that, Chris. Here are the main reasons we don't have many of the kind of games we're looking for. 1. Gamers - mostly composed of douchebags who like the same shit wrapped in different packaging despite claiming to yearn for originality 2. Designers - high barrier to entry means they're all serious gamers already and therefore learned everything from "just for fun" games - 2.1. Obligation - to, therefore, make games fun for twitch audience 3. Other media - being already developed 4. Film specifically - for Tarantino and Aliens, "cinematic" experiences 5. "Maturity" - Dante's Inferno 6. Publishers - they want money 7. Games journalists/writers/critics - see "2." 8. The internet - for being an unbalanced hive of shit 9. The term "game" - implies both "fun" and a rule structure in which an opponent is involved, but we're stuck with it despite its complete inadequacy I don't watch Schindler's List and expect fucking action scenes, you know. It's compelling, yes, but because it makes you think, it makes you cry, it makes you appreciate the fucking horrendous stuff going on using cinema's strengths as a storytelling medium. Games are able to do this, but nobody quite knows how. We're treated as part-observer, part-participant, and that means it's difficult in the first place to relate to games. Then the publisher starts breathing down your neck, then you get lazy or run out of money. Suddenly, your amazing first-person narrative experience that was like an entire level seventeen is a dumb shooter which is "fun" because you shoot a thing and a guy's head gets blown off. Any more? Am I completely wrong? Bit rambling, missed out some probably important stuff and I might have taken a shit on a lot of people accidentally. I should put a massive disclaimer on this - didn't mean to have such a go at game designers, you guys try. Of fuck a thousand words. tl;dr

Does anyone else listen to the Ricky Gervais Show? Every time I come into this thread I think of Karl's problem/worry ball/hole/gene. My problem ball is so much smaller than everyone else's. I get annoyed because of a stupid essay that I sort of buggered up and had to dash in and out to hand in today (it's about a three hour round trip) only to come back and find out work is cancelled and they forgot to phone me. I could have saved so much time/stress if I'd been able to stay at the uni for a while. See what I mean? Small problem ball clogging up me worry hole, I moan about that, but Wrestle can't get a mortgage for his family. Congrats and commiserations to whomsoever wants them, I'm rooting for all of you.

I think it's Noby Noby Boy. If we're doing games from other years it'd be Far Cry 2, never got it until March or something. Honourables: Trine Glum Buster Street Fighter IV Empire: Total War There are a few that I still haven't played. Got them written down though.

I'm watching all of the casters' Twitters like a fucking hawk. Thanks for not only taking away one of the best things in my life (the podcast), but replacing it with this shit. Congrats Nick.

I don't see the problem with a hilarious goofy callback to the classic Zelda games. It's not like Nintendo will ever make one of those again anyway. Think of it like Lego A Link to the Past.

I was super hyped for the first one based pretty much on screenshots and the awesome premise. Even when I heard about all the Da Vinci Code bullshit my spirits failed to be dampened. I ended up liking it, but being horribly put off by some of its issues and finishing it almost a year later. If this fixes some major stuff I know I'll love it.

Lazyweb. I concur.