blackboxme

Phaedrus' Street Crew
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    153

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by blackboxme

  1. Posted

    I understood what Chris was saying and was simply adding that society manufactures taboo out of the things created within that internal process. This taboo then gives a lot of (in this case game publishers) pause in outputting something an individual work when it is felt to be taboo. Books and movies have moved beyond that self-censorship and are able to represent one's internal relationship with a myriad of "fucked up" things but games haven't so I, like Chris, was refreshed by The Binding of Issac simply because it eschewed that particular system of censorship.

    I wonder if it is part publisher censorship or just... not having the impulse to create things like that. It reminds me of No More Heroes, with the weaboo protagonist, the internal monologue's coming out of the wii-mote and enemies spurting coin fountains rather than blood when you chop them in half. I really appreciated that, but who would have the impulse the create that kind of stuff?

  2. Posted

    I think that Sean didn't quite see what Chris was driving at in The Binding of Isaac discussion. Sean was talking about it as an exploration of taboo, where Chris was talking about unfiltered expression. One of my favorite examples of unfiltered expression is Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky. It is a look inside the mind of a low level beuraucrat in 19th century Russia with some kind of mental disorder. I don't see that novel as a comment on Russian taboos, mores or society, though the main character does some stupid and immoral things. Nor do I think that it is a damning portrait of that specific man or type of man. While it blows open the idea of what a novel is supposed to be through its structure and plot, or lack thereof, I don't think that's the point either. It's just a beautiful, truthful, dark, funny, largely irrational look inside a specific man's mind, and that makes it timeless.

  3. Posted

    Not of video game origin (not sure if this vocal arrangement was recorded for the game or licensed/whatevered from the choir that sung it), but this specific performance of this song provided a big enough impact in the opening mission of Homeworld that quite a few people now associate the song with the game.

    The original piece is just as sad!

    Dang, that's a really cool version of the song

  5. Posted

    Please list sad songs from games, or overall sad soundtracks. I'm not opposed to sad songs outside video games too. I'm trying to create a sad music playlist, because I heard that sad feelings make you more detail oriented, which would help while programming and what not.

  6. Posted

    I completely agree. In any case, the Giantbomb guys have a sense of fun about it and don't take themselves too seriously. I really don't like reading five page reviews of a game, or coverage that has an agenda regarding the whole "games as art" stuff.

    Exactly. Giant Bomb approaches things in a very straight-forward way and many people like that. On the other hand, just because you like Giant Bomb, doesn't mean that you don't like more in-depth analysis like you used to hear on Idle Thumbs.

  7. Posted

    That pretty much sums up how GiantBomb discusses every game. If you go to that site for anything but energy drink and junk food reviews, I don't know what to say.

    Yeah, those guys are insanely straightforward and literal-minded in terms of how they think about games, which isn't for me but a lot of people seem to like'em quite a bit.

  8. Posted

    "Fuck this game. Fuck this fucking red-eyed knight! Why is he so fucking fast!? And fuck these fucking dogs! Where do they even come from? Fuck this fucking Tower Knight! Fuck! Fucking, fuck, fuck, fuck! I hate this game!"

    Just 5 minutes ago, it was me vs. the red eyed knight. I was out of mp for fireballs, but I wanted to stay and fight so I got out my spear and shield. He ran along the bridge toward me, pole-arm couched, lunging at me, so I rolled back. Then he walked towards me, shield up. I saw him rear back to strike, so I stepped forward, parried and stabbed him in the face! That was the first time I'd ever killed that bastard in a fair fight, and it was just as satisfying as killing a boss.

  11. Posted

    Is this game actually enjoyable? How and why? I watched the GB quick look, and I feel oddly compelled to play this...but I hesitate, because I can think of no logical reason why I should pay for and spend time on this. It doesn't really sound like a good game in any way. I understand that people find the level of challenge refreshing, but that sounds like its only merit.

    And yet...

    I don't know...It kind of seems like a Russian PC game.

    The controls are pretty fantastic, the character growth systems are great, the environments are really damn cool.

    Go read one of the thousand reviews that give the game a 90+ review score, or Chris' praise on how it's like a Mikami game.

  14. Posted

    Given that I never managed to finish Mass Effect, marketing materials like these are eating away at my desire to play this game at an alarming rate...

    I thought Mass Effect had a cool ending, I'd recommend finishing.

  15. Posted · Edited by blackboxme

    Seems like a crazy game judging from the Giant Bomb QL. Probably not for me, but also probably for someone else.

    Vinnie doesn't really seem well informed based on looking at the quick look/ I don't know how he manages to suck that much. I guess he is distracted and trying to explain things.

    Jeff's take: I didn't do the tutorial, but this game doesn't control well at all! All I could do was use a sword, because I never learned the buttons! The game mechanic sounds dumb!

    Ugg, that video is terrible.

  17. Posted

    When I bought my copy at Gamestop, the clerk told me that the game was selling really well although he had never heard of it. He had about 6 copies left and he said they'd be gone within a day or two.

  18. Posted

    This game is bananas. It's like a fantasy of everything you want in an action RPG: great graphics + combat as responsive as you have in Zelda + coop + pvp + RPG depth of character development.

    I can't believe this game. It combines Horror, rpg, MMO, wtf.

    I was scared out of my pants in the tutorial, then I go into the first zone and there are horse corpses everywhere and zombies coming at me, with bloodstains and other player's ghosts running around. There's a lot going on in this game.

  19. Posted

    Like I said earlier, I've been using Rock Band to try to learn to play the drums.

    So far, I've progressed up to the jagged border between hard and expert. I've been trying to work on my limb independence as Remo said. This means, say varying the volume of the foot pedal or the snare while keeping other limbs constant and things like that. It seems like this variation is where a lot of the musicality and expression of drums comes from.

    I'm right handed, but I'm also trying to train my left hand and foot, because I figure once lefty is good, he'll be able to help out righty in more situations without taking up too much of my brain power.

    This has been a really interesting experience, because it showed me the relationship between practice and my perception of time: when you do something novel, time speeds up; when you do something familiar time slows down. This has changed the way that I approach practicing my other instruments and has really helped me.

    Anyways, thanks for the tip Chris it has been helpful so far.

  21. Posted

    I was going to use Satoshi Kon as an example in the argument with Chris that anime is kinda cool.

    So, I just watched Paranoia agent, kon's 2005 series, and while it defied all of Chris's problems with anime, it was also about how Kon dislikes anime for the same reasons Chris does :deranged:

  25. Posted

    I also found the combat infinitely more satisfying (playing as a soldier, granted) and the conversation system to make the world so much more real.

    I knock off points for Mass Effect because they didn't balance the difficulty of the combat. In KOTOR, it wasn't difficult, but at the same time it was decently fun for being easy.

    Mass Effect on the other hand became so easy for me that I got incredibly bored about half way through. The only thing that kept it fun for me was hacking the game and changing the difficulty to extreme mode.

    Also, compare the different planets in Mass Effect and KOTOR. The planets in KOTOR were more imaginitive and more interactive than the ones in Mass Effect. Maybe I'm just a sucker for card games and racing minigames, but that at least gave people in the world something to do.