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For what it's worth, I do not think that it is. I don't even think of it as a game. In my mind, storytelling like that has amazing potential and calling it a sub-form of gaming would be doing it a big disservice. That's a whole 'nother can o' worms, though.

I was struggling. I think I felt depressed during the entire first time of watching it. I would like to NOT recommend something: Gamer. That movie is one of the saddest things I have seen in a long time. Gah!

I don't agree with that. That feels like taking a concept and only looking at the outer layer and saying "That's what it is". Also, if you admit to saying that the designer is saying something, then who is he talking to? If not the player, then what is the use of saying anything at all? That doesn't add up for me. Aren't you forgetting that it's Rohrer who put meaning into the game in the first place? Surely, not everyone got the exact same thing out of it (as with any kind of medium), but it made a lot of people go "Oh, I understand what he is saying with this". That is Rohrer succeeding in conveying something to the player. edit: Thanks for that link, by the way. Currently listening to the Warren Spector one and loving it. ( << Don't worry, it's purely platonic. )

No, no, I meant the Molotov Dwarfs in Myth. There are dwarfs in that game that throw bottled explosives.

Oh shit! Toblix is making Christmas come early!

You really do not have to worry about wearing your fan down. Besides, I'm pretty sure that in the long run, having a cooler chip lengthens its life. A fan can easily be replaced if it does break. Still, 70°C isn't too hot, but it could definitely be about 10°C cooler. Unless you're running into artifacts while playing, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Have any of you guys played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth? Now here is a first person game, where in the first part of the game, you don't have a gun, or anything to defend yourself with. One of the few games that actually managed to get under my skin, as you have these guys chasing you and you're locking and shoving things in front of doors behind you to slow down your pursuers. It was quite scary. They did lots of interesting things with Call of Cthulhu. Your character would get vertigo when looking down from up high. If he was looking at something gruesome, your vision could go all funky among other things. The character you play isn't all that mentally stable to begin with, so looking at fucked up things for too long might leave him permanently insane and if you're holding a gun, he commits suicide. Lots of love for that game.

I came here to give Myth some love. It would've held up a lot better if the resolution was higher. Everything is so up close. Also, Molotov Dwarfs. Heart of Darkness would holds up really well too. That game is beautiful! Replayed The Longest Journey not too long ago, which I thought was still great. I'd like to try Grim Fandango again as well. At the time when I played it, I was really young and thought it was really difficult. I wonder if that has changed for me, now that I'm older. I had the same thing with Myst, where I suddenly just "got" the puzzles. Have been a Myst fan ever since. I've tried to replay Outcast and Silver, but I can't get them to run. Much love for those games.

You know it, man. Being my own boss, having to pat my own back the entire time gave me a mean case of tennis elbow. Edit: Also, were you being sardonic? If so, ouch, man.

Sounds like something similar I experienced. My videocard kept overheating and when I checked the fan, it was completely clogged with dust. The way I solved it was by buying a different fan for my card, but I don't know how comfortable you'd be with removing the stock cooler and putting a new one on there. I'm sure you can pay a dude to do it for you, though. Edit: Wait, it didn't glitch when you were playing Far Cry 2 for 30 minutes?

Don't worry about it. I'm quite tired at the moment and I believe I'm obfuscating my point with lots of unnecessary details. I'll try to boil it down to something more concrete. OssK argues that games can't "talk" to you because games are participatory in nature (correct me if I'm wrong, OssK). The idea that, if you want something to speak to you, it has to be authored work. My counterpoint being that I think games can talk to you because of their interactive nature; that the designer speaks to its user through the choices and tools he/she offers. Obviously, it greatly differs from how other media does it. I tried to put it in the context of a hypothetical scene in a hypothetical game, but in retrospect I'm not sure if I succeeded. I admit that it's all kind of vague, sorry about that. I think I reached my pretentiousness quota for the rest of the year, haha. I'm probably over-thinking it anyway. I often do that with things.

Well, I didn't mean to imply that the premise above was supposed to be a perfect simulation. Again, just that the player has enough substantial and meaningful choices to make. What you would do could also change depending on the context of the game. For example, it's likely that you would make different choices if you were just an avatar through which you acted (the silent protagonist) and the choices you would make if you were put in the shoes of a runaway felon-wid-a-heart-o-gold. I think that quality of interactivity determines the game's voice.

That's absolutely fine. I got it, I think, but I don't think that I agree. Let's say that you have a game. In that game there is a certain event where you witness police brutality, for example, a guy being tazered for no good reason. The designer dictates all possible interactions and the tools available to the player (the car, metaphorically speaking). Does it not stand to reason that, as I use the tools to change the conditions, i.e., I decide to take action (or do nothing), the designer speaks to me through the myriad of different outcomes/interactions that take place? Now, I know that even such a simple scene would be incredibly complex to execute. I imagine that, for it to be useful to the player, the designer must remain relatively neutral and the quality of interaction must be high. Meaning substantial, meaningful choices and enough of them. Let's assume that execution of this concept is done perfectly. Wouldn't it have the possibility to make you learn something important about yourself? I can watch a video or movie involving a similar scene, but then I question: "Jeez, I have no idea what I would do in such a situation." It could be really powerful to let you explore what you would/could do in such an event. I realize that the premise above is flawed, but in my mind the designer does speak to the player, albeit with a lot more subtlety.

This might be because I'm dumb, but I see a lot of words and I can't get a meaning out of it. I don't understand what is being said.

I absolutely know what you mean. To me he is someone I greatly respect, who I listen to when he has something to say. After all, he's been wrapping his head around a lot of problems for a lot longer than, likely, all of us have. But I understand your frustration and I think I share some of those same feelings. Last I read, things weren't going too well to the point where he is considering licensing his tech for use in games (something he was previously opposed to). Hope it works out for him. I'm not sure I agree with that, but then, after reading your post over a couple of times, I'm not entirely sure I understand your idea either. If you could elaborate a bit more?

This subject has been on my mind a lot too, for a long time. I love games and feel very passionately about them, but as I got older, the fulfillment I got out of them diminished. My problem with games today is, in a nutshell, I grew up; games didn't. Games that hit me on a deeper level, they come along very rarely and still don't hit on a level that is to my satisfaction. I want more out of gaming as a medium and I know it's possible. I agree with this. However, complicating things is that the industry seems to be stuck in a large hole that they dug entirely themselves. I have thought long and hard on how to formulate my opinion on this, but Chris Crawford said it much more eloquently then I possibly could at this point in time: This cycle is the biggest problem to overcome. Further complicating matters, I think, is that the people making games today are the same people that have enjoyed playing these narrowly focused games since their childhood and wanting to make more of the same. So much iteration has happened on this very base form of interaction (violence), that we've gotten really good at it. Meanwhile, we're leaving a more social means of interaction completely underdeveloped. I'm not saying there is no room for violence, but it has gotten to the point for me where I feel that enough is enough. It's cliché, it's limiting and we need some pushback on that front. If we want games to be be meaningful on a deeper level-- that also speaks to a mass market-- then I share with you one of the most important things I learned from Crawford and something I truly believe in: Games should be about people, not things.

Yea, that was pretty go--WAIT WHAT? YOU GO CORRECT THAT RIGHT NOW, SIR.

Man, Mario Kart for the SNES never struck my fancy. I don't have this problem anymore, but that Mode 7 thing it did, with the rotating moving plane? It made my eyes hurt, eventually giving me a headache and nausea. You didn't have that problem to this extreme, I take it? As such, no fond memories of Mario Kart SNES! Mario Kart 64 though... Mmmmmm.

I'm pretty sure that the EA Partners program licensing deal is on a per game basis.

Good timing, man. I just had the weirdest dream in a long time. It's not entirely game based, so I hope that is not cheating. It started out as a LAN at my place. We were gonna play Left 4 Dead 2, but for some reason that meant that 4 of the people at my place were the actual characters of L4D2. I was looking at the screen and my friend was like "Have you unlocked anything yet?" and I reply "Unlocked what?" and he gestures to my screen where I apparently did not notice the gigantic bar that said "UNLOCKABLES". There were a variety of things there, like unlockable skins, but also an unlockable Sloth (with funky colours) that would turn friendly fire into buffs, like speed and damage boosts. Also, a critter of which you could change the parts like in Spore; no idea what that was for. I chose, however, to use my points to unlock Bill. I unlock Bill and I'm not at all surprised as he appears in my room. His appearance had somewhat changed "Bill, why did you shave off your mustache?" I asked to a cleanly dressed and shaven Bill. That was weird, but the truly weird bits came later. I'll condense that, since it's not game related: There was some sort of event going on that had all kinds of TV show people walking outside. The A-Team was outside my door, I opened the door and let BA use my bathroom. Hugh Laurie came inside too to say hi. I walked on the street and saw two versions of He-Man, standing on top of this building, the other standing on the street and I yelled "Don't worry guys, you'll soon have the power again!" Then I saw the new A-Team and the old A-Team walking on the street and I wanted to impress them with how fast I could run, but the wind was blowing really hard and all I could manage was slow motion, but there was Steven Seagal, making gestures to passerby's. I run to him in slowmotion pretending to be a bad guy with a gun. We both do the slow motion thing and he "shoots" me. I let myself fall in slowmotion thinking "Man, I'm awesome" then it's all black as I have my eyes closed and I hear Steven Seagal saying "You gave everyone quite a scare, that looked really real". I was really impressed by myself. Sorry that that was so long, but a loooot happened. I really did condense the latter non-game bit.

I think the game is a lot harder now, because most of the maps are a lot more open then they were in the first game. They come at you from almost every side. By the way, I know that Left 4 Dead 1 did this too, but why is it a trend in games nowadays to have super slow bullets?

Back after a two week break from the internet. I'm the type of person that always has his PC on and is always connected. Besides that, I don't use the phone a lot and I don't watch TV. I thought it would be interesting, so I gave my modem to someone for safe keeping and thus, without internet for two weeks. Now I'm back; it was a very therapeutical experience. When you step away from internet for a bit, it's a lot easier to see what is important to you, in terms of internet use, and what isn't. I used to check for gaming news headlines all the time and now I just don't care. Tried to keep up to date on everything, but now I feel that... If I actually feel like it, I will. A very strange feeling, but it seems a bit more "normal".

Thanks, I'll try that. I haven't touched it yet, since my last post. Coincidentally, dry ice mines is where I was as well.

Played it through a couple of times. Kind of a short demo, but I like it. More stuff and more polish. Animations are more fluid, effects look nicer, etc.. Still some bugs, here and there. All in all, it's about what I expected. Really like the new music and the more diverse weapon selection. Charger and Tank are BFF. Also, dead.

Just a heads up: The demo is out.