chummer

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by chummer

  1. The ______ of Video Games

    Video game blogs are the No Exit of all writing. Games culture is the 2 Live Crew of all sub-cultures. MBDTF is the Braid of hip-hop albums. Lil' B is the rap game Jeff Minter.
  2. The ______ of Video Games

    The Flight of the Navigator of Video Game Controllers lolwut?
  3. Favorite Game Of All Time

    (Bumping with an answer b/c I think this is a really cool thread.) My favorite game of all time is Passage. I imagine that's going to cause a lot of eyes to roll, but I'm being sincere. Though I don't go back for replays over and over, Passage was fantastic because I felt like it was the first game to speak to me in a language that I had known for a long time, but had never heard a coherent sentence in. While other games certainly gave me things to think about and consider in my life, that was mostly due to my individual experience monologuing over the game. Passage created a dialogue with its simple mechanics and aesthetic that really took me by surprise. Is the memento mori theme and exploration of personal relationships deep? No, but the form of the game perfectly delivered the message in a way that I hadn't seen in video games and still only rarely see. Shadow of the Colossus is a gorgeous game. I feel like it's only one of a few games that I could earnestly describe as 'majestic.' The game has a way of making me feel small that I really enjoy. Link's Awakening doesn't make me feel small, but did give me the impression of a huge world as a kid that I still remember fondly. Easily my favorite Zelda game.
  4. The ______ of Video Games

    This is where I wish I had the programming skills to just make this goddamn thing and reveal it to be the laughable mess that it is. I guess I could just make a Twine, but really want it to be an actual game. (Just trollin', ya'll)
  5. The ______ of Video Games

    If this thread causes me to kill myself, know that this will be my suicide note. Also, getting some good Jeff Gone Goldburg vibes off this one.
  6. The ______ of Video Games

    Pack it up and go home guys. Looks like technology is taking our jobs again. (This comment is the Blade Runner of comments in this thread.)
  7. The ______ of Video Games

    GTA III is the The Bicycle Thief of video games.
  8. Turning public opinion in computer games

    Telltale Games presents House of Cards: The Game: Poker Night At The Inventory 3 Joking aside, while you're obviously aiming towards more large scale interactions, I think maybe the basis of what you're looking for could be found in a game like The Walking Dead, no? While I spent the first two episodes trying to appease everybody, by Ep. 3 I was on a mission to gain trust with at least a few people and convince them that if a time for action came, they should follow my lead. That being said, do you have an idea of how you'd like to explore political machinations through a game? Looking at what you've listed, are you satisfied with dialogue choices or do you feel there are other systems that could meaningfully add something to the theme's execution?
  9. It's not the years, Indie, it's the mileage

    I agree with some of your criticisms, but not all. First you talk about being tired of whimsy and earnestness. There's nothing wrong with having tastes, so I can only disagree with you on the level of 'well, that's just what I like.' That being said, I think there are still games that use whimsy with sincerity and do it wonderfully. I encourage you to check out RunMan and the recent Hugpunx by Merrit Kopas; I found both really endearing without being saccharine. I'm with you on the overuse of the early Nintendo aesthetic. It's kind of exhausting how many indie games I can describe as "a 2D [genre] with retro inspired pixel art and fake chiptune music." I think that's just a bigger problem of nostalgia worship though within the video gaming community that I wish would go away. On a side note, I actually think Proteus was awesome in how it took an even earlier graphical style and made something beautiful with it. I'm also quite interested to see how kids born in the mid-90's will adapt the ugly, early polygon stuff that everyone seems to agree is hideous and make something cool with it. Could you clarify on where you're getting all these ironic vibes from? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but I feel like I see more of the new sincerity that I Saw Dasein pointed out. For instance, the Team Meat guys seem to understand that all that old 90's console stuff was kind of dumb, but they still love and celebrate it. It's more "It's really funny how silly things were" as opposed to "It's really stupid how silly things were." Lastly, do you think it's logical of you to expect innovation from risk-aversion companies? While high-production games can have fantastic execution on ideas, they're often ideas that we've seen over and over. Titanfall looks really pretty. The Last of Us looks really pretty. I'm sure they'll both competently pull off their ambitions, but I think their ambitions aren't anything new. I would say look to indie games to explore new spaces, but that gets right back to the beginning of your complaints. Also, because I mentioned it and really love this video, here's the RunMan trailer. from http://vimeo.com/user1127605 on http://vimeo.com.
  10. PL4YST4TION 4

    Do you mean The Godfather: The Movie or EA's The Godfather: The Game: The Movie? Or The Godfather: The Book?
  11. Nextbox 1080: The Reckoning

    From what I remember, Sony already made a similar statement of 'it will be decided by the publishers.' Was watching a Giant Bomb video when the news hit, and they all seemed to agree that this was something being pushed by the publishers more than the console makers.
  12. The Last of Us

    Only review worth reading: http://www.p4rgaming.com/the-last-of-us-review-epic-never-disappointing-unrivaled/
  13. E3 2013 Idle Thumbs Steam Chat

    I think passive aggresiveness was last year's theme, right? What with Ayesha Tyler taking down her internet-duded co-host during Ubisoft's conference, and then Reggie getting testy with some guy during Nintendo's. I'm hoping for more of a train wreck at this year's E3 conferences, as it's the only thing that makes them worth watching.
  14. Save the Date

    Damn. Now that's some out of the box thinking. Good work.
  15. Quitter's Club: Don't be ashamed to quit the game.

    Uninstalled Two Worlds II and have no plans of ever going back to it. While I really enjoyed the magic creation system, the combat that let me use those neat spells had worn me down so much that I'm too exhausted to return. It's too bad, as I had finally gotten to a point where I had a powerful enough character to make really interesting card combinations. One of the last things I did was actually create a water walking spell and started walking to one of the islands that I wouldn't have been able to reach until later in the game. The island itself was walled off and I ended up just walking around the perimeter, but the experience of exploring a place I shouldn't have been was really thrilling. It had the unfortunate side effect of setting me up for a real disappointment when I tried to get back to what the game wanted me to do and I couldn't find any other ways to break the game with my Kool Magicks. The world was also really dull.
  16. Save the Date

    I really liked that the game was aware that a player was interacting with it as opposed to the game interacting with an avatar I control. Reminds me of how some of the insanity effects in Eternal Darkness were aimed at messing with the player instead of trying to vicariously scare the player through the heroine.
  17. DOTA Twoday. That is all.
  18. I forget which episode it was, but I distinctly remember the Thumbs talking about animation and I think it was Jake who brought up the idea of using old animation as the visual direction for a game. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) That conversation came to mind immediately when I saw the trailer for this game on the Indie Games site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1Gv-rSnZV6U The article describes it as as puzzle adventure game, and it looks fantastic. Also, +1 for the dude doing the voice over having an accent. Edit: Just realized I've never figured out how to post a video here, so I just left URL. Derp.
  19. Armikrog: Earthworm Neverhood 2?

    This was hinted at during the middle of this past March. Didn't realize it had gone this far already. And yeah, Doug TenNapel is kind of terrible. He actually wrote for Breitbart a bit where and you can still read his vapid observations.
  20. Super Metroid Appreciation Station

    Never got a Super Nintendo when it came out, even though I'm of the age where all my peers claim it's the defining console of their lives. I just started up Super Metroid a few days ago and I had to internet a few times already. First was the Morph Ball, as I didn't know how to activate it, second was the pink door. i had shot a missile at one earlier, but it didn't open up. Turns out I needed five missiles to open it. Wut? Maybe I'll just go back to Duck Tales, as I've never played that one either.
  21. Nextbox 1080: The Reckoning

    I think Chris summed up my exact feelings when they were discussing PS4 stuff and how as a PC player he doesn't feel he's missing out on anything. The only thing I want is the exclusives consoles have on my preferred platform. Speaking of which, I should probably pick up that Dragon's Doga at some point. Sigh.
  22. Two Worlds Too

    Lol. Pretty good.
  23. PL4YST4TION 4

    I'm a fan of a dude called Colin Marshall who is an excellent writer and podcaster who does 'Notebook On Cities And Culture,' and I'll credit him for pointing out the 'third place' concept to me. Essentially, it's a place that's not home or work but are "anchors of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction." Not sure if this what Sony was going for though, as third places require communal interaction.
  24. PL4YST4TION 4

    I actually want that really weird, Lynchian stuff again. Wasn't there one with a lady in a bikini on a toilet? I'm crossing my fingers as I head into a Youtube hole. Edit: I don't know how to embed, but here's some of that weird stuff that doesn't even have the console in it.