Idle Thumbs 21: The Hypersonic Effect

[Jake]

The Hypersonic Effect

Virtual worlds fall around you. Objectives appear before your eyes, cluttering your vision. Everything falls silent. As tears stream down your space visor you realize, too late, that it has you. Welcome to The Hypersonic Effect.

Games Discussed: League of Legends: Clash of Fates, Empire: Total War, The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity, Tabula Rasa, Mass Effect, TIE Fighter, FreeSpace 2, Independence War

[MonkeyWrench]

Not listened to it yet, but it's nice to see Independence War mentioned, one of my all time favourite games. Shame the dev team went down the pan after Powerdrome, would have loved to have seen a next-gen sequel.

[nonamermcgee]

Yay for Wednesdays!

[William_Dhalgren]

WTF is doe-da?

[DanJW]

WTF is doe-da?

Defense of the Ancients

[SignorSuperdouche]

Man I would love to see Lord of the Rings with Frodo as a super cop played by Jackie Chan. That would be sweet.

...

I still think it would be sweet

[OssK]

Freeverse made a rip off called Hordes of Orcs out of tower defense which was cool but not really worth the price (25$ ?!), especially if you already have war3 and FT cause they can do better.

But "LOL" seems to be more original, characters looks quite supah actually, hope it will be cool. Only problem there is it does look an awful lot like warcraft 3, almost to a copyright infringement point...

Anyway, one thing is for sure, Hordes of Orcs had once thing going for it, and I'll let Brad Cook speak for me here:

"As Hordes of Orcs proves, there’s a lot you can do with a portal..."

- Brad Cook, Apple.com

Although I am still wondering what he could have meant

Maybe the trailer could help you understand, maybe not.

http://www.freeverse.com/games/game/vplayer.php?id=7019

Now you can say you've seen it all.

[William_Dhalgren]

Defense of the Ancients

Thanks Dan! I realize I could have rewound and found out what the acronym pronounced as a word was, but it made me laugh hearing it repeated over and over, so I thought I'd repeat it yet again. Anyway, does everyone try to pronounce acronyms? Am I the only one left out of this phenomena?

[William_Dhalgren]

Also, the Mass Effect music sounds like Blade Runner.

[Jake]

Also, the Mass Effect music sounds like Blade Runner.

Man, nice A Boy and his Blob avatar. I never really got anywhere in that game, but just saw over on GAF that there is a really visually nice looking remake coming out for the Wii, which I want now, after checking out the screenshots in that thread.

[William_Dhalgren]

Man, nice A Boy and his Blob avatar. I never really got anywhere in that game, but just saw over on GAF that there is a really visually nice looking remake coming out for the Wii, which I want now, after checking out the screenshots in that thread.

I never really got anywhere in the game either, but I loved it for some reason as a kid. The atmosphere is really neat and the various kinds of jelly beans and their effects on the blob made me happy even if I wasn't sure what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

The new art style looks great!

[ZTac]

Man, that hypersonic effect stuff killed me.

Also, the return of The Wizard put a big smile on my face.

[Freezerr]

Incidentally, Rome: Total War has the option to enslave a city whenever you capture it. If you enslave the population, a pair of manacles appear on the map and act as a resource (IIRC). So, if you wanted to role-play as a racist Greek king, enslaving all the barbarians, R:TW doesn't stand in your way.

It always struck me as a part of history that doesn't need to be replicated in games. I'm quite glad that they excluded slavery from E:TW.

[blackboxme]

Man, lots of console hate in this episode.

Jake, you spoke pretty harshly toward Metal Gear's cut scenes, but I think it's wrong to say that Metal Gear Solid told its story in cut scenes. There are so many interesting things about Metal Gear Solid. There are really few games where you are so trapped, weak, and vulnerable; few games that are so tied to one specific, utterly depressing, time and location; few games that involve the player into the plot so effectively, because you are playing the game as key plot points unfold.

I mean, how many games make it so you can barely kill the weakest enemy, and then for good measure gives you a head cold if you stay outside too long, because its 20 degrees below zero, which sucks because it alerts the enemy to your location when you sneeze, unless you manage to find some nyquil in a the office section of the DOD contractors' test facility. Shit, that sounds Far Cry 2-esque!

For every example of something cool that happened during a cut scene, I'll give you three that happened during game play, and one more that was based on the sandbox-system based nature of the game.

As to God of War, I think you guys hate on that for odd reasons. You seem to think that people like it because it contains ultraviolent animations that you get by tapping a button. I think you are misreading the appeal of the game, which makes some sense, because it doesn't appeal to you.

I'm sure that you guys understand the idea of game designers giving players freedom to do things in the way that they would intuitively like to do them. God of War does that by making things that look like they should take physical effort, take a fair amount of physical effort on the part of the player. I broke the pressure sensitivity on my dualshock while playing God of War because I happened to be opening 3 ton stone doors in various tombs, and wrestling with 20 foot tall ogres.

In terms of the visuals, the violent animations aren't the interesting part: it's the experience of walking around in the world, framed by a nice pre-scripted camera. There is an idea in film that you should be able to understand, and be moved by the story, purely on visual terms, even if you completely remove the dialog. God of War does an effective job telling a story in that style, when kratos is running through a burning city, or a desert, or

up the steps of mount olympus.

People who are fans of the game got swept up in the story that was told by those images, not the x-y-z plot points that unfolded.

I mean, it's the Steven Spielberg style of "enhanced reality" story telling where it's cartoonish but it can be powerful, exactly because the images are so enhanced. Jaffe's favorite movie ever is Indiana Jones, and I think that's a good way of framing the appeal of God of War. Over the top, iconic, visually rich pop culture.

It makes sense that we'd have dudes making video games today who use Spielberg as their touchstone. I don't consider that to be troubling. I mean, if you try to ape God of War and you don't understand that it derives from Spielberg you end up with utter garbage that no one cares about. When you Ape QTEs without thinking about the idea of intention, you end up with garbage that people freakin' hate.

God of War succeeds at these trashy game forms for a good reason.

Edited March 5, 2009 by blackboxme

[sharkeh]

Great show as always. It was interesting listening to you talk about freespace 2 and how there aren't any real space games like that around anymore because I recently started following the progress of JumpGate Evolution, which looks like it could be really interesting especially considering it's an MMO.

[Chris]

Great show as always. It was interesting listening to you talk about freespace 2 and how there aren't any real space games like that around anymore because I recently started following the progress of JumpGate Evolution, which looks like it could be really interesting especially considering it's an MMO.

I am curious about Jumpgate, even though I am enormously suspicious of all MMOs. I've met the developers a number of times and they are extremely passionate about it and clearly trying to do something different. I'd like to try it out.

[miffy495]

You knew as soon as you said it that someone would do this, right? First time I've used photoshop in about 5 years, and even back then I was strictly amateur for my own amusement. I guess it shows. Embarrassingly, this took me quite a while. Oh well. Maybe I've found myself a new avatar!

[Wrestlevania]

Also, the return of The Wizard put a big smile on my face.

I was cackling like a madman whilst idling in queued traffic this morning when that came on - superb!

And I-War! What a wonderful blast from the past that was! I never played it first hand (my PC wasn't powerful enough at the time), but a good friend of mine just raved about it and I used to watch him play sometimes. Great opening sequence to the game too as I recall; really cinematic, but not in the stupid "I'm Commander Dickwad and this is the SS Fucktard!" sort of way. The nearest modern-day celluloid comparison I can think of is something like Firefly; you were doing a job that was bit shitty, not great on prospects, but everyone on board had their own reasonable character and they were professional enough to get things done.

I enjoyed this episode so much I was compelled to email you. And now it's right here in black and white SO YOU MUST READ IT!!! Except you don't have to, cuz that's not why I'm writing that I've written.

I just want to illustrate that this episode fired me up enough to do something physically, rather than masticate on some half-baked idea in my head. It means you get a half-baked email instead, lulz.

[James]

I heartily endorse the return of The Wizard. I fucking love that guy.

[elmuerte]

"Total War: Cold War" would be very interesting, assuming it's not a normal total war game.

[DanJW]

Some interesting stuff in this episode.

I'm with you about getting bored with saving the world - I am at the point where I crave something more... parochial. I don't mind being a badass with special powers if my aims can be to save the village rather than the universe, or to save the girl without having to rescue her from the dark-lord-who-is-the greatest-threat-to-humanity along the way. Or even just having an enemy who is my enemy and not the enemy of all-life-as-we-know-it. Of course a more down-to-earth protagonist would be nice as well.

Also a really nice point about the experimental age of game story, before hollywood became the model. Those 90's PC games seemed more like novellas than film in their writing, but they were more unique even than that. I think the closest thing around today is A.R.G.s - information disseminated around the environment, that must be collated and synthesized by the human brain to make a meaningful narrative; and the synthesizing process itself adds weight and meaning.

Oh and with unfortunate historical associations in Total War; I had a similar thought about the Opium Trade Wars. Not the British Empire's finest moment, but an actual war that would need to be represented in a historically acurate game, and thus would invite some explanation as to its causes. Anyone know if it is in Empire:TW?

Jake, you spoke pretty harshly toward Metal Gear's cut scenes, but I think it's wrong to say that Metal Gear Solid told its story in cut scenes.

...

For every example of something cool that happened during a cut scene, I'll give you three that happened during game play, and one more that was based on the sandbox-system based nature of the game.

As to God of War, I think you guys hate on that for odd reasons. You seem to think that people like it because it contains ultraviolent animations that you get by tapping a button. I think you are misreading the appeal of the game, which makes some sense, because it doesn't appeal to you..

Hi Blackboxme! I agree with you totally about Metal Gear Solid - people focus on the cutscenes but it does an amazing job of telling story through the pure gameplay areas too - more than most other games.

God of War is a really great, fun series. But I can see what the guys are talking about with Quick-time-events. At their best game controls become second nature, so that you are not even aware of your hands as you play - the avatar becomes an extension of your body.

QTEs negate this by flashing up the button you must press, reminding you of its existence. They also lack consistency - the button for jump might change each time you play the same QTE (although this isn't quite as bad in some gameplay styles). But how much better would it be if the cues on which button to press were part of the game world? What if you knew to press circle when the minotaur turned a certain way, made a certain sound, rather than when the big flashing circle graphic flashed? Then you would be responding to the same stimulus as your avatar, rather than being in some metaplane watching over them. Or what if the system was more like a fighter game, where circle always did the same thing but could be chained with other buttons to get a pre-planned effect?

It's what game design sometimes calls 'intent'. QTEs have no player intent because you have no idea what you want to do or what you are about to do - you just allow the guy on screen to do it. Certain verbs need to be constant for true interaction

[miffy495]

Or what if the system was more like a fighter game, where circle always did the same thing but could be chained with other buttons to get a pre-planned effect?

Actually, this sounds quite a bit like the combat in the latest Prince of Persia. As disappointing as the combat of that game was, it did use a system similar to this. The problem was that you'd find a very effective combo and just spam it until the enemy died. Still, it was an interesting start.

[elmuerte]

In PoP I pretty much always used the same combo during fights, with the exception of that big invincible guy.

[DanJW]

Yeah I'm aware that games exist with that system (even God of War uses a simple version outside of its QTEs) and they are rarely implemented as well as one would hope. But as a goal I think it is more laudable than resorting to 'Simon Says'.

Edited March 6, 2009 by DanJW

[Scrobbs]

Tabula Rasa server populations

http://eu.playtr.com/en/news/server_status