Chris

The Idle Thumbs Podcast Episode 11: Diplomatic Pouch

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Irrational. The timing made sense, and as far as I can tell they're the only company with only one game that's on that list.

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Yeah, Irrational seems by far the most likely candidate. It's the first one that immediately came to mind when I heard, and now seems even more likely the more I think about it.

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Man, you got a bunch of random strangers invested into solving a weird puzzle, the reward of which is knowing the identity of your future employer. :eek: That is a pretty impressive power you wield there, Remo.

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A new SWAT game would be fully sweet!

I always thought SWAT 4 was a revolutionary FPS game and hoped that developers would start to use features that game had, unfortunately no one else really cared about that game. If they're not making a new SWAT game, I hope they at least utilize the AI from SWAT 4 in some way.

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I always thought SWAT 4 was a revolutionary FPS game and hoped that developers would start to use features that game had, unfortunately no one else really cared about that game. If they're not making a new SWAT game, I hope they at least utilize the AI from SWAT 4 in some way.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/lets-play/swat-4/page/2/

I played like 5 minutes of SWAT4. Seemed alright.

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Obviously, Remo is going to be taking up the newly created post of game-advisor for the Obama administration.

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Speaking of SWAT 4, just having played it recently, it has a pretty cool "dialogue" button use when attempting/forcing criminals to surrender.

Listening to you guys on this week's podcast talk about dialogue branches and other verbal interaction in games, this one sprang to mind.

It's pretty rudimentry of course, but if someone would expand upon this idea, maybe instead of one voice button have mulitple, it could allow for some negotiation type situation or just a new dialogue system akin to that of alpha protocol.

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Speaking of SWAT 4, just having played it recently, it has a pretty cool "dialogue" button use when attempting/forcing criminals to surrender.

Listening to you guys on this week's podcast talk about dialogue branches and other verbal interaction in games, this one sprang to mind.

It's pretty rudimentary of course, but if someone would expand upon this idea, maybe instead of one voice button have multiple, it could allow for some negotiation type situation or just a new dialogue system akin to that of alpha protocol.

Well SWAT 4 already had that complex menu for ordering your troops, that was also contextual. The options changed based on where the cross-hair is pointing. I can imagine changing that to control dialogue wouldn't be that hard. Figuring out how it would effect suspects and innocents would be more involved I suppose. The SWAT 2 strategy game had a fair bit of negotiation involved while you were setting up your teams to save the day. It also had a battering ram, helicopter and rappel options.

Anyway I'm glad to see so many people like SWAT 4. It is a lot of fun in co-op multi-player, but I was never able to get more than one person I know in game at a time. The game is hard enough that we couldn't do much past the 3rd mission or so. I think that a sequel would benefit from a L4D-like strong focus on co-op, because the things you can pull off when you coordinate a room clear with real people are amazing.

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SWAT 4 fucking rules. We've played it at the office a bunch of times. Tagging a guy with a beanbag shotgun then screaming in his face to make him surrender is super satisfying compared to just plugging him with an MP5. The game is fairly janky (the AI is generally busto) but I would LOVE just a very polished, playable, modern version of SWAT 4. Such an underappreciated game.

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I loved SWAT 4. I doubt that we'll see a sequel from Irrational, though, unless 2K bought the rights to the SWAT IP from Activision, who bought out Sierra.

I would love to see them develop a co-op-centric game with some of the same mechanics, though, a la the aborted Division 9.

edit: also, I should mention that the hospital map in SWAT 4 accounts for one of my most intense single player gaming experiences ever. After failing the mission multiple times, I finally had all of the hostages secured, but my entire team was incapped and there was one terrorist left somewhere in the darkened hallways of the lower levels. I was injured and limping, and completely out of ammo. My only weapon was my taser. I must've spent a good 30-40 minutes creeping through the hallways, checking every corner, expecting at any moment to get blind-sided by SMG fire or a shotgun blast. When I finally found the last terrorist crouched in the dark behind a stack of medical supplies, I nearly had a heart attack. I tasered that motherfucker in the face and cuffed him before he could get a shot off. :gaming:

Edited by Podunk

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Man, you got a bunch of random strangers invested into solving a weird puzzle, the reward of which is knowing the identity of your future employer. :eek: That is a pretty impressive power you wield there, Remo.
I'm interested because Ken Levine, Shawn Elliott and Chris Remo all working on the same game would blow my mind.

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I'm interested because Ken Levine, Shawn Elliott and Chris Remo all working on the same game would blow my mind.

No doubt. I implicitly include myself in the "random strangers".

Still, unnerving thing that.

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Nah, things are definitely better than the old Rogerian traps of Eliza.

To inverse what we're talking about, look at the natural language programming options for Inform (the premiere text adventure programming langauge) It's insane.

Oh, Idle Thumb guy that works at telltale, I heard you guys employ Baf from Baf's guide to interactive fiction! Rock on!

Yeah that would be Carl, and he's awesome. If you happen to see Telltale playing TF2 at lunch, odds are he will set you on fire.

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chrisremo

Finishing up my last day at Gamasutra after a great 2.5 years. Looking forward to starting at Irrational Games later this month.

Congratulations, Chris. I couldn't really think of a better place to see you go. Good luck! :violin:

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Agree. ........just realized that now Moonshock is actually posible.

Also, Irational aperantly has it's own podcast, which will probably get some more unexpected folowers.

Do you think they could fire a man for being a reason that their podcast mailbag sudenly got a bunch of wizard related quotes?(don't do it kids, wizard is acctualy old now)

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Agree. ........just realized that now Moonshock is actually posible.

Also, Irational aperantly has it's own podcast, which will probably get some more unexpected folowers.

Do you think they could fire a man for being a reason that their podcast mailbag sudenly got a bunch of wizard related quotes?(don't do it kids, wizard is acctualy old now)

Wizard was always old. He's a wise wizard, duh. Of course he's old.

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Wizard was always old. He's a wise wizard, duh. Of course he's old.

Next you'll be telling me he has a beard!

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Next you'll be telling me he has a beard!

Uhh...

Would it help if I first said he has a hat?

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Agree. ........just realized that now Moonshock is actually posible.

Also, Irational aperantly has it's own podcast, which will probably get some more unexpected folowers.

Do you think they could fire a man for being a reason that their podcast mailbag sudenly got a bunch of wizard related quotes?(don't do it kids, wizard is acctualy old now)

Irrational Behavior is really really good. One of the best (possibly the best) game development studio podcasts around. Irrational Interviews, a newer thing where Shawn Elliot/Ken Levine (at least that's all it was for the first one) interview dudes from other developers, is also really good.

...

Congratulations, Mr. Chris Remo. I am hilariously excited that two of my favorite games press members, both of whom always sounded, at least, like they knew their shit, are now working at the same company as one of my favorite game designers.

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Meant to pop in here earlier.

Congratulations, Chris. As much we'll all miss you guys casting pods in our face, you deserve it. I may have missed it: have you announced what you'll be doing?

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