And thus Spoke Pi.

Blogs of the Round Table: Being Other OR Identity Crisis

2012-01-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Games, like most media, have the ability to let us explore what it’s like to be someone other than ourselves. While this experience may only encompass a character’s external circumstances–exploring alien worlds, serving with a military elite, casting spells and swinging broadswords–it’s most powerful when it allow us to identify with a character who is fundamentally different than ourselves–a different gender, sexuality, race, class, or religion. This official re-launch of the Blogs of the Round Table asks you to talk about a game experience that allowed you to experience being other than you are and how that impacted you–for better or for worse. Conversely, discuss why games haven’t provided this experience for you and why.

Whenever questions like this come up, I always think of two things.

First, I think of a girl I knew in high school, Angelica Hernandez. Smart girl, pretty, and an incredibly hard worker. We were both on the robotics team (Falcon Robotics Team 842, look it up) and the robotics team was hella in involved with the AZ immigration protests. And any talk of immigration in AZ inevitably turns to the hilarious amount of casual racism that permeate's this state.

So she tells me a story. She's talking around in a department store, shopping as teenage girls are wont to do; pick something up, carry it around, compare it, put it aside, etc etc. And after a while she realizes the security is following her around.

This blew my fucking mind. Angelica is the fucking model citizen. She's nice, she's smart, she's a hard worker, she's the FUCKING VALEDICTORIAN AND PRESIDENT OF AN INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED ROBOTICS CLUB. And she was followed around while shopping in a department store, a normal, American, and mildly boring thing.

Can you imagine that? Born and raised American, and being followed around while you did normal American shit*?

Second thought: Ya ever read Brave New World? Wonderful, naive, condescending, and visionary, all at once. One of the key 'things' about the book is the 'feelies' a rather wonderful opiate of the masses. While the exact mechanism of their operation is never quite explained** the effect of a feelie is allowing whomever views it to feel whatever the subject of the feelie is feeling. So, if a Savage was, say, lashing himself to avoid temptation, and someone was recording that for a feelie, the viewers of that feelie would feel the emotional and physical sensations of the Savage in question.

And hey, here comes the point!

When people bring up race and sex and gender in the context of videogames, and specifically the context of identification, I inevitably come back to Angelica's story, and specifically my reaction: "who would want to live like that?"

And now here's the point!

Anyone who would want to experience that type of shit is, in my eyes, sick. I understand living with it. I understand wanting to understand some small portion of it. I understand the desire to be empathetic to your fellow man. But to have the absurd conceit that you 'know what it's like', to take a whole promising artistic medium and to pigeon-hole it back into these old absurdities, to not let it breathe an explore it's own potential...god, how bizarre.

*unless you lived it, no you can't
**making it better than all modern sci-fi HIIIYOOOO!!!

HAHAHAHAHAAAA

2011-09-15T03:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget why people hate programming.

Then I spend an hour fixing an xcode linker error that boils down to "XCODE DOESN'T LIKE C++ CODE THAT CALLS C CODE!" And of course, it doesn't listen to what I tell it to compile the code as, it listens to the file extension.

I spent an hour to figure out that I had to change main.cpp to main.c.

PROGRAMMING.

But WHY is LoL down?

2011-09-14T02:15:00.002-07:00

Maaaaaan, how am I gonna farm LEAGUE GAME POINTS if the server is down? It's rather rude Riot games! Rather rude indeed.

Making a iOS game!

2011-09-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

Getting in on dat APP STORE MONEY SON!!!

Inspired by Forget-Me-Not! http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/ios-game-review-forget-me-not/

but hopefully better, as I'm not that fond of that game honestly!

Using the Sparrow framework to do it!

Yeah!

GODLIKE!

A quick though on twitch.tv commercials...

2011-09-07T18:35:00.001-07:00

THE GAMES YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

STARFOX 64 3D! (port)
OCARINA OF TIME 3D! (port)
MARIOKART 7! (sequel)

Fucking videogames.

Ya know I never really thought much of 'scripting' languages...

2011-08-31T21:37:00.001-07:00

until I came across Applescript. yeah, I got that they gave large amounts of power to the user (shoutouts to bash!) and yeah, lightweight, and yeah instant execution and all that. I just didn't think much until I had one in my hand that could actually do AWESOME SHIT. Like, now I have this application called Quicksilver, and I'm using it not only to open and close apps proper, but to run my applescripts, which open up random chrome tabs, reposition my windows how I like, open unread shit from my feeds, fuck even make new notes in evernote automatically! Godlike!

Shame so little Mac shit supports applescript :( I can really see how this crap could be used not only by programmers, but even people who don't know how to program, but want to do shit FASTER on their computers, or even learn a little bit about how they work

Xcode development, and brief thoughts on targets.

2011-08-29T18:37:00.000-07:00

So I've been migrating all my stuff onto my Mac as much as possible, and that means starting to develop code on this thang to*. And that in turn means I should probably learn Xcode, especially since I plan on some iPhone development (everyone wants it these days!). So that means learning a whole new IDE, whole new way of thinking.

Which brings me, tangentially to targets.

See, on other platforms we got stuff like makefiles, that tells the compiler how to make your program. But the thing is, all the various settings for how to build your code can't really be contained in the makefile and the like. So shit started getting mad spread out, to the point where you need a degree in Comp Sci just to BUILD some codebases out there.

Targets are Apple's attempt to simplify it all. You 'target' certian hardward/os/libraries. And it's more powerful than just that! You can make targets that take you iPhone app and make it into a demo version. Really powerful stuff.

Which brings in new problems. See, because they're powerful, it feels like you should be able to export targets, especially since they don't seem (at first!) tied to a paticular project. The idea of useing one makefile for several different projects. But using the same target across multiple projects? Makes a kinda sense, at first. And even now.

The more you give, the more they want.

*Shoutouts to macports! GODLIKE dev tool.

Debt Ceiling.

2011-07-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

This is the consequence of electing sociopaths.

And, as always, those least deserving shall suffer the most.

This Phoenix post...

2011-07-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Just isn't coming together clean.

There's just so much to talk about! Need to limit myself!

And I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD IF FUCKING ROCKET RA-FUCKING-COON IS IN FUCKING UMVC3 AND FUCKING GENE ISN'T I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU CAPCOM FUCKING CANCEL MML3 AND NOW YOU DO ME LIKE THIS TO YOU FUCKING FUCKERS FUCK YOU.

Started a class today!

2011-07-05T20:02:00.001-07:00

Woo! Summer courses! Online!

That apparently need books!

Woo!

Another Ignite video

2011-07-04T19:59:00.001-07:00

Of a more recent vintage....

Working on a big MvC3 piece

2011-06-27T18:59:00.001-07:00

regarding phoenix.

stay tuned.

stay salty.

I am digging the El Fuerte changes in AE.

2011-06-15T17:02:00.001-07:00

I'm actually enjoying AE more than I thought I would. Yo cr.MK and cr.LP!

Mac version of that game

2011-06-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.mediafire.com/?oui63yycvk5kdkk

dog follows you, get him out of the way of the spiral

Random thoughts.

2011-06-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

The hardest part about Rex's death is the mornings. He used to come in and hop up on my bed, and follow me around the house. And now he doesn't. I kinda want to get a new dog that's just as affectionate, but I might be moving out of the house soon, so maybe not.

inFamous is a pretty solid little game. It falls into that category of a Good Game, but not $60 good. The good/evil dichotomy works in it, because it straight up admits that the whole ordeal is a comic book good v comic book evil. Compare this to games like Mass Effect, which really 'try' to make the moral choices seem real.

That said, the city needs more connectivity between buildings. Some areas are super great to get around, and then you hit a cable/ building dry spot. And that sucks.

Reflections on sympathy in games.

2011-06-09T02:26:00.000-07:00

One thing that has always fascinated me in videogames is how developers can make players feel sympathy for in-game characters. Most of the time, they build this bond by giving the character significant in-game utility as a partner; think the dog in Fable. But this is insufficient, as it only really gives the player a mercenary use for the character. The connection is meaningful in the system, but not beyond. To which developers respond by giving the character character. And we all know how that goes...(usually)

Just had to put my dog down

2011-06-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

I loved you lots Rex.

Is it sick that I'm already trying to think of ways to build this sadness into a game?

Thinking about patching...

2011-06-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

So I've been getting into competitive fighting games recently, and the two that I'm going in on atm are Marvel 3 and MK9. There are metric fucktons of interesting contrasts one can draw regarding these two games, but one I would like to talk about right now is how the two developers approach patching these games.

Patching is really a new concept to fighting games. 'Traditionally' the released game in the arcades was what you got. Even console ports were evaluated based on how closely they hued to the arcade version. The only patches weren't seen as patches, but rather as completely new games (SEE: the million incarnations of the SF2 series). But as the arcade died out, and the internet rose up, we now have the capability of keeping the game the 'same' whilst still patching it. Which raises the question...what is the 'real' game? We're keeping things the 'same', yet changing it.

So that's one issue. Another is when and why you patch. MK9 has been heavy on the patches with at least 3 as of this writing. And these patches aren't solely limited to glitches*, but major stuff like safe vs. unsafe strings, damage reductions, and juggle properties.

Contrast this with Marvel 3, which has had patches only to remove infinites**, and one or two game-breaking glitches, though only the Zero Snapback Glitch comes to mind.

And all this in turn ties in to the company business models. It is widely agreed that Capcom is going to release not only DLC characters, but a complete 'Super' version of Marvel 3. One would assume that all major 'balance' changes would be regulated to this version. Netherealm Studios appears to only be planning for DLC costumes and characters, not a whole new version of the game.

And we still haven't talked about the why's of patching! More on that later methinks.

*Which in fighting games is another can of worms. Remember that cancels, the basis of all combo's, were originally a glitch.
**Which were a major basis of high level Marvel 2 play

Tried to get on PSN again.

2011-06-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

There's some kind of problem with my account, where I can't access the store...so no Anime Moe Fighting Game for me. :(

But I was able to download inFamous as a free game, so I just have no idea what's going on.

As for inFamous...I'll give it a better go when I'm less tired, but it really seemed like a Crackdown w/ better combat and waaaaay worse movement.

Gonna be updating this more.

2011-06-02T07:52:00.002-07:00

At least one post (even if it's only something like this) a day.

Gonna go in on MvC3.

Gonna work on programming some underwater autonomous robots.

Gonna write a review of Bangia-O HD. Such a great fucking game.

Possible review of Neo-Witches?

SPAIN AS PART OF THE CHINESE CALIPHATE

2011-02-01T15:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DRsf2LoLk3SA&start1=28&video2=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DPH7GPPpsw6g&start2=513&authorName=Not+Sure

Random Thoughts

2010-11-17T02:27:00.002-07:00

Braid is a game everyone beats on their first try.

Making a game about stable time loops? Been done.
Called Guitar Hero.

My iPod Touch's surface is cracked.

2010-11-17T02:20:00.001-07:00

It actually looks really good. Still works, and everything! Solid state drives, woo.

The headphones didn't survive though.

Meh, I'll get them fixed when I head down to Hayden.

The best and worst part about reading my own archives

2010-11-10T22:50:00.001-07:00

1) Holy shit, how could I forget about Kenta Cho?

2) Fuck, his games are windows only.

Getting Vanquish!

2010-11-10T17:40:00.002-07:00

Woo!

And gonna try to get in some more Reach, cause SSF4 is starting to wear out it's welcome, and Reach is hot shit man.

Citizen Kane

2010-11-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

Adam Burch
FMS 200, TuThur 3-4:15.

Citizen Kane is widely hailed as one of the greatest films ever made (1). Entire books can, and have, been written about the film from a cornucopia of perspectives (2). We have the cultural perspective, where Citizen Kane is an ambassador for Film as Art, and one of the first movies to really penetrate the national consciousness as a “Serious Film”. There is the stylistic perspective, where each scene in the film is taken apart, frame-by-frame, and it is shown that Orson Welles created the definitive library of Classic Hollywood Techniques. We have the historical perspective, where we see its relation to a certain William Randolph Hearst, whom the film takes a lot of inspiration from, and not all of it is flattering (3). Each perspective tells us but one facet of the multi-dimensional gem that is Citizen Kane. To this day, you can still hear academics, critics, directors, and film buffs of all stripes sing the glories of Citizen Kane from the loftiest of ivory towers, to the obscurest of Internet blogs.

This paper is not about Citizen Kane.

This paper is about me, Adam Burch. To be more specific, it is about the Adam Burch that started watching Citizen Kane; about the Adam Burch that finished watching Citizen Kane, and the difference between the two.

But the reason ANY Adam Burch watched Citizen Kane was because of Roger Ebert’s Online Journal. I had heard its praises sung in many a corner of the Internet, and after finally reading a somewhat older post (One of the early entries on Darwin and Evolution, if memory serves (And it doesn’t)) I was instantly hooked. I found myself scouring the archives, reading every entry of Roger Ebert’s, some several times over. When I finally had absorbed them all, I turned to his massive, massive backlog of movie reviews. That proved slightly more challenging, and I quickly decided instead I would just watch this Citizen Kane the old coot kept harping about.

Now to be sure, I had heard of Citizen Kane before. The odd Simpsons reference here, the occasional New York Times name drop there. But that’s all. I knew nothing of any of those perspectives I just filled a paragraph about. I only knew that if I wanted to really be able to call myself a film buff, I had to see it.

To be honest, I was more than a little apprehensive. Honestly, how good could it really be? It was so old, and in black and white, and where was I gonna find it, and wasn’t it supposed to be long, I don’t like long movies, and etcetera, and etcetera. I kept on inventing excuse after excuse, anything at all to put it off. Part of this was certainly the determined laziness of a college freshman. But another part was the determined denial of a college freshman. What if I didn’t like it? How could I ever return to the Internet, knowing that I was so uncultured as to NOT enjoy Citizen Kane? Could I ever look myself in mirror, knowing that I agreed…with Family Guy?

One day, whether in a fit of madness or boredom (memory still fails to serve), I finally took the plunge. And for three of the most terrifying minutes of my life, my fears were real.

It was just so heavy handed! The slow shot up the fence, with fad cuts for each type of fence. The desolate, misty, and abandoned palace, with Tigers, and Monkeys, and Gold Course, and Obviously Painted Background, and Fancy Arches. Such splendor, now sunk so low. Oh woe!

And dear lord, the shot of Kane’s last breath. The snow filter (GET IT? SNOWGLOBE, SNOW FILTER??? ART.), the shot of his mouth, wide angle lens, the covering of his body.

A different Adam would have quit right then and there. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve shut down videogames for poor tutorials, and turned off TVs for bad theme songs. There is precedent.

But for some reason, whether it be the shame I would feel at saying I couldn’t get through Citizen Kane, or the belief in the recommendation of Mr. Ebert, I persevered.

And then came the newsreel. To this day, I don’t know if it was luck, or if I had been thinking about it subconsciously the whole time, but all of the sudden, these gears started turning in my head, and a small, harsh, searing light burned my mind’s eye.

There was a time BEFORE the Internet.

There was a time, in this world, before Google. Before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before .com. Before http. Before email. There was a time where this was how people learned about the world outside their town. And if you didn’t watch the newsreel, or missed the paper (which hopefully didn’t limit itself to local news only!) you were shit out of luck if you wanted to know what was happening in the world. I had to pause my pirated, from the Internet, copy of the film, to stand up, walk around my room, and let that fact sink in. And when I felt I was ready, I continued the film.

And I watched as it painted the brilliant picture of a time, not better, not worse, but different. A time where moving meant cutting off ALL communication with where you were. A time where one man could even THINK he controlled all the news. A time when, for some no-longer-baffling-reason, a newspaper could actually make MONEY.

But just as clearly as I saw the differences between my own time and the era this film was portraying, just as clearly could I see the parallels. I saw the corrupting power of money. I saw friendship and betrayal, paranoia and delusion. For the first time I could see laid out in plain sight, something I had long known, but could never express; that no man can ever be summed up in something so simple as a word. We all have layers, upon facets, within folds, and no one can ever truly know us, not even ourselves. I saw what it meant to be human.

For the first time in my life, after the credits rolled, I didn’t start gushing about the ‘sweet FX!’ or repeating the funniest lines. I thought about what I had seen, and what it was trying to say. I started to research the film. I read the Wikipedia article on it, I read Ebert’s review, I read pages upon pages of analysis, from the loftiest of scholarly journals, to the obscurest of blog posts. For the first time in my life, I became, in a very small sense, a critical viewer.

And I have never turned back.

(1) McCarthy, Todd, Citizen Kane (10/14/2001), Variety Vol. 384, Issue 8, Page 61.
(2) Piade, Lynne, Citizen Kane (1991), Smithmark, New York N.Y., 0831745738
(3) Street, Sarah, Citizen Kane (03/01/1996), History Today Vol. 46, Issue 3, Page 48.

Updates

2010-09-13T12:38:00.001-07:00

This longboard was a great purchase.

Rolled up a character named Gene Hibiki (pretty self-explanatory) for Mutants and Masterminds....only to find out that we're playing Traveller this friday instead. Fucknuts.

Gonna hafta finish up that Pokemon review for my school newspaper.

Cross-posted on SB.

Would you look at that...

2010-06-29T11:32:00.002-07:00

Hey that's me!

Roger Ebert's Childish Survey

2010-06-23T19:18:00.001-07:00

Is there more than one question? Didn't even bother.

Should I?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7VJD7JW

My first SSF4 Tournament....

2010-06-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

So I went to Devastation today; a major fighting game tournament here in Phoenix. The event was cool, with lots of people, lots of games, and even someone who recognized me from Ignite!

Unfortunately for me, when they called my name I was off in La-La land, and so I got DQ-ed for not showing up to my match. :( No one's fault but my own; just something to keep in mind for next year.

So I got around to playing Red Dead Redemption

2010-06-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

Good God, this game is so relentlessly disappointing.

Just let me assault the fort you fucks.

"NO YOU MUST GET THE GATLING GUN"

I don't need no Gatling gun, I got a Springfield rifle. I pop up on the walls, take the dudes down, and that'll be that.

"NO WE WANT YOU TO HAVE THIS TOTALLY SWEET TURRET SECTION"

Those fucking sections suck so much.

"NO THEY ARE AWESOME"

And what about these fucking strangers man. They're all so stupid.

"THEY ARE OPTIONAL"

That hardly makes it better. Shit, that doesn't make it better at all. The optional shit should be the best shit, the shit so awesome the main game can't handle it (SEE: Godhand).

And another thing, why the fuck am I always meeting people on the roads? I thought this was the wild fucking west, not Liberty City. They're dudes everywhere.

And good god, this retarded wanted system-

"IT'S BETTER THAN GTA'S STARS, IT'S MORE REALISTIC"

Oh fuck you Voice of the Developers. It's barely more realistic, and infinitely more lame. At least the stars gave rise to real gameplay. Here it's just...ugh.

God damn, I don't even hate this game enough to give it a real fucking send off.

Need to gather my thoughts...more coming.

Ignite Phoenix went great!

2010-06-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

It was a great night, met some great people, and gave an (apparently) great speech! Woohoo!

Youtube to be provided.

God, I don't want to make another post...

2010-05-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

The last one put me at 69, and that's just such a great number to go out on.

But alas, sacrifices must be made.

I will speak at Ignite Phoenix June 11th.

Just a heads up for the last guy reading this blog.

TWEWY: The Second Post

2010-03-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

Or is it the third? I forget.

Anyway, I'm back on the wagon. Farming dark matter, leveling my relationships with the shopkeepers, etc.

Part of it is I want to 100% this game. but why? I'm not sure. The sense of realization that I can smash all those used-to-be-hard bosses was nice, but it's gone now. There's just the motions.

I guess there's still discovering all the different pin combinations...but I've already hit the endgame Pegaso build, and that just fucking steamrolls everything. Kinda want all the special Gatito pins, and yeah, I'm leveling them...but still. Can't help but get the feeling I'm just enjoying numbers going up...maybe I just want to say I've 100%ed some game. I mean, I'm a gamer, ain't I?

Maybe I just want an excuse to talk about it. TWEWY does a lot of cool shit. It's the only DS game I've played that's ONLY possible on the DS. You couldn't do it on a console! Or on any other handheld! Doesn't that deserve something?

Maybe I should read a book instead. I mean, I only play it because I'm on the light rail for 2 hours a day...but what?

Classics? I know where to get those, but only on the internet...which I don't have access to on the light rail. Could stand to finish that game engine book I got christmas, and even re-read it. I should drop by the ASU library, see what I could pick up there regarding game engine crap. Oh hey, even those classics and whatnot.

Hm.

On the whole I guess I learned the appeal of numbers going up.

Damn I'm tired.

Playing TWEWY

2010-03-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

Gonna make a big post on it friday.

Help this man!

2010-03-18T03:59:00.002-07:00

formspring.me

2010-02-22T02:24:00.001-07:00

what does marsellus wallace look like?

Like your left ear.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-02-22T02:23:00.003-07:00

Why isn't it in your mouth?

It's so big! I'm not sure it'll fit.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-02-22T02:23:00.001-07:00

If you were given a ship, what would you name it?

The Poseidon Hand

Ask me anything

Check it out!

2010-01-21T20:47:00.001-07:00

Article in my college's newspaper...and I wrote it!

http://www.statepress.com/node/10036

JUST BEAT MR. GOLD AND MR. SILVER

2009-12-12T21:30:00.001-07:00

ON HARD.

FUCK YEAH.

GODHAND!

>:D

Round Table, September of 2009: The Sight and the Fury

2009-09-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Isn’t That Spatial? Every video game has certain benefits and constraints in the way it represents space. Interaction fiction, arcade titles, 2D side-scrollers, isometric RPGs, and first person shooters all have advantages and disadvantages to how they deal with space–some technical in nature, some design-based. This month’s topic invites you to explore the ways games have represented the spatial nature of their storyworlds and what this does for the audience experience. Is it possible to ignore the constancy of spatial relationships in a graphical game? What would such a game look like? Are there ways of representing spatial relationships that we haven’t explored? Do you have ideas for games that could intentionally twist the player’s perception of space, or do you want to write about a game that already has?

Ah, the round table starts again! As good an excuse as any to start posting again, I suppose.

One thing that always fascinated far more the actual space of a game was how that space was presented. The simple fact is since most videogames are very strongly related to each other* there is already a very informal understanding of how different mechanics interact with the space that they are placed in. Indeed, there are several games now that could not exist without the developers having a solid understanding of the spatial relations of their systems**. While this is a fascinating topic, I would like to talk about something that is often lost amid all the talk of level design; camera design.

To most, the camera is a throw-away detail, another bulletpoint on the back of the box to further refine it's genre and clarify just what it's competing against in the market. This attitude is, to be blunt, fucking incompetent. That's a like a fucking movie buff coming out and saying, 'Movies aren't about camera's, they're about STORY'. fucker would look like a damn idiot. How we presented with something is just as, if not MORE, important than what that thing actually is***. To wit; God of War, as a system, is pathetic. The combat is shallow at best, and relies on QTE's to achieve even a semblance of the visceral quality of, say, DMC3. Yet, it is an inarguably brilliant game. It flows brilliantly, knows when to accelerate, when to de-accelerate, when to stop, to turn, and even to go in circles. This is caused by many factors****, but the one that EVERYONE ignores is how God of War presents itself. I'm not talking about the context; the gods, the myths, the monsters and whatnot. No, I mean the way that GoW allows you to see it. Let me put it like this;

God of War is the ONLY game that has a good camera.

What does this mean? It means that God of War knows HOW TO PRESENT ITSELF. It makes sure that you only capture it's 'Good Side'. God of War is a self aware game, not in the post-modern Lost Levels/MGS sense, but in the craftsmanship sense. Here is a game that is aware that people OTHER than the level designers will be looking at it, It takes pains to remove the camera control from you, not to put it in fucking worthless positions in the name of 'horror', or 'tension', but in the name of letting you have on less thing to worry about. To be clear, one can make a game that is all about wrestling with what it is possible to seen on-screen. This game has been made, and it is called Space Giraffe. However, every other game is NOT about wrestling with the camera/colors on-screen. God of War realized this, and thusly had the balls to move past the Miyamoto kludge of player-controlled camera.

Imagine that. A game that improves on a Miyamoto construct.

There's another post there...somewhere.

Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

*The much derided 'Lack of Innovation'
**Imagine Gears without cover.
***The Moral of Advertising. Use it. Know it. Hate it.
****A respect for the player, an understanding of the shallow-ness of their combat, a legitimately interesting story and characters, COLORS, etc.

Three things...

2009-09-09T21:50:00.001-07:00

In the Imagine Cup again.

Making a game about taxes.

I think I like Giga Wing better than DoDonPachi and Mars Matrix.

Wrote an ABDN review...

2009-08-21T00:48:00.000-07:00

On Space Giraffe! YEAH!

Here it is!

Blue Skies in Videogames

2009-08-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

I really like blue skies in videogames. They are a path, not a destination.

All our dreams are over now...

2009-06-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Both summer goals are gone. God Hand hard is to much. So is KH2.

Need a 360 joystick.

SF4 is a great videogame, but a cowardly design. This is the follow up to SF3? Pathetic.

Mark of the Wolves is also great.

DoDonPachi is also great.

Mars Matrix is brilliant.

God Hand, alas poor God Hand...

2009-06-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

We knew thee far to well. Indeed, who amongst us has not played God Hand? For you need not to have put the physical disc into physical hardware to have played this sweet game.

Has thou played A Brawler?
Thou has played God Hand.

Has thou played A Fighting Game?
Thou has played God Hand.

Has thou played Mario?
Thou has played God Hand.

Has thou played an Honest to God Videogame?
Thou has most definitely played God Hand.

To play God Hand, to truly PLAY it, to see it's intricacies, to TASTE it's punches, it's kicks, is to KNOW it.

Here stands a game you know without playing.

Some do not get God Hand. We dare not speak their names, not in it's presence. For other games, for dare we say, LESSER games, the Player 'Not-Getting-It' is a Grade-A Design Flaw; indeed, it is a flaw bordering on a felony, and even the best of us are guilty**. But here, for God Hand, Not-Getting-It speaks ill not of the Game, but of the Gamer. For you see, God Hand is enlightenment; there is nothing to get. The meaning is clear. There is no obtuseness, to hidden messages*, no meaning in the 'artistic' sense. And yet, it is art.

But we digress.

God Hand is game, a game about a Dude with an Awesome Arm That Can Beat Up Everyone. And so he does. He punches, kicks, and punches his way through demon after demon after super-demon after demon.

Has thou read xkcd? Between the half-clever math jokes, underneath the Calvin-and-Hobbes-lite, just to the left of the Lonely Geek, there is an idea for a videogame. River Tam Beats Up Everyone.

GENTLEMEN! BEHOLD! The Power of God Hand! Having never played it, this man, this Guy-Who-Makes-xkcd UNDERSTANDS GOD HAND. Such is the power of God Hand.

But wait...it occurs to us that this game...this game that the Guy-Who-Makes-xkcd has thought about...it might even be BETTER than God Hand. Think of it man; the sprawling city of GTA, the delicious mechanics of God Hand.

"But what of Level Design?" you ask?

LEVEL DESIGN IN GOD HAND!?!?! You miserable, insufferable fool! It is the Halo of Brawlers; it needs no level design! Just throw dude/ette(s) into a room, THAT's your fucking level design. Just place a 'checkpoint' at every intersection of streets, and at every door, and that's plenty of 'level design'

Even while we ponder a videogame superior to God Hand, we must marvel at the POWER OF GOD HAND. A game so AWESOME, so BRILLIANT, it contains WITHIN IT, the keys to a STILL BETTER GAME. Some ask for the Citizen Kane of Videogames; gentlemen, we have been gifted with the Deep Thought of Videogames***.

And it was outsold by Kingdom Hearts 2.

*At least, none where there should not be.
**Fighting Games, I'm looking at you. Mark of the Wolves, you are excused.
***Alas, Douglas, you were taken from us far to soon!

So I got around the playing The World Ends With You...

2009-06-01T03:23:00.000-07:00

So here I am. Listenin to Funcrusher Plus, and thinking about The World Ends With You. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to mock TWEWY. I tried. I mean, fuck, I hated Kingdom Hearts 2. I hated it soooo hard. I played that game to like, 89% completion, that's how hard I hated it. I needed to be sure that there wasn't shit left. I needed to be sure that there was nothing there.

And TWEWY shows me that there was.

So let’s back the fuck up, and start with...eh...coin says KH2. Let’s roll with that. I guess I can try, but fuck, what hasn't been said? Calling that game shit is an affront to Tubgirl. I mean really, there are games that are simplistic, and then there's KH2. There simply NOTHING GOING ON. Yes, I hit X. Yes, sparks flew. Sure, occasionally I hit /\. Sure, fancy sparks flew. But did shit really happen? Did anything really go down? Did the world feel me? Did the enemies feel me? Fuck, did I feel me? No. Nothing was felt be ANY agent that was within that system. There was only empty smashing of worthless buttons, to propel characters noone likes through environments noone loves, to fight enemies that envy the compelling design of the CUBICLE.

But the thing is...when you start to look...and I mean REALLY REALLY look...there's some shit there. There really is. Like the secret reports. Don't know about those? I didn't either, till like, 60% completion or whatever. I didn't keep a journal, but that number sounds about right, so let’s just say I did.

Anyway, these secret journals, they're like exposition. Now true, it's exposition about KH2, but still, there's no reason that other, good games couldn't implement this. I mean, it's almost like the end sequence of Braid, where you're hiding Tim to reveal the 'truth'. You see, the genius of that sequence is simply the fact that, at that point, the games has you by the metaphorical tits. Oh sure, you think that it's just your own curiosity...but lets be frank. Those books outside those levels. You don't HAVE to read them...but you always do. Even when you know what they say, you read them. BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING THERE. And shit, once that game has got you reading the books inside it, it's over baby. The ghost has more than simply given himself up, the fucker has taken a fucking plea deal and is getting off with some motherfucking probation.

You see, the secret reports are like Braids books. There if you want them, and sooner or later, you want them. To quote a man of infinite wisdom

"Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Later that day..."

Now once again, the chief problem with KH2 implementation of the secret reports is simply the fact that IT'S EXPOSITION ON KINGDOM HEARTS 2 STORY. I mean, if you thought the main game was turgid, man, wait till you get a full frontal blast of the EXPOSITION.

But let’s link this to TWEWY. You see, the thing is that the people in TWEWY? You actually care about them. You really like them. Unlike the characters in KH2, whom only grow like a tumor you wish wasn't there, the characters in TWEWY grow like a fungus you learn to love. Shit even Joshua, the snobby shit who winds up being like, God or something, you kinda like by the end of the whole thing. And while the game certainly doesn't end with a cliffhanger, it does kinda leave you wondering, not WHAT happened, but rather, HOW. And that’s what them reports are all about. The HOW. Sure, there's some world building shit, and you lap it right up, cause you're caught by the tits, etc., but you're there to find out how that ending went down behind the scenes.

So how do you unlock these reports? Here's where the shit starts to get REALLY sharp. You see, you unlock them by replaying the same levels you just beat, but now you have to find some secret shit, or face some secret bosses, or other shit like that. The REAL kicker is that you get to keep all your badass leveled up shit! The secret items always have cute clues, eliminating the Pig Noise is actually kinda fun once you realize that it's more a bonus level than free shit, and the bosses...okay, some of the bosses are REAL motherfucking pains. And this is because of...

COMBAT!

Oh man, they nearly had it. I mean really man, they were like 2 fucking yards from the Inzone of Awesome Combat*. So combat is crazy. Basically, since the whole theme of the game is friendship, you control two character at the same time. On the bottom screen, you get to play as Neku, your emo protagonist who learns to open up eventually, yadda-yadda, anyway, that game stays the same at all times. You run around, and attack, USING ONLY THE TOUCH SCREEN. Basically, you can equip pins, and each pin uses different touch command to do its thang**. For the most part, these motions are not problematic; The scratching is kinda a pain, the press ones take to long, etc., but these aren't major. Naw, the REAL problems come with moving Neku. Like I said, you can only use the Touch Screen, as your partner needs the buttons. So what you gotta do is drag Neku. Now, the thing is that the arena you're in is ISOMETRIC. Look, can we just stop making Isometric games already? I mean, the fact is that they made Neku so small, so they could fit more shit on screen, and sometimes when you got drag him, you can't hit him cause his hitbox is fucking retarded...and when you factor in the perspective fuckery that can happen when you miss a drag...argh. Just argh.

So hey, the top screen. It's got your partner. Now each partner technically has their own separate little subgame, but each one is basically the same. Navigate through a combo map to reach the panel you want. One has you play memory, one has you playing it 'High or Low' and another has you play a 2d hexic. Each one is nice and satisfying, at least when the enemies don't get in the way...

And so we come to the enemies. Both the games' weakest and strongest element. Much like DMC3, the best enemies can more or less be classified as two types; heavy and light. Light enemies can be interrupted by really an attack. The best strategy against these guys is to keep the hits coming, which is convenient, as keeping the hits coming is kinda what I'm there to do. Anyway, the second type of enemy is much harder to interrupt. Heavies simply don't go down like no bitches. If you wanna interrupt these guys, you gotta work for it. You’re thinking to grizzlies, and the annoying as fuckall rhinos. And the Elephants, ohgod, the Elephants.

Once again cribbing from DMC3, some the best bosses can probably be easiest to classify as 'light'. The Uzuki fights, the Beat fights, the Koki fights, the Uzuki AND Koki fights, the Megumi fight...all these are in essence 'mirror matches'***. you face an enemy this more or less you. You got a Partner? They do too! You got a light puck that multiplies your attack? They do too! You can interrupt their attacks with really basic shit? They can do the same to you! It's these fights that keep me coming back, isometry notwithstanding****.

But alas, all cannot always be well. There are some enemies that, while not BAD are certainly lesser. The boomerang crabs are super fucking annoying, what with the quick ass knockdown that they spam like fucking hell. The frogs that get healed by all attacks Neku uses...the last boss, with it screen-spanning faggotry...the Iron Maiden boss fight...the Elephants, ohgod, the Elephants...so terrible. To be honest, if it wasn't for these bosses I would honestly not believe that the dude who did KH2 did this game too. I mean, they just are soooo reminiscent of the worst of KH2 bosses. Flashy, showy, and coated in a thick layer of fecal matter.

And yeah, I didn't mention the Trends system, or the pin evolution, and that's because both those concepts are kinda stupid. The Trends simply don't give enough benefit or penalty to really bother with, and the pin evolution is really just a goddamn hassle. Just something as easy as letting me STOP THE EVOLUTION OF A PIN would go miles.

So it's not perfect. It misses tons and tons, AND TONS of details. I mean, I haven't really gone into some of the REALLY bad enemies, haven't talked about the spritework, the soundtrack, the overworld map...each one of varying quality. Shit I haven't even touched the leveling system, which is nothing short of motherfucking brilliant, and should be stolen RIGHT FUCKING NOW by EVERY RPG FOR THE REST OF TIME. You can LOWER YOUR LEVEL TO GET BETTER LOOTZ!!!1 JESUS CHRIST, if that’s not at least HALF as sharp as ONE LEVEL of Bangai-O Spirits, I don’t know what is.

But I get ahead of myself. The important thing is that, if the KH2 dude doesn't totally get it yet, which he probably doesn’t, he knows someone who does.

And that alone is reason to hope. Maybe FF13 won’t be all that bad…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cWU-M9EpEg

…I mean…12 almost kicked ass…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVxX8aaHgdE&fmt=35&annotation_id=annotation_117219&feature=iv

...Fuck.

*SEE: Godhand, DMC3, SF3
**Not at all related to its thing.
***SEE: DMC3 Vergil boss fights, holy shit those were great.
****Dodging some of Beats moves is a real hassle without any good perspective. AOE is hard to determine in Isometric games.

Quickie

2009-06-01T03:16:00.000-07:00

I wrote a really bad Space Giraffe review. I am tempted to post it, simply to motivate myself to write a better one.

I also wrote a review of The World Ends With You. That one is better. I will post that one right after this.

I am playing KH2 to 100% completion. I will then review it. This is summer goal number one.

Summer goal number two is to beat God Hand on hard. I might write a review before that though.

BONUS: Guess which review will be positive, and which one negative!

I love punk music. I really, really do.

So I got around to playing Space Giraffe...

2009-05-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

And I'd love to publish the review!

However!

Blogger doesn't support Wingdings as a font!

Anyway I get Wingdings, or an equivalent symbol font to work?

So anyvay...

2009-04-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

IhavebeenplayingalotofDevilMayCry3andmanIforgothowmuchIlovethatgamesorryaboutthelackof
spacesbutIaminarushneedtogetbacktoDMC3IamborrowingDMC4fromapalmaybeapostonitinthe
future?

Also, DMC3 post...maybe...

This is how videogames should be/

2009-04-12T23:39:00.001-07:00

"What did Washington say to his men before crossing the Delaware?"
"Get in the boat."

Round Table, April '09: I gotta game for you...

2009-04-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: I'm coming off a sugar high, and haven't slapped the wonder weasel in three days. Also, this. Can you fucking believe that? I can't. Not really. I need to come to grips with it. And whatdaya know, you want a game. And I, as a game designer, come to grips with my world by making video games.

We can work this out.

Okay, so it's called Betrayal. It's in three (3) acts. Three, because if it's good enough for Miyamoto, it's good enough for our sorry asses. So three acts. Grab your blow, this is gonna get silly.

ACT 1:

You're in your apartment. Your character is watching TV. You are looking through the eyes of your character. Two people on the TV are talking. Text scrolls all over them, under them, on top of them, beneath them. The information is coming, not in floods, but in worthless pittances, enough to keep your head just informed ENOUGH so that your character knows what they are talking about. You don't. The text is in a nonsense language. The people are talking nonsense words, but man, they're talking that nonsense with such passion. Your character mumbles their nonsense. Maybe he agrees with the one on the left? The right? What about the guy who they occasionally cut to? What's that fuckers problem? His nonsense words seem different from everyone else's nonsense words, and fuck if they don't know it, and hate it. They hate their nonsense being intruded upon by this other fuckers nonsense, and it seems like after a while, they (the initial fuckers) ignore him (the fucker-they-sometimes-cut-to). Your character mumbles their nonsense, laughs, mumbles, YELLS, mumbles.

You hit space.

Your character groans.

You hit space again.

Your character stands.

Your character finally says something that makes sense. "Need some food."

You walk to the fridge. Your character trudges along, mumbling the nonsense, yelling the nonsense, laughing the nonsense. E to interact with fridge. E to eat from fridge.

There is a knock on your door.

"Your building is burning down."

ACT TWO:

Your character walks to the door, no nonsense pouring forth from his mouth, only the slight flip of his flops to fill the void.

The TV is silent.

You open the door, and HOLY SHIT THERE IS FIRE EVERYWHERE. HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN HAPPENING?

"A while." says the man at the door. He hands you an extinguisher. "You take the left side."

The camera pulls out. Your character is in his boxers, with willy pink and blue flip-flops. Not attire with which to fight a fire. You turn around, to get decent, and see your apartment in flames, the TV completely wasted.

"Let's GO!" the impatience in clear.

And so you go. As you move down the halls together, you fight the fire, but only in a Rear-Guard action it is to pervasive, to massive to truly take down, with only the two of you. As you two move on, he knocks on doors, and invites you to do the same. Sometimes you can here the nonsense coming full blast from behind the closed doors.

These ones you learn not to waste time on.

Some you can here knocking on their own doors.

These ones you learn not to pass up.

The more people you get, the more your party grows, and the more extinguishers you have to wield. But alas, the hallways grow to, from narrow corridors, to sweeping arches. Soon, they are not even hallways, but rather ballrooms, with pillars falling, and fires consuming. You fight, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, any body part to any other fucking body part, as long as the fucking fire stays back you don't even give a fuck. The fire must be halted.

And above all, no nonsense. From anyone.

You make it out.

And when you do, there she is...THE FIRE HYDRANT. The initial dude, the one that saved you busts out some hoses**, and yall take that motherfucking fire down. It fights, it wimpers, and it rages, but you kill it slowly, surely, and inexorably. It feels good.

"This will never happen again." No one said it. Everyone said it. No one disagrees.

ACT THREE:

You're in your knew, awesome, high-end apartment. Everyone you saved is there, and man, things are looking good! You just gotta keep the drinks flowin, and the food cookin. Awww yeah. It's gonna be a party toNITE!

People are talkin, but man, ain't no nonsense to be heard. They're talkin about real shit, about fire safety, and lax building standards, and poor fire department equipment. REAL SHIT.

So you do your host thang, keepin on keepin on. You can't really join in on a talk, but man, the sound to no-nonsense is just so beautiful, it a wonder simply to be near it. Eventually, when your score is high enough***, everyone huddles around the TV. When you approach, they let you get to your seat, right in front of the BIG SCREEN TV BABY! YEAH!

You sit, and wait.

The people are back on, back with their nonsense. You grin. Their time is short.

On come the Man-With-The-Equipment. The Man-With-The-Plan. Your man.

Their nonsense reaches historic proportions. It's as if they can sense that their world is about to come crumbling down. The moment of truth is at hand. He opens his mouth.

Out comes nonsense.

You hit space.

Your character groans.

 Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

:::EDIT:::

So hey, Obama released some DOJ memos today. But he all but swore not to prosecute the CIA officials responsible...but he seems to have left the door open to prosecution of Bush officials...hmm...I'd add a new act, but I really just wanna wait to see where this goes.

*As of this moment, there's like, one RPG in the Round Table? Tops? WAY TO GO PEEPS! Also, this design is soooooo good. Seriously, I think I'm love with a game that hasn't been made yet.
**Man, this motherfucker comes prepared! Endless extinguishers, and hoses?
***It'll be a simply but deep system of combos and the like. Something crunchy.

Just like a real RPG!

2009-03-26T15:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/

You know what I fucking love? ACT Uno!

2009-02-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

Me: PAC-MAN. Holy shit, I love Pac-man. I mean jesus. Fucking Pac-man. Have you played that shit? Fuck yeah you have, or at least, if you haven't, you'd never admit it*, CAUSE IT'S MOTHERFUCKING PAC-MAN. You know what was great about Pac-man?

Some Dude: The pellets?

Me: FUCK NO**! Not the pellets. That shit was stupid. Fuck the pellets. Seriously, what did they ever do for you man?

Some Dude: Weren't they how you got score?

Me: Well yeah, but shit, it was the 90's. You can't hold it against Pac-man for making fucking pellets raise you score. Sheesh man, you're cold, holding pellets against Pac-man.

Some Dude: I'm not holding it against Pac-man, I'm just saying that they were awesome. Like, the big ones we the best-

Me:-noshit-

Some Dude: but the small ones were awesome too. They were the point of the game!

Me: No they fucking weren't! They were incidental, like some stain on your favorite shirt. I mean, you're not going to fucking throw away the whole damn shirt over one stupid fucking stain, are you?

Some Dude: Yeah, actually I would.

Me: Man, you're fucking cold. You'd throw away all of Pac-man, just over the pellets?

Some Dude: What? No! I don't think the pellets are bad at all, they're just-

Me: You know what, why don't you just shut the fuck up! You wouldn't know good game design if it came up to you in a tea cozy and asked you find the Light of Zarthon! So just sit down, and shut up, cause you're about to get some motherfucking GAME DESIGN.

**breathe**

Pac-man IS NOT ABOUT YOUR SCORE, NOR THE PELLETS. THEY ARE INCIDENTAL, LIKE-

Some Dude: -stains on a shirt, you went through this-

Me: -SHUTIT! They are like stains on a shirt! They are meaningless! Pac-man is about one thing, and one thing only. And that thing is...drumroll please.

Some Dude: **Stare blankly**

Me: The huntER, becoming the huntED! It's about that interplay, that fascinating dynamic that exists, TO THIS FUCKING DAY, only in Pac-man. I mean, what the fuck? You've got like, a metric fuck-ton of games about fucking JUMPING but like, two (2)
about the HuntER-ED dynamic. I mean really. What the fuck?

Some Dude: Well shit Me, people got lot's of fond memories of Mario. They spent large parts of their childhoods with that plumber. You can't discount that.

Me: And so what, people didn't spend time with Pac-man?

Some Dude: Well no, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that when you, like, look at what those respective properties have become, I mean shit, they're still making Mario games! They probably always will! But Pac-man, I mean shit, even he's gotten into the platforming biz! That's where the money is man! People want to be happy, they want to play like they did as kids, and jumping in videogames does that for them.

Me:...so that's what this is about.

Some Dude: What's about?

Me: Money. You filthy fucking whore. MONEY!? We've got a fucking GOLDMINE of GAME DESIGN, and you're concerned about how it's going to look for your Q4 profit margin? Are you smoking something shit for brains? I'm talking about a quantum motherfucking leap, and you're sitting here pissing your pants about your margins! FUCK YOU MAN!

Some Dude: That's not what it's about Me, you know tha-

Me: NO! You do NOT get to tell ME what this is about! You are not worming your way out of this one! Just because you love videogames as I do, you think I'm going to fucking forgive forever? You think I'm going to ignore the savage RAPING you are giving MY medium? Are you for real? Are you cereal? ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKING CEREAL, SHITFORBRAINS!?

Some Dude: Now hold the FUCKING PHONE, when the the hell did it become YOUR medium! We're in this shit together man!

Me: It became MY fucking medium the same second it became your fucking medium: SOTC, second boss, across the narrow bridge. You remember that shit?

Some Dude: Well yeah-

Me: Do you motherfucker? Cause I'm still talking about that shit, and you're talking about your fucking margins, like our medium gives a flying fuck about your MARGINS.

Some Dude: Well shit, if we go the fuck outta business, there won't be no medium will there?

Me: Fuck yes there will still be medium! You think you're necessary for videogames? You ain't shit! You and me, we're going to be fucking footnotes to this shit, you dig? If we pull this off, we'll be nothing more that fucking scholar-wank fodder? You think your MARGINS are gonna save gaming? You think you damn TPS REPORTS are gonna drag our ass into the spotlight, were we can start doing real shit? What the fuck are you on? You're up here **Point to the skies** while I'm down here **point to the Earth**. You're over there with your TPS-DICKHAT, while I'm trying to advance our fucking medium into the future, but talking about a long fucking forgotten piece of brilliance, and your shit-faced-face is over here talking about how that won't sell to our demographics! I'm talking about how Pac-man was a fucking, and still is mind you, was a fucking revolution! I'm talking about how we can use that BRILLIANCE, and distill it to use into our GAMES now, so we can ADVANCE, and move FORWARD, and start doing some FUCKING CRAZY-AWESOME SHIT, and you're up there **Sky again** in fucking CEO land, pissing you pants over how you're gonna market this shit? I fucking hate you!

Some Dude: If you hated me, you wouldn't talk to me.

Me: ...

...

**sniffle**

Some Dude: **Offer kleenex**

Me: **Take kleenex, wipe tears** Wanna talk about Pac-man?

*We gamers are a funny lot, are we not?
**Imagine I say that w/ a Scottish accent. It's 73% more funny.

Just to get this outta the way;

2009-02-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

HOLY FUCK I LOVE PUBLIC TELEVISION.

...

GOW2 post forthcoming. That is all.

Dickbutt.

Gotta get this outta the way...

2009-02-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

First thing; see that post down there? The one that ends with the whimper? You know the one I'm talking about, it's like 2 posts down. For the record, I had a bitchin' ending to that one, but when I hit submit, FUCKING BLOGGER ATE MY FUCKING POST. No really, it was sooooo bad-ass. Argh, it frustrates us!

Also, have you seen Add-Art? This is suck a fucking good idea, I wanna make sweet, sweet love to the dude/ette(s) who thought it up. Seriously.

Did you know...

2009-02-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

That despite being fascinated by Mirror's Edge when I saw some real early screen shots, I haven't played it yet, and I'm not really interested in doing so anytime soon?

Am I this fickle? Have my tastes evolved/transfigured so far in what seems like such a small amount of time?

Or did PA's talking about it make me realize that it was yet another case of a game not knowing what made it good, and thus uninteresting to me? Maybe I should play it anyway, to see how you move through that world, because shit, that's why I was interested to begin with?

...When does it hit the bargain bin?

Oh. Poop.

2009-02-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

My previous post referenced my Braid post. I have not posted this Braid post. Like many posts, it lies in my drafts folder, forgotten. It is forthcoming.

Wait. No. I did actually post it! So why the fuck was it in my drafts folder?

Just real quick...

2009-02-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

I wanna apologize for all those small little nothing posts. I'm trying to change my habits you see, and I figure the best way to do that is to take myself outside of my comfort zone.

But anyway, this post has a real point. No seriously. I just now came to a realization; The reason I love Braid.

Now, normally* I would start talking about the fucking beautiful environments, or the fucking incredible level design, or any of that shit. Basically, I'd start talking about all the shit I talked about in my Braid post.

That post is now obsolete**.

I love Braid because, LIKE Shadow of the Colossus, it is undeniably brilliant, but UNLIKE Shadow of the Colossus, it is NOT undeniably awesome.

Think about when you played SotC***. Think about the overwhelming awesome. Everything was so perfect, not even the crappy frame rate could bring you down****. You saw Wanderer put the chick on the altar, and BAM!, voice from the skies. You got your freedom, and OHSHIT!, you found a Colossus. You shanked the bitch, and FUCK!, you killed it. Each point, you lacked the words to properly describe. You couldn't put this in terms of the other games you've played*****. You were used to games where explosions were GOOD. Where killing bosses was AWESOME. WTF was up with all this feeling bad shit? Fuck these EMOTIONS. FUCK THEM...

Why can't you put this shit down?

...why wouldn't these SOB's just fucking die already? How many times you gotta shank a fuckers magical weak point before s/he gets the message?

...ARGOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

...and lastly...

WHY AREN'T MORE GAMES LIKE THIS******!?

SotC man, it was just to much. I mean, I remember playing it and thinking, Shit, this belongs in my Pantheon of Awesome Games(tm)...but where? Shit, it makes everything else look like crap coming outta monkey's head!

But Braid ain't like that, is it? It's manageable. See, SotC was all about making you feel small. It was about a BIG land, with BIG monsters, and SWEEPING vistas, and shit like that. It was COLOSSAL*******. Every time you killed one of those colossal fuckers, man, it felt like something between a miracle, hard work, and crippling sadness. Compared to them, you were just some random fucker with a magic sword, some arrows, and a horse.

Braid was more...familiar. You weren't small. You weren't puny. You were TIM! The whole fucking world bent to your whims. It was like Mario man! Not just the surface shit, about princesses and crap like that. It was the guts; the fact that the whole world really rotated around YOU. It was made for YOU. YOU were in the drivers seat. YOU had the power...or rather...TIM had that power. You controlled Tim, true, but you WERE NOT TIM. You watched him. You ordered him around. You killed him. You brought him back to life. You shared some of his trials. But you were not at all Tim. You were looking for the princess, sure, but only because that's what Tim happened to be doing when your bitch ass came along. The fucker could want a god-damn sandwich for all your sorry ass cared. As long as you got that sweet, sweet level design lovin', it was all good baby.

But SotC? You WERE Wander. You had to become that motherfucker, you had to take up his cause, just to keep on keeping on. When Wander died, you died. When he fell, you fell.

And when Wander killed, you killed.

*ie, a couple of minutes ago.
**Not really, just a little bit. How can something be little obsolete you ask? YOUR FACE, that's how.
***NOTE: If you have NOT played SotC,STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW AND GO PLAY IT. FUCK YOUR JOB. FUCK YOUR FAMILY. FUCK YOUR FRIENDS. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF OUR GOD-DAMN MEDIUM HERE SHIT-FOR-BRAINS. If you have played SotC, good for you!
****This is one (1) of the only two (2) complaints I will listen to concerning SotC and take you seriously. See if you can guess what the other one is! It's like a game where you have to associate yourself with a vulgar, chronic-masturbating 19 year-old! Just like Xbox Live!
*****Unless you've played Another World, in which case, nice. Very nice.
******If we figure this out, ladies and gentlemen, we will be fucking golden.
*******Do you see what I did thar?

Turning Over a New Leaf

2009-02-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Turning Over a New Leaf: (We’re trying something new with the topic this month, so please read carefully.) February’s BoRT invites you take a game design suggested by another blogger in last month’s Round Table and build upon it. You should ignore the literary source of the original design, but attempt to communicate the same themes and/or convey the same mood as the proposed game. This means you can alter the game genre, change the setting, and add new layers to the game mechanics. This is not an opportunity to critique a previous design, but to honor it by striving to reach the same goals, while adding your own personal touch.

It's that time of month! No, not cry-into-ice-cream-with-The-Cure-on time, but Blog of the Round Table Time!

So, hey, nice topic. No really. It'll really get more of that yelling at other people feel that I love, as opposed to now, where it's mostly me yelling at...well, you I guess.

So hey, let's see what the submissions were for last round...what do I like...

...

http://mwclarkson.blogspot.com/2009/01/downward-spiral.html

FUCK YES. OH SWEET MERCIFUL ALLAH, YESSS!!! If that's the god-damn future, sign me the fuck up. I mean look at that design. Holy shit, that's clean. That some fucking antiseptic shit right there. No waste. No fluff. No goddamn mini-games, or power-ups, or anything. Just a nice clean...everything!

...I really have no way to improve upon it...I mean, as an idea, it all simply comes down to execution. If someone hasn't made this by the end of the Imagine Cup competition, which is what I'm doing right now, I WILL make this. Or at least, I'll try. Seriously, this needs to get made, like, NOW PEOPLE.

Okay, moving on. Another post I like, another post I like...hmmm...

http://livingepic.blogspot.com/2009/01/oedipus-rpg-blogs-of-round-table.html

O. M. G.

Who wrote this? A professor? Holy shit. This egghead knows more about fucking game design than most damn game designers! I mean, holy shit, it's like Dead Rising meets, Interesting Story. Now, I took a gander at his gamercard, and it doesn't even look like this guy has played Dead Rising. Shit on a motherfucking biscuit. I gotta put this guy in my Outlook RSS feeds man. Seriously.

But alas, we got ourselves some problems. The biggest one is the NPC's. Now I know that the whole point of last months round table was to imagine a game without current technological limits, but to me, that's a cop out. Games need to be played, and if they can't be made, then they sure as hell can't be played. Endless dialogue options? And we would need some kind of 'reputation' system, so the NPC would eventually realize the the player is being an annoying shit by asking all these questions...sounds like a whole can of worms. You're making work for yourself. Games are hard enough to make as is. DON'T MAKE MORE WORK FOR YOURSELF.

Another is your character. Does s/he have a family? Friends? I'm assuming the player has been a citizen of Thebes all his/her life. What about them? Another damn can of worms. It's the kind of design that starts to really fall apart when you really start asking questions. But nonetheless, I like where this is going. A lot. Let's see what we can do.

First thing, the character. I don't like having him/her be a citizen of Thebes. The plague thing I also don't like. Both seem like elements one MIGHT get right, if the stars were aligned, but it seems like you're making work for yourself. Both would take endless tweaking, and some real disbelief suspension from the player. Instead, lets have the player be some kind of messenger from the gods, or something.

No, wait. Not a messenger. Let's go with an entity sent by the gods to...do....what? I don't like the original designs 'hide the task' mentality, because once again, it's an element that you have to get EXACTLY right to pull it off. Once again, you're making work for yourself. Maybe some kind of vague instructions? Like 'find the truth?'...hmm....

Yeah, let's roll with that. Okay, so you're sent down from the heavens. What's our game gonna be. How's the player gonna move? What interactions, if any, will be available to the player? I always wanted to make a game where the only thing the player could do is LOOK...so lets make that the whole mechanic! You're this disembodied camera, floating around*, finding evidence of the truth. You start out in Thebes square, with the whole oracle scene, and then go from there. If you stick to the square, you'll more or less be treated to the whole play, start to finish. BUT, if you start moving around, you'll be able to follow the characters throught their day, see their interactions. See some 'off-stage' stuff that would obviously have to be handled carefully. you know, well-acted, well-written, well-animated, etc. I get the feeling that THIS will be the hardest part. So anyway, as you follow people, or not, you'll acculmulate EVIDENCE. Now obviously, you won't physically pick up this evidence, but you will sorta file it away. I'm thinking something along the lines of Assassin's Creed's whole sub-mission before the kill thing, where you ran around collecting information from people, only this time actually relevant and good and interesting, as opposed to fucking incompetent ass 'Collect the Flags!' shit the AS put you through**.

Now note that depending on who you follow, you could wind up with completely different, and even contradictory notes! This would be the whole point, as when the moment of truth arrives, the Gods will come down and ask you what really happened. You can either tell them what you think, or instead, tell them you need to see the whole thing again. They will oblige you, and send you back into time to the beginning, but this time with all your old notes. Now, you can follow through on leads that you didn't have time for last time around.

So yeah. Not really an RPG anymore, but shit, it never really was one to begin with. More of an adventure game really, only interesting. No stupid, FIND THE BLUE KEY shit. Once again, it's all in the execution. The events that give you notes, the dialog, etc. To be frank, this is probably not a game I would ever make, for that reason alone. It would require a shit-ton of non-design work. A lot of acting, a lot of writing...actually, it doesn't sound that bad when I think about it. Short story of my life man.

 Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

*Much like the death cam in Counter-Strike
**Collect the motherfucking flags? Really? You shit-for-brains couldn't think up anything more fucking relevant than COLLECT THE MOTHERFUCKING FLAGS. JESUS GODDAMN CHRIST, YOU SHITHEADS WITH YOUR GODDAMN COLLECTIBLES ARE SO FUCKING INCOMPETENT I WISH I COULD JUST HEADBUTT YOU ALL IN THE FUCKING GUT***. SERIOUSLY. FLAGS.
***I don't actually want to headbutt each of the designers of AS in the gut. But really. Flags?

omg

2009-02-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can use the numbers 1,2, and 3 to change lanes in audiosurf?

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!

Also, blog of the round table post coming.

Also, 360 has returned! Commence Space Giraffe!

Also, buttsecks. Heh. Buttsecks.

Also, Matt Taibbi is hardcore.

Also, I ran out of things to say.

Also, I am on a roll, and don't want to stop.

Putting the Game Before the Book, Part 2: Revenge of Bone

2009-01-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

So hey, did ya hear? Blogs of the Round Table are allowing another post for this months theme! Yeah. Sweet, I know. This allows significantly more pontification on my part, with an air of legitimacy!

But wait! This fever/nausea! Will it spell doom for our intrepid blogging hero, in his quest to make the most awesome blog posts of all time? Yes.

Yes it will.

No seriously, you don't wanna be anywhere near this blog bro/bro-ette. I got like a mad case of sore throat/fever/nausea. It might be contagious.

But before you go, I was gonna probably talk about Bone. You know. BONE! Seriously, have you not read it? It's fucking sweet. Like ridiculously sweet. It's goddamn intimidating is what it is. While you got all these postmodern/dada/whatever-they-want-to-call-themselves-I-don't-give-a-fuck-anymore shitheads, and other fucks running around putting toilets in museums, or Brillo pads, or whatever the fuck they're doing now, I don't give a rat's ass, the thing is that you got THEM over THERE, with their MUSEUMS and CURATORS, and DEGREES and shit, from FANCY COLLEGES with their fucking TWEED JACKETED-PROFESSORS* and whatever other goddamn stereotypes you wanna perpetuate, I don't care, the point is that THEY are over THERE. You can't tell, because you can't see me, put I'm pointing off in some random fucking direction, it doesn't really matter, the point I'm trying to get across is that there are so far removed from REAL SHIT that they think they matter.

No wait. I think that's my point. Yeah. Yeah it is.

You got all these fucking shitty ass artists going nowhere and calling it POST-MODERISM** and whatnot, or SNARK, or whatever, I really don't care, the point is that they're stupid, and noone loves them. Oh yeah, people will buy their shit at auctions and whatnot, and they'll put that crap up in their fancy houses and sip FINE WINES and be all CULTURED and shit, but those fucks don't love the artist. Shit, they don't even love the art! They just love the STATUS, the DICKHAT, if you will, of having POST-MODERN or CONTEMPARY art in their emtpy lives, so that they can pretend that they have some kind of soul to thier existence. After all, they're involved in CULTURE.

Enter: Bone.

Bone is so goddamn intimidating, in much the same way that Shadow of the Colossus is intimidating. Both of those works are just so...

...calm...

Think about that. In this fucking ''POSTMODERN'' age with the fancy ''INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY'' when was the last time you actually some a real thing that was...

...calm...

?

No really. I'm not saying that our lives our over saturated with advertising, even though they are***, I'm just saying that there's not alot of calm in our lives. Now sure, some people blame the Internet, or TV, or whatever, but I propose something more simple; this is the way it's always been, only know someone actually bothered to write it down.

So anyway, you got our non-calm***** culture, our way of life if you will, and then you SotC, and Bone.

You see, one of the symptoms of this whole culture shit, is that so much of our art is also non-calm. Now some can pull this shit off. Like Bangai-O Spirits. Bangai-O Spirits can pull off not being calm. It's a fucking game ALL ABOUT blowing shit up. That's not a terribly calm activity******. But some shit, some shit just can't. It gets all neurotic and shit, and starts worrying and stressing about difficulty level, and about 'flow' and about 'are there enough power-ups?' and 'do we have an ice level?' and just stupid shit that gets them off track.

But Bone? Nah man. Bone ain't like that. Bone knows where it came from. Bone knows where it's going. Oh it's tense at times. At times the reader feels panic about what's going to happen next. But the piece as a whole doesn't stretch itself like most videogames, save SotC, do. It doesn't try so hard, and it doesn't make you feel almost bad for not liking it. Bone just does it.

Loving videogames sometimes feels like loving your kids kindergarden scribbles. Sure, Timmy couldn't color in the lines. So the kid likes blue. Big deal. I mean, come on, we should encourage creativity right?

And so you do. You just encourage little Timmy to just keep on bringing you those scribbles and whatnot, knowing that one day he'll grow out of it, and start bringing home better scribbles, till he moves on to stuff he really cares about, or finds that scribbling is what he loves, and just becomes and animator, or whatever.

But games, games feel like they're just not trying anymore. I mean Timmy, Timmy tries ya know? He's your kid, he wants to make you proud. But videogames, man, they do really even give a fuck about us anymore? I mean really. Another World War II shooter? Kingdom Hearts 2? For real? Are the serious? I mean, have these fucking developers played SotC? Have these shit-humping publishers even seen...like...shit, even fucking Dead Rising. Seriously, have these shit-for-hearts motherfuckers even once seen sum GOOD GAME DESIGN? Ever?

...oh shit, I was supposed to make game. Crap.

Okay so, Bone the Game...you know what? FUCK IT. To me, Bone isn't about the story*******, or the art********, or the characters*********, or any of that shit. It's about the aura a work of art can project. That self-assuredness without being a dick, that calm without being aloof, that relaxation while being tense. That's Bone. And I don't want to make ONE game that exhibits those traits. I want a million fucking games with those traits. I want to sing about those kinds of games from the rooftops, I want to run naked through the streets shrieking about those kinds of games, I want to cry myself to sleep playing those kinds of games, I want to SHOVE those kinds of GAMES under the NOSES of EVERY SINGLE SON OF A BITCH WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND VIDEOGAMES AND TELL THEM THAT THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE ABOUT.

Also, 'Inside the Actors Studio' has Conan O'Brien on, and there's no way in hell I'm gonna miss that.

Peace!

 Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

*Note to self: Get tweed jacket. And monocle. And pipe.
**GOD DAMN I HATE THAT FUCKING WORD SO MUCH!!!! MODERN MEANS PRESENT! HOW CAN SOMETHING COME AFTER THE PRESENT!!?!?!? IN COMING AFTER THE PRESENT, I BECOMES THE FUCKING PRESENT
*** They don't have to be, just do what I do and watch PBS. Seriously, Bill Moyers has the fucking biggest balls in journalism this side of Jon Stewart. And Kieth Olbermann. And Rachel Maddow****
****On an unrelated note, I am GAY FOR RACHEL MADDOW. Your regularly scheduled footnotes section will now return.
*****NOT anti-calm, mind you!
******Note to self: Make game where blowing shit up is calming.
*******Which is incredible.
********See: *******
*********See: ********

EDIT::::

There already is a Bone videogame...crap. But wait! It's and adventure game! So I probably WOULD hate it, since the whole genre was merely a placeholder to begin with! So there.

Update

2009-01-14T23:20:00.003-07:00

My 360 Red-Ringed
Got Wii Fit.
Megaman 9 could be better.

Putting the Game Before the Book

2009-01-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

Putting the Game Before the Book What would your favorite piece of literature look like if it had been created as a game first? In a time when bits of Dante’s Divine Comedy are being carved out and turned into a hack-n-slash game, I find myself longing for intelligently designed games–games with a strong literary component–not merely literary backdrops. So rather than challenge you to imagine the conversion of your favorite literature into games, I challenge you to supersede the source literature and imagine a game that might have tried to communicate the same themes, the same message, to its audience.

Another month, another Round Table. The joy cannot be contained!

So hey, this one is about LITERATURE, SO YOU KNOW IT'S FUCKING SERIOUS. So hey, let's go. Favorite book eh...hmm...

1984. Yeah, 1984. Either that, or Malcolm X, and I, as a stupid white dude, really shouldn't touch that from a game design perspective.

So, what's 1984 about? Most people would say 'Big Brother' and be done with it. These people would also make a game that's basically MGS on an endless mode, with a never-ending city that one constantly had to avoid police and the like in.

BUT 1984 IS NOT ABOUT BIG-FUCKING-BROTHER*. If you think 1984 is about Big Brother, there are two (2) possibilities

1) You have never read 1984. SHAME ON YOU. YOU CALL YOURSELF A CITIZEN OF A DEMOCRACY!?!?!11/?1*****
2) You have read 1984, and are merely and idiot. SHAME ON YOUR ENGLISH/LITERATURE TEACHERS.**

1984 is about LANGUAGE***. It's about how the easiest way to control thought is by making the thoughts you don't want thought IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT TO WORDS. If you don't have the WORDS for something, you can't TALK about it, and if you can't talk about your idea, you can't get it anywhere at all, can you****?

So now, we're not talking about Big Brother anymore. Forget it. Fuck the fucker. He's gone. We've moved on to LANGUAGE. So now, how do we make a game about language?

Lot harder now. Can't just rip off Kojima on a good day now, can we? Can we? No. We can't. This calls for some hard work. Some perseverance. Some INNOVATION.

Some motherfucking game design, bitches******.

So hey, make a game where you make a language. Not hard...right? I mean, first we would have to make some kind of system for understanding all current languages...aw shit. Sounds like some linguistic major shit.

You know what? Fuck it. 1984 is about Big Brother.*******

Lets go back to MGS endless, cause that just sounds awesome. I mean really, that's what I always hated about MGS. They just started moving so far from the STEALTH aspect. And moving through world. Man, that was some bullshit. I mean, look, just LOOK at how Snake moves. Does that say 'STEALTHY!' to you? No, it says 'I can't think of a better way for this dude to move, because my design is based off of a top-down MSX game.' Now I'm not saying that bringing ye-olden games into the modern age is a bad thing, but REALLY? You can't update the design to accommodate some better animations? REALLY?

So that'll be 1984. Just you, running through an ideally endless, randomly generated city, avoiding detection. But...what happens when you get detected? I mean, that's the REAL problem isn't it? Making the game react in a way that is internally consistent. So how, about when you get found, you can't take cover anymore. Instead, you character just starts running around and pissing his/her pants. Your control of them rapidly deteriorates as your avatar's panic rises. Like, you can point them in a given direction with your stick or whatever, but man, they're running so damn fast you can barely control the fucking camera, let alone that actual character!

...

Yeah. That sounds kinda nice...but it's not 1984...

Okay, back to language. 2-players. They agree on a 'neutral' sentence, pulled from the headlines or something.

'Today in the United States, there were widespread anti-abortion protests.'

So each player is given a position on this issue, and now has to make the headline support their cause, changing 1 word at a time. So the pro-abortion dude would have to make the headline say something like

'Today pro-life supporters rallied in support of human life.'

Okay fine, the first sentence has 9 words, and the second one has 8, but you see where I'm going right? You see, the problem with this is that while it kinda gets at some of the themes of 1984, it does so within the framework of a pre-existing language. There is no real potential for making up your OWN language to convey your OWN ideals, as given to you at the beginning of the game.

So maybe a game, where people are given a set of ideals, some words, and they each take turns shifting the language more towards their ideals?

But how would you measure that? Maybe you're given some kind of criteria for what words the language HAS to have, and you're given bonus points for having certain words...

But then, you've got the language, but not the applications of it. At this point, we're almost TO abstract.

So you would need two games running in parallel. One where people are making the language, another where people are using it. This would almost necessitate teams.

Oh shit! I accidentally arrived at an RTS I always wanted to make! Where each faction has both a commander and a resource-gather person. So like, in our language example. The language former person would be playing this kinda slow, tactical game where each move must be made carefully, because everyone uses the SAME language, and you only get one chance a round to change the lexicon as it were. But the other dude, he's playing this more intense game where the language in question is actually being used, and he needs MORE FIREPOWER CAPTAIN!

So hopefully you'll get this kinda nice tension within the team and between teams across both games.

So yeah. 1984, made into a party game, meets chess.

Huh.

I think I lost something in the translation...

 Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

*But that game idea is solid. Really, endless modes in general are solid.
**After all, it's not your fault you're an idiot...is it?
***Yes, it's BOOK about LANGUAGE. And you thought Kojima was self-indulgent.
****Incidentally, this is a HUGE problem in gaming, but that's for another post.
*****NOTE: Ignore this sentence if you don't live in a democracy.
******I wish to apologize to my female readers for that one. I was merely attempting to sound like a action-movie-hard-ass. Man, that was a lot of hyphens.
*******No, it's not.

So I got around to playing Dead Space...

2008-12-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

What uninspired shit. I mean really, why do we put up with this people? Yeah okay, a couple of nice sections, like the gravity thing. That was OBVIOUSLY made by someone who loved Ender's Game, and understood WHY it was awesome, so of course that's going to be fucking good. But the rest? I mean really. WTF.

Let's start with the interface. The game has almost no actual pause menus, as in shit stops and you get a menu. The whole game, for the most part, just keeps on going, and merely projects a hologram of your inventory/map/objectives into the game world. Genius? Fuck yeah. But it doesn't go far enough. Like the rest of the game, it doesn't follow it's shit out to it's logic conclusion. In this case, it's something as simple as WHERE THE HELL DOES THIS ISAAC SHITHEAD STORE THIS CRAP. Most games don't make you ask this, but if Dead Space wants to get all fancy with it's inventory management* it's gotta go the whole goddamn nine yards. This is a problem we will see alot.

So next up...ehhh...lets go with...enemies. God, if there is a more poorly designed pile of shit foes, I would like to see them. Like before, we start off with a nice idea, where instead of getting headshots, you instead get limbshots, and that kills the necro-whatevers**. Genius? YES! When you take into account that the pistol, which SHOULD be the player's favorite weapon, but isn't, can change it's orientation, you've got yourself the beginnings of something here...but then the designers just have to go and shit all over you again. This time, it comes in the form of enemies whose limbs are a bit tougher to chop off. There are these dudes that the bat dudes make from dead people. The animation for it is kinda cool***.

Anyway, these bat dudes, which are kinda easy to kill, make dudes that are NOT easy to kill. Once again, we're in the cool here. You have a nice little gimmick, that when used properly, could add some nice tension to the fights. But then they go off and put those uber-enemies in places, JUST BECAUSE. Fucking idiots.

You what this game really feels like? Like it started out with one guy, who knew his shit, and he started getting people behind his design, and eventually got the Higher Ups at EA on board. And that must have been happy as shit. I mean, he knew he knew his shit. And now he was gonna get recognized for knowing his shit.

And then came the EA-diots****.

EA-diot:"Hey, we have credits all over the place! Let's put in a store!"
Dude Who Knows His Shit:"No."
EA-diot:"Why not?"
Dude Who Knows His Shit:"Because why would a mining company sell tools to it's own employee's, while it's employee's were ON IT'S FUCKING SHIP?"
EA-diot:"But how will the player get the Assault Rifle?"
Dude Who Knows His Shit:"The player can pick it up from A DEAD SOLDIER."
EA-diot:"Speaking of the Assault Rifle, it's too powerful."
Dude Who Knows His Shit:"It's a goddamn ASSAULT RIFLE."
EA-diot:"Speaking of the Assault Rifle, it's too powerful."
Dude Who Knows His Shit:"Then make it harder to get. Then make it harder to find ammo for. THEN TAKE IT THE FUCK OUT."
EA-diot:"But then what will the player buy at the store?"

LATER:

EA-diot;"Hey, instead of putting the normal enemies here, lets put the uber-enemies here!"
Dude Who Knows His Shit:"Why? There's no bat dude to make said uber-enemies anywhere in the level."
EA-diot:"Yeah, but the uber-enemies will scare the player because they're hard to kill! And we should be scaring the player at all times! We ARE a horror game after all! You have alot to learn buddy! But that's why I'm here."

etc, etc.

Seriously, that's all Dead Space really is. Intriguing ideas executed very shitily. You're better off play Bangai-O Spirits for the Nintendo DS. Or Shadow of the Colossus for the PlayStation 2. Or Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. Or Rest to Reset. Not anything at all, but there's bett shit out there.

More to come on this later.

*which once again, I wholeheartedly support!
**I might want to talk about the story...but nah.
***In general, I found the graphics quite nice. I am rather fond of Isaac's character design in particular. But the level design...well that's it's own section.
****Do you see what I did there?

October '08 Round Table: All in the family

2008-10-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

That time of month again! IT'S ROUND TABLE TIME!!!

*

So yeah, family. And video games. A winrar combination?

For me, not so much. Well, ya know, sometimes it works out, like all those times me and my brother watched each other play videogames**, and commented upon what we saw***. And there are also the times I was over at my cousin's house, and played RTS' with him****. Oh yeah, and that's also where I played alot of Sonic, which has had a huge impact on the games I plan on making.

But other than that...not really. I mean, just because I was always so much better at them than...well...everyone else. Sure my brother could put up a real challenge in some games, but for the most part, I dominated.

Like there was this one time, back when my N64 worked******, and I played that Diddy Kong kart racer game alot. Like a whole lot. Like every second I wasn't playing Banjo-Kazooie. Which in the grand scheme of things isn't alot, but still. Some. So anyway, my Mom notices that I've really taken a liking to this game, and decides that we need to spend more quality time together. So she starts playing it to.

And man, does she suck. I mean, for me, the computer players were a non-issue. I spent most of my time outracing my own records, and just ignoring their sorry asses. I never got below 1st place. But my mom could barely eke out 5th! It was just so jarring for me to realize that my mom, this super-smart, super-wonderful person was just plain shit at this game.

I like to think it traumatized me sometimes. Then I read about people who were actually fucking traumatized. Then, notsomuch.

So that's one thing.

But hey, the Wii! And Wii Sports! I totally forgot! Mostly because I haven't played it in like months*******, but hey, those times were/still are/will be fun! Cause they're games that my parents don't completely suck at!

But wait...I don't like sports games. I mean sure, I'll play them, but I'd really rather play CoD^4, or Ikaruga or...anything. I mean, Wii Sports has it's appeal, but the only mode I really honestly like, boxing, is just to vague in it's movements, so imprecise...********

...And then there's the fact that I'm the only one who really likes that mode, and everyone else like bowling and golf, which is fun once or twice, but not really something I'm up to a whole lot...

so yeah, games + family isn't exactly a winrarring combination for me. Shit, my dad still thinks that they're wastes of time that are causing me to fail my college classes...EVEN WHEN I HAVEN'T PLAYED A GAME IN WEEKS...

Yeah, most of my memories on the intersection of games and family are of my dad yelling at me, and that shit actually DID traumatize me...so yeah...*********

*cough*awkward*cough*

I think I'm just gonna end this post right here cause I really don't want to take a trip down memory lane right now...kinda tired, and I got homework to do...so yeah...

Hope you have a nice day!

 Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

*NOTE TO SELF: Link to youtube of people applauding before posting this
NOTE TO NOTE TO SELF: Sounds like alot of work.
NOTE TO NOTE TO NOTE TO SELF: Yeah, it does.
NOTE TO NOTE TO NOTE TO NOTE TO SELF: It could have been done by now if you had actually done it, and not just sat here typing about doing it.
NOTE TO NOTE TO NOTE TO NOTE TO NOTE TO SELF: Fuck off.
**Mostly him watching me, ROCK AT THEM.
***"You suck, give me the controller!" || "Don't waste you arrows!" || "NOBODY LIKES A BACKSEAT GAMER!"
*****He's like in fifth grade or something, and he kicks total ass at Dawn of War. Awesome
******No Sissy, I never will forgive you.
*******What's really out for the Wii right now? Seriously, could anyone post a must-own Wii game?
********Post forthcoming.
*********Not to say my dad was abusive or anything, I mean he's a great guy, just didn't know/understand how scary he was when he was mad at us.

So I got around the playing Braid...

2008-09-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Oh man. Oh shit. Fucking hell shit yes. Braid.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

s

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

*cough*

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

*sip water*

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

So I liked it. Was it kinda faggy? Kinda 'pretentious'? Kinda almost sexist if viewed a the proper angle, just behind the fold of the themes? Yeah. Definitely.

But it was also fucking complete. It was whole. It ended at the beginning, and began at the ending. That's some zen shit right there.

Do I need to even talk about the actual gameplay? Who doesn't know how Braid plays that this point? Rather, who doesn't already have their notion of how Braid plays ingrained into their mind, either by experience or teh internets?

So you know what? Not gonna talk about the gameplay. Right now. But I will talk about how Braid is gonna get remembered.

As soon as I can come up with an argument about how we as gamers have such short attention spans and such little memory...but do we really? I mean yeah, it's vogue to say the internet's make us stupid* and shit, but does it really? in many ways we gamers never forget! I mean, we've got the world's largest memory bank into which we can pour our ROMS for posterity, upload our thoughts on our blogs, and record our actions for eternity**. We like motherfuckering elephants on Lymph*** or some shit. I mean really. WE STILL BITCH ABOUT DUKE FUCKING NUKEM.

So screw it. I'll try a different line of attack.

But it's like, where do I start? It's just so whole. So complete. Other games, I can take apart just by pulling the loose thread, of which I normally have my pick. But Braid...man it feels almost wrong to take that shit apart. Almost.

Okay, so lets start with the bad. Out of the whole game, I only needed to look up the solution to a puzzle three (3) times. They were as follows;

Once, for the puzzle that requires you know that enemies can jump off of you! That's bullshit Blow. I've never seen this mechanic before, never had any situation in which I can uncover it naturally. 'I don't want people to use spoilers' my ass****

Again, to understand how I accidentally solved the second to last puzzle in the second to last world. I hate that fucking ring.*****

Again, to solve the ending 'story' puzzles in the epilogue part. It was 2 am, and I had school that morning! Sue me!******

So there you go. Three puzzles that sucked, but only in relation to the rest of the game.

Go Blow. Hehee...Blow. God, that name is so funny.

Where was I. Oh yeah!

To sum up, the weakest part's of Braid are better than the best parts of most games. Let me repeat that

BRAID'S SHIT SMELLS BETTER THAN YOURS

Comprende, ese?*******

No you don't. Wanna know how I know? Cause I don't comprende it, cause if I comprended it, I would just write a post about that, and not about Braid in general.

So since I don't understand the full repercussions of this statement, I'll just move on. Note that I will return to this in a later blog post...maybe. If I remember.

So hey, taking it apart right? Picking at one loose thread, and just letting the whole unwind. What other threads are there...the bad parts thread didn't work as well as planned...

Oh I know! The story!

A game reviewer far funnier than me has complained about how the story and the gameplay are not intertwined. He states, and I quote...ahh never mind. Quoting is hard. But the basic jist of ZP's story complaint is that since they're not side-by-side, they're apart.

Normally, I feel that ZP is on the money, but this time, I just gotta disagree. You see, I think the 'story' segments were genius. They were Shadow of the Colossus for the PlayStation 2 genius. I think that the small room where those books are located for each level is brilliant. It lets the player read the books only if they want, and normally, they want to, even if out of nothing other than sheer curiosity. It requires a COMMITMENT by the player. None of this forced cinematic bullshit. If you want the story, it's there for you. And people just can't resist that kind of shit.

Secondly, it gives us a frame for the level. It's something like "and on that note, lets play the level!".

The next complaint is against the game's story. Action Button actually had a pretty nice critique of Braid, that pointed out that hey, this story is kinda sexist. Can't find it anymore, so there.

And yeah, I can see that. But is the story sexist, or is Tim? I contend that the whole story is through Tim's eyes, and let's be honest here, he's something of a douche. And at the same time, come the epilogue, we get to see things from a more neutral observer's standpoint.

And shit, while I'm on it, that part at the end where the text changes when you're hiding behind somthing? Fucking A.

...Yeah...I think that's it. Nothing more really to say, at least right now. Art was great. Level design was phenomenal. Story was told through the viewpoint of a fucking sexist shithead. Braid's shit smells better than yours...yeah, that's about it.

Fuck. I gotta end this post now...

OH SHIT! Wait! The stars! They were almost a good idea! It's just such bullshit, because one of them you can only get by NOT solving one of the puzzles, so if you're trying to get the stars AFTER you beat the game, you're SOL. Really, what the fuck is up with that Blow? I mean really, most people are gonna find out about them only after beating the game. And shit, I think it undoes the whole theme of the game, that thing where you end and the beginning, and begin at the end. When you FORCE the player to restarts THE WHOLE GAME, you kinda undo that whole shtick********. Really man, how did that make it into the game?

So yeah. I think that's it.

POST ENDS NOW!

*Like that dude on the Report the other day. What Report? What dude? Guess.
**"DUDE! Can you still feel you nuts?" "I can feel Johnny, but not Depp!"
***EOT AK, eat your heart out!
****It is a testament to Braid's awesome that this/these puzzle(s), if it had been in any other game, could very well have been a highlight.
***** See:****
****** See:*****
******* Team 842, Flacon Robotics, FTW!
********I can't believe that the Firefox spellchecker has that in it's database.

Ikaruga post coming....

2008-09-06T15:30:00.001-07:00

But I first need to play the game properly, ie., with a joystick. Got it for the 360, and damn it is good, but I can't really talk about it without playing it properly.

Should I make my own? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........................................

July 08 Round Table: Hardnessicity

2008-07-06T19:27:00.001-07:00

So hey, another month, another round table from the folk(s) over at Man Bytes Blog! The wootage knows no boundaries!

None I say!

So this month is all about difficulty in the gamings. One of the things that has always fascinated me about gaming is the line between an honest challenge, and simple frustration. I think this line is probably best show by Assassins Creed.

Now, AC is not a bad game to be sure. It's simply a game that, like alot of good games, really enjoys shitting on you.

Take, this for instance.

So I'm like halfway through that game. It's been good, but not fucking awesome, and I'm sitting here thinking, 'Man, where's the game Penny Arcade was playing? Cause shit man, I wanna play that game.' So anyway, I decide to really buckle down, and give this game a real shot at wowing me. So I decide to play it by the book for my next assassination. No bullshitting around, no being a dick, no high profile shit; the book.

So I stake the place out. I figure I could come at it from my targets right, since that's the quickest way back to the bureau*. So, I take out the two guards all quiet-like, sit in the shadows, and wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

As I wait, I come up with a nine-point action plan. It goes like this

Run

Run

SHANK

Run

Run

HIDE

Run

Run

SAFE

So I wait some more.

And more.

My dogs come into the room, and one licks my legs. Still, I wait.

As I wait, I realize that my nine-point action plan can actually be cut by one whole action! Since I am this close to where my target will be once the fucker shows up, I really don't need to run-run-SHANK. What I really need to do is jump-SHANK. EFFICIENCY!!

So I wait some. One of the dogs tries to get into my lap, but I push him off. You see, I am taking the game cereal.

My brother comes in.

"What are you doing?"

I tell him about my nine- oops! My seven-point action plan.

"Well you need to trigger the event first"

I reiterate the brilliance of my seven point action plan. I offer making a chart.

"Yeah, but you need to trigger the even first."

I sit there, dejected. No way. I did my shit right. I did the stealthy, I did the guard-taking-out, I DID MY SHIT BY THE BOOK. And now, I have to get into the crowd? The heavily guarded crowd? When I did my shit right? When I made my seven point action plan? I got up, went over to the 360, and shut it off.

At that moment, I realized that I have finally matured as a gamer. I have reached the state where I can recognize the difference between a game challenging me, and a game shitting on my face. It's taken me 10 years, but by God, I've done it.

I think that we gamers have grown far to used to eating shit. I feel that when one looks at the video games made up until this point, one can clearly see that very, very few are shit free. Not to say that most aren't shit, but rather to say that they're not shit-free. Now some of this is due to the simple fact that the only one amongst our number who knows anything about game design** has us eating mushrooms. But a lot more of it is due to the fact that we just keep on taking it. So that's why games suck. Because of you***.

In conclusion, stop eating shit, you fucking dumbass.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go play Assassin's Creed...just one more assassination.

Honest.

*Man, that was a bitch to spell

**I mean anything as in anything significant

***No really, it's my fault too. We're in this together, Person-I've-Never-Met-But-Has-Awesome-Taste-In-Blogs.

 Please visit the Round Table's &amp;amp;lt;a title="Round Table Main Hall" href="http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/"&amp;amp;gt;Main Hall&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt; for links to all entries.

So hey, Dev.

2008-06-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

Made a game a while back, thought I'd upload it here.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q1ZLTR73

It's my take on Sonic. I always wondered why you could go backwards in Sonic. Couldn't one design a game where you needn't go backwards?

And the visuals I like alot

Heads up, you'll need GM installed to play it, since the file is a .gm file. I've never had successes w/ exe's made by GM

April Round Table: Lonely Games

2008-04-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

So hey, Man Bytes Blog. Sweet blog. Very well written. Very engaging. Few swears. Lots of measured, careful, thoughtful statements about games and gaming. So, apparently, Corvus does this Round Table thingie, so I'd figured I try a crack at it. The theme this time is finding common threads among your favorite games.

So, favorite games:

Odin Sphere
Any shooter by Cactus
Any shooter by Kenta Cho
God Hand
Dead Rising
Audiosurf
Shadow of the Colussus
GTA: San Andreas
Devil May Cry 3
Radian Silvergun
Spectromancer
Magic: The Gathering
Chess
Blackjack
Texas Hold'em
Dawn of War
Passage
Discipline: Record of a Crusade
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

...huh. It's weird seeing all those things together, isn't it. I mean, I constantly talk to myself about these games, but I've never actually written them all down before. Ya know, all as one. Huh. Well I can't see a pattern. So how about games I hate?

Discipline: Record of a Crusade
World of Warcraft
Odin Sphere
God Hand
Dead Rising
Darkened Skye
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

...Yeah. I still got nothing. Let's try observing why I hate these games!

Discipline: Record of a Crusade - First ending I got hurt Otokawa.
World of Warcraft - Grind
Odin Sphere - Grind
God Hand - Half-finished
Dead Rising - Brilliant story-telling technique, stuck telling a B story
Darkened Skye - wasted good allowance money on this
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence - fucking control scheme from the 9th layer of hell
Bioshock - uninspired

... Hmm...Let's go back to the ones I love.

Odin Sphere - first game where I almost cried / I heart Gwendolyn
Any shooter by Cactus - Man's a genius
Any shooter by Kenta Cho - See: Cactus
God Hand - Ballsy design
Dead Rising - Ballsy design
Audiosurf - $10 for a game I'll play for the rest of my life
Shadow of the Colussus - Brilliant
GTA: San Andreas - WCTR
Devil May Cry 3 - 'Fun Factor'
Radian Silvergun - Good ole' shmup goodness
Spectromancer - Ingenious use of cards in digital format
Magic: The Gathering - a blast
Chess - European philosophy in 8x8 squares
Blackjack - Fun/random elements integrated into game of skill
Texas Hold'em - Fun/random elements integrated into game of skill
Dawn of War - Fun
Passage - Art
Discipline: Record of a Crusade - Taught be about player expectations
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence - Sheer craftsmanship

I guess, when I look at it like this...none of these games pull punches. They don't meet you halfway. They don't concede anything. They are what they are, they know what they are, and by god they're happy with it. They're ecstatic even. They don't want to be movies. They don't want to be novels. They don't want anything more than to be just what they are; games. Now some of
them (SotC, Passage) use the fact that they're just games to show us something beautiful, to make 'art'. Others (DMC3, Radiant Silvergun) are content with showing us what we've learned how to do. Some show us the future, some the past. some show where we're coming from, and others give a hint of where we're going. But they're all happy just being games.

And looking at this list of games I hate, I see things that aren't happy being games, or aren't fully realized as games. They're not content. They're so...worried. Anxious. Unfinished. Or worse, they just don't care.

Like WoW. When I was playing WoW, I just got this incredible sense that the game doesn't care about itself much. I mean, I'm out here slaughtering these lizards, and for what? For some levels? If I murder Thunderlizard #3002212379872761, does anyone give a fuck? Does it change anything significant? All that happens is some fucking bright-ass pillar shines on me, I get some skill points, and it's right back the fucking grind.

And Bioshock; shit on a biscuit that game was pissed! It was so constrained, so trapped into what it thought an FPS had to be, into how a story had to be told. Into how combat has to work. It was so held back. Playing that game made me so sad, because all I saw was something awesome raging against chains it put on itself.

And God Hand, man God Hand. It fell apart around the edges. The center the meat, the main levels of the game were fantastic. Beating up wrestling gorillas, spanking hot dommes, suplexing thugs. THAT WAS AWESOME!!! And then you get to the Last Boss, and you're like SWEEEETTT!!! Double the POWER! And then you're like, let's do it again God Hand, this time, ON HARD...And then...the game forgets. I forgets about all those moments that you two had. It
forgets about that time you got BOTH God Hands, and you were like, "take this DEMON DUDE", and he was like "NO YOU HAVE DEFEATED MEEEE!!!" It forgot. How could it do that to me? After all those moments, gone. Did God Hand ever really love then?

So anyway, yeah, that's what I see from these lists. I see games that understand what they are, and games that don't understand what they are. The games I love know what it is that they're trying to do, and by god, they do it. The games I hate...not so much. You know what? I wouldn't even say I hate those games. I just feel bad for them. They're just so pitiful.

They're lost. Lonely.

I think this whole round table has been good for me. I think I'll do more of this kind of taking-my-thinking-on-games-apart stuff. But for now, I gotta go to EEE 120! PI AWAYYYYyyyyyyyyy......!!!!

Please visit the Round Table's Main Hall for links to all entries.

So I got around to playing Karoshi 2...

2008-04-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Alot like Karoshi one. That is to say, the goal is to die, and it's surprisingly hard. Puzzles are fiendish, to say the least. All in all, a good old clever little time.

Oh, and it has a Shadow of the Colossus reference. Hell yes.

RTS Idea, or, FUCK ONSCREEN BUTTONS

2008-04-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

You know what always pissed me off about RTS's? The fucking buttons in the GUI. Very briefly, look down upon your cheeto-encrusted keyboard. What do see? Other than tissue papers of course*. You see buttons. Loads, and loads of fucking buttons. Look at all them damn buttons. Thats more buttons than I've ever seen! Ever! Count them damn buttons dude!

I'll wait.

...

While you were counting, I looked it up on wikipedia. 104 buttons! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! That's not even counting combinations of those buttons**! Why the hell would you need any more goddamned buttons!?!?

What does this have to do with the Falcon? Using the falcon, I would make a cursor-less RTS. The reason that RTS's have always had cursors is because people are dumb fucks. They just couldn't think of any other way to move around the map. Well with the Falcon, it simple controls the camera. All zooming, panning, etc, is done by that wonderful little piece of hardware. This means we can each squad assigned to a letter (Alpha = a, Beta = b, etc.). Let the number pad assign directions, and use a chess-like grid to tell them where to go. Etc.

*It's allergy season!
**which would be 5356 by the way. If you're only counting 2-combo's

Novint Falcon: Here's my idea...

2008-04-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

So hey, a design challenge!

Here's my idea: an RTS. The battlefield? THE GLOBE*.

No really, the whole planet. You would have no cursor. The falcon would let you spin the globe. Moving the knob forward zooms in, pulling it back zooms out. The game would auto select your units, and using the keyboard (NO ONSCREEN BUTTONS THAT SHIT PISSES ME OFF) you would narrow down your selections, and issue orders.

More on this RTS to come.

*Not the one on the Thames. The other Globe. The bigger one

Why Dead Rising is How You Should Tell a Story in a Game

2008-04-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I heart hyperbole

You know what always pissed me off about video game stories?

Let's look at Mass Effect. In ME, you play a dude who's gotta save the universe, with only the Best Human Ship EVAR (tm) and a Ragtag Band of Fighters (tm). Somehow, you manage to do so. Who'da thunk it?

So there's this mission in the game where you gotta get to a planet and save some alien dudes who need your help. You are told to get there quickly, so you can save them! Time is of the essence you are told! And in case that didn't convince you, the mission's name is Race against Time!i

But what if I don't wanna? What if I wanna roam around the universe for a couple of days? WHAT THEN MASS EFFECT!?!?!? Then...nothing. The dudes you needed to save never die, they just stay there, on their little paradise planet, waiting for you to just show up any old time you please.

What. The. Fuck. That's a load of bullshit. Seriously, if we (and by we, I mean 'I' since no-one reads this blog!) want the medium to advance we got to start calling this shit.

You see, there are only four (4) video games that I have ever played that told a story right. First and second are Portal and Half-Life. These games need no explanation. Third is Shadow of the Colossus, or, 'The Game That Makes All Others Look Like Steaming Piles Of Dog Shit, only WITH BLOOM LIGHTING!!!'

And the last is Dead Rising. Dead Rising is the singly most ballsy piece of game design in the past decade. What of the indie scene? Fuck the indie scene*. Those shitheads are playing for peanuts when compared to Dead Rising. Those indie fucks are busy re-treading retro, and making their shit candy-coated.** Portal was not ballsy.*** Was there ever any real doubt about Portal? Sure, no one foresaw how awesome it was going to wind up being, but people, this is Valve we're talking about. They made Half-Life. While we were still shitting out shlocky WW2 shooters, Gabe Newell and his team were busy establishing the standard in FPS's, which is the case to this day.

But what of the story? I'll give you that fact that yeah, Dead Rising doesn't exactly have the greatest story ever. But I'm not here to talk about the story of Dead Rising, I'm here to talk about how it tells it. And how it tells it is the way ALL GAMES SHOULD DO IT****

So how does it tell it's story? What is this method that just has my man-panties***** in such a twirl? Timed tasks bitches.

Just let it sink in.

It's still sinking in, trust me dude.

Still sinking.

...

Remember ME? Mass Effect? Remember the problem I had? Why did I have this problem? I propose that the underlying cause of this problem was Narrative Momentum (tm). The Narrative of the game had no Momentum of it's Own. I was the momentum. I moved the story. And I could move the story in such a way as to let it make no sense.

Dead Rising's structure does NOT let you do this. It puts me in my place. In every other fucking game, I might as well be God, for shit happens when I say it happens. Nothing in those other games can happen without my say so. "You can't die! I'm grinding here!" Since I am God, there is no such thing as sacrifice. No sacrifice, no suffering, no suffering, no conflict, no conflict, NO FUCKING STORY.

Dead Rising is basically saying "Fuck you player, I'll die when I wanna!" You're not there for a story event? Tough shit. The game moves on. You wanna save people? Bitch, you better be prepared! You better plan the fuck ahead. You can't just go out and say "Geh-hee wizz! Let's go get us some PP, by saving some people! It'll be no problem!" And then you're stuck, with a half-dead team of survivors at the grocery store, wand god-damnit you're about to miss a fucking story event, I came to damn far to screw up now, comeon you lazy shits FIGHT THE ZOMBIES YOU IDIOTS!!!!

Conflict. Story.

More to come, when I'm not so sleepy.

*DISCLAIMER: I love the indie scene. Seriously, I do. Cactus 4 evar!

**DISCLAIMER: I love Peggle.

***DISCLAIMER: I love Portal.

****DISCLAIMER: See the Disclaimer at the beginning of this post.

*****Are they comfortable? You bet your ass they are.

An artical on Mirror's Edge

2008-03-17T11:29:00.001-07:00

This is one of the few projects I am actually following

Favorite part? You run out of bullets means you throw the gun away.

Fuck yes. That shit be off the heezy. Fo' sheezy. Word. Sucka.

They fixed Audiosurf!

2008-03-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

This is the game I remember from the beta! FUCK YEAH, no slowdown, no lag, just pure reflex.

Stronger + Ironmode + Ninja Mono = WIN

So I got around to playing Haxed....

2008-03-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

http://haxxx.alienmelon.com/

the second game is interesting. The sudden interruption of your view is quaint.

the first one, I like the visuals, but a not a fan of 'dragging' games

please don't say this is the future of games

2008-03-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

Please.

More to come later.

Gears of War 2. Consider me interested

2008-02-20T15:55:00.001-07:00

I liked GoW, but I always wondered just what they could really add to it. I mean, it was just such an incredibly well put-together system. What could they really add into the mix? And then I saw the video. Clashing chainsaws? Okay CliffyB. I'll bite.

So I got around to playing the OFFICIAL Audiosurf release...

2008-02-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

EDIT:

Framerate issues. WTF? The beta had no framerate problems <---FIXED

Why can't I retrieve my password?<--- MADE NEW ACCOUNT

Why can't Audiosurf read songs off my Ipod?

Why is the song-selector just a glorified file selector? The game here is solid, bordering on god-damn corporeal. Make the song selector display ID3 tags, not file names!

Why do I have to reselect a character every time I want to start a new race? I know I can use the 'next song' button, but all my file names are super-long, making it useless.

PS: Ninja Mono + Ironmode + Faces on Fire = AWESOME

I wish I was on the Third floor

2008-02-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

What? I do.

Then would I have to look up?

So I got around to playing Warning Forever

2008-02-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

Man, this game is good. So simple. Kill a boss, and the next one's strategy is based off of the plan you used last time. So nice. So very, very nice. The game is constantly growing with the player, evolving as the player gets better.

Graphics are perfect for this game's purpose; they tell you exactly what you're hitting. Sounds are nice and simple, and by that, I mean I turned them the fuck off and turned up some Ascension. Seriously, this game almost seems made to played alongside some free jazz; the constant improv, the core fundamentals being fucked with in ways you never seem to quite fully grasp, the ever-shifting rythm and style, all adds up to one cohesive experience.

Is it just me, or does the omni-cannon do less damage than the main one?

So I got around to playing Guitar Hero 3...

2008-02-06T15:31:00.001-07:00

I loved GH and GH2. The summer I got GH consisted of me, the living room, non-stop rocking, and horrible body odor (GH = workout!). When GH2 came out, it was sweet; they fixed everything that I didn't like about GH. 2 was 1 perfected.

So when I heard about 3, I was rather skeptical. What more was left to improve on? There was nothing wrong with GH2. Nothing. It was the GH system fully realized. And Neversoft? The only thing those guys have to their credit is Tony Hawk, which stopped being interesting at around...0h let's say 4. It's all the same with those games really.

So yeah, GH3. It's butt-fucking ugly. Seriously. It's hideous. The characters, the stages, the INTERFACE. Ugly. Where's the charm of the Harmonix games? Nowhere, that's where.

But Guitar Hero isn't about the looks; it's about the gameplay! So how is it? Here's how good it is; go play GH2. Seriously. Go play it. Now image overlaying GH2 with a steaming pile of stupid shit.

That's GH3. 2, but with stupid shit on top.

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet....

2008-01-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/index_e.html

But man, I am a huge fan of Kenta Cho. Seriously, check this guys shit out! It be quite off the heezy. I love the simple, effective visuals. I love the inspired gameplay. And hey, the music ain't all that bad either.

Game Idea: D3v

2008-01-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

You know what I hate? The backwards button in Sonic. Who the hell goes backwards in Sonic? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I've heard a Dragonforce song once (GH3, you have failed me).

So anyway, this game is basically my take on Sonic, but with no backwards button. You hit the 'main' (Think A on an NES, or 'Z' on a computer) button to slowly build up momentum. As you do, you can hit the arrow keys (d-pad) to slash your sword. Kill enemies at the right time, and you'll go faster. I think this would add a nice dynamic, because the enemy kills are like a boost; they are only temporary. And you'll need the speed you get from them too! Because man, there are gonna be some serious jumps! We're talking some Grand Canyon 'shizzle' 'up in here' (that's how the kids are saying it these days right?)

Oh yeah, to jump, you release the 'run' button.

Also, some enemies cannot jump the chasms with you, and some can. Some you can outrun, and some you can't.

Oh yeah, also, story. But I'm more worried about the design right now.

EDIT: I'm thinking of treating D3v as more a series of motif's from which I can critique things I don't like in games...yeah...

Prototype coming soon.

So I got around to playing rRootage...

2008-01-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

I think I'm addicted.

I like how the different powers make the battles flow differently.

Giga Wing = Pac-man?

I need to get Ikaruga.

ELABORATION

The 'Normal Mode' flow is just that; normal. You dodge, in a rather plodding manner. The pace isn't sow really; it's just careful, and steady. At least on the lower levels (How does difficulty affect the flow?)

'Psy Mode' has the special ability to become invincible after you've shot enough enemies, and scraped enough bullets. The invincibilty is short. Giving the player invincibility for shooting the main enemy makes it really hard to precisely time the power. Maybe on the harder levels things change.
Also, this mode lets you be a real jack-ass with bullet patterns.

'Ika Mode' reminds me of Pac-man, at least the pellet collecting part. This mode (based off of Ikaruga, which is now on XLM!) lets you pick between two colors; red and white. When you're white, you reflect white bullets back at the boss, and black bullets kill you. When you're black, vice-versa.
I just love how it takes the familiar mechanic of picking up 'tokens' and shifts it into a life-or-death proposition.
My only complaint is that it's hard to see white bullets that the enemy fires; he's yellow you see, and a rather bright shade at that. This dictates that you must stay a certain distance from the enemy, which in turn eliminates a whole host of stratagems (Thesaurus, FTW!).

And lastly, we have 'GW Mode'. This mode brings to mind the real Pac-man. The hunter-becomes-the-hunted part. This mode's mechanic allows you to reflect your enemies bullets back at them, but only after you're power meter is charged. When you use it (after a delay) you generate a shield, which shrinks and shrinks and then...GETS HUGE!
I like the flow, and the idea behind GW mode (named after Giga Wing, a wonderful arcade shmup, MAME FTW!). It forces back and all around with wave after wave of bullets. But when your meter's charged, you have to get right into the thick of things, and rush the boss, so as to get the most bullets reflected.

So I got around to playing the Audio Surf beta...

2008-01-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

I am so willing to pay for this game.

But is it really a game?

Well yeah, of course it is, but it really seems to push how we think of games. It manages to makes procedural generation into a cohesive experience. Cool.

So I Got Around to Playing N...

2008-01-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

On the surface, N seems like something I would love. Ninjas? Check. Robots? Check. Gold? Check. Wall jumps? Check. Fiendish puzzles, brutal death animations, and absurd jumps? Check, check, and mate.

So why do I hate playing this game? It's the controls. They just feel so horribly wrong. Every second I play N, I feel like I'm in pain. I have to strain myself to correctly time my jumps. And performing wall jumps? I cry. It's such a real shame. I tried to like this game, I really did. The controls just feel so off.

"Fears" or "Why I Don't think I'm Cut Out for Game Design" or "Why Am I Such a Worthless Coward?" or "Why Can't I Decide on a Goddamn Post Title, FUC"

2008-01-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

Heh...Blogger cut off my title.

Most of the time, I am reasonably confident that I chose the right path in life, the path of "Making Games Into Art, Or, Failing That, At Least Legitimized By Mainstream Culture"(tm). But every now and then, I have fears, I have doubts, I have WHO AM I KIDDING!!?!?

Every now and then? Every other second I piss my pants in terror. Every corner I turn, I find something that terrifies me about gaming, about the future of our medium. I mean, come on. Why do We have to prove ourselves to Them? We game to escape Them! Gaming IS OURS. IT'S MINE. WHY DO I HAVE TO LOSE THAT!!?!?

And at the same time, I see that we need to evolve. I don't want to play Halo for the rest of my life. I want to explore, I want gaming to evolve, but I want it to still be mine!

Why are we even looking for acceptance from Them anyway? We are Their demise! We grew up on the Internet, We are weaned on the teat of the Information Age. We are the Death of 'Mass Media'. We are the Long Tail! That's what the Internet promised!

Man, I am one whiny bitch. I mean, seriously, how did this turn into some kind of immature diatribe against 'Them'? Who is 'Them'? Who are 'We'?

So 'We' (whoever that is) game to escape 'Them'...THAT'S THE PROBLEM. 'We' define ourselves through 'Them' and thusly, 'They' still dominate us. I see...

So that is the Nature of Rebellion...hm?

Oops. I went on a tangent didn't I? Sorry, I guess. It's just that Bioshock won't work for me. I was going to talk about how Bioshock is such an awesome game, and how on an artistic level, I don't see how to beat it, but the game crashes every other second. Stupid 360.

DIARY OF PLAY: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

2007-12-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

These words represent my thoughts as I play the game in question. Just a warning. Stuff in bold I added later.

Heh. Hemorrhoids.

For the most part, it makes sense, but at times my thoughts seem to get ahead of the game. This game requires me to think in the moment, as opposed to having a long term strategy...at least for now.

I don't like how you move from scene to scene. It just seems real easy to get lost with how they have it set up.

I don't like how the save system forces you out of the game. <- discourage abuse! But doesn't stop it...what was their intent behind this decision? Did they do it to encourage you to know WTF you're doing?

Did Mia really need to wear that low-cut a dress Capcom? I mean really, come on.

When I finally nailed Dahlia, I felt real proud of myself.

Nice characterization. I actually am interested in asking these people questions. I never seem to lost for to long.

those profiles are useful, but annoying. I hear the next game will get rid of them. That should streamline the whole thing...

That must be the cleanest damn toilet in the world.

Psyche-Locks are fun. Like a condensed trial.

Heh. Butz.

I like the Examination system. but in cluttered areas it get mildly confusing.

In court, and lost. I have no idea why this picture is peculiar. I made a guess...wait! THANKS ONLINE GUIDES!!! Man, you really gotta watch the details!

Poor Gumshoe. Can't catch a break.

If Godot keeps on drinking coffee like that, he's gonna need a 20 minute break.

I love the characters they got in this game.

They need more inventive names with the testimony.

Did they design it where after all that hard stuff, everything falls together? If so, a stroke of genius. If not, well, accidental genius still counts

I love pwning Godot.

Confetti? I court?

Outta the frying pan and into the fire....

I like how you can tell if you're on the right track by the green text that shows up.

Man, I love them Psych-Locks.

Lost again...how do I break this PL?

A BREAKTHROUGH!! Thanks to that article!

Broke those damn PL's w/ a detail I overlooked. Victory is very nice.

Just made a breakthrough in trial. Such satisfaction!

The autopsy says 1:00 am as time of death! WTF?

Godot coughed up his beloved coffee. PWNED!

The photo is wrong... how do I present it?

I now the flaw is that the box in the photo doesn't have paint on it...how do I say that?

I seem to get ahead of the game...oooohhhh...I was supposed to think the diamond mentioned in the letter was the Tear...<-That was never mentioned

I pressed the right statement, but since all the animations are the same for the first couple of seconds, I reset the game, figuring I lost.

Such a heartwarming ending.

where do I go? find the green stone thing? I always miss the profiles...ditching them seems better and better...

Old guy is perv. Nice use of dialog (by Gumshoe) to lead me in right direction.

How am I supposed to know to present Maggey w/ Victor's Testimony!?!?

Viola's sprite emotes are starting to wear thin...and then she cries. Nice timing...?

They shouldn't lead the right answers with 'Your Honor'. I makes me think I made a mistake! I nearly reset, when I had the right answer!

God, victory is soooooo awesome in this game!

The judge speaks Spanish? Random.

Glen's Calendar says: Meet w/ Tiger! It contradicts Tiger's testimony! <-games cannot (yet?) determine why I present evidence/ take the actions that I do.

Hot testimony?

Why ask me if I want it amended?

forgot about him posing as me

Gumshoe to the rescue!

Gotcha bitch!!

Has Maggey been wearing the same dress this whole time?

IN THE MOMENT: Team Fortress 2

2007-12-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

One thing that has always annoyed me about video game reviews is when they try to rate the online portion of a game. Let us take Halo 3 for instance. Any review of Halo 3 is complete and utter poppycock*, at least, moreso than your average game review. The reason that Halo 3 reviews transcend normal review poppycock, attaining new levels of poppycockery**, is that they all try to rate what is on the disc, not what is on the net. No one on this planet really gives a damn about Master Chief's story on any real level. The only reason we kinda sorta care is simply because he's been with us for a while. When people actually play Halo, they don't say "Check out this awesome story!", they say "BOOM HEADSHOT FAG!". They care not about the arc (why am I killing this Grunt?) they care about the action (I killed a Grunt! w007!)

So what? You might say. Is not the action defined on the disc, in form of the Halo code?

Yes. I would reply. The action is defined on the disc, but that is not where it resides. A definition is different from an actual thing you see. A definition is but a property of a thing. What the disc contains is code, which is but an actions definition; it is not the action itself.

At this point, you would have two options. Option one has you stroke your chin (or, seeing as you are probably a gamer, your Cheeto-soaked goatee) in mild interest and ask me to continue. If this is your chosen option, please jump ahead to the paragraph marked A.

Your other option is to vehemently disagree with my point. If so, please email me with your retort, and skip to the paragraph marked B, or rather the point of this post, as paragraph A is unlikely to sway you.

A) I would continue to say that there is no point in playing Halo if you don't play the multiplayer; playing Halo's multiplayer is like playing Half-Life's single-player. It's the whole god-damned point. While it is incredibly useful to understand games as abstract systems of mechanics that the player must use to overcome obstacles...and shit, I forgot where I was going. Crap.

*God, I love that word

**Patent Pending

PROBLEMS AND FIXINS: Mass Effect

2007-12-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

In Brief: Weapon holstering is a wasted button, and the squad commands, though not horrid, is lackluster. Texture popping? Really?

In Long:

Ah Mass Effect. How I remember when I first read that preview in EGM so long ago. The promises, oh the sweet, sweet promises. Oblivion in Space?!!? FUCK YEAH! Take Everything I love about Oblivion, and put in interstellar travel.

I should have realised it was to good to be true. Oblivion's world was jam packed with stuff to do; it seemed like with every five steps i took I came across 2 dungeons, 3 camps, 5 quests, and a dragon. Replicating this shit-to-do/land-area ratio across the entirety of our Lactose Avenue of a galaxy was far to tall an order.

This is not to say that Mass Effect is a bad game, it is merely not the game I wanted, or rather, hoped for. What is here is most excellent; a story that, for the first time, actually made me care about the characters, an immense world that, while not dense, is still pretty cool, and of course, freaking sweet weaponry.

But that being said, there is plenty here to hate. What can loved has been done already by others far more prolific than I, so I will go into what to hate about this game. Once again: I like this game. It is one of the few games that managed to actually make me excited about shooting the Bad Guy (tm) as a bad guy, not as a general obstacle in my path. It ambitious, so I find it hard to outright hate it. However, if we molly-coddle it, then we do the game a disservice. We owe it to Mass Effect to frank about what sucks

To begin: I MOTHERFUCKING HATE THIS GODDAMN CONTROL SCHEME SO MOTHERFUCKING MUCH. I hate it for a variety of reasons. Number one, I hate it because it didn't tell me how to do much of anything. Oh sure, it told me how to point and shoot, but crap, I've played GoW for Pete's sake. I KNOW HOW TO MAKE THE ENEMY DEAD WITH MY GUN. What I don't know is how to switch my gun, how use my abilities, how to aim my abilities, how to boss around my squad, how to heal my squad, how to equip myself and my squad, etc. So, first point the game does not tell you how to talk to it. The game to does not tell the player how to properly interact with it.

To elaborate: This control scheme is so horrendously inefficient, it makes me want to read Garfield so I can remember how to hate things that AREN'T Mass-Effect-Control related. First, off, when I say inefficient, I mean that there are button presses that don't need to be pressed, sticks that don't need to be pushed, things that can, and should have been mapped elsewhere. Inefficiency is an underrated crime in my book.

Five (5) buttons all do the same thing (draw your weapon). But that's 0kay; all five of those buttons are combat related (weapon switch, shooting, aiming, power-using and the dedicated weapon draw button). But only one (1) button puts away your weapons (still-okay). BUT this button is NONE of the previous buttons. And indeed, this completely separate button has only ONE FUNCTION: putting away your goddamned weapon.

How to fix this? Move all weapon functions to left bumper. On tap draws weapon. Tap again to swap to last used weapon. Hold to bring up weapon menu, and double tap to holster. And now, all attack-related commands are on the bumpers and triggers, which means only 2 fingers can access those commands

In the last of my moanings on Mass Effect's controls, we come to squad commands. This is where that right stick could have really come in handy. You see, my problem with Mass Effect's squad system isn't so much that it is outright BAD it's just it could have been better. As they have it, you control your squad with the D-Pad (The only arrow I know does anything is the top one, but that ties back into Issue 1). It's not bad per se, but if Bioware had access to an extra button or two (the weapon draw/holster ones) it could have been better. What I was thinking is that X brings you into squad command mode, where you issue movement orders (Attack orders already work rather well)

Next, we come to technical problems. Normally, console games pride themselves on a lack of such things. But Mass Effect has one HUGE technical problem. Texture popping. Every damn texture in the game seems to pop nigh constantly. Turn a corner? Pop. Enter a building? Pop. Reach a cutscene? Pop, pop, pop.

My recommended is fix goes like this:

1. Take Bethesda Software out to drink.
2. Get Bethesda Software very, very drunk.
3. Sneak into Bethesda Software's offices, and copy the loading code they used for Oblivion
4. Implement code in Mass Effect.
5. PROFIT!**

And of course, there are the general crashes that come with being a 360 game. Fucking Micro$oft, AM I RITE?!!11one?//1

And so, we come to the biggest problem of them all: the actual combat. This combat ranges from almost fun, to game-quitting frustrating. Part of this stems form the fact the Bioware at times don't seem to appreciate that, for all their RPG trappings, they ARE MAKING A THIRD PERSON SQUAD SHOOTER. Let me repeat: SHOOTER. You do not put SHOOTERS on long, poorly lit, bland catwalks and corridors. You put SHOOTERS in nice, open areas, with ample cover. At times, Bioware seems to know this, and at times they don't.

So that's it. Maybe later I'll talk about I liked about Mass Effect.

*UNLESS it's a Platformer or that's the whole point of the game (Echochrome, or, The Reason I'm Seriously Considering A PSP)

**4 and 1/2. ???

A Topic has been Decided! Commence Revelery Upon Reaching the End of this Post, and No Sooner

2007-12-28T08:14:00.001-07:00

This will be a blog about game design, with an emphasis on video games. I want to be a game designer, so this will hopefully help me in that respect. Pad out the resume and what-not

2007-11-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

Hello.

How are you? Fine I hope. You are reading this blog, so I can assume that there is nothing terribly wrong with you, as if there was something wrong with you, you wouldn't be here. You'd probably be at the hospital, or at least on WebMD. Or at least, I would hope so.

So anyway, what is this blog about? I don't know yet. Note the extremely abstract title. It could be the title for any old run-of-the-mill blog. You know the ones I'm talking about. Those blogs that have aren't really blogs in the sense of distribution of information, but the ones that are more masturbatory efforts on behalf of their authors. Those blogs tend to die out pretty quickly.

I'm just saying.