Posts by Thrik

Yeah, stopped watching after a while. Was good editing though, liked how they actually made a BF3 theme mix and timed the action perfectly rather than just throwing some electroshit on it.

Superb.

MapCore is going to be unavailable for a number of hours this evening, potentially all night depending on how long the work takes. I do apologise in advance as I know how you all love your MapCore, so I'll try and keep it as brief as possible.

The forum thought they were still there but it just couldn't display them so it'd have caused database issues, especially when converting to the new software in the future.

I want this mod and I want it now.

Haha, I know I'm stretching the definition of the word 'imminent' a little but work on the move has been underway and we're not looking at months. Transferring a gigantic database along with all the peripheral data is pretty difficult, in fact I've done it several times and each time there's been corruption or missing files (eg: everyone's avatars) for reasons that weren't entirely clear. I've gotten it mostly figured out though and I believe now I understand the procedure I'll be able to do it in the space of 12 hours or so.

Unfortunately this is going to mean the forums being offline while this is happening as any writes to the database during the move will cause the aforementioned problems, so within the next few days I'm going to take them down during the evening and hopefully everything will be done by the following morning. I actually quietly moved this thread as I'm getting ready to post a downtime alert.

Looking really nice.

I agree with HP though it might be worth doing some minor touch-up in Photoshop rather than fighting with lighting for the rest of your life, all the pros do it. I did a quick draft of what your results could be like with enough time and love:

[attachment=0]paradise_inn.jpg[/attachment]

Ugh, must be the worst thing ever getting excited about your new post and being let go immediately.

It looks like a superb contender to other shooters out there, I'm glad more options are being given so those type of people aren't just sat on Metro all the time. CoD fans in particular must look at this and think "what is this shit I'm playing". I still don't find myself particularly attracted to this up-close kind of action but I reckon I'll get it anyway, if nothing else for the new weapons.

The passage of time is incredible...

[Blocked Image: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_qSZzEd_mzGU/St4lSAp2GAI/AAAAAAAAC28/X8k7Kyqy4uA/s800/1996-pool.jpg]

[Blocked Image: http://cache.wists.com/thumbnails/c/a0/ca08c89fdbd6043d7ab39fa0db2d463c-orig]

It is pretty awesome when you get through a really long bit of game and then are treated to a sweet cutscene (this is especially nice in MGS considering how hard some bits are), and there'll probably always be games like that and I'll enjoy them, but I just wish more games would experiment with how they tell their stories rather than using the predictable gameplay-cutscene-gameplay formula. Half-Life did such good work in this respect, and while games influenced by its scripted nature like Call of Duty are great they still get a lot of their exposition done during loading screen cutscenes and stuff.

At least more games are starting to actually feature meaningful relationships, I haven't played Mass Effect yet but I believe that's meant to be a decent example (although the overarching gameplay still involves killing shit). Heavy Rain was enjoyable because it was one of few games that're exciting and tense, but don't really involve much in the way of action. This is a characteristic most adventure games shared, like Grim Fandango had some of the most memorable relationships and characters ever and was for the most part a love story — but it was an incredible experience and was just as exciting and fun as any recent game.

I guess I'm just tired of killing so much, but that doesn't mean I just want to play cute indie titles with low production values and limited scope (not that those are bad as a complement to playing AAA games).

At least I can play MGS without killing anyone if I really want to, hopefully the same in the new Hitman.

I agree that Quantic Dream's writing is borderline ludicrous at times, using every cliché and trope imaginable. The relatively cheap tricks they use to grab emotions can be seen a mile off, yet despite that they're still doing a lot better than most other developers at tugging actual emotion out of people. The sad fact is that the writing in many games is still absolutely shit, and while they may do a great job of generating excitement most of them suck at things like causing feelings of sadness, sorrow, loss, love, emotion, etc. Maybe I'm a loser but I'd actually like to see games able to produce these feelings rather than having to get them from a movie, book, or TV show.

Unfortunately to achieve this a lot of games become excessively cinematic; for example Metal Gear Solid, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead Redemption, Enslaved, and Uncharted achieve most of their magic in this respect through cutscenes. In fact if you think of any truly affecting memories in games, chances are they occured while you were sat with your thumb up your ass. Even the incredibly moving moments in Grim Fandango happened while you weren't able to interact with the game, although it continues to be considered a high point in game writing history.

Quantic Dream is at least trying to break beyond presenting this kind of stuff in a cutscene, and while the result is what most people scathingly call an 'interactive movie' that's still doing better than 99% of other games out there — and so it's something I encourage and hope they continue to experiment with, because maybe at some point they'll truly have a breakthrough and make games speak to people through love rather than war. Just try and name some games with good writing where it actually happens in an uninterrupted interactive way, I'm betting the list will end up pretty small (although it will include Half-Life 2 ).

See what Tim Schafer is doing with all your money

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_1.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_2.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_3.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_4.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_5.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_6.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_7.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_8.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_9.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_10.png?w=520]

[Blocked Image: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/schafer_11.png?w=520]

Quote from Izuno

Long hair....the final frontier in video game animation...

Haha, yeah it is hilarious how they don't seem to be able to overcome this. Did any characters in Heavy Rain have long hair? I'm fairly sure from memory they didn't.

I have no shame in admitting that I loved

, Quantic Dream's last game, and before that

(Anyone else actually play this?). They might not have been perfect, but they did so many things right — especially their incredible atmosphere and making you actually care about their characters — that I can't help but consider them high points in my gaming history.Quantic's been pretty quiet since then, but they've just released this new cinematic short which is (impressively) running in real time on a PS3 at 720p:

While it's sweet on a technical level, it's probably the subject matter of the video that's most intriguing. They've gone to great lengths to say it's not going to be part of an upcoming game, but it wouldn't be the first time they've said that and not meant it. Considering the positive reaction it's been getting I really hope they decide to take this further... somehow!

Ah, fair point Frie. I have tried it briefly also with a mouse/keyboard, but it didn't occur to me it might behave differently with a pad. I would recommend your camera guy check out Psychonauts if he can, as that was developed largely with the PC in mind and includes probably the best mouse/keyboard platformer camera I've seen. It can be controlled just like in PoNH, but it also operates smartly if you leave it alone and does a really good job of looking cinematic — it'd help bring out your gorgeous graphics and scenes so much.

Missed this: 25 Anonymous members arrested across Europe, and the FBI is now trying to paint them as terrorists.

Something that I've always noticed but assumed would be looked into with time is the way the camera moves. At the moment it feels quite stiff and overly fast in comparison to what I'm used to in comparable games, even on the PC (eg: Psychonauts). Also the way that it seems to turn at the same speed as the player character feels a little jarring, as in this kind of game you're usually able to run around without the camera necessarily spinning to follow you (this can be seriously disorientating).

I think the camera would feel quite a bit better if it weren't snapping to the player character so tightly and a bit more easing to its motions (ie: it speeds up and slows down with a broader gradient), and it could perhaps benefit from being a little further away from her too. 3D platformers have spent many years iterating how to get the camera feeling just right and there's a lot of games to be inspired by.

Other than that I truly love the way this game looks and feels. The art is so wonderful.