Posts by Thrik

  • Carry the duck

    Quote from Minotauro

    ... motherfucking bums who "take care of your car" when you park on public spaces (like the one in the first comics). They are like, "hey dude can I take care of your car ?" If you say "no", they scratch your car, steal things etc...My mum once refused "their help" and then, when she went back to her car, it was all scratched 'n shit

    D:

  • Team of Photographers Explore Chernobyl

    Was just reading Wikipedia:

    Quote

    Chernobyl remains inhabited by a small number of residents who decided to return to their homes after the accident, but the majority of the evacuated population now live in specially constructed towns such as Slavutich. Many animals have been introduced into the town to promote the growth and success of the ecosystem there; some of these appear to be flourishing in the radioactive environment, whilst others appear to be affected adversely.

    Yes, I can see where the inspiration for STALKER came from. :~

  • Beyond Good and Evil 2

    I didn't really like how it looked on the PC after playing it on the consoles. This is largely based on the demo, but the crisp, high-definition didn't really do the relatively low-res textures and basic geometry any favours — traditional TVs are great as masking that to an extent.

    But yeah, as this is indeed still a rumour then it could easily go either way; it's happened a few times in the past. I must persist in hoping, though, as it is truly a magnificent game that deserves a sequel.

  • Beyond Good and Evil 2

    Yeah, there's no doubt about it that it probably didn't meet was what originally inspired; despite this, it was still an excellent game and is extremely memorable. I guess they kind of expected to launch straight into a sequel (judging from the ending) and the fill it out that way, but sadly that never ended up happening.

    No good game has been perfect though, and even incredible titles such as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts came with their selection of flaws. When I look back at games I tend to blur the specifics a little and just look at the overall memory of the experience, and in the case of BGAE it is an extremely pleasant one. A contrast to most other games I play, where I'm more liable to name a number of specific good parts as opposed to the whole thing.

    Well, at least not until now, if true. Ancel has stated numerous times that he'd love to continue the series — perhaps that's where the original rumours began.

  • Beyond Good and Evil 2

    Here ye go — high-resolution trailer.

    The trailer does make it seem a little excessively actiony though, which it really isn't. It does have manyabsolutely cracking action sequences, but overall it's quite a laid-back and traditional game in many respects, with the atmosphere of an adventure game and a storyline/characters which are an unbelievable joy to be amongst.

    It really is a classic and is not to be missed; in fact, all this talking about it has urged me to dig it out this weekend for a replay! Miss out on it and die.

    It came from Mr. Rayman, Little Big Adventure and King Kong, by the way.

  • Beyond Good and Evil 2

    O. M. G.

    http://ryansgoblog.com/67/beyond-good-a ... roduction/

    http://www.joystiq.com/2006/03/15/beyon ... s-surface/

    http://www.cubed3.com/news/4740

    It is officially classed as a rumour, but my God, if this turns out to be true then I will become one of the happiest people in history.

    If you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend doing so — I'm sure KFS and various others will also jump in here and double/triple/etc my recommendation if they spot it. It is a seriously good game, and one of the few that I — as I said in my blogging above — would put into the same class as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango.

    It came out on all three home consoles, which I'm sure everyone has one of lying around. It still looks pretty hot too thanks to good art direction, as long as you don't play on the PC as the port was pretty bad from what I saw.

    BST FKIN EVR~!~!

  • Video help

    Windows Movie Maker is pretty shit for any kind of video editing and I highly recommend finding something else. Not only does it basically only export to wmv — which is no good for anybody not on Windows, and cannot be imported into many other things thanks to Microsoft actively shutting down those programs which allow it — but it's fairly limited with exportation options.

    A good program will allow you to specifically alter the quality and dimensions to result in exactly what you're after at a reasonable file size; Windows Movie Maker allows neither of these if I recall correctly, instead limiting you to a bunch of pre-set options.

    Try Virtual Dub. When combined with DivX, you can create some excellent quality video with the best file size. It's free and basic, but still comes with a good range of special effects (levels, hue, blurring, sharpening, etc) and does the job extremely well. Simply open your AVI with it, go to the "Video" and "Sound" tool-bar menus, make sure both are in "Full Processing Mode", and then go to the respective "Compression" menus in each.

    For video compression, you want DivX. If it allows you, go to the additional options screen to pump up the compression/quality (it seems like a dream come true for the maximum of both to be the same slider, however it takes longer to process). For sound, you obviously want mp3 at a minimum of 128kbps. If you find that you cannot create mp3s with as high a bitrate as 128kbps, install LAME onto your system. You can go right up to 320kbps for maximum quality (and minimum compression, thus a large file size).

    Hopefully this insightful post will be of assistance.

  • View From the Bottom

    It is a bit hard for indie developers to make it out there by the looks of it, but I can see it getting better as time goes on. Gamers are going to eventually crave more original titles, and the giants are going to be forced into funding their development. If in-house studios or regular contracts can't achieve this, where will they turn? The indie market seems the most obvious, but then this is a risk. They'd be spending money on a studio that hasn't yet proven itself. How can this risk be reduced?

    Perhaps one day the games industry will become more like the film industry with regards to funding and such, where risks are taken fairly routinely as the audience demands something new, be it special effects or concept. The UK Film Council, for example, has regular injections of lottery money to "stimulate a competitive, successful and vibrant UK film industry and culture." This could help indie developers to get on their way if applied to the games industry as it evolves and matures.

    At the moment the industry just seems too full of publishers happy to reuse the same old concepts, developers and franchises, and if a developer goes for something particularly innovative but isn't incredibly well known (eg: Will Wright, Peter Molyneux), they will be denied. This of course basically makes it excessively difficult for an indie to get anywhere.

    I guess recent advances such as Steam — which is becoming increasingly full of indie titles — and Xbox360 Live Arcade will help, but that initial dosh still needs to come from somewhere.

  • Whats this?

    It's just Windows Messenger – don't confuse it with MSN. Designed for LAN's, it allows people to send messages like that via a command prompt.

    To disable them, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services > Messager. Right click it, goto "Properties," then change the startup type to "disabled."