Posts by Izuno

Recently my 360 stopped outputting a signal to HDTVs. It works fine with a standard definition TV, but when it's set up to run our HDTV that it has been working on in the past it just shows a black screen with no sound. I got a new Xbox media cable and same result. I went through every possible test configuration and even tried it on another HDTV but it won't work. The Wii, my iPod, PS3, DVD player...all of them work on the same set of component inputs in the back of the TV but the 360 won't. And yet it still works with standard definition TVs?

Anyone else heard of this error? I know many of us have gotten red ring'O death but this is different.

Best part is that when I called MSFT, they said my 360 was out of warranty and it would be $99 to repair.

:ssj:

I think Aliens Rez was actually not bad...until the crazy alien/human baby thing...oh man...that was aweful and it spoiled the movie.

Still, it was an interesting evolution to see Ripley reincarnated in this badass sort of way. Alien3 was less interesting obviously, but ALIENS was one of the best movies in the history of humanity (or something) so it had big shoes to fill. blah blah blah we could analyze the Alien movie saga to death...back to Gearbox's game...whatever the game is and however the graphics turn out I don't really give a shit as long as it gives me an authentic taste of the colonial marines expereince from ALIENS. That is an ambitious task to say the least. I am honestly skeptical that any developer could really get it right but prove me wrong GBX...prove me wrong and make it kick glorious ass. "OH YOU WANT SOME OF THIS???" and so forth...

Quote from Cybbe

That AVP is unoriginal might be related to the fact that it's a combination of two already existing movie series, and is thus effectively managing to bleed two great franchises dry at the same time. Good job

I would argue that ALIENS is one of the most important archetypal influences on the video game industry from all forms of media. In fact, it might be the most important film ever made from the perspective of the video game industry. Yeah, I know the original Star Wars movies have been direct inspirations for many games, but I still say ALIENS is more important overall. It is also probably in my personal top 5 movies of all time.

No worries. Yeah sometimes we miss the obvious threads. In interest of forum efficiency, gonna lock this. Have a nice day!

I think these screenshots may not do the game justice, but that is 100% speculation on my part.

I also agree that the aliens don't actually look that scary in these screens. But I think that may have to do with the aliens' skin textures/rendering. They do have this metallicy-clay-y feel, but isn't that sort of accurate to what we've seen from the movies?

Go back and watch ALIEN and ALIENS and notice that the lighting makes the aliens look creepier and disgustinger..er. That has a lot to do with how scary they appear, plus in the movies they are in motion which is generally a scarier experience than a screenshot that we can pause on and make sense of. The aliens also have the "molecular acid" for blood, which makes their goo and saliva and whatever that gunk is seem potentially very dangerous, which increases level of terror they might draw from the viewer. The screen in this shot 193849 from http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=184091 (the one with the alien closing in on you) doesn't have that dirty, goo-ey, acidy feel so a mere screenshot doensn't feel that scary. But how realistic is it to give us that acidy-gooey feel? That may be very, very hard to look right in a video game, but I leave it for the artists here to debate.

Tangentially, do you remember the first good AVP game? The concept and darkness made the fast moving aliens scarier than monsters in other games. Screenshots won't ever do it justice, and in these screens some of the aliens are very well lit and it simply makes them more understandable which makes them less scary.

A final few rambling thoughts:

1) Taking a +20 year old mega-archetype of film and gaming that has been diluted somewhat by lower quality films/games and reimagining it into game form is no easy task. There will be nitpickers coming out god damned walls (pun intended) to analyze everything Gearbox releases. I appluad them for it, but they have their work cut out for them given the subject matter.

2) Part of the awesomeness of the ALIENS film imho is James Horner's musical score, which is actually very similar to his Star Trek II score he did less than a year apart. Listen to the soundtrack and hear how awesome it is and what it did for the mood of the film. Given how much of the Aliens story appears to be in this game judging by the screens, I can't picture this game without Horner's awesome score. Any word on that? This is a whole can of worms that could really help the game...

3) ...and further on the story/narrative/plot of this game....It really really really really really really seems like Gearbox wants us to play the experience of the colonial marines from the ALIENS film (and not get an aliens experience from other other films in the franchise) down to some very specific, memorable moments.

- inside the complex in general

- medial with the dead/alive facehuggers

- welding doors shut

- being totally outnumbered by nasties

- sentry guns

- dropship

- the vehicle thingy Ripley drives when they escape first defeat in the reactor core thingy (what was that vehicle's name?)

- ...

4) Finally, what about the characters? Did I or someone else mention this already? Part of what made ALIENS awesome is how commanding Ripley becomes, how much of a douche-turned-"you want some of this? F*** YOU!"-badass-for-10-seconds Hudson becomes before the aliens grab him, how much you genuinly mistake Vasquez for a man, how worried you are about Gorman's 38/2 simiulated-to-combat drop ratio, how the Sarge gave you that sinking feeling when he replies with "all at incinerators" and how you actually cheared for the alien who got Burke. All that is part of the awesomeness of aliens. What's this game gonna have?

Even betterer now thanks to Jack Thomspon expressing interest to be involved:

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/ ... out/?biz=1

I don't think Take2 can stop them in the long run. The two things that I think are the biggest issues are (1) can EA keep the same team together doing the GTA games? That's where most of the value in Take2 is. Of couse Take 2 did Bioshock and Bully, but the main reason you'd buy Take2 is to get the GTA franchise. Even though I'm not the world's biggest GTA fan you can't deny the business value of the franchise and the value that so many gamers have placed in it. I'm worried that EA might actually not hold onto all the talent that goes into the franchise. In fact some people think that EA wants GTA to "run it's course" and have the industry move on from it which sounds absurd but I think EA has it's reasons. It would mean a shakeup in the Action/Driving Hybrid/Sandbox genre, which can be viewed both good and bad. IW created Call of Duty after the core team left EA's MoH franchise...and CoD went on to OWN WWII shooters. After EA got a hold of Harmonix to make Rock Band, AciviBlizzionard created GH III anyway and they did A-OK with that. So we don't know exactly what will happen with GTA in a EA take over of Take2 other than that it will create a real oppening in sandbox gaming that one way or another EA will attempt to cash in...on. (2) ....EA would indeed consolidate their lock on Sports brands even more....scary. That is "backhand" value in such a deal...eliminate the competition for EA's annual franchises. Given the hundreds of millions of retail revenues for major sports tiltes each year, that is massive cash cow EA could consolidate that is probably more valuable that GTA and Bioshock and everything else Take2 has put together.

I think Take2 has this coming. They have had managment challenges for years now, going back to before GTA3 and they continue. There is something in the Take2 culture that keeps them having problems with profitability and internal stability, despite having one of the biggest and most successful franchises in gaming. In the end it's about money and the Take2 shareholders will make the call to accept EA's bid or not. EA is probably going to give the shareholders much more value than Take2 can in the foreseeable future.

Nice article Zappy! Monetization FTW!

I actually thought they were tiny humans the size of action figures posing for pictures. Are you telling me that tiny humans the size of action figuers are basically not real?

You have shattered my world.

Maybe EA will buy Mapcore and put ads everywhere???

I'm actually looking forward to this Aliens game more than anything else Gearbox is doing (which says a lot) because Aliens is one of those primal movies from the last 20 to 30 years that has inspired so much other work in both films and games. I haven't read up on the game that much but I am assuming it won't have the characters from the movie, which would be a bummer but there might not be a practical way around that. Under that assumption, I very much hope (and expect) the marines/humans will have personality and have me get attached to them before chestbursters explode out of them causing me to shed a tear mid-level...

Don't let me down Zilla!

now that is a good website. I'm sure it wasn't cheap.

Yes, PC gaming is not dead. It's just going through a long, slow transition. Wait, it's always going through a long slow transition. But I have faith that people will still pay in one form or another to play good stuff on PCs. It may not look the same as the PC market back in 1998 or exactly as the MMO market is now, but PC gaming won't be dead soon.

I'm not a big DS gamer but I have never heard of that thing. Maybe all those kids with DS's are little l33thxrs.

Anyone else see it? I liked it despite a few people in the theater getting up and leaving due to the camera work. Audeince as a whole seemed to like it where I saw it. Has it's flaws but I must say I definitely enjoyed.

I have a macbook pro. runs XP great!

It's still dissapointing to hear people on mapcore openly talk about pirating games, even if they then say the bought the game after playing a pirated copy. I know not all of us have jobs etc but I gotta say it's really lame to be a member of mapcore and (1) pirate games and (2) openly talk about how it's no big deal. It just contributes to the idea that people in game development get less income for busting their assess off. One pirated game by one person may seem like not a big deal, but when 10,000 people do it for one game, 100,000 people...it to add up. Everyone makes a difference.

So much bullshit in this thread it makes me sick.

So I haven't had a Wii until a week ago. Yes I am behind the curve, especially as a industry consultant. For the most part I've been playing the Wii over at my cousin's place who lives literally around the corner. I go over there and we play the Wii or his PS3 stuff and talk analyse what's good and bad about the consoles or the games...we talk about general gaming concepts relative to some of my client projects. It's nice. But I haven't really been interested in owning a Wii for myself because there hasn't been any games that inspired me for it...

...That is until a week ago when my best friend gave my wife and I a very belated wedding present: a brand new Wii. We drove up to Tahoe a couple of days ago and stopped in a Target near Sacramento and grabbed a copy of Super Mario Galaxy. I didn't feel that great about it but since the Wii was a gift I thought I'd invest some time in it and just get over it.

So after a day of skiing yestersday I busted out the Wii, and having played Wii sports a bunch I wasn't anticipating any kind of new experience with that game but I get how it's still fun. Etc..etc...yada yada ... I loaded up Mario Galaxy...

I get it now. SMG is amazing. I feel like I got smacked across the face by a friend saying "Get off your high horse you elitist prick. Respect the wholesome Nintendo fun-ness already." SMG finally made me remember what I loved about Mario back from the SNES days having largely sat out the N64 and GameCube eras except for a few games here and there.

In fact, my WIFE is in love with SMG, too. She has always loved Super Mario games back to when she was a kid with a SNES and she can still kick ass on that game. So to see her embrace SMG and the Wii motion controls is a real treat.

Anyway, taking the day of from skiing today to play more Wii and troll Mapcore. gg!

My eyes! It burns! The goggles do nothing!

jk

Take your time Mojo....we know this isn't a trivial process.

Greenpeace does more to harm the Earth than they realize because of their tactics draw very antagonstic responses from the companies / industries / leaders they "fight" because it only causes these opponents to dig further into their positions (usually). I'm not saying they should take a hippy-pussy approach to improving environmental problems but they have to find a better approach than this garbage. Doesn't this video make you think:

"....................................................................fuck off, Greenpeace."