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HK-47, Puzzle Pirates - Big Hits at GDC Awards
Thanks to Frictionless Insight for its article recounting the proceedings of the 2004 Game Developers Choice and Independent Games Festival Awards, which were held last night in San Jose. Multiple GDC Award winners included Call Of Duty and Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, and Savage: The Battle for Newerth won the IGF independent game award, with Oasis triumphing in the Web/downloadable category. Among the highlights: "When the Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates team moved to the stage to accept the [IGF Web/Downloadable Audience Choice] award, dressed as buccaneers, they basked in the most thunderous applause of the night", and the piece also notes that "...the audience was [almost equally] vocal when HK-47 (from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) took the award for [GDC] Original Game Character of the Year." There's further coverage of the events over at GameSpy.
Yeah, HK-47 provided more than one actual "laugh out loud" moment for me during that game.
Tusken Chief: (unintelligible hooting)
HK-47: The Chief demands you state your reasons for coming here. Shall I obliterate him now, master?
I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty much how the convo went. Great stuff, and the reason why I tried to take HK with me out of the Ebon Hawk whenever possible.
What a GOOD game.
El riesgo vive siempre!
It also needs better Terms of Service. Listening in on private conversations is unacceptable for me.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Indeed, Puzzle Pirates is excellent. Loving it so far.
:)), but I can play every other MMORPG (played lots, like Asheron's Call, Earth & Beyond, Ultima Online, Everquest, DAOC) with virtually no lag at all.
My only problem with it is that there's a LOT of lag for me. Now, I live in Portugal (that's west of Spain
In PP, walking through town (without using the map) is a chore.
Oh well... maybe it'll get better in the future.
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... how the Gamespy article doesn't mention Puzzle Pirates at all. :(
The Tlog - a technology blog
You'll love it. Especially towards the end. The Evil path on whatever planet that was with the Old Ones is much more...satisfying.
I like to think of myself as a pretty callous individual, but even I was moved at some of the decisions are available to make. The writers apparently said "Why be a little evil when you can go balls out evil?" I'm surprised there were no puppy-kicking side quests.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Notice that the combat was good enough to leave you wanting more things to fight ? There are legitimate gameplay flaws that you do point out, but it wasn't a fighting game so the designers clearly made their compromises there. Personally, I say they hire *bunch* of animators and do a full-on kung fu game with the engine. Maybe something with guns. Has anyone played both PoP and Enter the Matrix ? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. PoP makes ETM look a lot worse than it was, especially on PS2. [1]
The graphics programming was fantastic and rightly won an award. They went for simple everywhere they could in the design of the look, a lot of the models are lower-poly and more coarsely textured than you remmeber them as because the animation is spot on. And I didn't know you could get graphics like that out of a PS2, it's an engine that cries out to be used in other games, and not just the sequel. I
The various slo-mo elements and rewind worked well and alleviated a lot of the frustration common in platformers - and looks cooler than taking a continue. They built the story to justify slo-mo, but I can't fault them for how they executed on it. Playing with time even follows PoP tradition - the first game had a time limit.
But KoTOR is the first-ever Star Wars RPG. And it's from BioWare. It won Game of the Year. We have to accept the inevitable outcome.
[1] For the love of God have the Need for Speed people do the driving sections. Or somebody. I'm dreaming.
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