The first several hours of Doom 3, playing with the lights off, gave me the biggest sense of fear ever in a video game, and I've played Silent Hill 1-3, Fatal Frame 1-2, System Shock 2. I had to actually takes breaks for a while because the game was getting under my skin.
The problem is that the game repeats the same scares over and over for too long until they're no longer scary. It's like watching Nightmare on Elm Street 1 to 6, by the time you get to part 6 it's no longer scary and you forget how scary it was in the first place. I can't help but think the game would have been a lot better if they shortened it and took out most of the monster closets, allowing the tension to build more in places.
Or even better persuade companies/ the stock markets/ banks to operate 8 till 4 instead of 9 till 5.
Start work at 8 and people will complain about how early it is and that they're not getting enough sleep, but if you redefine 8 o'clock as 9 people will be happy about how much extra sunlight they're getting after work. I really hate DST.
See also this blog for speculation on why The Incredibles did so well while The Polar Express just creeped people out.
According to Box Office Mojo, The Polar Express did end up taking in $163 million in the U.S. and ended up grossing $283 million when you include the foreign box office, so while it wasn't nearly as popular as The Incredibles it wasn't a huge flop. The blog entry you cited was written in November of 2004 when it was thought the film was going to bomb like the Final Fantasy but the film mangaged to have legs and continue to make money in the following weeks. Personally I think the term "uncanny valley" is way overused.
Where did you hear this? 3d Realms has partnered with a Steam-like service called xStream for the upcoming Prey game, I would expect Duke Nukem Forever to use that, maybe you're getting the names mixed up? And I think the first 3rd part Steam game is the non-Source engine Rag Doll Kung Fu that'll come out in about a week.
The New York Times ran an article about Amazon selling used books (Reading Beteween the Lines) arguing True, consumers probably save a few dollars while authors and publishers may lose some sales from a used book market. Yet the evidence suggests that the costs to publishers are not large, and also suggests that the overall gains from such secondhand markets outweigh any losses.
This is the paper cited, it's about used books but I wonder if the same arguments could be applied to used video games.
I still find lots of games coming out that I want to play, more than I even have time to play.
While I agree with the article, there are quite a few really interesting games coming out soon, like Indigo Prophecy, Shadow of the Collossus, Katamari 2, and the Beyond Good and Evil team has a King Kong game coming. And this year we've already seen original titles such as Psychonauts, God of War and Killer 7 (and the free game Facade). While the sales of original games are usually abysmal, I agree with you that there are more well-made, creative games out there than I have time to play.
The thing that upsets me is how people just keep handing this guy money to make bad, low-grossing movies, when there are so many more desrving directors... for instance, Terry Gilliam is having trouble getting an extra $15 million to do Good Omens with Johnny Depp and Robin Williams, here's a quote...
"I couldn't get 15 with Johnny and Robin... These two guys, who would have been brilliant were not worth $15 million in America. That was the moment where I went, 'I don't understand this game. I don't understand this town (Hollywood). I don't understand any of the rules. All I know is I don't like it.'"
Near as I can figure, Uwe Boll is a master of maniupulating the German tax code or he has some "Producers" style scam going where he has to make the worst movie possible. (Okay I know he suppossedly makes a profit on DVD sales).
2. Right to Win
Not sure on this one, unless he means arcade-style games that don't have an end. Perhaps he's referring to games which have a bug that prevents finishing, none of which I've had the misfortune to encounter yet.
The most famous "bug that prevents finishing" is in Impossible Mission for the 7800, and I hear Slave Zero is unwinnable without cheating, but it's such a rare occurence I think it would have been better to write about bugs in games generally.
12. The Right Not To Be Insulted
Never encountered this, myself.
In the classic game Balance of Power, if you started a nuclear war the game would tell you "You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display or a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure." Being insulted by a snooty game is so rare I'm surprised it's mentioned.
Carmack mentioned during his keynote that the PSP should be able to handle Quake 3 level graphics, but I'm not sure if that means it would be able to handle a port of Quake 3.
I accept cookies from about 10 sites (and yes...slashdot is one of them). And even those get deleted when I close firefox!
I allow all sites to set cookies and I delete them when I close firefox. I figure if I visit a site it can track me going around the site through my ip, tracking numbers in the url, and the referer... then dissallowing cookies won't matter much. It wasn't worth the hassle from sites that say "you must allow cookies" to visit.
I delete cookies because I don't like the idea of, say, Amazon keeping a list of every book I've ever searched for or looked at on their site for the past several years, because I can't help but think that having thousands of cookies stored would have a negative effect on my PC's performance, and most importantly, because I don't see much "advantage" in allowing sites to set persistant cookies.
I guess they fail to realize that the world is full of people, and not everyone is as knowledgeable, skilled, smart, dexterous or experienced as themselves.
But by having one mouse button, it seems to have made "double clicking" necessary, which requires as much if not more dexterity as with dealing two mouse buttons.
Then you have to explain that you don't double click links in a web browser. Personally I changed my windows options so that single clicks open files and I haven't missed double clicking at all.
Searching for "hans island" (both with and without enclosing quotes) returns nothing as described in the summary and articles.
I searched for "hans island" last week with google and saw the two text ads as described in the article. I found it quite funny, too bad they are gone now.
As a game developer, sometimes you write something and the suits say you can't put it in, so you just comment out the call to activate it. It's a lot easier than pulling all the source and assets out of the game.
Yeah lots of games have stuff left in them in them that you can't get to without messing with the code. Knights of the Old Republic 2 had text from a different ending left in (which resulted in criticism the game was rushed), Goldeneye had some incomplete levels you would need a gameshark to get to. So I guess it's plausible Rockstar left this in unintentionally.
When the rating system became a requirement for the video game industry, everyone seemed to think that the system used for the motion picture industry would be adequate. However, the video game makers could not accept that because it would have been a major hit to their bottom line.
It's the MPAA's fault. Terms like "R rated" are trademarked by the MPAA and they won't let anyone else use them, they've even sent cease and desist letters to fan fiction writers not to use those terms.
The problem with a checkmark is there's alway a few ballots that are questionable. Like if the check was written faint enough that some people say it's blank while some might say it's a mark. This problem comes up from time to time, like during the Quebec referendum there were accuastions that too many "Yes" ballots were rejected, but since that side won it didn't turn into a big scandal.
Animations don't need to be paid movie-star salaries.
CGI would be possible, but Harrison Ford could still demand a movie-star salary for his likeness.
There was a precedent set when Spielberg tried to make a facsimile Crispin Glover for the film Back to the Future II. He had put prosthetics on some actor to make him look just like Crispin Glover, but Glover sued him and they settled out of court. It's commonly expected that movie studios would have to pay actors for cg likenesses.
I just watched all of Molyneux's presentation, it was a fairly interesting showcase of upcoming games like "The Movies" and "Black and White 2". Though if you don't feel like watching the entire thing (it runs over an hour) I recommend skipping straight to "The Room". Basically it was a tech demo of rendering a small area in incredible detail, and it had showed off the use of "portals", something 3d Realms' Prey had tried to do years ago and (I think) abandoned.
Molyneux said "The Room" wouldn't be released as a game but it's said to be incorporated into something called "Project Dimitri".
Re:Write a review without finishing the game?
on
Review: Jade Empire
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· Score: 1
What if there's a bug towards the end that makes the game entirely unplayable?
That reminds me of one PC game, Slave Zero, that had a final boss that was unbeatable without cheating. Only one review site, Firing Squad actually played through the entire game and noticed this flaw, they gave the game 30%. Every other site I read gave it mildly positive reviews. Reviews by people that haven't finished a game suck.
For example, you could create a building with a doorway that opened up to a room that was larger than the building itself(among other things).
That sounds like the "Portal technology" they were hyping years ago. There's an interesting page, The History of Prey, that has some videos of it in action. Further down the page programmer William Scarboro pretty much says using portals was more trouble than it was worth.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that the game repeats the same scares over and over for too long until they're no longer scary. It's like watching Nightmare on Elm Street 1 to 6, by the time you get to part 6 it's no longer scary and you forget how scary it was in the first place. I can't help but think the game would have been a lot better if they shortened it and took out most of the monster closets, allowing the tension to build more in places.
Start work at 8 and people will complain about how early it is and that they're not getting enough sleep, but if you redefine 8 o'clock as 9 people will be happy about how much extra sunlight they're getting after work. I really hate DST.
According to Box Office Mojo, The Polar Express did end up taking in $163 million in the U.S. and ended up grossing $283 million when you include the foreign box office, so while it wasn't nearly as popular as The Incredibles it wasn't a huge flop. The blog entry you cited was written in November of 2004 when it was thought the film was going to bomb like the Final Fantasy but the film mangaged to have legs and continue to make money in the following weeks. Personally I think the term "uncanny valley" is way overused.
Where did you hear this? 3d Realms has partnered with a Steam-like service called xStream for the upcoming Prey game, I would expect Duke Nukem Forever to use that, maybe you're getting the names mixed up? And I think the first 3rd part Steam game is the non-Source engine Rag Doll Kung Fu that'll come out in about a week.
This is the paper cited, it's about used books but I wonder if the same arguments could be applied to used video games.
Happened to me too, 1.0.6 on win2k with flashblock, crashes nearly immediately after clicking the link.
While I agree with the article, there are quite a few really interesting games coming out soon, like Indigo Prophecy, Shadow of the Collossus, Katamari 2, and the Beyond Good and Evil team has a King Kong game coming. And this year we've already seen original titles such as Psychonauts, God of War and Killer 7 (and the free game Facade). While the sales of original games are usually abysmal, I agree with you that there are more well-made, creative games out there than I have time to play.
Near as I can figure, Uwe Boll is a master of maniupulating the German tax code or he has some "Producers" style scam going where he has to make the worst movie possible. (Okay I know he suppossedly makes a profit on DVD sales).
Not sure on this one, unless he means arcade-style games that don't have an end. Perhaps he's referring to games which have a bug that prevents finishing, none of which I've had the misfortune to encounter yet.
The most famous "bug that prevents finishing" is in Impossible Mission for the 7800, and I hear Slave Zero is unwinnable without cheating, but it's such a rare occurence I think it would have been better to write about bugs in games generally.
12. The Right Not To Be Insulted
Never encountered this, myself.
In the classic game Balance of Power, if you started a nuclear war the game would tell you "You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display or a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure." Being insulted by a snooty game is so rare I'm surprised it's mentioned.
Carmack mentioned during his keynote that the PSP should be able to handle Quake 3 level graphics, but I'm not sure if that means it would be able to handle a port of Quake 3.
I allow all sites to set cookies and I delete them when I close firefox. I figure if I visit a site it can track me going around the site through my ip, tracking numbers in the url, and the referer... then dissallowing cookies won't matter much. It wasn't worth the hassle from sites that say "you must allow cookies" to visit.
I delete cookies because I don't like the idea of, say, Amazon keeping a list of every book I've ever searched for or looked at on their site for the past several years, because I can't help but think that having thousands of cookies stored would have a negative effect on my PC's performance, and most importantly, because I don't see much "advantage" in allowing sites to set persistant cookies.
Yup, Starcraft.8 /200508080012.html
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/20050
But by having one mouse button, it seems to have made "double clicking" necessary, which requires as much if not more dexterity as with dealing two mouse buttons.
Then you have to explain that you don't double click links in a web browser. Personally I changed my windows options so that single clicks open files and I haven't missed double clicking at all.
I searched for "hans island" last week with google and saw the two text ads as described in the article. I found it quite funny, too bad they are gone now.
Yeah lots of games have stuff left in them in them that you can't get to without messing with the code. Knights of the Old Republic 2 had text from a different ending left in (which resulted in criticism the game was rushed), Goldeneye had some incomplete levels you would need a gameshark to get to. So I guess it's plausible Rockstar left this in unintentionally.
It's the MPAA's fault. Terms like "R rated" are trademarked by the MPAA and they won't let anyone else use them, they've even sent cease and desist letters to fan fiction writers not to use those terms.
Maybe, except they've done poorly in all the Asian markets. I'm surprised they're so far behind Sony in Korea.
The problem with a checkmark is there's alway a few ballots that are questionable. Like if the check was written faint enough that some people say it's blank while some might say it's a mark. This problem comes up from time to time, like during the Quebec referendum there were accuastions that too many "Yes" ballots were rejected, but since that side won it didn't turn into a big scandal.
Also, Atari has a patent on "ghost cars" in racing games. If you see a game with a ghost car they probably payed up for it's use.
CGI would be possible, but Harrison Ford could still demand a movie-star salary for his likeness.
There was a precedent set when Spielberg tried to make a facsimile Crispin Glover for the film Back to the Future II. He had put prosthetics on some actor to make him look just like Crispin Glover, but Glover sued him and they settled out of court. It's commonly expected that movie studios would have to pay actors for cg likenesses.
There are two new shoulder buttons located above the triggers on the 360 controller, they could probably serve as the black and white buttons.
Molyneux said "The Room" wouldn't be released as a game but it's said to be incorporated into something called "Project Dimitri".
That reminds me of one PC game, Slave Zero, that had a final boss that was unbeatable without cheating. Only one review site, Firing Squad actually played through the entire game and noticed this flaw, they gave the game 30%. Every other site I read gave it mildly positive reviews. Reviews by people that haven't finished a game suck.
That sounds like the "Portal technology" they were hyping years ago. There's an interesting page, The History of Prey, that has some videos of it in action. Further down the page programmer William Scarboro pretty much says using portals was more trouble than it was worth.
Why not just start school later during the winter?