For the most part, the article was relatively interesting, but it touched on one small pet peeve of mine. That is to say, it is absolutely necessary to mention Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in every single public discussion of homosexuality in the media? It seemed out of place in the article, which just made it irritating.
At first, in a lot of ways, parts of Metal Gear Solid seem perfect to adapt into comic book form, particularly fights involving the cyborg ninja. But what about the codec scenes? How are the supposed to adapt those into the comic without making it ridiculously long and tedious?
Let's face it, the formula the id originally became so good at is a field that they have been far outstripped in by their competitors. Doom 3 is a significant departure from this formula (becoming more survival horror-ish, and story-based, despite Carmack's argument that story in a game is like story in a porn movie). Since the guys at id pretty clearly know what they're doing, I think it's most likely that they're heading off into virgin territory (at least for them) yet again.
There was a similar article in the Washington Post today, at the link below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A637 34-2004Apr9.html
Please note that the Post seriously needs to do better research on this sort of thing, rather than just making popular assumptions. They say that the target audience for "R-rated" video games are "teenagers and young adults," though the age of the average gamer is closer to 30. I suppose it's possible that the target audience is different from the core demographic, but if so, that just means that the marketers at every major game publisher are absurdly incompetent.
While I was upset when Sci-Fi cancelled Farscape, this is, admittedly, probably the best possible way to bring it back. Farscape was always best in blocks of three or four episodes, particularly the "We're So Screwed" arc right before the series finale. It seems like the show excelled most when Chrichton and the gang were in a seemingly impossible situation, and then the writers had three hours or so to go completely nuts. It will be interesting to see what they do with a miniseries, especially considering the title hints that things could get even messier than usual.
Also, I had a feeling that Chrichton and Aeryn weren't dead at the series finale. Any theories though on how they're coming back?
Eh, cut them a little slack. Sure there are games like the Final Fantasy series that can already emotionally involve players in romance stories, but I think the whole point was to figure out if there was a way to do that without "gaming on rails." In terms of generating this kind of emotion while still allowing the players free will, games are in the very early, primitive stages still, since nobody in any other media has really ever done anything like that before. Looking at it like that, I think the Koster, Spector, and Wright came up with some pretty interesting concepts, and if they missed the mark, that's because it's probably going to be years before anybody even has a ballpark estimate of where the mark is.
Actually, it may very well be a pretty good idea, at least until the people behind E3 finally cave and allow a day where the expo is open to the public.
Whether or not a license would be more difficult to turn into a MMOG seems like it would sort of depend on the license. For example, take two different Sci-Fi licenses that are being turned into MMOGs; The Matrix and Dune. On the one hand, you have The Matrix, which is relatively easy to recognize, because it's based for the most part on the world we live in right now, with a few changes. Also, part of the beauty of The Matrix is that it's all about breaking the rules, and as a result, many of the smaller ideas are left to the imagination, and can be tweaked by developers for gameplay purposes.
Dune is just the opposite. Frank Herbert meticulously built a completely alien universe from the ground up (though he borrowed liberally from many different historical periods). People who have not read the books and are just getting into it may end up a little overwhelmed, and even worse for developers (although fantastic for fan boys like myself), Herbert chose to write about almost every single aspect of the universe in meticulous, almost obsessive detail, meaning there's a lot that would have to be packed in to please nitpickers.
Is this the first step towards downloadable extra maps, etc., like on XBox Live?
Or, conversely, is this the next step towards developers releasing buggy games for the PS2 because they know they can add on patches later?
I'm hoping for more of a trend towards the former than the latter.
This reminds me an awful lot of Cthulu Karts and Nazgul Thunder, both of which can be found here: http://www.phobe.com/sfi/sigmain.html
Considering this company doesn't actually exist, I wonder if they're developing any games for the Phantom . . .
I agree with you for the most part, all though there were some issues with Sly that I really hope they fix in the sequel. For one thing, it could stand to have far fewer mini-games. Hopefully this time they'll stay away from mini-games and keep polishing the game's core gameplay, maybe adding features like implementing shadows as part of gameplay. Oh yeah, and the sequel should have more Bentley. Much more Bentley.
See, the problem with trying to evaluate/rate all of the content in a game is that, in the average game, there's too much, and it would take far too long to come up with a completely accurate rating. Unlike, with say, movies, every gameplay experience can be different, depending on the actions of the player, and not only is playing the whole game through once generally time consuming, but playing it through multiple times with an eye for every single easter egg, cheat code, and any other possible variable would take a long, long, time. For an example, look at the new Goldeneye level that was just recently discovered. Was the content from that level evaluated when the game was rated? No, I don't think so. Would it have made that huge an impact on the rating? Again, probably not. A rough approximation is pretty much the best we can hope for here, and it seems to have worked out pretty well so far. After all, ratings that involve "sexual content" are extremely subjective.
Maybe this time they'll be able to avoid some of the mistakes that have plagued the Gamecube, such as too much focus on first-party software and not enough focus on third, lack of DVD playability (let's face it, there's no good reason for them to make their game discs that small), not enough focus on online games, etc. Nintendo learned some pretty tough lessons from the GC, let's just hope that they apply those lessons as needed.
I'd be inclined to disagree there. Games like Deus Ex have some replay value because, while the outcome is pretty much the same no matter what you do, it lets you approach problems in different ways. Also, some games like Way of the Samurai allow a player to affect the overall outcome of a game by taking completely different courses of action every time it's played. That's one of the major advantages of storytelling in games over storytelling in other mediums.
So . . . politicians think it's bad for people to have military shooter games because they supposedly train assassins . . . even though those games are made by developers who just want to sell games . . . but it's okay when the games are made by the army . . . which actually WANTS people to learn how to kill effectively?
I remember reading elsewhere that Warren Spector once said "games are the only medium that can make a person feel guilt for the actions of a fictional character."
This was actually probably one of the emotional strengths of Deus Ex, because after slaughtering a whole bunch of terrorists, you eventually reach a point in the game where you discover you've been duped all along, and they're the "good guys." The next step (and there's the possibility that they've already done this; keep in mind I haven't played Invisible War yet) would be to allow you to choose from the very beginning who to side with, thus making the emotional impact stronger when a player who has actively chosen to fight for UNATCO discovers that the NSF is actually on the side of justice.
The length of games is also an enormous strength, especially with many of the 40+ hour RPGs out there. The longer a person spends with a character, the more empathy a person feels for that character. And when a character is presented as the love interest, and options are given that allow the player to further this subplot, suddenly the romance seems a little more interesting than it would in film. The same thing goes for when characters die, especially if the player could have prevented the death; more time spent with a believable and likeable character leads to a greater impact when that character dies.
Huh. I don't have as much experience with Vampire as I do with D&D, but most of the games I've played involved lots of shootouts and werewolves in abandoned warehouses, that sort of thing. That's stealthier than shootouts in public areas, but admittedly, not by much.
I've seen Underworld. Not a horrible movie. Managed to keep me relatively entertained every once in a while. The makeup and animatronics weren't bad.
Speaking as somebody who is somewhat familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, Underwold wasn't really similar enough to be that lawsuit-worthy. Sure it had vampire clans, elder vampires, blood feuds, etc., but these have long been tired, uninspired staples of the genre (Anne Rice, anybody?). Besides which, the whole "secret war" thing was handled differently in Underworld. For one thing, in Vampire, they can actually keep it a secret. In Underworld, you had shootouts all over a public freakin' subway system, and werewolves running around yelling "Blood!"
And yeah, the acting was pretty bad. The guy who played the traitor vampire in particular, was hamming it up more than a suicidal pig in a butcher shop.
think White Wolf would want a bigger budget, a good director and cast for Vampire or Werewolf, were they to be optioned for movies.
True. Getting down stuff like the blood magic alone would be killer expensive.
Mage, OTOH, I could see being a TV show more than a movie, especially on HBO or Showtime, where they could be a bit more free to work than on network TV.
Mage could work as a TV series. But as long as we're talking about other RPGs, a Call of Cthulu show would be great. Yeah, I know, it's not White Wolf, but I just had to throw that in.
Nope, I haven't. I must have missed out on the feeding frenzy with that one. I'm assuming at least some people started scapegoating the RPGs, mostly because of this:
"Rod Ferrell was a troubled boy. He claims he was molested during a Black Mass that his grandfather made him attend. He was fascinated by role-playing games, graduating from "Dungeons and Dragons" to "Vampire: The Masquerade."
The fact that the last part is considered relevant says a lot.
True dat. And if the right wing gets one peek of Vampire cosplayers hanging outside the movie theater, they're going to start this whole war on tabletop RPGs all over again.
Am I the only one who's sick of hunters of the undead? We've already got Buffy, Blade, Van Helsing, etc. Enough is enough, already.
If they want to adapt something from White Wolf, why not make a script based on Vampire: The Masquerade? There's a lot of great storytelling potential in the way the whole vampire government is set up, though if the Dungeons and Dragons movie is any indication, Hollywood would just really screw it up.
It's a really stupid idea to try to sandwich people into categories like "women will like this game" and "your drunk football buddies will like this game." Here's my theory; it's not that some games are "too cute" or "too violent." It's not that women naturally want to play a game that is like an interactive soap opera. This article reads like the people who wrote it actually believe that non-gamers have never heard of Vice City, or don't know that they also have nonviolent games out there. I think it's more likely that there are three primary reasons for non-gamers.
1. Don't realize there are good plots out there. It certainly could happen. The pure dumb fun of Vice City gets played up, while the homages to Scarface and Miami Vice, and the game's dark humor, get played down. Games like DOOM get all the attention, while games like The Getaway and Beyond Good and Evil get swept under the rug. Even absurdly popular games like MGS and the Final Fantasy series get little or no attention from the non-game media.
2. Some adjustment to the controls is required. For somebody who has never used a gamepad before, the first time can be awkward, annoying, and extremely difficult. This can, in some cases, turn a person away from gaming, and it takes some persistence to get that person to adjust to a controller.
3. Or maybe they just never really got into it. Let's face it, there are people out there who have other things they have to take care of, and other people who just aren't willing to fork over the money for what can be a pretty expensive hobby.
So, what's the solution? Well, for 3, maybe it's best to find some free time that person has, and try to make him/her sit down, shut up, and play. 2, same thing, but it's going to require a lot of persistence, and keeping that person at the game for a while. Games like Soul Caliber II are good for that person, because button mashing still works. Sometimes, it's probably not even worth it, however, if the person can't adjust. As for 1, the solution is relatively simple; show them games like The Getaway, MGS, FF X, etc., maybe bring up your favorite cutscenes if you can find them.
Remember, this is just the short list; I realize there a lot of other reasons why somebody wouldn't be a gamer.
Slashdot Mirror
Tucker: No, nothing really, besides a bunch of crock pot recipes. Would those be useful?
Church: Do we have a crock pot?
Tucker: We did, but Caboose traded it to some annoying guy from Blue Base.
Church: What'd he get in return?
Tucker: A "mystery box."
Church: What was in the box?
Tucker: Forty jars of mayonnaise.
Church: Pssht. Well that's a good trade.
Tucker: Yeah, mayonnaise makes a good sunscreen.
Church: How did you- Never mind.
For the most part, the article was relatively interesting, but it touched on one small pet peeve of mine. That is to say, it is absolutely necessary to mention Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in every single public discussion of homosexuality in the media? It seemed out of place in the article, which just made it irritating.
At first, in a lot of ways, parts of Metal Gear Solid seem perfect to adapt into comic book form, particularly fights involving the cyborg ninja. But what about the codec scenes? How are the supposed to adapt those into the comic without making it ridiculously long and tedious?
Let's face it, the formula the id originally became so good at is a field that they have been far outstripped in by their competitors. Doom 3 is a significant departure from this formula (becoming more survival horror-ish, and story-based, despite Carmack's argument that story in a game is like story in a porn movie). Since the guys at id pretty clearly know what they're doing, I think it's most likely that they're heading off into virgin territory (at least for them) yet again.
There was a similar article in the Washington Post today, at the link below: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A637 34-2004Apr9.html
Please note that the Post seriously needs to do better research on this sort of thing, rather than just making popular assumptions. They say that the target audience for "R-rated" video games are "teenagers and young adults," though the age of the average gamer is closer to 30. I suppose it's possible that the target audience is different from the core demographic, but if so, that just means that the marketers at every major game publisher are absurdly incompetent.
Also, I had a feeling that Chrichton and Aeryn weren't dead at the series finale. Any theories though on how they're coming back?
Eh, cut them a little slack. Sure there are games like the Final Fantasy series that can already emotionally involve players in romance stories, but I think the whole point was to figure out if there was a way to do that without "gaming on rails." In terms of generating this kind of emotion while still allowing the players free will, games are in the very early, primitive stages still, since nobody in any other media has really ever done anything like that before. Looking at it like that, I think the Koster, Spector, and Wright came up with some pretty interesting concepts, and if they missed the mark, that's because it's probably going to be years before anybody even has a ballpark estimate of where the mark is.
Actually, it may very well be a pretty good idea, at least until the people behind E3 finally cave and allow a day where the expo is open to the public.
Dune is just the opposite. Frank Herbert meticulously built a completely alien universe from the ground up (though he borrowed liberally from many different historical periods). People who have not read the books and are just getting into it may end up a little overwhelmed, and even worse for developers (although fantastic for fan boys like myself), Herbert chose to write about almost every single aspect of the universe in meticulous, almost obsessive detail, meaning there's a lot that would have to be packed in to please nitpickers.
Is this the first step towards downloadable extra maps, etc., like on XBox Live? Or, conversely, is this the next step towards developers releasing buggy games for the PS2 because they know they can add on patches later? I'm hoping for more of a trend towards the former than the latter.
This reminds me an awful lot of Cthulu Karts and Nazgul Thunder, both of which can be found here: http://www.phobe.com/sfi/sigmain.html Considering this company doesn't actually exist, I wonder if they're developing any games for the Phantom . . .
I agree with you for the most part, all though there were some issues with Sly that I really hope they fix in the sequel. For one thing, it could stand to have far fewer mini-games. Hopefully this time they'll stay away from mini-games and keep polishing the game's core gameplay, maybe adding features like implementing shadows as part of gameplay. Oh yeah, and the sequel should have more Bentley. Much more Bentley.
See, the problem with trying to evaluate/rate all of the content in a game is that, in the average game, there's too much, and it would take far too long to come up with a completely accurate rating. Unlike, with say, movies, every gameplay experience can be different, depending on the actions of the player, and not only is playing the whole game through once generally time consuming, but playing it through multiple times with an eye for every single easter egg, cheat code, and any other possible variable would take a long, long, time. For an example, look at the new Goldeneye level that was just recently discovered. Was the content from that level evaluated when the game was rated? No, I don't think so. Would it have made that huge an impact on the rating? Again, probably not. A rough approximation is pretty much the best we can hope for here, and it seems to have worked out pretty well so far. After all, ratings that involve "sexual content" are extremely subjective.
And by the way; "Children, adults, and women?"
I'd be inclined to disagree there. Games like Deus Ex have some replay value because, while the outcome is pretty much the same no matter what you do, it lets you approach problems in different ways. Also, some games like Way of the Samurai allow a player to affect the overall outcome of a game by taking completely different courses of action every time it's played. That's one of the major advantages of storytelling in games over storytelling in other mediums.
So . . . politicians think it's bad for people to have military shooter games because they supposedly train assassins . . . even though those games are made by developers who just want to sell games . . . but it's okay when the games are made by the army . . . which actually WANTS people to learn how to kill effectively?
This was actually probably one of the emotional strengths of Deus Ex, because after slaughtering a whole bunch of terrorists, you eventually reach a point in the game where you discover you've been duped all along, and they're the "good guys." The next step (and there's the possibility that they've already done this; keep in mind I haven't played Invisible War yet) would be to allow you to choose from the very beginning who to side with, thus making the emotional impact stronger when a player who has actively chosen to fight for UNATCO discovers that the NSF is actually on the side of justice.
The length of games is also an enormous strength, especially with many of the 40+ hour RPGs out there. The longer a person spends with a character, the more empathy a person feels for that character. And when a character is presented as the love interest, and options are given that allow the player to further this subplot, suddenly the romance seems a little more interesting than it would in film. The same thing goes for when characters die, especially if the player could have prevented the death; more time spent with a believable and likeable character leads to a greater impact when that character dies.
Huh. I don't have as much experience with Vampire as I do with D&D, but most of the games I've played involved lots of shootouts and werewolves in abandoned warehouses, that sort of thing. That's stealthier than shootouts in public areas, but admittedly, not by much.
I've seen Underworld. Not a horrible movie. Managed to keep me relatively entertained every once in a while. The makeup and animatronics weren't bad.
Speaking as somebody who is somewhat familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, Underwold wasn't really similar enough to be that lawsuit-worthy. Sure it had vampire clans, elder vampires, blood feuds, etc., but these have long been tired, uninspired staples of the genre (Anne Rice, anybody?). Besides which, the whole "secret war" thing was handled differently in Underworld. For one thing, in Vampire, they can actually keep it a secret. In Underworld, you had shootouts all over a public freakin' subway system, and werewolves running around yelling "Blood!"
And yeah, the acting was pretty bad. The guy who played the traitor vampire in particular, was hamming it up more than a suicidal pig in a butcher shop.
True. Getting down stuff like the blood magic alone would be killer expensive.
Mage, OTOH, I could see being a TV show more than a movie, especially on HBO or Showtime, where they could be a bit more free to work than on network TV.
Mage could work as a TV series. But as long as we're talking about other RPGs, a Call of Cthulu show would be great. Yeah, I know, it's not White Wolf, but I just had to throw that in.
Nope, I haven't. I must have missed out on the feeding frenzy with that one. I'm assuming at least some people started scapegoating the RPGs, mostly because of this:
"Rod Ferrell was a troubled boy. He claims he was molested during a Black Mass that his grandfather made him attend. He was fascinated by role-playing games, graduating from "Dungeons and Dragons" to "Vampire: The Masquerade."
The fact that the last part is considered relevant says a lot.
True dat. And if the right wing gets one peek of Vampire cosplayers hanging outside the movie theater, they're going to start this whole war on tabletop RPGs all over again.
Am I the only one who's sick of hunters of the undead? We've already got Buffy, Blade, Van Helsing, etc. Enough is enough, already. If they want to adapt something from White Wolf, why not make a script based on Vampire: The Masquerade? There's a lot of great storytelling potential in the way the whole vampire government is set up, though if the Dungeons and Dragons movie is any indication, Hollywood would just really screw it up.
It's a really stupid idea to try to sandwich people into categories like "women will like this game" and "your drunk football buddies will like this game." Here's my theory; it's not that some games are "too cute" or "too violent." It's not that women naturally want to play a game that is like an interactive soap opera. This article reads like the people who wrote it actually believe that non-gamers have never heard of Vice City, or don't know that they also have nonviolent games out there. I think it's more likely that there are three primary reasons for non-gamers.
1. Don't realize there are good plots out there. It certainly could happen. The pure dumb fun of Vice City gets played up, while the homages to Scarface and Miami Vice, and the game's dark humor, get played down. Games like DOOM get all the attention, while games like The Getaway and Beyond Good and Evil get swept under the rug. Even absurdly popular games like MGS and the Final Fantasy series get little or no attention from the non-game media.
2. Some adjustment to the controls is required. For somebody who has never used a gamepad before, the first time can be awkward, annoying, and extremely difficult. This can, in some cases, turn a person away from gaming, and it takes some persistence to get that person to adjust to a controller.
3. Or maybe they just never really got into it. Let's face it, there are people out there who have other things they have to take care of, and other people who just aren't willing to fork over the money for what can be a pretty expensive hobby.
So, what's the solution? Well, for 3, maybe it's best to find some free time that person has, and try to make him/her sit down, shut up, and play. 2, same thing, but it's going to require a lot of persistence, and keeping that person at the game for a while. Games like Soul Caliber II are good for that person, because button mashing still works. Sometimes, it's probably not even worth it, however, if the person can't adjust. As for 1, the solution is relatively simple; show them games like The Getaway, MGS, FF X, etc., maybe bring up your favorite cutscenes if you can find them.
Remember, this is just the short list; I realize there a lot of other reasons why somebody wouldn't be a gamer.
Good point. I wasn't really considering factors like legal issues and political pressure.