5) try to play in motion (isn't a big selling point of GB that you can play in the car/on a plane?)
I love WarioWare Twisted (the one with gyroscope that senses rotation). It's so fun that I play it while driving. As long as the roads are wide and and free of other cars I always win!!! - although I once got pulled over for excessive swerving.
Hopefully this sets a standard
on
EA's Army of Two
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There are only a hanful of recent games that impliment a well-made co-op mode. For the past 3 years this has been a feature that everyone has been clamoring for, so it's nice to hear that a mega-studio will emphasize this to such a degree. I can only hope that other games will put in this type of option.
Lil' Johnny: I wanna wii for Christmas. Dad: A we? Lil' Johnny: So we can play our wii together, as a family. And Robby is getting a wii, so we need a wii. Dad: I don't understand what Robby has to do with us. Lil' Johnny: It's not us Dad, it's wii.
On second thought the wii name might work with casual people if advertised enough. Especially with the two i's representing people. But they seriously need to advertise it right.
Picture the hard-core commercial(on G4, Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network, MTV, etc.): "Wii will rock you!" booming while people play Metroid, Madden, Zelda, and Smash Brothers.
Picture the casual commercial (on CBS, HGTV, History Channel, Halmark): Kids fighting, mom cries "Can't we all just get along." Dad says, "Wii can handle it." Then we see kids having a fun time together. Hear "Wii can work it out" playing in the background.
Umm, you kind of infered that Korea was a developer country. South Korea is right up there with the rest of first world countries. North Korea, however, is pretty bad economically, but except for a few helps that's it's been getting from it's neighbors (China, South Korea) it's more like stagnation. The only thing that North Korea seems to be developing is nuclear arms.
I heard the Sega Master system used to be big in Brazil and other latin american coutries well into the 1990's (maybe still) because it was cheap and easy to develop for. Most developing countries won't be able to afford games at premium pricing and would likely just be rife with piracy. Maybe locally grown games or old games meant to run on old systems. If you follow international news at all you'll know that most of the developing world isn't developing. The few exceptions include China, India, and Qatar.
The world is a sad place for many people. Wars; bribery; embezzlement; unchecked criminal activity; arbitrary enforcement of laws; poor education; and lack of investment by the government, local individuals, and foriegners into infrastructure and value-added industries all contribute to a perpetual developing status for many countries.
He also says that little kids should spend less time playing video games and more time playing outside. He also says the project he most looks forward to is creating a new type of playground. For someone who's livelihood came from video games, this guy sounds very jaded (although he seems to come across as an optimist). The only one more jaded with the industry right now is proabably Chris Crawford.
Or, you could use *both* cores and play a six-dimensional game!
Actually 6 dimensional games are possible if you do it right. 3D = hieght x length x depth. If you consider time as a dimension then your at 4D. But then you need to include some immaginary or at least non-apparent dimensions.
You can use a "Magic Eye" type of patterned texture (an autostereogram)over the entire screen to add a second dimension of depth (and a true depth this time). Furthermore you can use a the color spectrum to represent some other arbitrary dimension (red = low, green = medium, violet = high). Granted, this game might not be very fun to play...
Shills - a person in paid by a company to praise or defend the company's product in such a way that they seem to be a regular customer, see guerilla marketing (phrase coined by the penny arcade guys).
I wish to apologize for my post. I was trying to be funny in suggesting that no fanboys actually exist, only undercover corporate marketers. I know this is preposterous, the evidence for the existence of fanboys is allover - even on Slashdot. I was tying to poke fun of this by pretending to be paranoid (another funny subject). Unfortunately, my post wasn't obvious in it's connection to it's parent (thus it was modded offtopic). Even worse was the fact that no one got the joke (a characteristic of poorly implimented jokes). And for this and the resulting flames, I apologize.
Maybe the reason that Sony is pricing so high is they learned a lesson from a basic economics class(or Rollercoaster Tycoon). They saw that the Xbox 360 sold at a relatively low price point, but that meant that more people were willing to buy it at launch, resulting in a shortage of XBox 360's.
Keep in mind that Microsoft is losing money with each console sold (which they expect to recoup in software sales), so they really could have raised the price at launch and still sold out of 360's because of the high demand. Now this may have helped their short-term bottom line, but not without the risk of the strategy backfiring through a loss in brand perception. For example, the public thinks that the 360 is too expensive or trying to screw customers, so only the hardcore buy it, resulting in a season of fair profitability at launch, but at the expense of mass adoption. By avoiding this strategy Microsoft also built the perception that the 360 is a must buy because people are on a waiting list to buy it.
By initially pricing the PS3 at $499 and $599(USD) Sony can control their lossses during the frentic launch season (when their supply will be exceeded by the demand at any sub-$1000 price), and then have room to cut the price later (when manufacturing gets up to speed) and let the mainstream feel like they are getting a deal. Of course, they risk alienating those same mainstream customers that they need to pick up later (so that the whole economies of scale thing works).
My brother and I share a PS2 that he bought used two years ago(probably for about $200 w/ games). And although I like some of the Sony games and the whole variety out there for the PS2, I really can't see myself buying a PS3 until a full version gets down to $299.
For those of us who love drawing, and love drawing on the go, this will be great. Pictochat is good enough for some pretty cool stuff - considering that you're doing it on a portable game system. I hope they let you save enough of your creations - that is a major flaw of Pictochat, and from what I hear Electroplankton.
The Xbox360 will be bundled with EA's 2006 FIFA World Cup along with face plates that match Japan's national soccer team's colors and some accessories. I can imagine other themed bundles will soon follow.
We all know that there are shills, but very few of us know to what extent. The sad truth is that there are no real fanboys. Sony, Nintendo, Xbox, Final Fantasy, whathaveyou. In fact there is no hardcore gamer demographic, only casual players that follow whatever the shills say is cool. The Slashdot boards are 99.9% shills. I hope that I am not the only one left. If I am, then I will certainly get modded down into obscurity.
Yes, Cris Crawford is right (at least mostly right - see GDC Rant): Games need to become interactive storytelling. Why? Because if you can control your character in shooting, swinging a sword, or buying something, then WHY can't you decide what to say to them (and have them react accordingly). Now, I don't think that this needs to happen to all games but it probably needs to happen (at least to a degree) with all games that include major bits of story (eg. cutscenes, etc.).
A previous poster in a previous thread mentioned that having AI able to generate text in real time (an emotion/information driven AI), coupled with text-to-voice synthesizers would drive interactive storytelling. That combined with voice recognition software (voice to text) would be the holy grail of storytelling. Big time developers and publishers really should be investing in these technologies right now!!!
In the meantime, the Fallout/Deus Ex/Knights of the Old Republic/Oblivion method of giving you multiple choices of dialogue and actions ought to become the de facto standard for story games. Yes that requires more recorded/written dialogue, but those games really stand out because of it. If people just stopped buying games with non-interactive stories, developers would stop making them. Likewise if enough fans complained.
Now I know you are going to say, "But I like the linear Final Fantasy story because it is so well crafted, etc. and you can't do that with branching dialogue." And let me just say that I like Final Fantasy stories as well, but it is not impossible to make a non-linear story that is also good. Yes, it is more difficult, but if stage actors can improvise moving drama on the fly then game developers should be able to do it when they have it planned out.
Also, little things like constant and dynamic animations for characters make a big difference in making a character seem alive. No one stands still when you are talking to them. People yawn, breath, shift their weight, and gesture when talking. And when people are walking they speed up, slow down, change the gate of their walk, step over or around obstacles, and trip occasionally. If you think these are trivial just remember back to Sonic the Hedgehog. When you stop using the controller Sonic starts blinking, yawning, and eventually gets out his yo-yo. That was cool!
Now Bethesda can move on to full production of Fallout 3. Hopefully, it will retain the spirit of the Black Isle originals. The bleak setting, humor, nuanced characters, and option rich gameplay made the game remarkable.
HINT: To please fans, all they have to do is add an OPTION for top down view of turn-based action. Yeah, sure, make it a tactical, story-rich FPS in the Fallout universe. That's fine, BUT include the OPTION for old school play.
Sid Meier and Johnson may have been mainly discussing PC games (though they do mention the console release of Pirates). To change the discussion flow a bit towards consoles, I would like to disagree with them. I want an offline multiplayer aspect on EVERY game I purchase (for the consoles) and I don't care if it is tacked on (as long as it is fun).
Why are there only 5 million PS2/Xbox owners that play games online when the install base is some 100 million (numbers may not be entirely accurate)? The first reason is because not everyone has the opportunity hook their PS2/Xbox up to DSL or cable internet. Secondly, people are averse to technical hurdles (physically setting it up, lag, user interfaces). Lastly, people dislike the social hurdles (griefers, not being able to find friends, not being able to see their faces, etc.).
As for myself, I actively look to purchase games with split screen multiplayer (preferable a customizable split screen). For the average user playing with or against a bunch of friends or relatives while sitting on the couch is much more enjoyable than playing online friends (and idiots) over the internet.
I spend a very limited time playing on my PS2. When I do play the PS2 it is usually with relatives or friends, either taking turns, watching each other, or simultaneously playing.
I give two examples: Super Monkey Ball Deluxe and Dog's Life. I bought both of these for the same reason so I could have something to play with my young nephews. I grant you that Dog's Life received mediocre to good reviews. I played only the beginning of the single player and despite the game world being well-crafted and fleshed out, I soon gave up due to the story-mode's annoyingly cutesy cutscenes and too many tedious gameplay aspects. I later eBayed it for $20 (USD).
I have never played the single-player game of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, even though reviews say it is quite good (I don't have the time). But I bought the game BECAUSE it had about 10 totally different offline multiplayer modes (that don't require any effort to unlock them). Individually some of these modes can get a little boring after a while, but when taken together they amount to a fairly fun set of party games.
Back to Dog's Life, I would have kept the game if it had ANY fun multiplayer because the animations, controls, and levels were pretty good and most games don't let you control a dog (even Nintendogs only lets you own it not be it). They could have put in a dog barkoff match mode or a dog chases cat mode (they already had models for both), but they didn't so I got rid of it.
Yes, I agree that developer's should focus on either the single-player experience or the multiplayer for the thrust of their efforts, but why not throw in a simple but fun multiplayer mode as long as your creating all of these digital assets. Think about it? What if Pac-Man had a two-player mode where one player is Pac-Man and the other is the only ghost on the board (both retaining same relative speeds etc.)? What if Shadow of the Colossus had a race mode where you can stand up on your running horse and shoot arrows at the player in the lead (but risk falling off/ slowing down)? What if it had a king of the mountain (aka Colossus) mode? Sure you would have to re-optimize the engine to handle split screen and more I/O data, but other than that those modes are practically there, and would have added to the long-term enjoyment of the game.
Someone should seriously consider creating Elderly Escape, a stealth action where the purpose is to escape from an assisted living center (aka old folks' home). Throw in some branching dialogue trees ("son, please bring me a hacksaw for my birthday") and puzzles (how can you get your wheelchair-bound friend Chuck into the ventilation ducts?) and advanced AI for the patrolling "nursing assistants" and you have a very lively game.
Or what about Grandma's House a management sim of dealing with visiting grandkids. Yes, you could just spoil them rotten with cookies, but then they may break many of your porcelain figurines as they engage in sugar-high induced rough-housing. Contrariwise, you could use the old wooden-spoon and send them outside, but that would affect your Granny-love rating.
Lastly, I think a senior dating sim is one kind of dating sim that Jack Thompson couldn't criticize without fear of offending his Florida neighbors. Yeah, sure most people know what to how to woo sassy 20-somethings and properly introduce them to your parents, but it's way more challenging to figure out how to woo a sassy 70-something Betty dealing with slight hearing loss and properly introduce her to your grandkids.
Not to dis what I think in some ways (but not all ways) is one of the most creative genre of modern games, but I think ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) have been around for a long time. A long time. If you think about it any type of prank that sets up a persistent alternative reality is actually an ARG. If you call your friends house and convincingly pretend to be a police detective or whatever for say 10 minutes while your friend is either fooled or not fooled but playing along then you are participating in an ARG.
Of course with todays technology is much easier to create and orchestrate an ARG of a very massive scale. A scale where the immersion is beyond an evenings fun and fright from a Murder Mystery Party and becomes an ongoing, time-consuming, activity spanning several months and requiring the assistance of hundreds of strangers to solve numerous puzzles and ultimately reveal not just a one night mystery but a grand overarching conspiracy.
On my first FUN date at college (back in 1997), my date and I dressed up as spies (there was a matching outfit couples' dance later that evening). Wearing all black, we hurried around that small college town in the cold of winter to catch incoming calls to scattered payphones where my dorm-mate would give the next clue in his faux-British accent. I thought it was fun. I think my date thought it was fun. The only problem is that I had to PRETEND that I was surprised even though I set up the entire schedule and all of the clues.
I only wish that more people would be open to ARGs - games that can be frightening reaslistic and yet purport to NOT BE A GAME.
Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Hillary Clinton. Does anyone think it's funny that the two most prominent Democrats who oppose the killing of virtual people (videogames) are also the two most prominent Democrats who support the killing of real people (War in Iraq)? Is it hypocrisy or are they just trying to appeal to Soccer moms?
In Korea, most MMO gamers play at PC bangs (cafes), and supposedly a lot of good games have been unsuccessful when they force the player to use more than just the mouse. This is because Koreans like to smoke while they are playing.
God designed your brain to be good, but instead your using it for evil. The only reason God doesn't sue you using the the DCMA is because all the lawyer's already work for the Devil.
Slashdot Mirror
5) try to play in motion (isn't a big selling point of GB that you can play in the car/on a plane?)
I love WarioWare Twisted (the one with gyroscope that senses rotation). It's so fun that I play it while driving. As long as the roads are wide and and free of other cars I always win!!! - although I once got pulled over for excessive swerving.
There are only a hanful of recent games that impliment a well-made co-op mode. For the past 3 years this has been a feature that everyone has been clamoring for, so it's nice to hear that a mega-studio will emphasize this to such a degree. I can only hope that other games will put in this type of option.
I hope it allows split screen offline co-op and not just online multiplayer.
Lil' Johnny: I wanna wii for Christmas.
Dad: A we?
Lil' Johnny: So we can play our wii together, as a family. And Robby is getting a wii, so we need a wii.
Dad: I don't understand what Robby has to do with us.
Lil' Johnny: It's not us Dad, it's wii.
On second thought the wii name might work with casual people if advertised enough. Especially with the two i's representing people. But they seriously need to advertise it right.
Picture the hard-core commercial(on G4, Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network, MTV, etc.): "Wii will rock you!" booming while people play Metroid, Madden, Zelda, and Smash Brothers.
Picture the casual commercial (on CBS, HGTV, History Channel, Halmark): Kids fighting, mom cries "Can't we all just get along." Dad says, "Wii can handle it." Then we see kids having a fun time together. Hear "Wii can work it out" playing in the background.
But then again these are the people who hate CGI but love men in rubber monster suits. Whatever.
I love men in rubber monster suits... I mean girls, yeah, *cough* women.
Umm, you kind of infered that Korea was a developer country. South Korea is right up there with the rest of first world countries. North Korea, however, is pretty bad economically, but except for a few helps that's it's been getting from it's neighbors (China, South Korea) it's more like stagnation. The only thing that North Korea seems to be developing is nuclear arms.
I heard the Sega Master system used to be big in Brazil and other latin american coutries well into the 1990's (maybe still) because it was cheap and easy to develop for. Most developing countries won't be able to afford games at premium pricing and would likely just be rife with piracy. Maybe locally grown games or old games meant to run on old systems. If you follow international news at all you'll know that most of the developing world isn't developing. The few exceptions include China, India, and Qatar.
The world is a sad place for many people. Wars; bribery; embezzlement; unchecked criminal activity; arbitrary enforcement of laws; poor education; and lack of investment by the government, local individuals, and foriegners into infrastructure and value-added industries all contribute to a perpetual developing status for many countries.
How's bout this, send the $10-20.00 to me and then sit and think about getting a hobby or interest besides computers/videogames/movies/porn.
What's your address, or do you only accept Paypal?
He also says that little kids should spend less time playing video games and more time playing outside. He also says the project he most looks forward to is creating a new type of playground. For someone who's livelihood came from video games, this guy sounds very jaded (although he seems to come across as an optimist). The only one more jaded with the industry right now is proabably Chris Crawford.
Or, you could use *both* cores and play a six-dimensional game!
Actually 6 dimensional games are possible if you do it right. 3D = hieght x length x depth. If you consider time as a dimension then your at 4D. But then you need to include some immaginary or at least non-apparent dimensions.
You can use a "Magic Eye" type of patterned texture (an autostereogram)over the entire screen to add a second dimension of depth (and a true depth this time). Furthermore you can use a the color spectrum to represent some other arbitrary dimension (red = low, green = medium, violet = high). Granted, this game might not be very fun to play...
At least there's one criminal who is willing to accept personal responsibility.
Don't the Japanese National Police have bigger problems to deal with.
Shills - a person in paid by a company to praise or defend the company's product in such a way that they seem to be a regular customer, see guerilla marketing (phrase coined by the penny arcade guys).
I wish to apologize for my post. I was trying to be funny in suggesting that no fanboys actually exist, only undercover corporate marketers. I know this is preposterous, the evidence for the existence of fanboys is allover - even on Slashdot. I was tying to poke fun of this by pretending to be paranoid (another funny subject). Unfortunately, my post wasn't obvious in it's connection to it's parent (thus it was modded offtopic). Even worse was the fact that no one got the joke (a characteristic of poorly implimented jokes). And for this and the resulting flames, I apologize.
Maybe the reason that Sony is pricing so high is they learned a lesson from a basic economics class(or Rollercoaster Tycoon). They saw that the Xbox 360 sold at a relatively low price point, but that meant that more people were willing to buy it at launch, resulting in a shortage of XBox 360's.
Keep in mind that Microsoft is losing money with each console sold (which they expect to recoup in software sales), so they really could have raised the price at launch and still sold out of 360's because of the high demand. Now this may have helped their short-term bottom line, but not without the risk of the strategy backfiring through a loss in brand perception. For example, the public thinks that the 360 is too expensive or trying to screw customers, so only the hardcore buy it, resulting in a season of fair profitability at launch, but at the expense of mass adoption. By avoiding this strategy Microsoft also built the perception that the 360 is a must buy because people are on a waiting list to buy it.
By initially pricing the PS3 at $499 and $599(USD) Sony can control their lossses during the frentic launch season (when their supply will be exceeded by the demand at any sub-$1000 price), and then have room to cut the price later (when manufacturing gets up to speed) and let the mainstream feel like they are getting a deal. Of course, they risk alienating those same mainstream customers that they need to pick up later (so that the whole economies of scale thing works).
My brother and I share a PS2 that he bought used two years ago(probably for about $200 w/ games). And although I like some of the Sony games and the whole variety out there for the PS2, I really can't see myself buying a PS3 until a full version gets down to $299.
For those of us who love drawing, and love drawing on the go, this will be great. Pictochat is good enough for some pretty cool stuff - considering that you're doing it on a portable game system. I hope they let you save enough of your creations - that is a major flaw of Pictochat, and from what I hear Electroplankton.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146924.html
The Xbox360 will be bundled with EA's 2006 FIFA World Cup along with face plates that match Japan's national soccer team's colors and some accessories. I can imagine other themed bundles will soon follow.
We all know that there are shills, but very few of us know to what extent. The sad truth is that there are no real fanboys. Sony, Nintendo, Xbox, Final Fantasy, whathaveyou. In fact there is no hardcore gamer demographic, only casual players that follow whatever the shills say is cool. The Slashdot boards are 99.9% shills. I hope that I am not the only one left. If I am, then I will certainly get modded down into obscurity.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/25 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/02/10
"nice link"
Link is from the Legend of Zelda series, not the Elder Scrolls series. But, yeah, he is a nice guy.
Yes, Cris Crawford is right (at least mostly right - see GDC Rant): Games need to become interactive storytelling. Why? Because if you can control your character in shooting, swinging a sword, or buying something, then WHY can't you decide what to say to them (and have them react accordingly). Now, I don't think that this needs to happen to all games but it probably needs to happen (at least to a degree) with all games that include major bits of story (eg. cutscenes, etc.).
A previous poster in a previous thread mentioned that having AI able to generate text in real time (an emotion/information driven AI), coupled with text-to-voice synthesizers would drive interactive storytelling. That combined with voice recognition software (voice to text) would be the holy grail of storytelling. Big time developers and publishers really should be investing in these technologies right now!!!
In the meantime, the Fallout/Deus Ex/Knights of the Old Republic/Oblivion method of giving you multiple choices of dialogue and actions ought to become the de facto standard for story games. Yes that requires more recorded/written dialogue, but those games really stand out because of it. If people just stopped buying games with non-interactive stories, developers would stop making them. Likewise if enough fans complained.
Now I know you are going to say, "But I like the linear Final Fantasy story because it is so well crafted, etc. and you can't do that with branching dialogue." And let me just say that I like Final Fantasy stories as well, but it is not impossible to make a non-linear story that is also good. Yes, it is more difficult, but if stage actors can improvise moving drama on the fly then game developers should be able to do it when they have it planned out.
Also, little things like constant and dynamic animations for characters make a big difference in making a character seem alive. No one stands still when you are talking to them. People yawn, breath, shift their weight, and gesture when talking. And when people are walking they speed up, slow down, change the gate of their walk, step over or around obstacles, and trip occasionally. If you think these are trivial just remember back to Sonic the Hedgehog. When you stop using the controller Sonic starts blinking, yawning, and eventually gets out his yo-yo. That was cool!
Now Bethesda can move on to full production of Fallout 3. Hopefully, it will retain the spirit of the Black Isle originals. The bleak setting, humor, nuanced characters, and option rich gameplay made the game remarkable.
HINT: To please fans, all they have to do is add an OPTION for top down view of turn-based action. Yeah, sure, make it a tactical, story-rich FPS in the Fallout universe. That's fine, BUT include the OPTION for old school play.
Sid Meier and Johnson may have been mainly discussing PC games (though they do mention the console release of Pirates). To change the discussion flow a bit towards consoles, I would like to disagree with them. I want an offline multiplayer aspect on EVERY game I purchase (for the consoles) and I don't care if it is tacked on (as long as it is fun).
Why are there only 5 million PS2/Xbox owners that play games online when the install base is some 100 million (numbers may not be entirely accurate)? The first reason is because not everyone has the opportunity hook their PS2/Xbox up to DSL or cable internet. Secondly, people are averse to technical hurdles (physically setting it up, lag, user interfaces). Lastly, people dislike the social hurdles (griefers, not being able to find friends, not being able to see their faces, etc.).
As for myself, I actively look to purchase games with split screen multiplayer (preferable a customizable split screen). For the average user playing with or against a bunch of friends or relatives while sitting on the couch is much more enjoyable than playing online friends (and idiots) over the internet.
I spend a very limited time playing on my PS2. When I do play the PS2 it is usually with relatives or friends, either taking turns, watching each other, or simultaneously playing.
I give two examples: Super Monkey Ball Deluxe and Dog's Life. I bought both of these for the same reason so I could have something to play with my young nephews. I grant you that Dog's Life received mediocre to good reviews. I played only the beginning of the single player and despite the game world being well-crafted and fleshed out, I soon gave up due to the story-mode's annoyingly cutesy cutscenes and too many tedious gameplay aspects. I later eBayed it for $20 (USD).
I have never played the single-player game of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, even though reviews say it is quite good (I don't have the time). But I bought the game BECAUSE it had about 10 totally different offline multiplayer modes (that don't require any effort to unlock them). Individually some of these modes can get a little boring after a while, but when taken together they amount to a fairly fun set of party games.
Back to Dog's Life, I would have kept the game if it had ANY fun multiplayer because the animations, controls, and levels were pretty good and most games don't let you control a dog (even Nintendogs only lets you own it not be it). They could have put in a dog barkoff match mode or a dog chases cat mode (they already had models for both), but they didn't so I got rid of it.
Yes, I agree that developer's should focus on either the single-player experience or the multiplayer for the thrust of their efforts, but why not throw in a simple but fun multiplayer mode as long as your creating all of these digital assets. Think about it? What if Pac-Man had a two-player mode where one player is Pac-Man and the other is the only ghost on the board (both retaining same relative speeds etc.)? What if Shadow of the Colossus had a race mode where you can stand up on your running horse and shoot arrows at the player in the lead (but risk falling off/ slowing down)? What if it had a king of the mountain (aka Colossus) mode? Sure you would have to re-optimize the engine to handle split screen and more I/O data, but other than that those modes are practically there, and would have added to the long-term enjoyment of the game.
Someone should seriously consider creating Elderly Escape, a stealth action where the purpose is to escape from an assisted living center (aka old folks' home). Throw in some branching dialogue trees ("son, please bring me a hacksaw for my birthday") and puzzles (how can you get your wheelchair-bound friend Chuck into the ventilation ducts?) and advanced AI for the patrolling "nursing assistants" and you have a very lively game.
Or what about Grandma's House a management sim of dealing with visiting grandkids. Yes, you could just spoil them rotten with cookies, but then they may break many of your porcelain figurines as they engage in sugar-high induced rough-housing. Contrariwise, you could use the old wooden-spoon and send them outside, but that would affect your Granny-love rating.
Lastly, I think a senior dating sim is one kind of dating sim that Jack Thompson couldn't criticize without fear of offending his Florida neighbors. Yeah, sure most people know what to how to woo sassy 20-somethings and properly introduce them to your parents, but it's way more challenging to figure out how to woo a sassy 70-something Betty dealing with slight hearing loss and properly introduce her to your grandkids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_Gam e
Not to dis what I think in some ways (but not all ways) is one of the most creative genre of modern games, but I think ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) have been around for a long time. A long time. If you think about it any type of prank that sets up a persistent alternative reality is actually an ARG. If you call your friends house and convincingly pretend to be a police detective or whatever for say 10 minutes while your friend is either fooled or not fooled but playing along then you are participating in an ARG.
Of course with todays technology is much easier to create and orchestrate an ARG of a very massive scale. A scale where the immersion is beyond an evenings fun and fright from a Murder Mystery Party and becomes an ongoing, time-consuming, activity spanning several months and requiring the assistance of hundreds of strangers to solve numerous puzzles and ultimately reveal not just a one night mystery but a grand overarching conspiracy.
On my first FUN date at college (back in 1997), my date and I dressed up as spies (there was a matching outfit couples' dance later that evening). Wearing all black, we hurried around that small college town in the cold of winter to catch incoming calls to scattered payphones where my dorm-mate would give the next clue in his faux-British accent. I thought it was fun. I think my date thought it was fun. The only problem is that I had to PRETEND that I was surprised even though I set up the entire schedule and all of the clues.
I only wish that more people would be open to ARGs - games that can be frightening reaslistic and yet purport to NOT BE A GAME.
Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Hillary Clinton. Does anyone think it's funny that the two most prominent Democrats who oppose the killing of virtual people (videogames) are also the two most prominent Democrats who support the killing of real people (War in Iraq)? Is it hypocrisy or are they just trying to appeal to Soccer moms?
In Korea, most MMO gamers play at PC bangs (cafes), and supposedly a lot of good games have been unsuccessful when they force the player to use more than just the mouse. This is because Koreans like to smoke while they are playing.
God designed your brain to be good, but instead your using it for evil. The only reason God doesn't sue you using the the DCMA is because all the lawyer's already work for the Devil.