While social network use is the single most significant occupier of Americans' online time, a June study indicates that playing games has climbed up to grab the second place spot away from email, which held the runner up position last year.
Social networks alone comprised 22.7 percent of online time in June, up by nearly half from 15.8 percent during the same period last year. They, by far, are responsible for the biggest chunk of online time. That data comes from a new Nielsen Company report on internet habits.
According to Nielsen, gaming was one of the only categories that was not eroded in social networking's wake. Online game time rose 10 percent year-over-year to make up 10.2 percent of Americans' internet use in June, up from 9.3 percent. That's in stark contrast to email, whose use fell 28 percent to 8.3 percent, and instant messaging, whose use fell 15 percent to 4.0 percent -- both likely at least partial casualties of social networking, which is becoming increasingly dominant as a communication tool.
"Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the web, 40 percent of U.S. online time is spent on just three activities -- social networking, playing games, and emailing -- leaving a whole lot of other sectors fighting for a declining share of the online pie," said Nielsen analyst Dave Martin in an analysis on the tracking company's official blog.
The situation looks quite different on mobile devices, however, which tend to feature less fully-fledged online experiences than desktop and laptop browsers. There, a massive 60 percent of online time is spent using email, followed by 11.7 percent on web portals and 10.5 percent on social networks.
Nielsen doesn't list game activity on mobiles; the ambiguous "entertainment" comprises 3.3 percent of online time, and "other" takes up 7.8 percent. This is likely because many mobile games, particularly in the United States, are played offline.
To be fair though, they are actually in Not Africa.
I mean sure, it goes all too well with the original conversation last night and adds in the extra delicious racism of the jungle loving outfit.
There is also the awkwardness of the Australian actress Sheva was modeled on being a lighter skin tone than pretty much all of the Not Africans you kill throughout the game.
All of that is still better than most depictions of black people in Japanese games.
Apart from the afro and being the older complaining buttmonkey of the group I always thought Sazh from FFXIII was a fairly decent treatment. Of course I have no idea how race works in their bizarre fantasy universe but whatevs.
I guess what I'm saying is I'd like to see some beautiful 2d or 2.5d games like we had on the ps1 and ps2 this generation. I've only seen like two or three attempted, most of which had awful writing and no budget. I think with a decent budget and storyline nobody will care about dem graphix.
Get a Wii. Wario Land, Boy and His Blob, Muramasa, the Klonoa remake, Lost Winds 1 and 2.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
I guess what I'm saying is I'd like to see some beautiful 2d or 2.5d games like we had on the ps1 and ps2 this generation. I've only seen like two or three attempted, most of which had awful writing and no budget. I think with a decent budget and storyline nobody will care about dem graphix.
Get a Wii. Wario Land, Boy and His Blob, Muramasa, the Klonoa remake, Lost Winds 1 and 2.
This.
Nintendo has ushered in a really awesome 2d revival.
I guess what I'm saying is I'd like to see some beautiful 2d or 2.5d games like we had on the ps1 and ps2 this generation. I've only seen like two or three attempted, most of which had awful writing and no budget. I think with a decent budget and storyline nobody will care about dem graphix.
Get a Wii. Wario Land, Boy and His Blob, Muramasa, the Klonoa remake, Lost Winds 1 and 2.
There's also NyxQuest (IMO, LostWinds 1 < NyxQuest < LostWinds 2) and Dive: The Medes Islands Secret, which I haven't played yet, but looks quite good and has gotten decent reviews.
...Y'know, I can't think of the last time there was ever a black lead in a video game. Supporting characters, sure, but no leads at all.
I've been trying to think of every obscure title I've ever played, and just... nada. Can anyone name one? Recent or otherwise?
Did someone already mention Vin Diesel in Escape from Butcher's Bay or whatever that was?
Unfortunately I don't have the strength at the moment to gather any meaningful commentary about social networking. I want to be able to enjoy my pie without worrying how big the slice is or whether the number of apples in the filling is affecting the amount of water in my glass. That analogy probably made as much sense to you as the article did to me.
...Y'know, I can't think of the last time there was ever a black lead in a video game. Supporting characters, sure, but no leads at all.
I've been trying to think of every obscure title I've ever played, and just... nada. Can anyone name one? Recent or otherwise?
Did someone already mention Vin Diesel in Escape from Butcher's Bay or whatever that was?
Unfortunately I don't have the strength at the moment to gather any meaningful commentary about social networking. I want to be able to enjoy my pie without worrying how big the slice is or whether the number of apples in the filling is affecting the amount of water in my glass. That analogy probably made as much sense to you as the article did to me.
I'm not sure I understand. Vin Diesel isn't a black guy.
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He is of mixed heritage, though, so if by race we're simply talking about a skin color of a greater magnitude than 70 on the HEX value scale...
...Y'know, I can't think of the last time there was ever a black lead in a video game. Supporting characters, sure, but no leads at all.
I've been trying to think of every obscure title I've ever played, and just... nada. Can anyone name one? Recent or otherwise?
Did someone already mention Vin Diesel in Escape from Butcher's Bay or whatever that was?
Unfortunately I don't have the strength at the moment to gather any meaningful commentary about social networking. I want to be able to enjoy my pie without worrying how big the slice is or whether the number of apples in the filling is affecting the amount of water in my glass. That analogy probably made as much sense to you as the article did to me.
I'm not sure I understand. Vin Diesel isn't a black guy.
Is this meant to be a joke? Cause it's really not funny.
Edit: Apparently not. You know, it really isn't that hard to google or wikipedia someone before you make a stupid statement about said someone's race of all things.
...Y'know, I can't think of the last time there was ever a black lead in a video game. Supporting characters, sure, but no leads at all.
I've been trying to think of every obscure title I've ever played, and just... nada. Can anyone name one? Recent or otherwise?
Did someone already mention Vin Diesel in Escape from Butcher's Bay or whatever that was?
Unfortunately I don't have the strength at the moment to gather any meaningful commentary about social networking. I want to be able to enjoy my pie without worrying how big the slice is or whether the number of apples in the filling is affecting the amount of water in my glass. That analogy probably made as much sense to you as the article did to me.
I'm not sure I understand. Vin Diesel isn't a black guy.
Is this meant to be a joke? Cause it's really not funny.
Nope, just from looking at him if somebody asked I would have said he was Italian and been only half right. I've already conceded the point though. Sorry again.
EDIT: For double embarrassment points, that pic I posted _is_ from wikipedia.
Yeah, Diesel is black and italian. So he counts. Hollywood likes him because he's not 'too black', but he himself is quite forward about it. But he had a movie he did where he related about his mixed race working against him a few times.
I think we confused race with skin color. Not that the Japanese seem to make the distinction either.
Obligatory Deadly Premonition example: You've got a black doctor named Ushah, and a black arms dealer named Wesley. Both NPCs, but aside from the names and the gold chains, they're treated as characters in their own right. Yeah, okay, the names are still pretty bad.
EDIT: Two Automatics posting sequentially. The prophecy has been fulfilled.
I really ought to get a handheld. People kept telling me to play Hotel Dusk.
Well, I'm hoping for an increase in depth, quality and innovation of interactive storytelling. Are these elements proliferating on the iPhone? Or are you just suggesting that those platforms are fertile soil for future endeavors? Because I find that the kind of money-grubbing being done by publishers on the Facebook front is no less intense than their "next-gen" counterparts, just focused on areas other than graphics processing.
There was some great stuff being done with interactive fiction (text-based games) that could work nicely on a smaller scale... Something like Spider and Web with minimal graphics would be pretty awesome on an iPhone. Or Aisle. Are there any titles like that out there currently?
(That all being said, I don't think we should give up on the HD consoles. I like my stories to be wrapped in shiny paper too sometimes, I'm just tired of opening the present and finding poop inside.)
Hotel Dusk was a really bad example of story in video games. It was overly wordy, and nobody was very interesting or had anything interesting to say. I keep trying that game, and I've never gotten through it. That and there's no way to speed up the text, which is paced so that a preschooler has time to sound out the words as they pop up. It's excruciating.
EDIT: Two Automatics posting sequentially. The prophecy has been fulfilled.
Don't act like you didn't plan it. We're on to you.
An interesting point is brought up, however. I think (emphasis on think, it's possible I'm overlooking something painfully obvious) that you'd be very hard pressed to find a game with a Latino lead with a darker complexion as well, produced by an American company.
Curiously enough, though, Asian leads, while not exactly common, exist. But they're almost entirely tied to, as far as I can tell, specific actors (for example, "Jet Li in ____" or "Chow Yun Fat in ___"). The only exception I can think of immediately is 3DRealm's Shadow Warrior, which, in the interests of sanity, we'll never bring up again.
Hotel Dusk was a really bad example of story in video games. It was overly wordy, and nobody was very interesting or had anything interesting to say. I keep trying that game, and I've never gotten through it. That and there's no way to speed up the text, which is paced so that a preschooler has time to sound out the words as they pop up. It's excruciating.
I love words... Anyway, something about the reviews makes me think I'll enjoy it. And I'm a sucker for Japanese games that attempt to capture some aspect of Western settings, in this case 1979 LA!
As with all of SC2′s thinly-sketched characters, Tosh is described more by his appearance and vocal mannerisms than by what he says or does. He has dreadlocks, he’s a bit mystic, he says “be” instead of “is” – three times within 15 seconds at one point. “This be the moment of truth.” “This be worth a fortune.” Apart from that, the rest of his English is spot on – but apparently he needs a single vocal tic so that we remember he’s Rastafarian.
Ah yes: he’s the only non-white member of StarCraft 2′s main cast. (Admittedly, General Warfield’s importance is stated a few times, but his appearances are very fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters). It would be petty and strange to complain about this in itself: plenty of other games (and movies) elect to star an entirely or predominantly white cast, after all. I mean Harry Potter, for goodness’ sakes. What I want to go into instead is how trite Tosh’s characterisation is, and how that could be perceived. I do not prescribe any negative intent to Blizzard, apart from possible thoughtlessness.
Here are some Tosh-facts:
Tosh is presented as sinister, untrustworthy and self-interested – his motives questioned repeatedly by gravel-voiced hero Jim Raynor and all his allies.
He has a drug habit, though this may or may not be necessary for his mystic powers.
A bunch of his friends are in jail. (Though are all white, however.)
He apparently has only two attitudes: stoned-sounding mystic and murderously angry.
To be fair, I think the actual universe StarCraft is set in is supposed to be some sort of extremely racist near-apartheid state. In which case, I think Blizzard succeeded.
It's bloody "Dixieland in space", and all. Like what if Archie Bunker (not the actor who played him, Carroll O'Connor, but the actual fictional person) developed the first space program, instead of the USSR.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Anyone who doesn't think Hotel Dusk had an awesome story and wonderful characters has no sense of taste.
As with all of SC2′s thinly-sketched characters, Tosh is described more by his appearance and vocal mannerisms than by what he says or does. He has dreadlocks, he’s a bit mystic, he says “be” instead of “is” – three times within 15 seconds at one point. “This be the moment of truth.” “This be worth a fortune.” Apart from that, the rest of his English is spot on – but apparently he needs a single vocal tic so that we remember he’s Rastafarian.
Ah yes: he’s the only non-white member of StarCraft 2′s main cast. (Admittedly, General Warfield’s importance is stated a few times, but his appearances are very fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters). It would be petty and strange to complain about this in itself: plenty of other games (and movies) elect to star an entirely or predominantly white cast, after all. I mean Harry Potter, for goodness’ sakes. What I want to go into instead is how trite Tosh’s characterisation is, and how that could be perceived. I do not prescribe any negative intent to Blizzard, apart from possible thoughtlessness.
Here are some Tosh-facts:
Tosh is presented as sinister, untrustworthy and self-interested – his motives questioned repeatedly by gravel-voiced hero Jim Raynor and all his allies.
He has a drug habit, though this may or may not be necessary for his mystic powers.
A bunch of his friends are in jail. (Though are all white, however.)
He apparently has only two attitudes: stoned-sounding mystic and murderously angry.
Oh yes, and he has a Voodoo doll. A voodoo doll.
Um, they're forgetting a certain awsome general you get near the end of the game.
Edit: Wtf, you can't find him listed on the wikipedia article even, despite being a major character during the whole end run.
Okay, then here's an industry-related question: Is there any reason game publishers don't use the Hollywood system of raking in millions with surefire hits, then setting aside a portion of the profits SPECIFICALLY TO LOSE on riskier creative ventures? Sure, Deadly Premonition was sold for almost nothing, but they also didn't spend a massive amount of money making it. You would think that, with games apparently making sooooo much more money than films these days, there would be some kind of margin or leeway to allow publishers to be more open to crazy ideas. Even Fox has Searchlight Pictures. But is it only because they know there's an audience out there to receive that product? Do publishers have such a low opinion of gamers that they'll force-feed us pablum until we literally have to starve ourselves to get the point across? Is there some kind of system set up to throw money at DigiPen students in hopes that another Portal will come out of it? Why hasn't anyone bought Jason Rohrer a non-shitty house that won't kill his wife with asthma attacks?
I guess I'm not really sure how analogous the relationship between game publishers and developers is compared to filmmakers and producers, or if that even matters to the above discussion. Maybe the answer is simply that, like with any popular medium, video games are a hall of mirrors, and the state of the industry will reflect our collective tastes back at us regardless of the minority's desire to be acknowledged. But I don't want to be pessimistic... It's so obvious that there are problems with this industry in terms of accepting and promoting variety, and it's so easy to make excuses for it, but I still think the problems are far from insurmountable and not nearly as difficult to overcome as people think. Just... EXPAND YOUR DAMN MIND and THINK about what you're complaining about in the broader context of the entirety of culture, art, and the human condition. Just because you didn't have "fun" playing something doesn't mean it's not more relevant or worthy of appreciation than something that was more entertaining on the surface; most times, I find the opposite to be true.
Coming very late to this, but movie studios are actually doing this less and less. Near as I can understand, part of the reason the studios would fund some arty films isn't just because it earned them some prestige, but because they found a way to make money off them, largely through pre-selling the rights to foreign distributors and (here's the important part) the pay movie channels on cable. With the rights pre-sold, there was a decent chance that even the most unseen thing could at the very least make its money back.
However, two or three years ago the movie channels, hit by the economy like everyone else, decided to cut back on the number of movies they picked up. Naturally, most of them chopped away the arty/independent flicks in favor of movies that would get them more eyeballs.
As a result, nearly every studio has shut down their independent divisions. Fox Searchlight is I believe the only one that remains now, assuming you don't count Miramax (which may or may not be "indie" nowadays, and even then has had its release schedule chopped dramatically and was just sold off to something called "Filmyard Holdings"). It's gotten to the point that Kevin Smith said he can no longer make the kind of flicks he used to make anymore, because no distributors will buy them. That's why he went "studio" with Cop Out.
As with all of SC2′s thinly-sketched characters, Tosh is described more by his appearance and vocal mannerisms than by what he says or does. He has dreadlocks, he’s a bit mystic, he says “be” instead of “is” – three times within 15 seconds at one point. “This be the moment of truth.” “This be worth a fortune.” Apart from that, the rest of his English is spot on – but apparently he needs a single vocal tic so that we remember he’s Rastafarian.
Ah yes: he’s the only non-white member of StarCraft 2′s main cast. (Admittedly, General Warfield’s importance is stated a few times, but his appearances are very fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters). It would be petty and strange to complain about this in itself: plenty of other games (and movies) elect to star an entirely or predominantly white cast, after all. I mean Harry Potter, for goodness’ sakes. What I want to go into instead is how trite Tosh’s characterisation is, and how that could be perceived. I do not prescribe any negative intent to Blizzard, apart from possible thoughtlessness.
Here are some Tosh-facts:
Tosh is presented as sinister, untrustworthy and self-interested – his motives questioned repeatedly by gravel-voiced hero Jim Raynor and all his allies.
He has a drug habit, though this may or may not be necessary for his mystic powers.
A bunch of his friends are in jail. (Though are all white, however.)
He apparently has only two attitudes: stoned-sounding mystic and murderously angry.
Oh yes, and he has a Voodoo doll. A voodoo doll.
Um, they're forgetting a certain awsome general you get near the end of the game.
Edit: Wtf, you can't find him listed on the wikipedia article even, despite being a major character during the whole end run.
What's really dumb about the spectre's is that they talk about how having items or good luck charms or voodo dolls, whatever, are a part of their character and how all spectres have that sort of behavior attached to them.
Then you find them in the hull standing there looking like normal ghosts with just about everything characteristic about a spectre missing.
Um, they're forgetting a certain awsome general you get near the end of the game.
Edit: Wtf, you can't find him listed on the wikipedia article even, despite being a major character during the whole end run.
He's mentioned in the RPS article, but that "his appearances are fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters". I haven't actually played SCII (and won't anytime soon), so I'm not actually sure how much this other character is involved and whether or not it's an oversight from the author of the article.
To be fair, I think the actual universe StarCraft is set in is supposed to be some sort of extremely racist near-apartheid state. In which case, I think Blizzard succeeded.
It's bloody "Dixieland in space", and all. Like what if Archie Bunker (not the actor who played him, Carroll O'Connor, but the actual fictional person) developed the first space program, instead of the USSR.
I always understood the Dixieland thing to be more of a motif and style, not necessarily that humanity was literally now racist on a galactic scale.
Although it would explain why the black units are the space janitors...
To be fair, I think the actual universe StarCraft is set in is supposed to be some sort of extremely racist near-apartheid state. In which case, I think Blizzard succeeded.
It's bloody "Dixieland in space", and all. Like what if Archie Bunker (not the actor who played him, Carroll O'Connor, but the actual fictional person) developed the first space program, instead of the USSR.
I always understood the Dixieland thing to be more of a motif and style, not necessarily that humanity was literally now racist on a galactic scale.
Although it would explain why the black units are the space janitors...
I thought the SC terrans weren't "all of humanity." The SC2 install, at least, goes into how SC terrans are space Australia what with them being prison ships that went off course and then turned into a civilization.
Anyone who doesn't think Hotel Dusk had an awesome story and wonderful characters has no sense of taste.
Maybe I never get far enough, but it just seems like cliche detective, cliche inn owner, cliche hot secretary, etc. Maybe if the text scrolled faster than being literally designed for retarded people it would be easier to get through.
I mean, the way I think of it is I wouldn't want to read it if it was a book, and being a game adds nothing. So why bother?
Although it would explain why the black units are the space janitors...
Oh lord, I forgot about that.
Yeah, them plus voodoo guy is a teensy bit squirm-inducing.
And speaking of writing, I just finished Heavy Rain and GODDAMN is that thing riddled with stupid, stupid plot holes that could have easily been fixed. They never explain why one character wakes up from blackouts with origami in his hands, the journalist magically gains information, the killer's identity might as well have been drawn from a hat, etc.
Um, they're forgetting a certain awsome general you get near the end of the game.
Edit: Wtf, you can't find him listed on the wikipedia article even, despite being a major character during the whole end run.
He's mentioned in the RPS article, but that "his appearances are fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters". I haven't actually played SCII (and won't anytime soon), so I'm not actually sure how much this other character is involved and whether or not it's an oversight from the author of the article.
Yeah, I see it now, and they're dead wrong. Without dropping SC2 spoilers all over, he shows up at LEAST as often as Tosh does, probably more, and as far as importance to the main storyline goes he's far higher up the ladder. The only thing you don't get out of him that you do from Tosh is Tosh will join your crew for a bit (or permenantly if you side with him), while by the time you get Warfield other stuff is going on.
But yeah, how they could consider Tosh a big deal and not Warfield is beyond me.
To be fair, I think the actual universe StarCraft is set in is supposed to be some sort of extremely racist near-apartheid state. In which case, I think Blizzard succeeded.
It's bloody "Dixieland in space", and all. Like what if Archie Bunker (not the actor who played him, Carroll O'Connor, but the actual fictional person) developed the first space program, instead of the USSR.
I always understood the Dixieland thing to be more of a motif and style, not necessarily that humanity was literally now racist on a galactic scale.
Although it would explain why the black units are the space janitors...
I thought the SC terrans weren't "all of humanity." The SC2 install, at least, goes into how SC terrans are space Australia what with them being prison ships that went off course and then turned into a civilization.
They're not, I was just generalising for the humans present in SC2.
Although if we include the other "faction" of humans who kicked the whole thing off, apparently they're Space Russian despots. :P
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Oh, good call. I only played that one for about 15 minutes, which explains why it didn't pop into my head.
I don't have an excuse for not thinking of GTA: San Andreas until just now, though. I used to burn away whole days playing that one.
...what?
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Damn magical Negros.
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
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CJ in GTA San Andreas
Victor Vance in GTA Vice City Stories
Garcian Smith in Killer7
Sheva in RE 5 is a rare black woman MC.
Which resulted in this:
I think she was just accidentally dipped in tea.
I mean sure, it goes all too well with the original conversation last night and adds in the extra delicious racism of the jungle loving outfit.
There is also the awkwardness of the Australian actress Sheva was modeled on being a lighter skin tone than pretty much all of the Not Africans you kill throughout the game.
All of that is still better than most depictions of black people in Japanese games.
Apart from the afro and being the older complaining buttmonkey of the group I always thought Sazh from FFXIII was a fairly decent treatment. Of course I have no idea how race works in their bizarre fantasy universe but whatevs.
Get a Wii. Wario Land, Boy and His Blob, Muramasa, the Klonoa remake, Lost Winds 1 and 2.
This.
Nintendo has ushered in a really awesome 2d revival.
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There's also NyxQuest (IMO, LostWinds 1 < NyxQuest < LostWinds 2) and Dive: The Medes Islands Secret, which I haven't played yet, but looks quite good and has gotten decent reviews.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
Unfortunately I don't have the strength at the moment to gather any meaningful commentary about social networking. I want to be able to enjoy my pie without worrying how big the slice is or whether the number of apples in the filling is affecting the amount of water in my glass. That analogy probably made as much sense to you as the article did to me.
I'm not sure I understand. Vin Diesel isn't a black guy.
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He is of mixed heritage, though, so if by race we're simply talking about a skin color of a greater magnitude than 70 on the HEX value scale...
Is this meant to be a joke? Cause it's really not funny.
Edit: Apparently not. You know, it really isn't that hard to google or wikipedia someone before you make a stupid statement about said someone's race of all things.
EDIT: For double embarrassment points, that pic I posted _is_ from wikipedia.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Obligatory Deadly Premonition example: You've got a black doctor named Ushah, and a black arms dealer named Wesley. Both NPCs, but aside from the names and the gold chains, they're treated as characters in their own right. Yeah, okay, the names are still pretty bad.
EDIT: Two Automatics posting sequentially. The prophecy has been fulfilled.
Hotel Dusk was a really bad example of story in video games. It was overly wordy, and nobody was very interesting or had anything interesting to say. I keep trying that game, and I've never gotten through it. That and there's no way to speed up the text, which is paced so that a preschooler has time to sound out the words as they pop up. It's excruciating.
They still make all three. Just not many.
Don't act like you didn't plan it. We're on to you.
An interesting point is brought up, however. I think (emphasis on think, it's possible I'm overlooking something painfully obvious) that you'd be very hard pressed to find a game with a Latino lead with a darker complexion as well, produced by an American company.
Curiously enough, though, Asian leads, while not exactly common, exist. But they're almost entirely tied to, as far as I can tell, specific actors (for example, "Jet Li in ____" or "Chow Yun Fat in ___"). The only exception I can think of immediately is 3DRealm's Shadow Warrior, which, in the interests of sanity, we'll never bring up again.
(WARNING: StarCraft II spoilers present in the full article - they are noted in the article and further down the page, so you'll see them)
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/05/tosh-how-apt/
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
It's bloody "Dixieland in space", and all. Like what if Archie Bunker (not the actor who played him, Carroll O'Connor, but the actual fictional person) developed the first space program, instead of the USSR.
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Um, they're forgetting a certain awsome general you get near the end of the game.
Edit: Wtf, you can't find him listed on the wikipedia article even, despite being a major character during the whole end run.
Coming very late to this, but movie studios are actually doing this less and less. Near as I can understand, part of the reason the studios would fund some arty films isn't just because it earned them some prestige, but because they found a way to make money off them, largely through pre-selling the rights to foreign distributors and (here's the important part) the pay movie channels on cable. With the rights pre-sold, there was a decent chance that even the most unseen thing could at the very least make its money back.
However, two or three years ago the movie channels, hit by the economy like everyone else, decided to cut back on the number of movies they picked up. Naturally, most of them chopped away the arty/independent flicks in favor of movies that would get them more eyeballs.
As a result, nearly every studio has shut down their independent divisions. Fox Searchlight is I believe the only one that remains now, assuming you don't count Miramax (which may or may not be "indie" nowadays, and even then has had its release schedule chopped dramatically and was just sold off to something called "Filmyard Holdings"). It's gotten to the point that Kevin Smith said he can no longer make the kind of flicks he used to make anymore, because no distributors will buy them. That's why he went "studio" with Cop Out.
What's really dumb about the spectre's is that they talk about how having items or good luck charms or voodo dolls, whatever, are a part of their character and how all spectres have that sort of behavior attached to them.
Then you find them in the hull standing there looking like normal ghosts with just about everything characteristic about a spectre missing.
Seriously. The hell.
He's mentioned in the RPS article, but that "his appearances are fleeting compared to the rest of the plot-relevant characters". I haven't actually played SCII (and won't anytime soon), so I'm not actually sure how much this other character is involved and whether or not it's an oversight from the author of the article.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
I always understood the Dixieland thing to be more of a motif and style, not necessarily that humanity was literally now racist on a galactic scale.
Although it would explain why the black units are the space janitors...
I thought the SC terrans weren't "all of humanity." The SC2 install, at least, goes into how SC terrans are space Australia what with them being prison ships that went off course and then turned into a civilization.
Maybe I never get far enough, but it just seems like cliche detective, cliche inn owner, cliche hot secretary, etc. Maybe if the text scrolled faster than being literally designed for retarded people it would be easier to get through.
I mean, the way I think of it is I wouldn't want to read it if it was a book, and being a game adds nothing. So why bother?
Oh lord, I forgot about that.
Yeah, them plus voodoo guy is a teensy bit squirm-inducing.
And speaking of writing, I just finished Heavy Rain and GODDAMN is that thing riddled with stupid, stupid plot holes that could have easily been fixed. They never explain why one character wakes up from blackouts with origami in his hands, the journalist magically gains information, the killer's identity might as well have been drawn from a hat, etc.
Yeah, I see it now, and they're dead wrong. Without dropping SC2 spoilers all over, he shows up at LEAST as often as Tosh does, probably more, and as far as importance to the main storyline goes he's far higher up the ladder. The only thing you don't get out of him that you do from Tosh is Tosh will join your crew for a bit (or permenantly if you side with him), while by the time you get Warfield other stuff is going on.
But yeah, how they could consider Tosh a big deal and not Warfield is beyond me.
They're not, I was just generalising for the humans present in SC2.
Although if we include the other "faction" of humans who kicked the whole thing off, apparently they're Space Russian despots. :P