But then you see last of us and are like oh shit the shooting has an emotional impact and he has like two bullets aaahhh he has to protect the girl who totally isn't ellen page!!!
I dunno, I mean it's a good looking game, but having sparse ammo and more brutal QTEs than normal isn't exactly what I was getting at in terms of 'emotional impact'. (Given, bringing it up at the tail end of the 'shooting is boring to watch' rant makes it sound like maybe that would be enough of a shakeup, but it's actually more of a separate point.)
I was getting at more, in most games your character killing someone is like Arnie shooting up some random dude at the end of Commando. It's a context in which that random dude's life has no meaningful value. He's on screen for 3 seconds, he dies, you forget about him. When I say emotional impact, I'd mean more like when someone gets killed in say, The Wire. You know that person; the context of the show may be violent, but it's still a world where violence has significant consequences, and because human life has value in that world (even the lives of career criminals), it isn't to be taken lightly.
These 4 random dudes in this demo might be more shocking to fight on visceral level, but they are still 4 random, faceless dudes. You're not wrestling with the moral or physical consequences of 'hey, maybe that dude has his own not-Ellen Page waiting in the burned out car they're living in, waiting for him to come back with something, anything to eat', or how the guilt will gnaw at you. That doesn't occur to you, the player, because those dudes are basically the same dudes you've been killing since Wolfenstein 3d: they exist to kill you, you're there to kill them.
Violence in a game could be more interesting if it took a certain breaking point before you feel you should resort to violence, rather than having it be the (often) first and (also often) only option. Certainly not for every game (I do like shooters and Commando, after all), but it's something that would be interesting to see a game or two explore. That's why I brought up the one shot of the gun idea- because in order to make that idea interesting, the design of that game would have to be such that choice of using the gun would profoundly impact the rest of the game.
But then you see last of us and are like oh shit the shooting has an emotional impact and he has like two bullets aaahhh he has to protect the girl who totally isn't ellen page!!!
haha, i literally just wrote about the Last of Us on his fb post about that.
I never thought I would say this...but man game companies need to start putting more focus on gameplay than art. Also, I think on principle alone I am going to stop buying games that try to market themselves with cinematics. If you don't think your game will look good enough by showing you know...the fucking game... then I will take your word for it and not purchase it.
rts: a noble, even if futile endeavour. But hey, I'm starting a game project focused solely on gameplay, so wish me luck!
Bacon: I think you're trying to take it from one extreme to the other. Wouldn't you be satisfied with a game where every NPC has a strictly defined personality, family and history and his death had consequences in the game world other than allowing you to advance in some dumb questline?
After all, if there's only one death supposed to happen during the whole game, you'll need to design your gameplay around something else. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that, but the solution to the problem of "combat cheap from the gameplay and gameworld perspective" isn't "don't make the game about combat".
Skyrim remains in my memory because of how unbelievably shallow the combat was from both of those perspectives. But the gameplay part was the worst, I was able to go through every fight just by running towards the nearest opponent repeatedly pressing LMB (and that's on hard difficulty). After that I've played the Witcher 2 arena (which is still pretty basic combat but a good start) and I never returned to Skyrim for anything other than virtual hiking.
Yea, E3 snuck up on me and I had no idea it was even happening until someone at work mentioned it. I came here to see if there was any hubub. I love me some video games but damn, I don't think I have the time anymore.
After I'm done with Mass Effect 3 and Resident Evil 6, I have zero interest in playing any game. I think I'm getting old.
what about solitaire? or spider solitaire? I think those are the real signs of getting old.
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
I actually often play Solitaire on my iPad. I love that game...
I'm old.
Side Note: My former boss, who was laid off a couple of weeks ago, had the annoying habit of never putting any spaces in his file names and giving them the most generic names ever. Here I am, renaming hundreds of files now.
Presshpbleedfinalv2.indd would be a typical file in his folder.
I feel like E3 has gotten really boring over the past few years. At least for the keynotes, which are mostly the biggest publishers showing off their safest bets and... Usher is there? Maybe it's because the event used to be such a huge deal. The big publisher keynotes especially used to be really exciting for their new revelations and, I guess those are still there, but people just aren't as excited or surprised by those revelations any more?
The other stuff on the convention floor seems like it's still interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing how these games actually play, when they're put in the hands of real people and not pre-scripted for a guy to pantomime in front of. It's just that there's still a disproportionately huge amount of hype surrounding these keynotes, despite the fact they are typically the most embarrassing and sometimes disappointing part of the entire show.
But then you see last of us and are like oh shit the shooting has an emotional impact and he has like two bullets aaahhh he has to protect the girl who totally isn't ellen page!!!
I dunno, I mean it's a good looking game, but having sparse ammo and more brutal QTEs than normal isn't exactly what I was getting at in terms of 'emotional impact'. (Given, bringing it up at the tail end of the 'shooting is boring to watch' rant makes it sound like maybe that would be enough of a shakeup, but it's actually more of a separate point.)
I was getting at more, in most games your character killing someone is like Arnie shooting up some random dude at the end of Commando. It's a context in which that random dude's life has no meaningful value. He's on screen for 3 seconds, he dies, you forget about him. When I say emotional impact, I'd mean more like when someone gets killed in say, The Wire. You know that person; the context of the show may be violent, but it's still a world where violence has significant consequences, and because human life has value in that world (even the lives of career criminals), it isn't to be taken lightly.
These 4 random dudes in this demo might be more shocking to fight on visceral level, but they are still 4 random, faceless dudes. You're not wrestling with the moral or physical consequences of 'hey, maybe that dude has his own not-Ellen Page waiting in the burned out car they're living in, waiting for him to come back with something, anything to eat', or how the guilt will gnaw at you. That doesn't occur to you, the player, because those dudes are basically the same dudes you've been killing since Wolfenstein 3d: they exist to kill you, you're there to kill them.
Violence in a game could be more interesting if it took a certain breaking point before you feel you should resort to violence, rather than having it be the (often) first and (also often) only option. Certainly not for every game (I do like shooters and Commando, after all), but it's something that would be interesting to see a game or two explore. That's why I brought up the one shot of the gun idea- because in order to make that idea interesting, the design of that game would have to be such that choice of using the gun would profoundly impact the rest of the game.
If those character's humanity doesn't occur to you, that's probably because you aren't trying. These characters leap to the defense of their friends and beg you not to shoot them. However, they also bragged about killing multiple "tourists" and enjoyed that action. They are morally complex bandits just as real life bandits in this situation would be.
Both the main character and these men are doing what they have to in order to survive and by taking their little bits of supplies, you are ending that goal in an instant. Not to mention each segment of that fight is a huge ordeal. None of the men go down quitly as if this were a Ahnold movie. They struggle and pant and whimper. I fail to see how that doesn't create empathy even on a base level.
Looks like Irma Kniivila has a show down at Steam Whistle Brewery this evening. If you happen to be downtown Toronto you should probably check it out. The stuff I'm seeing her post on Facebook looks pretty awesome.
But then you see last of us and are like oh shit the shooting has an emotional impact and he has like two bullets aaahhh he has to protect the girl who totally isn't ellen page!!!
I dunno, I mean it's a good looking game, but having sparse ammo and more brutal QTEs than normal isn't exactly what I was getting at in terms of 'emotional impact'. (Given, bringing it up at the tail end of the 'shooting is boring to watch' rant makes it sound like maybe that would be enough of a shakeup, but it's actually more of a separate point.)
I was getting at more, in most games your character killing someone is like Arnie shooting up some random dude at the end of Commando. It's a context in which that random dude's life has no meaningful value. He's on screen for 3 seconds, he dies, you forget about him. When I say emotional impact, I'd mean more like when someone gets killed in say, The Wire. You know that person; the context of the show may be violent, but it's still a world where violence has significant consequences, and because human life has value in that world (even the lives of career criminals), it isn't to be taken lightly.
These 4 random dudes in this demo might be more shocking to fight on visceral level, but they are still 4 random, faceless dudes. You're not wrestling with the moral or physical consequences of 'hey, maybe that dude has his own not-Ellen Page waiting in the burned out car they're living in, waiting for him to come back with something, anything to eat', or how the guilt will gnaw at you. That doesn't occur to you, the player, because those dudes are basically the same dudes you've been killing since Wolfenstein 3d: they exist to kill you, you're there to kill them.
Violence in a game could be more interesting if it took a certain breaking point before you feel you should resort to violence, rather than having it be the (often) first and (also often) only option. Certainly not for every game (I do like shooters and Commando, after all), but it's something that would be interesting to see a game or two explore. That's why I brought up the one shot of the gun idea- because in order to make that idea interesting, the design of that game would have to be such that choice of using the gun would profoundly impact the rest of the game.
If those character's humanity doesn't occur to you, that's probably because you aren't trying. These characters leap to the defense of their friends and beg you not to shoot them. However, they also bragged about killing multiple "tourists" and enjoyed that action. They are morally complex bandits just as real life bandits in this situation would be.
Both the main character and these men are doing what they have to in order to survive and by taking their little bits of supplies, you are ending that goal in an instant. Not to mention each segment of that fight is a huge ordeal. None of the men go down quitly as if this were a Ahnold movie. They struggle and pant and whimper. I fail to see how that doesn't create empathy even on a base level.
I dunno. I watched it again, and I'm really not getting anything with the depth that you're describing. More deep than killing guards in Splinter Cell, I could see an argument for that. But it's still a bunch of thugs calling you an asshole and a motherfucker and etc as you start killing half a dozen guys. I also wouldn't describe any of them as leaping to the defense of their friends at any point. None of them try to extinguish the guy who got hit by a molotov, none of them tried to negotiate with the player when he took a hostage, none of them even so much as cried out their "friend's" name when they were wounded or killed.
Bacon was saying, sure the combat is more visceral, but each of them is still a faceless thug, devoid of personality besides "I am a thug and I am bullets you. Motherfucker." And there's not way out of that situation other than to murder a dozen guys.
...no! The whole point is that I've seen 'visceral' in every other fucking game, so I'm long beyond getting past the shock value of it. It sucks to watch someone get viciously brutalized, sure, but that doesn't make the violence somehow more meaningful (this is why I have no interest in those Saw movies). I'd rather somebody to put more creative focus and attention on why a player would choose- or not choose- to kill someone in a game more than how.
Presumably, the thing holding most people back from murdering people isn't that they only have access to visceral items like guns, chainsaws, knives, and clubs instead of a poison that gently kills in the victim's sleep.
I think different versions of the same line of Wacom have different drivers. (intuos 2, 3, 4) I suppose that could cause issues. I would think that different models would be fine since they are fairly different. (graphire, intuos, cintiq.) I really have no idea, though.
...no! The whole point is that I've seen 'visceral' in every other fucking game, so I'm long beyond getting past the shock value of it. It sucks to watch someone get viciously brutalized, sure, but that doesn't make the violence somehow more meaningful (this is why I have no interest in those Saw movies). I'd rather somebody to put more creative focus and attention on why a player would choose- or not choose- to kill someone in a game more than how.
Presumably, the thing holding most people back from murdering people isn't that they only have access to visceral items like guns, chainsaws, knives, and clubs instead of a poison that gently kills in the victim's sleep.
Its a tough market to find a game like that, we, as users, have been trained, since "space invaders", to not care about the AI characters at all. Few games trascend this structure, where the only meaningfull characters are the ones directly related to the main character (player), I can only think of games like The Sims, where you can sort of create a bond with characters that are not fully under your control (neighbours, workmates, friends), and... that you DO have the chance to kill them, and it feels very bad to do it.
In the shooter game cathegory, I cant think of any example, speed and thrill are the most desired experiences for the audience (usually teenagers, thats why most games have some restrictions to get the PG13 or 17 stamp, wich allows greater sales). Basically, I think you are looking for a game that most likely would spawn from the "indie" sector of gaming industry, since big sellers mostly already have a way of doing things, and apparently that way works for them.
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Alright, I'm gonna try at least. Would be nice if it worked!
The only time I felt any guilt in killing generic characters was in Modern Warfare 2 at the Airport Level because the context of the situation. Those people were not out to kill my character, they were just getting home or going on a honeymoon or to Disney World. They were innocent.
This is a rare case, as nameless characters/thugs have no emotional investment in you as a player.
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NappuccinoSurveyor of Things and StuffRegistered Userregular
But then you see last of us and are like oh shit the shooting has an emotional impact and he has like two bullets aaahhh he has to protect the girl who totally isn't ellen page!!!
I dunno, I mean it's a good looking game, but having sparse ammo and more brutal QTEs than normal isn't exactly what I was getting at in terms of 'emotional impact'. (Given, bringing it up at the tail end of the 'shooting is boring to watch' rant makes it sound like maybe that would be enough of a shakeup, but it's actually more of a separate point.)
I was getting at more, in most games your character killing someone is like Arnie shooting up some random dude at the end of Commando. It's a context in which that random dude's life has no meaningful value. He's on screen for 3 seconds, he dies, you forget about him. When I say emotional impact, I'd mean more like when someone gets killed in say, The Wire. You know that person; the context of the show may be violent, but it's still a world where violence has significant consequences, and because human life has value in that world (even the lives of career criminals), it isn't to be taken lightly.
These 4 random dudes in this demo might be more shocking to fight on visceral level, but they are still 4 random, faceless dudes. You're not wrestling with the moral or physical consequences of 'hey, maybe that dude has his own not-Ellen Page waiting in the burned out car they're living in, waiting for him to come back with something, anything to eat', or how the guilt will gnaw at you. That doesn't occur to you, the player, because those dudes are basically the same dudes you've been killing since Wolfenstein 3d: they exist to kill you, you're there to kill them.
Violence in a game could be more interesting if it took a certain breaking point before you feel you should resort to violence, rather than having it be the (often) first and (also often) only option. Certainly not for every game (I do like shooters and Commando, after all), but it's something that would be interesting to see a game or two explore. That's why I brought up the one shot of the gun idea- because in order to make that idea interesting, the design of that game would have to be such that choice of using the gun would profoundly impact the rest of the game.
If those character's humanity doesn't occur to you, that's probably because you aren't trying. These characters leap to the defense of their friends and beg you not to shoot them. However, they also bragged about killing multiple "tourists" and enjoyed that action. They are morally complex bandits just as real life bandits in this situation would be.
Both the main character and these men are doing what they have to in order to survive and by taking their little bits of supplies, you are ending that goal in an instant. Not to mention each segment of that fight is a huge ordeal. None of the men go down quitly as if this were a Ahnold movie. They struggle and pant and whimper. I fail to see how that doesn't create empathy even on a base level.
I dunno. I watched it again, and I'm really not getting anything with the depth that you're describing. More deep than killing guards in Splinter Cell, I could see an argument for that. But it's still a bunch of thugs calling you an asshole and a motherfucker and etc as you start killing half a dozen guys. I also wouldn't describe any of them as leaping to the defense of their friends at any point. None of them try to extinguish the guy who got hit by a molotov, none of them tried to negotiate with the player when he took a hostage, none of them even so much as cried out their "friend's" name when they were wounded or killed.
Bacon was saying, sure the combat is more visceral, but each of them is still a faceless thug, devoid of personality besides "I am a thug and I am bullets you. Motherfucker." And there's not way out of that situation other than to murder a dozen guys.
Well, I'm pretty sure those guys were cursing at you because you just killed their friend. If you just walked up and were found, I have a feeling they'd be saying other things at you. And when you have the guy as a hostage, I thought for sure he was begging you to put the gun down and freaked out when you pointed the gun at him. As for the molotov, it's hard to say how they reacted because the camera didn't linger on them. The other guy lept back, startled and then he was off screen.
Obviously they aren't going to have unique names for every character that you kill... that would require far too much time in the studio and too much space on the disc.
And the devs have confirmed that you can get past that situation without killing a single guy.
So uh.. wow. Add FarCry3 to the above and apparently this is the year of the grungy realism survival horror. I have to say that the Tomb Raider trailer is borderline distasteful; I was definitely not prepared for the series to go anywhere near that dark. Tomb Raider is summer movie popcorn action, and I don't think I'm ready for Lara Croft to be a character I pity because of all the shit getting piled on her rather than one I admire for being a female Indiana Jones.
I never thought I would say this...but man game companies need to start putting more focus on gameplay than art. Also, I think on principle alone I am going to stop buying games that try to market themselves with cinematics. If you don't think your game will look good enough by showing you know...the fucking game... then I will take your word for it and not purchase it.
Speaking of which, Star Wars 1313 actually looks freak'n incredible. The whole game looks like a cinematic, with that in mind, if it's anything like the second Force Unleashed - they really need to work on gameplay. But if there is one thing I did like in force unleashed two it was the interactive cinematic sequences and this looks like the whole game is that way.
I have to say that the Tomb Raider trailer is borderline distasteful; I was definitely not prepared for the series to go anywhere near that dark. Tomb Raider is summer movie popcorn action, and I don't think I'm ready for Lara Croft to be a character I pity because of all the shit getting piled on her rather than one I admire for being a female Indiana Jones.
Man, I thought the complete opposite of the trailer. I thought it really gave Laura some more depth and actually made her more like a female Indiana Jones. Looks more like it's a story of how Laura Croft became a bad ass. I highly doubt she's going to be whining the entire game, I'm guessing they're just setting the backstory with all that.
I have to say that the Tomb Raider trailer is borderline distasteful; I was definitely not prepared for the series to go anywhere near that dark. Tomb Raider is summer movie popcorn action, and I don't think I'm ready for Lara Croft to be a character I pity because of all the shit getting piled on her rather than one I admire for being a female Indiana Jones.
Man, I thought the complete opposite of the trailer. I thought it really gave Laura some more depth and actually made her more like a female Indiana Jones. Looks more like it's a story of how Laura Croft became a bad ass. I highly doubt she's going to be whining the entire game, I'm guessing they're just setting the backstory with all that.
Its more like, I didn't need to see Indiana Jones being sexually assaulted to believe he was a badass. Why do I need to see Laura Croft sexually assaulted to prove her character? In fact, wasn't she already a badass? There's no need to rewrite her backstory. Sure, they can call it a reboot, but this is like rebooting Captain Kirk to have been molested as a child. Completely irrelevant, unconnected with the character as we know them, and very probably offensive.
1. I have 4 more libraries to visit at which point I will try to create a business plan with the consortium leader. Ever library I've met with has been super excited and ready to jump on board, but they also hint at not having much money. Also I'm concerned that they will expect reduced amount of necessary work over time. Then there is the whole idea of going out on my own, paying for my own insurances, handling business taxes. Basically it's the most daunting, most volatile, yet at the same time potentially most financially rewarding option.
2. I just got called in for a job interview with a private industry job. The salary expectation matches mine but I was wierded out by them telling me that they're looking to either higher 1 person at 75-80 or 2 people at 40. 2 people making a salary of 40k a year does not necessarily equal 1 person making 80k. There are pro's and con's, but by far the potential con (employing a person that can't resolve your business critical problem) is much greater. Plus they listed the company name as confidential for the initial job posting. It smacks of potetial back stabbing/ unprofessional behavior, but at this point a job offer is a job offer.
and
3. The client they currently sent me out to, has told me that they would really like to keep me, regardless of what my parent company does. The problem for them is coming up with the funds to be able to pay my salary, which is still in question. Basically they'll know by monday, but in the mean time it would be the most stable option if I could swing it.
With either 2-3 I have the potential to just keep the side business going, and hire a person to manage it, skimming profit off the top and only funcitoning as a managerial entity.
Basically it all boils down to this. There are a lot of Potentials out there, but the lack of Definitives is causing my stomach to twist in knots.
What i'm really surprised of is that the job interviewer got my name right in the message. True it's on my voicemail, but it's still much better than most manage.
I have to say that the Tomb Raider trailer is borderline distasteful; I was definitely not prepared for the series to go anywhere near that dark. Tomb Raider is summer movie popcorn action, and I don't think I'm ready for Lara Croft to be a character I pity because of all the shit getting piled on her rather than one I admire for being a female Indiana Jones.
Man, I thought the complete opposite of the trailer. I thought it really gave Laura some more depth and actually made her more like a female Indiana Jones. Looks more like it's a story of how Laura Croft became a bad ass. I highly doubt she's going to be whining the entire game, I'm guessing they're just setting the backstory with all that.
Its more like, I didn't need to see Indiana Jones being sexually assaulted to believe he was a badass. Why do I need to see Laura Croft sexually assaulted to prove her character? In fact, wasn't she already a badass? There's no need to rewrite her backstory. Sure, they can call it a reboot, but this is like rebooting Captain Kirk to have been molested as a child. Completely irrelevant, unconnected with the character as we know them, and very probably offensive.
The story to me looked more like a girl who has extreme pressures placed on her, and is rising to the occasion and becoming the hero. The sexual assault part seemed a bit down played and no where near the "funbag overload" that they presented with the popcorn version. The original Lara seems like an avatar of sexuality but had no real grit to match roll she was adopting. Kinda like that lady that climbs mountains in high heels. Sure she can do it, but I imagine all other mountain climbers are thinking "That's just unnecessarily stupid." In the end she looked more like a card board cut out of what a 13 year old boy wants his feminine hero to be.
This is a completely different character. Built with weaknesses that she overcomes, showing a beauty, elegance and ferocity that doesn't require a tightly stretched tube top and daisy dukes.
Nothing about what happens in that Tomb Raider trailer is offensive towards women or misgonystic. It is really quite good. Overcoming and becoming a badass. About her and her character and herself and what's inside and a personal growth arc rather than what's outside.
Really glad to hear you have some good options already, and your personal business is pickin' up a bit bebarce. Best of luck with the future endeavors.
But then you see last of us and are like oh shit the shooting has an emotional impact and he has like two bullets aaahhh he has to protect the girl who totally isn't ellen page!!!
I dunno, I mean it's a good looking game, but having sparse ammo and more brutal QTEs than normal isn't exactly what I was getting at in terms of 'emotional impact'. (Given, bringing it up at the tail end of the 'shooting is boring to watch' rant makes it sound like maybe that would be enough of a shakeup, but it's actually more of a separate point.)
I was getting at more, in most games your character killing someone is like Arnie shooting up some random dude at the end of Commando. It's a context in which that random dude's life has no meaningful value. He's on screen for 3 seconds, he dies, you forget about him. When I say emotional impact, I'd mean more like when someone gets killed in say, The Wire. You know that person; the context of the show may be violent, but it's still a world where violence has significant consequences, and because human life has value in that world (even the lives of career criminals), it isn't to be taken lightly.
These 4 random dudes in this demo might be more shocking to fight on visceral level, but they are still 4 random, faceless dudes. You're not wrestling with the moral or physical consequences of 'hey, maybe that dude has his own not-Ellen Page waiting in the burned out car they're living in, waiting for him to come back with something, anything to eat', or how the guilt will gnaw at you. That doesn't occur to you, the player, because those dudes are basically the same dudes you've been killing since Wolfenstein 3d: they exist to kill you, you're there to kill them.
Violence in a game could be more interesting if it took a certain breaking point before you feel you should resort to violence, rather than having it be the (often) first and (also often) only option. Certainly not for every game (I do like shooters and Commando, after all), but it's something that would be interesting to see a game or two explore. That's why I brought up the one shot of the gun idea- because in order to make that idea interesting, the design of that game would have to be such that choice of using the gun would profoundly impact the rest of the game.
If those character's humanity doesn't occur to you, that's probably because you aren't trying. These characters leap to the defense of their friends and beg you not to shoot them. However, they also bragged about killing multiple "tourists" and enjoyed that action. They are morally complex bandits just as real life bandits in this situation would be.
Both the main character and these men are doing what they have to in order to survive and by taking their little bits of supplies, you are ending that goal in an instant. Not to mention each segment of that fight is a huge ordeal. None of the men go down quitly as if this were a Ahnold movie. They struggle and pant and whimper. I fail to see how that doesn't create empathy even on a base level.
I dunno. I watched it again, and I'm really not getting anything with the depth that you're describing. More deep than killing guards in Splinter Cell, I could see an argument for that. But it's still a bunch of thugs calling you an asshole and a motherfucker and etc as you start killing half a dozen guys. I also wouldn't describe any of them as leaping to the defense of their friends at any point. None of them try to extinguish the guy who got hit by a molotov, none of them tried to negotiate with the player when he took a hostage, none of them even so much as cried out their "friend's" name when they were wounded or killed.
Bacon was saying, sure the combat is more visceral, but each of them is still a faceless thug, devoid of personality besides "I am a thug and I am bullets you. Motherfucker." And there's not way out of that situation other than to murder a dozen guys.
Well, I'm pretty sure those guys were cursing at you because you just killed their friend. If you just walked up and were found, I have a feeling they'd be saying other things at you. And when you have the guy as a hostage, I thought for sure he was begging you to put the gun down and freaked out when you pointed the gun at him. As for the molotov, it's hard to say how they reacted because the camera didn't linger on them. The other guy lept back, startled and then he was off screen.
Obviously they aren't going to have unique names for every character that you kill... that would require far too much time in the studio and too much space on the disc.
And the devs have confirmed that you can get past that situation without killing a single guy.
Getting past a situation without killing anyone is something stealth games have been doing for years. What I mean is, and what I think Bacon is talking about, is you either shoot, or you evade. There's no "hey, we're all just trying to survive here" moment. You can't take a guy hostage and tell his accomplices to leave or allow you and your companion to leave. The interaction is very black and white, especially in regards to morality. And it's carefully constructed that way. What are the first lines of dialogue you hear out of them, when they think they're completely alone in this hotel? You don't hear them joking around with each other, playfully teasing or anything you might otherwise expect from a group who, through their trials, have become friends and comrades. You hear them talking about how it took two of them ganging up on a dude to murder him. They are bad guys and the only time the game wants you to feel bad about killing them is if you take a lot of damage in the process or own them so hard it's embarrassing. I mean, yes, there is an intrinsic guilt you feel when a kill in a game is very personal. In Battlefield 3, when you do a close-quarter knife kill and it plays the animation where you turn the guy around and look him in the face before stabbing him in the chest, sometimes you feel bad about it. In Skyrim, if you beat a guy so badly that he starts running from you, begging for his life, and you still blow him away with a fireball, it feels pretty brutal.
But that's a gut reaction. There are no long-term moral ambiguities there, because there was no other way to resolve that situation. If you didn't stab the guy, he would turn around and kill you. If you didn't murder the bandit when he was running away, after 15 seconds he completely reconsiders and runs right back at you. He doesn't become a different kind of NPC, he doesn't even despawn. This is how games construct their bad guys, for the most part. In Skyrim, if you're snaking around a castle, it's not uncommon to overhear banter between bandits. But at it's most human it's some stilted exchange about mudcrabs, and for the most part they are either grumbling incoherently or talking about murdering their fellow bandits. When you kill them, it's because they were evil and/or stupid. And maybe that's good. Maybe games shouldn't run the risk of desensitizing you to killing when there are other ways of resolving a situation, or when the other person also has their own non-evil motivations and just happens to be impeding your current progress. My point is, this game doesn't try to do that. If the player didn't choke that guy to death at the start of the level, the bandits would have still shot at him, immediately on sight, with no questions asked. Why? Not because they thought he was carrying anything of value, not because they were competing for some resource. They bitch and moan about how there's nothing valuable in the hotel, and they know the guy is armed, so why risk an open confrontation that could get their teammates killed? Because they're enemies. More mechanically complicated than Wolfenstein's, but no more morally complex. They aren't calling you a motherfucker because you killed their friend, they are calling you a motherfucker because it makes you feel more justified when you shoot them in the face with a shotgun.
Nothing about what happens in that Tomb Raider trailer is offensive towards women or misgonystic. It is really quite good. Overcoming and becoming a badass. About her and her character and herself and what's inside and a personal growth arc rather than what's outside.
Seriously. I really don't understand where people are getting the sexual thing from in the Tomb Raider trailer.
Nothing about what happens in that Tomb Raider trailer is offensive towards women or misgonystic. It is really quite good. Overcoming and becoming a badass. About her and her character and herself and what's inside and a personal growth arc rather than what's outside.
Seriously. I really don't understand where people are getting the sexual thing from in the Tomb Raider trailer.
She IS being sexually assaulted, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing in the context of the narrative. It happens. It builds her character. You WANT to have a reaction of, oh holy shit, this is so wrong, this is so fucked up that this is all happening, I need to get out of this situation. I've read a few really good write ups re: the tomb raider trailer in response to this sort of stuff. It's pretty rad. I'm jazzed that a game is taking an angle on it that isn't just like, eh, so a girl got punched. Whatever. It's, holy shit, that girl is getting punched.
Nothing about what happens in that Tomb Raider trailer is offensive towards women or misgonystic. It is really quite good. Overcoming and becoming a badass. About her and her character and herself and what's inside and a personal growth arc rather than what's outside.
Seriously. I really don't understand where people are getting the sexual thing from in the Tomb Raider trailer.
She IS being sexually assaulted, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing in the context of the narrative. It happens. It builds her character. You WANT to have a reaction of, oh holy shit, this is so wrong, this is so fucked up that this is all happening, I need to get out of this situation. I've read a few really good write ups re: the tomb raider trailer in response to this sort of stuff. It's pretty rad. I'm jazzed that a game is taking an angle on it that isn't just like, eh, so a girl got punched. Whatever. It's, holy shit, that girl is getting punched.
I guess I havn't seen that trailer! I was more responding to a lot of people in the games forum saying that the exclamations of pain in the gameplay sequences were too sexualized and they wouldnt want to play it around people.
All I've been playing are 'indie' games lately. I'm okay with that.
My friend called me a hipster today after saying I haven't used Windows for a year. As if I don't already collect vinyl, ride a single-speed bike I bought from a bike co-op to work every day, am a graphic design student and etc etc etc
Also Moly/Cilantro, where you workin again? Hasbro? That's New York right?
It's just the one I posted above. It's around 2:20.
Honestly, that people are made more uncomfortable by Tomb Raider and lara croft being grappled and groped unwilling by a guy really does say something about how we're desensitized to violence. I'm not excluded, I felt uncomfortable too, but that isn't necessarily bad. That's good. Like, I remember playing LA Noire and just playing around with a dead chicks body like it was No Big Deal. That this makes me squirm in my seat is awesome.
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I dunno, I mean it's a good looking game, but having sparse ammo and more brutal QTEs than normal isn't exactly what I was getting at in terms of 'emotional impact'. (Given, bringing it up at the tail end of the 'shooting is boring to watch' rant makes it sound like maybe that would be enough of a shakeup, but it's actually more of a separate point.)
I was getting at more, in most games your character killing someone is like Arnie shooting up some random dude at the end of Commando. It's a context in which that random dude's life has no meaningful value. He's on screen for 3 seconds, he dies, you forget about him. When I say emotional impact, I'd mean more like when someone gets killed in say, The Wire. You know that person; the context of the show may be violent, but it's still a world where violence has significant consequences, and because human life has value in that world (even the lives of career criminals), it isn't to be taken lightly.
These 4 random dudes in this demo might be more shocking to fight on visceral level, but they are still 4 random, faceless dudes. You're not wrestling with the moral or physical consequences of 'hey, maybe that dude has his own not-Ellen Page waiting in the burned out car they're living in, waiting for him to come back with something, anything to eat', or how the guilt will gnaw at you. That doesn't occur to you, the player, because those dudes are basically the same dudes you've been killing since Wolfenstein 3d: they exist to kill you, you're there to kill them.
Violence in a game could be more interesting if it took a certain breaking point before you feel you should resort to violence, rather than having it be the (often) first and (also often) only option. Certainly not for every game (I do like shooters and Commando, after all), but it's something that would be interesting to see a game or two explore. That's why I brought up the one shot of the gun idea- because in order to make that idea interesting, the design of that game would have to be such that choice of using the gun would profoundly impact the rest of the game.
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you want visceral reaction and emotions in response to violence?
Feel bad about this girl getting the shit kicked out of her for three minutes
I... is this what excitement feels like...?
EDIT: Re: Tomb Raider: Is she gonna be screaming and whimpering like that through the whole game? 'Cause that got real old real fast.
Then please, sir, enjoy this new IP
Bacon: I think you're trying to take it from one extreme to the other. Wouldn't you be satisfied with a game where every NPC has a strictly defined personality, family and history and his death had consequences in the game world other than allowing you to advance in some dumb questline?
After all, if there's only one death supposed to happen during the whole game, you'll need to design your gameplay around something else. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that, but the solution to the problem of "combat cheap from the gameplay and gameworld perspective" isn't "don't make the game about combat".
Skyrim remains in my memory because of how unbelievably shallow the combat was from both of those perspectives. But the gameplay part was the worst, I was able to go through every fight just by running towards the nearest opponent repeatedly pressing LMB (and that's on hard difficulty). After that I've played the Witcher 2 arena (which is still pretty basic combat but a good start) and I never returned to Skyrim for anything other than virtual hiking.
what about solitaire? or spider solitaire? I think those are the real signs of getting old.
I'm old.
Side Note: My former boss, who was laid off a couple of weeks ago, had the annoying habit of never putting any spaces in his file names and giving them the most generic names ever. Here I am, renaming hundreds of files now.
Presshpbleedfinalv2.indd would be a typical file in his folder.
The other stuff on the convention floor seems like it's still interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing how these games actually play, when they're put in the hands of real people and not pre-scripted for a guy to pantomime in front of. It's just that there's still a disproportionately huge amount of hype surrounding these keynotes, despite the fact they are typically the most embarrassing and sometimes disappointing part of the entire show.
If those character's humanity doesn't occur to you, that's probably because you aren't trying. These characters leap to the defense of their friends and beg you not to shoot them. However, they also bragged about killing multiple "tourists" and enjoyed that action. They are morally complex bandits just as real life bandits in this situation would be.
Both the main character and these men are doing what they have to in order to survive and by taking their little bits of supplies, you are ending that goal in an instant. Not to mention each segment of that fight is a huge ordeal. None of the men go down quitly as if this were a Ahnold movie. They struggle and pant and whimper. I fail to see how that doesn't create empathy even on a base level.
I dunno. I watched it again, and I'm really not getting anything with the depth that you're describing. More deep than killing guards in Splinter Cell, I could see an argument for that. But it's still a bunch of thugs calling you an asshole and a motherfucker and etc as you start killing half a dozen guys. I also wouldn't describe any of them as leaping to the defense of their friends at any point. None of them try to extinguish the guy who got hit by a molotov, none of them tried to negotiate with the player when he took a hostage, none of them even so much as cried out their "friend's" name when they were wounded or killed.
Bacon was saying, sure the combat is more visceral, but each of them is still a faceless thug, devoid of personality besides "I am a thug and I am bullets you. Motherfucker." And there's not way out of that situation other than to murder a dozen guys.
...no! The whole point is that I've seen 'visceral' in every other fucking game, so I'm long beyond getting past the shock value of it. It sucks to watch someone get viciously brutalized, sure, but that doesn't make the violence somehow more meaningful (this is why I have no interest in those Saw movies). I'd rather somebody to put more creative focus and attention on why a player would choose- or not choose- to kill someone in a game more than how.
Presumably, the thing holding most people back from murdering people isn't that they only have access to visceral items like guns, chainsaws, knives, and clubs instead of a poison that gently kills in the victim's sleep.
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Last time I tried, some years ago, the drivers conflicted and fucked each other up so that neither worked. I was gonna try again now.
Its a tough market to find a game like that, we, as users, have been trained, since "space invaders", to not care about the AI characters at all. Few games trascend this structure, where the only meaningfull characters are the ones directly related to the main character (player), I can only think of games like The Sims, where you can sort of create a bond with characters that are not fully under your control (neighbours, workmates, friends), and... that you DO have the chance to kill them, and it feels very bad to do it.
In the shooter game cathegory, I cant think of any example, speed and thrill are the most desired experiences for the audience (usually teenagers, thats why most games have some restrictions to get the PG13 or 17 stamp, wich allows greater sales). Basically, I think you are looking for a game that most likely would spawn from the "indie" sector of gaming industry, since big sellers mostly already have a way of doing things, and apparently that way works for them.
This is a rare case, as nameless characters/thugs have no emotional investment in you as a player.
Well, I'm pretty sure those guys were cursing at you because you just killed their friend. If you just walked up and were found, I have a feeling they'd be saying other things at you. And when you have the guy as a hostage, I thought for sure he was begging you to put the gun down and freaked out when you pointed the gun at him. As for the molotov, it's hard to say how they reacted because the camera didn't linger on them. The other guy lept back, startled and then he was off screen.
Obviously they aren't going to have unique names for every character that you kill... that would require far too much time in the studio and too much space on the disc.
And the devs have confirmed that you can get past that situation without killing a single guy.
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Speaking of which, Star Wars 1313 actually looks freak'n incredible. The whole game looks like a cinematic, with that in mind, if it's anything like the second Force Unleashed - they really need to work on gameplay. But if there is one thing I did like in force unleashed two it was the interactive cinematic sequences and this looks like the whole game is that way.
Man, I thought the complete opposite of the trailer. I thought it really gave Laura some more depth and actually made her more like a female Indiana Jones. Looks more like it's a story of how Laura Croft became a bad ass. I highly doubt she's going to be whining the entire game, I'm guessing they're just setting the backstory with all that.
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Wow. That is the first Tomb Raider I was ever interested in that wasn't due to an adolescent boner.
How is that library gig going? You said you were thinking about getting into it full time if it panned out, no?
Its more like, I didn't need to see Indiana Jones being sexually assaulted to believe he was a badass. Why do I need to see Laura Croft sexually assaulted to prove her character? In fact, wasn't she already a badass? There's no need to rewrite her backstory. Sure, they can call it a reboot, but this is like rebooting Captain Kirk to have been molested as a child. Completely irrelevant, unconnected with the character as we know them, and very probably offensive.
3DS: 0447-9966-6178
1. I have 4 more libraries to visit at which point I will try to create a business plan with the consortium leader. Ever library I've met with has been super excited and ready to jump on board, but they also hint at not having much money. Also I'm concerned that they will expect reduced amount of necessary work over time. Then there is the whole idea of going out on my own, paying for my own insurances, handling business taxes. Basically it's the most daunting, most volatile, yet at the same time potentially most financially rewarding option.
2. I just got called in for a job interview with a private industry job. The salary expectation matches mine but I was wierded out by them telling me that they're looking to either higher 1 person at 75-80 or 2 people at 40. 2 people making a salary of 40k a year does not necessarily equal 1 person making 80k. There are pro's and con's, but by far the potential con (employing a person that can't resolve your business critical problem) is much greater. Plus they listed the company name as confidential for the initial job posting. It smacks of potetial back stabbing/ unprofessional behavior, but at this point a job offer is a job offer.
and
3. The client they currently sent me out to, has told me that they would really like to keep me, regardless of what my parent company does. The problem for them is coming up with the funds to be able to pay my salary, which is still in question. Basically they'll know by monday, but in the mean time it would be the most stable option if I could swing it.
With either 2-3 I have the potential to just keep the side business going, and hire a person to manage it, skimming profit off the top and only funcitoning as a managerial entity.
Basically it all boils down to this. There are a lot of Potentials out there, but the lack of Definitives is causing my stomach to twist in knots.
The story to me looked more like a girl who has extreme pressures placed on her, and is rising to the occasion and becoming the hero. The sexual assault part seemed a bit down played and no where near the "funbag overload" that they presented with the popcorn version. The original Lara seems like an avatar of sexuality but had no real grit to match roll she was adopting. Kinda like that lady that climbs mountains in high heels. Sure she can do it, but I imagine all other mountain climbers are thinking "That's just unnecessarily stupid." In the end she looked more like a card board cut out of what a 13 year old boy wants his feminine hero to be.
This is a completely different character. Built with weaknesses that she overcomes, showing a beauty, elegance and ferocity that doesn't require a tightly stretched tube top and daisy dukes.
Really glad to hear you have some good options already, and your personal business is pickin' up a bit bebarce. Best of luck with the future endeavors.
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Getting past a situation without killing anyone is something stealth games have been doing for years. What I mean is, and what I think Bacon is talking about, is you either shoot, or you evade. There's no "hey, we're all just trying to survive here" moment. You can't take a guy hostage and tell his accomplices to leave or allow you and your companion to leave. The interaction is very black and white, especially in regards to morality. And it's carefully constructed that way. What are the first lines of dialogue you hear out of them, when they think they're completely alone in this hotel? You don't hear them joking around with each other, playfully teasing or anything you might otherwise expect from a group who, through their trials, have become friends and comrades. You hear them talking about how it took two of them ganging up on a dude to murder him. They are bad guys and the only time the game wants you to feel bad about killing them is if you take a lot of damage in the process or own them so hard it's embarrassing. I mean, yes, there is an intrinsic guilt you feel when a kill in a game is very personal. In Battlefield 3, when you do a close-quarter knife kill and it plays the animation where you turn the guy around and look him in the face before stabbing him in the chest, sometimes you feel bad about it. In Skyrim, if you beat a guy so badly that he starts running from you, begging for his life, and you still blow him away with a fireball, it feels pretty brutal.
But that's a gut reaction. There are no long-term moral ambiguities there, because there was no other way to resolve that situation. If you didn't stab the guy, he would turn around and kill you. If you didn't murder the bandit when he was running away, after 15 seconds he completely reconsiders and runs right back at you. He doesn't become a different kind of NPC, he doesn't even despawn. This is how games construct their bad guys, for the most part. In Skyrim, if you're snaking around a castle, it's not uncommon to overhear banter between bandits. But at it's most human it's some stilted exchange about mudcrabs, and for the most part they are either grumbling incoherently or talking about murdering their fellow bandits. When you kill them, it's because they were evil and/or stupid. And maybe that's good. Maybe games shouldn't run the risk of desensitizing you to killing when there are other ways of resolving a situation, or when the other person also has their own non-evil motivations and just happens to be impeding your current progress. My point is, this game doesn't try to do that. If the player didn't choke that guy to death at the start of the level, the bandits would have still shot at him, immediately on sight, with no questions asked. Why? Not because they thought he was carrying anything of value, not because they were competing for some resource. They bitch and moan about how there's nothing valuable in the hotel, and they know the guy is armed, so why risk an open confrontation that could get their teammates killed? Because they're enemies. More mechanically complicated than Wolfenstein's, but no more morally complex. They aren't calling you a motherfucker because you killed their friend, they are calling you a motherfucker because it makes you feel more justified when you shoot them in the face with a shotgun.
Seriously. I really don't understand where people are getting the sexual thing from in the Tomb Raider trailer.
She IS being sexually assaulted, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing in the context of the narrative. It happens. It builds her character. You WANT to have a reaction of, oh holy shit, this is so wrong, this is so fucked up that this is all happening, I need to get out of this situation. I've read a few really good write ups re: the tomb raider trailer in response to this sort of stuff. It's pretty rad. I'm jazzed that a game is taking an angle on it that isn't just like, eh, so a girl got punched. Whatever. It's, holy shit, that girl is getting punched.
I guess I havn't seen that trailer! I was more responding to a lot of people in the games forum saying that the exclamations of pain in the gameplay sequences were too sexualized and they wouldnt want to play it around people.
My friend called me a hipster today after saying I haven't used Windows for a year. As if I don't already collect vinyl, ride a single-speed bike I bought from a bike co-op to work every day, am a graphic design student and etc etc etc
Also Moly/Cilantro, where you workin again? Hasbro? That's New York right?
Honestly, that people are made more uncomfortable by Tomb Raider and lara croft being grappled and groped unwilling by a guy really does say something about how we're desensitized to violence. I'm not excluded, I felt uncomfortable too, but that isn't necessarily bad. That's good. Like, I remember playing LA Noire and just playing around with a dead chicks body like it was No Big Deal. That this makes me squirm in my seat is awesome.