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Denver, 4:31 PM
Mon Nov 23
44 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/21/09
My favourite misbehaving moment was when I was driving a Warthog in the original Halo. My partner was in the passenger seat. We were driving along a ridge of some sort. Seeing the opportunity, I floored it, then leaped out at the last second, watching as the Warthog (and my buddy) went sailing off the edge of the cliff.
What can I say, I am an easily-amused man.
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/22/09
11/21/09
Say what you will about Penny Arcade, but their Greater Internet Fuckwad theory was dead on.
11/21/09
..er..nevermind?
11/21/09
11/22/09
#speakup
11/21/09
More so than that, it's a perfect encapsulation of nearly every boy who lived in the early nineties. It is the story of us all.
11/21/09
Online, this problem is worse since there's no "getting punched for acting out of line" option available.
11/21/09
11/21/09
@Bizzenya: I was hoping more for something like this...
#speakup
11/21/09
11/21/09
It's just that the "for the lulz" folks seem to do it more as a side attraction, rather than the primary reason for their involvement.
#speakup
11/21/09
This is why it's so disappointing that most new games are either A) Without splitscreen, or B) Not conducive to that sort of mayhem.
11/21/09
11/21/09
I, on the other hand... had some great fun playing RE5 and GoW2 with a friend - Split Screen. Listening to your buddy's disembodied voice over speakers just isn't the same.
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/21/09
I 100% this game with my roommate and it was a blast. We're both really into Mario games though and we work well co-operatively. I can definitely imagine it being frustrating depending on who you play with. I've also yet to play it with more than 2 players at once.
11/21/09
11/07/09
If Portal was a book, would you, after reading it, start thinking about how authors control your progression through books? #discussion
11/07/09
11/07/09
Taking your analogy of a book, imagine reading a book about World War 3 and near the end of the book the author suddenly leaves the 3rd person narrative and begins addressing you, the reader, and describes how nothing in the book is real: the characters actually are dreaming the whole thing, the situations and events are now worthless. The suspension of disbelief goes out the window and the author is giving you the choice to continue reading knowing that everything that happens is arbitrary and once the story is over, a veil will be lifted, identifying that the characters are in fact not dead and never had those adventures, but are in fact living on an island in Greece, drinking Margaritas on a lottary wining tab.
He should have drawn parallels within the Assissin's Creed world as well. #discussion
11/07/09
11/07/09
Picture the case of someone throwing a ping pong ball at you - you would have to try extremely hard to actually take some kind of harm from it. If someone just did it normally, you could dodge it, bat it away, ignore it, toss it back. Psychologically, most people might be a little annoyed, or find it fun. Now if someone tied you to a chair and did the same thing, you'd be no more harmed materially, but you'd have less control. It would seem more sinister and threatening. You couldn't avoid it, you'd know that they could do anything else while you're restrained, you couldn't retaliate... I think what keeps games fun, even when they take control away from the player, is that they can never truly take control away from the player - only in the context of the game. In this way, the protagonist may be going through a miserable situation, but to most players, it will lack the gravity to truly make them unhappy... maybe frustrated or angry, but has a game ever made you truly scared beyond the time you're playing it? Has one made you deeply sad, even after you've quit and moved on? They can only intrude so far into our lives, so any control they take from us is freely relinquished to them for the sake of play. #discussion
11/07/09
I'd say that's more a limit on the ideas used in games than in the medium itself.
Maybe we haven't yet played a game as profound as War and Peace (or, hell, HBO's The Wire), or that contained ideas as world-changing as the Gospels or the Communist Manifesto... But I'd hate to think that means interactive media will never be able to have a truly significant emotional, social, or cognitive impact on the player. #discussion
11/08/09
I think as artistic or narrative works, games have been fully capable for a long time, just often underutilized. #discussion
11/09/09
Look at movies for another example. Most "art" films didn't arrive until 100+ years after film was invented. My point is that considering we're only a little over 30 years into our medium, we're doing pretty well for ourselves.
That said, Resident Evil: Nemesis scared the shit out of me even after I turned it off, half expecting a zombie dog or Nemesis to jump out at any moment. How many people literally cried after Aeris died? You know how accomplished I personally felt at the end of Halo 3? That I had finally conquered a war that took me years of my own literal life to finish? I would say games really do have far more capability to convey these emotions, because of the fact that we are actively involved with the story, compared at least to a passive medium like film. #discussion
11/07/09
It's an incredible example of manipulation via game design, even more so than Portal, I think. #discussion
11/07/09
11/07/09
It seemed cruel, but I did it. #discussion
11/07/09
So what's the difference between this essay and, oh the entire internet?! #discussion
11/07/09
Sit down, read a book/watch a movie/listen to music, and then forget about the damn thing. It's just stress and boredom management in the end...
Oi vey... is this what we've come to? Is this the sort of thing that we need to do in order to assuage our guilt about wasting our time reading/watching movies/listening to music? This crazy, messed up obsession with doing everything we can to analyze what we consume. #discussion
11/07/09
I think it's good to reflect of the story of a novel, or film... or game.
What bugs me is when people get all into the symbolism of those books and movies. It especially bothers me when novels with hardly any story get so widely acclaimed for "brilliant symbolism."
I don't want to hear about how the Martian Chronicles sends a brilliant message about human nature, and expansion. It's a shitty book. Get over it. #discussion
11/07/09
Some art/film/literature/music is just an entertaining diversion, perhaps with some quick thrills and wish fulfillment fantasy.
Some art/film/literature/music is meant as an expression of an idea or emotion, and the sense of satisfaction does not come as much from your own amusement, as it does from your own sense of gaining new insight about a certain thing.
Some art/film/literature/music is a combination of both of the above.
I do not understand your insistence upon dismissing a beneficial way of appreciating some types of art/film/literature/music. #discussion
11/07/09
I don't disagree with what things in literature can represent. I just don't like it when symbolism is valued more by authors than a quality story.
I think a great story is the best form of art there is. #discussion