The Videogames Tab

Hey Tatty, this guy's latest hack seems pretty indy-RPG-friendly...



Shields and swords wise anyway, with some voice command stuff again (& a silly head cam that you will thoroughly disapprove of ). He's still using the wii-chuck thing to navigate for the most part.

His suggests magic spell gestures could work too. (If a bit patchily - prob more suited to a turn based game than live action - as the Potter franchise found out recently with their 'rail shooter' section).

It's fun to see these lads threatening to outdo the official output a few months into having access (admittedly with pre-made games). I like that this next guy seems to have found a way of navigating in 3D with simple leg movements (and for a largish fella he doesn't seem to be finding it too much of a sweat ). It's an almost elegant solution - well, elegant in a 'playing on easy with a shotgun' sense (while shifting one leg about like a dog with too many choices of where to pee ). The reticule does seem to be left/right only tho, controlled by wild swings of the arm.

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Still if they achieve action-mirroring the immersion aspect might make up for some of the 'easy level' downsides, or at least add a new spin to the FPS genre? I was thinking while watching that light gun style shooting may not actually be more accurate than a mouse in some ways, but the fidelity to our cowboys and indians dreams (&/or 'realistic' fuzziness of aim) have got something going for them. They wouldn't have to be super accurate to make for a 'gamers' game. Certainly for a stealth game like thief, with bow & arrow rather than guns, and time to make your decisions, I could imagine it being fun

There is such a thing as too much immersion tho...

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Curiouser and curiouser. (Altho to be fair his looks like it kinda works )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

I've come to the conclusion that I'm too decrepit for Kinect without ever trying it because just waggling the Move vibrator about for a spell causes my arthritis to scream at me in the manner of Harry Enfield's Scousers.

On a related note, I have finally (and after much money) found a viable solution to my thumbritis and subsequent hatred of the Dualshock 3, and all it cost was £14.99 from my local Argos:



It's wired, it's got awful garish neon lights (which thankfully can be switched off) but it doesn't have the thing which has plagued every 3rd party controller I have tried - There are no huge deadzones in the analogue sticks which make any sort of precise movement/aiming impossible.

I'll probably buy another one in case Argos stop stocking it.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

It's only a matter of time before I injure myself using the damn thing

Altho the voice commands, these are something that could benefit gaming kind (Imagine a world where griefers couldn't chat online )

PS all Argos products should look like that

Argos is such a joyless place to shop but they've occasionally got some great bargains. I'll reserve something online then scurry into and out of my local shop as quickly as possible.

Not owning much cheap sportswear, I find myself out of place in Argos.

I know the feeling.

I've bought the Minecraft beta, like a fool. And I'm quite enjoying it. Like a fool

The whole forage/survive/combine-items/build-giant-superbase thing is fun at the mo.

If I ever start posting videos like this tho please smack me round the head with a genuine block of concrete

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The first comment kinda sums the whole thing up.

Gundemonium allows you to upload directly to YouTube and I did it with one of my pathetic efforts when the game came out.



The game was a blast for a couple of hours but I got bored with it after that.

I've finished Batman and have now just begun Mass Effect II. I imported my nasty little renegade chick over from the first title and she is already causing trouble!



On the way to this pretty mug!

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Is that a screenie of your actual character? If so, how do?

I'm sure you'll love ME2. It's got the middle-film-in-a-trilogy feel much like The Empire Strikes Back or The Two Towers - everything is darker in tone.

Can't wait for ME3.

It is not, no. My chick is blonde with black make-up and a sunken look to her face, all evil-like. I just snagged that one online, so people could see the Renegade corruption on her features. Since minute one, I barely read responses, just mashing the stick down into the red dialogue whenever possible. I didn't play this way in the first game, but I have found it a pleasant surprise to sort of not read and ponder the choices. Although risky, playing this way adds a whole different spin to the game, as I am sort of swept along in the story, as opposed to thinking through each dialogue choice. So, when Shep pulls her fire arm and sticks in an aliens mouth in a threatening manner, usually just to get directions to the bathroom, it's way more fun and a lot more surprising!

Lisa started a game with her silly little goody-goody soldier character, all blue and heroic and stuff. Seems pretty fun, too!

Interesting.

I've never gone one way or t'other in terms of Paragon or Renegade and play each situation like I would expect to in reality - It's been a while since I seduced a blue-skinned woman, I'll admit, so am going on memory there.

There's been quite a bit of chatter about moral choices in games recently, and how developers could do it a lot better. I find Mass Effect one of the better ones because, even at 100% Renegade your character isn't evil, they're just a badassed hero in the Dirty Harry mode.

Fable is one of the worst - every option is either Saintly or depraved and even Hitler thought he was doing the 'right' thing... /Godwin

I just wish they didn't quantify the results of your actions with xp-type bars. The one thing that Fable did right was only changing your character's appearance depending on their morality. Dragon Age does it even better in that your choices are reflected in the attitude of your followers towards you. No Karma meters, nothing.

I like this system I guess.

I took the same stance on my first Shepard in ME1 that you tend to take, making decisions like I would make them. Later, I restarted the game with a female character and decided I would role-play a bit. I find the second method to be far more fun to play, for some reason. I like this system because it doesn't remove points from one side to give them on the other.

I just love the bit where, in his sleep-deprived frazzle, he points out how 'f**king enormous' the enterprise is

Yeah, the game has the potential to be a bigger timesink than cleaning the Gulf of Mexico with cotton buds (made from Kevin Costner's hand picked cotton). I've no idea why tho, as it's kinda like Dig Dug in 3D, but starring Ray Mears. (I am a bit annoyed I can't log on from this office tho - wanted to try out a few other 'crafting' combinations - and I've already read some 'spoiler' ideas on the net that woulda been more fun to stumble upon. And all this while knowing it's a thoroughly silly game that I shouldn't be playing )

It would be kinda cool to be able to record games in play (especially from console), as sometimes an example vid is worth a 1000 rambles - like with your more recent vid. (Not sure the world actually needs any more GTA rocket-kills-pigeon vids tho )

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PS 'motion gaming' oddity/travesty of the week...



It started life as a incidentally.

Yep, the problem with PC recording (unless you've got expensive video software, I suspect) is that the resources needed to run the programs really hit the framerate so things never look as good as you want.

That Morrowind vid was recorded before I realised I'd not configured the options properly and the final result looked a lot better, with proper grass and a huge draw distance. Didn't even try making a recording.

The Gundemonium thing is cool as far as it goes but you can't record in real time.

Did you see the recent Ebert vs Video Games as an Art form kurfuffle? The woman from That Game Company (Flower, flOw) tried to convince him but I'm with old Rog and his slick dance/fight moves on this one. Legitimate mass entertainment yes, Art no.

Seds - If you're thinking of getting any of the DLC for Mass Effect 2, Lair of The Shadowbroker is my favourite, probably because it links heavily to the story of the first game.

Yeah, My (new) copy of the game came with a Cerberus Network card that activated a bunch of DLC. I downloaded everything that was free before I started playing - not sure what it added.

It's weapon/armour packs and an extra mission, I think. Overlord, Firewalker and Shadowbroker will cost you MS points. The weapon and armour packs that you pay for on Marketplace really aren't worth it unless you're finding the game too difficult because they unbalance everything (they're too powerful) until late in the game.

I'm playing my way through the PS3 version and have finally twigged how Bioware made the mining minigame a bit more palatable - Bigger reticule which moves faster in addition to the planets spinning a bit quicker. I also think that they've improved the volume of minerals you get from each planet because I'm stuck with far too much of everything except Element Zero and I've only done a bit of mining.

This is a good thing.

Have only heard snippets of the argument, but yeah I'm pretty much with you and Rog on this . (I was somehow charmed by the way Phillip French was charmed by RDR tho - but in many ways his experience was powered by his feelings for the referenced films).

It's a weird one - good art to me often makes you reflect on it afterwards (teaching you something new about the world, or how to behold it) - and is not always immediately accessible to begin with. Those two aspects mean it'll be hard for interactive gaming to be 'art' in that sense. Games are getting better at immersing you in a vibe, and even a story, and those are certainly arts in themselves (in terms of design), but I can't think of single game that touches the cerebral/emotional effects of the best films, for example.

I notice that Ebert says that most films are not art, which is dead right too (In the above high-faluting sense). Maybe games will get there in time. (I can't help but think it would be in some territory that plays to their strengths tho - something that drills down into truths about iteration or the role of computing in our lives?). Will LA Noire be art, as its designers say? I doubt it. But might it be a new way to enjoy the hard-boiled cop genre? Could well be

If transportation to another world is enough for it to be art, then I guess games are already there, at their best. And if putting the viewer into the story has altered storytelling (I'm not sure it has at its roots, but it does change the vibe), then I guess they've achieved that too. (Half Life would be a fairly readable book - an overlong and repetitious film - but was a hell of story to be at the centre of ).

I can't think of a game that's used these tools to really make me mull about life though. No game has spoken of love like Casablanca did, for example. I think in some ways some of these techniques are barriers to them achieving that at the moment.

You're right. It's that intangible personal aspect which makes the perception about good art (and even what is and isn't art) differ from person to person. Games are, for the most part, intended to be consumed by as many as possible - Is the tennis player scratching her arse or the topless bloke holding a baby art?

Even if we agree that some films are art then game designers need to get up to speed on the qualities of those films - Direction, script and acting. Direction is only gonna matter in the sub-genre of specifically cinematic games like Heavy Rain but writing and voice acting are becoming the norm in all types of games and that's where the industry falls down.

I watched Aliens the other day and it seems that the bloated sci-fi shooter market, from Halo onwards, has been milking it for years. Aliens isn't art.

Long time Danny Boyle cohort Alex Garland wrote Enslaved: Odyssey To The West and 'big' acting names are popping up in voiceovers more frequently but the flip side to that coin is that Nolan North is still in employment.

Games are becoming more artistic, sure, but the only one I've seen recently that comes anywhere near to provoking the feelings that I get looking at, say, a Giacomo Balla is Flower. But it's still just an evocative, life-affirming interactive animation.

Wow, neither of you think games are art, or even can be? I'm pretty surprised. Do you guys think this deserves a thread? Because I'd probably take the contrary position and I think it's a pretty interesting discussion. Plus, you know planet news would be all up in that.

To be honest, I don't know why a section of the gaming community is even attempting to promote video games as an art form - I don't mean designing artistic games here, I'm all for that. Are they that insecure and clamouring for the acceptance of the traditional entertainment media?

I'd love to see people's lists of, say, 5 games that they consider art. That might sway me.