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“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
I've always loved cel-shaded stuff. The Borderlands games are the only FPS I have ever enjoyed playing.



Registered User
They were incredibly fun and convincing with extraordinary structures and continuous communication. I'd recommend both if anyone have's to rent a couple sweet entertainments to kill some time with.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
They were incredibly fun and convincing with extraordinary structures and continuous communication. I'd recommend both if anyone have's to rent a couple sweet entertainments to kill some time with.

IKR?



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
Somebody had to slump-bust





there's a frog in my snake oil
Finally got some gaming time in again.

Is this good or bad? You decide

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



This documentary about God of War was really good. Not quite as good as I was hoping, but there's some good stuff in here about how hard it is to make video games:




there's a frog in my snake oil
I like this game designer's explanation of the gaming industry, courtesy of SA's 'Ask A Game Dev' thread:

The Other Door Problems

To help people understand the role breakdowns at a big company, I sometimes go into how other people deal with doors.

Creative Director: “Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.”
Project Manager: “I’ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.”
Designer: “I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.”
Concept Artist: “I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.”
Art Director: “This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.”
Environment Artist: “I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.”
Animator: “I made the door open and close.”
Sound Designer: “I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.”
Audio Engineer: “The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what direction they are facing.”
Composer: “I created a theme song for the door.”
FX Artist: “I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.”
Writer: “When the door opens, the player will say, ‘Hey look! The door opened!’ “
Lighter: “There is a bright red light over the door when it’s locked, and a green one when it’s opened.”
Legal: “The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don’t want to be sued.”
Character Artist: “I don’t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.”
Gameplay Programmer: “This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.”
AI Programmer: “Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.”
Network Programmer: “Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?”
Release Engineer: “You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.”
Core Engine Programmer: “I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.”
Tools Programmer: “I made it even easier for you to place doors.”
Level Designer: “I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.”
UI Designer: “There’s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.”
Combat Designer: “Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.”
Systems Designer: “A level 4 player earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.”
Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”
QA Tester: “I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to the door. I threw grenades at the door.”
UX / Usability Researcher: “I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop up.”
Localization: “Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte. Tür. Dřr. Deur. Drzwi. Drws. 문”
Producer: “Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?”
Publisher: “Those doors are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.”
CEO: “I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.”
PR: “To all our fans, you’re going to go crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet”
Community Manager: “I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming patch.”
Customer Support: “A player contacted us, confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.”
Player: “I totally didn’t even notice a door there.”

One of the reasons I like this example is because it’s so mundane. There’s an impression that game design is flashy and cool and about crazy ideas and fun all the time. But when I start off with, “Let me tell you about doors…” it cuts straight to the everyday practical considerations.



New Super Mario Maker is looking very fun. Can't wait since I never got a chance to play the first one.



Welcome to the human race...
After trying to find something else to play following my disappointment with MK11, I've settled for finally getting around to starting Red Dead Redemption on Xbox 360. Maybe not the best idea since these Rockstar-style sandbox games tend to be the kind of games that are time-consuming and not necessarily in ideal ways, but I'm enjoying it enough to not give up on it (which is arguably worse than hating it and giving up). If nothing else, I'm having fun playing the poker mini-game.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



The People's Republic of Clogher
It's finally here.



The sequel to the game which gave me RSI.

It's probably taken 5 years off my life (but, hey, they're the worst years anyway) but I'm loving the new one.
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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



Hellloooo Cindy - Scary Movie (2000)
I finished Bloodborne, really enjoyed it but the last third was somewhat underwhelming in challenge and variety much like DS1 last third felt incomplete.

The ending (I chose) left me with regret. I definitely don’t feel up to completing the entire game again to get a different ending but maybe in the future.

Also some things I didn’t do and didn’t know how to do like the optional chalice and tombs, I tried to stay away from walkthroughs so I didn’t know the purpose of these or whether I should have been doing them and then it was too late and game over.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Holy **** there's an epic game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2. First playthrough Joffrey!


From a summary of someone else's playthrough;


"Robb married Margery Tyrell but Ned had her executed for birthing Rickon's bastard", LMAO
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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
To distract from my recent GoT depression(s), I popped in RDR2 for the first time since the TV upgrade. Simply gorgeous. I can actually READ content now! But dang those menu lists are still tiny. I've done the first two or three missions I guess. One was finding John on the ledge. I guess he was running from wolves? Then the next one where you attack O'Driscoll's camp.

Few thoughts right off:
  • Environments are very nice. Riding through snow looks great. Acting in cut scenes (or whatever they're called here) is pretty good and character motions are nice.
  • There are a lot of cut scenes =\
  • There is a LOT of distance between points A and B. I'm worried about this in that if the first two missions take 5+ minutes to get to a single location then I imagine travel time is only going to increase the deeper into the game I go. RDR was always a quick in-and-out for me. Is that not going to be an option in the sequel?
  • Menu text is still small.
  • Action cues are wonky. I mean like pop-up instructions to either speak to someone, access a riding bag, etc. I've had several different instructions pop up simultaneously, which was confusing because I needed to talk to a guy and give instructions on whether to take lead or let the gang attack the camp. I was caught in this weird loop where the action prompts were jumping over each other. The solution was to just walk away from the guy and set the orders. Problem was I never got to speak to the guy after. I have had several instructions pop up telling me to use the triangle button to mount my horse when I'm no where near my horse. My attempts to search my satchel and to mount my hog-tied captive have resulted in me doing an awkward dance ending in a "wanna fight?" posture most times. I guess I haven't found the hot spot yet. I'm sure that will change with experience. Right now I'm dismissing it as my ignorance to game mechanics.

I'm not very thrilled to get back into things as it feels more like a chore. Granted any new game has a learning curve, but this one so far seems much slower than average. I may jump ship to The Last Guardian this weekend.
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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
When I play RDRtwoo, I wish it was on my dvr.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Holy **** there's an epic game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2. First playthrough Joffrey!


From a summary of someone else's playthrough;


"Robb married Margery Tyrell but Ned had her executed for birthing Rickon's bastard", LMAO
Lasted 11 months as Joffrey, Margery threw Varys off the council, Cersei replaced Tyrion as Hand. Stannis executed me, game over.



The People's Republic of Clogher
To distract from my recent GoT depression(s), I popped in RDR2 for the first time since the TV upgrade. Simply gorgeous. I can actually READ content now! But dang those menu lists are still tiny. I've done the first two or three missions I guess. One was finding John on the ledge. I guess he was running from wolves? Then the next one where you attack O'Driscoll's camp.

Few thoughts right off:
  • Environments are very nice. Riding through snow looks great. Acting in cut scenes (or whatever they're called here) is pretty good and character motions are nice.
  • There are a lot of cut scenes =\
  • There is a LOT of distance between points A and B. I'm worried about this in that if the first two missions take 5+ minutes to get to a single location then I imagine travel time is only going to increase the deeper into the game I go. RDR was always a quick in-and-out for me. Is that not going to be an option in the sequel?
  • Menu text is still small.
  • Action cues are wonky. I mean like pop-up instructions to either speak to someone, access a riding bag, etc. I've had several different instructions pop up simultaneously, which was confusing because I needed to talk to a guy and give instructions on whether to take lead or let the gang attack the camp. I was caught in this weird loop where the action prompts were jumping over each other. The solution was to just walk away from the guy and set the orders. Problem was I never got to speak to the guy after. I have had several instructions pop up telling me to use the triangle button to mount my horse when I'm no where near my horse. My attempts to search my satchel and to mount my hog-tied captive have resulted in me doing an awkward dance ending in a "wanna fight?" posture most times. I guess I haven't found the hot spot yet. I'm sure that will change with experience. Right now I'm dismissing it as my ignorance to game mechanics.

I'm not very thrilled to get back into things as it feels more like a chore. Granted any new game has a learning curve, but this one so far seems much slower than average. I may jump ship to The Last Guardian this weekend.
I finally put the single player RDR2 down a few weeks ago, not managing to finish the epilogue. It felt a bit flat after the main story.

I put up with all my gameplay misgivings by just losing myself in that world. Still don't think it's a classic game, but it's one of the most impressive things I've ever played from an artistic and technical standpoint.