Moderator: JC Denton
by icycalm » 21 Aug 2012 21:56
by icycalm » 11 Sep 2012 07:53
MichaelJLowell wrote:Cheers, Soulcleaver. Welcome around. That's pretty much the idea. And imagine if you could get a bunch of specialists to get together and compile a list like that. What game is going to go number one? Who is going to tell the dude who loves strategy games that the strategy game should not be number one? And if you simply list X number of games (instead of ranking them), who is going to tell the strategy game player that it should be equally represented within the spectrum? Bollocks to that. He's going to want them to be overrepresented. There's just no reasonable solution to it. Just write good commentary on games and be done with it.
by icycalm » 12 Sep 2012 17:29
Q-veta wrote:I decide to give [Far Cry] another chance, I loaded the checkpoint where I stopped playing and played it for a few more checkpoints. Gunfights are still incredibly boring but I already mentioned that in detail. I was driving along the coast shooting those shitty trigens when I lost focus on where I was driving and drove my car into the ocean but not much. So I thought hey I wonder if I could pull it out. I go in the water, swim to the car and when I touch it I instantly die.
A work of art.
by icycalm » 17 Sep 2012 15:06
by icycalm » 19 Sep 2012 20:49
MichaelJLowell wrote:Normally, I wouldn't post about something like this, because it's one of those moments that would exist for the sole purpose of reminiscing on Westwood, and Origin, and whatever other companies that Electronic Arts has run into the ground. "I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner" is in full play here.
Shepton wrote:My point in that instance is more that, from a development perspective, did it genuinely cost the company so much time and money to make the game that's almost exactly like its predecessor down to the vast majority of its source code?
I wrote:First off, engines can be so expensive to make nowadays, that they are often written with the EXPECTATION that it will take several copy-paste sequels to recoup their costs. If you demand a brand-new engine ("source code") for every single goddamn game, be prepared to be asked for $200 per title instead of $60.
Secondly,Shepton wrote:did it genuinely cost the company so much time and money to make the game?
That's not how market economies function. What are you, a communist? The seller picks a price, to quote me from my article, "not according to the quality of each game or to how much money and effort was required to make it, but according to how much they think they can get away with given current market conditions", and the market votes with its wallet at which point the seller decides whether or not to adjust the price accordingly. Besides which, videogame publishers generally LOSE MONEY on games, just like the movie studios, and the extra profits from the more successful titles help bankroll the less successful and more daring ones. In short, as I will explain in a future article "leave bean counting to the bean counters" and focus on playing and analyzing games, and the financial side will take care of itself as it always has. Even I, with my absurdly overinflated ego, do not claim to pass judgement on the increasingly complicated financial gauntlet that is modern game development, and it is safe to assume that everything written on the subject by videogame journalists and fans ever has been horseshit. lol people can't afford a 60 dollar game and they want to play the judge on international corporate finance lol. But I'll shut up now because I think you get my gist.
by icycalm » 24 Sep 2012 15:24
by icycalm » 10 Oct 2012 23:48
Ghetto moron wrote:People can play whatever game they want. I don't care. I'm just tired of this narrative that, in a society where the vast majority of people gravitate towards everything mediocre in culture and entertainment, the DotA genre somehow eclipsed the popularity of the venerable real-time strategy genre because it was deeper and more complex. That's just wrong. And now, you have the additional problem where Riot and Tencent have thrown so much money behind spectator events for League of Legends, that it creates a serious impediment to actual criticism of the game, because "Why don't you tell one of the pros that their game sucks?" I think we all understand fairly well that being good at one single video game does not make mean you are an expert on game design as a whole, but most people really don't understand that.
by icycalm » 11 Oct 2012 00:00
by icycalm » 10 Dec 2012 02:47
by icycalm » 05 Feb 2013 15:30
by icycalm » 23 Oct 2013 00:52
Michael Lowell wrote:Crackdown is a sterling rebuttal of everything that has gone awry with open-world games as played out through the “sprawling metropolis” variant, a game that ditches the intense urge to hoard property and collectibles and opts for carnage, carnage, and more carnage. Where similar games reward your behavior with the ire of the law and superfluous rewards, Crackdown encourages you to kill every criminal in sight. It’s Grand Theft Auto III meets Halo: Combat Evolved, and even finds room for platforming lessons later demonstrated in Mirror’s Edge, where finding your way up, around, and over buildings is half the fun. In using that blueprint, Crackdown gives you a simple task: Kill very important people with your absurdly overpowered skills and abilities. It issues this objective repeatedly. Yet, it never gets old, because the game never tells you how to approach a hit. And even when the game uses the cliche collection mechanics synonymous with the game model, they’re subverted through hilariously out-of-touch narration, make full use of the entertaining movement mechanics, and provide tangible, interesting benefits for player progress. Don’t be fooled by the simple premise: Crackdown is one of the best games of the seventh generation, and a standard-bearer for the city sandbox blueprint. – ML
*****
by icycalm » 02 Jan 2014 22:04
<@MikeyLowell> That's not how it works. Once you're a thief, you're always a thief.
<@MikeyLowell> So do you really think he came up with all those thoughts on his own, and mysteriously, his writing tanked off a cliff when he put up the paywall and wasn't getting nearly the same traffic to the forum?
<Cordwell> You are literally insinuating that icycalm is a plagiarist.
<@MikeyLowell> How do you think the scam works?
<Cordwell> When every word he has ever written on his forums is 100% consistent with his style and theory, which not a single other fucking person has successfully managed to imitate.
<Cordwell> You are an idiot.
by icycalm » 02 Jun 2014 02:01
abcabcabc339 wrote:Michael Lowell wrote:Just a friendly reminder that the dudes who accuse everyone of stealing from them are always the biggest thieves in the room.
Icycalm: Waaaaaaah, mooooooommy, Michael is a copycat!
Michael: Waaaaaaah, mooooooommy, Icycalm is a copycat!
(Irony ensues)
This feud betwixt the two of you is hilarious. The universe is definitely big enough for both of you as long as Icycalm puts his website behind a paywall. Seriously, you two agree on about just about everything. Let's just have Learn to Counter be poor-man's Insomnia and Insomnia be Luxury to Counter, and leave it at that okay?
by icycalm » 15 Jun 2014 05:44
The Ghetto moron wrote:So there is no sense in worrying about whether people think your game requires skill and there is no sense in fighting over it. What matters is whether you find that game engaging, and whether the skillful elements provide a satisfying sense of accomplishment is merely one means to that. So go ahead and compete, play for rank, and explore the “endless depth” associated with your favorite game. Just make sure that the pleasure derived from the game comes first, and that you judge that skill curve in the same way that we have always judged games: By whether it is fun.
by icycalm » 15 Jun 2014 06:13
by icycalm » 25 Aug 2014 04:07
by icycalm » 10 Sep 2014 11:47
by icycalm » 10 Sep 2014 11:52
by icycalm » 10 Sep 2014 17:05
The Ghetto moran wrote:Just to provide some perspective on how poorly my video card is working out with this game (HD4870) the game went into a straight slideshow when I tried to play a three-on-three match on something which I believe was supposed to resemble a Death Star. So my recommendation to anyone here is that you at least have a recently-up-to-date rig in order to play this game, and it's probably a good recommendation to begin with, since the next-gen console ports are going to require much the same leap.
by icycalm » 13 Sep 2014 13:16
Kot wrote:So basically your argument is that designers should remove or tweak all of this just so you can see the characters closer to the screen and because "immersion" or whatever (in an multiplayer-only team game, heh).
by icycalm » 13 Sep 2014 18:18
by icycalm » 16 Sep 2014 15:38
by icycalm » 19 Sep 2014 13:28
Casual-Plagiarists-R-US wrote:What a limp-dicked copout this is. The first time I did this, I expected to see a floating ball of debris where two planets crashed into each other. Or, in the worst-case scenario, a completely uninhabitable dead planet rendered to a charred crisp by the impact event. And for all my troubles, the most I get is a glorified nuke with an impact crater that's barely larger than the bolide? Are you fucking kidding me? The entire fucking appeal of your game lies in the fact I can crash planets into each other and you didn't even get this right! I ain't going to lie: When I did the planet-crashing shit for the first time two days ago, I immediately shut off the game and had no compulsion to play it for an entire day. I turned off the game and went to go play Divinity: Original Sin. That's how disappointed I was.
Casual-Plagiarists-R-US wrote:And you know what makes this so funny? The Annihilaser, the game's alternative superweapon and a heavily-hyped portion of the official launch, actually obliterates planets outright, just as you would expect to do with the planet-crashing gig. So it's already in the game, it's just that Uber either 1) hasn't implemented the proper planet-smashing features, or 2) chose not to and thought that "impact crater" was an adequate solution. And as though there's any wonder that people are complaining this game isn't finished.
Casual-Plagiarists-R-US wrote:Whether or not the game is still worth playing in spite of this fact is something I'll go ahead and provide my thoughts on a little bit later, because I haven't had a chance to play the multiplayer in the large team games where this is clearly going to be at its best. (Unlike, say, Supreme Commander, where it's more fun to play one half of Seton's Clutch than to share resources with three other teammatees.) But whether you're playing one-on-one or you're playing large teams: As a one-planet battle, Planetary Annihilation is a three-star game, and when it comes to strategic/tactical depth, it's almost hilarious to try and put this game beside either Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander. So, quite frankly, it's a bit fucking crucial that the space layer and the galactic elements deliver on their ridiculous ambition. I'll go ahead and provide more on that when I get the chance.
by icycalm » 23 Sep 2014 01:58
Zarathustra wrote:OF PASSING BY
THUS, slowly making his way among many people and through divers towns, did Zarathustra return indirectly to his mountain and his cave. And behold, on his way he came unawares to the gate of the great city; here, however, a frothing fool with hands outstretched sprang at him and blocked his path. But this was the fool the people called 'Zarathustra's ape': for he had learned from him something of the composition and syntax of language and perhaps also liked to borrow from his store of wisdom. The fool, however, spoke thus to Zarathustra:
O Zarathustra, here is the great city: here you have nothing to seek and everything to lose.
Why do you want to wade through this mud? Take pity on your feet! Rather spit upon the gate and - turn back!
Here is the Hell for hermits' thoughts: here great thoughts are boiled alive and cooked small.
Here all great emotions decay: here only little, fry emotions may rattle!
Do you not smell already the slaughter-houses and cook-shops of the spirit? Does this city not reek of the fumes of slaughtered spirit?
Do you not see the souls hanging like dirty, limp rags? - And they also make newspapers from these rags!
Have you not heard how the spirit has here become a play with words? It vomits out repulsive verbal swill! - And they also make newspapers from this verbal swill.
They pursue one another and do not know where. They inflame one another, and do not know why. They rattle their tins, they jingle their gold.
They are cold and seek warmth in distilled waters; they are inflamed and seek coolness in frozen spirits; they are all ill and diseased with public opinion.
All lusts and vices are at home here; but there are virtuous people here, too, there are many adroit, useful virtues:
Many adroit virtues with scribbling fingers and behinds hardened to sitting and waiting, blessed with little chest decorations and padded, rumpless daughters.
There is also much piety here and much devout spittle-licking and fawning before the God of Hosts.
Down 'from on high' drips the star and the gracious spittle; every starless beast longs to go up 'on high'.
The moon has its court, and the court has its mooncalves: to all that comes from the court, however, do the paupers and all the adroit pauper-virtues pray.
"I serve, you serve, we serve" - thus does all adroit virtue pray to the prince: so that the merited star may at last be fastened to the narrow breast.
But the moon still revolves around all that is earthly: so the prince, too, still revolves around what is most earthly of all: that, however, is the shopkeepers' gold.
The God of Hosts is not the god of the golden ingots; the prince proposes, but the shopkeeper - disposes!
By all that is luminous and strong and good in you, O Zarathustra! spit upon this city of shopkeepers and turn back!
Here all blood flows foul and tepid and frothy through all veins: spit upon the great city that is the great rubbish pile where all the scum froths together!
Spit upon the city of flattened souls and narrow breasts, of slant eyes and sticky fingers -
upon the city of the importunate, the shameless, the ranters in writing and speech, the overheated ambitious:
where everything rotten, disreputable, lustful, gloomy, over-ripe, ulcerous, conspiratorial festers together -
spit upon the great city and turn back!
But here Zarathustra interrupted the frothing fool and stopped his mouth.
Have done! (cried Zarathustra) Your speech and your kind have long disgusted me!
Why did you live so long in the swamp that you had to become a frog and toad yourself?
Does not foul, foaming swamp-blood now flow through your own veins, so that you have learned to quack and rail like this?
Why did you not go into the forest? Or plough the earth? Is the sea not full of green islands?
I despise your contempt and my bird of warning shall ascend from love alone; not from the swamp!
They call you my ape, you frothing fool: but I call you my grunting pig - by grunting you are undoing even my praise of folly.
What, then, was it that started you grunting? That nobody had flattered you enough: therefore you sat down beside this filth, so that you might have cause for much grunting -
so that you might have cause for much revenge! For all your frothing, you vain fool, is revenge; I have divined you well!
But your foolish teaching is harmful to me, even when you are right! And if Zarathustra's teaching were a hundred times justified, you would still - use my teaching falsely!
Thus spoke Zarathustra; and he looked at the great city, sighed and was long silent. At length he spoke thus:
This great city, and not only this fool, disgusts me. In both there is nothing to make better, nothing to make worse.
Woe to this great city! And I wish I could see already the pillar of fire in which it will be consumed!
For such pillars of fire must precede the great noontide. Yet this has its time and its own destiny.
But I offer you in farewell this precept, you fool: Where one can no longer love, one should - pass by!
Thus spoke Zarathustra and passed by the fool and the great city.
by icycalm » 27 Sep 2014 17:25
Michael Lowell wrote:Well, if there's one thing that makes this game worth playing, it's watching people set up galaxies so the planets will inevitably crash into each other, anyway. (It's even better when your match ends because the guy who was running away from you gets slammed with a planet.) Five-out-of-five game, would play again.