Messages

I like the gui: a bit color-poor but functional.
But spoken font totally sucks ass. I wouldn't put my eyes through torture, even for best game in the world.
Adventure games are text-heavy and what might be a cool font for logos and design, isn't cool for reading.
That's why people still use Times New Roman and 90% web pages  (of what I know) are in verdana/arial.
I suggest to find stylish, yet readable font.

At least 2D games don't age as badly in the graphics department.

Questionable, depends on definition of "aged".

3D has one end that's immortal: realism. For photorealistic 3D game, all you can improve is texture size, some shaders and polycount.

Max Payne 2 for example... released in 2003. By today's standards, and how much technology has improved over 5-6 years, game should be old as hell.
But it doesn't look like one. It's realistic. Still very good looking. So what if there's no HDR shaders? I find it looking even better without one. 3D has a definable end to its looks, just like 2D.

To be more exact, surest bet is to make your room in 3D first.

Not fully mega-detailed/textured, but even with simple boxes and all necessary lights you have saved yourself from about 10 paintovers and vanishing point aligning. I'm amazed that people so rarely use this method. It's like "make my background: lights, shadows and perspective" starter-kit.

Anyway. I like your style, but it's far too blurry for my taste and floorboards & wacky perspective makes me trippy. A bit cleaner, brighter, less saturated colors would improve alot. Also, armchair seems to be missing a cushion: I wouldn't want to sit on it.

uuh, I think I get the last one!

* Make tree leaf bunch much larger, and tree taller. It looks like a mushroom right now. Make it darker green too
* In daylight, ground should go brighter as it's further away, not darker. It would be even better if further away, colors start to include amount of sky color, more and more
* More detail into foreground! Trees, rocks, bushes, grass lumps, a road sign, etc.
Who cares if there's a detailed houses far away when most of the screen is empty and boring?
*  Road is a bit too yellow, too bright to be believable. Dark edges contribute nothing to it. Make it more grasslike, in a color of mud or dirt.
* Your shading on tree bark works. Try to add third, brighter color, and make it face left sides of curves. Like you did dark brown shades on right of every curve, make light brown ones more on center and left. Don't let the bright color reach edges, or you'll kill cylindric shading.
* Google is your best friend. Ever.
Search for pictures-photos using something like "landscape", "forest road", "plains" etc. Observe the photos, try to match color range and contrast. Using reference is always universal - for any kind of background and gives quickest results. Why re-invent a wheel if you can look at billion photos and pick the ideas you like, and draw them onto your picture?

I repeat again, real world has all the tips you need. Real world is on photos or outside. Google image search returns loads of photos. Use it!

This sounds like zombies and half-covered boobs. I already imagine an evil demon lady, with wings and as little of clothes as possible.

Trust me on this.
And no, I have no real proof that there will be one.
But there will.

I just read that they're trying to get a PG-13 rating for this film. Bad sign #1.

Not just bad, I find it awful!
Max Payne is a game made by adults for adults.
Changing it would be... so wrong.

Christian Bale looks like Max from the 2nd one A LOT.

Yes!

I hate the skin palette. Looks really rotten.
Otherwise, quite simple and attractive style. I like it.

Good one!


Bad one! 


no no no


This poster shows well how wrong it looks. Marky should grow some hair first!

He has this fucking whiney 15-year old acne-ridden kid look on his face all time.
Somehow, all his roles consist of whining aswell... or he translates them that way.

I didn't really mean the grin on the model of first game or cry/rage/cry on his face.

I mean... Max Payne is highly emotional story. It's about what mask is on protagonist face but... I can't explain it. I played MP2 few hours and really... Game takes us through laaarge amount of pain, confusion, betrayal and suffering. And revenge. It's not in the face, but in every word, move and action.

Mark Wahlberg cannot express this all. Cannot express even believable piece of it.
I've seen him on screen enough to be sure of this.
He's the typical quiet passive aggressive solider-type, might perform well in Black Hawk Down, but not as Max Payne.
And his nasal voice isn't nasal voice of Max Payne.

Period.

Ooh! I went to see Dark Knight last week and noticed the poster, but forgot about it. Thanks for reminding!

Well. I consider Max Payne games best 3rd-person shooters ever made for PC. I other words, total fan.

But this... trailer. It was like a bad heavy metal video.
Wahlberg is a damn boy scout. In every role, he stays emotionless, his steps are counted, his clothes are ironed twice, etc. I bet he washes his hands before and after dinner, and spends an hour making his bed every day. He might play really good solider with all that aura of order and discipline in his every move, but not a bitter cop.

Max Payne was all about emotions, rage, losing control and going rogue. A cop turning revenge into a genocide. Crossing all limits, making bullets only thing that talk. And, a love story.

Now, I really DON'T see Wahlberg being able to express this wide range of emotions. Ever.
Did I see a sword? I did already see swords in Hitman movie. And I hated this because of swords.

Still, as with hitman, I will see this movie and give my best to like it.

And Mila Kunis would make superb Mona Sax, I think. Even her voice is pretty same.
Instead a movie, I would actually prefer Max Payne 3.

** wiping off dust from Max Payne 2 cd... whee, game time!

I don't know...
I like conspiracy theories. They are always creative and somewhat waking up from usual law-abiding power-believing citizen slumber. Even if they're stupid, "what if"-factor always remains... somewhere. And they make helluva good tv-series, like 24 or X-Files.

Main problem with most conspiracies are that they assume the Dark Force (Government, Intelligence, Military, NASA, whatever) is something other than bunch of janes and joes doing their daily job. If I look at my government, if makes me always laugh. There's hundred of fat, lazy, quite stupid... yet greedy and ambitious men. Many of them make an public issue about things that make even kids laugh. They have often more trouble figuring simple things out than other, normal people.

Can it be so different - in - US for example? I don't think so.

There's several bits of that mythbusters episode over youtube, but I didn't like it much. Mainly because a conspiracy theories about moon hoax sound much more interesting and convincing than their simple, boring experiments.
I don't buy the hoax theory though. Then again, I don't care much. Cold war was stupid, and instead of climbing to the moon, americans could have a hot war instead and cleanse earth from soviet repression for once and all. Before it grew so damn large.

The browser I change to someday, won't steal focus from address bar if page suddenly becomes fully loaded.
Like, when I start Firefox, google.com starts to load. I don't want google, I start typing address. Blam! Google is loaded. And half of my typing goes to nothing since focus is lost from address bar.

Minor thing? Fall for this 20 times per day.

Chrome can't do this.
I wait.

Why don't you use a blank start page?

Because other 20 times I want to google fast.
Escape works! Thanks, dasjoe!

But emphasis was on word "steal". Browser, my slave, shalt not decide which field I want to edit at any moment.
If master clicked on "address" and started typing, browser must OBEY!

Looks great!
Suggestion: It looks a bit sterile. Maybe try adding a black semi-transparent (gradient/soft brush) layer with shadows and darkness over it.
It would give much-much better atmosphere and yet you wouldn't have to redraw your walls and floors.

Is it going to have real-time or turn-based combat?

But!

Make sure you make a map. A working, well readable map.
Which shows your position and direction.
It's 2008. Games aren't meant to make people bald anymore.

I always hated RPGs like this because there was no map.

**cries

The browser I change to someday, won't steal focus from address bar if page suddenly becomes fully loaded.
Like, when I start Firefox, google.com starts to load. I don't want google, I start typing address. Blam! Google is loaded. And half of my typing goes to nothing since focus is lost from address bar.

Minor thing? Fall for this 20 times per day.

Chrome can't do this.
I wait.

However, wouldn't it be wonderful if it somehow managed to get rid of, say, Internet Explorer?

Haha, 10 points for post!

Traps do not eliminate problem.

Is it single house? How far are neighbors?

I live in a flat and upper neighbors had cockroaches. Next thing, EVERYBODY had them. All 18 apartments (9-story building)
It was quite impossible to do anything unless neighbors eliminate their source of problem. But cockroach is often called russian national animal... Add tartar-russian ethnic alcoholics-neighbors with high tolerance of all parasites and bugs and life quickly becomes hell.
Well, roaches ARE quite harmless bugs, but still awfully disgusting and may carry diseases.
When neighbors finally decided to clean their hellhole out, roaches disappeared in whole building.

Why I ask this: Where's roaches, there's always a source. It must be SOMETHING that attracts them. FOOD.
First thing, clean kitchen from end to end to smallest crack in floor tiles. If there's ANY food that's not covered or accessible by them bugs, they won't go anywhere. A piece of bread that fell between oven and wall few days ago is quick way to keep them happy and residing for weeks. And those things eat everything. from cookies to meat to cooked vegetables.

If your home is totally roachproof, it might be messy neighbors nearby. Anyway,

Never ever leave anything edible at table or counter during night. Not bread, not meat, nothing. It is most likely forgotten, lost, or simply accessible food that keeps them in.

In daylight, they usually won't come out so nights are their dinner time.
If you have a pet, it's bowl - usually uncovered - is quickest way for them to feed.

Also, check all pipes in your home. They love going through walls near pipes, because usually, pipes don't really exactly fit in their holes made into floor or walls. There's always a bigger opening, leaving space between floor/wall and pipe so it's a quick and dark way for roaches to travel. Stuff those openings with something, even a well stuck rags would do. For extra effect, you might poison the rags.

Cover all ventilation shafts with something thick enough not leaving holes they could get through. Keep kitchen totally isolated at night if possible. Leave lights on (helps a bit).
Pick a graveyard and put poisoned food there (watch out for your pets!).
Simplest and most inexpensive bug killer which I used to eliminate a whole race of ants is

* Water or tea
* Loads of sugar, turning it almost into a syrup. Since roaches are clever, coffee-ground solution might work better and attract more, since it smells more...
* Poison (small ants die even without it, they get stuck into syrup and die, roaches are harder case)
Mix, pour a puddle somewhere you can clean easily later

Two nights of syrup puddles produced gazillion of dead ants. It was a genocide.

So, isolate, eliminate loose food (especially lost or forgotten crumbs'n'stuff), wash all dishes, keep carbage cans tightly covered, etc. You get the idea, I think. You will never kill them all or make them leave unless there's nothing for them to eat.

It's all, all in the food.
If you leave them poisoned food, chances are, they carry it to their nest and kill their babies.
But don't let them pick their diet.
For poison, anything that contains boric acid works well.

Do not spray them. It's pointless. Unless you find a nest.

Spoiler

Alice PRV - PeRVerted Alice

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