Messages

Okay, I'll state my real reason for hating the game this time. It's stupid. I WIN!

DG: I get your point, it's that same point everyone states over and over and over in these forums and I think we ALL feel the same. Games don't kill people, people kill people. None of us believe kids play games and then, as a result, act out violence. We all agree that if this does happen, it's that the kid was fucked up in the first place. Lesson: Watch your kids and don't let them get fucked up. Be a good parent, because a good parent makes a good kid and a good kid becomes a good adult who can make the right choices and judgements no matter what circumstances confront them.

MY point was really that I hate games like that (and any other similar media) because they just have the stupidest ... god, I can't even form it in words. You called it satire. Again, I haven't played it, but I just don't see that myself. Violence exists, we know that. Why does that warrant a game about it? Lava exists... where's the game about lava (holy shit, where IS the game about lava?!). I don't think it teaches anybody anything, I don't think it tells people anything they don't know already. It's just showing something we hear about in a thousand other ways, the only difference being that it lets you do it. I think one of my problems with it is that it IS so real. I love games like Dead or Alive. All those fighting styles exist in real life, but you just don't get sexy chicks fighting in bizarre tournaments while they do them. Jet Set Radio - I -HATE- skatey types and I can't stand grafitti, but that is one of the most awesome games I've ever played in my life. It's portrayed in a really fun, colourful, silly way. I'm not saying all games have to be silly, but GTA is about serious criminal acts. Thousands of games have been about that, but GTA is quite realistic, and that's... the only thing about it. That's the game. You're a criminal, doing these really, really bad things. Not fun bad, just bad. you might find it fun, I guess, but it doesn't really say "Fun". Just "Be bad". It annoys me. On top of that, it's really shitty. This is what really annoys me I think, that on top of being a game whose pulling point is that it's about being a really shitty person, the graphics are like 7 years ago.  Personally, I don't think it has any kind of "style" at all. It's UGLY.

God, that's it!!! The whole game is UGLY! I can't believe anyone would want to play such an ugly game. I hate ugly games!

Honestly, that's my biggest problem with it. The sheer grit of it all. Grit is one of those words I'd like to see banned for a decade or so, just like 'extreme' and the letter X capitalised. We need to get these things out of our vocabulary for awhile, until the human race learns to use them responsibly.

Oz: Nicely put ^_^ I feel the same. I love chopping peoples' heads off and stomping on them, slashing them with swords etc in fighting games. I also love really ... well, let's just say I'm totally into my violent games and movies. You get those things that portray violence as it would be in real life, and even though it may be a whole lot less "brutal" and bloody, it can make you feel sick because it IS like seeing it happen to someone in real life.

...and you know, 99% of the time, I'm an even more avid believer of that than you, BT ^_^ I have the most verbally violent discussions with people about censorship and how it pisses me off. I get rather murderous about it.

This game though, it really pisses me off. I haven't even played it, but god, I'm sick of seeing ads for it on tv. This goes for a lot of games though. Do I expect games like Spiro and Banjo Kazooey (whatever...) to be banned? No. Would I do a dance if they were? Sure! I hate them, and I think they're a great example of everything wrong in gaming today.

Games like San Andreas get my goat, so to speak. When I think about people playing them, I really see a severe deterioration in the brains of children. Wouldn't it be nice if they were intelligent enough to realise these games are stupid, and to not play them, and bring well-thought out, entertaining games back to the market? That'd be awesome, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, we're bringing up a generation of kids who are going to be the future consumers that encourage more movies like 'You Got Served' and 'The Fast and the Furious' to be made, and to do well. "Singers" like '50 cent' will be everywhere, and pants will be lower than ever.

I look at it this way. Kids these days are not the gaming generation mine and the ones before mine were - they're too impressionable. They don't play things and go "Wow, I really, really enjoy this game. I appreciate it's engine and the plot is amazing". They see TV and their little next-to-the-counter kiddy magazines, and they get the impression that a certain thing is "the game to play", "that game everyone is playing", "that game you must play or risk being out of the loop" and they [get their parents to] buy it. They play it, using all the FAQs straight away because god forbid I haven't finished it immediately without finding all the secret things and unlockable character costumes, on their shitty little playstations because EVERYONE has a playstation (yes, let's throw sense out the window people) and they start talking like 'ganstas', stealing cars to get attention from their excellently attentive  parents and before you know it, everyone's speaking Korean and doing death marches.

I blame this game for the future that's about to become the present but much worse.

All I can really say on the matter is that GTA shocks me everytime I see an ad for it on tv, and it's one of the few games I've ever seen that I really do think should be banned. There have been games about stealing and being the "bad guy" before, but they were really portrayed in a totally fantastical game-like world. This game is TOO real, and dare I say it, 'gritty'. I don't think anyone's gonna play it and go out stealing cars and raping women, but I DO think it's gonna loosen up the morals for more than a few people. I think games like this SHOULD shock us but for the generation getting into gaming now, this will be the norm.

Woohoo! Someone else likes Calpis ^_^

Oh, how silly of me, I forgot to mention Bundaburg ginger beer! I've been drinking it all week. Now it's all gone and I feel like I'm going to go a little ... crazy... without it.

Calpis! It sounds like "Cow piss", and it's a milk based non-carbonated soft drink ^_^

I'm just creating my own "tiles" and... putting them together. It's great, because I can get the look of tiles backgrounds, and the ease of not drawing every individual thing seperately, yet I have the freedom to not bother with tile placements if I want to (for example, the dungeon I'm working on now just has trees willy-nilly, not spaced out evenly). I'm using good ol' Paint Shop Pro.

So... all the graphics are ripped?

Yeah, I agree. Usually when I hear someone's making a game "with ANIME in it!!11" I roll my eyes and curl up into a ball, but I promise it isn't like that ^_^ I just... happen to draw like that and I wanted to incorporate a little of my art into the game the same way your typical Japanese RPG does. I always adored the little character profile pictures in Breath of Fire 2 or FF4.

The game won't be "cutesy" as such, but I am trying to make it easy on the eyes. I always hated levels in otherwise pretty games that were set in an industrial zone or something. I want even my spooky, dark levels to have a certain ... aesthetic pleasure to them.

A good example of this is the forest level in Paper Mario 2. Typical dark forest, but holy hell, was it beautiful.

That was a beautiful thing, DG.

I'm also sorry if this is a true story, but really... as BT said, this is a little suspicious. The way you're speaking now is like someone who's getting asked too many spot-on questions about a lie, and has to make up something you know isn't very believable quickly to cover tracks. Exactly the way I've done the same thing so many times in my life before, like when my dad found a bookmarked website with naked men on it that me and my friend had been looking at when we were kids. Boy, I lied my ass off about that one, and they were those really stupid, on the spot lies. He must have laughed quietly once I left the room...

Darth: I was wondering about all of that too, but I didn't want to get too personal in case I sounded accusing, which I often do, because of the way I write.

I'm so excited I may just eat my hat!! >_<

(Luckily, I wear a bowl of fruit like Carmen Miranda)

DG: That reminds me, I'm stuck in your game! ^_^ Dammit, I was having so much fun playing it and then I just... couldn't figure out what to do next. I can't remember where exactly. At a cave I think, and I had to get something I couldn't reach.

That's a REALLY bizarre and tragic story, I feel terrible for you. As has been said though, you've come through it alive so take that as a sign if you need one that you're meant to stay alive. You didn't do anything wrong here, and it was just unfortunate the way things turned out.

I couldn't agree with you more. When I hear the word "webcomics", I usually get this little feeling, like a boulder in the pit of my stomach telling me that there's a 99% chance I'll hate the god damn thing because it's so pathetically unfunny and self-righteous. Like you, I also found Kid Radd (I believe I was the one who posted it here, so YAY for me! ^_-), Pokey the Penguin and Dinosaur Comics, and a few others... these little gems reknew your faith for a little while before you get some more utter crap shoved under your nose (*cough*Megatokyo*cough*)

*ahem* This comic I give you now is by one of my best friends, Patrick Alexander. He has quite a fanbase already, he's been comic-ing since sliced bread, and he's been hilarious since conception. This is Raymondo Person, one of his latest and greatest and a genuine web comic (most of his stuff is in actual physical comic form) that gets updated every now and again. Enjoy: http://raymondo.chickennation.com/

I love him dearly ^_^ (and I'm so, so jealous)

EDIT: It just occured to me that I maybe should point some things out.

1. Tobies and Jube are characters with their own comic, and make frequent cameos in Raymondo Person.
2. The waitress ditto. Well, she doesn't have her own comic but she's a character Patrick came up with as a parody of cutesy anime chicks. You know.
3.  The Wraith (please, PLEASE don't stop reading until you reach some Wraith comics! For the love of latex!!) is a character in a comic we both encountered at a comic/sci-fi convention in Sydney last year. The guy who writes it is a complete tool, and the Wraith character he invented... well, you couldn't get a bigger Batman rip-off if you tried. After we met him, Patrick did one little comic about it. The guy was so offended, and everyone adored it SO much that he's kept going with it. Last year he sold The Wraith t-shirts and they went like hot-cakes.
4. Jube cookies. Patrick started selling them at a convention one year and they... well. They're like ginger heaven. I think he made more money on them than comics, so now they come out every year and it's all people talk about.
5. Eddie McGuire. If you're from another country and you don't know him, count yourself lucky. Just know he's a complete tool.

Hooray, I thought the Dig was great ^_^ Had this really awesome "feel", both mysterious, scary and captivatingly beautiful all at once.

I think I just threw up over everything. >_< Two of my favourite games ever destroyed in cartoon form.

Well, it WAS funny, but lgm's right It's just ranting. Don't let it influence your thinking on the way the movie was conceived.

So anyway, they're adding in that Wonka's dad was a dentist? That IS stupid, (why of WHY can't they just plain STICK with the BOOK?!) but I still haven't lost my optimism for the movie. What's wrong with Johnny Depp? He's proved himself over and over again to be a genuinely talented actor who can play a wide range of characters, and almost always does a brilliant job of it. I was over the moon when I heard he'd be playing Wonka, because he's one of the few actors today I would trust to do the role justice. Tim Burton has had some hits, some misses... this could be either, I don't think we need to condemn him for Big Fish forever ^_^ (Same goes for JD and that Peter Pan movie).

I don't know... it could be a disaster but I still think that most of the things I've heard about it are good. I can forgive the dentist thing if the rest of the movie's well done.

No, I also had my ups and downs with it. I mean, Hitchhikers is SUPPOSED to be silly, but... in a certain way.