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Did someone say sexiest AGSer?

Alternate hosting if you need it.  I can leave this up as long as you'd like.

http://games.thexiis.com/files/HD/Heartland_Deluxe.exe

Looks great so far!

The XBOX 360 is going to get a major boost in the Japanese market with the release of Sakaguchi's two new RPGs.  The first one out of the gate, Blue Dragon, looks like the generic Final Fantasy fare which the Japanese gamers crave so much, but it also looks like it's trying to appeal to kids.  They're selling a 360/Blue Dragon bundle that has already pre-sold out apparently...

So maybe we won't be seeing the XBOX 720 for five more years...

I think a lot of people our age look at gaming more as part of their cultural upbringing rather than some greedy corporate entity.  Much as we view a band as a cool group of guys and/or gals who make music, not as a bunch of guys in suits and ties stealing all the money from said guys and/or gals and forcing proprietary formats upon their customers.

I don't see anyone here swearing allegience to a console.  I did, however, see someone summarily dismissing one for several ill-informed reasons.  Perhaps the en masse approach will help him see how silly his assertions sound.

And regarding the Panasonic CD player comparison, the difference is that CDs are CDs.  They will work on any CD player by any manufacturer.  In the arena of game consoles, people will often throw themselves behind one console because the games (well, some games) will be different for each console.  If the console that I own is providing the kind of enjoyment I expect, then I've made a good purchase.  If the console than I own is popular, with high sales around the globe, more developers will be attracted to the platform and it will be more likely that the console will provide the kind of enjoyment I expect.  Not everyone can afford to buy every console, so they want to make their console the best.

I'd expect you'd see similar arguments if there were some differences and incompatibilities between Panasonic CDs, Sony CDs, and Victor CDs.  My CD player is the best one!

However, I'm not seeing a high degree of rabid fanboy(girl)ish actions here.  Just people righting the many ill-informed statements of another.

Rui,

In Memoriam is a great idea.  I've not played it, but making the game seem real by getting emails from the characters and having to play along as the game unfolds in real-time definitely has the potential for fun.

I've always thought that if I knew how, I'd program a game in the form of a web browser.  For example, I'd tweak an existing webbrowser like Firefox to filter out webpages such as GameFAQs or other places where you might find hints or information about the game, but also add new webpages that don't actually exist, but are parts of the game.  The player would use this modified browser to play the game, interacting with characters via email and message boards, "hacking" computers, and doing research.  The idea would be that someone who didn't know that they were using a rigged browser, would think that they were really wrapped up in the middle of some great mystery novel.

I'm going to have to try out In Memoriam to see what they did.

Oh, endings... I liked Spooks.

It's like somebody is saying 'The Wii is made from butter' and the other person is saying 'no stupid, it's made from plastic, silicone and metal bits, gosh, get your facts straight!'.

This coming from the red baron of the forums...  I would probably reply in just such a manner to such a silly statement.  You could look at it this way: we're helping Tim by teaching him a few things before he embarasses himself in a less anonymous way.

And Timlump, you do know that the Wii has built in WiFi, something not present in the other consoles except for the pricier PS3 model (correct me if I'm wrong) and that the DS has been quite popular for online play via WiFi, right?

It's true that none of the launch titles have connectivity because nintendo was still finalizing their system while the games were being finished, but like the DS, tons of online titles will be coming in the next wave of games.  The online service won't be as robust as XBOX live, but at least you won't have to pay.

It's also true that Nintendo hasn't embraced online play until the DS, but can't you forgive them for a past mistake, can't you?

Timlump:  A gimmick (notice the two 'm's in there) is when something is made different just for the sake of being different.  If you think that Nintendo decided to risk their business by making a new interface just to be different instead of making a new interface as the result of millions of dollars of research and development, tons of indepth market studies, and hours upon hours of business strategy and game development meetings, you're fooling yourself.  They made the new interface because it's going to attract new gamers, please the old gamers, and most of all, be fun.

And having a few bad games (out of a stellar line up of 30ish games not counting the classic downloadables) out on launch day does not mean the console sucks.  I don't know how you made that leap in logic, but it's one of the dumbest comments in a thread of dumb comments.  EVERY system has launched with a mixture of shit and greatness.  The one game that I've played on the PS3 on a demo unit at my local Best Denki was the new Gundam Game which sucks all sorts of balls.  This doesn't mean that the system is bad.  It just means one game is bad.  Go to your local gamestore and tell me that more than half of the games there look interesting.

i can't see how such an INVOLVED control system will work for serious gaming.

Because serious gamers aren't involved in their gaming?  I have no idea what you're getting at here.

As for not being able to play it with lots of people in one small room.  You might be able to if you realize that you don't need to flail around like a maniac to play the game.  But you probably haven't bothered to read anything about the system.

Don't dismiss something that you haven't played yet.  Especially when every major magazine and internet gaming site is saying almost nothing but positive things about it.  You just make yourself look ignorant.  As has been mentioned in this thread somewhere, picking a console isn't like picking a football team.  You don't have to root for all the rest to fail just because they're not your team.  You can buy more than one console, you know.

This looks excellent.  I hope it's as fun to play as it is to look at!  Good luck with this!

Then get going, I guess.

Sounds good

good luck pulling this off!! 

Good luck though!

Best of luck.

I can see you dont want me to make this new story Maniac mansion game.

Do I sense a fellow browncoat in our midst??

guilty!

However, bad-mouthing it [or anything] before it's over just seems ... ignorant ... to me.

Like the Bush administration.  All those ignorant people badmouthing him before he's done...

[/joking]

Of course my comments above were exaggerated for comic effect, but I stand by the ideas that I was presenting.  And I understand and agree your comment about a lot people not liking the show because it's too complicated.  And I know it wasn't directed at me.  I watch a lot of TV.  I love the episodic format, long stories, and deep characters that are possible in TV.  My three favorite shows are:

-The Wire, which if you haven't watched, you should.  It is an incredibly deep, realistic look into the inner-workings of Baltimore.  Cops, drug-lords, politicians, dock workers, thugs, and even kids.  It's brilliant acting, writing, and filming.  Buy the DVDs you won't be disappointed.

-Veronica Mars.  This show is really complicated.  Season 2 was too complicated for it's own good.  People will instantly be turned off by this show's summary blurb ("High school [now college!] girl solves mysteries").  But it is one of the most entertaining shows on TV.  With great mysteries and hilarious writing carrying it all the way.

-Battlestar Galactica.  Everyone knows this show, so I don't need to summarize.

[Before I go any farther I just want to say that Lost SPOILERS will be scattered throughout this post and I'd rather not just hide the whole thing in spoiler tags, so BE WARNED: HERE BE SPOILERS!]

Now, I'm more than a casual watcher of Lost.  I've watched every episode at least once, and my wife and I just went through season 1 on DVD again.  The start of season two (first three-ish episodes) were some of the best television I could remember.  But through season two, the show just kind of got... well... lost.  The pace is sluggish.  You have to agree that except for a few major revelations that we're waiting for (how did Locke get paralyzed? are Jack and Claire brother and sister?) we've sucked about all we can out of those flashbacks.  In my mind, they're just acting as filler now.

Take the latest episode, which, unlike you, I thought was terribly dull.  Kate got a new hubby and ended up running again.  She called the cop not because she didn't want to run, but because she knew he'd come for her so she could run again.  Like an excuse to run from marriage.  It would have been an interesting story if we hadn't already seen it.  We already know Kate likes to run.  Whether it's away from men that she loves or towards stupid toy planes, Kate is always on the run and that's where she'll always be.  It didn't further the character.  It didn't add anything, and it was a waste of Nathan Fillion (swoon).  I could have skipped through each flashback scene and I wouldn't have missed anything important.

This is all too frequent with the flashbacks.  They're just taking time away from the far more interesting Island plot.  (though when the flashbacks legitamately add something to the story on the island, I'm all for it) 

And as for inconsistencies, why does one need to wait till the end of the show to point them out?  There are a ton of characters that act in stupid and inconsistant manners just to move the plot to where the writers want.  This is just sloppy writing.  I think there are two ways to watch a show: passively and actively.  A passive viewer will just sit back and enjoy the show and probably not even notice these inconsistencies and plot holes, while an active viewer will pay more attention and scrutinize the show.

As an active viewer, the moments when the characters ask all the stupid questions, but never the obvious important question, or when they keep secrets from each other for no reason other than it will cause some conflict later on, it makes me wonder if these writers even know who the characters are that they're writing.  The stunning logical emptiness of Jack and Sayid's plan at the end of season 2 that led to their capture was baffling given their characters' usual leadership and strategic abilities.  And Kate and Sawyer would rather hang around in their cages and have sex instead of running out into the jungle, hiding, and having sex?  Yeah, they're not on their usual island, but there has to be a boat around to hijack right?  Did these thoughts never cross Sawyer's mind?  Finding out that he's on an island that's different from the one he thought he was on wouldn't make Sawyer just sit there and accept his fate and be killed.  That's not Sawyer's character.  He wouldn't stop and give up until he caught his name-sake, his life-long goal.  Inconsistent to the character.

The writers are trying to create complex characters (though, in the case of many characters like Kate and Jack they're all defined by one leading character trait and never really grow beyond that) and we're just supposed to blame their inconsistent and irrational actions on their complexity, but it just doesn't work for me.

I still watch the show despite these flaws because the mystery of the island is legitamately compelling.  I want to know what's going on, and I want to believe that the writers know what's going on, but after the way the show has slowly degraded over the past two seasons, and after the weak (in my opinion) first six episodes of this season, I just don't have enough faith in them.

Time will tell though.  They still have plenty of time in their supposed five-year-ending-with-a-movie plan to turn this show around, drop the pointless flashbacks, and start answering some questions occasionally instead of just asking them.  Otherwise, this show turns into late-season X-Files.

Count my fake company in!

xii games is the silly name that I call my fake company.  I blog at http://www.xiigames.com about issues regarding amateur game development and about the games that I make or help to make.  My goals are to make games that are fun and just a little bit different from the norm.  I also hope to collaborate with as many talented people as possible.

Releases so far:

Anna (by Vince Twelve)
Spooks (by Erin "The Ivy" Robinson)

Soon to be released:

WLBSWHEAC (announcement forthcoming)

Here's a quick rundown of the story so far:

Lost is the story of a bunch of poorly written characters who constantly act in irrational and inexplicable manners after being marooned on an island where weird things happen for reasons that not even the writers can figure out.  On Lost, the only thing thinner the actress playing Kate is the plot, which writers try to fill in with flashbacks to parts of the characters' past that do nothing to further the story or add depth to the characters, but they do help in distracting you from the fact that the writers of the show have no clue whatsoever where they're going with all this.

I highly recommend the songs on here by The Decemberists as well as any other Decemberists songs that you can find.  They're delicious.  One of my favorite bands.  Every song is a story and every song is very different.

I would be interested in learning what percentage of females surveyed were pro, and what percentage of males were. 

And you can find out if you pay gallup for the full report!

I worked for nine months at Gallup.  I wasn't immediately involved with the polling, but I designed a lot of the e-learning modules that the pollers and management-types had to go through, so I know a lot of secret stuff about their polling proceedures.  I can assure you that their sampling is very accurate.  The real question is not whether females are accurately portrayed in that number, but how many men are lying about their preference because they don't want to sound sexist even on an anonymous poll.

I just went to download it and it should be mentioned that the download location has changed!

http://chickennation.com/chu-chi/chu-chi_102.zip

I didn't try it out yet because there's no option to play in a window that I can see and I feel funny doing that at work.  I likes me some windowed games.  (Sorry, I know I said I'd play it yesterday at home but I didn't get a chance!!)

I'll update later after I can try it out.

Hey congrats!

But if you think having a baby is going to free up time for making an adventure game... 

I voted already.  Too bad my state is always waaay republican so that they never even bother reading the absentee ballots...