Video Game Related Media

xot · 2009-11-16 13:24:35

Extreme Tech has an interview with the people behind Nvidia's and Mental Images' RealityServer 3.0 (not to be confused with SGI's RealityEngine). It's a cloud-based photo-real ray-tracing solution that is reducing render times by a few orders of magnitude. It's not quite ready for gaming but the people behind are eager to get it there.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2 … 677,00.asp

xot · 2009-11-18 15:41:51

Looking forward to seeing this one called "Moral Kombat". Looks like it asks some important questions about what our mass participation in simulated badassery means for the future of games and ourselves.

http://www.moralkombatmovie.com/index.htm

The documentary has been described as balanced, although filmmaker Spencer Halpin is the brother of Hal Halpin, the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association. The ECA is best known for its efforts to strike down unconstitutional anti-videogame laws passed in the USA. They have prevailed in every case.

Game Politics (also associated with the ECA) has some coverage of a recent post-screening discussion by a panel of "game experts". The article links to the complete discussion with four YouTube clips.

http://gamepolitics.com/2009/11/18/lann … king-point

icuurd12b42 · 2009-12-05 20:54:05

Puzzle Designer Speaks

icuurd12b42 · 2009-12-08 20:44:43

WebCam as game input device
http://www.discoverychannel.ca/article.aspx?aid=22897

xot · 2009-12-30 13:36:45

Here's a great entry at The Retroist. It's a segment of "The Computer Chronicles", a locally produced syndicated television show straight out of Silicon Valley during the early days of home computing. What I love about Computer Chronicles is that it was aimed at the computer hobbyists of the day giving it a far more technical slant than you would see on television now. David Crane, Activision co-founder and Atari VCS legend (Pitfall, Ghostbusters, A Boy and His Blob), and Dave Lebling, Infocom co-founder and IF pioneer (Zork series and others) are interviewed briefly.

What really struck me about the topics discussed is that they are exactly the same topics we are still trying to come to grips with 25 years later.

Computers vs. Consoles
Game Vocabulary and Categorization
Hollywood Envy and Crosspollination
License Games
Presentation vs. Gameplay
Storytelling in Games

http://www.retroist.com/2009/12/30/ghos … rane-1985/

Dave Lebling is cut a bit short in that video since it comes from a Ghostbusters-centric source. The entire episode can be seen here, I highly recommend it:
http://www.archive.org/details/Computer1985_6

You'll see more of Lebling (not to be confused with Parisian rapper "Le Bling"), LucasArts first games, tools used to make Captain Goodnight, film's influence on game production, this new thing called a "GUI", Sargon (first important computer chess program), expert systems, computer vision, early example of the "freeware" concept, computer fitness (for humans and computers), computer-automated apparel design and manufacture, and more. The editorial about the social aspects of game playing (computer and traditional) is especially insightful and forward thinking.

xot · 2010-01-29 08:44:41

Moral Kombat, a documentary about video game violence, is now available to watch for free online. According to Kotaku, it's only free for the next 30 days, catch it while you can. It clocks in at almost 90 minutes, so be ready to make some time and some popcorn for it. I haven't yet watched it myself. I'll post my impressions when I get the chance.

See it here:
http://www.babelgum.com/4022951/moral-kombat.html

Here is the trailer:

I wrote briefly about this documentary in a previous post.

xot wrote:

Looking forward to seeing this one called "Moral Kombat". Looks like it asks some important questions about what our mass participation in simulated badassery means for the future of games and ourselves.
http://www.moralkombatmovie.com/index.htm
The documentary has been described as balanced, although filmmaker Spencer Halpin is the brother of Hal Halpin, the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association. The ECA is best known for its efforts to strike down unconstitutional anti-videogame laws passed in the USA. They have prevailed in every case.
Game Politics (also associated with the ECA) has some coverage of a recent post-screening discussion by a panel of "game experts". The article links to the complete discussion with four YouTube clips.
http://gamepolitics.com/2009/11/18/lann … king-point

icuurd12b42 · 2010-01-30 05:03:39

It's funny how I never realized that the games I started with, being the guy who saw it from infancy, that we were already on a downward spiral in the very first innocent games like asteroid and most games that came afterwards... The process of destroying things echoed and amplified in the future. I always blamed mortal combat and the likes for the downfall..

The ratio is wrong 8% FPS? are you kidding me, are these sell numbers? Or distribution numbers
27% action... Most actions games are FPS, Many adventure/role playing games are/have FPS elements... it's very misleading. How about 3rd person shooter... Most games still involve elimination, I guess the 17% mentioned takes that into account. Point is most games that have success involve killing.

I fail to see the point that was made there. I am tired though. My guess is to make us realize the statistics in a neutral way... Or is it to convey that games are neutral?

I do believe that games are/should be sort of neutral in your interpretations of the message contained in it, if any... That is you make your own damned mind in the end about what the message is. But this sort of thing annoys me on some level... If you allow for a negative message to be rewarded then it plants the wrong seeds in your mind.

I like games that encourages good behaviour or choices that, hopefully, plants a good seed in your head for the future. I played all the Abe's games... I found it really funny that I got punished for being selfish, not saving people while trying to concentrate on finishing the game as fast as I could, which meant ignoring saving the people and just do the tasks.

I too prefer to be the hero, I like games that allows you to choose. I always try to get the best hero score...

On the Other hand, I tried to replay Mass Effect (1) as a bad ass *itch... I stopped playing after 2 hours... Not my thing and I was disgusted by it.

However, playing Mass effect II now and I chose a mix of bad and good... That is be an ass with assholes and be good to good people. A more balanced play. I am no more concerned about the perfect good guy score. Just be a relatively good hero with his own flaws.

I believe that if you allow people to choose between good and evil, there should be consequences if you choose evil... that is you loose the game in the end, BUT the goal would not be to loose the game and feel bad about not winning for becoming a real bad character in the game, it would be simply to see the the game end on the looser perspective. An interesting point of view I think.

As for the behaviour reflecting in real life, you have to see that it is true that the things we learn as we grow up, no matter what the source, does affect your thinking.

For the learnt behaviour of humiliation in a game by another person on the other end of the network, humiliating people when defeated is a rather a new concept, that it is an old concept in real life (with real consequences), but recently you can humiliate people rather easily and anonymously, tea bagging in a multi-player FPS game. This behaviour is reflected in everyday communications now, There is less and less respect for what people say and more flack from people who don't respect your POV than ever. Less tactful, more direct humiliation on forums. I started on bulletin boards, connecting in a 2800 baud modem. the asshole to good people ratio was much less. On the other hand, less people could do these things back then. But the growth has been exponentially growing.

It does not help that each new generation seems to be less educated on how to act properly with others, You have to put a lot of the blame on the parents though. However, you have to consider that the parent being part of a bad generation does create a worst generation. A downward spiral of it's own.

As for training children to know how to shoot guns rather well, at least if something bad happens in real life like a major revolution, you'll be able to drop cargo of guns in populated areas and everyone will be ready to use them and pretty darn good at defending what needs defending.

I have no real point to my ranting. It is what it is and we enjoy it or not... I just hope to see an improvement in behaviour in the general population and I do hope the industry will have more successful products to achieve this in the future...

Things like:
Abe
Mass Effect
Knights of the old republic, (I think; you know! the ones that you grow your character like in mass effect)
Dragon Age

and so on...

Last edited by icuurd12b42 (2010-01-30 05:07:25)

icuurd12b42 · 2010-03-22 22:19:39

This is a an interesting system. For texture mapping and increasing realism as well as to influence/improve reflection and material.

Last edited by icuurd12b42 (2010-03-22 22:21:13)

icuurd12b42 · 2010-03-30 00:32:47

How client/server comunication works... From your pc to the internet

xot · 2010-06-05 16:25:50

Finally got around to watching Moral Kombat. I'm not sure what inspired me to do that today, I really didn't have time for it. It must have been the Richard Dawkins thing I had just watched that lead me to it. I went to Spencer Halpin's site for the film and it did nothing to make seeing it any easier. As far as marketing goes, the film is being really poorly handled on their end. I'll even confess to looking for a torrent of it before remembering that I have Netflix. Sure enough it was available for streaming, so I queued it up online and watched it on the set top box.

Given the people behind it, I expected it to be a mouthpiece for the ECA, and I wasn't mistaken. I was a little surprised at just how blatant it was. It actually does a fair job of representing both sides of the video game violence debate, but more time seemed to be given to industry people championing free speech and hiding behind the fact that our society has been based on violence since the beginning of civilization. I can't really argue with that, I'm a free-speech absolutist and agree that violence is inherent in our species. Of course no debate on video game violence is complete without an appearance by Jack Thompson and as usually he comes off like a Christian zealot, mostly through his own effort. Nevertheless the film can't resist to urge to give him a little dig at the end by pointing out his disbarment. There is very little in the way of academic perspective, although it's there in the form of (at the time MIT's and now USC's) Henry Jenkins. The film would have been well served to include more of him and people like him.

In all, it's fairly anecdotal in nature and glosses over many topics. It's competently crafted and the editing is quite striking, although some of the integration of the speakers with the video game imagery was a little over the top. In places I felt like the production was compromised by getting a little too cute with that motif. I was pleasantly surprised to see the film was written by Steven Kent, whose work I enjoy, his book, Hackers: Heroes of the Compute Revolution, in particular. The nature of the film, however, doesn't allow his voice to really come through.

Something the film lacks is any sense of pacing or direction. It's just one sound bite after another and by the end it's become tiresome and insubstantial. It's like 80 minutes of setup and background information, with very little in the way of new ideas or pay off. Maybe because I am so immersed in this culture, I've seen it all before, but I doubt that's really true. For an audience that isn't as versed in video games the film might provide some valuable insight.

What really disappointed me was that the film didn't do very much to ask the big questions about video games, questions I fully expected to hear based on the trailer. I'm talking about the possible transformative effects of video game violence on society and what the ramifications are for a society that increasingly relies on virtual worlds as a means of escaping the real one. The film is a good stepping stone to such an exploration and I look forward to seeing that some day.

icuurd12b42 · 2010-06-06 00:23:05

What really disappointed me was that the film didn't do very much to ask the big questions about video games, questions I fully expected to hear based on the trailer. I'm talking about the possible transformative effects of video game violence on society and what the ramifications are for a society that increasingly relies on virtual worlds as a means of escaping the real one. The film is a good stepping stone to such an exploration and I look forward to seeing that some day.

You will find the answers to this yourself by observation as you get older and have acquired reference points. From what I can tell, yes, there are distinct ramification and transformations in the sociaty from the technologies we employ. What we use, do and learn changes our philosophy. And technologies we use and the way we use them bleeds into real life, our should I say real world. Texting for example has created a new way of interaction. It bleeds, unfortunatly, onto real world spoken conversations. It is disastrous. No one listens to a sentence that is more than 10 words anymore, it's like there is a blockage... I sometimes play with teens at the mc donalds when I place an order, just to confuse them.

People playing games are often more irritable and tend to lash out more often. I know this, I was one of them, my nephews were too, so was my brother... Now imagine all them gamers out there, upset for a some stupid reason, over a game. Driving a car....

I don;t think it's the violance in games that makes people violent. I think it's because people no longer wind down, mentaly, from the real world bull crap. They go home, play play a mentally streesing game, they think they are relaxed, but that's only because when they stop playing, their stress level drops, but it never drops to the level it would if they had just done nothing, a level to cure the worldy woos.

Last edited by icuurd12b42 (2010-06-06 00:24:09)

~Dannyboy~ · 2010-06-11 05:05:53

I saw this today and thought some of you might also find it interesting: http://chrishecker.com/Please_Finish_Your_Game

icuurd12b42 · 2010-06-11 12:15:13

Good, one. It got me side tracked on cactus

xot · 2010-06-11 15:33:29

Thanks for those. I've admired Chris Hecker for a long time and I think I might have a tiny man-crush on Cactus. unsure

I have to agree with Chris that there does seem to be a very heavy emphasis on churning out games quickly. I'm participating in Mr. Podunkian's Action 52 Owns collaborative project, and I'm starting to fear I'm going to be kicked off for taking longer than two weeks to make my game. I think that's a really poor reason to give someone the boot, although some people who have been cut probably deserved it.

On the other hand, I quite like how many of these quickly produced game "sketches" are being made. They are all ideas that can be explored further, so they can be quite inspirational in that sense. Whether the inspiration takes the form of deeper game play exploration, or more open sharing of ideas, or drawing new people into making games, I'm perfectly happy.

Now for some more videos. You guys can see the entire 2010 IGF Indie Rant Session below. It's about an hour long and has some really thoughtful commentary. Anna Anthropy and Tommy Refenes always make an impression.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012312/In … aker_Rant_

Here's some coverage of the recent TIG Jam: Winnipeg event. I'd like to participate in one of these if one is ever organized in the southeast USA.
http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/tigjam-winn … ospective/

You can see more of the actual games being worked on here:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7343409

If you guys aren't familiar with Indie Game: The Movie absolutely take some time to see what they are working on. It's going to be really good. Here's a bit they knocked up for KickStarter funding. Their subject: the incomparable Edmund McMillen. I really liked it, and apparently so did everyone else, because they met their budget goal almost instantly with donations putting them well over the top. KickStarter is a really interesting funding model, might be just the thing for a serious indie project.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bli … -the-movie

More on Indie Game: The Movie here:
http://www.indiegamethemovie.com/

icuurd12b42 · 2010-06-11 19:06:11

I like the nu-lo-fi talk and the 2 hour game idea... (2hG)I had discussions about this with a few people on the gmc, bent on making the best game ever... story type game that would have everything in it. My suggestion was to split the game into many episodes (in exe form) so you could concentrate on the logic, the troubleshooting and graphics of just the few rooms so that you could produce many executables while concentrating of very little aspect of the game. Each game would be like 30min-2 hours... In this way youwould not spread the complexity of the development into a 8 jhour game, debugging characters in every room. You would just program the characte for the small part of the story that was released.

As fo the nu-lo-fi, on the gmc, (too bad it's down) graphics forum, there is this guy who made a very interesting cartooninsh world with ships, characters and platforms, in hand drawn style. In one large picture... No story, just scenery made of his creation. It sparks the imagination... I have to go grab it and think of something cool to make with it. I'll try to find the post. You guys will like it.

Last edited by icuurd12b42 (2010-06-11 19:07:26)

xot · 2010-06-11 20:36:10

Yeah, I liked those two rants as well.

There's a lot to be said for lo-fi, that's for sure. I've been working on a game that uses Apple II graphics and sound as it's motif. It's inspired by a couple of classic games from that era and I want it to feel like a 1985 sequel to them (but with modern design sense, of course). It's oddly liberating working within tight design constraints and I also like the way lo-fi forces the player to use their imagination to fill in the blanks. The nu-lo-fi concept is great because it's obvious that photorealism is a rapidly approaching dead end. There is so much more visual territory left to explore, realms that are for more interesting than the one in which we all live our normal lives.

As for shorter games, I'm all for it. For a long time I've been saying games should be more film-like, and others have too, but their interpretation is to put in more detail and more cut scenes. That's not what I mean at all. I like film for its speed and economy. As I've gotten older my tolerance for long games has severely waned. Playing AAA titles seems like such an investment. I have to really work myself up to play them. I recently started playing Knights of the Old Republic. I played one session and I haven't managed to get up the enthusiasm to continue, and this is coming from someone who really loves Star Wars. My neighbor is trying to get me started on Lord of the Rings Online. I just don't know if I can do it despite being a Tolkien fiend who is very impressed by what he's seen of the game. I think roguelikes and Pirates! might be the limit of my RPG-playing stamina. I like knowing that I can play a complete game in one session.

Big games like Zelda and Mario 64, that are more clearly divided into parts, don't usually give me this problem with completion. That said, when it comes to episodic games, I'm leery. Give me all the episodes at once, so I can play at my own pace. I'm very resistant to the idea of really getting into a game and then having to stop playing for month while I wait for the next chapter.

icuurd12b42 · 2010-06-12 00:01:26

I agree with your reluctance to episodic releases. There was a Wing Commander episodic PC trial a while back... If you are like me and hate TV shows that NEVER conclude, eg they have no resolution at the end of each episode, it pisses me off. If however you have be smart enough to have a underlying story as well as a per episode story, like they did with Babilon 5, then it more bearable <-spl

Wallace & Gromit have episodic games. Actually, I would call then installements, it mirrors a TV show. You play one, it takes about 2 hours to complete... But you are not left with disapointment at the end as the game concludes. Each episode is not related.

I agree that today, games should be like 2 to 3 hours to play the story part, single player. + online for replayability. Frankly I could not care less for single player replayability. Does a movie have replayability? NO. Unless you have poor memory. I watch a movie maximum 3 times with full attention, noticing things I missed. After that I dont care if the moie is playing or not (on tv) I just open my laptop and work while it playes in the background, grabbing my attention only for the good part (fights or effect).

There are way too many games out there as it is, which you can rent, or buy cheap if 2 years old, to waste time on these 40 hours time consuming games.

I bought another stupid shooter the other day Left 4 Dead. I played 2 hours and I have not touched it since and I dont plan to. Like the guy said, it's just another release of the "generic shooter" series, call it what you will. Same with Sole Survivor...

Portal and Prey, I would recomend. short and sweet

If people concentrated on making 2 hour games, cost would go down, productivity would go up and you would probably do those highly addictive personality types out there a favor.

xot · 2010-06-12 13:00:33

If people concentrated on making 2 hour games ... you would probably do those highly addictive personality types out there a favor.

Hahahaha! Too much truth in that statement.

I'm a film buff, so I probably don't see eye-to-eye with you on replayability. A lot of films I own I've watched five to ten times, a few many more times than that. It's not a matter of having a poor memory or catching new things (although I sometimes do, which is rewarding). It's about re-immersing yourself in a feeling that the film gives you or transporting yourself to another time in your life (ie. nostalgia). Some games are like that too. About once a year I must play Zelda 64 (and all the others for that matter), Mario 64, Blast Corps, and Wonderboy in Monster World, or I'll occasionally scratch an itch to play Galaga or Robotron or some pinball like Dr. Who or Addams Family.

I love the single player experience and I almost loathe online gaming. Beating the other guy doesn't interest me as much as beating the game scenario. As much as I liked it, I've only played Left 4 Dead two or three times. That's the game that got me interested in FPSes again. I've only played the first chapter or whatever. Obviously, it really thrives on online play with good friends, so I'm not giving myself the "best" experience with it. I've got Team Fortress 2 (Orange Box), but I've never played it because I just don't want to go online and be a stoopid noobie for X number of hours, where X is a very large number. So it's not just beating the other guy that doesn't resonate with me, it's being beat down into the dirt by the other guy.

xot · 2010-06-12 13:19:07

Here's another little film about the indie games movement, or at least a couple of people in it. It's called You Meet the Nicest People Making Videogames and it's still looking for funding. It's nowhere near as slick as Indie Game: The Movie, but it's always good to get some other perspectives, so I hope it gets made.

http://www.tigsource.com/2010/06/11/you … ideogames/

The usually gang of idiots at TIGSource are tearing it down, of course. Pay no heed to that riff-raff.

icuurd12b42 · 2010-06-12 19:00:49

I must have 200 movies. And by the 3rd time I watch (the re-playable ones) I usually have all the subtleties and the multi-level pretty much resolved. I must admit I have a few, say 5 that I don't mind watching over and over, like you imply, wrapping myself in the nostalgia blanket for one. Many of them I must say, I will tell myself that I will not watch the thing ever again. Like The Sixth Sense for example, twice is enough. You know what I mean?

Point is, most movies have no re-playability <imho>. and that is OK. Or say them one hit wonders musicians of the 80's... Nothing wrong with that. As long as the first run is interesting, to me at least, I would rather move on to another thing (I have insatiable appetite for new concepts) than see if I can beat a game on the harder level (GH excluded, probably because the genre has limited clones)

Yes it's true for video games. if most video games are so long, imagine all the people who quit without seeing the end of it (I now use youtube walkthroughs for that) or people who miss out on hidden gems because they are stuck playing another game that never ends.

On the other hand, lets talk about re-playability as a good thing. One of my favourite story based game was Indigo Prophecy. It's like the only one I told myself Man I have to play that again. So I did... 2 hours in the second run, I just quit. That game has incredible replay value from what I was told, the story changing... It took about 40 hours to complete the first time. And I realized that even if the story changed a little, even knowing how to resolve each level, the game, would still take me 40 hours to complete. If it had beed 2 hours, I could have played it 10 times with 10 story variations

Ha, that new vid, the part about exorcising your personal demons by given yourself power over it in the real, though virtual world, interesting. I wonder what he will do when his nightmares become, like they did me, just millions and millions of lines of code scrolling in his face (LOL). That was a bad year for me.

Last edited by icuurd12b42 (2010-06-12 19:04:49)

GMLscripts.com

#21 2009-11-16 13:24:35

Re: Video Game Related Media

#22 2009-11-18 15:41:51

Re: Video Game Related Media

#23 2009-12-05 20:54:05

Re: Video Game Related Media

#24 2009-12-08 20:44:43

Re: Video Game Related Media

#25 2009-12-30 13:36:45

Re: Video Game Related Media

#26 2010-01-29 08:44:41

Re: Video Game Related Media

#27 2010-01-30 05:03:39

Re: Video Game Related Media

#28 2010-03-22 22:19:39

Re: Video Game Related Media

#29 2010-03-30 00:32:47

Re: Video Game Related Media

#30 2010-06-05 16:25:50

Re: Video Game Related Media

#31 2010-06-06 00:23:05

Re: Video Game Related Media

#32 2010-06-11 05:05:53

Re: Video Game Related Media

#33 2010-06-11 12:15:13

Re: Video Game Related Media

#34 2010-06-11 15:33:29

Re: Video Game Related Media

#35 2010-06-11 19:06:11

Re: Video Game Related Media

#36 2010-06-11 20:36:10

Re: Video Game Related Media

#37 2010-06-12 00:01:26

Re: Video Game Related Media

#38 2010-06-12 13:00:33

Re: Video Game Related Media

#39 2010-06-12 13:19:07

Re: Video Game Related Media

#40 2010-06-12 19:00:49

Re: Video Game Related Media

Board footer