The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

The caveman story should be a must-play for developers.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Cycle]

I know certain some of you have things for grappling hooks, so I thought I'd point out that todays floozy is a game about a grappling hook.

http://www.gamedujour.com/
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[helicopterp]

can we start calling them floozies instead of cheap indie games? it gives them more character.


as in "today's floozy is about beagle farming"
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[dessgeega]

today's floozy is about stopping beagle farming.
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[ryan]

THIS JUST IN: Hardcore Gamer Magazine sucks. What the fuck is this, half the issue is about MGS4. Thanks for reprinting 70% straight off of websites.

I just checked and, yes, the MGS4 is pretty much half the issue: the issue is 66 pages, with the first seven split between four pages of ads, one for the index, and two staff pages, then the next 33 pages (including ads) about MGS4 and MGS Online. The rest of the magazine includes a filler about free online games - I swear they did this a month or two back - one review of a DBZ game, a retro review, their downloads reviews, and that's about it. At least the section for GameCock is finally gone; that shit was embarrassing for everyone involved.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Shapermc]

Wait... didn't they just switch to a quarterly format? That's one quarters worth of magazine? Man, I haven't read it in ... well since the free subscription ran out from before the mag started.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Ashura]

[ryan]

Yeah, I made mention that ads, including the first seven pages with ads, comprised the first 33 pages. I've seen most of that material elsewhere, though, and especially now with the last week or so as outlets have ramped up retrospect pieces about the series. The previous MMO article, if memory serves, was the issue before the spread about playing games online for cash; or maybe it was smaller MMOs in general.

Still, remove MGS materials and 27% of the magazine is gone, and that's keeping in the ads throughout, which is nuts. The other material, like energy drinks and supplements, seems to be reaching for content, but I guess there might be people out there pumping up on pills they import and have little comprehension of. The layout is flashy, but it looks like it's dominating the content, with full pages being just art or sections with about 70% of the page taken up as images. I don't think I would have minded so much had there just been more there. Sixty-six pages is especially lean, and the past few issues haven't really been engaging.

The only other magazine I get is Game Informer - free, at that - but it's essentially toilet paper and not really useful in gauging magazine quality in general, so maybe the trend is for smaller issues.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Ashura]

I've had the issue for about 3 weeks I think? And I get it like everyone else. Just as a note, there are the same amount of editorial pages as before, just less ads.

As for page focus, that's not actually my call. But I will pass your feedback along.

The MMO article you're talking about was '26-29: Mass Appeal: MMOs through the eyes of EA Mythic' which is from the April 2007 issue, which is 11 issues ago.

[Shapermc]

While doing some research I ran across THIS GAME. . . what the hell? Is this even in english?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Cycle]

Huh, I don't see what the big deal is? It's a Settlers game on the DS, it came out ages ago.
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[Shapermc]

It's just kind of bizarre. It's "exclusive" and possibly not in english. It was published by Ubisoft, so why hide it away where no one's going to see it. It's just one of those situation which boggles me.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Cycle]

The Settlers was a huge hit in Europe but not so much in the US, so I guess they didn't send truckloads over there? I don't know. I'm pretty sure it would be in english though.
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[daphaknee]

when you said 'the settlers' i thought it was going to be a settlers in catan game

[ryan]

[Shapermc]

[Ashura]

I wrote the Linux on PS3 thing, glad to know someone read it! I know we're still trying to do stuff like that... we did a building your own joystick article a while back, too. I sort of felt the Drugs for Gamer deal is sort of the same theme as those. I have no interest in drinking competitively, but knowing what's in the drinks and how they effect or affect you was an interesting subject to me. I had no idea how they work or what was in them beforehand. I didn't even know that people use the stuff to pump themselves up before tournaments, even.

I have this video game copy protection thing I need to pitch when I have time. Did you like the stuff we did like Ports Gone Wrong? What kind of stuff do you want to see/liked before?

[ryan]

[dessgeega]

trailer of an upcoming ds game from squaresoft about the inherent dischord and spookiness in a glitchy videogame. (they're aren't nearly enough of those.) there are two layers of the story: a photorealistic first-person adventure and a dragon quest-looking famicom game within the game. (note how they use different screen orientations.) that game-within-a-game begins to leak out into the game proper.
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[Shapermc]

[Harveyjames]

I'm a little late to the party, but Starmen.net are having a mass EB playthrough over at http://ebfgp.net/1 . Every day they'll post a new entry saying which bits you need to play today, and little bits of trivia about the section you're playing, as well as challenges and things like that. Awesome! I'm well overdue for an Earthbound playthough, since I've only managed to play it through to the end once. It's a good thing to do in the run-up to mother 3, too.

I've named the characters the same as I named them on the first ever playthrough I did- James, Lucy (my sister's name), Tom (my best friend in college) and Bva (mine and Tom's best friend). The dog is named after my pet as a child, Jack. I played the game in the first year of university, and felt quite lonely and adrift at that point- I suppose I was pining for the familiarity of home.

The game is sort of breaking my heart because I'm remembering all the things I felt when first playing through it- when you mum says things like 'you're growing up so fast, you have a big adventure ahead of you' it reminds me of how resonant those words were to me at 19, on my first time living away from home. Likewise the absent father figure. Your relationship with your father in the game mirrored my real-life relationship with my own dad completely. It's sad; it's like I'm not just revisiting Earthbound, I'm revisiting who I was 6 years ago. Perhaps that's quite fitting since like my 19-year-old self, I've just moved to a whole new part of the world where I have to make a whole new set of friends, and I'm feeling quite lost. Hopefully, this means I should be as fully engaged in Earthbound this time around as I was the first time I played it.

Funny that all the other times I tried to play the game since the first I wasn't able to devote myself to it so fully. It's like Earthbound will always be there for me, but only when I really need it.

[Cossix]

Man I'd totally join in on that if I hadn't played Earthbound like a few months ago. Maybe I'll still participate in the discussion though.

[Harveyjames]

'Spose this belongs more in the other thread ._.

[ryan]

Diablo 3 was announced. I can't explain why I enjoy laying waste to hundreds of goblins, but I do. So help me I do. Here are some interesting tidbits:

- Destructible environments
- Random dungeons (with destructible environments)
- Random quests
- Random NPC encounters
- Random scripted events
- Skill bar, health is dropped by orbs, but this changes the game pretty drastically: now enemies have to be attack based on vulnerability and not by spamming the same attack.
- Witch doctor actually seems pretty awesome with a spell that casts a swam of locus at enemies that migrate to the next once done eating away at the initial victim. Also: wall of zombies.

And! Diablo 2 and its expansion have been added to the Blizzard store. So, if you own one or both you can log into your account, add the game keys, and then have access to the full downloads wherever you have an Internet connection.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dessgeega]

namco's released 9-volt: the game. i can't decide whether it looks interesting or derivative.
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[kirkjerk]

[daphaknee]

that doesnt look like 9volt
where are his headphones
wheres his turntable

why is he a big box

[Shapermc]

So I just got the email for the most recent Escapist and.... well there's no mention of any games in the email at all. It's all starwars crap. Add to that, half of them are ngj-type "when I was a kid Star Wars was...".

Have they jumped the shark?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

NOT ENTIRELY.

(pro-tip: i may be in an upcoming issue.)
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[D-A-I-S]

Uru/Myst Online's coming back. An outline of the new, user-focused plan is here.

[dessgeega]

this time i am finally going to play it, goddammit.
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[Shapermc]

I really don't want to have to go through GameTap for this ;_;

That's what kept me from it last time, and could again.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

it probably shouldn't, since gametap's not connected to it anymore.
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[dessgeega]

a game is out.
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[Cycle]

what the hell is that supposed to be
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[dessgeega]

[Cycle]

oh ok, well it's not much use to me unless it comes out in english (
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[dessgeega]

ok i'll keep that in mind next time i post something in this thread
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[Cycle]

thanks dess, it's appreciated!
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[dessgeega]

somewhere in this video is a preview of jeff minter's gridrunner sequel for live arcade.
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[Cycle]

oh christ, that looks sweet. the new graphics look great!
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[Shapermc]

Gorgeous!

I'm interested in seeing more about how the audio interacts with the game. It looks more like the music is adjusting to the action on the screen rather than the game (visuals) in someway reacting to the music. Very interesting.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Harveyjames]

That looks like every other game he's ever done!

[Cycle]

oh, harvey

so naive.
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[Dracko]

Harvey, everything you draw looks like everything else you've ever drawn.

Alternatively: Fuck right off out of it, yeah?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[simplicio]

Minter needs to dust off Unity and rebuild it for the Wiimote via Wiiware. A/V
overstimulus plus sloppy analog- sounds proper, doesn't it?
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[Harveyjames]

[Cycle]

jesus christ harvey, fuck off with that shit. christ almighty.
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[Harveyjames]

Ok, I edited it so now you have to click the links

Still though, you can't blame me for wanting to defend myself.

[Cycle]

THANK YOU.

But yeah, sure it looks similar to his last game, but he's made lots more than those two! This new game is probably using the same engine as Space Giraffe to save time and money. Plus it looked great.
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