In all seriousness, though, the effectiveness of a shotgun really comes down to the type of ammo vs the nature of the zombie you’re facing. A really decayed zombie is going to be near impervious to the trauma inflicted by a slug round, as it would simply pass through the rotting flesh. A slug put through the braincase will result in a kill, but that requires a certain amount of calm and the time to aim. Scatter rounds will generally be more successful at dismemberment, but against any kind of armored foe will usually not result in a kill. Thats the real problem with shotguns, they have two separate ammo types that are effective in wildly different situations, and there’s not a lot of time to switch between them on the fly.

I would also discount the damage of a shot vs multiple enemies, shot pellets don’t really spread that well unless the shotgun is sawed off, which again decreases the damage even more against all but the closest range opponents. In addition, sawing off the barrel results in a much more permanent trade off, and given the relative difficulty in scavenging for weapons is a possibly fatal mistake if made in the wrong situation.

The value of shotguns are as offensive weapons, corresponding to a mobility based scheme. If you want to barricade against the horde, yes, it’s not very good. But in general, no weapon is effective in that situation – even with a melee weapon, you will eventually get tired.

A shotgun is good if you are active in trying to seek out a safer location, which case the ammo issues are less significant. Instead, the shotgun has the advantage of not requiring you to stop to aim (especially given the scope of the alternative, which encourages fatal tunnel vision), and being able to potentially disable a group of enemies at a time. It also has excellent usefulness as an entry tool to blow away locks, etc.

What platformers are better than N on PC? I’ve been playing N regularly for a couple of years now and if there’s something better out there I’d love to find it.

What Valve and Blizzard are doing is trying to push their chosen model to it’s limits. To take the first person narrative game and see how far you can go with it. I think the reason Valve looks like its stagnating is because most of these improvements are under the hood; the physics, the AI, et cetera. These are things that are integral to a gaming experience and require progress and innovation to solve. The reason Blizzard’s innovation isn’t obvious is because most of us don’t play WoW, and most of their advancements – until they release their next game – are contained in that shell. Are they giving us something completely different every game? No. But are they giving us new things? Yes. Both companies are trying to push their chosen medium in meaningful ways, instead of just pulling new game mechanics out of their ass and throwing them against the wall until one sticks. Calling this “stagnation” is silly.

But if you want new, risky games based on new gameplay mechanics? That’s what the little games that are “doing cute impressions of real games,” are. You can’t complain about stagnation and a lack of risk-taking on one hand, then bemoan the fact that a lot of these little games, with out the polish of their “real” counterparts, aren’t any good. And even that misses Koster’s point, which is that these games have astounding market penetration. N is only successful because it’s viral? Well that’s the point. The point is that you can distribute a little game virally with very successful results. Which means that there’s more of a market for small games that take risks.

You need to pick a side. You can’t complain that the big business model is stagnating, then say that small, virally distributed games are stupid and not “real” games. What, exactly, do you want?

I think Spore will cast the larger shadow. It could even be used by developers for prototyping entities. LPB has littler uses and functionality which will limit it to only those that like it in the first place. It doesnt appear to be anything more than a simplified version of dev tools that have been before.

Spore will change things much more than LPB (probably).

The focus on Spore’s marketing has been on the playdough creatures, but that’s not where Will Wright’s genius lies. If underneath the cartoon exterior lies the beating heart of a proper simulation, I will be happy.

As the indie market’s viable these days (and LBP is particular proof of that) you’re probably very right. I should get out of the mindset that if a game isn’t popular with gamers, it won’t be popular with publishers, which by extension means that no matter a developer’s wishes it won’t get greenlit; that still applies (by and large) to major/blockbuster releases, but it is somewhat less of a concern to smaller titles.

Also, of course, if it’s popular with developers then it’s likely some of its ideas will get nabbed anyhow; it’s just less likely to be ripped off wholesale if it doesn’t sell.

Which I think it will.

Er, why am I writing this again? Ah, that’s right, because I should actually be writing more serious, more boring things about fictional characters.

Oh yeah Pirates… In Little Big Planet (See what I did they, clever heh?). Anyway I must be cynical and shrivelled as Little Big Planet really doesn’t do anything for me; and I own a PS3. I’m not really a fan of platformers so I won’t be picking it up to play and I can’t seem to convince myself that using it as a tool to create things will be worth the effort. Maybe that’s because I’m already a Programmer and have used various level editors so I can sate my creatives urges a little more directly?

I don’t really think the shadow of LBP will be proportional to it’s popularity with gamers so much as it’s popularity with developers.

And plenty of games have had minimalised death penalties, Prey and System Shock 1/2 to name a few.

Oh farge, I just brought up bioshock didn’t I.
Sorry!
Look, over there, Pirates!

I think that was what I meant to conclude with, but I think I got sidetracked. It /was/ 5 in the morning, to be fair (I also appear to have written that Spore would be nothing /more/ than a smash, when clearly I meant something other, as a more obvious symptom of early-morningness).

I think I was also assuming that in being more ‘interesting’, LBP would be more likely to prove more important – by doing something which does something truly different, you’re more likely to influence things to come. Unless you fail miserably, in which case your main influence is likely to be warding developers/publishers away from your approach.

Also, of course, the shadow LBP casts will be proportional to the popularity of the title and its execution – until it’s actually released, I can’t know about the latter, and I do wonder about the former: the fact is that Spore looks to be the easier sell. I don’t think LBP will do badly, but if Spore sells in vastly higher quantities… well, it’s hard to cast a long shadow when you’re stuck under a skyscraper.

The industry may move quickly, but its ability to learn lessons is haphazard at best. God knows it’s hard to predict what lesson developers/publishers will take from the games anyway, no matter which proves most successful – the only lesson Thief seemed to impart was that people like anti-heroes (its approach to stealth all-but ignored), and I’m perpetually perplexed at the fact that all anyone’s taken from the Dead or Alive series’ success is that boobies sell (missing out on the multi-tiered stages and parry system which make the game worthwhile). But both of those are more niche series, so perhaps that skews things.

One first has to realise where most computer-bound youth spend their time, and that’s probably with MMOs. Thus I envision that a World of Warcraft clone will be found within the classrooms of Children of the Future.

[Texar] yells: I am Texar the Calculator, your puny mind-skills will never be able to push my buttons!
[Algebras] says: omg hes using pi! run!

And yes, I wonder about myself, sometimes.