Comments on: The Sunday Papers

By: Tom Camfield

Tom Camfield — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:18:57 +0000

That was some really good stuff, thanks KG.

By: Chris Remo

Chris Remo — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:38:47 +0000

Thanks for the link! It is encouraging to learn that I am oft-brilliant!

By: eyemessiah

eyemessiah — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:01:00 +0000

After a long night on a beach exposed to torrential rain and gale force winds I once hallucinated that Dundee was GIANT SIMCITY. It was awesome.

By: Candid_Man

Candid_Man — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:51:36 +0000

Strange how Tom Bramwell devotes the major part of his editorial post rejecting claims of outright, unsubtle bribery-with-blood-diamonds when the far more insidious matter of influence is let completely off the hook.

Paraphrasing Lessig regarding Congressional influence peddling, the simple introduction of directed privileges and preferential treatments, with no outright demands in return, can almost always create the right conditions for undue influence. How can Whitehead review Killzone 2 and convince himself he wasn’t in the least influenced by the greater context of the exclusivity conferred to his writing by Sony (their expectations), and manage to not take into account the (always at least possible) impact his opinion would have on further advertising deals and exclusives? He would have to be pretty naïve or steel-headed to navigate such waters and come out the other side with an unbending piece of review.

But the question is not whether our current crop of game reviewers are capable or not of handling such pressure, it’s whether or not readers of such online publications are prepared to lend credence to writers operating within that pressure.

There is a reason that “exclusive reviews” are themselves exclusive to the gaming industry. For all his clueless talk about games, no one can imagine Ebert or any other movie critics assenting to an exclusive review while an embargo is imposed on his colleagues.

By: Catastrophe

Catastrophe — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:40:07 +0000

@Cunningbeef

Battlechess rocked. Loved the Rook transformation animation.

By: Cunningbeef

Cunningbeef — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:28:41 +0000

When I was a kid I dreamed about a game of chess where when you went to take the other players piece, it went into a Tekken style fight. I was going to call it Battlechess.

Then I searched the name and found out it had already been done. :(

By: qrter

qrter — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:13:07 +0000

Come on, games journalists, when the publishers ask for an ‘exclusive’.. just say no.

You can write editorials explaining everything’s above the table til you go blue, there will always be a faint persistant whiff of unreliability and bullshit about it.

By: phuzz

phuzz — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:49:40 +0000

I’m more upset that illness has kept me away from games recently (Guitar Hero being the only game I have here, 20 mins of which left me knackered, that’s how ill I am). Mind you the fun pain killers they’ve got me on tend to just knock me out with no memorable dreams (I’m trying to save some to play with when I’m well).

I do recall playing some FPS whilst incredibly, incredibly stoned, which turned the whole experience into a horror movie, I kinda forgot that I could stop playing and instead got really, really scared to the point that any enemy would be greeted with hails of rocket fire. In fact, even small noises would cause me to jump wildly shooting at shadows.

gods know what would have happened if my flatmates had come in…. I’d probably have thown the mouse at them and hidden under the desk.

By: Kadayi

Kadayi — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:29:49 +0000

I think Tom makes some valid points, and I’m with him for most. Most MMOs (bar Eve) are glorified Disney theme parks at the end of the day (as Lum rightly points out). Eve is more of a user sandbox, but one that is wholly under the thrall of the over committed and fanatical. There is no room for casual dalliance in either present MMO model, and that is not a good thing. With WoW until you max out, you’re always in the situation of having to continually play in order to keep up with your peers and friends if you want to play with them. It’s mechanic enforced indenture, which really doesn’t serve the best interest of the player at the end of the day.

By: Heliocentric

Heliocentric — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:24:55 +0000

GTA4 patch 2 probably included less drm, or a sex minigame.

As for Games in real life, asside from the obvious seeing tetris shapes in roof tiles. Walking into a crowded bus after playing left 4 dead late at night and expecting all the dirty transit users to run at me.

Those laws are often broken in some genuinely common cases. but i think its important to understand the principles when designing as game.
for example do developers realise when they make a static+c vs gradient game where you mainly are statics, like mario or fear, with c being the instance constant, such as different guns or a fire flower but the environment changes. Not that all games SHOULD be broken down into maths, but often they can be easily.

By: Nimic

Nimic — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:02:55 +0000

When I had Influenza a few years back, and quite a high fever, I went in and out of this 2D-wannabe-3D cowboy FPS whose name eludes me.

It was a very strange experience.

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:01:12 +0000

Actually, some games follow other physical laws at some point:
Newton’s First Law: “A system (the game world) remains at rest or in motion unless acted upon by an eternal force (the player)”
Ideal Gas Law: “The pressure of a system (the number of enemies) multiplied by the volume (area of the map) is proportional to the temperature (game difficulty)”
Friedman Equation: “The square of the Hubble Constant (the difficult curve) is equal to the rate of expansion of the universe (player’s experience points) which is equal to 4.Pi.G/3 * [energy density (number of spells cast on-screen) - 3 * pressure (guildmates yelling at you) / c^2] + the cosmological constant (subscription fees) * c^2 / 3
No, wait.