Comments on: Gaming Made Me: Ken Levine

By: Valentin Galea

Valentin Galea — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:31:24 +0000

I love Ken Levine’s voice:) I want to hear an audio version of this!

By: Dracko

Dracko — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:33:23 +0000

We need a System Shock remake already. That was always the best one in the series.

By: BIKMIKE

BIKMIKE — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:17:13 +0000

10 fucking guns in SS2 and I have to beat shit to death with my wrench right up to the last boss all because of Castle Wolfenstein.

Thanks asshole.

By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:54:18 +0000

@Bhazor

Nope, no tricks involved, the R4′s base “operating system” was originally written for a DS/DS Lite, they had to change it to the R4i to get around the safeguards on a DSi. I’m not aware of any advantages to the R4i version, and the RAM expansion you can set up on a DS/DS Lite allows you to run a number of extra things. For example, with a RAM expansion in the GBA slot and an R4 you can run homebrew originally written for the GBA, which opens up whole new worlds of stuff. It also allows you to run more complex things than are possible otherwise, like Linux (!). I’ve gotten a ton of use out of mine, and think it’s well worth the investment.

By: Bhazor

Bhazor — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:21:51 +0000

Reply to Vinraith

Well that’s me told. I don’t use an R4 myself, because I’m too much of wimp, but I thought you needed a completed work around to use an R4 or homebrew on the DS/DS Lite? Might have to give the bally thing a try.

By: The Sombrero Kid

The Sombrero Kid — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:13:23 +0000

awesome stuff, cheers, need more of this kind of thing, not just on the website but in the industry as a whole, i was thinking next week I’m going to upload warren spectors master class to usenet, that way they’ll be accessible to all super fast for the next year.

By: Man Raised By Puffins

Man Raised By Puffins — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:21:37 +0000

Lovely series of articles. Good show, RPS!

@ Acosta: Well there’s already a thread on the forums if team RPS want to draw on that.

By: Acosta

Acosta — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:57:48 +0000

Love the series, thanks for it. Would love to read the list of as many people as possible, I think it´s a excellent way to discover or rediscover new things through the experience of other. I would certainly love to read about people like Sid Meier, Brian Reynolds, Peter Molyneux, Richard Garriott.

I was thinking that it would be cool if you could make a entry of this series with the community of RPS. Basically, asking to us to write the games that made us and publish a selection. Too messy?

By: fullbleed

fullbleed — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:22:25 +0000

The staring eyes of Ken Levine…

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:09:57 +0000

BurnHeretic: Actually, no, we didn’t. That’d have involved some organisation. The actual spread of the games is actually another thing I find somewhat heartwarming about this exercise.

By: Irish Al

Irish Al — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:05:56 +0000

No, we don’t want to see one from Peter Molyneux. Because he’ll somehow work a load of hype for whatever blue-sky nonsense he’s currently hawking into it.

By: mlm

mlm — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:45:45 +0000

@Chris Re: UU I and II

I agree that UU II wasn’t as successful as the first. It’s not that the game was less sound mechanically or a half-assed production, it was a top notch game all around.

For me at least, it’s the atmosphere of UU I that makes it a powerful experience even today. There was such a sense of place in the game. The Abyss somehow feels very real, and you feel like you’re truly trapped in it.

Underworld II has scope that’s much broader that the first, and that’s actually what holds it back in relation to the first. Whereas Underworld 1 put all of its energy into fleshing out a single “world”, UU II included several (was it four?), each was good in its own right, but a. not as thoroughly envisioned as the Abyss in UU I and b. the different styles of each world fractured the mood created by the game.

Frankly that’s something that more game designers should remember – sometimes (frequently) it’s better to limit yourself to one fully realized setting rather than doing a fire level, then an ice level, then a whatever level. Levine’s work is a great example of this, as are games like Escape from Butcher Bay.