Comment Re:Monthly fee? (Score 1) 203
Can you convert that to Quatloos? (Cue Star Trek fight music)
Comment Re:really? (Score 1) 229
Its a trap!
The Essentials of RPG Design 241
simoniker writes "As the latest in his Game Design Essentials series for Gamasutra, writer John Harris examines 10 games from the Western computer RPG (CRPG) tradition and 10 from the Japanese console RPG (JRPG) tradition, to figure out what exactly makes them tick. From the entry on Nethack: 'Gaining experience is supposed to carry the risk of harm and failure. Without that risk, gaining power becomes a foregone conclusion. It has reached the point where the mere act of spending time playing [most RPGs] appears to give players the right to have their characters become more powerful. The obstacles that provide experience become simply an arbitrary wall to scale before more power is granted; this, in a nutshell, is the type of play that has brought us grind, where the journey is simple and boring and the destination is something to be raced to. Nethack and many other roguelikes do feature experience gain, but it doesn't feel like grind. It doesn't because much of the time the player is gaining experience, he is in danger of sudden, catastrophic failure. When you're frequently a heartbeat away from death, it's difficult to become bored.' Harris' Game Design series has previously spanned subjects from mysterious games to open world games, unusual control schemes and difficult games."
Comment Re:Console Only (Score 1) 159
First game where a person died on screen was this Atari 2600 2 player cowboy game whith cacti to hide behind. Sorry, can't remember the exact name.
It was called "Outlaw". It had 16 different shooting-type games in it, most of which were two player only.
Video Game Adaptation In the Works For A Song of Fire and Ice 183
On Wednesday, French game development studio Cyanide announced that they will be working with George R. R. Martin to bring his popular fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, to the realm of video games. The press release implies that there will be more than one game, and the games will come out for PCs and "next-gen consoles." Apparently an HBO television series is in the works as well, in addition to board and card games related to the books.
The Pirate Bay Seeks Interesting Route To "Pay" Fine 545
Drivintin is one of many who have written to tell us about how The Pirate Bay has taken an interesting approach to the 30 million SEK fine levied in their recent court case (which they said they wont pay). "The bill inspired anakata to devise a plan involving sending money to Danowsky's law firm, but not to pay the fine of course which they say will never be paid. Anakata's clever plan is called internet-avgift, internet-fee in English. Anakata encourages all Internet users to pay extremely small sums around 1 SEK (0.13 USD) to Danowsky's law firm, which represented the music companies at the Pirate Bay trial. The music companies will not benefit from this, instead it will cost them money to handle and process all the money."
Comment Re:Why people watch movies.. (Score 1) 395
Absolutely, thats why in every jury trial I have to spend 15 minutes in Voir Dire trying to mitigate the "CSI effect". "How many people on the panel watch CSI?" "Who, on the panel, thinks in order to convict there must be a scientific test?"
It applies to all kinds of cases across the board. Battery, assault, DUI, theft. No, we didn't look for or test hair follicles or fingerprints or DNA when the defendant stole a CD from Wal-mart.
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"Take that, you hostile sons-of-bitches!" -- James Coburn, in the finale of _The_President's_Analyst_
