The Foot Chopstick Episode

[fishbang]

New episode now (http://ingamechat.net/audio/IGC20081215.mp3).

The miserable truth of Spike’s VGA show isn’t that it fails to live up to expectations, but that it very much does - the expectations being unspeakably low. Those of us who spent any time in range of their programming this past weekend have made various claims that we had come for the video premiers, or to catalog the inevitable train-wreck or some such fig-leaf. My own wretched excuse was to confirm media’s unwavering contempt for my beloved hobby. In that respect I suppose it was entirely what I made of it, since you’ve got to be a fairly contemptuous guy not to have some degree of fun with silver bitches on rope-swings.

Regarding things completely UN-deserving of contempt, we are most happy to announce that the Colony of Gamers Child’s Play charity drive has reached (and exceeded) its goal. The community has once again proven itself most excellent in its generosity, and has unlocked its gold sponsor achievement in the process. Drawings for prizes of all shapes and sizes will commence soon, and live-air haircuts, as promised, will be yours for the mocking or cheering or what-have-you by next week. Many thanks from all of us at the show for helping to deliver another incredible success.

[Iron Past]

Crap, I'm having a reaaal hard time downloading this for some reason. My ISP is all screwed up.

[Roaddawg]

it isn't like this was the first year for the spike tv Video game awards,i think it's up to year 5 or 6 now, it was shitty then and it's just as shitty now.

[danielOut]

Crap, I'm having a reaaal hard time downloading this for some reason. My ISP is all screwed up.

I hope it isn't our end. :(

it isn't like this was the first year for the spike tv Video game awards,i think it's up to year 5 or 6 now, it was shitty then and it's just as shitty now.

Yeah, but every year there is that tiny, infinitely small chance that they will have made it better. We have to hold out hope that one day, just maybe, they'll realize that they're totally doing it wrong.

[Ravenlock]

Regarding Star Wars, The Old Republic, I think, as is often the case, Tycho's got it right (http://www.penny-arcade.com/):

The image of an ignited lightsaber is an icon with tremendous power, but it's one way of being in an entire Goddamned universe. It looks patently ridiculous to strike a monster more than twice with an infinitely sharp laser beam, and the whirling idiots in these clips look like they're auditioning for Thriller.

As we discussed when Force Unleashed was being passed around, if I hit somebody with a lightsaber and they shrug it off, you're. Doing. It. Wrong. The saber combat in that trailer looks horrible, as though they took the already-lame-looking combat of any other MMO and simply swapped in lightsaber models. Actually, "as though" is generous - it appears that's pretty much exactly what they did. If two people are wielding lightsabers and they fight, those lightsabers need to actually make contact. Clash. Repel. It's a DUEL. (EDIT: Watching it again, there are moments in the combat where this happens, but it looks clunky at best and there's still far too much direct hitting that seems to occur.)

If anything, I think the proper analogy to "typical" MMO combat in a lightsaber duel is to have some sort of "endurance" meter (as opposed to HP) that you try to wear down over the course of the fight with cinematic attack-parry routines and special moves, and then have only the actual killing blow make contact. That would feel like, you know, Star Wars. The extremely well established universe in which you have chosen to make your game.

Sigh.

As for Home, while I haven't played it, I suspect James's supposition that it was made by sandaled hippies may be off - if anything, what I've seen of that product absolutely screams "designed by committee", most of whom were apparently marketing majors in college. As you guys said, waiting in line for a theme park ride is acceptable, for a variety of reasons. Waiting in line for a digital representation of a theme park ride (let alone a digital representation of a goddamn bowling lane) is not, for reasons that are obvious to us, but maybe somebody imagined it would give you some excellent time to think about your next Sony purchase. Ironically, of course, it actually has the opposite effect.

Then again, though, the folks at Google thought Lively was a super idea, so maybe there's just a lot of very confused sandaled hippies out there, it's hard to say.

EDIT: Re-reading it, I really want to play a multiplayer Star Wars game now that uses that sort of endurance meter, or diminishing block percentage chance, or whatever, to dictate the outcome of a lightsaber duel. Even though at a base level the mechanic is the same, I think the tension of PvP, knowing that whichever one of you manages to sneak ONE blow in is going to be the victor, could be excellent. Somebody steal this idea.

[el cheezer]

As for the females in the Uncharted games, they don't matter, but they do. They're very much like the Bond girls in that they are very much interchangeable. They're just on screen to be something pretty to look at between the shooty bits.

The reason they matter is becuase they develop the main character in a way that would never happen if it was only shooty bits. They also have to be done right, or they end up grating your nerves and bringing the whole production down. I submit to you the chick from Temple of Doom as proof.

[Spigot]

Oh god.. Home...

There is only one word that I can think of that sums up my feelings on the... thing.

Why?

Why would anyone use Home? Why would anyone at Sony think this was worth developing? Why can't I get the 10 minutes I wasted fiddling with it back?

It's like Second Life for people who don't own computers and don't have anything to do. I can't think of a single thing that would make the software worth turning on in the future. If I have to take several load screens and several minutes to do something that I can just do on the XMB, well, you've just made an anti-UI.

ANYWAY, keep up the great work everyone!

[kyrieee]

I'm fine with stuff not dying from one lightsabre swing. Most MMOs have similarly abstracted combat, and it worked fine in KoTOR

The animation should be the least of the graphical worries btw. Just look at their reveal screens:

first (http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/922/922115/bioware-mmo-project-untitled-20081021113738237.jpg)
second (http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/922/922115/bioware-mmo-project-untitled-20081021113635115.jpg)

Their whole thing is that they want to make a story based MMO where everyone has their own unique story. They've talked tons about how you're going to have ai companions that you will actually care about :| and how that the fact that it's persistent means that you can't reload saves after you've made a choice.

I have very little faith in their ideas tbh. BioWare have always made very average games on both a gameplay and technical level, but with good stories. What I hate about this is that we aren't getting a direct continuation of the cliffhanger-ish KoTOR II ending. GRRRR