Zero Punctuation: Alone in the Dark
escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctua...Posted Jul 16, 2008, 4:00 PM UTC
16964
escapistmagazine.com
Don't get me wrong, Eve trailers are always sexy, but 5 minutes of ads after a 4:30 video? Really?
4
it's at the end of it? why would you ever watch it? are you pants-on-head retarded?
23
He probably thought there would be something AFTER the ads. Cus who would put more ads than content?!
1
Pants don't go on head? Uh oh.
1
[deleted]
1
Well obviously not, no.
They could probably sneak a 10 second one infront of me before I had time to stop it though. I'm about socks-on-ears retarded.
1
I remember playing the original on my slow, shitty old Mac waaaaaay back in the day. It was blocky, the controls frustrated me, and more than once I said, "Fuck this game! I'm never playing it again!"...only to start playing again 2 minutes later. And you know what?
It scared the living fuck out of me.
I'm sad that it's gone so far downhill and sounds like a mere shadow of it's former self. Glad I don't have an Xbox so I can just live with the memory of being scared shitless so long ago...
3
It's available on PC as well.
1
When oh when is Yahtzee going to review Eve Online???
2
Asking when Yahtzee is going to review Eve Online is like asking when is he going to review a Final Fantasy game.
4
I know...
0
Is it any good? I liked Tradewars 2002 back in the BBS days. If it's anything like that (minus the players with bots, and the 'get vaporized because you had the gall to build a peaceful small planet in a tiny corner of the universe') then I'd probably like it. Oh, also the OCD-inducing trading.
1
To be honest, no idea... Sorry for leading you up the garden path... My point is more that I'd like to see how "bad ass" the Escapist is since they have Eve Online advertising all over the site and the Yahtzee page (and end of the video it seems)...
5
The trading in Eve is beyond OCD inducing, it's such a monstrous behemoth that they actually hire an economist to look after it.
Eve is great fun, the pace is a bit slow for some, you need a bit of imagination to get the most out of it.
You can't beat Eve for feeling like you belong to an actual proper world though.
1
It's a bit like TradeWars, but an updated Freelancer on an epic scale is a better description. It has lots to do for both the casual gamer (combat missions) and the hardcore players (mining, corp management, trading). Just make sure to get into a corp, so you have people to help you learn the game and help with missions... definitely worth checking out if you're tired of fantasy MMOs.
1
I haven't played EVE more than a few hours of a trial but what stuck out to me immediately is how much more intuitive Freelancer was. Everything was simple, and mouse control combat worked. But I guess EVE has to be more complex to be an MMO. Still, its no Freelancer in terms of combat, and I'm still waiting for a combat-based space MMO.
1
Can't wait till I get home so I can watch this... I loved the old Alone in the Dark games so I tried this new one... it had some neat features (the way it handled the inventory was neat) but man, the controls made me want to eat my own face.
1
Anyone else bothered by his hypocrisy about not pausing the action while managing inventory? He knocked Bioshock for pausing the action when hacking yet complains about AITD for the exact opposite reason.
1
I think at least in this case he didn't feel that the time it took to select the items and put them together was part of the game mechanics and instead more just a clunky UI, so it frustrated him that they didn't resolve their UI slowness by pausing the game.
Having not played Alone in the Dark, I can't say for sure though.
3
Hacking isn't the same as inventory management. Because of paused hacking, you could jump up to a turret, hit the hack button, and not be shot while you subvert it.
3
Shit. I'm still trying to watch LAST WEEK'S video. Can everyone just suddenly not care about these videos so maybe I can get a shot at seeing them?
1
easy target
1
What the hell was that puppet thing afterwards! NSFW for Puppet Boobies!
0
It's zero punctuation, but there's punctuation in the title. hahaha, im so original.
-19
Do you have, like, a calendar appointment reminds you to do this every Wednesday morning?
16
One of these days it's going to back-back-fire and he's going to get 1300 upmods for that comment.
17
You get this ONE upmod from me solely for your commitment.
Now stop.
3
I consider the DVD-inspired chapter controls a brilliant addition that should be added to every non-RPG shooter from here on out.
Driving mission where you have to tail someone at a set distance? Skip. Backtracking through infinite enemies with limited ammo? Skip. Laborious puzzle cribbed from the Myst developers' trash? Skip.
It's one of the game's real innovations and it should be praised for its potential. Good games don't need to be ruined by frustrating killjoy segments anymore, not that they needed it to begin with. If you're playing on Hard and enjoying it until the game dumps a thousand rabid squirrels on you two levels from the end, you don't need to look up cheat codes or dedicate an hour to the teeth-gnashing crawl of getting past them on the millionth try. I think it's admirable that the devs are willing to admit they are human and prone to mistakes, and that we should reward them by blatantly ripping off their good idea.
That said, System Shock wants its inventory management back.
That would be fine if it were purely a matter of taste. I would skip the 'back tracking through infinite respawns' level, but then i have to ask why it was included in the first place. It wasn't a good idea before and it's not a good idea now.
I'm with Yahtzee 100% on this one. If the parts are so shitty they don't require playing, don't put them in your game. And we shouldn't cater games to please one mass market. Then we end up with the Michael Bay of gaming markets (Electronic Arts...cough). Can you imagine movies where people could skip parts they didn't want to see? A great feature if your watching Bad Boys 2 for eighth time, but someone shouldn't be able to skip through a scene in Citizen Kane because they don't like boring parts. That person should watch Bad Boys 2 again.
I've been replaying Deus Ex recently. It's an amazing game, rightfully proclaimed PC Gamer's Game of the Year, up there with Half-Life in terms of polish, innovation, and being incredibly engaging. That said, god damn do you spend too much time in Hong Kong. All I want is the Tooth and a shoot-em-up through Versalife. I'd play it more often if I could skip all the backtracking and horrible voice-acting and get back to the fun part of the game.
I'll refer you to my rants against otakucode's comments for defending disabled user operations. It's my movie, and you can go fuck yourself if you're going to tell me how I should watch it. Art is subjective and all content is malleable.
Let's say you're a developer. You want to evoke certain emotions in the player. Often, it's amusement. You want the player to have fun. Other times, games want to evoke other emotions (AERIS DIES LOL), but let's deal with the 'kicking ass' emotion first.
You want to most effectively convey this sense of power. You can do it though gameplay - perhaps through epic action sequences with large guns and lots of bodies, apocalyptic enemy, a cool new gun. You could do it though storyline. These are conscious choices that occur to the developer.
When you had over control of game flow and pacing to the player, you lose significant control over the 'experience'. Examples: Lavos from CT would be nowhere near as satisfying to kill if you hadn't gone through Zeal beforehand, understanding his impact on the empire. If you cut directly from Black Mesa to the Alien Mastermind, would the game feel as complete?
My point is that it isn't your movie. The developer controls your experience, and tries to control how you feel. Some do it better than others. This isn't to say that what you suggest is impossible - but that it is difficult, and not always the intention of the developer. If you play a game designed to give you more open control (see GTA), then power to you. Some video games are played like you read a book, or watch a movie. Does it detract if you skip around there?
(In other news, I could never get into Deus Ex.)
If I could have skipped all of Xen, Half-Life would have been a better game.
There's more than one way to get the dragon tooth sword well at least in Maggie Chow's place. Although I don't like the hanger you get stuck in when you first get there.
That said, I love Deus Ex. One of the few games I still continually play.
awww, i spend as much time as i can in Hong Kong, its my favourite part of the game. I wish you could skip area 51 or the missile command areas.
Eugh. Too much time wasted pretending to be a civilian.
You think fast forward controls should be disabled? What kind of stupid idiotic suggestion is that?
yeah, i actually realized that shortly after I wrote it. I just didn't want to make myself look like an idiot. You've done the job nicely.
I think it's a great idea. Clearly there needs to be a special edition Citizen Kane DVD that also contains Bad Boys 2, and if anyone tries to fast-forward through CK they have to watch all of BB2 first.
You could do this with other classic films:
Battleship Potemkin ... comes with Glitter
Metropolis ... comes with Who's Your Caddy?
Chinatown .... comes with Baby Geniuses
The 400 Blows ... comes with Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
You get the idea.
Sorry, non-skippable advertisments on MY DVD are one of my pet peeves. Hellooooo ripped copy!
If people aren't going to even put the effort into getting the pacing right in a game, maybe they shouldn't be making the game.
In the same way, if you're not going to be putting the effort into succeeding at the more challenging parts of a game, assuming it's actually a good game, maybe you shouldn't be playing the game.
Admitting imperfection is not weakness, it's rationality. The goal should be for players to skip around as seldom as possible, yes, but player skill and tastes vary and every game that can neatly fit into chapters was undoubtedly developed with a looming deadline and assholes from corporate nitpicking everything while contributing nothing. Shit happens, especially in the games industry.
The feature is only about skill in a minor way. When I start playing it on a friend's Xbox without my memory card, I don't want to have to replay the first four hours just to show him the really cool bit in the middle. When I reinstall Half-Life 2 on a new computer, I don't want to fiddle with unintuitive console commands just so I can unlock the missions and get to the driving part. When a game's flaws are all concentrated in one segment, I'd rather skip it than grind through it to have fun again (*cough*Kingdom Hearts*cough*).
In essence, I don't feel I should have to prove my worth to a game that I just payed for. It's a toy for my amusement and I'll do with it as I please. If you want to put on your big-boy pants and courageously plow through whatever the game throws at you, be my guest, but forgive me if I enjoy the option to continue onto the rest of the game when I would otherwise cry foul and quit.
Do you fast forward past the slow pans in films as well?
Directors are human. They can and have made horrible mistakes, though usually movies with mistakes on the micromanagement level are crap on the whole. To answer your question more directly, I can't think of any movie I'd watch twice with a slow pan I'd skip over. There are a few with quiet stretches that I skip past when I'm looking for more engaging entertainment.
You should know that games and movies aren't directly comparable, though. A long scene in a movie lasts maybe ten minutes. A long cut lasts a few minutes. Games work on an entirely different scale - Gods and Generals is incredibly long and slow, despite taking as long to complete as Portal, which is considered brief. If a movie hits a boring stretch, you can wait a few minutes and it's over. When a game hits a boring stretch, you, the player, have to figure out what widget you're missing or where you're supposed to go to get past the poorly-constructed stretch of gameplay and start having real fun again.
You might as well have asked if I fast-forwarded past songs I don't like for all it has to do with games.
I didn't argue that all directors are perfect. If course they're human and the like. But when you find a bad movie, do you fast-forward through it? Or do you just experience what they produced for you, and then write it off as a bad movie? I'd never even think of fast-forwarding through a movie OR a game. Maybe I'd stop watching and call it shit, but I don't think I'd ever bother trying to improve it myself. On principle, it is the same thing. You're dealing with a creative production by other people and whether or not you would exert the effort to try to improve your experience of it. I wouldn't.
Games WILL eventually rise to the artistic levels of movies, I have faith. It won't happen on consoles, and it won't happen in America, the ESRB and gamers spineless acquiescence to them has guaranteed that much, but it brings new possibilities to storytelling and they'll be exploited somewhere no matter what the idiotic past-o-philes prattle on about.
Your treatment of entertainment as unmalleable is a sad reflection of our age. As far back as there was culture to be popular, it's been interactive, from actors reacting to the audience to 15th-century fan-fiction. You're resigning yourself to accept every flawed movie as an immaculate vision beyond your power to fix.
Games HAVE risen to the artistic level of movies. They are flawed, as any medium only a generation old is prone to be, but I hold Deus Ex and Portal on the same artistic level as any American movie produced in the last decade. The vast majority are cash-grabbing crap, but then so is the vast majority of film and television. There are a few shining examples of brilliant storytelling or even just brilliant gameplay, and most of them have come from America and been ESRB rated, thank you very much.
We nostalgics will be over here enjoying our 99%-amazing games and sitting through the occasional bad scene in otherwise good movies. You, on the other hand, can take the high horse you rode in on and fuck off to whatever country you think will give you the uncritiqueably flawless gem of an interactive storytelling experience you seem to expect.
[deleted]
I fast forward until I find dialogue. 2001 Space Odyssey is the shortest movie I've ever seen.
Try some Charlie Chaplin! Those just whiz by.
Back in the days of video I once recorded Top Gun, but as I only had 30min left on the tape I only recorded the action sequences and the rumpy-pumpy - it instantly became 10x better.
LOL, the rumpy-pumpy... you do know that Top Gun was a movie about Tom Cruises character finding his true gay self, right?
I thought that was Cocktail.
Star Wars: Episode 1: Phantom Edit.
As a game developer, the idea is repulsive at first brush.
But on reflection, it may be acceptable. Afterall, most people don't skip around a movie. And no one talks about movies except in terms of having watched it straight through.
May not be suitable as a rule, but anything with a well-defined "chapter" boundry could probably have this feature without detracting from the game.
Perhaps the game could just have a button where you press it and 'You Have Won!' appears on screen...
Why not? The end credits will be on YouTube the next week anyway. The only game I know where the ending is a real reward is Portal, and the game is so short and beautiful that anyone skipping over it is already punishing themselves for their ignorance.
If it falls neatly into linear chapters, let the player skip around. If it's a PC game they can already do it through the console - why not integrate the functionality so players can skip the intro chambers or have a quick re-do of the first turret level?
Alternately, what if the player put in some thirty hours of pushing forward and busting heads on the hardest mode of some Gears of War-alike, only to be stymied time and again by the horribly unforgiving escort mission end level? I say let 'em watch the ending. The hell with completism, they did as much as they wanted to do, and who are you to tell them they need to put in another five hours of dying horribly before they can hear the black marine rap over the credits?
But that's the point though, right? Say for example the game is a Portal (or a Zelda or an Ico); no way would the devs put a 'skip' option in there because they know it's in the player's best interest to play straight through. Ergo, actually putting that function in a game is like a tacit admission that the game isn't all that. Well then fuck them; make it better or don't expect me to pay for it.
I suppose it's all a question of personal taste, but if I want a passive experience, I'll watch a film. Games to me are about narrative and achievement.
I don't always trust that the devs have the player's best interest in mind. Putting the controls into the game is an admission that the game might not be all that to every player.
If I don't want to deal with a level, I'd like the option to continue the game anyway. If you don't want to deal with that feature, don't use it. The whole point of it is that it's a more active form of participation - you the player get to dictate the form of the game on a macro scale in addition to the usual time spent playing. You don't get to sit back and watch the CPU beat it, you just vwoop forward to the next two-minute cutscene and play the next half-hour level.
You want achievement? Knock yourself out. Download I Wanna Be The Guy and feel like you've got balls of steel just for getting halfway through. Personally, I play games for fun.
I would prefer YOU'RE WINNER !