EllipsusD

For the two cats living in the house I'm in, I tend to subscribe to the 'good swift kick' policy. As horrible as it sounds, those little bastards stay out of my room, and , with the fear of foot in them, don't dare to attack me. I may be horrible towards pets, but at this point in time I actually get along great with the cats simply because the ground rules have been set. Just something to consider.

Damnit Ralphis... as if I wasn't hyped up enough for the Wii before you posted that link....

I had great expectations of the book with the same name. I was so disgusted by it that I set the damn thing on fire when I was camping.

Ya know, I wasn't going to reply to this thread... there are a few things about games that piss me off, but not enough to really start bitching about it. Then again I had this huge rant written out about why the gaming scene was better, say, 10 years ago... but then I figured "fuck it" and erased it all. It's easier to get to the point. What seems to piss me off right now is completely changing a gaming icon. There is only one thing I have to say to this: "Boooooooo!"

An animation instead of a normal video... but I got a few drunken laughs from it.

Steam downloads the game to your computer? At least that's what it did with HL, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift when I entered my CD key for them. I've never tried to do that with HL2, so I could be completely off, but it seems like it should work the same way.

That is truly a sad and pathetic display. Not even past the first level? Hell, I could do that when I was a little kid and fist got the game. And the bosses are generally much easier than the levels, when you consider that with each boss there is a safe area where you can attack and not get hit. I mean, the game is hard, but certainly beatable.

I'm going to assume that you don't live in Texas. When you're greeted by that level of idiocy every time you walk out the door, watching a TV show about it is just painfull.

Yeah, that pretty much covers it. I'm gonna go ahead and say that the movie was not all that great. Before you accuse me of having not played the games, let me state that I have played all four of them, and I consider myself to be a fan of the series. First of all, if you've never played the game, you will most likely not enjoy the movie. Things will happen that will not make sense. The eventual monotony will have no charm to it. And the very poor climax... well, who know... you might actually not be bothered by it as much, mainly since you won't know that it could have been much better given the material. To really get the fullest out of the movie you will need to have played the first two Silent Hill games. I couldn't note any solid references to the latter two, except that the theme from Silent Hill 3 playes during the credits (aweseme song, btw). Assuming that you have played the first two games (which I have the feeling that a lot of you have) you're in for a treat, at least for the first 3/4 of the movie. There are a lot of references to the games. Allow me to rephrase; there are a hell of a lot of references to the games. In that sense alone I'll agree that this is the best game-to-movie adaptation I have ever seen. I mean, even a lot of the background music in the movie is directly from the games' soundtracks. The movie does get a bit boring... it's almost like the focus was entirely on trying to be true to the games, and not on any suspence or fright-factor. But, oh well, at least it wasn't the Doom movie. And the ending... well, I was highly disappointed, but maybe you guys will appreciate it more. I suppose the biggest grip that I had is that they strayed from the original story. At the very least, there were a couple of key plot points that could have been left the same. Of course mentioning them would spoil the movie, as well as the games for those who haven't played them. Even if they wanted to toss in SH2 references, SH had a strong enough story that it would have carried the movie well. I mean, the husband of the protagonist, Rose, looks exactly like Harry Mason from the first game. I really don't understand why they couldn't use him as the lead. But whatever. I recomend seeing the movie. Once, at least... but don't expect it to be the kind of movie you'll want to see more than that.

I have one of the old NES consoles (two of them actually, but whatever) and, as is inevitable with time (and especially condering how much I played it) it no longer works. The card reader is dead, and the games simply won't start. Maybe I'm just a huge nerd (well, maybe not maybe) but until a few months ago I was still using the system and playing through my old games. I'm kinda annoyed that I can't do that anymore, ya know?, but what can you do. Anyway, I would be perfectly happy to be able to play those games again on a console without any improvements, even if they are just "lazy direct ports". Clearly it's not as important to you, but I know a number of people who would love the chance to have a backup of the older games they can no longer play, and to be able to play the games the missed out on at the time they came out. I don't see how providing these games in the way they were first released is a "joke"... maybe an attempt to squeeze out that extra ounce of cash from older works, but not really an unwanted attempt. But whatever... I suppose I just care more for nostalgia than you.

I agree with checking out the gamefaqs reviews, though I personally only spend time reading the ones with the lowest scores. Some of the time it's just some biased idiot ranting about how he wasted his money, but a lot of the time (at least what I've looked at recently), the lower score reviews will point out the faults of a game in a fair manner. You don't have to wade through all the mess of fanboyism to get to what matters, the pros and cons of the game. Knowing what bothered people about a game gives you a more accurate idea of what to expect, and you can consciously decide if you can get past the flaws of a game. But I dunno... maybe I'm just weird like that.

Speaking of the movie soundtrack... Come Sweet Death is great if only for the absurdity factor. You got a song that sounds upbeat, with incredibly depressing lyrics, and if you're seen the movie then you know what's going on when the song plays. Then again, maybe I'm just too easily amused.

I would place the eye gouging scene from May pretty high up there. You know from the beginning that it's going to happen... but that doesn't make it any easier to watch.

RahXephon was pretty good. I've only seen the first four episodes of Elfen Lied, but I liked what I saw. Here's a couple of suggestions for a less 'mainstream' (for lack of a better word) anime: for something funny but more in tune with real life, Honey & Clover is great; for a more dramatic show that stays more serious, watch Monster. Great stuff.

Tequila. End of story.

The last 2 episodes, for whatever reason they decided to present them as such, represent the instrumentality project (which I'm sure I'm misspelling) that is referred to a number of times in the series. Basically all consciousness is merged together into one... the 'soup of life'. I've you've seen End of Evangeleon then there's a fairly brief moment where you can see where all of this is taking place. Why is it supposed to be so amazing? I'd say half of it is hype. I honestly enjoyed it, but I can see where a lot of other poeple wouldn't. Personal preferences and all. I assume it one of the first series to merge the whole giant robot thing with the "mind rape" (not my term, mind you) humanism they tried to present in Eva (and, please don't get started on Gundam). A number of shows have attempted to copy the formula, so one can only assume that the Japanese like that kind of stuff. And since Eva came to the US before anime really started to take off here, you have to take into account that a lot of the people (not all) who were watching it were of the goth syndrom (meaning trying to be different by being the same as everyone else in the 'different' group). Because I have the bad habit of rambling (constantly), in short I'm saying that a lot of people praise Eva because it's supposed to be awesome, not necessarily because it is. At any rate, I suppose it is one of the 'classics' (for lack of a better term)... and if (note the 'if') you want to consider yourself a huge fan (I can't see why though... in entails trying to prove something to others) of anime, you watch the 'classics' regardless of their overall quality or entertainment. But whatever.

The original and ALttP were (more or less) top down, eliminating the ability to accurately judge height, and in AoL Link was clearly not a young child. Although those games mention a coming of age it's uncertain how old that means, and there's no real determination of age until OoT with the child and adult versions of Link. So while there may be a number of reasons to say shit on having anything to do with what's already been done, the age factor isn't one of them.

Well, I'm sure I'm reiterating what someone else has already said, but I feel it needs to be said at least twice: have a design document. This is probably the single most important peice you'll need and, if you're like me, you won't appreciate it until you try to work without it. Basically, you take your idea for a game and all the features you want for it, and you break it down into the smallest single peices possible, like building blocks (though I'm sure AndrewB could explain this in more detail than I can). Once you've covered all aspects you can think of, try to think of more; if you're new at doing this you may have missed a few things. Once that's all said and done, you should know what parts you have to program and how they will connect to one another.

Hopefully Dante won't be as much of a pussy as he was in the first two games. Might at well at least rent it though, it looks like it could be pretty fun.

Wolf Brand Chili. And we're talking about a six-pack here, ladies. Oh, and a toothbrush. Shityeah.

Try before you buy... isn't that what game demos are for? It doesn't really apply legally to games (or music in most instances for that matter, not that anyone lets that stop them). To put it bluntly, you don't have the right to illegally obtain a game to see if you want to pay money or not (convenient as it may be), but the company who made that game does have the right to protect their product from being illegally used.

In all sincerity I hope you are right. Bush really doesn't have to watch his step these next four years. He's on his last term so re-election isn't an issue for him, and so he isn't as 'restricted' as he was in his previous term. If we're lucky he'll focus his efforts on the the US itself as opposed to meddling in foreign issues. As depressing as it is to think that this idiot is going to be the figurehead of this nation for the next four years, I would much rather that the US citizens feel the full brunt of this. Maybe that slightly over half of the nation that voted for Bush will suffer in some way for that. In general, I'm seriously starting to lose faith in this country. Some people here have mentioned the system being outdated, but that's only a part of it. The way the people fundamentally think has to change in order for the country to change. And you would think, maybe, that intelligence could help with that. See, there's a realistic goal. To try and raise the standards of our educational system... allow our children the opportunity to become smarter than we were, and hopefully they will be intelligent enough to make thought out decisions. But even intelligence can only do so much in the face of social standards and beliefs that people grow up with. And though I have no problem with religion in general, if you follow it too fervently then it can put a cage around any intelligence you have aquired. And those things are what you can't just set out to change. The thought of trying to change things for the better is so daunting that it's depressing, and at this point I've almost lost all hope that things can change at all. At this rate the US is becoming a lost cause.

Nice stuff. The only thing I could point out is the the Baron of Hell seems a little alien or instect like... but that's only my personal opinion. Either way, it all looks great.

Ok, I remember reading at least one person's comments about how they were having trouble with doors, and for a while I was also having problems with doors appearing perpendicular to the doorway they were supposed to be in (while they were shown as being properly aligned on the map), but after some tweaking I managed to figure out what was I was doing wrong. So, to prevent anyone else from dealing with the trouble I had to, here is a tutorial on simple doors. In this lesson we'll be making three doors; two model based, and one brush based. Start off by making a brush 512 units (left to right)long and 128 units wide (on grid '4' it will be 8 large blocks by 2 large block, with a thickness of one small block) and lower it so that the top of the brush is hitting 0 on your 'Z' perspective. Press spacebar to make a duplicate and raise it so that the bottom of the brush is at the 128 on the 'Z' perspective. Now go ahead and make your walls along the outside to enclose this 'room'. So now you have a free 512x128x128 of space to work with. Lets start off with a brush based door. At about 128 units into the room make a brush 128x128x16 (centered on the 128 unit point). Now, with the brush selected, go into Entity tab on the Inspectors window. Under the Entity Class label, scroll up to func_door and press Create. That's it. It's a door now. All you have to do now is tell it how to open. That's the important part, mind you. If you don't tell a door how to open then some buggy crap can happen (such as the perpendicular door problem I ran into). Notice in the lower left corner of the Entity tab that there is a set of buttons (angles) going counterclockwise. That's what you'll use to tell you're door how to open. Go ahead and select 90 for now. (If you're working from left to right on your room, then [from the start position on the left of the map] the door will slide to your left as you approach is; basically the degrees correspond to the XY top alignment). Now the door should be functional. But what if you want to go beyond just a flat door? What if you want to use some of the models from the game? Lets get a little saucy and make a doorway with two doors, sliding left and right, shall we? First of all, lets get a doorframe in place so we know where to put our doors. At the 256 unit mark (center) Right Click, and go to New Model. The frame we want is under base/models/mapobjects/doors/techdoor2/techdr2frame.lwo. The model should appear on your map, and you can not center it at the 256 unit mark. (*Note* If you ever select a model and it appears as a black square, just press spacebar to duplicate it, and the duplicated version should appear properly; you just have to delete the original after that [thanks to BNA! for figuring that one out]) Now, just for asthetic purposes, you can go to grid size '1' and raise this model a single unit off the ground so the textures don't fight with each other. However, it's not exactely necessary to learning the process, so you can skip that if you wish. Now that our door frame is in place, lets place our doors. Right-click and under func go to func_door. This spawns a generic block. In the lower right part of the Entity tab select model. In the same place you found techdr2frame.lwo you'll find techdr2lft.lwo and techdr2rt.lwo. Select whichever one you wish, all you're doing for the moment is aligning them with your doorway. Notice how there's a red dot on the bottom of the door models? That corresponds with the red dot on the bottom of the doorway, so you'll be able to line it up perfectly. Ok, so now that you have your doors lined up, it's time to tell them what to do. In top down view, select the door that is in the uppermost position (should be techdr2lft), and select 90 for it's movedir. Now escape and select the lower door (techdr2rt) and choose 270 for it. Now each of the doors will slide away from the center. I'm sure you're probably thinking 'Damn, this is so easy, I can do this with my eyes closed', and you're probably right, but lets do one last door just for the hell of it. Our last door will be centered at 384 units (from the left), and although it's taller and thinner than our walkway, it'll still serve as practice. Our doorway will be at base/models/mapobjects/doors/cavedoor1/cavedoor1frm.lwo with the door parts being cavedoor1dn.lwo and cavedoor1up. Go ahead and put everything together as you did with the previous door (frame as model, door panels and func_door). Now, for door panels that move up and down, you won't be using the degrees as you would for sliding doors. But what's that right next to them? That's right, for the bottem panel select Dn (moverdir -2) and for the top panel select Up (movedir -1). Now just add a start position, a light or two, BSP the map, save it, and press F2 to load Doom3 and test it out.

Bah... is it just me, or is the level editor really glitchy? Anyway, since you guys around here know a lot more about using the editor than I do, I was wondering if any of you knew how to scroll through the grid. The damned editor has a habit of putting the brushes I'm working on into one of the corners of the visible grid every time I cycle through the views, and the only way I have found to deal with this is to either zoom out and work on it from there, or to drag a brush to where the rest of them are so the view scrolls with it. Is there some kind of button or something that I could use to manually chance the center point of the grid view without the unnecessary hastle?