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Thiourf. Thifourth. Thfieth? So stupid.
Feb. 8th, 2012 11:36 amNews about that new Thief game whose working title is too silly to reproduce here is pretty scarce. For all that it was announced more than a year ago, there have been no trailers, no concept art, no prospective features, no hints about the plot or tone or setting or protagonists it may or may not have (and since the third game rounded off the overarching plot pretty definitely, those parts would be important. Those last four things are Thief - their interplay and interconnection with the game mechanics and design made it beautiful). It's been relegated to the back of my mind lately mostly because SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM SKYRIM and to a lesser extent various other things I've been following. And life, too. I suppose life is involved somewhere.
I just found something to spark my interest again, though; a piece of flotsam kicked up by Good Old Games getting their hands onto Thief Gold and Thief 2: Metal Age and poking them into working on today's computers. (Run and buy them now!) Thief did things with sound that games today still don't do. So it was somewhat of a relief to find the fellow in charge of the new game's noise-making (Paul Wier), despite not being Eric Brosius, making this presentation about generative sound (or making noises that shift smoothly in tone, key, scale and general mood according to specific game states on the fly, rather than composing looped backing tracks for each setting or situation). And it was an instant sell for me because of the slow thrumming atmosphere he brought about. No heavy percussion, no noticeable melody, just...foreboding.
Because of course, Thief is not about being James Bond or Solid Snake or Sam Fisher or Catwoman. It's darkness and stone, old magic and the dead, and the ever-present press of technology and zealotry.
...Anyway it's called Stealing Sound and if you don't want to listen to a somewhat nasal-sounding dude talking about the processes going on you can just skip to the last two or three minutes and listen to the impromptu track he plays. The volume might need to be turned up. Also headphones are possibly necessary for the proper experience. Mmm, tasty noise.
I just found something to spark my interest again, though; a piece of flotsam kicked up by Good Old Games getting their hands onto Thief Gold and Thief 2: Metal Age and poking them into working on today's computers. (Run and buy them now!) Thief did things with sound that games today still don't do. So it was somewhat of a relief to find the fellow in charge of the new game's noise-making (Paul Wier), despite not being Eric Brosius, making this presentation about generative sound (or making noises that shift smoothly in tone, key, scale and general mood according to specific game states on the fly, rather than composing looped backing tracks for each setting or situation). And it was an instant sell for me because of the slow thrumming atmosphere he brought about. No heavy percussion, no noticeable melody, just...foreboding.
Because of course, Thief is not about being James Bond or Solid Snake or Sam Fisher or Catwoman. It's darkness and stone, old magic and the dead, and the ever-present press of technology and zealotry.
...Anyway it's called Stealing Sound and if you don't want to listen to a somewhat nasal-sounding dude talking about the processes going on you can just skip to the last two or three minutes and listen to the impromptu track he plays. The volume might need to be turned up. Also headphones are possibly necessary for the proper experience. Mmm, tasty noise.
SO there exists a shapeshifting lifeform, created by a reasonably evil genius scientist mostly to show off his evil.
1) It/he - the distinction's pretty academic - is a living weapon. He's agile, strong, fast, adaptable and durable, with a capacity for knowledge best measured in the same terms as supercomputers, a foul mouth and a built-in, overwhelming urge to destroy.
2) No matter what his intentions, good or bad - and they're rarely good - he causes chaos. He is therefore pursued by the authorities and his creators, who are in an uneasy alliance. The former wants to contain or destroy him. The latter would rather cut him apart and put the pieces in something controllable.
3) The one thing stopping him from ending human civilization as his instincts demand is the location he happened to be unleashed upon. It's an island and his mass is too dense to displace enough water for swimming.
4) In a head-on collision of him and a truck, the truck comes off a lot worse.
Now that I have dispensed these facts, the question: am I talking about Alex Mercer a.k.a. DX-1118, or am I talking about Stitch a.k.a. Experiment 626?
(If you can't picture Mercer retorting to accusations of lunacy with "I prefer evil genius!", you probably take his canon more seriously than I do.)
(Also, in a manner of speaking, I'm back from hiatus. Things are different, and one of my plans for next year is to explain how! But that may have to wait until I am not on a parental computer that is filled with evil. In the meantime, enjoy game rambles and Happy New Year!)
1) It/he - the distinction's pretty academic - is a living weapon. He's agile, strong, fast, adaptable and durable, with a capacity for knowledge best measured in the same terms as supercomputers, a foul mouth and a built-in, overwhelming urge to destroy.
2) No matter what his intentions, good or bad - and they're rarely good - he causes chaos. He is therefore pursued by the authorities and his creators, who are in an uneasy alliance. The former wants to contain or destroy him. The latter would rather cut him apart and put the pieces in something controllable.
3) The one thing stopping him from ending human civilization as his instincts demand is the location he happened to be unleashed upon. It's an island and his mass is too dense to displace enough water for swimming.
4) In a head-on collision of him and a truck, the truck comes off a lot worse.
Now that I have dispensed these facts, the question: am I talking about Alex Mercer a.k.a. DX-1118, or am I talking about Stitch a.k.a. Experiment 626?
(If you can't picture Mercer retorting to accusations of lunacy with "I prefer evil genius!", you probably take his canon more seriously than I do.)
(Also, in a manner of speaking, I'm back from hiatus. Things are different, and one of my plans for next year is to explain how! But that may have to wait until I am not on a parental computer that is filled with evil. In the meantime, enjoy game rambles and Happy New Year!)
Yeah, I'm still pretty crazy.
Feb. 16th, 2009 07:46 pmCooking dinner on my skillet in my flat for the first time since I set off the fire alarm: SUCCESS!
Now I've just got to learn to do so without nearly hyperventilating/panicking/breaking all the windows to let the steam out.
...Well, at least there's one constant in my life. I hope it'll get easier with time.
Now I've just got to learn to do so without nearly hyperventilating/panicking/breaking all the windows to let the steam out.
...Well, at least there's one constant in my life. I hope it'll get easier with time.
Dead Space wants to be System Shock 2. It wants to be System Shock 2 so bad. It writes meticulously researched self-insert fanfiction where the nameless SS2 protagonist is really named Isaac Clarke. For god's sake, the Hydroponics level is a point-for-point reconstruction of the Hydroponics Deck in SS2, down to mixing up a poison and putting it through the ventilation system.
This is unfortunate, because there's already a game like that, and that game was Bioshock; more or less a remake, but with a large handful of fantastically clever ideas and enough changes to stand on its own. They even have different story themes, despite their story structures being identical. Bioshock is a great game, an excellent game, for that. Dead Space, on the other hand, is neither.
( However. (Spoilers, but this game spoils itself, honestly.) )
In other news! I am going back to classes soon! I will be wrestling with the Centrelink dragon so I can get my moneys, but first I must quest for the Mighty Medical Report saying I am kind of crazy, so as to exempt me from some requirements! It will be a glorious battle! (Well, it'll actually be me nervously presenting the form to my doctor, but that seems to count as epic battle in every RPG I've ever played.)
I've been generally feeling a lot better lately. It's pretty cool!
ETA: Incidentally, the Australian release date for Coraline is May 7, and movie publishers can suck my metaphorical wang. There is a correlation between these two facts.
This is unfortunate, because there's already a game like that, and that game was Bioshock; more or less a remake, but with a large handful of fantastically clever ideas and enough changes to stand on its own. They even have different story themes, despite their story structures being identical. Bioshock is a great game, an excellent game, for that. Dead Space, on the other hand, is neither.
( However. (Spoilers, but this game spoils itself, honestly.) )
In other news! I am going back to classes soon! I will be wrestling with the Centrelink dragon so I can get my moneys, but first I must quest for the Mighty Medical Report saying I am kind of crazy, so as to exempt me from some requirements! It will be a glorious battle! (Well, it'll actually be me nervously presenting the form to my doctor, but that seems to count as epic battle in every RPG I've ever played.)
I've been generally feeling a lot better lately. It's pretty cool!
ETA: Incidentally, the Australian release date for Coraline is May 7, and movie publishers can suck my metaphorical wang. There is a correlation between these two facts.
