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Lies

Writing new lies over at thisisyouth.org

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I may have a soul after all

By Lies 9 Comments

minor GTA L&D spoilers (if you've met Ashley already, you're good)


While I wasn't a huge fan of the original GTA IV story, there was one thing it did really well, and that was the characterization of Niko's associates. Twisted, tortured, tormented souls- each and every one of them. Grand Theft Auto IV really made it clear that Niko wasn't the only guy in Liberty City with problems; to a degree, I think the game did a better job showcasing the side characters than it did of making Niko a believable character himself.

But there was still a bit of an element of disconnect for me with those original stories- you learned these characters either through car dialog- almost like an old-timey radio show- or through cutscenes, non-interactive. And to be fair, I loved those characters last April while I played through. But a moment in Lost and Damned really just hit me way harder than anything in GTA IV proper.

Johnny and Ashley
Johnny and Ashley
The first time you go to meet Johnny's girlfriend Ashley, she's in a bad situation- in the hands of some drug addicts, inside a tenement. After blasting in, eventually you find Ashley, all alone and crashing pretty hard. She asks you to take her home. So I begin walking her out, shotgun in hand in case any more weirdos try and shoot me. As we're walking out of the apartment, it's obvious Ashley isn't in good shape. Her gait is irregular, she's rambling,  white as ice, and Johnny is pissed at her for dipping back into drugs. But as this conversation is going on, we're making our way out of the building, and Ashley trips down a set of stairs and rolls down to the bottom. I'm honestly not sure if it was scripted or not, but it really had a huge impact in terms of the sympathy I felt for Ashley.  And immediately after she falls down the stairs, she gets up and starts asking Johnny to punish her, hit her, so she learns her lesson. The visual impact and connection of that moment was just astounding in the way such a subtle thing made the scene, and connected me with both characters in the situation- realizing how much Ashley needs Johnny's help, but also how messed up Ashley is and why Johnny shouldn't try to save her.

It was a profoundly fucked up moment, but also quite profound, and it connected with me in a way I've just really never been hit by any game. Ever.
9 Comments

If you're worried about the Watchmen movie...

By Lies 16 Comments

Take comfort in the fact than it cannot possibly be worse than this:

SWAT COP II
Captain . . . what the hell is that?
 
All eyes turn upward.  In the distance, a TINY SPECK descends from
the clouds and drops, in a perfectly vertical line, toward the head
of the statue.  The SWAT CAPTAIN hoists a pair of binoculars:
 
SWAT CAPTAIN
Shit.  Shit fire!!
 
SWAT COP
Sir!  What is it?
 
7. POV SHOT - THROUGH BINOCULARS
A magnified view of the SPECK, which turns out to be a futuristic,
blimplike HOVERCRAFT -- the OWLSHIP.
 
SWAT CAPTAIN (O.S.)
Christ almighty, it's the goddamned Watchmen!

From the original 1989 movie script of Watchmen. 113 pages of hilarious hijinks. Here's another:

INT. STATUE - MIDSECTION - THAT MOMENT
SILK SPECTRE and THE COMEDIAN marching up a long metal stairway.

SILK SPECTRE
Should be just overhead. We have to distract them somehow . . .

COMEDIAN
Just barge in. While they're staring at your tits we'll blow their balls off.
Speaking of the Silk Spectre Look at the cops to her sides XD

So perhaps stop bitching and appreciate that Synder is giving this a good go. Will report back with further hilarity when encountered.
16 Comments

Too many ideas

By Lies 5 Comments

I really have no problem coming up with ideas- usually though when something lodges itself in my mind I'm not in a position to flesh it out right then and there. I scrabble it down then never really get back to it. It's as they say I guess, ideas are cheap. I just need to get the motivation to actually follow through with some of this stuff. I just don't have the work ethic of a Sweep, who has produced something like 120 blogs since launch O_O

Completely unrelated, but this is a fantastic historical essay about World War II if you're interested in that sort of thing. It's also quite long.

Yes, each and every one of those has a meaning- even the random strings of numbers
Yes, each and every one of those has a meaning- even the random strings of numbers

5 Comments

A picture story

By Lies 29 Comments

EDIT: dammit Bungie's pics are being stupid. Will fix shortly.
EDIT2: fixed?

Halo 3 really is an amazingly fun and diverse game. It's something that tends to become routine the more you play of it, but there's just so much that goes into every single encounter in that game. It's stuff that's taken for granted, but really should be appreciated more. I will now demonstrate using pictures from the start of this Rat's Nest game:


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I hop in my own hog-no passengers- and head for the rockets. I fishtail around and hop out, grabbing the rocket launcher before anyone else arrives.

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I hide behind the barriers as the enemy hogs start rolling in, waiting for them to come into my cone of fire

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My team's Warthog comes barreling through the center passage in a valiant rescue attempt

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It doesn't end well for them

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Thinking they've cleared out all the opposition, blue team advances

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They pass me, and I take the shot. The rocket flies under the Warthog and explodes on the other side

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The resulting explosion doesn't kill them, but it does knock up into the air...

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And right off the nearby cliff. Of course there's still one hog left...

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But I still have one rocket in the tubes. It's not a direct hit.

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Much like their compatriots, these guys are sent flying also- but into a wall, instead of off a cliff

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They evacuate their hog, but are unaware of my teammate around the corner, who throws a grenade

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His grenade and the one I throw detonate at the same time, destroying the jeep and killing the foot soldiers near it in a fantastic explosion. Sadly, my teammate gave his life in the assault on the Warthog :( His death was not in vain though, as red team went on to win in a 100-45 rout

And that all happened in a span of less than one minute. Halo 3 and theater mode are rad. Plain and simple.
29 Comments

The Modular Game

By Lies 6 Comments

I'd create a game engine as generally useful, as easy to use, and as readily accessible as the equipment required to make a movie. The fact that we have to basically reinvent the camera every time we make a game [and] have to rework our A.I., user interface, physics, and gameplay tools with each and every game is crazy.
Warren Spector, on his one wish for game development

With game development costs and cycles increasing exponentially every year, it's crazy to sit back and think that as soon as one epic world and experience is complete, developers immediately set out to create another. After all this time and effort, all these years spent building one game, the disc goes gold, gets played by people for a few dozen hours, then consigned to either the shelf or Gamestop. Then the cycle starts all over again as the dev begins a new project.  This is sad.

Same Liberty City, new set of assholes
Same Liberty City, new set of assholes
With that in mind, it's fascinating to see the rise of modularity in games. With so much effort put into creating these vast worlds, more and more developers are seeing the benefit in adding to their existing world in chunks, as opposed to building an entirely new one. Albion, Liberty City, and the Capital Wasteland in Fable II, GTA IV, and Fallout 3, respectively, have all seen new areas or stories introduced into their landscapes recently. Each of those worlds no doubt took a huge amount of time to originally build and realize, in addition to running off of complex game engines and being populated by plenty of NPCs. Instead of starting on an entirely new game, developers can now add- almost seamlessly- to their old creations. Fallout easily added a Metro tunnel leading to an entirely new area full of Brotherhood Outcasts. GTA will use it's already existing city, but let you see it through the eyes of a new character. Fable gave you a new island, and a ton of new items and potions.

This trend is great for both the developers, and the consumers. Developers can continue to work in an established framework, utilize existing resources, and deliver conent for a decent price. Gamers, for their part, get to extend an experience they undoubtedly liked considerably sooner than it would take for the sequel or full expansion to arrive. Obviously, this useage of downloadable content can get out of hand- paying for content included on the disc, horse armor. However, when applied responsibly, DLC is a great thing for both sides of the equation. Allowing for simple, smaller-scale expansions of a product is a great way to extend your experience and keep people playing your game. If you're gonna charge, it's also a decent revenue source.

DID YOU SEE ANY COMMUNIST SNOWMEN IN THE MAIN FALLOUT GAME?! I THINK NOT!!!
DID YOU SEE ANY COMMUNIST SNOWMEN IN THE MAIN FALLOUT GAME?! I THINK NOT!!!
DLC done right is unique in it's ability to perfectly extend a game experience, not in the way a traditional expansion pack or sequel does, but in smaller chunks. With DLC too, you can pick and choose what you want to experience. Think Fallout's combat is balls? Don't bother with Operation Anchorage, but feel free to pick up the other two packs coming later.

Warren Spector has it right at the beginning there. It's really incredibly silly the amount of redundant work that goes into gamemaking: rebuilding the engine, building new character models, new AI routines, graphics rehauls- all these things get in the way of the content. Building one superb base package, then adding on to it after release via DLC is such an appealing model. More developers really should try to look into it. It's a cheaper, quicker, way to deliver new experiences to your customers. Of course, you need to make a game that will really get it's hooks into people first, or they won't be interested in your expansions, which I think is the problem most developers run into.

But for the few studios that have the caliber to pull it off, it's a fantastic option, and one that is beginning to be utilized more. Bottom line is that it's a great, quick, and relatively cheap (for both sides) way to expand a great game experience. There's little point spending all that time building a new game when you can just add to your existing one, and I think we'll see more and more developers and publishing houses starting to recognize that as we go on.
6 Comments

Fallout is going to break the DLC points limit

By Lies 18 Comments

It appears that Fallout 3 will be the second game to exceed Microsoft's 250 point limit for downloadable add-ons to games. On the most recent OXM podcast, Todd Howard mentions that the second DLC, The Pitt, will again have four new achievements worth a total of 100 achievement points, while the third package, Broken Steel, will have six new achievements worth 150 points, adding up to a total of 1350 achievement points with the possibility of more if Bethesda decides to release more packs.

This, combined with Halo 3 (Which will have 1750 points when all the map packs are released), seems to indicate Microsoft is starting to be more flexible with their achievement rules. Good news for points-hungry players, and hopefully it will allow developers to be a bit more creative with their add-ons (Not that Fallout is particularly creative, but still)

I don't actually listen to the OXM podcast, I saw it here

18 Comments

Breaking Bethesda

By Lies 4 Comments

It's actually surprisingly easy to break the framework of a Bethesda game. Shocking, I know. It appears the Chinese Stealh Armor from the Operation Anchorage DLC is bugged, as I found out today it allows you to equip unlimited amounts of headgear while it is equipped. It doesn't appear you get damage resistance bonuses for these headpieces, but they do affect your SPECIAL and skills. So I spent a little while trolling the Wasteland looking for headgear, and my skills and SPECIAL are quite improved. Take a look at all the stuff it allows me to equip:

(While we're at it, if you head back to Bethesda Offices East in Fallout 3 every three in-game days, a Raider respawns in the building with the Big Guns book, which allows you to get your Big Guns skill up to 100 without investing any skill points)


Sadly, the third-person model doesn't actually show all of these as equipped
Sadly, the third-person model doesn't actually show all of these as equipped


But it does do nice things for your stats
But it does do nice things for your stats


Another fun exploit. Charon, Jericho, Clover, and Dogmeat all accompanying me at once, all decked out in Outcast Power Armor. The game pretty much plays itself at this point.
Another fun exploit. Charon, Jericho, Clover, and Dogmeat all accompanying me at once, all decked out in Outcast Power Armor. The game pretty much plays itself at this point.
4 Comments