You've been stuck on this train for about 5 hours now. There are a few more rooms you'd like to explore but for some reason they're all locked and the places you can get to no longer have anything shiny or displaced from the background for you to click. Everyone who you can speak with has gone from interesting conversations to an endless loop of one liners which almost seem like they want you to progress elsewhere. Something is missing or else you would have advanced to the the next plot point by now. Perhaps another run around the dining car will jog your memory. As you storm down the last hallway before your destination the screen stops moving and the borders shrink into a forced widescreen mode. A familiar face fills the screen and text flows from their silent lips as you're reminded that this is indeed an Adventure Game and you must not have done things in the order the game wanted you to do them.

Even if some people find this tedium to be an incredible turnoff there is just something about this style of gameplay that I absolutely love. Or more specifically there is something about this theme that pulls me in and holds me tight. I am a "Limited Setting" fanatic, you see. What I mean by that is when a game either takes place in one (or very few) locations or has a section, in an otherwise open environment, where you're stranded, stuck, or forced to wait until other events unfold. It's that slow burn that I enjoy; where I take in my surroundings and see what the game's artists and storytellers have to offer.

When a developer does this they force themselves to be creative in finding ways to keep players interested. Unlike games with giant overworlds or a sprawling city to explore, where you could easily explain the addition of: bowling alleys, car chases, flight mechanics, or bars to waste time at, in a Limited Setting you're placed in a locked area until you meet certain requirements. That in and of itself doesn't grab me, it's what, or who, is in that room, train, military base, etc. with you that can be so enthralling. By the time you get out of that situation you'll probably have everything about it subconsciously memorized in your mind.

With progression comes familiarity; the art style and architecture of the world around you pops into your mind whenever you think of your next stopping point. Every place has a history and feels as if there is a meaning for everything. Creators who excel at this craft make sure that even the blandest of areas feel lived in and are purposely connected to the rest of the game's world. With people you start off naturally as strangers but as the game progresses you begin to form your own opinions of them. They come off naturally and are each there own individual. In contrast to an open world game with cookie cutter npc's that walk from one street corner to the next, the people you interact with in a Limited Setting are living their lives and you're a witness to those socially personal moments. If you need to speak to someone again later in the game very rarely do you have to take a step back from the screen and think, 'Okay who is this person? Have we spoken before? How are they important to this situation?' and because of that you stay within the game world and you advance without much thought. With a Limited Setting you allow your mind to stay focused on objectives, places, and people

With this familiarity comes the added bonus of recognizing when things are out of place. You've been in these areas before, you've spoken with the cast multiple times, but this time you notice a small twitch in that person's mannerisms or a hole in a wall that wasn't there before. Sometimes you don't know the reason behind these changes and a natural curiosity takes hold; you want to know why something is different than the norm the game has presented so far. This only pulls you deeper and deeper into the story. Other times however you do know the reasons behind the changes and this causes different emotions to come up: sorrow, accomplishment, anger, or even confusion in cases of things not unfolding the way you thought they would. Regardless of the outcome its the little things that truly matter in a Limited Setting.

There are some fantastic examples of this being use in otherwise open games as well. When one of these moments comes up, and it's done well, that usually becomes one of my favorite moments in that game. A prime example of this would be the train mystery in Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door. At this point in the game things seemed to be ramping up and initially this section almost acts like a bit of a breather before bigger stuff pops off further down the track. From my memory this game from out of no where; you're off to save the world and then all of a sudden you're put on this train on it's multiple day journey across the desert. It kinda puts the breaks on your progress when you're railroaded into a tight area in a seemingly unrelated scene from the rest of the story. In this section areas are slow to unlock, you have a small cast of interesting passengers to talk with, and there was an ever growing sense of tension as time continued press forward. I don't want to spoil all the quirks of this section but needless to say by the time it was all over you felt like you had done something worthwhile.

The next time you find yourself in a slow section a game, or in a naturally slow/linear game, take the time to look at what the creators have given you. You'll find that even the tedious stuff can be entertaining if done correctly. Even if a game is known for its fast paced action it's not punishment to be forced into a slower section, it can even give reason as to why you're doing what you're doing and can flesh out that world into something truly special. The Limited Setting has solidified several games into my personal favorites lists and I'm sure it can do the same for some of you.

I just realized that I will probably never have the cajones  to drop 50 dollars at once on a subscription service for a website (I'm cheap).     So here I am spending 60 dollars a year supporting the GiantBomb community. What does this mean? It means, gentlemen and ladies, that I am a supreme member of this site. A "Platinum" member, if you will. NOT ONLY do I support GiantBomb with more money yearly than these "Gold" members, I am also doubling their revenue by (tolerating) viewing the fine advertisements on this site. What can the Gold Members say? Sure they're giving Whiskey Media a short term boost with their 50 dollar drops, but in the long run who is it who's going to be giving you guys all that fun stuff to play with?? (All of us) Me.  
  
Okay that's enough of that. 

What I would like to know is do you guys feel there should be some more incentive by subscribing for prolonged periods of time? Something for the yearly gold and monthly silver (platinum) members who sign up for the second year, perhaps?  I'm talking about something more and exciting than what brand new subscribers would be receiving for their first run around the Sun. I think it'd be a pretty neat business strategy to try out since this is kind of a big experiment that Whiskey Media is running here. 
 
Suggestions?    

 To get it out of the way, I want to say that I've been a member of GiantBomb since the beginning and love the idea of supporting the Whiskey Media brand. A subscription based system is certainly a way to go about it but as many of the users have pointed out it is a way of splintering the user base into pay scales. Either you as a member are completely supporting GiantBomb by donating the 50 dollars a year or the five dollars a month for x-many months, or you don't and let the ad revenue you generate from simply visiting the site cover for you. Or you can be a total douche and have ad-blocker on at the same time.  
 
My idea is a little wild and crazy for the internet. It's something people who listen to the radio are accustomed to, especially if they listen to National Public Radio. What I am eluding to is akin to a "Donation Month" where users from the community chip in to cover the extensive costs of running this website. This has the possibility of users donating values across the board and can become problematic if everyone merely donates a dollar or two. To counter-act this simply setting a bare minimum of five-ten dollars and you have a decent revenue service in place.  That's roughly the price of an inexpensive Steam game, and we all know how crazy those games sell

With the recent (enough) release of the BioShock Infinite trailer a sense of disappointed overwhelmed me more than any other feeling.  Irrational is a devoted developer with several fantastic games under their belt; their games have pretty much been fantastic from start to finish. So what was it about this beautiful game from a highly rated developer that rubbed me the wrong way?

A lot of people seem to have touched on this argument as a whole but I haven't seen a lot of talk on the world itself. This is saying a lot since Irrational has created games such as System Shock 2 and the Freedom Force series which all featured worlds with incredible depth and atmosphere not seen in a lot of games today. From what I can tell this game will be exactly like that as well, a lot of character in the world which makes it feel unique and well thought out. So...where's this issue you might be asking? The issue I have is that this will most likely be set in the BioShock universe. One of the things that I enjoyed about the first game was that it felt real even considering the fact that people shot lightning bolts and harvested little girls for magical powers.

What I mean is that this world felt like it was set in our own. Andrew Ryan grew up in Russia and American throughout the early parts of the 20th century:Economic Collapse, World Wars, and America and Russia duking it out for the title of sole super power were all present in this time line and universe. But then we have Rapture, a product of this real world but displaced in it's own, figuratively and literally. Even though it was at the bottom of the sea and these fantastical events took place there, it appeared to be rooted in a quasi-reality. Yes, people could eventually become super heroes if you brought all the best scientists, artists, businessmen together in your own high society. Once you establish that you could basically go anywhere.

BioShock Infinite however, if its actually in the same universe takes place in a country in the sky back 40 years before Rapture's creation and what sounds like 60+ years when Columbia was "founded."  The whole reality I pointed out early seems to be voided with the inclusion of this. Columbia is never mentioned in the series before, especially no enormous war of Independence. What this does is completely take away from the mysticism of Rapture and BioShock as a whole. City at the bottom of the sea? Eh that's no big, there was a whole country 33,000 feet above us 60 years ago! There are crazy scientists roaming this city with the ability to summon a swarm of bees and shoot fireballs out of their hands? Been there done that. Even the Big Daddy's are apparently clones of whatever the heck is hanging out in Columbia! This practically turns Rapture and Andrew Ryan into commonplace commodities in the BioShock universe, which is my biggest complaint.

The game itself is probably going to be fantastic however. I'm not jumping to conclusions on its quality but it's hard to think that it's going to be bad. My main complaint aside, I just wish that Irrational makes great connections with this game and the rest of the series. 

Heyyy there Giant Bomb. I've been thinking of this topic for a LONG time, partially because I, and pretty much everyone else out there, has been extremely disappointed when a video game franchise decides to make the jump to the big screen. In my opinion the only successful one (yep, one) that has actually been capable of replicating the feel of a video game was the original Mortal Kombat movie from 1995. There have been other "decent" video game movies such as the Lara Croft films, the recent Prince of Persia movie, and even the Silent Hill film has some promise. Some might go so far as to say that the first Resident Evil movie and parts of the others in the series had some redeeming qualities. I do not believe this is true but I am more than willing to bend to these opinions compared to that of other films where their original sources are video games. Oh and don't forget the Super Mario Brothers movie.

So what is it that's preventing movies from successfully capturing a video game's feel or adapting it well enough to the big screen? In my opinion it's who the director and the producer want to appeal to that ends up killing the experience for everyone. With many of the movies I have linked above there is one core audience that these films were aiming for; video game players. Not just any specific video game players mind you, the fans of particular game that is being produced. So what's wrong with that you might ask? If you're going to make a movie about the Doom franchise you might as well appeal to the people who've actually played the dang thing! Plus, you will supposedly reel in a heck of a lot of First Person Shooter fans, as well as a bunch of video game fans out there who just want to see if it's any good.

The direction of some of the movies today seem to be the other extreme of the pendulum. This is where we get movies that are trying to be movies but have a light coating of the original material plastered on purely for name recognition. This is where we find our Lara Croft type films. Yes there's Lara Croft and yes she's a famous archaeologist looking for treasure. Beyond that however, how were these movies "video game" movies? They catered to the fans with having an actress who's probably the closest proportionally to the titular character and it followed the basic premise of the games but beyond that did they really have a video game feel? Is one even needed to make a movie? Economically speaking these films were a success. They were even put together fairly well and enough detail and time was put behind them to the point where they could be passed off as a basic Hollywood summer blockbuster.

Here's my example: A way to do this is to expand on an element within the game that's frankly underdeveloped. Perhaps some characters simply go missing for a few games and pop up at a later date with huge ass muscles and/or blonde. I'm looking at you Resident Evil 5's Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. Or perhaps you focus on minor characters who don't have a huge impact on the story in the game but play an integral role in the story as a whole. This lack of information is like an open doorway of opportunity, a place to fill in the gaps and delve into. What this creates is a sense of freedom for directors; there's sparse information to work with in these instances but you have the major points taken care of, you merely have to hit those and fill in the rest and you have the potential for a story that draws in the fanbase very easily. The promise of "secrets revealed" make us nerds squeal in anticipation.

SO what about the movie audiences out there? What do they get out of this? From this point it kind of feels as if I'm only catering to one crowd right now.  Well that open doorway works both ways. In one sense a director is catering to the fans of the game by filling in these blank pages, but at the same time the pages are still blank. This is an ample opportunity to create a well developed storyline that can work in a movie time period. There is no need to have a billion fan references when the movie itself is the reference. This should take a huge weight off the writer and the director's shoulders so they can focus on important things like character and plot development, proper mis-en-scene, and whatever else they can come up with in order to create an experience for the movie goers.

I feel that this is a direction thats rarely taken with films in this genre and would be very interesting to see played out if it ever comes to fruition. What do you guys think of this position? Do you have any ideas of your own to fix this problem with video game movies?

Just got back from Virg Bernero's (the Mayor of Lansing and a Democratic candidate for Governor) meet and greet at my college campus. He seems like he means well for our State, but then again, what politician doesn't try to get that across? From what I've heard beforehand it sounded like he practices a very Chicago style of politics, he does what he needs to do to get the job done and since he's the boss what he says goes. Personally I have no problem with this, probably because I myself grew up in Chicago under Daley's reign and don't mind the direction in which the city is coming from. I'm tired of  the politicians trying to be your drinking buddy or dumbing themselves down in order to get the votes they need. I want someone who knows what they're doing and has the balls to get their legislation through. 

I'm a little iffy on his stance that production needs to come back to Michigan in order for it to prosper again. That's kind of a cop-out answer if you ask me. In order for ANY economy to prosper it needs to produce.  Another issue I had was his apparent stance that cars are the future for Michigan; yes, cars will still be around in 50 years and yes we have the ability to make them still...but do we need to fall back on that crutch? Cars aren't a local business anymore, competition is kicking our asses and we're going to go back and rely on making cars? It doesn't matter if they're better, more efficient, and sturdy cars, you can NOT rely on a single product anymore. He simply brushed away the fact that we need more public transportation in Michigan too. Trains and buses need to become a staple of our State in my opinion, if we can build that commuting mindset we'll have more people coming in and going places in Michigan than being stuck in a small town with gas at $4.00 a gallon where there's no business. In order for our economy to grow we need to get out of this small town mindset here, we need people to go places and explore the rest of the State, and we can't do that without a proper transportation system....

Overall though he seems like a good candidate to support for the Democrats. He's a mid-left candidate and he's preaching support for Education and Businesses at the same time. He just needs to stop pandering to the old crowd and get with the times.