I just watched the video reviews of it on some gaming sites. Going to go pick it up this weekend, it looks awesome. In the meantime, I'm just plugging away at GTA4.
Compared to other established art forms (film, music, literature, photography) which have had a century or more to develop, video games are in their infancy. If you want to get ultra technical, video games have been around since the 50's, ever since Tennis For Two. However all those early games were more exercises in simple programming and equipment tests, and it wasn't until the 80's that games started developing things like characters and plots. Filmmaking started in the 1880's but, likewise, the first films were more technical and novel achievements than "art". It wasn't until the 1900's and later (Birth of a Nation, arguably the first real feature film, wasn't made until '15) that films became truly established as a form of art with a conscious attempt to craft a story and influence emotions. So while I wouldn't necessarily disagree that video games are in their infancy, I'd say its more like the industry is in its adolescence, where the past decade has seen a huge evolution in the "artsiness" of games.
You're not assasinating civilians for the shit of it, you're framing America in a Commie plot to wage WW3. So it's educational if nothing else.
It might be a minority of players that play games hoping to experience them as art. His argument is flawed because not every game fits his definition of "a sport" or "game" with scores and win or lose outcomes. There are plenty of games such as Metal Gear Solid which are less "game" and more experience. Hideo Kojima is considered one of the greatest game directors of all time because of the story and experience he works so fanatically to produce for each game.
Let's not go down that "is it art/sport/etc" rabbit hole, and keep the topic on the more tangible aspects of video games. If you want to discuss that more, put together a topic in the Suggestion forum.
Just a note on Battlefield: Bad Company - The multiplayer part of the game is awesome. The Single player is good, a bunch of funny shit in it, but the game really stands out online. Bad Company 2 is out now so its probably safe to assume most of the online play has moved to the new game. On that note, you can skip the first game if the single player part is not really important
Video Game Thread As my current avatar suggests, I'm a Nintendo fan. I own an N64, a Wii and a DSi. Can't wait to play Super Mario Galaxy 2 a month from today.
Re: Video Game Thread We're not on the network (physically can't right now but have no real desire to be anyway) but thanks just the same! If you pre-order it from Amazon you get a $20.00 game credit. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Galaxy-2-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B002BSA388/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1272026140&sr=8-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Galax ... 140&sr=8-1</a> I really dig Amazon's game credit thing. Just before Christmas, if you bought at least 2 games totaling $80.00 or more, you got a $40.00 game credit. Because of that, I ended up getting SMB Wii for 6 bucks and some change and still got Super Saver shipping on top of that! The only catch was that the games had to be from a list of specific games but the list was varied and vast, covering all the major consoles and you could mix and match. Plus, because I pre-ordered SMB (even though I used my $40.00 credit), I got another credit for that (I think that one was only $10 but still)!
I picked up God of War 3 and my god, it's kicking my ass HARD. This is the first GOW game i've played, so i'm not used to the combos or the controls at all, and i'm playing on titan mode (I want to get the titan trophy without having to play it on easy, then again on titan) It took me a while and many deaths (i'd guess around 30ish) to finally get the hang of it and get past what i'm assuming is Poseidon (water horse). So far, pretty fun / rage inducing game. Any tips on how to not die as much? Any combos work the best? Right now I use L1 and O for some type of fury combo.
Re: Video Game Thread I'm Canadian. I'm assuming that the Amazon.com bonus is of no use to me. I'm just going to pre-order my copy from Best Buy. They're offering a $5 gift card. It's pathetic, but it's something. They're offering the same bonus for Other M.
Re: Video Game Thread I'll wait until I get my credit from Amazon to pre-order Other M. By then, there'll probably be a pre-order credit you can get from that one too!
I see Steam is selling L4D2 w/ the DLC for $20 until Monday, and I'm contemplating picking it up. I played the first one a little, but only like one or two online games. Is L4D2 worth the $20?
Yes. The coop mode upped the difficulty big time. Tons of fun with the new weapons, especially the melee stuff.
Roll. Roll like you've never rolled before. Also, don't try and string giant combos together and don't hesitate to stop mid-combo to roll/block. And use enemy appropriate attacks, don't bother using your heaviest shit against the smaller and faster enemies.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.geekologie.com/2010/04/pfft_piece_of_cake_the_hardcor.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.geekologie.com/2010/04/pfft_ ... ardcor.php</a> How hard core of a gamer are you? Click on the link on that page to see the full-size image a guy over at Deviantart put together. Pretty amazing.
I know I've already asked for a favor this week and I thank you for all your help (he ended up picking out Rainbow Six: Vegas after talking more at length with the shop guy, which isn't exactly a war game from what I understand but whatevs) but now I have another conundrum: I have the choice of either getting a 360 (probably an Elite with ODST/Forza 3) or a laptop/netbook. I've been dying to play the L4Ds since the first one came out (I wouldn't mind trying Dead Rising either, especially since the second one is coming out in Aug) and my son wants to start up the Halo series (I wouldn't mind trying them myself). The laptop would be a good idea because someone is always getting kicked off the PC and we need one more device to keep us occupied on car trips (we take a lot of them). And don't let me bullshit you - I also want to be able to watch internet porn from the comfort of my bedroom instead of in the family room surrounded by Legos. Which would you get? Is there any advice you have for someone who's a little behind the times as far as electronics goes? I realize I'm asking a lot but I loathe making decisions like this because I am so wishy-washy (I see two sides to every argument). Thanks again, guys. (sorry for all the parentheses)
If you decide to go with 360, Dell currently has it for $239 ($232 w/ Dell preferred card). You'll get charged tax, but shipping is free. I actually just ordered it and for Wisconsin I got it shipped for $242. (<a class="postlink" href="http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1990670" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1990670</a>)
If I remember, you have a Wii (of course) and a PS3, right? Personally, we used to have an 360, we ended up selling after i got a ps3 because we turned it on once in a year to play Fable 3 (complete disappointment btw). I personally think that you are not going to gain as much with a 360 than you would with a laptop (I really did not like Halo 2 or 3, the Halo 1 was decent). Not to mention, all the media functions that the Xbox brags about, the PS3 does better, plus free online if it gets to that point. My only draw to the xbox would be the occasional draw of big name games, but even that is small.
The guy at the game store was trying to feed me some shit about certain retailers having cheaper-made consoles - Walmart has the cheapest, Kmart is less cheap, Target even less so and Best Buy has the best. That sounds odd to me. Any truth to that statement? The game store (again, a local, better version of Gamestop) didn't have any new Elites for sale, so that's why he was trying to steer me to another store. He was unofficially trying to sell me a 360 with the huge ass hard drive. He said that you can save whole games on them and, aside from booting up the system, the system will run the games from what's saved to the hard drive, saving the disc-reading laser. How accurate is that? Is that what causes the RROD and have they fixed that problem, as the guy stated? Isn't there like a 2 year warranty for that or something? Should I purchase one of those dreaded extended warranties? One of those actually saved my ass when the disc drive went out on my PS3 a year ago. I'm not saying that's the way I'm going to go but a second opinion on the questions above would be especially helpful. Do you have kids? If so, did they not play the 360 much either? I'll have to look up Fable. I've heard of them but have no idea what kind of games those are. Pretty much the only things I won't play are sports games (no interest - though I love sports IRL) and RPGs because there's too much thinking involved - I want mindless killing and ass-kicking, which is a bummer because the storyline of Fallout intrigues me (read: I'm too stupid to play RPGs).