Richard's Online Journal
Formspring.more
Like many of the cool people, I’ve been playing around with Formspring over the last few months, and while new questions have more or less dried up now, there’s over 215 of them on there to check out. So, click if you want to find out about disguises, puns, undeserved flattery, The Lucasarts Secret Sign, Irate Gamer vs. AGVN, Tales of Monkey Island, great stories in games, my gaming Achilles heel, most important questions, 3D entertainment, gaming TV, everything being shit, romance tips, finding work, exam technique, special books, sexy game characters, game developers, procrastination, sandwiches, guilty pleasures, David Mitchell, favourite magazines, Gaming’s Timon of Athens, anonymous drinking dates, pickup lines, best worst game, timeless classics, free viagra, New Games Journalism, adventure game puzzles, unusual battle strategies and more.
Alternatively, just read the complete set right here. It’s still open for questions, although I have a feeling that this particular craze is dying down now, at least on this side of the screen. Unless you’re John Walker of course. Over 1500 answered. Wow…
Plug time. I’m doing a new regular column for the PC Gamer website. It’s called Crap Shoot, as in ‘random’ rather than ‘utter’. In short, it’ll be looking at some of the more interesting, obscure and just plain weird games from PC gaming history. The first’s on an interesting shooter I’ve mentioned before, Traffic Department 2192, and more specifically, its leading lady. Go read, because if people don’t, well, they won’t ask me for more.
28/08/10 - Games, Quickies, Weblinks - 7 comments
Mafia 2 Walkthrough
Play through the tutorial, skipping all cut-scenes. Blah blah. As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster, offer you can’t refuse, say hello to my little friend, blah blah blah whatever.
You’ll soon meet your friend Joe. Joe will be your entry point into the Empire Bay Mafia, offering power and riches you never even dreamed of.
Ditch his chatty arse at the earliest opportunity.
Head straight for the nearest clothing store and use whatever money you have to buy the Raincoat. Forget food. Food is not important.
Commence strutting.
How 3D Graphics Became Real
From vector graphics to near photorealism, PC Plus charts the rise of the third dimension in the world of gaming.
On August 8th, 2010, and also some point in the future I can’t be bothered to look up, a united Terran fleet declared victory over the Queen of Blades and the dark planet Char. The road was long, full of bad tactical decisions, mission replays, and storytelling so bland that it could dilute water, but through pluck, courage, and a shameless over-use of Marines, Marauders and Medics resulting in friendly losses even passing Zerg roaches found borderline appalling, the universe was saved. Huzzah!
In short, I, repeat, I actually won an RTS campaign. This never happens. Ever. I never beat mission 3 of Dune 2. I usually get stuck about five missions into Command and Conquer. But for today, I stand victorious as the greatest military commander this side of the Hard difficulty mode. And now I shall never, ever play Starcraft II again in an attempt to prolong this feeling of warm, if clearly undeserved competence. En taro me.
08/08/10 - Games, Quickies - 15 comments
The Comedy of Monkey Island
Still surprised we’ve never seen Stan’s Previously Owned Tattoos.
Comedy is hard, and writing a genuinely funny game is harder still. We’ve all seen the failures. A stack of one-liners loaded into a Gatling gun in the hopes that the laughs will outweigh the splats. Genre parodies that set out to mock, but really just end up committing the same old sins, now with a giant neon sign over their head to advertise it. Light sarcasm mistaken for actual wit. Strangest of all, games like The Bard’s Tale, which seem to think that all they have to do is claim they’re a comedy – and never mind the great swathes of tedium where there aren’t even jokes, never mind laughs.
And then there are games like Monkey Island 2. Monkey Island 2 is genuinely funny – if, admittedly, not typically laugh-out-loud hilarious to the point of milk spraying out of your nose – not just because of the individual lines, but because it’s one of the few comedy games that actually understands comedy theory. Most struggle with even the basics, not least of them being what a joke actually is. The words in the script are only part of the story, and without the rest of the game pulling its weight, there’s only so much they can hope to do. It doesn’t help that many companies currently consider writing to be a layer that just has to be dropped onto the game, not the design role it clearly has to be, and that a lot of writing in modern games is actually done by uncredited freelancers with even less clout. Done like that, a few grins are the best many of them can hope for.
Monkey Island 2 obviously had an advantage there. The writers were also the designers, the implementers and the project leads, giving them huge scope to not only tell jokes, but to set them up. There are lots of one-liners in the game (“You know, I heard some guys talking about Marley’s bust…”), along with the standard funny dialogue options (“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?”) and fantastic visual gags like Governor Phatt’s food tubes, but what really stands out are how well it handles its set-ups and contrasts.
WARNING: Nothing kills comedy faster than talking about it. If you haven’t played Monkey Island 2, you’ll have to trust me that this stuff is funny in context. You’ll also have to factor in my own fondness for the game based on some 20 years worth of good memories. The Special Editions can’t possibly recreate that connection. For more ridiculous over-analysis, don’t forget to check out Love and Leisure Suit Larry over in Articles. All disclaimered out? Then lets jump into the first act.
Enter The Superduperphone
Congratulations on purchasing your new ShinyShine Superduperphone, and confirming your place in modern society. You are Sexy.