Diogo Ribeiro

Europe has success?

Smart's gotten a lot of heat in the past for promising things in his games then severely coming up short. Though unlike gaming media darlings who make promises about their games and get away with coming up short, he got a lot of (justified) flak. Truth be told, I did hear he continuously supports his games and in time, released many patches and add-ons that eventually presented a much better gameplay (and much closer to his vision).

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but I recently heard about Louis Scutenaire, who reportedly was a Belgian writer and revolutionary. Unfortunately when I tried finding some information about him, I either come up with French web pages. These would be helpful if I understood the language. Does anyone know anything about the author, read anything about him or can point me in the right direction concerning places that may have information about him? Thanks in advance.

The threat of nuclear was was Ozymandias' reason for doing it but that wasn't my point. The point is that in the comics, Oh well. In any case it seems to be another comic to movie adaptation set to blow us away. And not in a good way. Also fluid, fast camera movement is one thing. And it's good when done right. But someone should really tell the people behind Bourne Supremacy that leaving the camera work to people who suffer from extreme shakes isn't trendy anymore, if ever.

If the director of Bourne Supremacy is involved, that's already one reason for me to avoid the movie. Bland story, passable acting, offbeat action sequences. I'm sure it rocked for casual movie goers and sofa experts who search IMDB for other's opinions, though. Apparently not every reviewer enjoyed Watchmen's script, considering I've read a couple of reviews which didn't took lightly to some of the changes (this being one of them). Adrian Veidt's plan is apparently replaced by Reportedly, Osterman only appears at the end which is a curious decision considering Dr. Manhattan given he is a crucial, recurring character in the story who in one way or the other influences all of the character's lifes. He even influences the world, for obvious reasons. Besides, others' opinion usually means zilch to me. They're an indication of a possibility, not a certainty. I usually don't care if a group of people finds a movie script (which apparently only they have access to) great. I'll make up my mind on it if I manage to procure it and read it, or when I see it applied in a would be future movie release; until then, thumbs up for it are worthless to me. Main problem with Watchmen is the same as it was with LXG. The original format is way different from movies. Watchmen is slow, methodical, overly narrated, with character nuances and intrincancies that would take too long to be exposed on film. I can't even begin to imagine how V for Vendetta is going to be transposed into movie considering it's even lenghtlier in narrative than Watchmen, somewhere between three to four times wordier. Mind you this isn't coming from someone expecting a second coming. Book, videogame and comic to movie adaptations usually suffer between the differences in mediums. Differences are expected. There's the ocasional example of something that is done right, or done right enough, to make for a satisfactory (if not good) transition. Batman Begins and Sin City come to mind, but while those were good enough, they are exceptions to the rule, and are based on story pieces which are relatively short, fast-paced and quick to get into. Watchmen just isn't any of that. I entirely empathize with why Moore takes a step back from movie adaptations of his works. None have succeeded in coming close to presenting something close to the original. Can't say if this is due to Hollywood's insistence in creating some sort of guidelines which screw the pooch or if it's a problem with directors who think they have what it takes to convert mamoth graphic novels into two hour FX-ladden action flicks, but it ain't working with Moore's works. I don't expect thse transitions to be entirely faithful, though I'd expect someone gained some sense and stopped trying making adaptations in the first place. John Cusack is too athletic to play Dan Dreiberg, though, and he doesn't strike me as a good choice. Cusack can play many roles, but I don't think Nite Owl would be one of them. David Caruso should be Rorscharch, though. And for some odd reason, when I think Dan Dreiberg I imagine a fatty Jeff Goldblum.

I'm still gone. I just stumbled upon an internet cafe of sorts and managed to come by yesterday and today to post here and some other places. I'll disappear again in two or three minutes. Cheers.

No I'm not.

Pretty much none of those is a requirement for the CRPG genre, much less traditional elements. If you go with tradition you'll find nearly the opposite of what you pine for in some of the first CRPGs out there. Back then turnbased shared the same space as realtime and phasebased; isometric, firstperson and 'bird's eye view' were all contemporary; and a "good story" often translated into subtle variations of Doom's "kill thing, find key, kill big thingie, you win". Also, much as I like turnbased it isn't required for a CRPG. You only need a combat system that, like turnbased, allows a distinct enough separation between character and gamer; otherwise we enter the usual situation of not playing a character but instead playing myself (ye olde character skill vs. player reflex). Turnbased, phasebased and some implementations of realtime manage that.

It truly is a magnificent game. An epic masterpiece set to brainstun, it has taken the RPG genre into new heights. It's even more revolutionary than Fable, which was already a very innovative titles, with such amazing new features as doors that only open for certain kind of characters! Whoa!!

Considering how bad League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was, and how badly Watchmen was turning out to be, I can't say I'm all that disappointed that it was canned. Better no Watchmen movie than a bad Watchmen movie. I'm still wondering how they're going to handle V for Vendetta. I expect some suckiness underway. Cheers.

Going away on work, will be back sometime between the end of September and the beginning of October. See ya. Or not. Not that you'd care. Or that I'd care you care. Er... Does anyone care? No, and neither should you. Bye bye oh how I shall miss you all? Let me count the ways blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda and speaking of which links to visit: Bobby Neel Adams Gaping Void Joystiq.com Troikapedia The Escapist This Haunted Land - The Ghosts of Great Britain Morning Glory Comics The Dachau Scrapbook Home of the Underdogs Exitiumpedia American McGee's Personal Weblog Use Firefox and don't forget to tell everyone that Internet Explorer blows chunks. Also, grenades aren't melee weapons, Deus Ex isn't an RPG, Silver Style sucks, and Star Wars isn't science-fiction. So long and thanks for all the bukkake.

Considering it fails to adhere to some of the basic notions of what science fiction entails, I'd hazard a guess that the ones living in Lala Land are those that are adamant in having Star Wars be categorized as such.

Apparently, not so pointless considering you've resorted to using them. Sci-fi tends to deal with both imagined science and technology based on current one as well as its impact on future societies, actually; it doesn't deal exclusively with the former. Many sci-fi works effectively discuss the advances and their impacts on future societies. Cyberpunk expanded on the ideas of cyberculture and cyberspace that existed during the time of its inception (the speed of technological progress, man vs. machine, man and machine, information, among other topics) and the (then) current idea of technology and what was possible. Today cyberpunk finds itself even more validated considering many of the imagined advances found in several works are currently being made in our present time.

Yet, despite sub-genres being a part of larger all-encompassing caregories, they are nonetheless different things. Actually, it's like saying Diablo has RPG elements or is an RPG hybrid, but is not a hardcore RPG. Which is an entirely accurate way of classifying the game based on its differences and similarities to others of its genre, along with other genres as well. I'm not that knowledgeable of Star Trek, but if it does sport future applications of science based on current models, the quality of it is not at stake; only its existence as defining of the genre.

Science fiction primarily deals with the effects of actual science or technology applied in imaginary futures. Not just advanced technology for the its own sake, but future technology based on current premises. There aren't that many elements of Star Wars which would account as being extrapolations of current technology or science; and that it uses a few does not necessarily make the movies sci-fi. For a related example, see your own stance on RPGs and their hybrids: the use of some elements do not account for the same as using all of them. As a genre classification, Star Wars strikes me as being closer to space opera or pulp. Some call it science fantasy even, which would seem apropos as for the most part it seems to create its own universe and rules of science then 'fantasize' about them, rather than pick up on current principles and expand them.

It's actually not.

It doesn't really take much to beat the Eurovision Song Contest.

Overrated: attributing a meaning to human existence. Underrated: shrimp.

Probably old news but then again I always was a slow dimwit. The site for the movie based on Doom, id Software's blah shooter is up and running. In it you can find sections with story, trailers, photos, and downloads. There are very few photos at this point (the Rock is almost in all of them, though), and the site feels more like a placeholder. Still worth a quick look for those that might be interested in the movie, which is slated for an October 21 release in theaters.

Yes but that is usually the case with tile-based. Even Neverwinter Nights, although 3D, lacked a gripping art direction for its tilesets; they were all rather bland and could not hold up to many other CRPGs which used fully rendered 3D backgrounds. There's a compromise between graphical quality and interactivity. While there was much more than could have been done in Arcanum, no doubt, the use of a tile-based system allowed for several interesting things: the destruction of environments and items (doors, windows), manipulation of light sources, seamless navigation trough large maps (the absence of a need to load minute areas because they are all separate, as in Fallout), and individual properties for each tile (sound and resistance). Most, if not all of which weren't exactly possible in Torment, and all other Infinity Engine games for that matter.

I'm not entirely sure of how Sierra handled Arcanum. I heard they weren't very good at it and often damaged it more than helped it, but then again I also listen to voices out of nowhere saying all kinds of things. Arthur Conan Doyle, eat your heart out. As for balance issues, I reckon they were pretty noticeable for those that played the game, reviewers included. All it takes is a couple of posts on a forum or a line in a review to make a good or bad impression. I thought it was a fun twist on the Chosen One principle considering the whole Panarii religion identity crisis and the dubious role of the zepellin survivor.

It wasn't a HOT AKSHUN TITLE! Unfortunately I suppose the graphics were part of the reasons. While they were no doubt possessing of a good art direction the animations were jerky and special effects were for the most part minimalist. I suspect tile-based graphics also aren't as appealing as fully pre-rendered backgrounds as those used in the Infinity Engine games. I think initial reviews and word of mouth are the main things by which casual gamers go by, and so it's not hard to imagine them flocking over to other games after hearing about the graphics, the bugs on release (inclusing the always fatal savegame corruption) and the poor balance.

That's why it's called RPGDot, not RPGCodex.

True, Ender; and that was no doubt an interesting aspect of it. I suspect that, had the toolset and the online play been thoroughly polished and made just slightly more accessible they could have bolstered Arcanum's appeal.

Mr. Bungle > all.