I, like Garfield, hate Mondays
I was supremely grumpy today - probably due to the poor sleep I managed to get over the weekend. Certain members of my family think it's greatly amusing to go upstairs and jump on the floor above my room, as punishment for my not going to sleep at a reasonable hour. Har har.
Anyhow, it also didn't help that I found a couple of game-related things on the internet today, both which irked me greatly.
First-off, is some new info about Alpha Protocol - a spy-based RPG in the vein of Bond or Bourne - which is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment. This is the studio behind KotOR II, and NWN2 + MotB. They don't really have a reputation for producing anything but over-ambitious, flawed games, which means that a new release is a cause of excitement, as they might just produce a game which doesn't trip over itself. Some of this faith is founded in the basis that they have Chris Avellone on staff - a man who has a fine reputation in the gaming industry, considering he penned the entire script for the impressive Planescape: Torment.
Unfortunately, the info which cropped up in an interview with the senior producer on Alpha Protocol, Ryan Rucinski, doesn't sit very well with me at all. It paints an incredibly chauvinistic view of the game - the main part that I find despicable being that there's an achievement for "getting", as he puts it, all the women in the game.
There's an articulate and intelligent synopsis on the issue with this over here. Ergh.
A smaller issue I have with the interview, is the comment Ryan Rucinski made about Chris Avellone:
"Chris Avellone doesn't do 'goo goo' stuff," Rucinski said, referring to the chief creative officer at the development studio. "Sometimes he'd be like, 'No guy would say that!'" That included a scene of Thornton crying. Rucinski said that people around the office were like, "That sucks, he's crying, I don't like this guy anymore."
The more I read over that, the more it sounds like a comment taken out-of-context, but even still, it doesn't really give me any hope for the game in terms of engaging content, and it mires my perception of Chris Avellone a bit. Doesn't sound at all like the same fellow who wrote Planescape: Torment, and compiled the Fallout Bible. Disappointed.
The other item of note was that I finally got around to watching the gamescom footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Looks kinda "meh". I'm still not sold on the visual style - their "stylised realism" - as all the characters look just a little too much like they're made of plastic. That, and the weirdly disproportionate figures look a little unnatural. I know that it's essentially trying to achieve visual simplicity of the likes of Team Fortress 2, by focusing on bright, bold textures, rather than detailed models, because it's a much more scaleable system, and is able to run on older hardware without losing too much visual quality.
But, they just haven't quite captured it. See:
Yes, I took that specific picture for a reason. Mostly also to complain about the pseudo-barbie-doll thing they have going on for what seems like the default female model. Sigh.
Also, what on earth is the point of those shoulder pads? Silly uniform designers.
Anyhoo, those are my quibbles for the day. I've got a TF2 scrim to play in, and a critique to format up, and then I should probably get some sleep. I have a secret plan - I'll pretend to ignore it, and then I will pounce on it, and pin it down before it realises what's going on. Mwahahahahah!
Oh, and as a side-note, if anyone wants to check out what I've been getting up to on weekends: see me get shot in the face!
Anyhow, it also didn't help that I found a couple of game-related things on the internet today, both which irked me greatly.
First-off, is some new info about Alpha Protocol - a spy-based RPG in the vein of Bond or Bourne - which is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment. This is the studio behind KotOR II, and NWN2 + MotB. They don't really have a reputation for producing anything but over-ambitious, flawed games, which means that a new release is a cause of excitement, as they might just produce a game which doesn't trip over itself. Some of this faith is founded in the basis that they have Chris Avellone on staff - a man who has a fine reputation in the gaming industry, considering he penned the entire script for the impressive Planescape: Torment.
Unfortunately, the info which cropped up in an interview with the senior producer on Alpha Protocol, Ryan Rucinski, doesn't sit very well with me at all. It paints an incredibly chauvinistic view of the game - the main part that I find despicable being that there's an achievement for "getting", as he puts it, all the women in the game.
There's an articulate and intelligent synopsis on the issue with this over here. Ergh.
A smaller issue I have with the interview, is the comment Ryan Rucinski made about Chris Avellone:
"Chris Avellone doesn't do 'goo goo' stuff," Rucinski said, referring to the chief creative officer at the development studio. "Sometimes he'd be like, 'No guy would say that!'" That included a scene of Thornton crying. Rucinski said that people around the office were like, "That sucks, he's crying, I don't like this guy anymore."
The more I read over that, the more it sounds like a comment taken out-of-context, but even still, it doesn't really give me any hope for the game in terms of engaging content, and it mires my perception of Chris Avellone a bit. Doesn't sound at all like the same fellow who wrote Planescape: Torment, and compiled the Fallout Bible. Disappointed.
The other item of note was that I finally got around to watching the gamescom footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Looks kinda "meh". I'm still not sold on the visual style - their "stylised realism" - as all the characters look just a little too much like they're made of plastic. That, and the weirdly disproportionate figures look a little unnatural. I know that it's essentially trying to achieve visual simplicity of the likes of Team Fortress 2, by focusing on bright, bold textures, rather than detailed models, because it's a much more scaleable system, and is able to run on older hardware without losing too much visual quality.
But, they just haven't quite captured it. See:
Yes, I took that specific picture for a reason. Mostly also to complain about the pseudo-barbie-doll thing they have going on for what seems like the default female model. Sigh.
Also, what on earth is the point of those shoulder pads? Silly uniform designers.
Anyhoo, those are my quibbles for the day. I've got a TF2 scrim to play in, and a critique to format up, and then I should probably get some sleep. I have a secret plan - I'll pretend to ignore it, and then I will pounce on it, and pin it down before it realises what's going on. Mwahahahahah!
Oh, and as a side-note, if anyone wants to check out what I've been getting up to on weekends: see me get shot in the face!