PixlBit

"communication would be chaos" Ha! Exactly. It is when you look at the history of language. I took in a lecture on linguistics once and it made me realize the essential chaos of language and how it evolves. How we got this far indeed. How did we with so much change in language, sometimes for very trivial reasons, over time. I mean, I hear slang today and realize that I'm witnessing the slow change of language. This slang will alter the language we have, or create a new language eventually. It makes philosophising really difficult if we can't agree on the meaning of words.

You could rigidly define RPGs based on their origin, but everthing evolves, and new elements enter into the definition over time. Sometimes the whole definition changes from the original one after years of iteration. It's just the nature of things.

I often try and role-play a game, any game, just for fun. Does that mean I'm making it a RPG? I guess so if you stick to the exact words I just used.

I guess the issue today is that games can do so many things because of the power of better technology, that it makes genre distinctions harder to pin down. For me I could care less about how you define a game. I try all different stuff and don't stick to one type of experience anyway. It makes me think of music and how publishers try to name a style so they can sell it better. Or historians putting labels on time periods so they can write an authoritative sounding book. In some ways it's helpful, in others it's misleading.

Yea, Tempest was really cool with the spinner controller on the arcade machine. In this collection you have to drag your finger left and right on the touch screen below the action on the top screen, but it doesn't seem to make your shooter icon go all the way around the well. That game needs good controls to play right.

I get it that the Bioshock series is often about juxtaposing beauty and horror, but I couldn't help making jokes about switching from peaceful to violent so quickly.

I kept hearing that Scott Joplin song Solace a lot too. I think it plays whenever you have to respawn or move to a new level or something. I found it a strangely peaceful break from the extreme violence of the gameplay. Joplin is so good. Why does blowing heads off have to follow after such music. It was jarring, and I wasn't even playing the game, just glancing over from time to time. 

That Need for Speed screen shot for iOS looks fantastic. Such good graphics for phone and tablet games now. 

Yea! The Topsy Turvy thing! It turns the whole world upside down and then back again and you watch the enemies fall from the sky. Funny. 

I think that's the part where you're in a turet and have to shoot at hoards of attackers. Just use the morter shell a lot. I'm also playing on easy. I figure, that way I can beat the game, in all likelihood, and then decide if it was good enough to replay on a harder difficulty. I used to stick to the default settings, but I have no shame now. 

My friend Mark played some Dirt 3 and liked it to a point. It's apparently a bit on the sim side of racing, which is challenging. I remember playing the first Dirt demo and being wowed by the authentic engine sounds. Boy, it sounded good. Then I rolled over on every turn. 

Oh that cottage on an island sounds dreamy. I haven't been camping in so long and I think about it all the time. I was actually thinking today how I could live out of a tent or something similar, 'cause I would. If I had a house and some land, I'd probably set up a tent in the back yard and sleep there. That's how I roll, my bedroll that is. 

Anyway, it also sounds like a great walking simulator. I'd like to take video footage of that location and render it in an engine for a game. 

Oh Broken Age. I've been wanting to play that for a long time now.