That sounds like it'll be quite a hoss, that should be able to handle all the games from the past gen at pretty high settings right? I bet that'll be a real nice gaming laptop.
I liked the Sprawl as a setting. The Ishimura was good for being a cold mining vessel, but the Sprawl is a residential colony with humans and children. They really sold me the fact that humans lived there through the art, lighting, and vingettes.
What did you think of the section where you go through the elementary school? I thought that was the most emotionally affecting and disturbing area for me because I knew that those monsters use to be somebodies babies and adolescent children and not just faceless monsters. A number of games have used baby monsters as an enemy type before, like Doom 3, and that kind of enemy type has never been affecting or convincing until I played Dead Space 2. I felt horrible during that whole section, I was uncomfortable and I think that speaks well to the efforts the game went to making you feel a sense of place and humanity.
Are you planning to grab a new laptop anytime soon? What kind are you thinking about getting?
I'm not into comic books at all but you guys managed to make this episode entertaining and fun nonetheless, and it's always nice when Master Gholson comes by because I like hearing him talk in-depth about comics even though I don't understand or have any of the context most of the time. I often find it can be really engaging and fun to listen to people who are super into a particular thing and educated on a subject matter that I'm unfamiliar with. You can tell they're passionate about it and you can learn a little bit as you listen.
I've rarely ever played super-hero video games. I've never finished an Arkham game but this episode's topic is quite relevant because I just bought the GOTY edition of Arkham Asylum recently. Back when Asylum came out my friend bought it and took it over to my house. I played the first 3 hours of the game and loved what I played, but when he had to take the game back I never finished it, and I never got around to buying it for myself till now. I can finally finish it!
I'm thinking I might pick up LEGO LOTR for my 360 sometime, especially since I can grab it new for under $20 anymore. I've never played a LEGO game since lego star wars on DS years ago.
I got into the 7th generation during holiday 2006 when Gears just came out, and that was the first game I ever played on the system. I was in highschool at the time and was working graveyard shifts during the weekends as a dishwasher at IHOP. I saved every dollar I worked or in order to get the $400 Xbox 360 Pro package with the 20G HDD and then I bought Gears of War and an extra warranty of some kind.
It couldn't have been a more perfect new console experience, the system and games made the best impressions I could ask for. Gears was really stunning visually and fun mechanically. Things only got better when I got my hands on Oblivion. Since I bought my 360 during holiday 2006, the best year of gaming was just right around the corner. 2007 came along with Valve's Orange Box, Halo 3 (which still holds as my favorite of that franchise), Mass Effect, Bioshock, and Assassin's Creed making me more than happy I had the new console. It was the first console that I had paid for on my own so I was able to have that sense of pride and develop a new appreciation for it that I didn't have with previous gens.
When Guns of the Patriots came out for PS3 I wanted to get one real bad but I could never save up that much money. Whenever I had disposable income I always used it to invest more into the 360 library instead of setting it aside for the larger purchase. Now that the generation is passing I'm finally planning to save the money for a PS3 and get all the generation's worth of games I always wanted to play on the system. I learned a lot during this gen and patience is one of the most important things. When the 360 was coming out I was really impatient and couldn't afford to miss the next Halo. I was practically frothing when I had saved up my work money and went to Gamestop to grab that first 360. Now that I'm planning to get the PS4 I'm willing to be way more patient and wait a year or so like Angelo is doing. I eventually want an Xbox One as well so I can play the next two Halo games that are planned for it, but it just goes to show you that I changed a lot during the 7th gen. In 2006 when I bought the 360 the one game I was anticipating most was the eventuality of Halo 3 we all knew would be coming at some point, and now as the 8th gen starts I'm willing to not even pick up the Microsoft console for the first few years it's out. I'm a huge Halo fanboy from way back to the beginning in 2002, and now I'm willing to wait years to play the next one.
The games that benefited me the most intellectually and creatively, and were my favorites of the whole cycle, were Minecraft, Dark Souls, Portal, HL2: Episodes 1 & 2, Bioshock 1, and Mass Effect 1. This was the first generation of my life where I felt like game designers and the games themselves reached out to me and said, "You can come do this too, you should come learn to make games." The companies that accomplished that the most were Valve and Bungie by having insightful and deep developer commentaries in both The Orange Box and with the Halo 3 limited edition. I watched the long Bungie documentary over and over dozens of times, and played through Valve's games with dev commentary on studying their levels and vernacular. I realized this gen that designing games is a tangible process with skills you can develop and ideas you can study.
When I was a younger kid on the N64 I literally thought that video games were just magic, they ended up on shelves to buy, and it wasn't interesting to investigate beyond that. On a related note that's quite a big deal but pretty silly, as a child I didn't even know computers and games ran on programming, but I had heard that term before without knowledge of what it was. I finally had a mental breakthrough when I watched The Matrix of all things. Not only was I interested in that movie because of the cool visuals and story, but the big concepts of the movie opened my brain to thinking in a new way.
Miyamoto was my idol at the time. I thought to myself, "Is that what programming is, it's all the numbers and codes? I bet THAT'S what Miyamoto is doing, just on a much smaller scale and without the intentions to turn humans into batteries. He uses a computer, does code, and his dreams and imagination come to life. The walls and people in Ocarina are actually numbers like how Neo sees the Matrix around him."
Watching that movie made a huge difference in letting me realize that video games were something people made, you used programming, and made your thoughts into a tangible thing. Even all these years later it still stirs my heart to think of it that way, I still love The Matrix for stretching my brain and love Miyamoto's games for what they gave to me. Obviously there's a business side to games and Nintendo was making money, but for me as a child my parents bought my games so all I ever focused on was connecting to the creative side of the experiences. In my mind all Miyamoto ever asked from me was to give him some of my time, and in return he'd give me his imagination, which can still get me choked up. Those kinds of Bridge to Terebithia escapist and idealist thoughts have stayed with me ever since and helped make me as passionate about designing experiences as I am now. Even though they've been tempered a bit by reality and knowledge as I learn about the business side of the industry and the exposes when things go bad or are managed terribly.
This 7th generation expanded on all those old thoughts I had as a kid. More than any others, the games Minecraft, Dark Souls, Portal, Halo 3, and the Half Life 2 expansions changed how I think about games, showed me things I'd never seen, made me feel things I never had in games, and pulled me towards the industry.
This was the generation where game design became more accessible than ever before by leaps and bounds. There's actual schools now, professors, things to discuss and learn, free high quality tools. Game design is bigger than ever and pulling in more people than before, and with the lessons and mistakes of ole being passed onto new generations it reasons that design will get better, and creativity will be spurred on more and more. I feel like I'm on a different planet from all the people spelling doom for gaming and only finding time to complain and get tunnel vision. Design and games have never been more exciting and wide open than they are now.
I'm definitely going to grab this. I never bought Enemy Unknown even though I told you I would lol. It's nice that this version has come along as a type of Complete/GOTY type of edition like what Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen did by having the full game plus the expansion content all in one. I'm definitely going to grab Enemy Within now that it's coming and I can get the original game and expansion all for a lower price. Oh yeah, I bought Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen recently Rodney. I'm going to have to write a new blog sometime this week because I've been buying some new games this past couple months and haven't kept you guys updated.
Really good article. I thought it was fascinating watching the very first N64 tv commercial, there's some weird foreshadowing to what's happening in gaming now, especially with Kinect. When you watch how Nintendo did the effects in that commercial and that kid is actually in the game and jumping around with Mario it looks just like what you see in Kinect games all these years later. That old Nintendo commercial has literally come to life through motion gaming we see in Kinect, Wii, Move, etc.
Glad you're doing okay, Tami. I haven't updated in a long time and a lot of great reading and some game buying has happened, I might have to do that today.
Finding trails with Bandit sounds like it was a lot of fun. I also like the sound of Michael's family's cabin. Playing table-top games, exploring an island, and getting away from the outside world sounds really nice.
I've never played either of the new Batman games all the way through. In 2009 my friend had the game and brought it over, and I played the first 3 or 4 hours of it Arham Asylum and loved it, but it was just bad timing and never bought it since I had lots of other games to get at the time. I just now bought Asylum and it's on its way through the mail right now. I'm really looking forward to finishing it after all these years, then I'm sure I'll go buy Arkham City after that. Everything I've seen from Origins looks awesome, I saw a long gameplay demo with Adam Sessler on Rev3Games and the gameplay and level design looked really fun.
