Evening Reading: Ordinarily Indie
by Garnett Lee, Dec 15, 2009 5:39pm PSTI've been playing indie games for judging in the Independent Games Festival over the past couple weeks. Last night I fired up one called Firestorm. At first I felt like its classic top to bottom scrolling shootem' up design made it somehow less indie compared to some of the more esoteric designs I'd seen. That changed pretty quickly as I played the submitted level.
It sounds a little cheesy but there's a sense of spirit that comes across when I play an indie game that clicks. Sometimes it's passion in the creation; sometimes it's an emotional link; sometimes it's a riff on some stylistic theme; but there's always an underlying connection that gets me on another level. While I love playing the abstract creations it's cool to see Firestorm in the competition doing its thing. It makes a good reminder of all the different ways indie games convey their creative energy.
Here are the stories we put our creative energy into today:
- Bethesda Grabs Publishing Rights for Rage
- TF2 'War' Update Gives Demoman Sword and Board
- New Mass Effect 2 Trailer Teases New Mass Effect 2 Trailer
- Details on the Little Big Planet DLC Adding Water and 'Pirates of the Carribean'
- Red Dead Redemption Video Shows Game in Action
- Games on Demand for Windows Live Launches
Boeing finally got the 787 'Dreamliner' in the air on its maiden test flight
Another Harry Potter spoof but this Dangerous Wands preview is pretty funny.
Radiohead's 'Kid A' tops Rolling Stone's Top 100 Albums of the Decade list
Israeli security is serious when they chose to shoot up your laptop when you arrive in the country
FileShack: Unity of Command, Skyjacker
Daily Filter: Planetside 2, Deadlight
Weekend PC digital deals: strategy-o-rama
38 Studios, Harry Potter Kinect - Shacknews Daily: May 25, 2012
Minecraft for Xbox 360 dev working on 'Adventure' update
Demon's Souls servers extended again
Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection coming in June
Sony patent would interrupt gameplay to display ad
Weekend Confirmed 114 - Diablo 3, Max Payne 3, Lost Planet 3
New Zone of the Enders project underway
Thanks to paroxym for a great haul.
Flickr set is here for those who want to skip the wall of text
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21912700@N07/sets/72157623009395778/
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Student brings a typewriter to a lecture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nwe7cW_og
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Greetings Tim,
Account name: xxxxxxxxx
Realm: Mal'Ganis, Mal'Ganis, Mal'Ganis
Character Restored: Sathelys
Sothebys
Pancakehmpr
Please be advised that restored characters are restored to exactly how they were
when they were deleted.
I hate you anyone who has been talking about 3.3a
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I want to hate Tarantino because he resorts to talking heads for 2 1/2 hours and that's simply not what cinema is and I would think he'd know better. But the dialogue is just so well written, the acting so well acted, and the situations so well played out you can't help but love it.
One of his better works since Pulp Fiction.
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Over the weekend I received a package of awesome from the excellent Supertech68!
I'm not sure if Supertech68 works for a TV station or cable company, but would not be surprised. There was a ton of TV related swag. Also Supertech68 loves to collect and save old computer parts, some now unrecognizable... Here the album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/g.i.joehosaphat/WhiteElephant2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCLOK-prA4ZGbcw&feat=directlink
Thanks Supertech68! Made my day!
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which class should i start with? id like to play through atleast twice, because i know its a hellova good game.
i started with vanguard i think but i want someone who can heal, i was just getting owned by the little bots, or im doing something wrong
help?
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We hope your holidays are captivating
Love,
Tinfolhatter, Entropy and Santa
http://www.shackpics.com/files/cardV10copy_26sq7zz6h3bc6e6jfo9l.jpg
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002WC80M4
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One word: Epic.
I will need to see this movie again. and again. and again.
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Didn't see this posted by anyone else, so thought I would share.
from www.thedigitalbits.com
"9-disc The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy Blu-ray box set will finally arrive in stores on 4/6/2010. For this initial release, the transfers will present the films in 1080p HD video (VC-1 codec), in the correct widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1. English audio will be present in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 format, along with Dolby Surround, along with subtitles in English, English SDH, French and Spanish."
This will be the Theatrical versions. Each movie will have a blu-ray disc for the film, a DVD which will have the exact same content as the extras disc from the Theatrical DVD release, and a DVD with a Digital Copy (sweet).
The Extended version blu-rays are expected around the time that The Hobbit films are released in theaters (2011/2012).
Amazon is already taking pre-orders.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000X9FLKM
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http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2009-32-a-full_jpg.jpg
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http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sumerians_look_on_in_confusion_as
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http://www.polycat.net/1200/a-glimpse-in-modern-real-time-strategy-part-1/
This immediately gave me a boner for Supreme Commander, because as an avid RTS player, SupCom is the only one I own that I never really got into. To be fair, I only gave it an hour, so now I'm going to resurrect it and give it another go. Does anyone around here still play this game?
Mittense, if you see this, do you still like SupCom as much as you expected you would in that writeup?
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Perfectly example of a game which doesn't take itself seriously, and neither should the player. It's all just glorious, shameless fun, even the cutscenes are just eyecandy and great to watch.
The PC version is probably some of the best software work I've seen in a game, not only does it run at over 80 FPS consistently while produced great visuals with many enemies on the screen, but it even supports alt-tabbing out. Supports it. By this I mean it has a neat feature where the game goes into a sort of hibernation mode when you tab out, and it only uses under 200mb or RAM! That's less than Firefox after it's left for an hour!
You basically never have to actually quit the game, tab out and then tab back in to continue whenever you feel like it in between play sessions.
There should be a law that states that every single PC game should have this feature.
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0017PI4Y6
Trailer: http://movies.apple.com/movies/independent/the_proposition/the_proposition_h.640.mov
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1. Magician: Apprentice (Riftwar Saga)
2. Canticle for Leibowitz
3. The Last Wish - The original Witcher novel which inspired the game from what I heard...
4. Elder Scrolls: Infernal City - A new book that sets the story 40 some years after the events of Oblivion. The plot summary looks good and I am a sucker for ES mythology.
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shackers, what are you buying for your mom? i have everyone else covered but she always just tells me 'i don't want anything, save your money'
well fuck that she's getting something.
ideas? and if you say cock i will eat your soul.
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I though about using a scented candle in it, but decided against that. What can I do?
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Armond White's Avatar Review
"Avatar is the corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt."
http://www.nypress.com/article-20710-blue-in-the-face.html
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Are there any stories of systems that didn't receive updated software (perhaps because they didn't need to), and are running today thinking it's 1909 or "19109", happily oblivious?
I know I've received at least one email/invoice that had the year listed as 1910x in the past ten years, but I'm wondering if there are any large systems that were noted as not having been changed and just kinda running.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/the-dirty-mass-effect/60002
:O
One was a charger moon walker, where he picked up a player and then scooted back about 10 metres worth.
The other, more serious, was myself and another player got stuck on the ramp as it lowered, as we were trying to get onto the roof. We ended up freeing ourselves somehow but got fucked and everyone died. The next time, it happened again! Fortunately we made it through that time.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItFvB0Upb8
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