Ross Scott

This is just my opinion, but for me, Bioshock was one of the most disappointing games I've ever played. Not BAD, but disappointing. It was disappointing for me on two levels. One, I saw the early beta or alpha tests of it (which incidentally had better graphics than the final version, but that's besides the point) along with commentary all the way through explaining what the player should expect from the game. It made it sound like there was this incredible semi-linear world that you could influence and make decisions that would affect the society of it. From a story, gameplay, and interaction perspective it sounded like some sort of hybrid between Deus Ex, Arx Fatalis, and maybe Gothic. I could be wrong, but I think remember them talking about a real moral grey area in the game. It obviously didn't turn out like this at all. In addition to being totally linear and not really having any choice on how you shape the society, the "grey area" was whether or not you should kill crying little girls or not. Yeah, that's deep. So it was disappointing in raising my expectations and is another reason I try to avoid all hype with a game or movie nowadays. The second way it was disappointing was that it mimicked System Shock 2 to an audacious degree. I remember thinking "are they seriously going to have the EXACT SAME plot twist from SS2 of having the announcer be the bad guy after all? Ah. Yes, they are... wow Bioshock." In addition to mimicking it, it felt much less cohesive. Ghosts felt simply thrown in just because SS2 had them, splicers are the new hybrids, big daddies are the new rumblers. Nurses are the new midwives, medical bay and botany levels are still present etc. The motives of the characters seemed much less believable. The voice acting didn't sound as natural. It wasn't nearly as scary as SS2. So much of it felt like it was simply trying to copy SS2 in a different setting than to make something that made more a little more sense. In my opinion, SS2 is a superior game to Bioshock in every single way except graphics. Finally, as for the Objectivism overtones, I think the waters got too muddied for me looking at everything else to get much value from that. Also it doesn't help that I think Objectivism is such an obviously flawed school of philosophy for applying it to most of reality. Showing its shortcomings to me feels like an expose as to why Santa Claus can't be found at the north pole. I think it only makes sense for especially competitive entrepreneurs or people or people trying to fast track in the business world. For everyone else it isn't really a practical or sustainable viewpoint and certainly isn't how I think of most of the world. I've tried reading Atlas Shrugged, but had to give up after about 80 pages because I found the dialogue downright painful to read (the rest seemed okay, but the dialogue killed it for me). Anyway, sorry if I'm torpedoing your thread, I just felt compelled to rant on Bioshock. I haven't played Bioshock 2. EDIT: To its credit, the intro to Bioshock was literally my favorite part of the game. I loved the plane crash and the discovery of the lighthouse and the sense of initial mystery created from it.

Yeah the mouse before my last was very similar to this, it had an excellent shape.

I'm with you 100%, though every time I stall FM to work on something else, this is the kind of vibe I pick up:

Hey everyone, here's a link to a group Q&A session I did a week or two ago with people creating "mind" series for other games with mostly silent protagonists, of which there are many. I was invited to it directly after the caboos15 interview and since "The Tunnel" has been completed for a while now, I don't mind doing PR stuff again. It's a long discussion session and I don't remember everything that was said while recording or before/after, but you're welcome to check it out: MP3 download I believe there were supposed to be up to 7 other people, but not everyone showed up. It's almost 2 hours long, so I don't recommend listening to this unless you have time to kill. It did cover some topics not discussed in other interviews I've done, but it might bore people who don't work with the Source engine at some points also. In the future I plan to make a separate section on the site for all interviews conducted so far, but that's still on the "to do" list.

A friend of mine managed to cram SDRAM into a motherboard, despite it being idiotproof. I'm not sure how he managed to get it to fit, I guess he broke off the dividers on the board. When he turned it on, it started smoking, didn't exactly boot after that.

Regular population growth is way more of a threat to civilization than cloning, I'll move this to the serious topic section.

Pretty nice shape, don't like how there's no thumb buttons though.

I tried it already, not only did it make things look overblown, but it's moot point since none of the effects will carry over when I record the footage. I use the source recorder so I can record frame by frame and add in motion blur, and it completely ignores these effects. I also tried some of the textures and model packs out there. In some cases they look much better, in other cases, they make things look worse and less cohesive than the original game, plus I've seen missing textures and errors in animation when recording some models in demos.

I meat to have a post on this, I was waiting for the Youtube copy. I'll go ahead and make a post in a day or two since FM34 just went up.

Actually I'll probably be doing almost all the motion capture myself since there are cheap enough options now. He contacted me about helping more as an assistant director, which is something I could probably use help with considering the complexity involved with CP episodes.

Downloadable copy will be up a little later This episode is a bit of a milestone in the game. If you haven't played Half-Life already, you'll find out why. It's also one of the shorter episodes. This is because I split them when there's a good stopping point, and it doesn't get much more obvious than this one. It's been proposed before that I switch over to the Black Mesa mod after this episode, but since that's not out yet, I'll just continue with regular half-life. You can expect something a little different for the next video as a kind of intermission after this one.

Download 672x384 WMV (57MB) This episode is a bit of a milestone in the game. If you haven't played Half-Life already, you'll find out why. It's also one of the shorter episodes. This is because I split them when there's a good stopping point, and it doesn't get much more obvious than this one. It's been proposed before that I switch over to the Black Mesa mod after this episode, but since that's not out yet, I'll just continue with regular half-life. You can expect something a little different for the next video as a kind of intermission after this one.

I remember you sending me this video a while back or something similar. Yeah, that's the same script I made for Civil Protection. I really didn't notice the visual artifacts you're talking about, everything that was moving seemed to be blurring. You can always increase the framerate if you think it's not being sampled enough. If you want to get crazy, try 360 fps then put your divisor by 12 instead of 6. I think Source will go to at least to 999fps, I would try multiples of 30. 180 just seemed like the magic balance between size and noticeable effects to me. If a scene is really fast motion you might want higher.

I'm still on XP, but I plan to go to 7 in the near future. I won't be doing so until I have a VMware install so for programs that simply won't run on 7, I still have options. Apparently if you have enough RAM now, the speed hit for virtualized programs is quite reasonable.

I haven't even heard of this one, it looks like it could be comfortable though. I'm sure it's a good mouse, but I was able to try one at a store display and didn't quite like the shape, it felt a little narrow in my hand. That and I'm looking for a corded mouse and not a wireless. As for Logitech, this is the mouse I really want from them, except it's not real: http://www.techlivez.com/2010/08/logitech-g50-vanguard-ergonomic-mouse/

Maybe make a new thread if you want to keep debating manufacturers.

But with the new Sandy Bridge processors, Intel now has better processors for far less than AMD. ($185 for an i5-2300, new no deals, compared to the equivalent AMD processor Phenom II X6 1100T for $200 on sale and including rebates) Well budget for me is more around the $80 - 120 range for CPUs. If you go up to $200, then Intel is winning there too. Also if you account that AMD has kept a similar socket type for years on end, you can eliminate a new motherboard cost from a lot of upgrades.

I've used both Nvidia and ATI cards over the years, they both have had pros and cons and both have done underhanded things. For every pro and con of one card, I can give you one of another, it kind of depends on what your preferences are for different things. Since I'm an antialiasing junkie, I currently prefer Nvidia's cards since with 3rd party software I've found they have better AA compatibility and for some games, potentially top image quality. ATI has really been more of a pioneer in the AA department however, with Nvidia usually catching up. If you don't use AA however, they really are practically equal in image quality. For bang-for-buck however, ATI is currently kicking Nvidia's ass up and down the block in terms of speed you can get for the same amount of money. For CPUs, on the budget end of things, you really can't beat the bang for buck ratio with AMD, even though the fastest end is dominated by Intel. I kind of have issues with Intel however since they've engaged in a campaign of illegal business practices over the past decade, especially around the turn of the century, that skewed the whole playing field. AMD was kicking ass with the first Athlon and it took Intel years to catch up. During that time, they couldn't gain any market share because behind the scenes Intel was engaging in price fixing, extortion of vendors, bribing, pretty much anything to prevent major vendors from purchasing AMD. It was illegal and they've been fined billions of dollars for it by the EU, but it's really a slap on the wrist considering what they make and how much damaged it caused. I'm a little bitter about it, since if they actually followed the law, the CPU playing field might be COMPLETELY different today. For that reason (and price) I generally avoid Intel hardware.

Since this is pretty huge issue, (or not depending on how substantiated it is), I can move this to the "Civilization Problems" section if people like. As for global warming, I saw An Inconvenient Truth, but I really haven't properly researched this one way or another, so I can't claim to know what I'm talking about. If someone who's more knowledgeable on this wants to disprove or confirm some of what I think I know, here are some things I've heard or have reasoned: -Most evidence I've seen shows a significant increase in global temperate over the past 100+ years or so compared to the rest of climate records we've been able to deduce through geologic evidence. -It's naive to assume we're having NO impact on the atmosphere. Just from burning fossil fuels we're releasing millions of years of stored carbon back into the air. Plants can filter out a certain amount of that, but my guess is the increase currently exceeds the ability to counteract the increased CO2 levels. -The PERMAFROST is melting. To me, that's a pretty big sign things are getting warmer overall. -I had a geology teacher in college who said that without human impact, in the traditional pattern (as in LONGASS climate change) we would likely be entering another ice age right now, but due to emissions things are more temperate than they would be otherwise.

Hey, my mouse is currently starting to die on me, I'm curious what mice people would recommend as the most comfortable. I want a wired one with at least 5 buttons. I have large hands and tend to have a "palm grip" style.

I still need to finish TLJ, I didn't know Dreamfall was that bad. As for worst sequel, I doubt it can beat Still Life 2. The original was one of my favorites and the sequel was just bad in about every way except maybe the 2D backdrops. Different voice actors for the same characters, shoddy, shoddy sound design, WAY overused location, tedious gameplay, there's just not much redeemable at all.

BTGbullseye: If you want to talk about global warming, do it in another thread, the focus of this one is impact of oil. Also you're only making generalizations here. As far as I know, global warming is generally accepted by the scientific community. If it's not, present evidence on it. Don't make generalizations on a controversial viewpoint, provide evidence, and not in this thread.