woah

For some reason, I thought the diamonds were real. The car was a dead give-a-way for me given the cobble below was much too flat in the background. Cars seem rather easy (at least compared to other things) to mimic with CG. Even many games today have cars models that appear real at first glance. 9/10

I must correct myself. The FMV introduction I found very good, as I did with the playable sequence in which you infiltrate the house of a cult. It was the "start" of the game where you first arrive on the bus. I'm not sure why, but I felt it was a bit too slow and uninteresting.

I'm not necessarily saying Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was one of the best games ever made (Although it was quite awesome, and I would recommend it, but don't get your expectations too high as that never helps. The game was not perfect). Rather, I'm simply saying it altered what assumptions and expectations I normally made in a PC game. In other words, they involved you in terribly hard, stressful, and frightening circumstances, even when you were left entirely weaponless. You can't really effectively play it from the mindset of other games, and you'll be in for a surprise if you do. The areas in which Call of Cthulhu fails is in its introductory sequence, AI, and graphics (I would be fine with this, but horrible lip-syncing does not lend itself well to immersion. Everything else with the graphics acceptable). In addition, some challenges are just too hard, depending on pure luck, and thus become tedious or angering (and I have a lot of patience) after replaying them 15 times.

I suppose one of the reasons I found Penumbra really scary is as a result of playing Call of Cthulhu (sp). It taught me to expect the unexpected and--on top of that--expect nearly insurmountable odds. Before COC, I would have always assumed that having no weapons to defend myself with ment the game would be purposely designed to protect you (as is true with most games in their introductory sequences). I never thought I would ever have to flee and dodge within feet of heavily armed enemies down several foot wide corridors, or venture into dangerous, monster-infested areas without even a crowbar to defend myself in a game. And in between all of this, you would be tortured in that there would be long, drawn-out periods in which you were tricked into believing the next confrontation was imminent (for instance, you were often had visions of some creature that was watching and stalking you from hidden places. You were always asking yourself if this would be the time it might try to get you). It was a harsh awakening, but--in the end--it made my gaming experiences in horror games, overall, much better. Now, when I play something like Penumbra, where you are not equipped with any weapons (which definitely brought me back to the vulnerable mindset of Call Of Cthulhu (sp)) I fully expect the possibly of something to come lurking around a corner or out of the shadows at any time, and involve you in a merciless gameplay conflict. I'm always glancing behind myself, and stopping when curious sounds arise. It's much more intense. Though, after playing Penumbra, I realize it really didn't nearly stress you to the extent COC did, but--at the time--being weaponless had no bearing on my expectations of what challenges I might face.

Hmm, I suppose people are just frightened by different things. I felt the game was the scariest I had ever played D: Though, I notice these games do not scare me if the sound isn't up loud enough, and/or if there is lots of accessory noise in your gaming location. Of course, that takes all the fun out of it. Anything like this is sure to castrate your immersion.

Ah, Valve must have taken it down (it was put up before the official release). Here is a good, fast link to the Team Fortress 2 Trailer. Filefront is fast and free. http://files.filefront.com/tf2+teaser01+72...;/fileinfo.html

A new Team Fortress 2 video was just released! http://files.filefront.com/tf2+teaser01+72...;/fileinfo.html According to Valve, everything in the video was composed using only the Source engine (and this includes the Pyro's flamethrower, apparently, yet I find this hard to believe). The Source engine looks completely different now with the Motion Blur, depth of field, and some pre-processing effects Valve is providing. Perhaps Valve wasn't fibbing when they made the claim that TF2 would be the best looking game on the Source engine? These new graphical effects can also been seen in the Portal/b] trailer; they almost make the game look pre-rendered. Portal is a new game being created on the Source Engine that makes usage of a Portal Gun, in which you can specify two Portal links by painting portals on the walls of two different areas. Anything can move through the portals, including other AI and physics objects, all which retain momentum (so if you fell a long ways into a portal, you would emerge from the other Portal at the same speed, perhaps sending you flying in a direction other than towards the center of gravity.) The video itself provides many more examples which will undoubtebly give you a better idea of the range of possibilities with the Portal gun. Here is the link to the Portal video. You really can't miss out on this. http://files.filefront.com/Half+Life+2+Epi...;/fileinfo.html EDIT: According to CSNation.net, in addition to Motion Blur, depth of field, and HDR, the TF2 is also using "phong shading," dynamic shadowing and self shadowing, and a new water technology which can be seen in the trailer. This explains why the flamethrower's shadow is applied to the Pyro model while the flamethrower is utilized, but I'm still skeptical about that flamethrower. EDIT2: It seems the flame-thrower is a demonstration of a new particle system Valve is utilizing. Awesome! (but I wonder if anyone here cares, aside from Unstoppable and Maximus? )

Really? Didn't even notice that. Sorry *blush* Just finished the game, and I thought it was great. I loved the story and the setting. Both really set the mood and atmosphere perfectly, making it not only extremely scary, but intriguing. What I mean by this is that the game invoked your curiousity very well. As much as you were fearfully reluctant to venture beyond each door or dark corner, and explore further into the base, your curiousity was tickled enough to manifest a true yearning to "keep going"; you really wanted to know what was down below in this remote and mysterious base. These two elements, fear and curiousity, blend with one another superbly =D I did notice a problem with the physics, though. When stacking several objects upon one another, they tend to jitter and move about unrealistically (I assume there is some sort of constant gravitational force simulated which causes this problem). In addition, the physics objects will occassional get stuck in other objects or walls. SPOILER - Please don't read this if you have not completed the tech demo--it will most assuredly ruin the game for you (highlight between SPOILER to reveal text) My only pet peeve with the demo was the monster selection. The Flying "dolphin-bat" looking creature was not very scary--it just looked extremely odd and I felt it did not fit. It was disappointing that this was the only monster included. In the screenshots, there is a "hunter" creature that looks like something out of Silent Hill--but much, much scarier (When playing the game, I had assumed this creature was in the bathroom (you could hear something hideous breathing inside)--but you were never permitted to enter the bathroom in the tech demo. My eyes never left the door of the bathroom whenever I had passed by it as I always thought something was going to bust out of there). Unfortunately, the developers claim they didn't have enough time to implement this creature. Still, I was always on my toes, heart pumping ferociously, as (at the time) I had no idea what else might be lurking around. Sometimes I would hear a sound--perhaps ambient or not--and frantically go running for a vent or a known-to-be-safe area. SPOILER

I stumbled across this just-released game, Penumbra, amidst browsing an independent-game development website. Penumbra is a completely free, first person, survival-horror adventure that is based on an independently developed (and--from what I've experienced--spectacular) engine, created by four team members at Frictional Games. The game boasts dynamic shadows (ala Doom 3), graphics on par with that of today's commercially released games (easily comparable to "F.E.A.R."), an extremely impressive physics engine, and immersive (and downright scary) gameplay that is drenched in atmosphere. I'm going to say right up front that I have yet to endure a game as scary as this to date (I have played Doom 3 and F.E.A.R.--both of which I didn't find scary at all, System Shock 1/2, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, The Resident Evil Series, and the Silent Hill Series). And this coming from someone who is only 15 minutes into the game--having yet to encounter or even hear any of the horrors lurking about (that of which I've read are quite gruesome). Perhaps it is only because it is late at night and I am all alone (Though, this never stopped me before), but I'm finding it extremely difficult to let alone open doors, or even venture around the bends of dark corners; I always feel as if something is going to jump out at me. Lending to this spookiness is the fact that the only weapon available to you is your witts: either you manipulate the environment to your advantage (For example, blocking doors), or you frikkin' run like hell and pray your ensuer loses track of you. It's the type of scary where when the lights go out, you may find yourself scared still--unable to move, in fear of what repercussions any sort of further action will render. And to make things worse, your only truly "reliable" light source is a shitty flashlight that seems to consume entire batteries by the minute. This is not a "run and gun" FPS clone. Most of the game's challenges (aside from battling with your own fear) reside in avoiding confrontation and somewhat challenging puzzles, with the manipulation of physics. Perhaps from your Half-Life 2 experiences, you may think you'll be turned off by this, but I must say these are the most convincing/realistic and enjoyable physics I've used to date. Objects actually feel as if they have weight (In HL2 and D3, I always felt as if the physics affected objects were unrealistic and felt, for lack of a better word, "weightless," making it quite a relief to experience these). And the methods in which you're given to manipulate the physics are quite novel, but I won't spoil this for you. It is in no way as dull as HL2's "pick up object A and place on object B, offsetting weight, and triggering action C..." The only downsides to this game seem to be the fact that it was only created as a tech demo, and thus there are some bugs and occassional performance issues. The system requirements are quite reasonable, though (1GHz CPU, 512MB Ram, At least Radeon 9600 or equivalent Geforce card). In addition (and naturally), it is not as long as a commercially released game, but it is definitely long enough from what I've read. The quality is easily on par or better than commercial quality, though. It's quite amazing only 4 people assembled this engine and created such a fantastic game. It would seem an understatement to call it a "tech demo," in my opinion. Penumbra is only 200 MB large and does not need to be installed (it is just a folder). Make sure you pick up version 1.1. Here is a link to the website (if you didn't use the hyper-text links above): http://frictionalgames.com/?q=penumbra Now I'm going to go asleep. I can't possibly play this game alone and at such late hours. It's too stressful

I did too, and for some reason the whoever posted it on www.planetdoom.com website used my horrible description. Do they usually just copy and paste news submissions?

I really like the looks of the screenshot just recently released. I'm happy they didn't give it a realistic look like that of Valve's latest remakes, but rather attempted to stay true to the (for lack of a better word) cartoonish look of the original TFC models and skins (I don't recall many liking the looks of the remakes for the TFC models and skins), while at the same time providing something fresh and unique.

Ah! But who submitted the news to www.planetdoom.com ??? *giggles*

Team Fortress 2!!!! :DDDD but STEAM ((( ... but Team Fortress 2!! ! A SCREENSHOT!! UPDATE: A video was released! http://www.valvesoftware.com/ep2/teaser/tf...aser01_720p.wmv

Woah, that was really amazing guys =D. Phenomenal work. The rope arrows and mantling are beyond expectations from what is visible, and even these community made maps capture the moody atmosphere of Thief strikingly well. This is exactly what I had envisioned a modern day Thief game to appear like. Great job, and I must express that Oddity's models look no less than commercial quality ingame. My only pet peeve is that some of the ingame recordings are of extremely low frames per second. It's not a big deal, but the qualities of your work would have been much more noticable and prettier had the FPS been higher. If you pause the video during the ingame sections, you can really see an amazing amount of detail, but this is not nearly as noticable when the frames seem to be running at the rate of a flip-book (and--as a result--the shadows and illuminations seem to flicker). Though, I can definitely understand this could be as a result of the game being in extremely early stages of development. I must also stress that seeing the light gem in action is extremely awesome =) Once again, great job.

I want a gun because--although a little muscular--I can't fight for shit.

Happy birthday Dram (8?]=

Nah, everything else in the movies continue to move normally (including the player's mouse movement), whereas only the ragdolls freeze for a moment. In addition, I've seen this happen in several other Source Engine based games--just not as persistent as this. Something like this wouldn't ruin the game for me, but it would definitely be quite disappointing.

This game looks rather interesting, and I like the extension to ragdolls Though, I do not like the delay in the animation to ragdoll transformation. I'm really hoping they eradicate it by release, as it would really bother me in game.

Oddly enough, I've been playing Counter-Strike for 6 years (despite a few month period here and there). I'm not sure why, but it seems that every new first person shooter that comes out cannot replace CS as a primary game, or let alone hold me for over a month or two. I always come back to Counter-Strike. Even though I do not have broadband or multiplayer-gaming capable internet, whenever I'm at a friend's, CS is our primary choice of play; all of the others are temporary. I am always curious as to what makes the game so attractive and dominating over other games, and I find it odd as--given the fact that 90% of the shooters released bore the heck out of me--Counter-Strike's gameplay is as simple or simpler than all of them.

Haha, well I was sort of joking. I actually hate mutilation--and all of those movies where people are tortured to death for that matter, but the way it is done in Prey is rather dull and inept (and thus comical). It was just surprising to me that they actually did it. I'm curious as to whether or not the game will emerge uncriticized when parents start seeing this.

Thief 2's sword fighting system was genius. The collision was impeccably accurate. After playing Thief 2, I had always longed for a first person game wherein one would--alongside many others--fight in epic medieval battles, with swords and shields, and bows and axes (Though, I am not too knowledgable of the medieval time period, but I assume this is when such battles took place). The game would use an extension to Thief 2's sword fighting system, in that one would have the capacity to swing the sword any direction they pleased by pressing the primary attack and swinging the mouse in the intended direction (Of course it would need to be more complicated than that, but this is the basic premise). I'm not sure why a first person game like this has not emerged yet. How did Thief's sword play system work from a technological standpoint?

I think I'll buy this game. It's got some unique aspects about it, and I like that. Though, it's hardly anything revolutionary. It runs perfect on my 7600GT; about on par or better than Quake 4's performance. The dialog is so corny. Although, that really isn't anything unusual for games. Still, it bothers me how developers can put so much effort and perfection into graphics, level design, and such, yet dumb the whole experience down with cliche character personalities and dialog that are only cool when you're 12 years old. But I guess one good thing about Prey is that this is the first game I've played where children are mutilated, real-time in front of you :D

I guess a lot of those points are the exact reasons I don't like World of Warcraft.

Yes, they are (well, my mom at least) Right now I'm having to listen to her give some random other hippy that I've never seen before a sort of "reading." They're both sitting cross-legged, facing each other with their eyes closed in the living room with one hand's palm faced up, and the other grasping the other's hand. And now she's murmuring things that I can't distinguish from this far away... "Spiritual Hippy" might be a more accurate term As for the singing bowl thing, I don't know. Perhaps it's really nothing to get worked up about, but it's just that the sound is so foreign and thief-like--moreso in person when you can practically feel its vibrations on your head; you'd doubt the noise was coming from such a small and simple thing. Without infringing on any copyrights and such, I think one could make something very similar to Theif's ambience had they one of their own.

Not sure if this deserves a full topic, but what the hell. Today my parents brought home a "Singing Bowl" used in meditation. It's basically a large bowl made of crystal (at least in this case it was) that reverberates when you slide a wooden stick (covered with some sort of material) around its edges. I thought nothing of it until I heard a quite familiar, hypnotic sound coming from the other room; I immediately realized where I had recognized it from. Thief II utilized some intriguing ambient noises that established an unprecedented mood and atmosphere, and this was undoubtedly one of those ambient noises (Either that, or it's striking coincidence; in either case, it doesn't matter). The pitch of the reverberations from the bowl continually increase and decrease, invoking a mystical sort of feeling that--just as the nearly identical sounds did in Thief--would clear the player's mind and assist in immersing them into the game (making them feel as if they really are the player, and not just someone controlling them through an interface). I'm not one easily taken by "such things," but listening to one of these singing bowls seems to put you in a sort of trance; your mind almost seems to go numb and you can easily relax and concentrate at the same time. It reminds me of Thief immensily, both in the feeling it invokes and the familiar tone that is unique to Thief. If the team is looking for a superb source of ambient sound that would help establish a memorable and alluring Thief atmosphere, I highly suggest looking into obtaining (borrowing might be wiser, as they are extremely expensive) one of these and forming some recordings (and then, of course, editing them to suit a looping ambient noise and adding any necessary effects). Perhaps you would be able to generate sounds similar to these with your own tools, but I think the natural form would be better in either case. There are actually some short clips you can listen to here on Amazon.com, but none of them do justice as to what it sounds like in person. In any case, turn your speakers up really loud as they are quite faint in those recordings. I'd recommend checking out "Golden Alchemy," "Binaural Entrainment," "Crystal Healing," and--most especially--"Tibetan/Egyptian." (Yes, the names are quite rediculous) Here is a picture of a singing bowl similar to the crystal bowl my parents brought home if any of you are at all interested in seeing what they look like. http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/crystalbowlpix/rosequartz.jpg