Pitfall, paperboy, 1943... The classics that have been forgotten by time and antiquated formatting? Of course, you can emulate it, but it just isn't the same as those keys with the obnoxious clicking and the exceeding mass of the keyboard. It all makes the experience of modern gaming seem so-- futuristic!
The commodore 64 was the kingpin in it's time. It assaulted technicolor television with a relentless pixelization and cruddy music that sounded like bags of sand being dropped on a whoopy cushion. Who wouldn't want it back, though. In the end it was the machine that, in a lot of ways, gave birth the gaming in the living room instead of watching TV.
My brother told me to take a look at this, and as I read it I thought it was a joke, but then realized it wasn't once I got the the system specs...
This isn't your Daddy's old commodore 64 that you got when he went to the nursing home. We're talking about a Bluray option to the standard DVD drive, 4gb of DDR3 ram, 4 USB ports, and a 1.8ghz Dual Core CPU. I don't know why anyone who understands what an honest day of work means would pay for this machine, I do understand why some his standing 60 year old dude who works for Microsoft would pay so much money for one of these neat little things ($595-$895 depending on the model). Even while this machine can function as a typical PC, for the price, the hardware is nothing to write home about.
What you're paying for with this machine is a gimmick, but a pretty cool one!
The Institute for the future uses games to solve real world problems. Their scope and understanding of how gaming can be implemented into problematic situations may actually inspire you to consider gaming to be one of the variable solutions to many of the worlds growing concerns. I am not the easiest sell when it comes to things like going green, global warming, and going vegetarian, but after doing some research, watching and reading about who they are and what there goal is, I've been moved pretty strongly, and find myself rooting for their success now. I'd challenge anyone to look at what IFTF is doing and help continue the discussion either in the forums or in the comments section of this post.
Check it out.
The video is long, but is full of some very interesting information.
All new and updated Silent Hill experience that visually stands on its own with the current competition. Utilizing Unreal 3 technology, the game brings the town of Silent Hill, its characters, the creatures and the alternate hell world into vivid and spectacular display.
Free-roaming and deep exploration that will take players into all-new 'Side Quests' unlocking areas within the game, special items and bonus content.
An ever-changing game world including day and night 'Normal' world and 'Otherworld' world, all manifested and sourced from character actions throughout the game.
First-time ever 3D technology will bring Silent Hill a step closer to the player with three-dimensional immersion.
Renowned story and music talent attached to the game including:
Silent Hill comic writer, Tom Waltz
Original music directed and composed by renowned composer, Dan Licht, of the Showtime series, Dexter.
Theme song performed by hard-rock multiplatinum group, Korn.
I’m pumped about this game. Not just because it’s a game that takes place in Silent Hill universe, but because it would seem like Kanomi is looking towards what the next step is in not just the survival horror genre, but in the gaming industry in general. To me it seems like you can expect your favorite games to never step to far away from their formula so they don't spin their flagship titles to far away from where the player base wants them to be.
It’s always risky to change things up with a franchise like Silent Hill. It has been done with marginal success in a lot of franchises, like World of Warcraft or the Final Fantasy Franchise, and in those cases, while there was a some customer retention problems, in the end the changes made the player base even larger than it was before, making the lost customers casualties of good business. But in other games, like MW: Black ops, a lot of fanatical Modern Warfare pretty upset with some of the strange changes. We’ve learned (the hard way in the cases of MMOs) that the more things change, the less a pocket of fans will like the game, even though it pulls a new player base into the fold. This installment of the Silent Hill franchise will most likely tear out the hears of some die hard Silent Hill fan boys, but in that scenario, this game also has the chance to be someone's first enjoyable experience in Silent Hill.
Adding into silent hill the “free-roaming” environment is a large diversion from the previous titles, believe it or not, there are people who love linear story telling. The free-roaming element will make them second guess this title, even if they loved the first seven games. Free-roam environments coupled with the promise of a 3D environment that will make the game more immersive (since 3D is still widely considered a ‘gimmick’) is a risky combo.People really toe the line with 3D; willing to say that a 3D movie is good, and fun, but still unsure about 3D gaming.
When Toy Story 3 came out, 60% of it’s 110 million dollar profit was from 3D ticket sales. My response to this was, at first, of course it was, Toy Story is a kids movie, and kids love 3D, but when you get older you don’t care too much for it. The numbers said I was wrong though, only 56% of ticket sales were people <25 years old. While that is a majority, it is not so large of a majority that the other 44% of 26+ year olds should be ignored (taken from Box Office Mojo.com ). I think that 3D, at the rate of developing technology, and upon consumer demand, will be exactly where gaming goes, and I applaud Kanomi for taking this step in putting 3D into a non-experimental franchise.
I can’t tell you anything about Downpour that you didn’t see in the videos, but I can tell you that based on what I know about the previous silent hill titles, this one looks unique on a few fronts;Primarily the graphical leap, that’s something you can see from a trailer. From Silent hill 7 (homecoming) to 8(Downpour) It looks like Kanomi put a greater focus on character realism than they have in the past. I can already identify with the characters in the story just from the trailers I’ve watched, I cannot say the same about previous Silent Hill games, even after completing the game.
As with most cross-platform games, it's become a trend to build the game for the lower performing machine. In the case of this game, I don't really care, the game looks beatiful on both systems, and if there were not pictures in the corners of these two examples, I very easily could have gotten them confused.
We already know that the story is going to be great, and we know that the game is going to be creepy, what we are waiting to see is if Kanomi can pull of the Silent Hill experience with these new elements intermingled. If they can, we may have something uinique and ground breaking coming our way in the near future.
I may say that this battle station is fully operational, but that doesn't mean that its ready to romp around in, but at some point you just gotta blow a planet up. D'you reckon'?
I've, a couple times, killed and resurrected this site like a necromancer born of a digital pedigree, but hope and trust that things will be different with this proverbial tuft of phoenix down being shook over these dusty words.
Let me explain why:
I work 3rd shift now, which frees up at least seven, and at nine hours that are filled with the rare and widely sought after element: nuttin'tado.
I am going back to school now, which may sound like a deterrent, but here comes the sweeper. I'm going to be getting my degree in game design from Full Sail University, and I hope to open a dialog concerning the things I learn.
I miss doing HCM.
Look forward to me hammering out quality information, and reviewing interesting topics so that you can feel informed on some of the more fringe topics that don't get as much attention.
Until next time, I leave you with this: Prepare to be blown away.
