They’re moving Colonel Sanders’ recipe.

Man, it’ll be interesting as hell if anything goes wrong. Can you imagine?

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Been spreading this around. One of my biggest beefs with games over the years, particularly as saving has become more commonplace, is the way some developers implement it. Particularly when it is done poorly.

Over at Gamasutra, David Sirlin put together nice feature about that very subject.

Games are not for game designers and their ivory-tower ideals-games are for players. Players have lives outside of our games and we should respect those lives and design our games accordingly, rather than expect our players to design their lives around us.

…

This is an old argument where one side talks about the convenience of saving anytime and the other talks about the need to make games challenging, but this is a false dichotomy. We can allow the player to stop playing without excessive penalty and make a challenging game. It’s just a matter of defining what “saving” actually means.

As an example, Mario 64 doesn’t literally allow the player to save anywhere they want, but it still meets this requirement in spirit. The point of the game is to collect all 120 stars, and every time you collect a star, you “save and continue.” You cannot save your exact position in a level, but such a feature isn’t needed anyway.

The geography of the game is designed such that a player can reach the entrance to any level in just a few seconds by navigating Mario’s castle and getting back to any specific goal in a level doesn’t take long either.

This preserves the game’s difficulty (players can’t save and load to get the stars more easily) and it also means the player can turn the game off at any time, knowing that the only important progress (collecting stars) has been saved.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Oh. My. God.

An article that’s funnier, and quite possibly stupider, than it has any right to be. NSFW.

Found that when trying to dig this up again: 5 Tips for Healthy Living from Batman and Joker. Also NSFW.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Perhaps it’s a mark of too much time on my hands. Or perhaps she (and Yahoo) just make it too easy.

Believe it or not, I have a goal with this. A stupid one, perhaps, but a goal nonetheless.

I hope that there will be enough of these to create an animated gif from. And from there… well, that might be telling.

Oh, what the hell. I’d like to then use it to make my first, possibly only, YTMND. With the music from “___ does not change facial expressions.” Then that’ll be one more little thing I can check off my list of things to do in my life.

See kids? If you don’t have goals, you’ll never accomplish anything in your life.

…holy hell, is that the time? I should be in bed like… yesterday.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

If even Paris Hilton could be fooled… what chance then, do we have?

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

…it’s just the first thing I thought when I saw the original on Yahoo.com this morning.

Pity I couldn’t find a bigger copy.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

…too much?

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Turns out MTV Multiplayer’s Stephen Totilo doesn’t have an HDTV, either, and so we find ourselves experiencing similar problems.

My dad has an issue with Sony and the new SOCOM game coming out. Here is what he has to say, and why I’m willing to listen when he has such a complaint.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe has become a must-play for me, and this is why (Skip to about 2:05):

And finally, some good news: MegaMan Volnutt returns!

The bad news is, it’s in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Which isn’t so bad in itself, except that like Namco x Capcom, the chances of any majority of us getting to play it are slim.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Guess the Retro Game.

How do you fare?

I got eight out of nine, most without clues.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Say what you want; I can’t help but like this just a bit.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”