One of my Guild Mates has spent a good chunk of time with the D&D 4th addition core rules (a gaming industry friend drooped then off since he is our groups master GM) and has a series of blog posts up over at: http://www.guildavatar.com/index.php?q=node/802

Bottom line he likes it, wants to check out the web tools, and see how it goes. Course we have a love affair with Harp right now so we are a tuff audience to distract... OOooo! hey is that some gingly keys I hear!....

Bourne managed to make quick time events even more annoying by randomising them so that the button you press isn't the same every time. At least on previous games, if you hated QT events, you could get through them by memorising the sequence. I thought it was an interesting observation that it allows the creators of the game to do cool, cinematic action sequences and fight moves without going to the effort of tying them into the game controls. I think that's probably a big motivation.

Edit: ...and speaking of Live arcade games lost in action: Where is Peggle?

Classic!

I think I might have made a scene at work, laughing so hard when I heard that.

Act now! That price probably won't last much longer (Amazon has an annoying tendency to change the prices unexpectedly)

I understand the core set is selling out every shipment Amazon gets. The Missus ordered it for me for Christmas two weeks ago, and it's expected to ship next week.

Totally agree on the quicktime event thing. And I think that the economic disincentive to making games entirely out of QTEs goes back before Sega CD. Anyone else remember those godawful Laserdisc arcade games? Dragon Slayer? Space Ace? That stupid holographic game with the cowboy (I think it was called Time Traveler, or something similarly inventive)?

Dragon Slayer didn't even tell you what button to push! You just walked toward the castle, fell through the bridge, and wondered WTF.

I'm sure they made some money as novelties, but I don't know a single person who actually enjoyed any of them.

By the way, Stranglehold didn't have the quick time events like Bourne. I really don't remember any.

Prey.

There weren't any. There have been a lot of recent offenders with regard to QTEs but Stranglehold wasn't one of them.

Did Elysium get into Rob's Rage Pills? I haven't heard him so filled with bile in a while.

I agree that Activision are being made to look like douchebags wrt plastic instrument support, but they are entirely within their rights.

Fact is if I made the better instrument with the worse software I'd also be hesitant to allow my instruments to be used in the better software that ships with sub-standard hardware.

EA has very cleverly made themselves look like the good guys by saying 'We'd love an open standard or cross-platform support' when they really do stand to gain more by the opening of the platform.

I'd just like to note that, Rabbit, you needn't feel ashamed or beleaguered for mentioning Bioshock every episode/conversation/sentence

Seriously though, it was one of gaming's highest points with regards to story and world integration. I appreciate the helping hand to determine when i should be drinking though so keep on with them!

[edit]
Yeah, i also appreciate the anger too. So as long as someone brings it to the 'cast i'm good

Anger is good.... anger makes you stronger! RRAAHH!

[edit 2]
Oh yeah, and Rob, i don't think you should go round telling people you've been giving other people 'the fist'... just some advice

It is, but if the situation was reversed do you think EA would be so accommodating?

I'm not sure that was me, Wordy. I think I said games don't exist in a vacuum and I don't mind cutscenes if they're interesting or entertaining. The Metal Gear Solid series is a good example of this - The Boune Identity would be the counter.

I'll admit I was on the L when I heard it, so perhaps I mistook someone else for you. Either way, I don't understand why there would be a problem with a title not fitting a given definition of "game." The Bourne game sounds like it might have stunk regardless, but I feel like a title could still be entertaining without having the interactivity we tend to expect from a "game." If, for instance, someone recorded MGS4 and made it into a movie, might that be worth watching in its own right (providing, perhaps, that you hadn't played the game)? Is there a chance that the Bourne "game" could have been interesting--or at least more worthwhile--if the developer made it into a video of what they wanted the game to run like, and edited out the quick time cues?

_*doublefixed*_

I'm not quite sure what you're proposing. Do you mean that it would have been enjoyable if the entire game was just a perfect, pre-scripted playthrough? It might be a novelty, but their combat engine isn't robust enough to keep my interest between the supercool Takedown cinematics. The Takedowns, while varied, also depend on environmental factors, so those too could get stale after a while.

If you mean just take out the game altogether and have cool action set pieces? Maybe. I can't see it being more than 30 minutes, tops. At that point you'd just be wondering why they didn't CGI it into a mini-movie, though.

I admit, as I get older, sometimes I wish I had a plucky little gamer to slog through the tough parts and serve the story progression to me on a silver platter. That's probably why I don't play RPGs that much anymore.

Since you kept referring to it as Bourne Identity, maybe those weren't quicktime events but just the DVD menu and you were watching the movie instead of playing the game called Bourne Conspiracy.