SHINAN'S PROFILE

If the dialogue goes by fast I can tolerate quite a bit. Clicking away textboxes because I read them fairly quickly anyway. Unskippable pauses tend to make me frustrated.

With that said I can stand dialogues for longer depending on a number of things:
-Action. If there's action going on while the talking goes on I can live with it a bit longer. People walking around, doing things instead of just standing and talking.
-Voice acting. I can listen to banter a whole lot longer if it's there in good or funny voice acting. In voice acting I also like any kind of dramatic pauses that are shite in text.
-Fun. If it's funny I can read it no matter how long it is.


For your example I read throught it and tried to rework it a bit. I don't want to post the reworking here because it's still very long. I'd get out all the pauses (or make the pauses clickable) Also it has a lot of useless exposition just for exposition's sake. A lot of it is also stuff that should have been known to the player already. If the player knows it you shouldn't tell it again. It doesn't matter what the characters know. Only what th eplayer knows. Depending on where the game starts the player should already know that something went wrong with the Freelancers and that most were killed (perhaps even by who, making the statement of who did it (Archmagister) redundant). There's also other similar pointless things such as stating the name of the Emperor and the current political situation. If the player has been put in a fugitive situation because of "political activisim", this should have become clear earlier and doesn't need repeating.

Of course in a game it can be a problem with how to get around the exposition. Since there may be a lot of optional areas that give information but how does the creator know what the player actually knows? I guess for some really important things you could have some variable that gets activated to tell the player what he needs to know if he has skipped it. Then there's also the option of dialogue choices where you can ask for more information or just get on with it.

Dialogue choices are a good way to spice up any dialogue too. They can talk for a while but then there's a bit of a choice of words and all feels so much better.

I love my GW. When it goes down I will go down with it. Now I will read this thread that apparently has even got you talking about it.

Pfft. Why would I do that? When the previous favorite is clearly inferior? (Objectively speaking)

This is tough. There's so damn many good games around. I'll just do them as they pop into my mind. I'll try to vary the genres, taking one here and one there. In the end you can also see it as a best genres list if you want to. A list like that would probably be easier actually... (I write these starting with number one so any references to previous entries are always going to the following entries)

10. Resident Evils
I'm a Resident Evil fanboy. These games actually suck gameplaywise (except for 4) and their stories are stupid and B. But damn if I don't get sucked in every single time and I just have to know what happens and kill some zombies. That's the important part. Zombies. (which is why 4 wasn't all that good in the end but still lovely)

9. Silent Storm
Turn based tactical games are a genre that is always on the verge of death. Which means that there are about two releases in the genre every year and about every tenth release is good.

8. Sim City
I like simulation games. Sim City is great fun. For a while. Then you get tired of it and quit. Then you go back later and have great fun again. The same with all these similar things. City-builders or theme park builders or whatever builders. Tycoon, Theme, Sim and whatever else they're called.

7. Football Manager
Once ages ago I got a demo of a sports management game and I was hooked. It combined two of my favorite things. Strategy/simulation and sports.

6. Grand Theft Auto 4
I haven't played it yet. But if it really is better than GTA3 then it deserves to be here. I'm waiting for the console beta-test to end so I can buy the PC-version when it comes out. I just love the radio channels. All games need radio channels.

5. Civilization 3... I guess...
Again something that is basically a genre-best. I like all the Civ games and Alpha Centauri. With them I've had some really good times. But this is also about other grand strategy games. Including more RTSy games like Hearts of Iron. And... in a way. Total War (which I guess could use its own entry but I have it here now okay)

4. Super Mario Bros. 3 I guess...
I guess this is essentially the number for those 2d platformers and the 2d mario platformers in particular. You can't get a lot more fun out of games than that. Good 2d platformers are just a joy. And again especially the mario games. All those perfect jumps, the panicky jumping between enemies and the level design. It's just glorious. Glorious.

3. Arcanum
Arcanum is the best RPG I've ever played. I't snot flawless in its game design. But in its RPGness it is nearly flawless. It's as close to perfect you get and the illusion never breaks. Or never broke for me anyway. Not once in the game did a choice feel forced or I was going against my own will to do something. And I played it through twice. Both times were very different and I wasn't railroaded in any of them.

The only problem is that the game crashes frequently and hasn't got the best combat system in the world.

2. Tetris
The perfect puzzler. When someone asks what is the best game ever I always say Tetris and then I explain it by saying that Tetris is the best game because it is perfect. It cannot be improved. Any improvement on Tetris and it'll end up worse. This was favorite games though so it ends up on second place.

1. The Orange Box
I was thinking about putting Half-Life 2 and Portal on different positions. But then I thought that it would mean too much FPS. Then I remembered that they were bundles in the Orange Box. Half-Life 2 is the most varied and best thought-out FPS I've ever played (though I haven't played too many). It's a study in awesome game design.

And Portal is well Portal.

He's bald. But there are no aliens.