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Travio
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I make and play games - playing games I use as a reward for reaching specific milestones within my various development projects. I've played a wide variety of games, having started at the tender age of three and worked my way up over the years so that, at one point, I was actually going out of my way to find the original games (cartridges, CDs, whatever) to play.
All games I elect to review must be 'Complete' status (though games still in the process of clearing out bugs are fine and will be noted in the review itself). These games must have a download on RMN (as I pass them to my Dropbox queue) and need to be self contained - everything I need to play should be in the download, without needing to install anything (including RTPs; we aren't living in the days of slow connections anymore, people). You should also have any fixes in the download, not something I have to look through the comments for - I'm going to be avoiding them like the plague until I've finished the review.
When I review a game, I try to play as much of it as I can possibly stand before posting the review - I make notes/write part of the review as I'm playing, so a lot of what goes into the review is first impressions of sections. I'm also not a stickler - things don't have to be perfect - but I've seen many examples of things not done perfectly but, at the same time, not done horribly. I rate five categories on a scale from 1 to 10: Story, Graphics, Sound, Gameplay & Pacing, and Mapping & Design. 5 is average to me, so it's not necessarily saying that category is bad - it's saying it's middle of the road. Games within the same editor are compared to one another, not games across editors (I'm not going to hold an RM2k game to the same standards as a VX Ace game due to system limitations, but I won't let it hold back the RM2k game's rating) - unless the game is part of a series across multiple editors.
All games I elect to review must be 'Complete' status (though games still in the process of clearing out bugs are fine and will be noted in the review itself). These games must have a download on RMN (as I pass them to my Dropbox queue) and need to be self contained - everything I need to play should be in the download, without needing to install anything (including RTPs; we aren't living in the days of slow connections anymore, people). You should also have any fixes in the download, not something I have to look through the comments for - I'm going to be avoiding them like the plague until I've finished the review.
When I review a game, I try to play as much of it as I can possibly stand before posting the review - I make notes/write part of the review as I'm playing, so a lot of what goes into the review is first impressions of sections. I'm also not a stickler - things don't have to be perfect - but I've seen many examples of things not done perfectly but, at the same time, not done horribly. I rate five categories on a scale from 1 to 10: Story, Graphics, Sound, Gameplay & Pacing, and Mapping & Design. 5 is average to me, so it's not necessarily saying that category is bad - it's saying it's middle of the road. Games within the same editor are compared to one another, not games across editors (I'm not going to hold an RM2k game to the same standards as a VX Ace game due to system limitations, but I won't let it hold back the RM2k game's rating) - unless the game is part of a series across multiple editors.
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The Screenshot Topic Returns
author=Xenomic
Huh. I actually didn't even realized it looked as such o_O
A lot of people don't when they're designing things.
Opera web browser moving over to Webkit
author=LockeZ
The fewer systems there are to design software for, the easier software design is.
Though I'm not sure what all exactly is included in Webkit, it sounds like this is FANTASTIC news for web developers, who currently have a nightmare on their hands trying to make their code work on a billion different web browsers, which all render pages differently. Probably 90% of web design is taken up by trying to get a page that looks and acts correctly on one browser to also look and act that same way on all the others. If the end result of this change is that two of the major browsers render pages identically, or even near-identically, I will be SO FUCKING THRILLED
This - entirely this. This is my day job, designing and implementing web applications (whether for the internet or an intranet), and making it work on all browsers is a pain in the ass headache, especially when Webkit has features in it right now, even if it is only in the betas, that other development engines haven't even started work on (meaning they'll be a long time in coming to full version usage). There's nothing more annoying than having to write up JavaScript workarounds because X% of the userbase has an engine that can't support the one feature your application needs.
Linearity OK? Are choices important?
author=LockeZauthor=TravioThe main points of an RPG are usually the combat and the rewards you get from that combat, generally speaking. So exploration is driving you out of the main point of the game there too. There are RPGs that are built around exploration too - they're called western RPGs - but that's just one subgenre. Most RPGs feel like they just kind of included some exploration to waste my time while I'm trying to play, because there's nothing about the exploration that's at all engaging. It's added to the game only at the absolute most primitive, surface level. It's not what makes the game tick.
The other games you mention are games from genres where exploration isn't expected and, in most cases, is frowned upon because it drives you out of the main point of the game - the action, in all three cases.
Then let's go back to the title - Final Fantasy 13 varies from the existing formula of Final Fantasy in a bad way in doing this. And RPGs have almost always had 'secrets' to find, things that aren't on the main path, but just off of it in some hidden nook. I can probably count on my hands the number of times there was any meaningful choice to which direction I was going in FF13 - even places where you can choose multiple paths tend towards the two paths reconverging, with all the actual treasure right there in front of you. There's a legitimate fan beef with the game locking you onto one path, especially after how 'open' FF12 was.
Linearity OK? Are choices important?
author=LockeZ
Like, everyone seems to universally revile FF13, even though the campaign in Halo or Devil May Cry or Contra is just as linear.
author=JosephSeraph
Linear games are great.
I think pointing to Final Fantasy X is a good instance of why FF13 gets ragged on as "Final Corridor Simulator 13." FF10 was just as linear, story wise, but there was plenty of room to go off the main path and look around, and then you could go back later on and play around and find stuff that was hidden before. But FF13 is basically railroad until chapter... 11, IIRC, then it lets you into the trainyard where you can do a small variety of time filling sidequests in a rather contained area - and then when you finally get to the end of that trainyard (or get bored with it's limited options), it's back on the railroad express right back to the end of the game.
Even the slight opening up after completing the game only allows you to go back into the area from Chapter 11 - you never get to go back. RPGs are, almost since there inception, defined heavily on the fact that you can go back, or wander around off the main path. The other games you mention are games from genres where exploration isn't expected and, in most cases, is frowned upon because it drives you out of the main point of the game - the action, in all three cases.
Linearity OK? Are choices important?
Personally, I think the best way to go about it is to stick to roughly one linear path with the small changes here and there depending on what you do. Nothing that alters the main story in any major way, but... for example, let's say you defeat a major enemy: you're given the choice to spare him or to kill him. If you kill him, word might get out you're a bit of a ruthless guy when it comes to them there baddies, and the next baddy might refuse to talk simply because of that action (or, because you spared the last one, you might have an option to talk the theoretical next baddy down instead of fighting him).
With LSX, I'm doing pretty much that - making some places where, depending on the actions you do in that segment, things later on in the game change in a small way (for example, you're asked to go speak with someone - if you rest first, you miss a couple extra lines that hint at what's going on much earlier - and in another place, you can choose to go do a section of the storyline without taking Eva, the choice of which will affect some scenes later in and how she sees you, but not in a major 'oh my god, I need to restart because I screwed up my game' way).
With LSX, I'm doing pretty much that - making some places where, depending on the actions you do in that segment, things later on in the game change in a small way (for example, you're asked to go speak with someone - if you rest first, you miss a couple extra lines that hint at what's going on much earlier - and in another place, you can choose to go do a section of the storyline without taking Eva, the choice of which will affect some scenes later in and how she sees you, but not in a major 'oh my god, I need to restart because I screwed up my game' way).
Eh.. Tilesets
Parallax mapping is the way to go for more complicated stuff if you can't figure out how to do it in tilesets (though, with the right work, you can accomplish a lot using just tilesets). Basically, you're making the entire map in Photoshop/GIMP/what-have-you and then just using a blank tileset with passabilities set correctly to show what areas you can and can't walk on.
Camstudio Recording Issues
The correct video codecs on your computer will solve a lot of the loss of quality, but you will always experience a loss of quality in a reduction of file size. It's impossible not to (which is why WAV and FLAC files are about 10 megabytes per minute of audio, and MP3s can clock in at around 500 kilobytes or smaller per minute of audio). But, with the correct codecs, you can minimize your quality loss to a reasonable amount.
Also, if you're trying to change your mic volume separately, right click on your volume control panel icon in the system tray, and click 'Recording Devices' - from Vista onwards, they're split into different control panels. If Windows recognizes your mic, where it's plugged in will be highlighted, you can select it and alter it's input volume (I forget for sure on Vista, but on 7, it's on a separate tab in Properties called "Levels").
Also, if you're trying to change your mic volume separately, right click on your volume control panel icon in the system tray, and click 'Recording Devices' - from Vista onwards, they're split into different control panels. If Windows recognizes your mic, where it's plugged in will be highlighted, you can select it and alter it's input volume (I forget for sure on Vista, but on 7, it's on a separate tab in Properties called "Levels").
Camstudio Recording Issues
With Camstudio, I'm pretty sure you have to do any "voice over" separately and mix it in - from what I can remember of when I had it, it was only ever able to record one track at a time, which is part of what drove me to Fraps (that, and Fraps has always run better when I've demo'd it, as it was designed to run on top of games).
Male US Voices needed
author=EzekielRage
no british, canadian or australian, sorry.
Implying no British (*coughHughLauriecough*), Canadian (*coughWiliamShatnercough*), or Australian (*coughAnnaTorvcough*) could ever sound American. Yeah, at that point I'm about to assume you don't know what you're doing. =P
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