This week is a hybrid of a “greatest hits” episode and a short news brief, we’ve got a couple stories, community comments and Don added a blooper “greatest hits” reel to the end of the episode, so enjoy! The news includes:
This week, we’re still busting a question of the week as well and it’s a thinker… if you had one novel to implement into a game (which has never been done), what novel would it be?
The Videogame Roundtable has recorded its 500th episode, finally. This is the third attempt. The first was only partially recorded, while the next one was not recorded at all. Appended to this podcast is the partially recorded podcast which had former co-host Jordan Lund.
The news includes:
Let us know how long you’ve been listening to the podcast!
One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
After a long delay, this episode looks at some of the more disturbing stuff going on in the videogame industry — and Minecraft. The Gaming Flashback comes back with Lucidity.
Let us know what you think.
Well in turns out Valve did spend some Munny and got Left for dead 2 accepted by the board to be released in Australia, though it’s a modified version (gore removed). Their is now also a discussion that their is enough pressure from developers, investors & general interest to get an 18+ Rating in the near future. I believe the sides of argument is that having a 18+ rating will allow evil & disturbing games to be accessed to young people, & the other side is that it should be the responsibility of the parents to monitor and restrict what games they play and the rating is there to support parents in their decision. Another issue is not having an 18+ rating will allow games that should be 18+ to be sold to a younger audience.
Well that’s some gaming news from Aus
L8ers Ivan
Well in turns out Valve did spend some Munny and got Left for dead 2 accepted by the board to be released in Australia, though it’s a modified version (gore removed). Their is now also a discussion that their is enough pressure from developers, investors & general interest to get an 18+ Rating in the near future. I believe the sides of argument is that having a 18+ rating will allow evil & disturbing games to be accessed to young people, & the other side is that it should be the responsibility of the parents to monitor and restrict what games they play and the rating is there to support parents in their decision. Another issue is not having an 18+ rating will allow games that should be 18+ to be sold to a younger audience.
Well that’s some gaming news from Aus
L8ers Ivan
I wish i could answer the question of the week, but i generally dont read, and what i do read is purely informative and not fiction.
Maybe the reason why a novel hasn’t been made into a game is that gamers don’t read. Ha, well i’m not saying I hate reading and it’s a waste of time, but i rather sit down to a good game rather than a good book.
I wish i could answer the question of the week, but i generally dont read, and what i do read is purely informative and not fiction.
Maybe the reason why a novel hasn’t been made into a game is that gamers don’t read. Ha, well i’m not saying I hate reading and it’s a waste of time, but i rather sit down to a good game rather than a good book.