But I'm also very curious about how straight shooters distinguish themselves, and how they interweave the narrative with the gameplay. And the preview I saw looked way too complex.
I haven't played a lot of them, so I don't know a lot of examples. I think Far Cry 2 is supposed to be really wide open where you have objectives, but you have options of how to accomplish them. No idea about narrative.
In Half Life 2 (and I presume the sequals when I get to them), you are on a very linear path with action, puzzles, and non-player characters in scripted sequences talking to you to advance the plot.
I've played the demo of Crysis a little and it is like Far Cry 2 I suspect, you have objectives in an open area and there is a linear path to accomplish them. I didn't see much plot.
I've played a bit the Bioshock demo as well. It has tremendous atmosphere (how can you not like an underwater objectivist dystopia) and I suspect from the demo it is fairly linear as well. It is supposed to have a lot of plot as well.
So in my limited experience I've seen a couple of camps, sort of the virtual playground vs. the highly scripted story.
Interesting Greenwald interview with Scott Horton about the neo-cons' role (especially Bill Kristol's) in the Sarah Palin pick, and how that's led to infighting between Kristol and the McCain campaign: [link] (scroll down a bit)
Sorry this is a bit long; if you don't care about Palin's connection to the neo-cons, I suggest you skip this....
SH: I'd say, of course the McCain campaign isn't doing too well right now, and one of the consequences of that is we've got a lot of finger-pointing going on within the camp, and I'd say there's a pretty broad agreement amongst a number of the senior-most advisors to McCain that the Palin pick is worse than disappointing. It's a total disaster, as one describes to me. And there is a sort of blame game going on there.
...
SH: And the interesting thing is of course, if we look across the whole horizon of conservative columnists, prominent conservative columnists, pretty much all of them are expressing reservations or concern or they're outright opposing Palin as a pick, with one really striking exception, and that's Bill Kristol. And Bill Kristol, in none of his columns has acknowledged that he in a sense is the author of Sarah Palin. He discovered her, he promoted her, and he pushed her through to the vice-presidential nomination.
...
Glenn Greenwald: What do you think the appeal is that at least Bill Kristol in this sort of Weekly Standard circle sees in Palin, why do they like her more than anyone else at this point?
SH: Well, I can tell you what I'm told was advanced as reasons for her: that she had very close ties to the religious right, so she would mobilize and motivate them. That she was essentially a blank book - she really didn't have attitudes about much of anything, so she was someone they could take and they could furnish the copy for, they could provide the content, but then a third and major point they made was, well, look, she's from a little tiny town in Alaska in the middle of absolutely nowhere, nobody knows anything about her, and people are unlikely to discover a lot about her because of this remoteness aspect, and that's a big plus. I think that last point really turns out to be a fatal miscalculation, because of course you have had taken some time to dig in and get information, but what's come out has been devastating.
GG: It's bizarre, you can really see the evolution from when she first arrived on the national stage with no history of opining on things like foreign policy, or much of anything beyond her provincial range of concerns in Alaska, to just absolutely reciting with blind and absolute loyalty, the entire neo-con right-wing line on virtually everything, from proclaiming her deep and abiding love of Israel, and talking about the flag she waves in her office, to every form of belligerence and aggressive militarism that they've been advocating, and that is the centerpiece of their political agenda. It's almost like they took a tape and put it in her back and wound her up and there she goes.
SH: That's right. They even do a very careful job of editing it, because they gave her material that is contrary to the positions taken by Senator McCain on several issues.
GG: Right. Right, it's amazing - she is almost reciting the script from 2002, 2003; it's like they had an old tape lying around and put that in her, and that's what she's mouthing.
SH: Right. And if you look just in the news cycle from the last 48 hours, I would say the anger and irritation between a number of the senior people in the McCain camp and Bill Kristol is become really acute. I mean, it's flashed and Kristol again, saying basically that the entire campaign team should be fired, and they respond in kind criticizing him, saying he was mouthing Obama talking points, and so on. What is the touchiness that underlies all of that? They view this man as the guy who gave them this albatross, Sarah Palin. I think there's a lot of real anger about it. There's also recognition that it's too (continued...)
I DONT UNDERSTAND.
"Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. When a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate."
This cracked me up - Joe Klein:
Ronald Reagan used to say that the most frightening nine words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." That is no longer true. This year, the most frightening eight words are "I'm John McCain and I approved this message."
You Say that Like It's a Bad Thing
Amendment 48 in Colorado is a controversial ballot measure that would make the term "person" "include any human being from the moment of fertilization", with all the constitutional rights that confers.
I'm with Allyson, that's insane. Should sex only be allowed in very controlled circumstances to make implantation as likely as possible? If not, you are putting the lives of people at risk.
Speaking of the issue, I was very annoyed with Palin when she was asked about abortion by Katie Couric and didn't want to be pinned down as wanting to make abortion illegal. I mean c'mon, just say it.
The supreme court justice thing in the debate was, I thought, a real mess for McCain. He's not going to apply a litmus test for justices, but any justice you doesn't pass the test is unqualified. He also said he approved Ginsberg because she was qualified, but according to his own statement later, she is unqualified.
So, last night we were having a conversation about conservatives and the republican party.
I don't get it.
I don't get how the current incarnation of the Republican party could possibly be thought of as conservative.
From legislating when life begins to where prayer should occur to funding a fucked up war that is not working to wanting to be interventionist around the world to nationalizing banks.... it's all about MORE government.
I'd love for conservatives to take BACK their party, because the current Republican party is not quite the bastion of conservatism.
If, God Forbid, McCain/Palin get elected to the White House, I'ma start hadning out copies of The Handmaid's Tale as a primer on the New American Life.
Joe the Plumber not actually licensed to practice plumbing. (Also, a tax cheat, a fairly hardcore wingnut rather than the undecided voter he was first said to be, and some say a GOP plant. But the "not a real plumber" part somehow amuses me the most.)
