Raiders of the Lost Sim
windy_moon:
Quote from: ZephyrZodiac on 2005 October 15, 06:30:14
Also, what about really good games for kids - at present most games, being geared for teenage boys, are just not suitable for a seven-year-old! Wouldn't you think disney would really start to open up this market?
I've done okay with my boys, mostly Mario. Say it with me..... Mah-ri-OH!. We started with the N64 when they were 6 and under.
True story, boys 6 and 4. The oldest needed help from his younger brother to navigate the game and got used to depending on him as they played together. Dad and I often played with them, but also like to just listen from the other room. Oldest would get frustrated and demand help from his brother, funniest was when the boxes of directions or dialogue would pop up.
6 year old, loudly, "What does it say, what does it SAY?"
4 year old, even more loudly, "For the last time, I can't read!!"
:P
Disney turns out games for every big movie. Most of them are crap with little replay value... I know, we've spent hundreds on them. Nintendo has produced a lot of good titles, though, family games that can also appeal to that 15 year old gamer.
Consoles we own: N64 (still works but barely), GameCube, PS1, PS2, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy 2 (i think), that latest little Nintendo thing.....bunches and gobs of games later, I still think the Mario line is the only one that has a broad spectrum appeal. My younger (11 now) is playing Sly something or other now, the third edition, and while I watch him I just can't get into it.
Give me a new Mario story game, though, and I'm in. (Not the same thing as the Sims, though, is it.)
syberspunk:
Quote from: CharlenieHead on 2005 October 15, 06:50:21
Well, I was going mostly by what I'd heard, because I hadn't seen most of the movies. I did see WotW (at the NYC premeire, in fact!) and although I liked the special effects, I hated Spielberg's whole "lets add some family values into it" deal. I also felt it had a weak ending.
Well, I just totally love movies. I love everything about movies: the acting, the costumes, the visuals, the cinematography, the direction, the emotion, drama, comedy, action, etc. and the story. And I thought some of Spielberg's latest movies were pretty good at visual story telling. As for WotW, I actually thought the ending was quite satisfactory. I thought that it really harkened back to classic sci-fi/fantasy storytelling. Something that you would see in shows like the Twilight Zone, or Strange Tales or Amazing Stories or whatever those shows were called. I thought it was great, fantastic irony, and although it was a bit implausible (the aliens had technology to supposably send ships lightyears away from their origin, and theoretically millions of years ago, but they didn't have technology that would have detected whether the planet had a hospitable environment?!?!?! Didn't they learn anything about "M" class planets from watching Star Trek? :D ), I still thought it was a great ending to a great story. I would have been disappointed if they attempted to "Hollywood" it up with like a final, climactic battle. That would be too "ID4" for me. And I thought it was great that they added the story of the family because it helps to humanize it, and put you in their place and experience what they were going through, the true terror of it all, and to really throw you into the thick of things. It's a great way to bring the viewer in and immerse you within the story. All in all, I thought it was a great movie. It was a fun, summer blockbuster Hollywood action movie, and it did its job, to entertain, quite well.
Anyway, I think Spielberg still has that touch. Something that Lucas has sort of lost focus of. The thing is, Spielberg still has that twinkle of child-like innocence in him, but yet, he's grown more mature in his style and taste. It's a bit grittier; there's a grim, darker, edgier feel in his movies, and yet he still manages to capture that whimsical, child-like essence as well. This was probably always there, even as far as E.T. and Close Encounters, but it was probably more subtle and somewhat underdeveloped. I think now, he's finding a balance; it's a bit more sharpened and focused, yet still retain s a rawness to it as well. I'm sure this all sounds like bullshit, but I can't explain it any better since it is 5:30 AM and I'm a bit delirious and sleepy. lol.
Quote from: windy_moon on 2005 October 15, 06:25:17
Now that I think about it, I'm surprised Lucas hasn't made a game already, since the gaming industry is practically white canvas for him to paint.
Actually, doesn't Lucas have a whole like division devoted to video games? LucasArts? Most of their games have been pretty excellent, especially the PC games, or so I've read/heard. I haven't really played those. A lot of the flight simulating/shooter games for the consoles were really good. But the other platformer types all pretty much sucked, with the exception of the SNES version of the original Star Wars trilogy, at least for me, personally. The graphics for those three games were amazing for that system, and they adhered fairly well to the story line of each movie, for the most part, and it was pretty decent platforming and decent execution of lightsabering and force powers. A lot of the new franchise games have been mostly crap, with probably the exception of that space pod racing game (again, hardly played that one, but it did seem kinda cool). But the most recent games, like the Rogue Squadron ones for the GameCube, and Battlefront were all very excellent. I'm totally looking forward to Battlefront II. ;D
Ste
Diala:
I don't know what they have for the PC, but with console systems, there are a lot of genres to choose from. Sure, there are a lot of one-shooters, racing, and sports games, but there are also puzzles, RPGs, platforms, and many others. Personally, I find enough console games to play to keep me happy. However, I am not a person of quite "female" tastes, and have been playing video games since I was very young. I may not relate to the "average female" out there.
What I recommend is that you go to a game store that sells old consoles like the Super Nintendo and Genesis and look at those. They tend to have a lot of good games that aren't violent and graphic, simply due to limitations in the graphics. They're cheap, but they are very good games, that sold for about $30 many years ago when they were new. What I would be careful of is of games that have battery memories, that the saved files on your games may suddenly become 'deleted.' Make sure the store has a return policy just in case you get a faulty cartridge.
If you like Mario, I recommend similar series like Sonic, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and many, many others. There are tons, and they tend to be similar in style. Sonic is the next best thing to Mario, too, except with animals.
...as for PC games, count me out.
Renatus:
Quote from: syberspunk on 2005 October 15, 09:35:14
Actually, doesn't Lucas have a whole like division devoted to video games? LucasArts?
He does indeed! They've been putting out games for quite a long time now (1987!). My favourites are the old adventure games - Maniac Mansion, the Monkey Island series, Loom, The Dig... they're good 'everyone' games because they require thinking and very little in the way of twitchy muscle reactions and usually are low on violence. Some of these games have been re-released as freeware and to work on modern systems; others you still have to pay for but there is a way to make them work on modern systems with SCUMM VM (SCUMM being the acronym for the game engine). Others have been re-made under other engines.
As far as adventure games go, Sierra used to make some good ones.
And finally, if you are interested in old NES, SNES, and Genesis games, there's always ROMs and emulators, but that's skirting the edges of legality unless you actually own the cartridges of the games you have ROMs for. That isn't completely unlikely; a lot of the old RPGs relied on a battery to keep the saved games, and those only had a life of about 6 years and are a pain in the ass to replace. Playing console games on the computer is pretty awkward with a keyboard, though.
ZephyrZodiac:
As to all the kids' games mentioned, they do seem rather orientated towards, yes, boys! As, for that matter, do a lot of films.
As to Disney, that was what I was trying to say - they make a lot of films that little girls really relate to, why can't they make GOOD PC and console games to go with them?
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