Bugthing

Hey Ross. Need a bit of help here, if you have a moment. I'm doing some audio mixing for an indie game that's still under wraps. Now, I don't usually do foley, but this situation is a bit of an exception what with the woman normally responsible for recording footage being away on an extended pregnancy leave. Anyway, I just now remembered you gave Freeman some gurgling noises for when he was underwater here and there, getting attacked by worms and such. I looked up a few old videos and these clips did sound quite good. I may be mistaken, but I'm assuming you're using some budget-friendly tools or tricks to achieve this 'I'm trying to talk under water' effect? It's not always talking, sometimes it's just Freeman being surprised or, more frequently being annoyed with something underwater, like something blocking his path. Aside from a couple of (attempted) lines, those frustration sounds are the kinds of vocals I'm after. Any tips would be super useful to me. I may be good at mixing sound effects, but I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to recording.

I had a snes emulator before on my old phone, but ultimately the only thing I ever play on that is Chrono Trigger. Some people tried to port OpenMorrowind to the android platform a little while ago, but nothing came of it. Now that's what I'm talking about. Sadly it seems to be in one of those development hell things. It would be good if Bethsoft or Zenimax got behind that instead and pushed it out in a half a year. That's be great, but.. yeah, somehow doubt that will happen.

Another thing that bothers me about most of these mobile games is the huge implied importance of free or FTP games. They comprise a large if not the majority of Google Play's library. Now, in itself free games is not a bad thing. But whenever you come across reviews or roundups of android games, whether or not a game is free tends to be a huge factor in how the game is rated. That in turn makes it harder to figure out which games are worth my time. Again something where I feel a bit of a gamer generation gap, because I couldn't care less if a good game cost me a couple of dollars. I can see how kids might have issues there, but I will gladly pay if the game is worth it. I remember reading about that Doom clone. I'd install it if I could, but for some reason it's a real bitch installing apps outside of Google Play, even if I enable all the permissions and such. I don't know. Plague reminds me a lot of those menu driven games. It might be decent, but it's just not up my alley. Also another example of a game that could at least utilize the available resources of a modern mobile phone a little better.

A couple weeks ago I was stuck on a boat for a few days with nothing but my phone, no wifi and no games. It prompted me to reconsider some of my less important life choices, which in turn led me to investigate the Google play store a bit. It was an... odd experience. Interesting, but odd. I don't think I've ever felt more out of touch with a gaming subculture as this. I've played PC games most of my life, but the selection I see in the Google Play store just sort of makes me wonder if this is what it feels like for a non-gamer to be suddenly confronted with a lot of games. I don't even feel a sliver of interest to almost anything I see there. It'll be some weird anime or barbie thing, sometimes not even a game at all but a guide book or something, or some freaky puzzle game with odd colours, or -god forbid- yet another tower defense game. I don't mean to sound like the old guy here, but the assortment by large doesn't really feel like it was made with gamers in mind at all. Most of the PC games I played in the '90s look more interesting than this and I don't really understand why that should be the case at all. This mobile hardware should be more comparable to a Pentium 3 machine than a 368 in terms of what it can do, so why isn't that potential put to use better? I ended up getting a few games off the bat, but I'm not quite happy about my selection and could use a little more advice on what to get. I did get Minecraft, because hey, Minecraft on a phone, then FreeCiv, because hey, Civilization on a phone (although it certainly seems to have trimmed down on features). I wanted to get Baldur's Gate, but everybody kept saying the interface wasn't optimized for a 5.11 inch screen. I also got King of Dragonpass because an older friend of mine has been raving about that game for years. I'm regretting that last purchase a little, because its menu systems either are some of the most unintuitive I have ever seen for a game, or just aren't fit for the mobile platform. Lastly I thought about getting the android port of KOTOR 1, but it's a pretty linear game that I kinda played enough as it is. Pretty and remarkably like the PC version I remember, but it doesn't offer much in the way of varied content and replayability. There might be some hidden gems in the Google Play library, but I can't seem to spot them through the limited game categories Google Play offers (and frankly most developers don't really seem adhere to). So this is a call to any decent, worthwile mobile games. What have you played, why did you like it, etc. Imagine suggesting it to Ross, because he and I seem have largely similar tastes when it comes to games. It must be an age thing. Ross, I'd be interested to hear if you personally know of any interesting mobile games, but I'd totally get it if you do not have time for that sort of thing.

The opposite NEEDS to happen. Can somebody please fotoshop this picture of Gordon to look more like Ross? Valve cannot escape our judgement!

A woman? I don't know, Chell has always looked a bit trappy to me. Cheekbones. Shoulder muscles. What do you think? Give me one reason why we couldn't have a videogame hero going through hormone replacement therapy.

I wish Kevin Costner would throw a flare in a derelict oil tanker while I'm boating on the oil sometimes.

Well, Ross could always put it on Twitch-*HONK*

Well then it's a good thing you don't have to! I think..

Nuts.

So having seen a fraction of the crazy glitches Ross had to put up with (honestly, I would have given up after one episode), I really have just one question. Is that just HL1 in Source, or is HL2 just as glitchy? Or worse? Tell me it's not worse.

Damn, don't have time for this now. Checking out in 20 minutes to change hotels. I'd watch it in the cab, but I'd just get really motion sick. Don't want that to linger today.

I think I'm too far along already.

At last the time has come for my grand marathon d'FM. From a five star hotel in London, no less! I think this is acceptable.

Ross, you're on fire! Also I'm pretty sure the email didn't come through on this one. I just noticed it by accident.