That's always toobad to hear. Wonder what caused the crappy port?

Condolences to ps3 owners.

As for Adults only rating. NC-17 movies do fail quite a bit if they are serious movie intended for theatre.

However, if the movies were targeted differently like porn industry, then that's whole another story. Film industry embraced the porn industry while gaming industry have not. I think that shows another sign of maturity.

General publlic understands that there are some movies for adults and there are some movies for kids. However, it seems general public still has trouble understanding that some games are for adults and some are for kids. To them, anything that is for adults is evil game, like GTA series.

When gaming industry can make general public to have same understanding as movie industry, that when gaming industry have fully matured.

TriangleHard

Point taken. Taking into consideration that there are looser restrictions for movies than for games, I imagine it is related to control; a game places the player in the role of such and such situation. In a way, it is the player that is performing whatever illicit action a particular game allows. Even though this is an obviously fictitious world, it doesn't seem surprising that people wonder at the appeal of these games. "Why does my Timmy play a game where he shoots people walking down the street? Why is that fun?" It would seem then, that this differs from a movie for the obvious reason. All movies are told from a third person perspective - we are trained to judge characters (including the protagonist). When a particular character makes an immoral choice it is interpreted as the character's choice which results from his or her current situation.

In a game where the player is the main character, it seems a little tougher to explain the action of, for example, Manhunt as deep character development. That's not to say there isn't character development in the game, but the fact remains that there is less distance between the player and the game then there is in the viewer (or reader, for that matter, in the case of books) and the movie.

It's simple.

Gaming industry has not matured yet.

Japan I'd say has most matured gaming culture in the world, but even there AO rating is foriegn on consoles.

When people can accept games are part of their culture like movies and don't put it down by just calling them "games" as if they were mere toys, maybe then the industry can really make good use of AO.

TriangleHard

I'll agree with you that the gaming industry is put down to the level of toys while perhaps a few noted examples approach artwork, I don't think the industry's reaction to AO is a good example of this. It seems to me a rather easy comparison is to NC-17 for film. From what I've heard (I'm no critic to be sure), director's will do whatever they can to reduce the explicit content in their work to achieve an "R" rating as traditionally NC-17 movies fail for the same reasons the majority (all?)of AO titles do. For this reason, I don't think we can claim that the reaction to explicit content is unique to gaming at all.

I am glad this topic is here.

I just finished Indigo Prophecy; I saw it on the xbl marketplace and figured I'd give it a shot. Now, if the OP is looking for games with good storytelling,this is the way to go. Obviously, to compare an adventure game to a shooter like Halo or Half Life doesn't necessarily work (especially in a quantifiable sense), but when something is great it doesn't really matter what the trigger buttons do. When a game is able to get an individual to sit and start at an illuminated screen for all too many hours without realizing it, something is working.

I agree with many of the posters here: I believe that while flashy graphics and mechanics can make a game good, a true story written by real writers can propel it into greatness. Sure there are games that are fun to play around with (your Dooms or your Quakes), but it seems like there are all too few that can really pull off such a seductive atmosphere to truly suspend disbelief. Indigo Prophecy is my poster child for the moment, if only because I finished it just a little while ago, but it illustrates my point: David Cage knew what he wanted to do with the game, andin my opinioncreated a game that lived up his term "interactive film". It is true that graphically the game was behind the times at its release, and at some points character animations look flat out goofy (a main character has a perpetual strut as he walks- even during the game's more emotionally chargedscenes). In terms of sheer involvement, however, I have not played a more captivating game.

To be honest, this rant was going to find its way into the forums in one way or another, but I'm glad somebody beat me to the punch.

More like this please.

I'd just do what I always did, which was trade all my medicine, clothing, spare wheels, and food for bullets. Bullets to go hunting.

 "You shot 2012 pounds of food. You carry 58 pounds back."

Oh, edutainment. Is there nothing you can't teach me?

Hated the endings for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I hear the ending of NWN 2 is bad, but I haven't finished yet, so...but the ending of Shadows of Undrentide was pretty bad, and I understand it's along those lines. Oh, and the ending for Curse of Monkey Island was a huge disappointment for me, and Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh.georgetkat

I actually really liked the ending cinematics for Vampire. They were kinda tongue in cheek, like the rest of the game. I wonder if that has something to do with all the "bad" endings of games. Everyone has different tastes and what they like to see. Clearly, there are some universal agreements (kotor 2, for example. I haven't played it, but it's come up enough) but for alot of the other ones, it seems like they are only bad for those who wanted to see something else. Halo 2 for example. Sure, it was obnoxious how it left off, but I rather enjoyed the cinematic. Cmon, Master Chief is just so cool.

Point being, developers can't aim to please every gamer with their ending, but I think the better criteria is how well does it wrap up the loose ends in the style that the gameplay has set forth.

Sure, sure, they may be all cool and rolly, but how much use does anyone have for a horribly inefficiently shaped food product such as that? Where would you store it? It's certainly not going to fit into most standard dairy shelves in a refrigerator, nor is it even remotely a good idea to leave it out. You can't serve it to guests; it would take up the entire table, not to mention the smell. Also, imagine this: So you've got some crackers and you think to yourself, "Hmm. I want some cheese" so you go to your fridge, and take out a (note: this must be a miniature) cheese wheel to put on your plate. Then it happens. You weren't quite correct in your weight allowance, and the added mass of the cheese wheel on one side of the plate causes a massive incident. The crackers shoot up into the air; the cheese wheel plummets to the ground. "Is this the worst of it?" I hear you asking. Ah, if only it was. See, then you try to grab the cheese wheel from off the ground, BUT YOU CAN'T, cause it's a cheese wheel and it rolls away.

Big Cheese Wheels: Phaze says nay.