loonygames' MailBag: Issue #5

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The "What the Heck Are You People On??" Dept.:
MailBag for Issue #5

Comments by Stephanie "Bobbi" Bergman

Every week our associate editor takes on the big ol' pile of mail for your reading enjoyment...got something to say? Send it in. You just might win a swanky loonygames t-shirt. Letters are presented exactly as they are recieved.

Um...confusion, I think.

Subject: comment...

I was reading one of your articles written by Jason "loony boi" about JAM, I'd just like to add that they're already arcade, computer & console emulators out on the Net that already can be played on IBM & MAC based computers with game files called ROMs. Thats all.

Sean

ROMs do just that...let you play console games on a pc through an emulator. The device the loonster was talking about lets you play console games ON THE CONSOLE SYSTEM through your monitor. Not emulation...it's truly your PlayStation on your computer monitor. Not to mention the legality of ROMs, which is waaay up in fishy land, the JAM system is completely legal, since the only thing different with the game is you're using your monitor instead of a tv screen. A ballgame of a different color. (hey, name that quote, I may just have to give you next week's t-shirt! And Elaine, you can't write in..I KNOW you know that one.)

Subject: In defense of Lara

Sirs,a different outlook..

not everyone is intent on competitive modem gaming....

I get enough daily "interactivity" w/ a bunch of assholes (the public) to suit my tastes..

I appreciate the clever gameplay,nice graphics & outrageous femm. model in the TR games... (boobs aside, it's still a great game...) course,Lara's hit the bigTime(w/ THE MOVIE); probably this will ruin TombRaider forever...too bad, I was kind of hoping that the TR series would help pioneer the PC game as a "you are there" type of experience... this is to say, that this 3rd person puzzle/adventure/(sometimes) shooter may be developing as the closest thing to a real movie (to date)....or maybe Not...

what do you think?

I like your articles,info,reviews & skin tutorials : keep up the very interesting page...

the Vagrant a reader of yours, from the TR site "Lara Naturally"

Thanks, but um, I'm not a sir, and I detest Lara. I think Tomb Raider's a decent game. Nothing special...3rd person games just bug me. (Exception being what I've seen of Max Payne...YEOW! I'm sooo psyched for that. Of course, running around NY killing people is pretty cool in itself)

I think a 3rd person shooter is the wrong genre to pioneer a 'you were there' idea...watching someone do something isn't putting you there, its making you very clear that you're only watching. In that respect, games like Quake and SiN come closer to that concept than Tomb Raider ever will.

Back to Tresspasser...with totally interactive environments, AND the first person perspective, I think this one has the best shot of any game in the near future of making you feel like you're actually there.

Movies, sure, cinematics are trying to do just that. But there's a huge difference between a movie and putting you IN the game. 3rd person games will never actually put you there, the perspective is just too remote.

As for the movie...look at the Mortal Kombat movies. I rather liked the first one, but the second was pathetic. The game's still fun. Mario the movie, I think we'd rather forget, but it hardly ruined Mario...look at MarioKart, Mario64...all doing dandy. Up and coming we have the Duke movie, a possible Shadow Warrior movie, and Lara. They may be horrible, or they may be great...either way, if the game's decent, it'll survive. If you really don't think Tomb Raider can survive a movie, well, that says something about the game, doesn't it.

(And I still don't know where this e-mail came from, except for publicity hunting for your website. I bash Lara regularly, but as far as I can remember, I haven't done it here....yet)

In defense of attention spans...

Subject: Feedback

Read your article on short attention spans. I have to disagree that there are to many games coming at one time. It may seem like that now since they are all in one pile but the past has shown us that they don't all come at one time and with all the delays, you will be lucky if you see 2 or 3 good games come out a month. I find myself always waiting for the next game. They never come fast enough and I always finish all the games I play without any cheets. I mean most games these days are very short. I will give you some examples:

Finnished Quake2 in 3 days.
Finnished Unreal in 4 days and then finnished it again in unreal mode in 2 days.
Finnished Commandos in 6 days.
Finnished Jedi Knight in 4 days.
Finnished Motocross Madness and built my own traks in 2 days.
Finnished Twinsen Odesy in 4 days.
Finnished Tomb Raider2 in 5 days.

These are just a few games that I remember recently capturing my attention lately but in general there just arent enough games for the average hard core gamer. I am so bored with the slow flow of game releases and this summer expecialy has been the worse. Please don't give the game makers any wrong ideas about to many games being released because this has just not happenend yet. I mean, "Come on! We're starving here!"

Bort

Wow. Many things come to mind here...um, I'll be nice though.I am curious though, how much time do you spend in front of a computer if you're able to finish all these games THAT fast???

Well, loony wrote in and said "give the drunk guy the t-shirt!" I may be the big sister, and prone to disagreeing with the loon, but hey, when he's right, he's right.

Subject: Clarity amongst the alcoholic rampagings...

Yeeeesss, *hiccup* I think you've nailed it with this site. Very cool. Almost Weezer cool.

Being a newcomer, I was surprised to see such in depth and informative articles - hell, what are you supposed to expect when the title is 'loonygames'?!

Surprise me you did *hiccup*, however, and now I think I'll be tuning in every week. Stephanie Bergman's interview with Paul Steed was fantastic. Some very interesting tidbits.

Thanks for the ride!!!!

-Ben "Quick, get me another beer" O'Mara

T-shirt's yours, for this one. And hey, you liked my interview. Brownie points galore... :)

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Credits: MailBag logo illustrated and is © 1998 Dan Zalkus. The MailBag is © 1998 Stephanie Bergman. All other content is © 1998 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited and not nice.