Torona

Posted on Wed 01 February 2012

So again, I’ll try to translate dishes as good as possible, now with the help of a site recommended to me by Elke. For the German names, see the footnotes.

After another round of pressing information out of my semi-cooperative friends and colleagues I had a new restaurant to try. Several actually, but this post is about Torona which I was referred to by David. You’ll want to visit their site. They have pictures.

Torona’s menu is extremely small or should I say “focused”? There are indeed quite few options on the card aside from their main specialty: “Pinchos” are their primary means of attracting people. These are little pieces of meat or seafood on skewers priced between 4€ and 7€ each and a medium amount would be two or three of them. And my, are they delicious…

I went there on a Monday evening at about 18:00 (maybe a bit earlier) together with Alex. When we initially entered the restaurant after having passed it before due to my uncanny inability to locate it even using Google Maps it was rather empty. I’m still not sure how we missed it. It’s on the Färberplatz in Graz. I’m sure there were at most three other tables in use and that’s few, considering that Torona has two floors. Not really two floors though, but a front area more suited to have a quick drink and grab a little aperitif and a bigger room further back. To enter this room you descend a flight of stairs and arrive in a room that accommodates about 8 tables (also bigger since this is seems to be the dedicated dinning area). The decoration is tasteful and in my opinion the restaurant was clean too. Also I realized as I sat down the bench and the provided pillow were extraordinarily comfortable. Alex probably thought I was crazy when I stopped mid-speak to test the pillow again. Anyway, I’m rambling. I was positively surprised when looking at the drinks on offer since they have non-alcoholic cocktails. I have to admit, I’m really easily drawn to a bar that offers good mocktails. Of course I had to order a Virgin Mojito since I enjoy the sour taste combined with a little sweetness from sugar. Alex had some kind of white wine. Sorry, I can’t help you with alcoholic beverages. However, Alex wants me to add they served it without water. He had to order that separately.

For a short moment I thought about having a soup but a glance in my wallet told me that I wouldn’t have soup this time. I ordered lamb steak with vegetables and potatoes with herbs as well as pork filet with plums mantled in Serano ham1 while Alex had the Lomo de Pata Negra skewer2.2 of them to be precise. Also in case you’re wondering: That is a special kind of pig that, according to the menu is the most expensive pig on the planet.

When someone on a table orders pinchos the waiter serves a long wooden tablet with five glasses on it. They contain different kinds of dips that are a perfect fit to the pinchos.

  • Alioli is a kind of mayonnaise with garlic. (my favorite)
  • The Andalusian sauce is based on hot bell pepper and tomatoes.
  • The lingonberry sauce3 has an interesting and nice touch of cinnamon to it. (interesting, but didn’t quite taste that great with my meat)
  • The green pesto contains olives and parsley4. (I can’t quite put my finger on it but this didn’t taste good at all though it was good to have a completely different kind of flavor as well.)
  • The tomato salsa is especially interesting since it isn’t hot as hell just a bit spicy and not aggressive at all. I was surprised because I expected it to be unbelievably hot but the surprise was rather pleasant, I might add. (if it wasn’t for the Alioli this would’ve been my favorite)

Unfortunately I forgot to check how long we waited for our food to appear but on the other hand I didn’t feel the necessity due to having company and the waiter being pleasantly friendly. When our dishes arrived I first tasted the vegetables and the lamb and both were extraordinary. Everything was seasoned rather strongly and that’s a plus in my opinion. Even the dressing of the little bit of salad was tasty - and I admit I wouldn’t even have realized if Alex hadn’t mentioned it. Interestingly the pinchos weren’t on the plate itself but on white bread that slowly sucked in the fat and spices - a great idea.

After all I wouldn’t choose the Torona if I was extremely hungry and looking for a big meal. But if you’re slightly hungry and want to enjoy some great skewers with drinks and chill at a great place, Torona is the place. I’d recommend bringing a friend or possibly a date since the place will certainly leave a great impression.

So… I heard people saying that they’d want some sort of rating system but quickly responded I’m not much for competition. I absolutely despise those numbering systems and star ratings and whatever. They may be helpful but they also force a writer’s opinion into a numerical system which is often just inappropriate. I’ll just do it with a binary system.

Should you visit this place? Yes.


Update: Martin added that you usually don’t get water to your white wine. I’m terribly sorry, but I didn’t know that. I don’t consume alcohol.


  1. Lammsteak-Spieß mit Gemüse und Kräuterkartoffel, Schweinefilet-Spieß mit Pflaumen und Serranomantel 

  2. Lomo de Pata Negra am Spieß 

  3. Preiselbeere 

  4. Schnittlauch 


Torona is part 3 of Cuisine Notes:

  1. Rox (opening)
  2. Rondo
  3. Torona
  4. Rox (follow-up)
  5. Propeller
  6. Tribeka: Graz's young coffee culture

Rondo

Posted on Mon 30 January 2012

First things first. When writing my Cuisine Notes I’m never entirely sure if I’ve translated the names of food properly. If you feel like you know better, don’t hesitate to contact me. Also the German version is included, see the footnotes.

Just last week I was again at one of my favorite local restaurants in Graz: The Rondo is mostly a restaurant and less of a bar or a café, though a little of both. While I admit never having been there in the evening it certainly is a nice location to have dinner or a drink while calming down from an exhausting day. Rondo is the spot you want to visit to taste things you don’t know yet, whether it’s something Austrian that you’ve never had the chance of eating or something very exotic that they just happen to offer on a day you have some spare time.

The atmosphere is great and laid-back, not too relaxing, since it’s not some kind of lounge, but comfortable. The restaurant is located on the ground floor, with its entrance easy to miss when visiting the first time since you have to turn sharp left when entering the building instead of heading towards the main area where several offices are. The side facing the street is completely transparent due to immense glass windows. Finding the restaurant is not a problem because of big decorative labels spelling out the restaurant’s name on the huge glass front. (Yes, Pete, I was also tempted to walk straight through the glass wall…)

I’ve been there about four times now. For a restaurant I enjoy that’s actually quite few but unfortunately I live in a completely different area of Graz. Rondo is near the Central Station. I usually get there by bus but it’s still kind of a long ride, so I don’t go there unless I’ve a lot of time available and there’s some kind of dish on the daily menu1 that I really enjoy (or have never tasted before for that matter).

Last time I’ve been there was together with Pete and Thomas, two colleagues from university. We went there because of the daily menu (Grilled Salmon-Trout, according to wiki a trout, with horseradish potatoes and a bouquet of vegetables2) but Thomas and me ended up ordering the grilled salmon filet with sheep’s cheese risotto3. Now, acknowledging that it was about twice the price of the menu and didn’t have soup with it, it was absolutely delicious. Not a lot on the plate though. Pete stuck with the daily special and was equally delighted. It’s a pity he wasn’t quite able to identify his soup. I’m a little sad though that they didn’t up the price for the menu but decided to exclude the desert from the regular menu instead since 2012. Which makes me a sad sweet tooth.

The other times I was there I mostly went because I wanted to try something special they had for the dailies.

  • I had Styrian Chili4 with Polenta. (not my taste)
  • I had Vegetables in Tempura5, sweet chili dip and salad. (great)
  • I had pork steak with BBQ beans and baked potatoes. (incredibly delicious)

I have yet to encounter a dish that doesn’t fit my taste there, but it’s rather easy to say that if you’re planning your meals there according to the daily specials. That, however, is rather easy since the Rondo is offering its menu for the current week as newsletter (also has the current week’s popular dishes aside from the specials). I’ll definitely keep visiting Rondo and obviously recommend it to those seeking food that’s a little more on the exquisite side.

PS: They have pictures on their site.

Should you visit this place? Yes.


Update: Updated to new rating system.


  1. The daily menu is either 7,60€ or 6.90€ + either 1€ for desert or 2€ for desert and coffee. Have I mentioned I dislike coffee? Anyway. Lunch hour is from 12:00 to 14:00, afterwards the menu is probably available but more expensive (or was that the coffee? Never mind.) 

  2. Gegrilltes Lachsforellenfilet auf cremigen Krenkartoffeln, Gemüsebouquet 

  3. Gegrilltes Lachsmittelstück auf cremigen [sic.] Schafkäserisotto 

  4. Steirisches Chili 

  5. Gemüse in Tempurateig 


Rondo is part 2 of Cuisine Notes:

  1. Rox (opening)
  2. Rondo
  3. Torona
  4. Rox (follow-up)
  5. Propeller
  6. Tribeka: Graz's young coffee culture

Media Recap Precursor (End January 2012)

Posted on Thu 26 January 2012 • Tagged with Media Recap

I’ve read four new fantasy books. All of them were written quite well and I’ve only found one obvious case of self-copypasta (as in: an author pasted parts of a previously published work straight into his next). There may be a more detailed analysis to follow, but I’m not sure about that yet.

Unfortunately it seems like I’ll have to wait a year for the next book from Diana Rowland to be published. At least if the information at shelfari is to be trusted as I’ve been to lazy to research further.


Deadly Premonition pt.5

Posted on Mon 23 January 2012 • Tagged with Video Games

To be honest I was tempted to start this post with the same “Welcome back to Let’s play Deadly Premonition” that supergreatfriend always used in his videos. Though I figured that a) might be kind of mean and b) I already did that in the last post. Anyway I’ve returned with another bunch of typed out notes. Frankly I’m already quite fed up putting these into long form but on the other hand I’m not particularly inclined to let my notes go to waste.

Scenes

Forced to Fishing

There’s this one scene where the game introduces one of its bonus mini games via a forced sequence in which you have no other possibility than use the fishing mini game. At least not if you want to advance the story since this is one of the game’s few linear passages.

True to his style however York does not simply fish for fish. And no, neither is he fishing for compliments. Agent York fishes for stolen files which are more to his taste than Emily’s cooking are needed to investigate further.

York’s Car

It would’ve been a cool idea to use a functional GPS system in York’s car considering that the game is using an ingame map as well as a minimap and there is a GPS already in the car. To use that as a nice replacement for the minimap while driving might have been a little weird in terms of usability but a nice touch nevertheless instead of putting a static image on the screen of the navigation system.

Subs

The subs were mismatched at one point near the ending. That just shouldn’t happen. At least, it shouldn’t unless it’s done to be funny, but I still think that mismatching subs - even for the sake of humor - shouldn’t be in a game. They are distracting, not helpful for a person not fluent in the language and way worse for the hearing impaired playing game.

Hunting Statues

You see, during the otherworldly visit of Mr. Steward’s mansion the whole rifle holding statues could’ve been used for something. I admit that it might have been quite hard to fit that into the game’s lore but I have an image in my mind of these statues shooting shadows or something the like. Deus ex Machina.

Evil birds

Of course no Twin Peaks based horror game seems to be complete without the Hitchcockian evil birds. Honestly I don’t know what to make of them. Do they scare you? No. Are they relevant to the plot? No. Are they annoying as hell? Yes. I mean, look at Alan Wake. They subverted this point during the DLC by transforming the birds into actual book pages. I’m still impressed by the idea whenever I think back.

Hold your breath!

It’s a real pity that you only get to understand why holding your breath is helpful against the dead so late in the game. It’s not a terribly good explanation but it’s an acceptable one. At least for a fictional game.

Cigarette scent

I’m no expert concerning dogs and their abilities. I do however doubt that an ordinary dog which is not trained to be looking for missing persons is able to pick up a scent from a burned down cigarette butt. No offense here but I just don’t believe so. Basically the own smell of the cigarette might be what the dog will be looking for (IF he will be looking for something) but not the personal scent of the person who’s been smoking the cigarette.

Hidden Specials within Hidden Specials

One thing that is way more common among console games than PC games is hidden unlockable content. Now I’m not talking about content which is already on the disk and only has to be unlocked via the one time use of a card packaged with the game. I’m talking about content which has to be unlocked the old school way: By achieving certain things in the game. The great thing about Deadly Premonition is though that there’s even unlockables with in the unlockables. Color me impressed.

Quotes

  • “We’ve found a way to keep your pot really warm, Sigourney.” - sgf after obtaining the flame thrower
  • “Here we are and there’s a flashlight that doesn’t exist.” - sgf
  • “Was that a chainsaw Keith had? Probably still mad we took his guitar” - sgf

Again, I’d like to say a big thank you to supergreatfriend who’s done a superb job on the LP playing, filming and posting the videos for about 6 months. Also I’m pretty sure by now Agent York’s favorite video game is the Guitar Hero franchise.

Next time when I’m talking about Deadly Premonition: The lessions that can be learned.


Deadly Premonition pt.5 is part 5 of Deadly Premonition (Let's Play):

  1. Deadly Premonition pt.1
  2. Deadly Premonition pt.2
  3. Deadly Premonition pt.3
  4. Deadly Premonition pt.4
  5. Deadly Premonition pt.5
  6. Deadly Premonition pt.6 (Conclusion)

Don't you walk out on me, Nightingales!

Posted on Wed 18 January 2012 • Tagged with Video Games

What was that talk about the Nightingales sticking together? What was all that “we need our combined strength to defeat Mercer”? Were you lying to me, Karliah? Why haven’t you been honest to me about your motivations, Brynjolf? I feel disappointed. After all we have accomplished together? Rebuilding the guild from its ruins. Proving Karliah’s innocence. Tracking down Mercer Frey. And still, you walk out on me in Irkngthand?

How dare you calling yourselves comrades? How can you even look into the eyes of your mirror images? Have you absolutely no spark of honor in you at all? Truly, my disappointment can’t be described in words.

To save yourselves a bit of honor, yes, you have returned to face Mercer with me. Only to get caught in his treacherous spells. Your help was much appreciated. But I’ll be honest with you guys. After your previous deeds I seriously considered not helping you during the cave in and letting you drown. I did not if only to prove that in contrast to both of you I’m a reliable person.

For those not knowing what I’m talking about: This is about the following bug in a particular quest in Skyrim.

(Xbox) Brynjolf may leave his post and walk to Riften as soon as you enter Irkngthand, rendering the quest non-completable


Update: Quote removed, I was sloppy and linked the wrong bug. Apologies.

Update 2: Got the right quote now.


Deadly Premonition pt.4

Posted on Wed 18 January 2012 • Tagged with Video Games

Welcome back to the 4th part of this mini-series about supergreatfriend‘s Deadly Premonition LP. Again, there will be notes and comments about the LP. This is not the final article about what can be learned from DP. That one will be released as soon as I’m through with all my notes and thought about what lessons there are to be learned.

Scenes

This topic covers pretty much what its title says: Scenes that I have taken notes of.

Colorblind Quest Item

There’s this one scene in which the description of the painting says that there’s a blue apple on it. The apple on the painting is green. The item that York may find is green. The descriptor of the item also says it’s a green apple. Now who found it to be funny to confuse the player this way?

Zombie Painting

Zombies coming out of paintings of zombies. While not entirely new this was quite authentic and refreshing. It’s not your typical zombies-coming-out-of-black-spots kind of zombie appearance which is nice to get away from.

More Recycling

The recycling of pictures and photos during the profiling sections is a logical step, that much I must admit. Nevertheless it feels incredibly cheap seeing the same pictures about three times in different chapters.

UI Confusion

Annoyingly the arrows pointing to certain secondary locations like the spiritual map quests don’t get removed after they have been finished. In the later stages of the game that looked like it was pretty confusing due to several quest markers being displayed onscreen with a clear indication what might be the next option to take. Granted, the main target is a darker red than the optional’s brighter orange. Still, this is far from great UI design and implementation.

Quotes

“York, don’t lie to us!” - Emily

Somehow the script looks like it’s off on this occasion. I can’t remember York having lied to them before.

“Do you want a sternum?” - sgf

I laughed so hard every time he used that running gag.

Additional Notes

  • Judging from York’s use of the word “amazing” he might be a former Apple employee. Otherwise he might have good chances becoming one after leaving the FBI.
  • The crawling shadow fights seem to be incredibly frustrating if you don’t have the right tactic (compare “the hard way” 7 minutes with “the easy way” 13 seconds).
  • For some weird reason York doesn’t want to go into people’s bedrooms without search warrant. Searching the rest of the house including secret rooms, diaries and fridges is okay, though.
  • I don’t know how most players of the game feel but I think the idea of serving the red seeds in the sugar box during the scene in which York is offered tea instead of coffee was brilliant.

Deadly Premonition pt.4 is part 4 of Deadly Premonition (Let's Play):

  1. Deadly Premonition pt.1
  2. Deadly Premonition pt.2
  3. Deadly Premonition pt.3
  4. Deadly Premonition pt.4
  5. Deadly Premonition pt.5
  6. Deadly Premonition pt.6 (Conclusion)

Deadly Premonition pt.3

Posted on Tue 17 January 2012 • Tagged with Video Games

Recently I’ve completed watching the Deadly Premonition LP. Of course I haven’t sat through all remaining 26 parts at once but I came around it during several days. Since bullet points are inherently evil I will try to reduce their usage in this post. Of course, dear reader, that doesn’t save you from the random thoughts I scribbled down in no particular order during watching said LP.

Scenes

Deadly Premonition has lots of funny, terrible and otherwise rememberable scenes. I took notes nevertheless.

The doctor’s profiling

I forgot to mention one scene I found to be quite cool in the last article: During the autopsy the doctor tries to his own little profiling bit in deducing the suspects motives. I was kind of startled why the doctor would be the one doing the profiling and not Agent York. This was subverted when York interrupted him and started to explain that he was all wrong. Also I was reminded once again of Criminal Minds.

Dinner discussion

The discussion at dinner started in a really innocent way but ended up pretty awesome when York explained disgusting details of his work to the local policemen (and -women). The review over at destructoid.com takes this as proof that York is insane. I’d argue that. He just obviously either doesn’t know or doesn’t care what might get people to feel bad. This is the kind of humor that the game displays over and over again. You might like it. If you do, this might be the game for you.

LP-Bot

When supergreatfriend (the LPer) first introduced his idea of LP-Bot when replaying a previously visited combat area in order to gain an item only achieved by doing this I found the idea quite funny. I don’t blame sgf for not wanting to talk through about 20-40 minutes of doing the same thing again. However I found the computer generated voice to be quite annoying during the second revisited combat area and found myself skipping it and the following ones. Still I wonder why sgf decided to insert timestamps that point out the ends of the combat areas during the first run of those sequences but not during the revisit. I definitely would’ve welcomed them.

On animations

Deadly Premonition features some truly bad animations. There’s Quint who’s waving around a tablet with drinks and food on it like it’s a sheet of paper. There’s Emily who obviously enjoys taking her drinks through her ears. The highlight is the general who’s sitting in front of his chair, in the thin air. He’s so cool, he doesn’t actually need the sun chair. On the other hand he’s so far removed from reality that he seemingly doesn’t need anything.

Recycling

There’s quite a bit of recycling going on. I’d argue that normally you wouldn’t be able to tell but since I’ve sat through the game only watching and not playing in quite a short time repeating patters became very obvious. For example Agent York always uses his same catchphrase to introduce himself. He also uses the same animation when doing so. Another animation that gets repeated often is the finger-pointing-upward-to-highlight-his-point thing. The same phrase about “vital piece” is always used when profiling the first time without hints.

Immersion breakers

It’s a common situation that the game’s atmosphere is hampered severely by its technology. If York rushes to another room to check on a possible victim it’s an incredibly immense immersion (hurray for alliterations) breaker when the game goes from cutscene to loading screen to cutscene. Loading screens happen far too often in situations such as this. Many scenes which are key to the story are introduced by loading screens. It’s just no good saying something needs immediate attention and then throw a loading screen at the player.

Ingame spoilers

As sgf mentioned a few times the game is really bad when it comes to foreshadowing and spoilering plot events. Some of the trading cards have obvious spoilers and are obtainable at a point where they may ruin the experience and surprises of future events. The chapters’ names are terrible, telling you almost exactly what to expect. True, there are unexpected plot twists, some good, some bad but that doesn’t make up to the game trying to clue you in on things that you ought to find out trough investigating and not reading them on mysterious collectibles.

Impatient Passengers

York’s passengers being impatient when changing cars or generally just exiting the car seems to be an element where I expect there being a compromise during development. When exiting your current vehicle your passenger(s) will tell you that they’ll be waiting at the next location the plot considers important. You will never be able to change your vehicle without them rushing away. I’m not sure if this is in order for the NPCs to keep their schedules intact or to avoid writing situation based dialogue for your companions.

Additonal notes

  • Boxes have a hard life in Deadly Premonition. They either get pushed around or smashed.
  • I had some issues with playback of the downloaded files from blip.tv on my iPad. Neither streaming nor downloading delivered a satisfiable result, so I had to use either GoodPlayer to sideload the files or Air Video to live-convert and stream them. While doing so was no problem, it was a problem that the devs of GoodPlayer stopped providing changelogs hid them quite well in the release notes.
  • Everyone loves the magic FBI poncho, right? Like all magic rain ponchos it automagically appears when there’s rain and disappears on sunny days. Additional editions for other agencies are currently in discussion.
  • “I think Emily should know that Agent York takes as long as he needs. Or longer” - sgf

I’ve noticed that I still have notes left so I’ll be revisiting the topic of Deadly Premonition again in the near future.


Deadly Premonition pt.3 is part 3 of Deadly Premonition (Let's Play):

  1. Deadly Premonition pt.1
  2. Deadly Premonition pt.2
  3. Deadly Premonition pt.3
  4. Deadly Premonition pt.4
  5. Deadly Premonition pt.5
  6. Deadly Premonition pt.6 (Conclusion)

The Future of Virtual Payment

Posted on Sun 15 January 2012 • Tagged with university

I’ve been doing a little summary about the future of virtual payment options that I wanted to share. This excerpt is part of a longer project for a cryptography and security related course at university to which I contributed this as well as some other sections and did the proofreading. While reading please keep in mind that I wrote this piece from memory and started adding source links afterwards.

Considering we live in a very fast moving world in terms of technology and especially Internet related software it comes as no surprise that it’s difficult to do an accurate prognosis of what is likely to happen. That aside one can try to deduce trends from systems that are already well established as well as those who are gaining momentum fast due to either user popularity or heavily funded marketing that backs them.

Of course this is mostly educated guesswork since I’m neither an expert nor have I been watching the trends for years so that I’m able to give a precise prognosis.

First things first: There is no doubt that micropayments as well as macropayments are here to stay. One only needs to look at systems that are in use today to recognize their broad acceptance amongst their audience. Huge platforms like the iTunes Store, the Android Marketplace and STEAM to name just a few are doing extremely well offering micropayment systems to their customers. Although acceptance of services like Click and Buy is probably wide amongst distributors of digital goods, eBay’s purchase and deep integration of Paypal into its own platform as well as its worldwide customer base almost guarantee that Paypal itself has its future secured despite the criticism the company earned for cutting WikiLeaks off its most valuable funding method.

The same thing will probably hold true for credit cards due to their widespread use in shops, bars and other local venues as well as their ease of use when paying while traveling abroad. Their usage is already dangerous due to a great amount of credit card fraud occurring daily. It’s pretty safe to assume the companies behind the technology will try to improve its security while struggling to maintain the ease of use that makes the cards so popular. In the meantime criminals will try to crack the security mechanisms in place even faster making this an arms race that locks both sides in this fight.

At least that’s my humble opinion never having used a credit card…

Interestingly there is a growing tendency to be a victim of vendor lock-in not only in terms of for example application ecosystems but also in terms of a companies proprietary virtual currency or virtual wallet. Microsoft’s “Microsoft Points” are just one example for the attempt to transfer money to a vendor’s ecosystem instead of paying for a product upfront. The same principle applies for almost all online games which are based on a Freemium model.

Or put differently: To buy MS’s DLC you still had to go buy your points at the store if you didn’t have a credit card. Well, not anymore. Paypal to the rescue.

With the rising of new hardware possibilities like NFC combined with services like Google Wallet there is the chance for a major change in how we see cashless payment today. That is based on customer and vendor acceptance, though. Gaining this acceptance is not only a key to making those technologies profitable, but also to see this change coming to reality. A key factor to this might not be with the customers nor with the vendors but with the service providers that sell NFC equipped smartphones. Recent events involving one carrier in the United States have shown that carriers might block Google Wallet in favor of their own services, that being a reasonable step from a business point of view. However, actions like these might hamper the global acceptance of one such service severely. Even considering Google Checkout already being an established payment provider the chances of Google Wallet. becoming as ubiquitous as Paypal are slim and not helped by phone companies wishing to ship their own solutions.


Fast Food Gaming

Posted on Thu 12 January 2012 • Tagged with Video Games

The following paragraphs are quoted from an interview that gamesradar did with Michel Ancel and Gabrielle Shrager (Rayman):

GR: What, if anything, do you think is wrong with the games industry right now? Or right, for that matter?

MA: It’s very hard to emit an opinion on what’s good and wrong, because everything is going so fast. Maybe too fast. Maybe that’s the main thing, is that people are jumping from one thing to another, and the bad thing that could happen to videogames would be to have games that you buy for one dollar, but you just play part of it and you move to another one, another one, another one, and you never really go deep in one game. And this could be a bad thing, the fast food of the games. And then, as old gamers, we could say, “Oh, in our time, we were waiting for a game! A game was something important, but now we have tons of games, and the price cut makes them like fast food.” Maybe this could be a bad thing. At the same time, it’s a way to enter the videogame world easily, because you can play a game for free or one dollar. So maybe the entrance is easy, but then the game must be longer, or the wait as we make the game must be different. So we have to deal with this new way of making games.

It is critical to establish the fact that the fast food consumption of video games is probably already happening. I can recall having several games on my STEAM account, which I’ve bought (not necessarily as part of a bundle) and have never ever played. Truth be told, I don’t even know if I ever get around to playing them. The problem is that there is only so much time one can spend with games and there are far more games being produced and published than one person himself can play in a immersed way. I find myself being drawn to books and movies and social activities too and that has to be subtracted from the leisure time there is for video games.

There is also the thing with time-management that becomes more and more mainstream oriented. Instapaper and Readitlater have started the trend. The inclusion of a Reading list in Safari and Mobile Safari has only accelerated the need for time managing solutions. I’ve seen Krystian from gamedesignreviews.com creating a backlog for older games in his posession and updating it.

Video games have to compete with many different leisure time activities. The more time consuming (and I don’t use that in a negative way) a game is the harder it will have to gain mainstream acceptance, that is what the “experts” want you to believe. I can only suggest looking at the epic adventure that Skyrim is and its impact during the launch week. A slight hint: It didn’t struggle to amass extremely long playtime.


Deadly Premonition pt.2

Posted on Tue 10 January 2012 • Tagged with Video Games

Back to a second and third session of Deadly Premonition it was. I have now progressed as far as having watched part 10 of the LP and got to enjoy a kind of special service of this LPer for his viewers: You see, the hero, Agent York, references quite a lot of old movies while talking, especially while driving, that is. The LPer went to the length of discussing these movies during long drives through the city so that the viewers wouldn’t be as bored as watching York drive all the length without talking. So far I’ve seen a review about a horror movies whose name I can’t recall right now and Xanadu.

Notes section

  • There was this one scene in which you are introduced to the rich man in the wheelchair with the gas mask. No offense, but aside from the man being eccentric to the top, the gas mask just screams “evil” to me. On the other hand, he makes his dialogue passages rhyme. Who wouldn’t like that?
  • I admit that I lack the inside view in federal (or to be precise: all) murder investigations, but I fail to understand why the details of this case are considered “Top Secret”.
  • Is there something in Japanese culture that dictates that women have to be able to cook? I’ve seen so many anime and video games that highlight a woman who isn’t able to cook in such an embarrassing way. It’s really a lack of respect if you ask me. I’m not a great chef myself but I get along. Also there are other options to satisfy your hunger than cooking yourself, you know?
  • How exactly does washing a car repair its damage? And don’t even mention something sexually charged with the lady at the gas station. That would’ve to be York’s health being restored, not the car’s.
  • The music is an interesting mix. I enjoy some parts of it, for example the mysterious part that plays when arriving at a new location as part of the investigation. But the funny, whistling part is so annoying that I feel like I need to mute the video for a moment.

Quote section

  • “We are being a responsible FBI Agent by racing on the streets.” - supergreatfriend (LPer)
  • “In Greenvale people play darts with guns” - sgf
  • “Coffee equals sleep. You can go days without sleeping on coffee. Somehow I have a feeling that Agent York does that regularly.” - sgf
  • “No, Emily, that’s not where the drink goes!” - sgf after Emily’s animation has her putting her glass to her ear…
  • “Agent York, where are you?” - sgf after a bug turns York invisible. sgf acknowledges that the lights and sirens of the police car are missing but doesn’t realize that it’s a stealth police car. Obviously.
  • “Maybe he needs friends who are not so dumb” - A. York while giving dumbbells to a NPC in a side quest.
  • “Nothing can go wrong doing this” - sgf while driving full speed on train rails
  • “reality is shifting” - sgf’s comment on a flickering texture
  • “it is resistant to car” - sgf about the monstrous dog
  • “we met a deadly dog and helped the deputy improve her cooking. Federal money well spent” - sgf
  • “look at them standing so upright now” - A. York about kids who were sitting

Conclusio

In my conclusion I want to point out that I really dislike the hero’s smoking habit. Maybe, just maybe someone thought that this added to his personality, which might even be occasionally true. I still don’t have to like it, do I?
Also sgf said “I recognize that car” while simultaneously ramming it. He truly wreckognized it.
There are some unresolved questions after this session though. Why is there a door leading outside in a police holding cell? Why can’t you enter the High School as part of the investigation? And where does the magical FBI poncho come from? We may never know.


Deadly Premonition pt.2 is part 2 of Deadly Premonition (Let's Play):

  1. Deadly Premonition pt.1
  2. Deadly Premonition pt.2
  3. Deadly Premonition pt.3
  4. Deadly Premonition pt.4
  5. Deadly Premonition pt.5
  6. Deadly Premonition pt.6 (Conclusion)