Two Weeks Till Friday (?) welcome to ambivalence.

I’m so lazy…

I'm posting links to other people's articles.

This is a pretty accurate description from what we've seen. There seems to be a daily list of what's going wrong with the Olympics but this article is sums up the city's energy nicely and makes me still feel good about the Olympics in Vancouver overall.

We went down to Robson and Granville on Saturday night and it was almost scary how many people were down there. But everyone for the most part was/is having a great time.

Protesters be damned. These Olympics are awesome.

Tonight, we're off to the curling!

This is awesome.

I’m going to put this under the ‘hmmmm’ category

Interactive Drama

There's a new game coming out in 2010 called Heavy Rain that promotes itself as "Interactive Drama". And it's... depressing. But in a good way.

I don't think it's the first of it's kind but the production value looks amazing and if successful, could open the door for more games of the like.

This is also called an 'adult game' but not in the same way you would call Playboy an 'adult magazine'. It has adult themes. The player... does... stuff. It's not a shooter. It's not an RPG like other RPG's. You... play with your kids. You wash the dishes. You're confronted with situations that give you many different options to play out and ultimately change the story. You suffer loss and great emotional pain. The story plays out as a drama that you... interact with. And as mentioned, each decision has consequences. Consequences that often come back at you later in the game. For example, you see your two sons out in the back yard playing games. You go out. Both boys are excited to see you and fight for your attention. They want to be picked up and played with. But which one do you pick up first? What physiological implications are occurring when one child isn't chosen? Did you pick your favorite? Is there resentment? Maybe. Maybe not. But something will happen because of your action or lack thereof.

Another bizarre aspect of the game are the controls. Most games you have a run button. A jump button. A shoot button. An action button. On and on. There are no set controls for Heavy Rain. There are visual clues but you are never using the same button twice. Well, one button doesn't have one tied action. The game gives you visual clues what to do with the controller and you can chose or chose not to act on it. This is your drama.

Oh, and you have to solve a... murder.

Check it out. I think it's great when you have people exploring new ideas especially when it comes to digital entertainment.