Articles by Anthony McCulley
Tonester is a Guest Blogger.
Video Game Design – an opinion piece
LeBreton is the lead level designer for Bioshock 2. He gives a pretty good opinion piece on some of the issues surrounding the past and future of video game design. Here is an excerpt:
As of 2009, the game industry seems to want two fairly contradictory things:
- Make games, using proven mechanics from the last 20 years, that sell millions of copies.
- Give people a broad range of experiences that affect them as powerfully as those found in other forms of art.
We can debate whether encompassing a broader range of human experience is indeed a goal of importance, but if even a God of War game feels the need to have scenes that evoke strong emotions, you might at least concede that it’s something many developers seem interested in furthering.
You can read the piece in its entirety here.
Tonester's 2008 Videogame of the Year Awards
These are just my personal views and not necessarily the views of the CH Staff/Site as a whole. We haven’t had some good/heated arguments in a while so I figured I would try to entice a few. I should also note that I didn’t play any Sports titles in 2008 (I rarely do). I also don’t have a PS3 so the only PS3 games I had the opportunity to play were MGS4 and LBP – both of which I was impressed with for one reason or another. I should also note that I was much less impressed with Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto 4 compared to most of the known gaming world apparently. As such, expect a few surprises. [Read the rest of this article]
New 4e errata release
WoTC has served up their latest helping of errata for 4e. While most of it appears to be simple clarifications and actual fixes for typos, there are a few morsels worth noting and savoring.
- Some Endurance checks are more difficult
- Active Perception checks are a Minor Action instead of Standard Action
- Stealth completely rewritten (move action, total cover/superior concealment to start, etc)
- Stealth and Invisible Creatures, Targetting What You Can’t See, etc – clarified and tied into the Stealth/Perception changes
- Brew Potion ritual was changed from 5th level to 1st level
- Several monsters gain significant boosts to their attack damage
Sneaky update to Stealth skill?
To my knowledge, the highly debated Stealth skill in 4e has not received official errata just yet. Thanks to the DnD Insider Compendium, however, we may have a sneak peek at WoTC’s attempt to “clarify” the use of the Stealth skill in 4e campaigns.
You can read the changes for yourself by loading up the compendium and doing a search for “stealth”. From there, click on the Skill tab and then select either the Ranger or Rogue entry.
Short list of changes?
- Stealth checks are now made at the end of move actions
- You must have superior cover or total concealment to “become hidden”
- You must maintain cover or concealment to remain hidden
There is still no mention of Combat Advantage, minor vs. standard action for Perception checks and many of the other questions surrounding Stealth. However, this should at least clear up Wizards’ intent with regards to using corners, caskets, and other forms of cover as a launchpad for stealth attacks.
Sorry Warlocks – no soup for us.
