I like the Avatar and VVVVVV cards, they're all good though.

Clearly "inspired" by Spelunky but it's not a direct rip of the cave art assets if I understand the posters so far. 

@CAsinclair: Ah, ok, I see where you were going.

On the subject of survival horror: RE5 doesn't have a lack of anything, in fact everyone and their parasite-infected mom drops truckloads of items once you kill them. I'm also not very fond of the idea of "intentionally bad controls" as a gameplay mechanic.

well, that's not the first time that the press has lied to me

And don't forget you're playing as a guy with muscles the size of mountains.http://xf3.xanga.com/013f556a66532249048390/b197559610.jpg
So no powerlessness to be found anywhere in that game.

Well, RE4 was the last iteration of the series that really made you preserve your ammo/health.  Capcom catered to the hand-holding crowd with the new one.

<-- jealous

I tried the demo yesterday, did the tutorial and mowed down some peasants.  It seems like one of those games I'd really like if I could dedicate the time for it.  Being a working stiff sucks, enjoy your school days while you can (if any of you are still in school).

This was pretty fun, I was sad when the demo was over so I'll definitely buy it when I get home from work.  Have you guys tried getting it on Steam through SteamWorks?  It certainly seems polished enough.

Whoa, why hadn't I noticed the Katamari iPhone game?  Good lookin out, getting it now 

Sorry, I combined "narcissist" and "mission accomplished" in my mind and this is the first picture that popped up.

While a lot of it has to do with texture resolution limitations imposed by programmers, crazy effects and postprocessing obfuscating detail beyond belief, I still think the artist is to blame at least partially.  For example, look at these cute little fuckers from Little Big Planet.  Would this game have worked better as pixel art?  Normally I'd say it doesnt matter but in this case, no.  The lighting, effects, and smooth animation were really superb and made you believe these little rag dolls were alive.  They take up as much screen real estate most of the time as the Rocket Knight screenshots and you can still make out their very expressive faces.  That doesnt mean the Rocket Knight remake should be in 3D if they're gonna half ass it (although that cant be changed now), just that 3D shouldn't be ruled out for these kind of games where expressiveness or detail is important. 

My favorites so far in no particular order:

Eliss
Edge
Flight Control
Zen Bound
Diabolika
Knights Onrush
Evacuation
Bookworm
Scrabble
Spider
Space Invaders: Infinity Gene
Smiles
Canabalt
Guitar Rock Tour

There's a certain sameness to the 3d graphics.  If you notice, you can't really make out distinctive features on anyone's face in the 3d shots.  There's no exaggeration to anything because it's just a single model being pulled around and rotated.  With 2d you can manipulate each frame to make it look exactly how you want it.

While I won't completely disagree, I think it's important to point out that this is a problem with the content creators and not 3D as an artistic medium.  An excellent example of nuanced 3D animation was already brought up, which is Street Fighter IV.  The faces that Zangief makes when he's posing after a win or the face of most characters when they eat an Ultra are priceless.  Not to mention all the rest of the "nice touch" animations such as Rufus's belly shake, and a lot of the other win/intro/super/ultra animations.  Looks like they're gonna pull the same awesomeness with the new version (SSFIV) coming out in the Spring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW_RGZ18WUc

Hmm you guys are making me want to try Mount and Blade, didnt know if it was any good til now.

Right, heaven forbid we discuss improving games on a game development discussion forum.

[One Man Army]

How about people suggest alternatives rather than just complaining about cliches like a random poster on Gamespot or IGN would. 

I'll go first so I dont come off as trolling.

One Man Army (ala Halo, Gears of War, almost any FPS)

There was a pretty good Rev Rant on disempowerment that talked about how some of the most memorable moments in games are when you are almost powerless against your enemy, rather than effortlessly mowing them down.  I think this finally pinpointed the reason why most linear shooters are boring to me, other than their lineararity.  I'd have to agree that we dont have enough weakness in the player's character in games in general today and it would make for some good gameplay and/or story if people gave that some thought when designing their games.

This thread makes me miss Super Joe, and not because of the Bionic Commando reference.

Why not just use the TitleSafeArea member in your Viewport to determine the default placement of UI elements and allow zooming like most games do?  Most of the time the default should be fine and you wont have too much empty space.

The other part of it is similar to the aspect ratio issue, which is what to draw (not counting UI) in the extra space (sides of 16:9/16:10).  For a platformer, it's just making sure you know where the edge of the screen is so the character can't wander past that.  If you use a view frustum that accounts for aspect ratio (which it should always) and title safe area and collide it against your game world boundaries anyway, that part is free.

Definitely inventory management in WoW and Diablo.  Figuring out what to sell, auction, keep, bank, and then grouping everything accordingly.

Happy Birthday Tom.  Runman is a lot of fun, nice job guys.

A bit more primitive, but Time Killers did this.