The OzSpot - Film Directors and Game Genre Personalities

ahh given Zorine's job title and (probable) height, she should be RTS. you know, a micromanager :)

I also wanted to add that the "personality as a video game genre" question was a great move and also another reason Laura is perfect as the host knowing a question like this is important  because the best thing you can do for a group podcast is to get people to know who each of you are as individuals so they can love you, hate you, agree to disagree, etc so each of you becomes a personality that people are able to recognize just by the sound of your voice/opinions.

Not bad, it reminds me of the HotSpot video podcast that no longer exists. I thought it was the 2nd best show behind Escape From Mount Stupid. I also think Laura Parker has the qualities of a great host/moderator and by that I mean she obviously is an experienced gamer and knows enough about the industry in general. She also knows how to direct conversations when everyone is talking as a group or when someone has the mic alone.

What's missing is interactivity with the listeners/watchers with challenges or trivia just to get fans feeling more involved I guess. Keep doing these! It's great for for me to have something I can listen to/watch but not have to be paying my full attention to while I draw comic pages.

First, let me say how happy I was to hear about the resurrection of INSANE. I love Del Toro, and all of his work (Zorine, I can't believe you haven't seen Hellboy! I've watched it at least twice by accident), and I truly hope the game doesn't turn out to be a broken mess. Odds are, if it's playable, I'll love it. Hell, they could ake it a shot-for-shot interactive first-person version of Devil's Backbone and I'd probably consider it a contender for game of the year (regardless of which year it ends up being released in). As for who "they" are...

You guys are great journalists however, I'm Aussie, and personally I find this show to be bloody awful guys, I am sorry, that's just my opinion.

Next week, can you guys (or girls) would like to talk about RPGs, it's been absent the whole year so it would be nice if you did. Thanks.

Ed's on the money regarding good film directors moving into games. Most of the directors you guys mentioned (Tarantino, Aronofsky) would maybe make passable games, but their masters of their own mediums. These guys have been around for years and years in the film business, before video games were taken seriously as a story telling medium (arguably they still aren't). They can make great films but any video game they make would just lack interactivity in the story.

Also I think you guys are talking about writers rather than directors. There isn't a whole lot of overlap between the process of directing a film versus directing a video game. Most of the directors you mentioned also write their own work though, so I'm assuming you meant writing. If any of these directors were to write a script for a video game then it would just feel like a film script with some loosely connected gameplay surrounding it.

In my opinion, the best storytelling in games are those games that utilise the interactive element of the medium. Games like Shadow of the Colossus or Bioshock immediately spring to mind. There's been attempted film adaptations to both of these that have gone through a lot of hardship, simply because they can't be told the same way through film. Both of these games use interactivity to tell their stories. Shadow of the Colossus uses gameplay and interactivity to build character relationships, whereas Bioshock has some very interesting things to say about the nature of video games themselves.

There are some writer/directors who I believe would make good writer/directors in the video game world though. Edgar Wright clearly has a thorough understanding of video game culture so he may be able to make a good game. Knowing the culture doesn't mean he knows the craft however. Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psycopaths) is another one. He's only done two film from them it's evident that he has a clear understanding of the medium and knows how to play to the strengths of it. This could transfer to other mediums, who knows?

Article over, that was a damn long post. If you managed to stick through it for this long then you deserve some sort of accolade.