One Person Can Make A Difference!


bast525

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Dec 4, 2004
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Okay... I don't know if any of you guys are going to believe me on this, or if any of you will care even :D but I'm pretty happy about it and wanted to share.

When I was at E3 this past May, I made it a serious point to talk to developers on the show floor as I always do, about this or that, little requests I like to make for ways to make a game better or stuff like that.

As would be expected, most of the developers I 'harass' in this manner just look at me or respond to me like I don't know what I'm talking about and blow me off... ah well... hey at least I tried right?


Well, this time, my 'harassing' actually paid off!


This year at E3 I was talking to some of the PSP devvers. As usual, most of them blew me off, but one in particular was very cool and actually seemed very interested in what I had to say. He was one of the devs for the PSP game Death Jr.. My wife was there with me, and she was playing the game while I watched and talked to the dev. I was telling him how "oh I love the PSP, BUT! so many of the games are way too dark". And I said that Death Jr was looking like that... a bit too dark and would probably be very hard to see, especially outdoors during the day. He said he hadn't really played many PSP games on the actual hardware, but play them on their dev kits, so it's hard to get a good feel for the brightness level of the games.


I told him, if he had any doubts about what I was saying, he needed to load up Metal Gear Acid and take it outside on a sunny day.


So I was asking him, why can't PSP devvers include a gamma/brightness slider in their games' option menus? This way we could adjust the actual color palette of the games, lighten them up a bit. Because the actual brightness setting of the PSP LCD just isn't enough, even at the highest fourth brightness setting you get while the PSP is plugged into an external power source.

Well, his face lit up, and then the most amazing thing happened.... he said he actually really liked that idea a lot, and that he would present it to his team to see if they couldn't get that in the game!

*SHOCK*

Well, dig it.... review copies of Death Jr are now making the rounds... and wouldn't you know it, it is apparently the first PSP game to have a gamma setting in the options menu!!!! SUCCESS!

*pat's himself on the back*

It's too bad then, that so far the game is getting only so-so reviews :(

But I'm HOPING, that as usually happens, other companies/devvers will see this feature, and be like "HEY! We need to put a gamma slider in our game too!". I may have started a much needed and wanted trend for PSP games :D And if every game that comes out hence has a gamma slider and we can finally start playing our games outside during the day... you guys owe me some damn thanks! I take thanks in the form of credit card or money orders only :D :D :D j/k but for real... this is a very proud moment for me. And now, devvers better watch out at next year's E3 because I'm gonna be there with a friggin LIST!
 
The darkness of PSP games is indeed ridiculous. Some games are impossible to play in natural light. Which is why emulation is great for on the move.

Nice to see someone tackling it.
 
Kop_007 posted on Aug 2 2005 at 12:49 PM said:
The darkness of PSP games is indeed ridiculous. Some games are impossible to play in natural light. Which is why emulation is great for on the move.

Nice to see someone tackling it.

Yeah I was playing NFSU rivals outside earlier and thought I'd reached some kind of fucked up boss cutscene......it was me, damn reflection on a dark playing screen is unreal.

Anyway, nice work Bast, who knows, if you do it ever year all the dev's might eventually set up a user opinion stand, it would change the gaming world as we know it if the players got listened to.

I'd be at the SonicTeam stand with a megaphone and a 400 page document.
 
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Twimfy posted on Aug 20 2005 at 05:18 PM said:
Kop_007 posted on Aug 2 2005 at 12:49 PM said:
The darkness of PSP games is indeed ridiculous. Some games are impossible to play in natural light. Which is why emulation is great for on the move.

Nice to see someone tackling it.

Yeah I was playing NFSU rivals outside earlier and thought I'd reached some kind of fucked up boss cutscene......it was me, damn reflection on a dark playing screen is unreal.

Anyway, nice work Bast, who knows, if you do it ever year all the dev's might eventually set up a user opinion stand, it would change the gaming world as we know it if the players got listened to.

I'd be at the SonicTeam stand with a megaphone and a 400 page document.

Heh - but you're nuts eh Twimf?

:p ;)
 
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Axeman posted on Aug 21 2005 at 10:50 AM said:
Twimfy posted on Aug 20 2005 at 05:18 PM said:
Kop_007 posted on Aug 2 2005 at 12:49 PM said:
The darkness of PSP games is indeed ridiculous. Some games are impossible to play in natural light. Which is why emulation is great for on the move.

Nice to see someone tackling it.

Yeah I was playing NFSU rivals outside earlier and thought I'd reached some kind of fucked up boss cutscene......it was me, damn reflection on a dark playing screen is unreal.

Anyway, nice work Bast, who knows, if you do it ever year all the dev's might eventually set up a user opinion stand, it would change the gaming world as we know it if the players got listened to.

I'd be at the SonicTeam stand with a megaphone and a 400 page document.

Heh - but you're nuts eh Twimf?

:p ;)

Just a little, to hell with therapy for people killing their siblings after one to many goes on Manhunt, what about those of us who have to live with the warping of an amazing franchise into a USA loving, incosistent, spin off of saturday mornin cartoon piece of crap?

Post '96 Sonic the hedgehog is dead. R.I.P
 
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