Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 6, 2009

Filed under: Projects 19 comments

 GetBitmapBits (), RetiredPrevious Post

NobleBear asked who they should email at The Escapist in order to encourage them to pick up Reset Button. I’m gratified by the support, and I want to make sure it’s welcomed and doesn’t feel spam-y.

Russ Pitts is the guy in charge of video content at The Escapist. His email doesn’t seem to be public, though, so I can’t rightly point you directly at him.

My suggestion is that you either use the general-purpose contact form or their contact page. Themis Media is not so massive that your input will get lost in the belly of the machine. They’re people and they talk to each other.

I don’t know how much of an effect this will have. If fan letters could affect the course of production, then we’d all be bitching about how Firefly seems to have lost its way since season 4, and totally jumped the shark this year when they added the kid genius to the crew. Instead, we’re filling the void with angst and fan fiction. My prediction is that Reset Button will sink or swim based on banal things like budget, demand, and content. Having said that, voicing your support can’t hurt.

Please be polite if you do. They’re nice people and didn’t have anything to do with Firefly being canceled.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

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Xbox 360

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 5, 2009

Filed under: Video Games 76 comments

 That's not a CheatPrevious Post

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It’s kind of odd to like electronic and techno music at my age. It makes me feel like a bit of a poser to be into the stuff the kids are into. I know I’m supposed to be listening to New Order or Bon Jovi as I ride the time’s inexorable tram to the old folk’s home, but I’d rather listen to the Crystal Method than grope for the Glory Days of moody euro pop and guys in makeup. Okay, I’m not about to go to a rave or anything, but I like the new stuff better.

In the same way, I really like the Xbox. I know it’s supposedly a console for foul-mouthed, beer-soaked fratboys, and I’m not about to jump into Halo online and run around pwning things and screaming nonsense at strangers though the headset. But taken out of its purported cultural habitat, it’s a fine machine.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Xbox 360”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

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That’s not a Cheat

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jan 4, 2009

Filed under: Video Games 170 comments

 Best Stuff in Videogames of 2008Previous Post

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Dear Gamespot, 1Up, IGN, and the rest of you rotten crumbs,

When I Google for “Explodious 3 Cheats XBox” it’s because I want some cheat codes for Explodious 3 on the Xbox [360]. I’m not doing it for a fun romp around the web. I’m certainly not doing it because I have a copious supply of free time that I want to throw away. In fact, I’m usually in a rotten mood when I’m looking for cheats, so luring me to your website and then not giving me cheats is a foolish move on your part.

I know what cheats are. “Beat the game on ultra-hard in less than 5 minutes using only the B button to unlock the original Explodious costume” is not a cheat. It’s the very opposite of a cheat. It is yet another task I can’t do, which is a problem I already had in the first place. It’s an “unlockable”.

You know this. You know this is not a cheat. But you care about soaking up Google searches and page hits more than you care about your visitors, and so you seed your pages with the word “cheat”, when you know full well there aren’t any. Rather than wasting my time, why don’t you mention the lack of cheats in a review? Since you know there aren’t any, and you obviously know what a massive traffic draw cheat pages are, then it stands to reason that this is something that people want and aren’t getting. It could be argued that keeping them informed is your job. Perhaps drawing attention to the lack of cheats will correct the problem, thus ensuring that you aren’t standing there empty-handed when I show up on your doorstep looking for something.

Thank you for your time and please drown in a septic tank,

Shamus

P.S. If you do find cheats for Explodious 3 please email me! Thanks!

Topic for discussion: One game you enjoyed, but had to shelve because you couldn’t beat it.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

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The Craft of War: BLIND

By Shamus Posted Saturday Jan 3, 2009

Filed under: Movies 41 comments

 Zero Punctuation: Prince of PersiaPrevious Post

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Wow. Machanima has gotten elaborate. I didn’t even know there were tools out there for doing this.

Link (YouTube)

I’m sure this wasn’t done inside of World of Warcraft. No doubt they used a program to extract the art resources from the game (I used something similar to set up a few shots for Stolen Pixels that would have been too much of a pain otherwise.) They would have then needed to use some other program to generate all of the animations. Amazing work.

I know I just got hit with the same criticism myself, but I did think it would have been better if it was a little shorter. Or maybe I was just getting tired of the song. Either way, it’s a nice bit of well-polished work.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

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Stolen Pixels #52: Guide to Building Cities in “Persia”

By Shamus Posted Friday Jan 2, 2009

Filed under: Column 0 comments

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Once again I strive to meet the insatiable public demand for videogame jokes, architectural engineering analysis, and poetry.

(I was going to do a Dramatic Reading of the poem, as with Boris Karloff in the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but then I decided to play Mass Effect instead.)

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Stolen Pixels #51: Aren't You Going to Open it Now?Previous Post

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Prince of Persia:
Flaws

By Shamus Posted Friday Jan 2, 2009

Filed under: Game Reviews 28 comments

 Silent Hill Homecoming:
Final ThoughtsPrevious Post

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First Impressions 

In Reset Button I said that Prince of Persia was “flawlessly executed”, which, looking back, was a little hyperbole brought about by my love of the game and a desire for brevity. Let me make good by enumerating some of the shortcomings.

It’s a matter of taste, but the saturation of fantastical elements has been maxed out in this entry. In Sands of Time, the buildings and stunts were all semi-plausible in a visual sense. In the latest game, the stunts are preposterous, with barely a nod towards the effects of gravity or friction. The scenery is a lot of abstract platforming with Persian-themed highlights and window dressing. It looks wonderful, but it doesn’t look like there was ever a point where the place made sense as an inhabitable space.

The game suffers from a lack of challenge for advanced players. This is a nice change of pace from all the other games which are aimed only at advanced players, but I have a big-tent view of gaming, and I would have liked if the game could have offered everyone a challenge. My worry is that the next title will over-correct for this, and we’ll get another tedious game of pointless punishment. (This is exactly what happened going from Sands of Time to Warrior Within. The rewind feature and forgiving platforming brought in new people and bored hardcore, and then Warrior Within placated the hardcore and frustrated the newcomers.) But they could ramp up the difficulty without resorting to the cudgel of checkpoint-based practice & punish gameplay. Some suggestions:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prince of Persia:
Flaws”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Silent Hill Homecoming:
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First Impressions 

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French Press

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jan 1, 2009

Filed under: Personal 114 comments

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A French press, which is used in America and probably made in Taiwan. (Not pictured) The ever-present Brown Puddle.

I was surprised to learn that a “French Press” is not some Francophone version of WordPress, nor is it an exercise performed by members of the Foreign Legion. Instead, it’s a strange contraption for making coffee. Now, I’ve always been a traditionalist so I’m used to getting my coffee the natural way, by having an automated machine brew it for me. But when my coffee pot had the audacity to up and die on me yesterday I was forced to turn away from the comforts of technology and embrace the ways of the Trendy New. (Which, I suspect, is probably just something really old that I’ve never heard of before.) I have a deep mistrust of things that don’t plug in (this includes human beings) so I knew this was going to be an uneasy process. If you’re the only other person in the world besides me who has never seen a French press, then allow me to spoon-feed you from the Bowl of Overdue Enlightenment:

A French press is, as I feared, deviously simple. It’s a cylinder. You dump coffee grounds in the bottom. Then you pour in hot water. Then you take the filter and push it down through the water. This pushes the grounds to the bottom, leaving the now-coffee-ified water on top where it can be poured into a suitable vessel for consumption.

Well, that’s the thoery, anyway. Here is how the French press actually works:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “French Press”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

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