I’m very busy with E3 this week and didn’t have time to come up with good topics. So we emptied out the mailbag.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #214: Mailbag Clearinghouse”
Streaming is always a complicated process. You’ve usually got about six different bits of technology all strung together. My usual setup is Open Broadcaster + a webpage for chat + my webcam feed + ManyCam Studio + a AAA videogame. Add in the challenge of balancing multiple audio sources, keeping FPS reasonable, all the technology on Twitch’s end, and the capricious nature of Windows, and it’s a miracle I can do it at all.
All of this is to say I didn’t get it just right this time. The audio gets a bit wonky in spots and there’s that mishap in the middle. Whoops. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of this just about the time E3 winds down.
Below are my thoughts in text form, for you non-video types.
Link (YouTube) |
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2018 Day 1: EA Press Event”
It’s been a while since I last streamed, hasn’t it? In case you missed it, here is the stream I did of Destiny 2 on Wednesday, minus the first two minutes where my mic was muted:
Link (YouTube) |
I really don’t like the special ability of the Warlock. Also, everything cool about him vanished as soon as the tutorial ended. Cool outfit? gone. Cool face? Obscured by boring helmet. Cool shotgun? Replaced with a much more powerful but bland SMG of some sort. Technically all characters go through this aesthetic downgrade once you start the game, but it was really pronounced for my Warlock. If we do another stream, I’ll probably use a different character.
Skellige is the third of the game’s three major areas, and a nice tonal contrast from the first two. Velen smells like peat and wet leaves. Novigrad, of course, smells like sewage. Skellige, however, smells like pine needles and juniper. How do I know what fictional locations smell like? I just do. You know I’m right.
The historical inspirations here are a mashup of Norse and the odd bit of Celtic, particularly in the language. Skellige’s inhabitants supplement their income by periodically raiding sea traffic and coastal settlements in the Viking style. I think we’re meant to like the Skelligers. They have physical courage, an independent streak that appeals to a modern audience, and are loyal to their friends and honorable to their own.
For all that, I can’t shake the knowledge that this lot make their fortunes (such as they are) through armed robbery. This is a consistent problem in fiction that makes protagonists out of Vikings and Pirates and the like. Thematically, they like to play up the whole freedom and independence thing, and play down the fact that these supposed good guys are essentially stickup gangs with boats. Just once I’d like to see a piece of fiction grapple with that issue more thoroughly.
In terms of overall gameplay experience, I’d say that Skellige is my favorite of the three main areas, though they all have their strong and weak points. First reaching the isles – and realizing the size of them – was a memorable experience during my first playthrough, a sort of “damn, this game really is big” moment. I took some time to ride Roach around at a canter, just listening to the music.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Witcher 3: Skellige, Part One”
On Wednesday I’ll be streaming some Destiny 2. I plan on starting around 8pm Eastern time. (Which works out to midnight UTC.) More importantly:
E3 begins this weekend. I’m hoping to re-stream the show, although Twitch hasn’t given their official blessing for re-streaming in 2018. It’s been standard practice for the last three years, but usually we get a post with a list of rules and guidelines.
Assuming it all works out, I’ll be streaming with Ross, who you might remember as part of the Good Robot dev team, and who is now working for Ubisoft. Ross and I will watch the shows, talk about the games, make fun of suits trying too hard to be cool, and generally fill in the slow moments with commentary.
Here is the schedule for the big events at E3: (Events I’m interested in streaming are marked with an asterisk, although I could be talked into covering others.)
Saturday, June 9
* Electronic Arts: 11 AM Pacific / 2 PM Eastern
Sunday, June 10
* Microsoft: 1 PM Pacific / 4 PM Eastern
* Bethesda: 6:30 PM Pacific / 9:30 PM Eastern
Devolver Digital: 8 PM Pacific / 11 PM Eastern
Monday, June 11
Square Enix: 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern
* Ubisoft: 1 PM Pacific / 4 PM Eastern
PC Gaming Show: 3 PM Pacific / 6 PM Eastern
* Sony: 6 PM Pacific / 9 PM Eastern
Tuesday, June 12
Nintendo — 9 AM Pacific / 12 PM Eastern
The rumor is that Gearbox will probably talk about the next Borderlands this year. If so, I wonder where they’ll show up. Borderlands is published by 2K Games, and 2K doesn’t have a big press event. Which means Gearbox will probably crash someone else’s party. Maybe they’ll show up during the Microsoft or Sony events, or maybe they’ll just announce on Twitter and put a trailer on YouTube. Or maybe the rumors are wrong and there won’t be any Borderlands news.
I notice they gave the PC Gaming Show lots of breathing room this year. In the previous years the PC show always ran really long and another (far more important) event would start, so everyone would drop the PC Show to cover the other one. This year they’ve got three whole hours to burn before Sony’s show starts. I do 90% of my gaming on the PC so I really ought to watch. On the other hand, the PC show is always slow and cringe-y and short on actual news / announcements. We’ll see.
So that’s the plan. I know this stuff disrupts the usual schedule of analysis you come here for, but I really want / need to watch this stuff, so the stream is simply the best way to turn those hours into content. It’s this or a blank page.
We’ll return to our regularly scheduled complaining once E3 blows over. Thank you for your patience. As always, my stream will be on my Twitch page.
Heads up! I plan to stream a little later in the week. I’m thinking maybe some Destiny 2? I’m aiming for Wednesday, but I haven’t picked a time yet.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #213: Early Consoles, Starships, and Flawed Games”
I’m sure most of you remember that one time I did a massive, 50-part retrospective / critique of the Mass Effect series. As part of that critique, I had an entire entry dedicated to tearing apart the notion that a terrorist organization could recruit, train, equip, and deploy a fully mechanized military force capable of waging war on a galactic scale, and furthermore that doing so in secret wasn’t just implausible, but laughable.
Imagine my surprise when I ran into this video, detailing how the US Government did exactly what I said was impossible. From 1942 to 1945 they hid an entire city of 75,000 people – the fifth largest city in Tennessee – and used it to build a superweapon in complete secrecy.
Link (YouTube) |
To be fair:
So while this doesn’t exactly excuse the limitless power of Cerberus, but it does make it very slightly less comically implausible.
But now I’m wishing we could have gotten more details on Cerberus. Previously I’ve said they should be excised from the Mass Effect series. Now I’m thinking you could tell a really cool story about some sort of alternate version of Cerberus that was like a scaled-up version of Oak Ridge: The government deliberately makes a secret project and then looks the other way, leaving the (sigh) Illusive Man free to tackle some sort of galactic-level Manhattan Project without much in the way of supervision. Nothing could justify the way Cerberus stole so much of the limelight from the Reapers, but you could tell a really cool story about a secret city with a doomsday weapon and an “Ends Justify the Means” mindset.
Still, interesting bit of history. I can’t believe I’ve lived my whole life without hearing this story.
I called 2018 "The Year of Good News". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.
This is a massive step down in story, gameplay, and art design when compared to the 2014 soft reboot. Yet critics rated this one much higher. What's going on here?
There's a new graphics API in town. What does that mean, and why do we need it?
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
The Thieves Guild quest in Skyrim is a vortex of disjointed plot-holes, contrivances, and nonsense.
The product of fandom run unchecked, this novel began as a short story and grew into something of a cult hit.
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
A stream-of-gameplay review of Dead Island. This game is a cavalcade of bugs and bad design choices.
T w e n t y S i d e d
