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Experienced Points: The Last Bastion of PC Gaming Goes Mobile

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Nov 14, 2018

Filed under: Column 116 comments
Experienced Points: Denuvo - Four Years LaterPrevious Post
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My column this week is a breakdown of why the response to the Diablo: Immortal announcement was so negative. I tried to keep the outrage distant and abstract and just look at this from the point of view of a PC-centric audience.

Having said that, how bad was the outrage? The big meme-worthy moment was when one guy asked the presenters if the announcement was an out-of-season April Fool’s joke. Sure, that’s a little rude. But if I just spent hundreds of dollars to attend a convention focused on classic PC games made by Blizzard and the main event was a shallow phone game that wasn’t made by Blizzard, I’d probably be pretty miffed too. Where is this supposed outrage? The toxicity? To me it feels less like outrage and more like annoyance and disappointment. I’m sure we can go on Twitter and find some loony spewing personal attacks at the developers, but if that’s your standard for public outrage then literally everything is an outrage because there’s always That Guy.

I think it’s still a controversy worth talking about, simply because it shows a sudden shift of behavior in a major company. It’s also a pretty good example of a major miscalculation that seems obvious in retrospect.

So what happens next? Right now it feels like anything is possible and nothing is likely. Blizzard PR seems to be AWOL, but I’m guessing this caught them flat-footed and they’re scrambling to form a strategy. Will Blizzard double down? Will they backpedal? I’m curious what everyone thinks, so let’s do a poll:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: The Last Bastion of PC Gaming Goes Mobile”

 

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.

Experienced Points: Denuvo - Four Years LaterPrevious Post
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116 comments

 

Andromeda Part 5: The Pathfinder

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Nov 13, 2018

Filed under: Mass Effect 143 comments
Andromeda Part 4: Habitat 7Previous Post
Next PostAndromeda Part 6: What's Wrong With Your FACE?

Alec Ryder walks up to the alien machine and holds up his hand. A huge starmap(?) appears, along with an alien symbol. The electrical storm stops, the skies clear, and everything is fine.

Except!

A blast of energy knocks Alec and Sara off the platform. Sara falls and busts open the faceplate of her helmet.

What? Huh? Wait, What?

Obviously having an AI computer embedded in your skull means you can project orange particle effects that control alien technology. It's so obvious that I wouldn't expect a writer to waste time explaining how it works or what it can do.
Obviously having an AI computer embedded in your skull means you can project orange particle effects that control alien technology. It's so obvious that I wouldn't expect a writer to waste time explaining how it works or what it can do.

This entire section is a disaster of confusion, contrivance, and contradiction. This is the big moment when the player becomes the Pathfinder, and none of it works. This is the point in the story where Mass Effect Andromeda slides into the bad habit of self-defeating plot-points in the style of Mass Effect 2 and incoherent hand-waves in the style of Mass Effect 3.

At the start of the mission, Sara fell out of the destroyed shuttle. She landed hard and cracked her faceplate. Her suit began leaking and she started to suffocate in the poisonous atmosphere. Then she took out a little gizmo and repaired the faceplate. Boom. Fixed. All good.

So now she breaks her faceplate again. The most natural thing for the audience to assume is that the previous helmet-smashing incident was a setup for this one. It’s completely reasonable for the audience to expect that – when presented with the same problem – the protagonist will employ the same solution.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Andromeda Part 5: The Pathfinder”

 

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.

Andromeda Part 4: Habitat 7Previous Post
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143 comments

 

Diecast #231: Diablo Immortal, Witch Watch, Enduring Games

By Shamus Posted Monday Nov 12, 2018

Filed under: Diecast 61 comments
Diecast #230: Halloween vs. ChristmasPrevious Post
Next PostDiecast #232: Desert Bus, Stan Lee, Superhero Movies, Grand Tour Game

This week we bring you yet another show, now with 15 extra minutes of show. You get 25% more show for the same money. That’s a good value! On the other hand, the first 25 minutes are basically a spoiler for my column later in the week.



Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.

Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #231: Diablo Immortal, Witch Watch, Enduring Games”

 

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.

Diecast #230: Halloween vs. ChristmasPrevious Post
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61 comments

 

Bad and Wrong Music Lessons: Getting Closer

By Shamus Posted Sunday Nov 11, 2018

Filed under: Music 27 comments
New Album: NEONPrevious Post
Next PostMusic Class Part 1: LearnMonthly.com

The last time I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind was in the early 1980s. I was a kid, and I watched it on television. Some parts of it were too scary for me. The rest was too strange for me to understand.

It popped up on Netflix two nights ago and I fell in love with it. Spielberg was only 33 when he wrote and directed it. Most filmmakers have a rough early period of awkward films before they hit their stride, but apparently Spielberg was born a master of cinema. Must be nice.

The film has this iconic five-note tune that the characters use to communicate with the aliens. Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you’ve probably heard the notes. The movie was stuck in my head and as part of unpacking it I turned those notes into a song.

Every creative endeavor has its downside. Writing a story is fun, but proofreading is boring. Programming is fun, but debugging is a chore. Likewise, it’s fun to come up with melodies and rhythms, but mixing and producing sucks.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Bad and Wrong Music Lessons: Getting Closer”

 

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.

New Album: NEONPrevious Post
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27 comments

 

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, Part Two

By Bob Case Posted Friday Nov 9, 2018

Filed under: Video Games 30 comments
The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, Part OnePrevious Post
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The setup of the main chunk of Hearts of Stone’s story goes like this: Olgierd von Everec, who first put up the contract to kill the monster in the Oxenfurt sewers, has made a deal with the devil-like figure Gaunter O’Dimm. In order to fulfill his end of the deal, O’Dimm enlists Geralt to make three of Olgierd’s wishes come true.

I get the distinct sense that the writers were given more of a leading role in this expansion, because this is the perfect excuse for them to do all the stuff they’ve probably always wanted with this setting and cast of characters. Olgierd’s wishes can be (and are) as off-the-wall as CDPR would like, and they take advantage: show Olgierd’s (now-dead) brother “the time of his life,” steal an entire house, and a third which is left unrevealed until Geralt has completed the first two.

I would say the writers chose their wishes well, because the first two are clean and promising setups for long set pieces featuring a body-swap comedy and an elaborate heist, respectively. In the first, Geralt attends a wedding while intermittently possessed by the spirit of Olgierd’s late brother Vlodimir, and in the other, he recruits a crew of charming sleazebags to steal a will (the “house”) of a wealthy merchant.

I had to capture these screenshots on a different computer than usual, which is why they're either strangely cropped or, in this case, featuring a helpful windows update message in the lower right corner. That was a huge pain to get rid of. Thanks for that, Microsoft.
I had to capture these screenshots on a different computer than usual, which is why they're either strangely cropped or, in this case, featuring a helpful windows update message in the lower right corner. That was a huge pain to get rid of. Thanks for that, Microsoft.

Rather than try and do a blow-by-blow of each of these two sequences, I thought I would just point out a list of things that I enjoyed, and which I think illustrate some of the unique advantages an expansion can have over a base game.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, Part Two”

 

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, Part OnePrevious Post
Next PostBlizzcon Survey Results

30 comments

 

Grand Theft Auto V: Explaining the Joke to Death

By Shamus Posted Thursday Nov 8, 2018

Filed under: Retrospectives 41 comments
Grand Theft Auto V: The Wrong PunchlinePrevious Post
Next PostSpider-Man Part 1: The Legacy of Comics

And so this series comes to an end. Not with a bang, but with a shrug. Eh. It’s pretty okay I guess. I mean, I had fun sometimes.

For as crazy as this world is, Grand Theft Auto V is surprisingly short on laughs. The main story often occupies this strange space where absurd things are happening and everyone is expressing intense emotions, and yet there are almost no jokes. The dialog constantly feels like it’s in the setup phase for a punchline that never comes. While this franchise has been pretty hit-and-miss with regards to comedy, I think the humor has gone downhill over the last decade or so. A lot of different factors contributed to this.

First and most obviously, as the games grew closer to Hollywood they drifted away from the wacky brand of adolescent humor they were built around. Toilet humor and dick jokes work in a world of outrageous cartoon absurdity. They don’t fit so well within a Scorsese movie. On top of that, the games have intensified their attempts at satire and social commentary, which has made them increasingly heavy-handed and mean-spirited. As I said at the start, a lot of the attempted satire is so far off-base that the jokes don’t land. But here in GTA V there is yet another force working against the humor: The writer has stopped trusting the audience and so they keep stopping to explain the joke.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Grand Theft Auto V: Explaining the Joke to Death”

 

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.

Grand Theft Auto V: The Wrong PunchlinePrevious Post
Next PostSpider-Man Part 1: The Legacy of Comics

41 comments

 

Experienced Points: Denuvo – Four Years Later

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Nov 7, 2018

Filed under: Column 79 comments
Experienced Points: Why Did Silent Hill 2 Work So Well?Previous Post
Next PostExperienced Points: The Last Bastion of PC Gaming Goes Mobile

A funny story about my column this week: I finished writing it on Thursday. While polishing / proofing, I wanted to hunt down some citation links. And by accident I stumbled on an old column of mine that had exactly the same thesis. I had no memory of writing the original column.

As a result, I needed to re-write my column at the last minute. I changed the focus of the article but kept a few of my supporting arguments.

For years I was laser-focused on this argument. Let’s call it my Opening Salvo:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Denuvo – Four Years Later”

 

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.

Experienced Points: Why Did Silent Hill 2 Work So Well?Previous Post
Next PostExperienced Points: The Last Bastion of PC Gaming Goes Mobile

79 comments

 
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