T w e n t y S i d e d
Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself. At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page to see the full index. |
From The Archives:
Programming Language for Games
Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?
The Best of 2018
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.
Lost Laughs in Leisure Suit Larry
Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?
Skyrim Thieves Guild
The Thieves Guild quest in Skyrim is a vortex of disjointed plot-holes, contrivances, and nonsense.
Shamus Plays LOTRO
As someone who loves Tolkein lore and despises silly MMO quests, this game left me deeply conflicted.
Video is private.
ah good, i was waiting for this.
but… wrong viewing privileges.
Why does this seem to happen so often?
Shamus! Chime has hacked the privileges!
Chime is EEEEVIL!!!!
ot: hope you get it fixed so we can all watch some hilarious swearing from josh :)
video works now.
The Chime cartoon over on the Escapist is fabulous!
Dear Spoiler Warning crew,
I hope you find a new video hosting service soon. I care about you guys, and you deserve better. :(
Sincerely,
A Concerned Friend
Blip.tv is on my list of stuff to try.
Although to be fair to Viddler, the “wrong viewing privs” error is always my fault. I need to set the video to “public” when I make this post, and I ALWAYS forget.
Got my vote for Blip.tv. All of my fav Streamers/Casters use that as their Video storage. I personally like the fact i can download the video and watch it on the go.
Clean Looking interface on the site is nice too.
You can download it from viddler as well.
The question is… would you really want to?
I do. Just wish the download of older videos were available in a non-flv format.
How do you convert them? I use Handbrake.
The most recent episodes are available in WMV. I also use handbrake but would rather have the original source rather than have to re-convert.
There’s an idea Shamus. Put the original source files that you upload up on a torrent like say every five episodes do a bundle or something? You know, for those of us that actually like to watch this stuff outside of the browser?
Isnt there a way to put it to public for all the uploads?
While blip.tv is nice,I hate the commercials there.Especially since now there doesnt seem a way to skip them.And they are always for the stuff I have no access.
Except for the one time,I didnt have any problems with viddler,so my vote is for that one at the time.
An issue I’ve encountered while watching these on Viddler is that if my internet cuts out while the video is loading, the video will become convinced that the video ends wherever it stopped buffering, and I have to reload the page to continue watching.
It’s worse than that. I used to think “Oh, I’ll just let the whole thing buffer.” The problem is, if you let it buffer on Viddler, then hit play…after 10 minutes or so, it suddenly skips to the end and you have to reload.
Now That’s just ridiculous.
Well, does Blip.Tv use these nice timestamps, too? Because, at least for me, these are half the fun. Would be sad to loose them.
I’m going to take this moment while the video loads to comment on something.
On the latest week I took the time to catch up on Spiler Warning seeing as I went on vacation after episode 1. I was dismayed to find hordes of comments on past videos in viddler itself; taking every chance they can to condemn Bioshock for being linear and that such a gameplay restriction is impeding games from becoming their own method of entertainment.
Please stop. Or at least calm down.
Gaming is a varied method fot ransmitting fiction, which can work both in linearity and non-linearity. Even Shamus only decries Bioshock because it was hailed as a Sucessor to System Shock which was non-linear. Stories in games are unique even if linear, seeing as this is the only medium besides reading which most directly puts us in the perspective of the first person(be they FPS’s or not), and then it still contains within it the possibility of film and paintings to say however much the ‘reader’ wants to see.
Chastizing games for being linear is unfair, especially considering how new the medium is.
If you want to punish Bioshock, then punish it for being linear and trying to pretend that it has moral choices failing miserably in the end.
Thank you, I’ll be back to the regular viewing now.
I’m inclined to agree. Linearity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and non-linearity isn’t necessarily a good thing. The execution is what’s important.
Also, wasn’t that Doom film mostly first person? I never watched it because it looked…well, pants.
I think it just had a small action section that way. Something with a chainsaw and a monster in a wheelchair…so, yeah.
It was just one scene that way.If it was completely first person,it would at least be awesome for that novelty.This way,it just sucks.
And I too agree about linearity.Half life(all of them)is linear as hell,yet it is such a great game,with well told story,great characters and interesting villains.
The problem is that bioshock is not a good game.Yes,it has a nice setting and atmosphere,but it fails at everything else.It tries to implement all these things and fails to master any of them.And that is just bad gameplay.
It’s just that linearity tends to lead to reduced replayability (since options are reduced on subsequent playbacks), reduce immersion (since the chance that you want to do something different from the plot is increased), makes the plot more transparent (since you know when a cutscene is coming), etc.
I’m with you, linear games don’t bother me a bit (okay, maybe sometimes running into a series of 10 painted on doors I can’t open is annoying) and I find the current hype for sandbox games completely baffling. That said, neither style is a sure way to make a good game; loads of other factors are way more important.
Well if you use 10 different things to block the player,they wont see it as railroading.So linearity fails only when you reuse obstacles,or use dumb obstacles.
And I never knew why more games dont use our own character to direct us?I mean,our character isnt always a blank shell,he has established backstory and morality,so you can always have him go “I dont want to go there until I xyz” instead of putting an invisible wall,or some flimsy wall in front of him.
The video is only showing up as black, although I have audio… I’ve tried refreshing the page, but wherever I start the video I can only watch for about 20 seconds before it goes black again.
I had that, too. I think it’s an embedding related problem, because I went to the viddler site and watched it there without having the black screen problem. Have a go:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/SpoilerWarning/videos/60/
I have to say, the PAX-trip seems to have done your chemistry much good. It seems that everybody has kind of settled into a role for the commentary now.
Other than that it’s more BioShock – I’m hardly qualified to say anything else.
I would also like to point out, on crossbow related issues, that the half-life 2 crossbow bolts (red hot rebar) would bounce if you fired them at an oblique enough angle to the ground. Often on long stretches of open ground, you could skip crossbow bolts several times, or bounce them off walls. I think the only reason I didn’t use the crossbow more was because you could only have about six shots at a time.
I discovered this a while back while I was playing around in Gmod. I then ran through Half-Life 2 again trying to get as many ricochet kills as I could. It’s pretty hilarious when you actually manage to get a headshot on a metrocop by shooting the ground in front of him.
You have to bee careful not to leave to many stinging puns flying around, or else people might buzz off.
ahem.
I defaulted to electro-shock and guns throughout my playthrough, so didn’t get much of a chance to explore the different plasmids. Most seemed of little use bar novelty value.
Oh and that scenario about being a big daddy and having a regenerating foe… look over here: http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2009-04-15-ending-bioshock (Ending Bioshock, by Tom Francis) Obviously, spoilers ahoy. You have been warned!
Your puns are un BEElievable.
I don’t think all of the plasmids, particularly the bee one, were meant to have application beyond killing people. After the New Year’s attack, tons of people wanted to defend themselves, and plasmids were a way to do so. The bee plasmid was probably produced to satisfy the demand for combat plasmids during this time. At least, that’s the only explanation I can think of for it.
Here’s a question I have about Bioshock though; where is Rapture located? From what I recall, you never get more detail beyond somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. It’s apparently in an area where there are whales, colossal squid, plants, a large variety of fish, and hydrothermal vents. From my (limited) knowledge of the ocean, I don’t think all of those things can be located in close proximity. At least not in any place I’ve heard of.
Also I think you have the static discharge plasmid equipped. If so, get rid of it. That plasmid can easily cause more harm than good. If there is a Big Daddy anywhere near you (such as one you have hypnotized), there’s a good chance you will hit it with static discharge and piss it off as a result.
Josh is already using the bee plasmid, obviously he doesnt care about collateral damage. Not to mention that randomly attacking Big Daddies makes Spoiler Warning even more hilarious!
Based on information from Bioshock 2, if I’m reading this oceanic topography map right, it would have to be basically just north or Puerto Rico, straddling the Caribbean and North American plates. Which doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, given it would be far too close to shore there, and tectonically unstable as hell.
So, basically it’s location is impossible unless it’s actually in the pacific. Which makes a lot more sense, geothermal vents and a trench.
I was under the impression it was much closer to Greenland, in the North Atlantic.
According to the BioShock wiki, Rapture’s located at 63° 2′ N, 29° 55′ W. So, somewhere between Greenland and Iceland.
MY FISTS, THEY ARE MADE OF BEEEES!!!
…sorry, had to be done.
Anyway, I just love finding secrets in games, they are the main reason nobody plays L4D with me. Although I do miss the old-timey “you have found a secret area!” message, I just knew that a level designer somewhere smiled every time I found one.
That vita chamber foe would actually be fairly interesting, if hard to pull off without becoming annoying.
I could see how it might be interesting as a wandering enemy, but as a boss battle it functionally is no different from Invincible-Until-Weak-Spot-Destroyed except with short periods of reprieve while he’s respawning and running at you, the only difference is that instead of having an unmoving health bar, his one just keeps refilling.
A wandering enemy type which could use the vita-chamber though? That’d be fairly interesting, especially if it was a Big Daddy-type with a large reward for taking it out, which would be offset by having to destroy the nearest vita-chamber and thus setting *you* back should you die.
That is an interesting idea. Although the developers would have to somehow restrict you from destroying the last vita-chamber in the area.
I was thinking about something more along the lines of a Jason-esque enemy that keeps coming back to stalk you no matter how many times you kill it. It’d make you twitch every time you come across a vita chamber but the frequency of spawns would be very hard to balance. Make it too often and the player keeps getting bogged down fighting and becomes annoyed, make it too rare and that enemy would be functionally the same as the rest of the infinetly spawning splicers.
Actually it is the same as splicers, now that I think about it. It would be a very good tool to keep the pressure on the player if you could otherwise permanently clear out the level of foes, but you cant. I guess the only difference between it and the average splicer is that it specificaly tries to hunt you down, instead of wandering around aimlessly, so it could be good to prevent too much invisibility camping.
Ah, what if it does a Warning Forever-style adaptation? Like, it gets ice resistance the more you freeze it, turns faster the more you circle-strafe and basically just changes to mess up your strategy? That was great fun in WF, and I liked occasionally dying to things I could easily deal with just to stop it bringing out the big guns.
When you guys started doing bee puns, I half expected someone to ask a why question and then have someone respond BEEcause.
Also, I hope he got that power to the people machine he kept passing up. Just have josh remember to not kill that crazy guy who wants you to take photographs when you get to him. That way you can get the final power to the people machine and kill him in his secret room. There’s an achievement for that!
You can still go up to his room if you kill him.
Nah, they were BEEing too grown-up to buzz out such an obvious pun. Rutskarn especially, he is too Honey-tongued to deliver non-top notch Stingers.
*snort* unbeelievable…
We need more custom titles at the end of every episode. ;)
Especially this time. Ruts needed to bee punished for that pun.
Perhaps he should bee the Archbeeshop of puns?
Or were you thinking of something with a bit more sting?
I am going to keep seconding the requests for custom titles every episode I see them, if our demands are not met I might even start an internet petition.
In the field of biology, vectors are means of transmission from one organism (or alternatively, cell) to another. For instance, mosquitoes are a disease vector for malaria. A “Lazurus vector” ought to be something that transmits resurrection (or perhaps zombification) from one organism to another. In other words, it doesn’t surprise me that BioShock should borrow a technical term from the life sciences rather than physics or mathematics.
Presumably we’ll find out next time what the Lazurus Vector actually does.
Mod this guy up? I think you’re spot on and insightful.
I was just going to say that. Vector is also a term in biology as well as math, so the name sort of makes sense.
Of course, it’s still all wrong. Unless the thing that brings trees back to life is already present, and you’re just creating a means of transmission, but that doesn’t really make much sense.
So it’s still not a great name.
I would tend to agree. As a follow up – in mathematics, a vector a geometric entity that has length and direction. Used in physics, they represent something that has both magnitude and direction (like force). Given your biological definition, combined with the nod (I assume) to Lazerus of the Gospel of John fame I’d guess youre pretty close.
Of course, one could not end a post after such an episode without BEEting the subject of puns to death. It would be such a BUZZ kill. :)
Hmmm… I just noticed that bees are a pollen vector. That would have been a more context appropriate example. Thanks hive mind!
Why is it always the intelligent puns that sting the most?
I disagree: they merely smart.
Because the cross product of intelligent discourse and the language of our lives often vectors us in obtuse directions, taking us from where we are to where we’d never thought we’d be; the resultant which makes where we’ve BEEn less where we were but where we’d rather be.
Who knew cross pollination bothers wallflowers so much?
Finally it’s out, pax is a pain in the ass when waiting for it too end.
I don’t get why there is so much wine lying around. It’s not like it is actually needed, as the city quite clearly has windows.
Also: why did you stop using the custom end credits after every episode? those were amusing.
kind of an awkward pun don’t you think?
Also obscure.
True, but I didn’t want to make a beeline for the most obvious ones. Someone has to balance out the would-bee punners.
Mumbles, I demand you take that back! The Disney version of Hercules was awesome!
OK, to each his own but I really really liked it, and just watched it on VHS the other night
There’s a drinking game with that movie; every time you see a cliché, you take a shot.
Most livers do not survive that movie. =(
Yes, exactly. Being awesome is so cliche.
NEVER.
I loved that movie as a kid. Unfortunately, watching it again as an adult made it clear that James Woods is the only redeemable thing about it.
Man, I was pretty excited to see him in Kingdom Hearts (YEAH I PLAYED THOSE GAMES I AM NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT IT), too. Did you know Woods loves video games? True story.
EDIT: I feel like I have to make it clear that I only played KH1 and KH2. I also teared up during the ending of the TRON part, but anyone who’s listened to the PAX stuff knows I love mah TRON.
Pity, cause Chain of Memories is easily the best Kingdom Hearts game, plot-wise, mostly because the Disney parts aren’t involved directly making the story much more focused, and it’s much better for it.
Also doesn’t hurt that it’s well paced, well written, and introduces the villains and the start of the plot for KH2, and is thus one of the very few games that not only has a good plot itself, but makes the plot of another game better as well.
It’s just too bad the game itself just isn’t as good, but I highly recommend it to any Kingdom Hearts fan.
I actually tried to play Chain of Memories, but the stupid card-based combat system and the revisiting of levels really turned me off. I got about a third of the way through before just quitting out of frustration. I was interested in the Organization, but I ended up just looking online for information and watching cutscenes on youtube. I really don’t recommend trying to watch ANYTHING Kingdom Hearts related on youtube, though, since 90% of it is fanfiction in video form.
How do you feel about the new games? I haven’t even touched them after hearing rumors the plot has become incredibly convoluted.
The plot was already pretty convoluted by the time we got to the start of KH2 with Roxas who is Sora but isn’t and Sora still exists but is in stasis except he comes out for no reason and they’re in a digital world but that digital world has a real world analogue which they’re not in but maybe they are we’re not really sure… which I thought was part of its ridiculous charm. I assumed it was made not to make a whole lot of sense as some sort of meta expression about the character’s own confusion. I might be giving them too much credit.
My lack of a PSP has kept me fairly disinterested in Birth By Sleep. I tried playing 358/2 days but after I completed all of Chain of Memories I was a little more apprehensive about the handhelds. It’s more than a little tedious how they’re spreading their games over…four different systems now? Seems like the only way to understand the spiralling spiderweb of soliloquies is to plug your brain into the KH Wiki :/
Kingdom Hearts reminds me a little of Metal Gear in the sense that you can spend hours talking about theories, plot and symbolism. You have to ask yourself if you think writers intended so much depth, or they wrote themselves into a field of plot holes. Either way, it’s a lot of fun.
I absolutely HATE that they’re releasing games on so many different systems. A plot-centric series needs to have a regular pace and system. Unfortunately, they’re building it into a sort of Final Fantasy type franchise. And, why wouldn’t they? Kingdom Hearts makes so much money.
No text accompaniment at all? I rememeber when we used to talk. Now…you seem so distant.
It’s Chime isn’t it? Admit it! I see you running around with her, and her puzzle elements and music… I THOUGHT WHAT WE HAD WAS SPECIAL!
Bees.My god.
One thing that always bugs me in games is that water seems to amplify electrical current.Why do people think that?
Ah,but do you have everything to build the lazarus vector protector penetrator deflector ejector?(yeah,its obscure,I know)
Also,wow,a plot armour that works for the player?!What a crazy concept!
When I was in high school a friend of mine thought he could kill all the fish in the sea if he made an electrical cable touch the shore’s water…
So, yeah…
We shall go with people are stupid mayhaps?
Reminds me of a darwin award, of someone who wired up the mains to a pond to kill all the fish.
It worked, but he tried to wade in to get them before unhooking the power supply.
Batman reference! This thread is complete. And it shall bee mine!
So yeah, Langford! Another classic case of BioShock’s “we can’t actually render convincing looking people who aren’t horribly mutated, so instead we put them far away and on the other side of some glass” syndrome. This also saves them having to do any lip-syncing, which is actually really noticeable if you play at a decent resolution. Also, probably the most obvious fetch quest in the game, although there’s a whole bunch of those… it’s like all they could figure out to bring the player through the open-ended environments was “search every nook and cranny for the shiny thing”. Really? You can have non-linear level design without resorting to such obvious and contrived circumstances.
I don’t know, maybe I’m being overly critical, but the whole “get three Xs to make the Y” thing is getting pretty old for me. BioShock is supposed to be a story-heavy game and yet the story tends to break down so the player can be saddled with fetch quests of very little importance to that narrative. The biggest problem with BioShock’s story is that most of its events actually take place before the game even begins, and I can’t help but feel that the lack of anything interesting to do while playing contributes a lot to that problem.
Meh, don’t have much to comment on BioShock overall, surprisingly. It’s not a train wreck of a game, and there isn’t much I can say other than “it’s like System Shock 2 for dummies”. And here I thought it’d be rant central for me.
Two small things I would like to point out, if I might be so bold…
1. WHY DOESN’T JOSH TURN HIS CROSSHAIR ON?! Seriously… You had an occasional headshot with the pistol, but come on! I don’t think you hit anything else in the entire rest of the series so far! Stop wasting ammo! Either wrench it or learn to aim :)
2. That audio problem plagued me on both run-throughs I made of this game last year. What is it that causes that? Is it a bug in the audio generation or surround-sound models? Or is it a lack of resources in the sound card to produce too many sounds at once?
1) If you paly close attention, you´ll see the crosshair is there. Bioshock´s crosshair (or at least the default one) is a transparent-ish circle in the center of the screen that makes it´s hard to see in video.
2) I think it has to do with channels. Each sound that is produced is “sent” through a channel. Most sound cards have a certain ammount of channels (let´s say 32, but I´m not sure). Ussually this is enough, but Bioshock, as well as other games, can have more than 32 sounds going on at the same time. I´m not sure how it actually works, but I think that some sound “overwrite” others depending on which ones are “newer”. The real problem, though, is that Bioshock doesn´t seem to know how to give priorities, so you end up with this weird situations in which your shotgun doesn´t make any sound, but you can hear the wood cranking under the feet of an enemy ten meters away.
I could be totally wrong though.
You’re totally right, actually, Bioshock is set by default to only produce 32 sounds at any given point in time, even if your sound card can produce more. (and most can)
You can fix this and set the sound channels higher, but as I don’t actually own this game I wouldn’t know how. (I just know that you’re right)
One comment I’d like to make for this episode is that, like Mumbles, I love puns. I think this is because my native language has much less flexibility, double meanings etc. so we don’t really have much history of making those, in fact even our fandom is all but devoid of puns. When I started studying more advanced English I became quite enchanted with all the wonderful things you can do with this language.
I completely agree – I love puns, too.
I don’t see what everyone else’s aversion is about. I mean, I’m no master linguist, but I enjoy them all the same.
It helps when your language is a polyglot bastard.
You should BEE glad that we have such a flexible language.
There must be a crossbow in every game after 2004 – but Bethesda wanted to spite Valve, so they left them out of Oblivion. I guess.
Video hasn’t worked for me at all since it first went up. Just a white box.
Help?
Does Rutskarn have a new microphone? He sounds rather different compared to last Let’s Play. I’m tempted to call it ‘more masculine’ which tends to be a really common change when upgrading from bargain bin levels of microphones — a lot of people are amazed the first time they hear their voice through professional recording equipment, “I really sound like that? But I hate my voice!” tends to be a very common reaction.
…And then there are those people with really annoying voices who think they sound amazing.
Anyway, good LP — love that there’s this dynamic in the group that’s strengthening. Also, I think Josh is the long-suffering player.
Yeah. My old mic was actually decent quality, but this one’s slick as buttah. I gotta run a side project with this thing.
The complaints about the motivation to get the lazarus vector really bug me. It was explained, but you guys were busy talking over the cinematics and audio logs.
Andrew Ryan put a hericide in the air that killed all the trees. The trees produce most of the oxygen for Rapture. Langford has just been finishing developing the Lazarus Vector, which can ressurect plants. She’s about to set things up to restore the trees when Andrew Ryan kills her. There’s still enough oxygen left in the air to keep you going for awhile, but you need to get the Vector and restore the trees in order to prevent the eventual suffocation of yourself and everyone else in Rapture. (Vita Chambers wouldn’t be much use if you keep dying from lack of oxygen the minute you step out)
Also, Atlas told you to. ;)
We covered all of that in a previous episode. In detail. So yeah, we were listening. And then in this episode we poked fun at it, as opposed to just re-hashing it all again.