Christmas Elves vs. Fantasy Elves

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 25, 2018

Filed under: Random 41 comments

It’s Christmas! What are you doing on my blog? Why don’t you go watch that one Christmas movie you love? Or eat some food? No? Socialize a bit maybe? You’ve done all that? That’s not your thing?

Okay then. I guess I can share this YouTube video with you. After all, the nature of snooty fantasy elves is a topic near and dear to my heart.


Link (YouTube)

Anyway. No matter what you do with the day, have a good one. Later in the week we’ll have another Andromeda post, and then next week we’ll be doing my end-of-year retrospective.

Merry Christmas, you big crazy internet.

 


 

Diecast #237: The Secret Show

By Shamus Posted Monday Dec 24, 2018

Filed under: Diecast 83 comments

Here it is. Our rambling, goofy, leave-in-all-the-mistakes Christmas Eve show. As hard as it might be to believe, I was sober during this. The whole time. I don’t know what was wrong with my brain. Sure, I made some questionable gaffs, but since nobody will listen to this episode I guess that’s fine.

Next episode will be the last of the year, so if you have any end-of-year questions, please send them in. Email is in the title image.



Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #237: The Secret Show”

 


 

Happy Holidays

By Shamus Posted Sunday Dec 23, 2018

Filed under: Notices 118 comments

Statistically speaking, you’re not reading this. I suppose that’s technically true for most writing. Given the ratio of available reading material to the amount of time people spend reading, the vast majority of all writing is only read by a tiny sliver of the population. Harry Potter is the best selling book series of all time, yet the first book has sold a pathetic 120 million copies. Which means that JK Rowling’s culture-wide smash hit has been read by less than 2% of the world’s population.

Which means that, on average, nobody reads anythingIf you disagree, please attempt to prove me wrong by buying my book..

I suppose it’s not fair to say that nobody reads this site. I mean, someone must be leaving all these comments. But even if we’re comparing the readership of this site to the readership of this site as of last week, it’s still pretty low. Odds are, you’re on break from school. Or you’ve taken some days off of work. Or you’re traveling to visit relatives. On the off chance you are still working, you’re probably too busy to check on my site because everyone else went on holiday and left you with all the work. The jerks. Whatever the reason, you’re not following your usual routine and thus you’re not here.

On Saturday December 22, 2018, there were exactly two comments. All day. On the entire site. That’s crazy. The site usually gets more than that an hour. When a popular post goes up, we’ll get about that many a minute.

As a result, I’m not eager to put up a ton of content right now. There’s no point in posting something if nobody’s around to discuss itBut then why am I writing this post?. I think I’m going to change up the publishing schedule for the next couple of weeks. If something goes up a bit late or appears on a different day from what you’re used to, that’s why.

If it helps, this week you’ll get an extra-long, super-informal Christmas Eve Diecast. I know that nothing gets me into the Christmas spirit like a couple of nerds talking about BattleTech, Rimworld, Hitman, and Starcraft.

 


 

Spider-Man Part 4: Welcome to the Lab Anyway

By Shamus Posted Thursday Dec 20, 2018

Filed under: Retrospectives 51 comments

After the big showdown, Fisk is taken into police custody. As the police prepare to take him away, he bellows to Spider-Man that the city will be falling apart inside of a month. Fisk claims he’s the one who’s been keeping order in the city. As it will turn out, that’s basically true.

I like this take on the character. Kingpin was never very compelling as an adversary in combat, but he’s pretty interesting as a political adversary / foil. Both Kingpin and Spider-Man love New York, and both work very hard to protect it. Sure, Fisk probably accomplishes this through bribery, extortion, assassination, and other strong-arm tactics. And yes, he probably extracts a lot of wealth from the city in the process. But it seems like he’s a sort of quasi-benevolent dictator. He keeps the trains running on time, as it were.

We’re technically free of the linear tutorial mission at this point. But none of the side-activities have been unlocked yet so instead of swinging off to explore the open world let’s stick with the main story for a bit longer.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spider-Man Part 4: Welcome to the Lab Anyway”

 


 

Experienced Points: Epic Has a Plan to Topple Steam

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Dec 19, 2018

Filed under: Column 87 comments

My column this week is about Epic’s new games store and how it’s already disrupting the industry. (In a good way.) To be clear, this doesn’t mean I think Epic’s store is flawless or that they’re guaranteed to take a huge bite out of Steam’s market share. I think they’re off to a great start, but a good start doesn’t win the race. Steam’s market lead is gargantuan and the network effect is a powerful force. My point here is that this sort of strong opening is what Origin, Uplay, and Bethesda should have done when they opened their stores.

But Shamus, maybe EA doesn’t want to compete with Steam! Maybe they just want to sell their own games?

Before I answer your objection, I want to point out that I also wrote a little something extra for the Escapist. They solicited opinions on interesting / favorite games this year. I didn’t want to spoil my entire end-of-year list, but I did want to make a big deal about this one because of how well it worked.

Anyway, getting back to your objection… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Epic Has a Plan to Topple Steam”

 


 

Andromeda Part 10: Eos

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 18, 2018

Filed under: Mass Effect 99 comments

There are a total of five (eventually) viable planets in the game, and early on the game makes it clear that your goal is to heal them all using the alien monoliths. Each planet has some sort of environmental problem: Radiation, extreme heat, extreme cold, caustic water, and out-of-control wildlife. We’re fresh out of the introduction, and already these alien gizmos have lost all sense of mystery. We know what they do and we’re confident we can use them. They’re reduced to obvious mechanical contrivances.

Fine, we’re not doing a sci-fi mystery anymore. Instead we’re doing simple action adventure. We can argue about whether or not that’s a good idea for a Mass Effect game, but it’s not an inherently bad idea for a story. But even if we’re going to use Andromeda’s galaxy-sized canvas to tell a simple story, there’s no reason to portray it in such a boring way. Everyone just assumes that the alien monoliths can fix the planet and they assume they’ll be able to figure out how to use them. You could make this plot significantly more interesting by just having the characters show some level of apprehension or uncertainty.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Andromeda Part 10: Eos”

 


 

Diecast #236: Gris, HotS, Starcraft, Artifact

By Shamus Posted Monday Dec 17, 2018

Filed under: Diecast 75 comments

Look at the date! We are quickly running out of year. And now that I’m thinking about it, we’re also kinda running out of decade. But as luck would have it, we’ve got plenty of week left. So let’s squander some time talking about videogames.



Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.

Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #236: Gris, HotS, Starcraft, Artifact”