Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Friday Jan 9, 2015

Filed under: Industry Events 136 comments

 Dénouement 2013: Part 2Previous Post

Next PostDénouement 2014: Part 2 

I called 2012 “The Year we pretended to choose things“. And last year was the year of the indies. I guess this is the year of… “Meh”? My usual criteria for putting games on my end-of-year list is that the game has some sort of lasting message, theme, mechanic, or idea. This lets me filter out disposable big-budget titles that are serviceable as entertainment but aren’t really worth analyzing or talking about once you’re done with them. This is supposed to be a list that lets us get a last few words on whatever titles got us talking.

The thing is, I’m just not feeling it this year. Up until recently I thought it was just me. I thought maybe I just wasn’t in a gaming mood? Maybe I’m getting old and the magic is gone?

But no. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Chris and I both decided to call this year “meh” before we’d even talked about it. It’s not that games were terrible this year. It’s that there wasn’t anything really remarkable. (Although, for a contrary point of view, check out SuperBunnyHop’s year-end video, which is pretty good. )

The Losers

With an intro like that, I guess I need to head off a few objections along the lines of, “But Shamus! How could you not like X? It was great!” So here is a list of X, where X is a popular game that didn’t make my “best of 2014” list:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Dénouement 2014: Part 1”

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.

 Dénouement 2013: Part 2Previous Post

Next PostDénouement 2014: Part 2 

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Project Button Masher: Robo Miner AI Hotfix

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jan 8, 2015

Filed under: Music 67 comments

 Project Button Masher: Phobos PhobiaPrevious Post

Next PostProject Button Masher: Reroute Kanal 

It’s time to take another stab at imitating videogame soundtracks. This week we’re going to try the Descent soundtrack. Unlike last week, I’m going to do what I can to try and make this one sound like it really belongs in the game, which means trying to re-create the old MIDI sounds.

The Descent music has been remixed a lot over the years. Some people heard those old MIDI tunes and felt the need to rebuild them with modern instruments. Sometimes the new version would be a faithful adaptation, and sometimes it would be unrecognizable, bordering on sonic vandalismLet’s be clear: The person who did the unfaithful remix is still more musically capable than I am..

For my project, I’m going to compose something original, but get as close to the old MIDI sounds as I can. Thankfully, MAGIX has a tool to help with this:

Are we making music or going to the moon?

That looks… scary. And it kind of is. There are a couple of video tutorials for this thing on YouTube, but they were so thick with music jargon that I couldn’t follow them, and they usually boiled down to the teacher just reading the damn interface to me. “This is the OSC glide. It will let you adjust the glide for the OSC up or down.” Gosh, thanks Yoda. You really unraveled that mystery for me.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Button Masher: Robo Miner AI Hotfix”

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.

 Project Button Masher: Phobos PhobiaPrevious Post

Next PostProject Button Masher: Reroute Kanal 

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Last of Us EP34: Giraffes Are Cool

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jan 7, 2015

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 107 comments

 New Year Stream: Now on YouTubePrevious Post

Next PostThe Last of Us EP35: The Last of The Last of Us 

Link (YouTube)

At this point in the game – just as we finally enter the home stretch – I’m finally going to get to play The Last of Us for myself. I now own a Playstation 4, along with GTA V and TLOU. These arrived via UPS with no note or indication of who bought them. I have my guess, but I don’t want to say anything until I know for sure. The important thing is that someone was very very good to me and I am very grateful. This is exactly the package I would have picked for myself.

This is the penultimate episode of the season. It’s been a good run. I feel sort of bad about stepping all over our discussion of the ending in my column yesterday, but I think there’s plenty of stuff left to discuss beyond, “How stupid and useless are the Fireflies and are they worse than Cerberus?”.

So I’m curious: Can you shoot these animals, and does Ellie react? We didn’t want to do the experiment and risk the wrath of Mumbles if it turned out the Giraffes were mortal.

The scene just before you leave the Giraffes behind is kind of interesting. As far as either of them knows, this shouldn’t be a big deal. Ellie is just expecting to be “studied”. They should be relieved to be done with travel and danger and fighting for survival for a few days. But the dialog flows as if they both know this is going to be a bigger deal than any of the challenges they just faced. The only explanation I can think of is that Joel thinks they are about to part ways.

And finally: Exhibit Z in the “Proof that the Fireflies suck at everything” files: The tunnel leading to their hideout is the most heavily zombie-infested place in the entire game. How long have they been here and not dealt with the monsters on their doorstep? Don’t they need to come and go once in a while? And while we’re at it, I should point out that with no viable means of trade or farming, there’s nothing for the Fireflies to eat.

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 Year Stream: Now on YouTubePrevious Post

Next PostThe Last of Us EP35: The Last of The Last of Us 

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Experienced Points: In The Last of Us, Joel Had It Right

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 6, 2015

Filed under: Column 137 comments

 Experienced Points: How Lizard Squad Stole ChristmasPrevious Post

Next PostExperienced Points: How GTA V Fumbles on the Easy Stuff 

Here’s a spoiler warning for Spoiler Warning: This week our play-through of Last of Us will come to an end. Which means it’s time to talk about the ending. On the show I do the conversational version with the other hosts, but my column this week is the slightly more organized version.

Analogy time: Let’s imagine there’s some movie where a passenger airliner loses an engine. The hero immediately lands the plane on the highway, which kills somebody. Everyone is like, “The hero saved the lives of 100 people, so it’s okay that one person died.” But then some jerkass like me comes along and points out that he didn’t save anyone, because planes can continue to fly if one engine malfunctions. Does that mean that the hero is guilty of manslaughter because he should have just landed the plane properly at an airport? We end up arguing about what the author intended. Was the writer saying our reckless hero panicked and performed a needless emergency landing? Or was the plane really going to go down, regardless of how planes work in the real world?

You end up with two different debates taking place, but they keep getting their wires crossed. One is an ethical debate about the kind of risks you can take when 100 lives are at stake, and the other debate is about how planes work. But if we don’t agree on how planes work then the ethical debate doesn’t make any sense and some people will be arguing that the engineering doesn’t matter because the story is really about the ethical debate and so we go in circles until everyone gets mad.

So maybe it’s unfair of me to analyze Joel’s actions based on the logic of the real world and not on the logic of his world. On the other hand, I think the ending would have worked better if the science wasn’t so muddled. And I think it was muddled because the writer wanted to blur the line a bit to avoid having Joel perpetrate an objectively evil act.

I don’t know. It’s an interesting conundrum.

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: How Lizard Squad Stole ChristmasPrevious Post

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Errant Signal: Grand Theft Auto V

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 6, 2015

Filed under: Video Games 140 comments

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Link (YouTube)

The video makes it sound like Rockstar is taking the game even further in the direction I hate: Now with 50% more arrogant sneering hypocrisy! It’s the ultimate product of bombastic, base, crass, violent, stupid, shallow, consumerist culture, and it spends the entire game looking down on bombastic, base, crass, violent, stupid, shallow, consumerist culture. You could argue that it’s going for some kind of “Spec Ops” style criticism of the genre, but GTA is the genre. It’s like making Spec Ops into a core Call of Duty title, so the game spends its entire running time criticizing the existence of tropes that it invented and continually perpetuates.

And that would be fine if it was self-deprecating, but instead the game pretends it’s somehow above all that. GTA V making fun of beer commercials for their excess of tits and marketing-engineered machismo is like David Cage making fun of the button-mashing stuff in Telltale games. Dude, your house is a pile of glass shards and you are out of rocks. Shut up already.

Rockstar should just make the protagonist Holden Caulfield, except in their version instead of a red hunting hat, Holden is wearing a Nike baseball capThe original red hunting cap would be available as a pre-order bonus. It would still have the Nike logo, though., Levis, Air Jordans, and a Nickleback concert T-shirt. He’s got a spray tan and drinks Mountain Dew while bitching about all those big corporations that are like, hurting the environment or whatever. He would call people phonies, but only if you buy the “Everyone is a Phony” DLC.

And yet, as much as I hate the swaggering stupidity and tone-deaf condescension of GTA, that footage from Errant Signal really makes me want to get the game and explore that world. Which means I am the dumbass consumer they took me for, and they really are the soulless corporate shills they’re mocking. I guess the joke is on all of us.

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.

 Minecraft: Modder's AdvicePrevious Post

Next PostFive Games Josh Liked in 2014: Part 1 

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Diecast #87: Batman Endgame, ToME, Stone Soup Dungeon Crawl

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 5, 2015

Filed under: Diecast 108 comments

 Diecast #86: Telltale Games, Christmas DDos Attack, Edutainment GamesPrevious Post

Next PostDiecast #88: Mailbag 

Happy 2015! Enjoy this extra-long Diecast with a full crew and a lot of topics.

Download MP3 File
Download Ogg Vorbis File

Hosts: Shamus, Josh, Rutskarn, Mumbles, and Chris.

Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #87: Batman Endgame, ToME, Stone Soup Dungeon Crawl”

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 #86: Telltale Games, Christmas DDos Attack, Edutainment GamesPrevious Post

Next PostDiecast #88: Mailbag 

108 comments

New Year Stream: Now on YouTube

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jan 4, 2015

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 39 comments

 Twenty Minutes With Five Nights At Freddy's Previous Post

Next PostLast of Us EP34: Giraffes Are Cool 

In case you missed it, on New Year we got together with a group of friends and played a bunch of games. Josh and Jarenth played, while I watched on Twitch and interacted with the people in chat. (I love doing this. I just wait for people to say something funny, read it out loud, and take credit for it. It’s like a license to steal jokes!)

We played Spintires, Far Cry 4, Super Amazing Wagon Adventure, and FTL.

Warning: This isn’t pristine HD video that’s been edited and audio-balanced like a typical episode of Spoiler Warning. This is a raw download of the Twitch stream. But while the quality is low, we make up for it in quantity. We’ve got over four hours of quasi-entertainment for you to consume! Enjoy!

Link (YouTube)

The rest of the videos are after the jump: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “New Year Stream: Now on YouTube”

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.

 Twenty Minutes With Five Nights At Freddy's Previous Post

Next PostLast of Us EP34: Giraffes Are Cool 

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OLDER POSTS

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From The Archives:

The Losers

What is Piracy?

Joker's Last Laugh

The Strange Evolution of OpenGL

Secret of Good Secrets

Fable II

Games and the Fear of Death

Resident Evil 4

Patreon!

Trekrospective

Project Button Masher