Problem: Games industry is experiencing competition that is undercutting their prices!
I admit that I am not a businessman, yet I remain convinced that there is nothing wrong with this industry that couldn’t be fixed by just one person with an MBA and average-level intelligence.
Yes, I’m very much aware that I’m shouting into the hurricane here and nobody is going to listen. But what the heck, right? It’s a living.
Wherein uncle Cuftbert fights big daddies to free little sisters in order give big brother the mother of all knuckle sandwiches.
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For reasons that will be apparent in two paragraphs, I’m typing this with my head down, eyes helf-open and fixed on the keyboard. Please be tolerant of errors and typos. Fixing them would hurt me more than they hurt you.
Tuesday (today, for some of us) was my birthday. It was my 39th birthday. It was not a good one. In fact, this is the second-worst birthday so far, only narrowly edged out by the first one where someone pulled me from the warmth and tranquility of the womb and into this nightmare realm of war, famine, and Michael Bay movies.
About a week ago I came down with an eye infection. It started out mild. Just a bit of redness on the eyelid. “Ah. Probably just spending too much time at the computer”, I thought, “It will clear up in no time.” This theory was disproven over the weekend, when it did, in fact, get monumentally worse. And gross. And painful.
If I close my eye, it burns like my tear duct is churning out mace by the gallon. If I open them, the infected eye is pierced with agony because the dang thing refuses to focus on anything or adjust to the light. Covering it up doesn’t seem to help. So it only hurts when my eyes are closed or I’m looking at things. This means the only way to escapse the pain is to sit upright in a dark room with my eyes open, looking at nothing. While this is a tedious way to spend one’s time, it’s better than watching a Michel Bay movie so it’s sort of a mixed blessing.
It’s been days since I’ve slept more thn two or three hours at a stretch. Now I can’t see and I can’t think. This has made me a little irritable. And it’s ALL YOUR FAULT.
No. Sorry. It’s not totally your fault. Anyway. On my birthday I went to see the doctor and she gave me some weapons-grade antibiotics. I can’t read the label to save my life, but I’m pretty sure it says something along the lines of, “Jam this crap into your eyeball every four hours until you’re out of medicine or the thing falls out, either of which should fix the problem.”
So that’s what I’m doing. I have my LCD monitor set to minimum brightness right now, and I can only behold it with fleeting sideways glances. I have to piece togethe rthe world around me with momentary peeks. So all I see are painful flashes of light and abrupt cuts from one disjoined blurry image to the next. So it’s sort of like watching a Michel Bay movie all the time. Which is the worst part.
I’m actually doing a lot better. It’s only been six hours since I took the first dose of medicine, and it already hurts way, way less. I don’t know if I’ll be back to normal tomorrow or if I’ll end up taking the rest of the week off. We’ll see.
So this has been a rough birthday. But still. At the end of the day I can at least be grateful for one thing:
At least I’m not 40.
As I mentioned in the comments section of the last episode, at the time of that recording, I hadn’t played Bioshock in six months. I didn’t really know what I was doing – I hadn’t even remapped the keys before we started recording. Though, to be fair, how long have we had the standard WASD shooter keymap now? Why does crouch in Bioshock default to ‘c’ and sprint to ‘crtl’?
In any case, these problems have been rectified with this episode.
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. |
Enjoy.
However, if you actually want a review based on facts and first-hand experience, then Josh has you covered.
-Shamus
Steam, at the very least as a digital distribution platform, is great. Now I know Shamus has expressed a number of very valid concerns about the idea (and indeed, strong possibility) of a Steam monopoly and all of the ways that could go wrong â€" and I am in absolute and total agreement with every one of those concerns â€" but there is a reason Steam is by and large the PC digital distribution platform. I can, with confidence, say that the sales held regularly on Steam have led me to try dozens of games (if not hundreds â€" my account has nearly 125(!) games on it) I would never have considered playing otherwise. One such game is an odd little title released back in 2008: Mirror’s Edge.
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| I’m not really sure what mirrors have to do with anything… |
When Mirror’s Edge came out, I’d been following it with some interest, but I thought the concept was, frankly, rather crazy (First-person acrobatics? Tell me that doesn’t sound like a recipe for frustration and disaster). And the reviews I skimmed after the game was released seemed to reinforce this notion. But when the game is on sale on Steam for $5? Well… It can’t be that bad.
Right?
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mirror’s Edge Review Part 1:
Running into Walls”
Link (YouTube) |
The internet is plastered with ads for Kane & Lynch 2, sequel to the original ugly self-important chore from Eidos in 2007. If the sequel is anything like the first, you’ll pilot a completely unlikable jerk from one murder spree to the next in order to thwart some bad guys so bland I can’t think of a metaphor boring enough to… meh. The combat had all the fun and energy of churning milk in January. I quit when the story got to Havana. I have no idea how it ended. But in the alternate ending I wrote for myself on the wall using a black sharpie tightly clenched in one fist, Lynch died, Kane’s men died, the cops they gunned down recovered and then launched an enormously successful anti-crime program for youth, the secret conspiracy guys continued to do nothing interesting forever and ever, and Kane’s stupid ass went back to prison. If this is not how the game ended, please don’t tell me. I’m happy with the one I wrote.
What? Oh. Sorry. Anyway. Kane and Lynch 2 is everywhere and yet nobody talks about the wonderful things Telltale games is making for us. This is my own small attempt to rectify this injustice.
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
How did this niche racing game make a gameworld so massive, and why is that a big deal?
Why spend millions on visuals that are just a distraction from the REAL game of hotbar-watching?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.
An attempt to make a good looking cityscape with nothing but simple tricks and a few rectangles of light.
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
Which would you rather be: A king in the middle ages, or a lower-income laborer in the 21st century?
I teach myself music composition by imitating the style of various videogame soundtracks. How did it turn out? Listen for yourself.
T w e n t y S i d e d
