T w e n t y S i d e d

In the past I’ve lamented the terrible state of writing in some games, claiming that for the same money, the developer could have made the game drastically better. In my column this week, we have an even more extreme case where you could vastly improve the quality of Rage 2 by spending less money. Just cut half these cutscenes and you’d have a better game.

In the column, I mentioned that there is ~3.5 minutes of gameplay in the first 23 minutes of the game. That’s actually me being a little generous and counting the tutorial where it locks you in a simple cube room and makes you dash 3 times as “gameplay”.

There’s a lot more to criticize. So let’s do that:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Shut Up and Let me Shoot Stuff”

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.

This week I try to convince people that the No Man’s Sky hype and subsequent backlash was the result of youth and inexperience rather than a calculated campaign of deception.

I actually felt sorry for Sean Murray. If you look at the things Murray claimed were going to be in the game, it seems like he was just doing the usual indie developer thing where you talk candidly about your ideas and your plans. In the small-scale indie space, the line between “it would be cool to add this” and “this is in the spec and we plan to add it” is really blurry. You’re in charge of of the spec, you’re in charge of the schedule, and you’re always free to change your mind and do something different if you get caught up chasing a different (and hopefully better) idea.  There’s an understanding that indies are often following their passions.

After the game came out, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida said:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: No Man’s Sky Was Never a Con”

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.