Later today we’ll be streaming PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS. Why? Only Josh knows. We’ll be streaming on Twitch when the time comes. I hope you can make it and explain to me what this game is and why Josh wants me to watch it.
Edit: Thanks everyone for tuning in. We streamed almost two hours each of PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS and Nier Automata. The VODs will go up on youtube at some point, but until then, you can find them in the Twitch Archives.
There are a lot of sidequests in Arkham City. The odd thing is that there doesn’t seem to be a good time to do them. If you try to do them right away then Batman will be missing a few required gadgets because the story hasn’t granted them yet. But if you wait too long, then Batman gets poisoned and it feels silly to ignore that in favor of screwing around punching out a bunch of nutjobs who are already in jail.
But like I keep saying: This game was designed gameplay first. It’s more important to have a variety of side-activities available for the player to explore rather than support the illusion of urgency they’re trying to sell in the main plot.
This point in the game is where I usually abandon the main story and start messing around with the side missions. The section where you hunt down Ra’s Al Ghul is long, linear, heavy on cutscenes, and once you enter you’re locked in until you finish up.
So let’s talk about these diverting villains you need to track down…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Arkham City Part 12: Arkham Sidequest”
Now that the last flatulent black-powder pop has dispersed in the wild Caribbean(!) breeze, it’s time to consolidate my ill-gotten profits. First there’s the grim but unfortunately necessary matter of triage–the Delight had a larger hold than my own vessel, so naturally I can’t take everything. I do the painful arithmetic and allocate the Boiled Sweet‘s storage space as efficiently as I can before throwing the leftovers overboard.
Having taken care of that, I give the Delight a crew and add it to my fleet.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Nan o’ War CH7: Flotsam and Regretsam”
Hosts: Josh, Shamus, and Campster. Edited by Baychel.
Sorry this one is late. We had to record on Sunday due to the intrusion of Real Life.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #195: Scorpio, Unravel, Remakes”
Link (YouTube) |
Has the meaning of “poser” migrated? My memory of it was that it meant “faker” or “impostor”. But here Max walks up to the skater guy and strikes up a conversation. She makes no effort to pretend she knows anything about skateboarding, but he calls her a poser anyway. (Technically she’s a poser AFTER she rewinds time and uses some fresh lingo to bluff her way through the conversation.) He seems to be using the word to mean “lame”. I dunno. It’s been a quarter century since I heard “poser” used as a derogatory term, and I can imagine usage has changed.
Also, I brought up the game Bully in this episode. Eleven years ago, Rockstar took a break from making open world games about car theft and murder to make this small, focused little game about one boy at a private school. I remember really enjoying it. I liked the non-lethal combat that ended fights by stuffing foes in lockers or garbage cans. I liked how each student character model had a specific name and identity, as opposed to filling out the school grounds with generic nameless clones. I loved the school itself. It wasn’t perfect or anything, but I’m sad the game seems to have been forgotten. It felt like a solid prototype for a much better game. Too bad Rockstar doesn’t seem inclined to revisit the idea.
My daughter Bay (who you probably know from the podcast / Spoiler Warning, if you’re into those) is visiting the family this week. You might remember I visited her last December. (The header image on this post is from that visit.) Now she’s here for a week and we’re catching up.
The girlsMy wife Heather and our daughters Bay and Esther. are going to Tekko this weekend. They’ve made themselves some cosplay costumesIs “cosplay costumes” redundant? Can cosplay be used to refer to the costume itself? As in: “She’s wearing cosplay.” That sounds wrong, but I dunno. and will be doing whatever it is otaku do at these things. Probably going to panels where anime voice actors joke around and sign stuff. If you’re curious: Bay is going as Deadpool in a wedding dress. Heather is going as Kiki. They have other costumes they’re doing on other days, but I’m not familiar with the characters in question. All I know is they’re pretty happy with how it all turned out.
I actually had a bunch of content I wanted to post, but, see…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Stuff That is Happening”
Link (YouTube) |
To repeat my rant: If you’re a teacher and you make kids stay in your class when they say they’re sick, then you’re an asshole. A villain. Kids are human beings. They have pain and discomfort just like us big people. They also have a lot less coping mechanisms for dealing with discomfort. One stupid class session is not more important than their suffering. Making a kid stay when they ask to be excused is a great way to end up with blood, feces, urine, or vomit in your classroom, which isn’t going to improve anyone’s educational experience. Also, on top of making a kid suffer you’ve also given them an intensely humiliating experience that they will carry around for the rest of their lives.
Moreover, if a kid is trying to get out of class then they have already mentally checked out. You can make them stay, but you can’t make them learn. Refusing to let a kid use the bathroom is all downside. You monster.
Part of my problem was that I was really incompetent socially. There’s a certain performance of body language that we expect from people who are sick. It’s reflected in face, posture, and tone of voice. I don’t know if it’s something we learn from adults or if it just comes naturally for most people, but I apparently never got the memo and didn’t know how to “act” sick, even when I was sick. I’d just walk to the front of the room and state my problem, which would get me flagged as a faker. So once in a while I’d have one of those teachers that decided their dumb bullshit needed to be the center of my life and would send me back to my seat when I asked to be excused.
Well, that’s been bugging me for 35 years. Glad to finally get that off my chest. I feel like we’ve made some good progress here today.
Yes, this game is loud, crude, childish, and stupid. But it it knows what it wants to be and nails it. And that's admirable.
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
Why make millions on your video game when you could be making HUNDREDS on frivolous copyright claims?
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2011.
Scenes from Half-Life 2:Episode 2, showing Gordon Freeman being a jerk.
What makes the gameplay of Borderlands so addictive for some, and what does that have to do with slot machines?
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.
What is this silly word, why did some people get so irritated by it, and why did it fall out of use?
T w e n t y S i d e d
