T w e n t y S i d e d
What to do if you don’t have time to play videogames? Build a robot to play them for you:
Link (YouTube) |
I think I’m the only guy in the world that hates that song, but I love the robot.
Friday Notes
I didn’t have time to finish up the final post in the Fallout series, so we’ll have to wait until Monday to have that conversation. Actually, it’s not that it’s not “done” as much as I realized I was beating a long-dead horse and it would have made for a laborious read.
In other news, today’s Stolen Pixels launched, and promptly landed again with a dull, wet thud. A sound not unlike that of a body striking the ground in the desert, right beside a freshly-dug hole. I’ve been excited about this one for a while and I think it’s thought is was my best work so far. And it’s garnered what might be generously referred to as a halfhearted “meh”. At first this stunned me like a blow to the forehead. I was prepared for rejection. Or confusion. But apathy?
Then I looked at my logs here on this site, and realized the internet (or at least my corner of it) is a ghost town today. It’s the Friday before Christmas. I think school is out, college kids are home, and people just aren’t around right now. Still, 2 comments? Merry Christmas Shamus! Santa has brought you a box of FAIL.
At the risk of ruining a joke by explaining it, Travis Taylor is just a character I’ve added to the comic. I don’t know how often he’ll show up, but it will be handy to have an ongoing personality aside from the EA Guy. I like the EA Guy, but I’m just about out of usable pictures of him. I’m explaining this because people keep telling me this new guy isn’t as funny as I am, which is either a very polite insult or a painful compliment. It’s a bit like someone sharing an ice cream cone with you by launching it at your head with a baseball pitcher. Delicious and painful.
Also, in response to about a thousand (give or take 995) requests, I started one of those twitter things. I expect to amuse myself with it for a few days and then lose interest, as most people do. But there it is, while it lasts.
Right. Back to work.
Stolen Pixels #48:
2008 Awards, Part 1
I’m taking Christmas off from Stolen Pixels. Travis Taylor will be filling in for me. Yes, THE Travis Taylor. He’s difficult to work with, but nobody else was willing to do it on such short notice.
Edit: And please don’t be shy about leaving comments. I don’t know what the deal is. There have been less comments than ever, even as traffic for the comic has grown. What the heck?
Fallout 3: Tenpenny Tower
So a few people have complained that the quests in Fallout 3 are shallow or nonsensical. Other people really dig them. Two common responses are:
- The quests in Fallout 3 are stupid compared to the earlier Fallout games.
- The quests in Fallout 3 are so much better than in Oblivion.
Let’s look at one of these quests.
Allow me to set the stage: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Fallout 3: Tenpenny Tower”
Worst Campaign Train Wreck
No GM advice this week. The Big Project continues to bear down like an unbearably overbearing… bear. I don’t have time for the fancy writing and whatnot, which is why the previous sentence was so appallingly lame. Seriously, I don’t even have time to highlight it and hit “delete”, that’s how amazingly busy I am. So let’s have a topic for discussion instead:
This won’t apply to people who run or play freestyle off-the-cuff games, but for those who strive for some sort of specific plot:
Players
What is the worst derailment you’ve ever perpetrated? Usually player cleverness leads to more interesting situations, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it just wrecks an NPC / location / dungeon / conversation that promised to be fun. Maybe you killed the bad guy without even realizing it. Or you alienated a key ally. Or caused a cave-in of a dungeon before you even set foot inside. What is the one thing you did that put the GM off his script, and which you later regretted? (As opposed to all the other times you put him off his script, just because that’s half the fun.)
Game Masters
What is the worst railroading you’ve ever perpetrated? Maybe one time when you manipulated things so that they went according to some overarching scheme, and afterwords you realized your plans sucked compared to what the players had in mind, or you realized that things would have been more fun if you’d let the players have their way.
If you want to answer both, go for it. You can even do so in two different posts, if that helps. I know it sucks trying to write long comments in that little box.
Stolen Pixels #47:
The Obligatory Cameo
If you’re playing Silent Hill, then you-know-who has to show up sooner or later.
I fear this is one of those jokes that will amuse only me. So far it’s earned blank stares and blinking, but I still giggle at the last panel. And I hardly ever giggle at my own jokes. Please don’t feel bad. I’m sure I’ll write something you find funny one of these days.
Fallout 3:
The Power of the Atom
This post contains spoilers for a side-quest. (No main plot spoilers.) Odds are that this will be the first quest you encounter in the wasteland.
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| The town of Megaton, which is built inside of a steep crater. An undetonated Fat Man sits at the very bottom, and nobody knows what to do with it. |
As you enter the town of Megaton – a town built around an undetonated atomic bomb – you’re approached by two NPCs. The first is the mayor, who will pay you to disarm the bomb. The second is a shady character named Burke, who will pay you to set off the bomb and destroy the entire town. If you do as the mayor asks, you’ll be given a house in town. If you do as Burke asks…
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| So… he wants me to blow up a city of people because it’s not scenic enough? |
The man who wants you to destroy the town is Alistair Tenpenny, a wealthy old man who wants the town gone because it’s a “blight on the landscape”. His instructions are very explicit. He wants the town gone, and you’re not to warn the residents, because he wants them all to die as well.
Megaton is one of the largest most successful towns on the map. It represents a major concentration of human survivors. Alistair doesn’t want to take it over, or steal from it, or rule it, or enslave it. He wants to get rid of it because it’s ugly. Remember that this is a post apocalyptic wasteland we’re talking about. Everything is ugly. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Fallout 3:
The Power of the Atom”
From The Archives:
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
Fable II
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
Philosophy of Moderation
The comments on most sites are a sewer of hate, because we're moderating with the wrong goals in mind.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
The Best of 2015
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
Silent Hill Origins
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
Netscape 1997
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
Crysis 2
Crysis 2 has basically the same plot as Half-Life 2. So why is one a classic and the other simply obnoxious and tiresome?
Black Desert Online
This Korean title would be the greatest MMO ever made if not for the horrendous monetization system. And the embarrassing translation. And the terrible progression. And the developer's general apathy towards its western audience.
Megatextures
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.