Requirements Not Met

By Shamus Posted Thursday Aug 28, 2008

Filed under: Links 40 comments

I am uncharacteristically at a loss for words at the moment, but I can’t bear to send you away empty handed. So check this out: Requirements Not Met, the first of what I hope will be a series of posts that look at what games look like at the minimum visual settings.

Game companies often release screenshots that are more or less fiction. They crank up the visuals and the resolution to the point where the game would be unplayable even on high-end machines, and then they offer up these images as if they were examples of what the game will look like for the average user. It’s stupid and dishonest and everyone knows it and they do it anyway. Releasing comedic screenshots of the game at the other end of the quality spectrum is a perfectly reasonable response to this.

(And yes, I realize the absurdity of claiming to be at a loss for words at the top of a hundred and sixty five word post.)

 


 

Mike vs. BJ Shea

By Shamus Posted Thursday Aug 28, 2008

Filed under: Rants 46 comments

EDIT: I stand corrected. I’m crazy busy this morning and don’t have time for the whole thing, but the first few minutes were conciliatory and civil. I am thrilled to have my cynicism proven wrong. Onward. Original post follows:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mike vs. BJ Shea”

 


 

Grand Theft Auto: The… Birthday Cake?

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Aug 27, 2008

Filed under: Pictures 36 comments

This image was gleefully swiped from Cake Wrecks – which is one of those sites that will steal a lunch hour from you if you give it half a chance.

Grand Theft Auto: The Cake

A San Andreas cake. For a four year old boy. This is like one of those, “How many things wrong can you find in this picture”, except that this one is too easy. The answer is: Everything. This is an image of perfect wrongness, from the expertly reproduced likeness of Cesar Vialpando holding a gun, to the wads of play money jammed into the icing. This cake is the work of a very skilled madman.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Grand Theft Auto: The… Birthday Cake?”

 


 

SecuROM causes Bad Breath and Leukemia

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Aug 27, 2008

Filed under: Rants 65 comments

Just yesterday I said that while SecuROM is an insult to customers, it had never personally caused me any difficulty. This morning I got to enjoy its shortcomings first-hand. With CD in the drive, I click to launch my game and…

securom1.jpg

Hm. Laying aside the immorality of forbidding your customers from making Fair Use backups of stuff they own, I want to point out that the legit disk was, in fact, in the drive.

I clicked the link in the dialog for help, where I was told the following:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “SecuROM causes Bad Breath and Leukemia”

 


 

GTA:SA:PC: Strangeness

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Aug 26, 2008

Filed under: Projects 34 comments

I’ve said before that if game developers would back off from the bleeding edge, they could do more with less, and GTA is the perfect example of this in action. If you’ve been reading this site for any length of time you’ve heard this rant before. My big plan over the weekend was to do a video review / commentary thing for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the PC, to illustrate what I’m talking about.

It didn’t work out. I’m still not sure why.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “GTA:SA:PC: Strangeness”

 


 

Stolen Pixels #15:Azeroth Travelogue, Part 2

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Aug 26, 2008

Filed under: Column 1 comments

The journey through Azeroth and self-indulgence continues. Please follow these steps for maximum enjoyment:

  1. Read the comic.
  2. Laugh uproariously.
  3. Leave a comment that describes, in detail, the level of mirth you experienced.
  4. Click on the ads and patronize the site sponsors.

Note that when I said “maximum enjoyment”, I was talking about my enjoyment, not yours.

 


 

That Explains a Lot

By Shamus Posted Monday Aug 25, 2008

Filed under: Rants 57 comments

In this CNet interview, EA president Frank Gibeau talks about the new direction he has planned for the company:

If you look at our customers’ behavior patterns, you’re seeing them engaging with fully connected experiences. And I think we have IPs and ideas and expertise that can really allow us to do that. I think Spore is a connected experience. I think Battlefield is, and Warhammer. These can be very lucrative for us, and they can be very exciting from a developer standpoint, because you’re moving from a fire-and-forget model to more of a service model, where you launch the game but you’re thinking 24-7 about when’s my first content pack, what’s happening with telemetry, how are people playing the game, and how do I make their experiences better?

I’ve noticed this already. A “service” model. They have been moving towards this for some time now. Why sell me a game, when you can lease it to me and hold the experience ransom for a monthly fee? What better way to get closer to your customers than to enter into this economic suicide pact with them? If we die, we’re taking your games with us.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “That Explains a Lot”