T w e n t y S i d e d
Hosts: Rutskarn, Shamus, Campster and Baychel.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #197: BATTLEGROUNDS, Westerado, Call of Duty”
Diecast #197: BATTLEGROUNDS, Westerado, Call of Duty
Hosts: Rutskarn, Shamus, Campster and Baychel.
Hosts: Rutskarn, Shamus, Campster and Baychel.
The Worst Job
The modem coughs and screams like someone beatboxing to white noise. Why the shit do modems always default to ear-splitting volume levels, and why can I never remember where you go to change it?
The connection happens and I’m ready to begin work for the day. I open Microsoft Outlook Express, hit “Check Email”, and then brace myself for the worst part of the day.
It’s 1997.
Part of my job involves answering technical questions from our users. This means my email is public. It’s posted on our website, and it’s in my signature on the message board. Which means spam bots have had years to discover it. Which means all the spammers have it. Also, a couple of years ago our company went from free-to-play to a paid model. This pissed people off, and part of the public backlash / protest was that someone signed our emails up for various porn mailing lists.
I don’t know if it’s the mailing lists or the spam bots, but these days I get between one and two hundred emails a day, and 90% of them are advertisements for pornography.
Maybe if you’re young you imagine “porn” means HD video of attractive people doing obvious things that I don’t need to belabor here. But this is 1997, and spammers don’t yet have vast botnets of compromised machines to deliver their spam payload. The internet is slow, bandwidth is expensive, and spammers still sort of pay to send out their spam.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Worst Job”
Life is Strange EP6: Hella Wowzers!
Link (YouTube) |
The scenes with David are really hard for me to watch. This stuff with unjust, overbearing, sanctimonious adults in positions of power is a little too real for me. I’m kinda glad I skipped this game now. I give the game full marks for being emotionally affecting, but these aren’t really emotions I care to feel.
New Site Theme
I am no longer the sole regular contributor to this site, so I really ought to discuss things with my blogging roommates before I make any sweeping changes. But I didn’t. I guess I figured it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Changing the site theme is always controversial. I don’t think I’ve ever made a change that didn’t get at least some push-back. But this is a big one, and I expect we’ll have a bit of a shake-out period.
For those of you reading this site from the future, this is what the site looked like yesterday, and this is what it looked like after the switch.
Important changes…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “New Site Theme”
Life is Strange EP5: Knock Over All the Things
Link (YouTube) |
We already gave our answers in the show, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks: This game featured fewer puzzles in the later chapters. Do you think this is due to general corner-cutting, or was it a deliberate response to the player base?
Is clumsily knocking things over supposed to be a major theme in this game? In this episode alone Max broke the snowglobe, dropped the pictures into the oil, and dropped that gizmo behind the washer. Also, there was the anecdote about knocking over the wine bottle.
Arkham City Part 13: Old Old Gotham
Batman descends into Old Gotham to look for Ra’s Al Ghul. Well, I guess this is Old Old Gotham, since Arkham City itself is already built from Old Gotham. The city is a bit young to have this many archaeological layers, but comic book gonna comic book.
There’s some puzzles and travel and combat and other tomfoolery. At the end Batman is barely holding it together. The toxins are catching up with him.
Batman was dosed with Titan formula at the end of the last game and came out unscathed. Joker has endured this stuff in his blood for months and only now is it really getting to him. Batman got a diluted dose via Joker’s blood a few hours ago and already he’s in worse shape than Joker.
There’s actually an explanation for why the toxin seems to be so inconsistent. The explanation is, “It’s a videogame based on a comic book.”
The Joker Toxin has been wearing him down over the past hour or so. The game even lowers Batman’s max health. I’m glad his weakness is reflected in gameplay and not confined to cutscenes. Also, this is a good way to gently increase the difficulty without needing to introduce new foes. Remember that this is a game where it’s possible to get through an entire fight without taking a scratch. The game is just being a little less forgiving about how many mistakes you can make in a fight.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Arkham City Part 13: Old Old Gotham”
Life is Strange EP4: Captain Cringe
Link (YouTube) |
I think our different reactions to Warren are kind of interesting. Chris and I both feel like Warren represents some earlier, terrible version of ourselves. Chris feels sorry for Warren, but I get mad / frustrated at him. To be clear, when I joke about bullying him I’m not saying I’d actually enjoy hurting him. It’s more that he’s sort of this embodiment of a lot of embarassing moments in my life and I’d love to destroy those moments. It’s not that I want to kick Warren’s ass, but I would like to kick the ass of what he represents.
Being middle aged sucks in terms of health and comfort, but it really is nice to not go through life burning some new humiliation into my memory every week or so.
From The Archives:
Grand Theft Railroad
Grand Theft Auto is a lousy, cheating jerk of a game.
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
The No Politics Rule
Here are 6 reasons why I forbid political discussions on this site. #4 will amaze you. Or not.
What Does a Robot Want?
No, self-aware robots aren't going to turn on us, Skynet-style. Not unless we designed them to.
Games and the Fear of Death
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
Crash Dot Com
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
Control
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
Trusting the System
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
Best. Plot Twist. Ever.
Few people remember BioWare's Jade Empire, but it had a unique setting and a really well-executed plot twist.