T w e n t y S i d e d
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #258: Netflix, YouTube, Phantom Menace”
Diecast #258: Netflix, YouTube, Phantom Menace
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
#26 Adventure and Excitement! (Also Death.)
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “#26 Adventure and Excitement! (Also Death.)”
#25 See No Evil
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “#25 See No Evil”
Spider-Man Part 16: Grand Central Terminal
After Spider-Man punches his way out of Martin Li’s stupid dream world, we return to the high-speed chase where Spider-Man is trying to stop the truck, Martin Li is trying to stop Spider-Man, and Sable agents are shooting missiles at everyone.
Spider-Man performs some heroic quicktime events, but he manages to lose the battle anyway. (In a cutscene, obviously. And yes, you must still successfully complete the quicktime events, even though your success will be immediately negated in a cutscene. Failure is prohibited until it’s mandatory.) The truck turns over and he’s knocked out. When he wakes up, Li has escaped with Devil’s Breath. I have no idea how he escaped the scene on foot with an army of Sable agents in pursuit. I guess those guys just suck.
And speaking of things that suck…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spider-Man Part 16: Grand Central Terminal”
Experienced Points: Shut Up and Let me Shoot Stuff
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”
Diecast #257: Rage 2, Outer Wilds, Satisfactory
Perhaps it would have been good to stop at a nice round number like 256, but we decided to keep making these for some reason. As always, the show email is in the header image.
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #257: Rage 2, Outer Wilds, Satisfactory”
Game of Thrones Season Eight: “The Iron Throne”
This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.
Here it is – the series finale.
Picking up where we left off, King’s Landing is a pile of smoking rubble, Dany has gone full wrong-side-of-the-coin Targaryen, and all the characters are walking around very slowly and looking troubled. Peter Dinklage’s brows were probably sore for days after filming his first scene.
It uh... it was like this when we got here.
The action moves deliberately through the city’s ruins, checking in on several characters along the way, and there’s a growing sense of horror at what’s happened. Dany gives a speech to her victorious troops, in either Dothraki or Valyrian.I couldn’t tell, how is it that both the Unsullied and the Dothraki seem to be able to understand her? Checking the credits afterwards, I expected to see that this episode was directed by Miguel Sapochnik, but it turns out to have been Benioff and Weiss themselves. I was a bit surprised, but shouldn’t have been – the direction here shows off some of their strengths, like a knack for painterly framing and creating an operatic sense of scale.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Season Eight: “The Iron Throne””
From The Archives:
The Disappointment Engine
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Autoblography
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The Best of 2018
I called 2018 "The Year of Good News". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
The Truth About Piracy
What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
If Star Wars Was Made in 2006?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
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What is a skinner box, how does it interact with neurotransmitters, and what does it have to do with shooting people in the face for rare loot?
Starcraft: Bot Fight
Let's do some scripting to make the Starcraft AI fight itself, and see how smart it is. Or isn't.
Spider-Man
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?
Megatextures
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.