T w e n t y S i d e d

Josh talked about the FOV thing in this episode. This is one of those usability issues (like invert mouse) that’s either crucial or completely irrelevant, based on your gaming habits, history, play style, muscle memory, eyesight, and equipment. One person finds the thing to be almost unplayable, and another can’t imagine a situation where they would even notice, much less care.

I played shooters back in the days when an 85 degree field of view was standard. I don’t actively notice the tight FOV the way Josh does, but when I switch from 60 to 90, it does create an incredible sense of relief, like turning off a light that was shining in your eyes or silencing machine noise that had been going on for so long that you’d forgotten about it.

The Champions Online bit we were talking about can be found here.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

WARNING: There is an extended segment of this episode where we do not complain about the game. There is unqualified praise and positive things are said about the scenery. Viewer discretion is advised.

The mention of Elcor Jamie in this episode reminded me of the old Myth Effect joke Dan made last year:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 3 EP30: Playdate”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Sooner or later we get to a bogged-down section of the game where all we can do is repeat previous criticism and watch Josh shoot things and scream over us when he sees a bug. This is perhaps not our show at its finest. When this happens, it comes up now and again in conversation:

Man, you guys don’t seem to be enjoying yourselves. You’re just nitpicking endlessly. Why don’t you quit this game, or skip over the boring parts?

Well.

If we quit whenever we hit a tough spot, we’d never finish anything, since just about all games have a point where they settle into the mechanics and combat for a while. My final take on Human Revolution was that the game “warmed my heart”. I was delighted to see a classic game revived with such care and maturity, and with so much faithfulness to the intent of the original. But even that game had a number of slow spots, rough points, logic holes, and sections where we couldn’t do anything but bitch & moan about the same problems we’d been covering for the last three hours.

As Chris said the other day:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 3 EP29: The Fall of Shepard”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I don’t really have more to say on this Geth section. Here is the Turd Ferguson skit Chris mentioned. Note that Norm MacDonald left the show in 1997, so that skit is at least fifteen years old. I’m not going anywhere with this. I’m just saying.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.