Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Friday Feb 13, 2009

 Experienced Points: Everyone's Favorite CrutchPrevious Post

Next PostSoldak Asks: Dungeon Crawl Gameplay 

I have a new column up over at the Escapist, talking about the conflict between story and gameplay that arises at the end of a game.

Some people were concerned that Experienced Points would mean I would be writing less here on this site. That’s certainly possible. I’m probably red-lining right now as far as output goes, and a stretch of day-job overtime or illness will certainly cut into the blog, but after two weeks I seem to be able to keep up the pace without too many problems.

We’ll see how it goes. It’s pretty fun so far.

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.

 Experienced Points: Everyone's Favorite CrutchPrevious Post

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Gaming in Afghanistan

By Shamus Posted Friday Feb 13, 2009

Filed under: Video Games 122 comments

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A reader posed the following conundrum:

He’s going to be in Afghanistan for the next six months. He’s going to be living in a compound. He’ll have a laptop, but probably not internet access. He’s going to spend a lot of time stuck in his room. (Perhaps all of his non-working hours.) What games should he take along to keep himself entertained?

This is a bit like the Games for Castaways post from a few years ago, except you’re not limited to just three games. What would you take with you in this situation?

Hard drive space is limited. You can’t just install every downloadable game and pick through them later.
No internet connection. Games which require online activation are a no-go. Even if you activate them before you leave, you never know when adding an external harddrive or adding a service pack or updating some drivers will cause the game to want to re-activate.
Games which rely heavily on multiplayer are right out.
The games have got to be self-contained on your hard drive. You don’t want to have to drag a bunch of disks all over the world.
Steam-based games might be risky. If Steam throws one of its fits like it does sometimes, it might insist on re-connecting before it will let you into your games again. I have had people allege that this is no longer a problem, and others claim it is. Given the risk, I’d steer clear of Steam games for this trip. (Or at least make sure you don’t rely on them.)
The games should offer robust replay value. A FPS is of low replay while taking up a ton of disk space. Nethack is minuscule and offers endless hours of soul-sucking ~~frustration~~ amusement.
Let’s assume your laptop is reasonably up-to-date, but not cutting-edge.

You can either answer the question as to what you would personally take in the given situation, or you can offer advice to the reader who emailed me. (He likes strategy games, and I assume is using Windows.)

My own suggestions, from a variety of different genres & tech levels

Dwarf Fortress. People keep recommending this game so passionately that I don’t dare go near it. It’s unsuitable for comics, probably unsuitable for a review series, and apparently it’s so habit-forming the FDA is considering making it a controlled substance. I’m sure the game is tiny and it purportedly has immense replay value. It’s certainly worth sticking on your hard drive before you go. Ditto for Nethack.

X-Com, for all the reasons I discussed in the link you just passed up.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 – Probably one of my best-loved best games that I’ve never reviewed. Downside: The game requires the CD be in the drive. Yes, I’m sure there’s a crack for that sort of thing. You’d have to decide for yourself if the game is worth the trouble.

Mount & Blade – A reader just recently provided a copy of this to me as a gift over Steam. I’ve only just glanced at it. (A two-hour long glance.) Given the scope and depth here, I barely even grasped the dimensions of the thing. I believe the game is available as a full download outside of Steam, which should make it ideal for a trip like this.

Oblivion OR Morrowwind – You probably don’t need both, as they provide a very similar gaming experience. I believe that the latest patches (which you absolutely must get before leaving) will disable the CD check so you can leave the disk at home. Morrowwind has a better story. Oblivion is prettier. I’m betting if you spend a lot of time cooped up you’ll develop a bad case of wanderlust, and these games might scratch that itch.

Master of Orion 2 – My correspondent already has this one, but I list it here for completeness. It’s small yet deep.

Fallout – Available on Good old Games for $5.99, which – given the value of the game – is basically robbing them at their own request. A large and complex RPG world with lots of interesting turn-based strategy gameplay, available for direct download.

Obligatory: Nobody wants to hear your thoughts on any wars that might be going on. Let’s keep this on-topic, thanks. If it helps, just imagine you’re going to stay in The Republic of Has No Videogames-istan.

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.

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Stolen Pixels #64: Twue Wuv

By Shamus Posted Friday Feb 13, 2009

Filed under: Column 12 comments

 Stolen Pixels #63: Terribly MysteriousPrevious Post

Next PostStolen Pixels #65: Ten out of Ten Stars 

Fable 2 has received another lash at the hands of my comic.

Someone mentioned the bloom lighting in an earlier Fable 2 comic. Yes, the bloom lighting is infuriating when you’re trying to make a comic out of the thing. And all of my screencaps have ended up looking all hazy and blurry as a result.

The problem is actually part of the “beams of sunlight” effect they’ve devised. The game has shafts of sunlight that wrap around solid objects. It’s one of those effects (like motion blur) that looks spectacular when you’re moving, but looks like a mess in still frame.

In the past, beams of sunlight were static, pre-set shapes. I’m sure everyone has seen a game where a shaft of sunlight comes in through a window, and the shaft of light doesn’t move regardless of time of day. In Fable 2, those shafts of light are generated real-time. Seeing them reach down through the branches of a tree is really cool. The game also seems to have high dynamic range lighting, with the parameters set to “dreamworld”.

This comic was shot in Fairfax Gardens. Looking back, I think I might have had better shots someplace else. The ten-foot wall around the place seems to confuse the HDR lighting a bit, and make matters worse.

The effects look cool, and they work with the fantasyland style of the world, but they are ruinous to my screenshots.

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.

 Stolen Pixels #63: Terribly MysteriousPrevious Post

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Free Radical

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 12, 2009

Filed under: Projects 44 comments

 Concurrent Versions SystemPrevious Post

Next PostSite Logo 

Occasionally I mention my book, but if you’ve missed that particular aspect of the site then allow me to offer you a drink from the fountain of trivia: I wrote a book.

Now, before you get all click-happy and run off thinking this is going to be some text-based DM of the Rings, or vast pool of scorching and unconventional game reviews, I need to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into here. The novel in question is a work of fiction, it’s cyberpunk, and it’s fanfiction. Odds are that I’ve already duped you into reading some of my fanfiction, but this is an entire book that exists under that classification. The book is based on the 1994 classic System Shock. And if you don’t know about that game, then perhaps you’re acquainted with its mutant grandson.

I have had people email me that it is the best novel they’ve ever read. Now, this is absolutely not a position I endorse, but I offer it here as an opinion that exists, and is held by multiple people I’ve never met and who seem otherwise lucid. I offer their opinion here as a sort of recommendation. If some people are willing to go recklessly waving the word “best” around, then perhaps the book is not completely awful. I wrote it five years ago. I’ve improved a lot since then, and like many writers my pride in my accomplishment is overshadowed somewhat by the realization that I could do so much better now.

Since the completion of the book I’ve had people asking for a hardcopy in one form or another. I’ve always pointed them in the direction of the printer-friendly version, which isn’t exactly something you can read while curled up on the couch, even if you’ve got the spare paper and ink and a printer that’s up to the job. I realized that this was not what they wanted, but I didn’t want to get mixed up in publishing, or self-publishing, or whatever. Fanfiction exists in some legally questionable area, and I didn’t want to become embroiled in a losing conflict with one of the many System Shock IP holders.

Clint (left) and Peter. (Right) Clint is holding the first printed draft.

Reader Clint Olson and his brother really wanted a hardcopy, and so they took the time to convert the entire book into a PDF and upload it to Lulu. Clint then sent me a copy as a gift.

Holding a copy of my own book in my hands was an amazing experience. I actually found it to be deeply and personally moving. I didn’t realize what it would mean to me until I had the thing in hand.

And so I am no longer shy of providing a way for people to obtain a hardcopy. I proudly offer a link to the Lulu page where you can buy a copy. I hasten to add that the money is only to cover the cost of printing, and that I make zero profit from the work. (You can download the PDF for free, and of course the original version is available in HTML flavor.) If a System Shock IP holder is out there and looking for something to do with all these lawyers and money he’s got laying around, I want him to understand that going after a broke guy who has never profited from this work – which might not even be technically infringing – is probably not the best way to expend one’s resources. The book is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0, a sprawling label which is nearly a legal document in and of itself.

Thanks again to Clint and his brother for putting this together. It’s a step I never would have taken on my own. I’m impressed with how carefully they recreated the style and formatting of the original, from the crazy text used by SHODAN down to the page numbering.

Thanks again to Clint & Co for putting it together.

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.

 Concurrent Versions SystemPrevious Post

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XBox Live.com Lameness

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Feb 11, 2009

Filed under: Rants 46 comments

 A Gauntlet of Mortal Danger (AKA Life)Previous Post

Next PostGaming High 

Here is the Xbox Live homepage as of right now in Firefox:

And here is the same page in IE7:

I first noticed this yesterday. That is just amazingly stupid and lame. Note that the entire live.xbox.com page acts this way. No matter what link I click on, it waits a fortnight or two and then comes back with “Page Unavailable”.

I can access the site using IE, although it still loads agonizingly slow. The only reason I wanted to bother is because:

In Fable 2, there is a chest you encounter very early in the game that tells you to go to Fable 2.com to learn how to open it.
Fable 2.com redirects to the XBL site.
The XBL site doesn’t work with Firefox. (Version 3.0.5)
Visiting the site with IE will get it to load, albeit with a load time measured in minutes.
Once the page is loaded, there is nothing whatsoever about this chest, anywhere that I can see.
Googling about reveals that opening the chest involves playing some Flash-based game on their site. Chicken kicker or somesuch. I no longer care about the damn chest, and am only enduring this to see how far down the rabbit hole this fool’s errand leads.
Answer: This far. The chicken game doesn’t load, even using IE7. I just get a big old blank window. No prompt, no error.

The game has been out, what? Not quite fourth months yet?

It was foolish to build a URL into a game like that. The concept was hopelessly lame, even if it worked right. And it was pathetic how ineptly the whole thing crapped itself when I tried to check it out. There is a certain beauty in how completely and utterly they managed to fail at something so mundane.

Just out of curiosity: Can anyone confirm the Firebox / IE behavior I observed?

EDIT: Looks like I’m the only one with loading issues. Odd, since everything else loads with flawless alacrity, but you can’t argue with results.

Fine, their website isn’t completely screwed.

But putting a URL in a game is still a Bad Idea.

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.

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Mass Effect: Final Thoughts

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Feb 11, 2009

Filed under: Game Reviews 44 comments

 Fable: The Good PartsPrevious Post

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I know I promised to wrap up my series on Mass Effect, and then left you hanging for a month. The truth is that every time I sat down to write this post I felt like I was just repeating myself. To wit: It’s a fun game. It has too much filler. Combat feels homogeneous. Setting is fantastic, marred only slightly by the “hawt chicks in space” thing the Asari bring to the table. Voice acting is flawless except for the male lead, who makes Stephen Hawking sound like Sir Ian McKellen.

One observation I will make:

Remember the part of the game where you encounter a group of people that seem a little off? They act strangely, but you can’t really tell what’s wrong at first. Then they eventually turn on you. You go underground beneath their home and find that they’ve fallen under the sway of a huge creature, who has been dominating them and transforming them for its own purposes. You kick its ass and break the spell, while fighting through waves of its formerly-human thralls.

Am I talking about the fight with the Thorian from Mass Effect, or the fight with the Mother in Jade Empire?

I think it’s interesting to see the same writer hitting the same themes in all of these different games. I think the Rakghouls (KOTOR) the cannibals (Jade Empire) and Thorian Creepers (Mass Effect) are all very clearly the result of the same writer re-mixing a few ideas that appeal to them.

Oh, and one more observation:

I think the morality system is a vast improvement over previous titles. Most games have a single good / evil slider, which moves up and down based on your actions in the game. This introduces oddities like murdering a guy for a dollar is morally neutral when balanced against being polite to ten people. Trying to calibrate the thing in a way that makes sense gets to be an impossible task.

But Mass Effect doesn’t do good vs. evil, but paragon vs. renegade. In both, the game more or less assumes you’ve humanities’s best interests at heart, and the alignment system is much more about how you pursue those ends. This isn’t a story about a ruthless jerk who happens to save the galaxy on her way to riches, it’s the story of someone who saves the galaxy but who might be ruthless about how she goes about it.

The game has counters for both paragon and renegade actions, and these counters only go up. These means that instead of a slider we get a matrix:

People with low values for both are probably players who are just hammering the “skip” button in dialog. But people with high values for both are people who have been ruthless at some points and have gone out of their way to show mercy in others. This probably means they’re pursuing some agenda. (“Humans first” is a popular attitude.)

This is a very welcome step forward in a genre which has been rife with “save kitten / eat kitten” decisions for years.

Okay, I guess I did have some things to say about Mass Effect after all. In the end, I’m a lot more curious about Dragon Age than Mass Effect 2. I know in the past I’ve said I’m sick to death of medieval fantasy and crave more sci-fi RPGs. Perhaps I am a charlatan and a fraud.

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.

 Fable: The Good PartsPrevious Post

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Fable: The Good Parts

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 10, 2009

Filed under: Game Reviews 36 comments

 Wii FatPrevious Post

Next PostMass Effect: Final Thoughts 

This part is (mostly) spoiler-free. You should be able to read it even if you had to abstain from the earlier posts.

If you skipped the earlier posts for fear of spoilers, then I will point out that Fable 2 won an award.

So I’ve just spent four posts and seven thousand words excoriating the plot of Fable 2. It probably sounds like I hated the game, but the truth is I spent more time with Fable 2 than I did with Mass Effect. While comparing the story in Mass Effect to the story of Fable 2 is like comparing 2001: A Space Odyssey to the BJ and the Bear fanfiction Uwe Boll wrote in high school, the truth is that Fable 2 held my interest for longer because it had more gameplay and less filler. Yes, the plot is awful, but it’s also not a very large portion of the time you spend with the game.

There is a lot to do between plot points, and when it comes time to endure a little plot in order to open up the next playground you can comfort yourself with the fact that you can hold down a button to skip most of the dialog. I realize this sounds like heresy coming from a “story is king” gamer like myself, and I’m as surprised as anyone to find myself liking the thing.

I often talk about games having lots of “activities”. MMO games in particular. Fable 2 has many activities, and while a few of them exist for their own sake, most are interconnected in ways that lead you naturally from one activity to another. Doing trade runs leads to buying better clothing which leads to being more attractive which leads to flirting with villagers which leads to rounding up more expressions and emotes to use which leads to romance which leads to getting married which leads to buying a house which leads to getting involved in real estate which leads to redecorating houses to alter the local property values and economy which leads back to trading… etc. This is a playground with a lot of fun toys.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Fable: The Good Parts”

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.

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