T w e n t y S i d e d
It prints slow, but it’s fun to watch:
Link (YouTube) |
And I have to admit, a felt-tip pen is pretty cheap compared to a toner cart.
Experienced Points: The Final Fantasy VII Remake is a Fantasy
I am sometimes compelled to write things, even when I know I will regret doing so. This week: A remake of Final Fantasy VII would be excessively time consuming and expensive.
I dread posting anything on Final Fantasy. Halo fans get a bad rap (and deservedly so, if you read the comment thread for this comic) but I think Final Fantasy fanboys can give them a run for their money. Note that I’m a (nominal) Final Fantasy fan myself, and I’m sure many of you are as well. But there is this group of humorless, angsty, semi-literate ragebots that surround the franchise who are imbued with an epic sense of entitlement and who take standard review-style criticism of the game as a personal affront.
Exhibit A against Final Fantasy fans is the post where I discuss the mating habits of the Viera, the race of Maxim-ready bunny women from Final Fantasy XII. It’s clearly having some playful fun at the expense of the source material. Not exactly the most hilarious thing I’ve ever written, but it’s still obviously a joke. But a few weeks after the post went up some FF fanboys found the thing and the comment thread went septic. Not vile or terribly offensive, but just stupid, petty, and inane. One person actually called everyone else “retarted”.
(And here my moderation policy comes back to bite me. I’m a big believer in the idea that trolling is like vandalism, and that if you don’t clean it up you’ll attract more. So, the worst of the comments have been purged. Still, the remaining comments are enough to see the problem.)
It’s not that they miss the joke. It’s not even that they would feel the need to post and “correct” my understanding of the Final Fantasy lore. It’s that they would get so offended and then communicate so poorly. You could excuse them as just been teenagers, but you’ll see this behavior even when dealing with the early Final Fantasy titles. In fact, it almost seems like the fans are dysfunctional in proportion to the age of the game, where you would expect them to trend older.
So I don’t have high hopes for the discussion thread for this week’s column. But I had to say it. For reasons I still don’t understand.
Holy smokes it’s Stolen Pixels #200!
And so ends the Breen / Team Fortress 2 crossover.
This was the “big project” I was whining about earlier this week. You know, I actually imagined this one would be easy when I envisioned it. In the end, it took as long to make this one as it did to make the rest of the series combined.
Still, it was as fun to make as it was time-consuming, so there’s that.
Spoiler Warning Fallout 3 #10:
More of the Same!
Thus continues our ongoing saga of self-abuse and childish griping in the face of Bethesda’s shoddy DLC. I highly recommend checking out this link before you watch the show. It will provide some much needed context on the mechanics being demonstrated. This goes double for Rutskarn, who was specifically asking about this stuff.
Pssst. That’s actually a link to the Sid the Science Kid movie which has mercilessly vexed Rutskarn during our last four shows. But don’t tell him!
Remember a few episodes ago we talked about a particular fallout shelter in the game. Well I managed to stumble across it the other day:
 |
If you’re the sort of guy who has always dreamed of meeting a naked double amputee as she hails a cab and then spending a romantic evening in a coffin-size nuclear bomb shelter, then tell me your next two wishes, because the first one is granted! I like how the guy who set this up brought two glasses and got a “sexy” nightie (the pink pillow-shaped thing is actually sleepwear which acts as a nightgown if you’re a female or pajamas if you’re male) for his plastic date. He may be lonely to the point of being deranged, but he’s still clearly a hopeless romantic. Sadly, it looks like the mannequin got stood up (sorry) because the wine is unopened and the sleepwear hasn’t been put to use. Alas for unrequited love. The wasteland is full of such tragedies.
Shamus Plays: LOTRO, Part 20
So, we’re back on the main quest line. Go, and bask in its epic-ness.
Spoiler Warning Fallout 3 #9:
Operation Rancorage
Here is where things get tough. This episode is very negative. I was coming down with an illness. Livestream was driving us nuts. And we were commenting on Operation Anchorage, which sucks. This made for an episode that was a lot more negative than usual. We actually talked about throwing away this episode and the next, and re-doing them. A total Livestream failure last weekend took that option off the table. So, you get this, or bupkis:
Now, Operation Anchorage deserves all the scorn we heap on it and more. I don’t regret that. But I do regret the overly negative tone of the episode. The goal here is to have fun and deconstruct the game, not just bitch and moan.
Josh continues to look for ways to stream the episode to us during our recordings. Livestream is unreliable and spam-y. Ustream doesn’t seem to have a useful client. (No option to broadcast PC audio, only the mic.) Maybe we should try Remote Desktop, because then we could also help him play!
Stolen Pixels #199:
Breen Fortress, Part 5
The penultimate entry in this series is now available for public consumption. I’m afraid this one is extremely absurd. Brace yourself.
This series ends on Friday.
From The Archives:
Why The Christmas Shopping Season is Worse Every Year
Everyone hates Black Friday sales. Even retailers! So why does it exist?
The No Politics Rule
Here are 6 reasons why I forbid political discussions on this site. #4 will amaze you. Or not.
The Dumbest Cutscene
This is it. This is the dumbest cutscene ever created for a AAA game. It's so bad it's simultaneously hilarious and painful. This is "The Room" of video game cutscenes.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
Why Batman Can't Kill
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.
DM of the Rings
Both a celebration and an evisceration of tabletop roleplaying games, by twisting the Lord of the Rings films into a D&D game.
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
Self-Balancing Gameplay
There's a wonderful way to balance difficulty in RPGs, and designers try to prevent it. For some reason.
How I Plan To Rule This Dumb Industry
Here is how I'd conquer the game-publishing business. (Hint: NOT by copying EA, 2K, Activision, Take-Two, or Ubisoft.)
This Game is Too Videogame-y
What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?