NEWER POSTS

TAGES

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 18, 2010

Filed under: Rants 105 comments
Writers Guild Announces Best Game Writing NominationsPrevious Post
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When you are asking to install system drivers with administrator-level access, this:

tages.jpg

…is not good enough. Any installer – no matter how large or small the software – should make a point to inform the user what is being installed. The word “TAGES” conveys nothing to the user. I actually had to look it up on Wikipedia to know what I was about to put on my computer.

And while we’re at it: Why the crap is it installing a system for dealing with CD and DVD discs, when I’m installing a digitally distributed game with no physical media? (Funny how these DRM systems are so often broken or sloppy, yet their problems always create additional burdens for the user. The bugs and oversights are never in our favor.)

Whoever came up with this: Go microwave your face, you drooling imbecile.

For the record: The game is Far Cry 2. (Review copy. Wouldn’t normally put up with this much DRM for a game of this… caliber.)

 

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.

Writers Guild Announces Best Game Writing NominationsPrevious Post
Next PostThe Last Big Thing from Apple!

105 comments

 

Shamus Plays LOTRO: Part 5

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Feb 17, 2010

Filed under: Column 20 comments
Stolen Pixels #169: A New ManPrevious Post
Next PostStolen Pixels #170: Humans First

Never has losing a battle and seeing a village sacked been so much… “fun”.

I’m still not decided on just how long I want to run this series. The content under level ten is good (for my purposes) as is some content approaching level 20. But there’s a gap in the middle where the material is either too dry or just not good comic fodder. (Or the jokes would simply be too similar to material I’ve done already.) I should probably play through the mid-teens stuff a bit more before I decide.

(And yes, these should probably be filed under “Let’s play”, but that would make a mess for people in the archives. Spoiler Warning is twice weekly, and that content is actually on this site. So someone paging through the archives would find that every third post would just be a link to a series unrelated to the one they’ve been watching.)

 

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 #169: A New ManPrevious Post
Next PostStolen Pixels #170: Humans First

20 comments

 

Spoiler Warning:
Mass Effect Part 6

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 16, 2010

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 51 comments
Spoiler Warning:
Mass Effect Part 5Previous Post
Next PostSpoiler Warning:
Mass Effect Part 7

So far our policy has been to include all gameplay – even the boring bits. But we do cut the inventory management screens. I don’t think anyone who has played the game would fault us for this. We could easily burn a several episodes worth of footage during the course of this series doing nothing but sorting and selling. There’s a reason the inventory is the most maligned part of the game. We might eventually do an episode where we talk through the system and demonstrate why it sucks. We’ll see. There’s a fine line between showing how boring and tedious something is, and passing along that boredom and tedium to the viewer.

A lot of people have noticed the short little “loading” pauses in the game. I gather these are not normal, and I’m assuming they’re an artifact of playing, recording, and streaming the game all at the same time.

Near the beginning of this episode I say, “If the Normandy can’t take on that thing, we shouldn’t trust ourselves in it flying through space.” Where “that thing” seems to be “Sovereign”. Uh. I have no idea what I was trying to say there? I don’t remember where I was going with that, but it came out as nonsense. (Really Shamus? You shouldn’t trust yourself in any ship not capable of taking on a Reaper? Well, good luck walking back to Earth, then.) The perils of this sort of series: Words are difficult to edit once spoken.

 

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.

Spoiler Warning:
Mass Effect Part 5Previous Post
Next PostSpoiler Warning:
Mass Effect Part 7

51 comments

 

Stolen Pixels #169: A New Man

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 16, 2010

Filed under: Column 17 comments
Experienced Points: Gears of Mass EffectPrevious Post
Next PostShamus Plays LOTRO: Part 5

They should totally do this for Mass Effect 3.

 

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: Gears of Mass EffectPrevious Post
Next PostShamus Plays LOTRO: Part 5

17 comments

 

Mass Effect 2:
Plot Analysis Part 3 of 3

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 15, 2010

Filed under: Game Reviews 322 comments
Mass Effect 2:
Plot Analysis Part 2 of 3Previous Post
Next PostNow Playing: Star Trek Online

Here we are at the endgame. All of my previous nitpicks were just objections over consistency or demands for more solid justification. It could all be patched in a sequel. But here are the gripes that caused me to write this series in the first place. This is where the story fell apart for me, which is a bad thing to have happen during the climax.

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that this will be spoilers, so I shouldn’t need to warn you about that.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 2:
Plot Analysis Part 3 of 3″

 

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.

Mass Effect 2:
Plot Analysis Part 2 of 3Previous Post
Next PostNow Playing: Star Trek Online

322 comments

 

Carl Sagan – ‘A Glorious Dawn’

By Shamus Posted Saturday Feb 13, 2010

Filed under: Movies 42 comments
Game DogsPrevious Post
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Only after about a thousand people emailed and commented saying I should link this:


Link (YouTube)

It’s amazing work. It’s a great collection of Sagan quotes and observations, and it stands on its own as a piece of music.

And because they didn’t work it into the song:

Billions and billions.

 

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.

Game DogsPrevious Post
Next PostThose Minerals

42 comments

 

Experienced Points: Gears of Mass Effect

By Shamus Posted Friday Feb 12, 2010

Filed under: Column 75 comments
Stolen Pixels #168: Venn DiagramsPrevious Post
Next PostStolen Pixels #169: A New Man

Where most people have the little Angel on one shoulder and a Devil on the other, each arguing over what they should do next, I seem to have an optimist and a cynic.

The optimist loves games, loves gamers, loves talking about games, loves stories, and looks forward to seeing where this brave new media goes over the coming years. The cynic hates DRM, is appalled at how much games have homogenized, and most of all is sick to death of lousy, lazy, incomprehensible, self-indulgent stories.

The optimist wrote this week’s Experienced Points article.

Then the two of them sat down to have a chat…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Gears of Mass Effect”

 

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 #168: Venn DiagramsPrevious Post
Next PostStolen Pixels #169: A New Man

75 comments

 
OLDER POSTS
From The Archives:

The Best of 2014

My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.

 

Silent Hill Turbo HD II

I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.

 

id Software Coding Style

When the source code for Doom 3 was released, we got a look at some of the style conventions used by the developers. Here I analyze this style and explain what it all means.

 

Push the Button!

Scenes from Half-Life 2:Episode 2, showing Gordon Freeman being a jerk.

 

Why Batman Can't Kill

His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.

 

Overused Words in Game Titles

I scoured the Steam database to figure out what words were the most commonly used in game titles.

 

Project Button Masher

I teach myself music composition by imitating the style of various videogame soundtracks. How did it turn out? Listen for yourself.

 

Bad and Wrong Music Lessons

A music lesson for people who know nothing about music, from someone who barely knows anything about music.

 

The Plot-Driven Door

You know how videogames sometimes do that thing where it's preposterously hard to go through a simple door? This one is really bad.

 

Twelve Years

Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.