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:
Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.
Spec Ops: The Line
A videogame that judges its audience, criticizes its genre, and hates its premise. How did this thing get made?
The Strange Evolution of OpenGL
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
I'm not surprised a fighting game has an absurd story. I just can't figure out why they bothered with the story at all.
In Defense of Crunch
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
A Telltale Autopsy
What lessons can we learn from the abrupt demise of this once-impressive games studio?
Do It Again, Stupid
One of the highest-rated games of all time has some of the least interesting gameplay.
Bad and Wrong Music Lessons
A music lesson for people who know nothing about music, from someone who barely knows anything about music.
Twelve Years
Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.
The Disappointment Engine
No Man's Sky is a game seemingly engineered to create a cycle of anticipation and disappointment.