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Continue reading ⟩⟩ “#27 The Thick and the Dead”
#27 The Thick and the Dead
Spider-Man Part 17: Sidequests
The main story has just dropped us into a false sense of security. The big obvious threat is ended and our “main” villain is on his way to jail. The Octavius plot is still simmering in the background, the Peter and MJ plot just hit a low note, and the credits didn’t roll, so the player probably knows the story isn’t really over yet.
This seems like a good time to stop and talk about a few of the sidequests.
Here we have the inverse of the Mass Effect 2 problem. In Mass Effect 2, the optional loyalty missions were solid and the main plot collapsed under the slightest scrutiny. Here in Spider-Man, the main story feels like a proper comic book series and some of the side-content feels like filler sidequests devised by game designers with no experience in writing.
They’re not all bad, though. In particular, I like the sidequest involving…
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Crunch is Proof that Video Game Executives Don’t Understand Video Games
My column this week will be a bit of a re-run for those of you who have been around long enough to remember the last time I brought up crunch mode in video game development. On one hand, it feels silly to cover the same topic again and again. On the other hand, it’s even more silly that this is still a problem after all these years. The news doesn’t stop covering a natural disaster just because it’s day 3 and everyone knows about it. They cover it until the destruction ends and the mess is cleaned upActually, they probably stop covering it when people stop watching, but you know what I mean..
Some people take the hardline stance that “crunch should never happen”, and I just can’t get behind that idea. It’s built on the premise that since all mistakes are avoidable, you can avoid all mistakes. This is clearly not the case. As an engineer, I’m much more comfortable with designing systems with a bit of fault tolerance than designing systems that are perfect as long as nothing ever goes wrong.
This is a world of finite resources, bedeviled by selfish jackasses, subject to entropy, and filled with unpredictability. Jerks will cause problems, misfortune will strike, people will make mistakes, and equipment will fail. You can insist that all game budgets should be mapped out perfectly and then sufficiently padded, but this ignores the way that creative projects will expand to consume available resources. If feature creep is a problem when schedules are tight, then how much worse will it be when everyone has lots of “extra” time?
Saying teams should never crunch is like saying that airbags are a waste of money because accidents shouldn’t happen in the first place. The pursuit of an unattainable ideal will prevent you from building a robust system.
So how would I handle this?
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Crunch is Proof that Video Game Executives Don’t Understand Video Games”
Diecast #258: Netflix, YouTube, Phantom Menace
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #258: Netflix, YouTube, Phantom Menace”
#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…
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From The Archives:
Another PC Golden Age?
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Secret of Good Secrets
Sometimes in-game secrets are fun and sometimes they're lame. Here's why.
Mass Effect 3 Ending Deconstruction
Did you dislike the ending to the Mass Effect trilogy? Here's my list of where it failed logically, thematically, and tonally.
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.
Trusting the System
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
The Best of 2017
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
Charging More for a Worse Product
No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
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.
Bowlercoaster
Two minutes of fun at the expense of a badly-run theme park.