So we’re having a bad week in an already-bad year. That seems completely unnecessary. The one silver lining is that this means next week will be FANTASTIC!
That’s how luck works, right?
Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #305: Bad News”
And so this feast of consumerist speculation continues. The saying is, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” That’s usually reasonable enough. But in this case the publisher has decided to show us only book covers, specifically in an effort to get us to talk about them, with the ultimate goal of selling us an expensive chunk of consumer electronics and a bunch of these $60 games. They have backed us into a corner where our only option is cover-judging. So that’s what we’re going to do.
So let’s get to the snap decisions and half-baked reactions! Continue reading ⟩⟩ “PlayStation 5 Titles Part 2”
Last Thursday Sony had a livestream event where they showed off their next-gen console and their upcoming lineup of games. If you missed the event and are in the mood to watch three hours of gaudy salesmanship, then here it is:
Link (YouTube) |
Dear IGN, Gamestop, and other sites that have the permission / connections to upload this footage to YouTube: Is it too much to ask that you throw this video into an editor and chop off the initial FORTY MINUTES of bumper footage? That huge block of nothing is a pain in the ass to scan through, particularly for people using mobile devices. I’d do it myself, but the last time I uploaded an industry event I was peppered with a flood of endless copyright claims regarding tiny snatches of barely-audible music, and also from major publishers who didn’t want me to show people their advertisements. The claims dragged on for weeks after the fact. You folks evidently have special dispensation, or you’ve got dedicated staff to deal with this. In any case, since you’ve been entrusted with this data, please be responsible with it and make it convenient for the masses. Okay? Thanks.
In any case, the PlayStation 5 reveal event showed us a whopping 25 new titles. That’s an awful lot for a new console. I don’t think the PlayStation 3 had that many titles in its first year. Here are my thoughts on what Sony had to show…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Playstation 5 Titles Part 1”
So maybe you’re wondering why there was no content last week? I’m afraid I have bad news for you. You can either remain in suspense forever, or you can listen to me bitch about health problems. The choice is yours. Spoiler: You’ll be disappointed either way.
So let’s commence with the bellyaching… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast Unplugged #2: Vertigo, PlayStation 5 Reveal”
This was supposed to go up last night but I ran into a delay, sorry about that.
I write about Bioware a lot, but there are several Biowares. In fact, according to LinkedIn,You need an account to view the page unfortunately. there are eight studios. Recent development on the Mass Effect franchise has centered around two: the “main” studio in Edmonton, and the newer studio in Montreal that was assigned Mass Effect: Andromeda. (This was covered in some detail by Jason Schrier’s article about the game.)
And then there’s the Dragon Age team. Its latest entry, Dragon Age: Inquisition, was a mild-to-moderate critical disappointment. It was not, however, a notorious flop, nor did it spawn the memes of Andromeda. Furthermore, its primary weaknesses were (in my opinion) gameplay that leaned too much into MMO habits and a rushed final act, not its writing. Not that its writing was perfect, but I think it mostly lived up to the Bioware standard. There’s one specific area I want to talk about: the Dragon Age writers have been particularly adept at designing and depicting fictional religions.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Hypothetical ME4: Religion”
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.
Both a celebration and an evisceration of tabletop roleplaying games, by twisting the Lord of the Rings films into a D&D game.
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.
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
What makes the gameplay of Borderlands so addictive for some, and what does that have to do with slot machines?
How does image compression work, and why does it create those ugly spots all over some videos and not others?
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
T w e n t y S i d e d