Fallout 4 EP40: The Loon Wanderer

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Sep 28, 2016

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 87 comments


Link (YouTube)

That thing where Deacon has this conversation with his back to us? I’ve probably done this quest five times now, and that’s happened every time.

This game pretends to be a game with roleplaying and choices, but you know what it feels like? It feels like being an actor in a play where nobody will show you the script or explain what you’re supposed to be doing, and so all the other performers just muddle on regardless of what you say or where you stand. I’ll bet the person who wrote this cutscene expected us to position ourselves in a certain spot before beginning the conversation.

 


 

Ruts vs. Battlespire CH28: Hard Daedra’s Night

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday Sep 28, 2016

Filed under: Lets Play 42 comments

Three daedra guard a house on the highlands. From my months of Battlespire experience I can tell that this house contains something important, or something optional, or nothing but glitchy furniture, or a bug that will crash the game. This is where my thirty seconds of reading the Battlespire wiki experience come into play. I have to do my research–otherwise I might miss something important, like an apology.

Not since the Jehovah’s Witnesses dropped by Innsmouth has anyone approached a front door with more flop-sweating white-knuckle tension. Not because of what’s inside, necessarily, but because of how close I’m getting. After several blurry weeks of grinding, juking, and cussing, I’ve finally got a full house. I’ve got the rune of entry. I’ve got the hidden spear case. I’ve got the six hidden pieces of armor. I’ve got the five hidden keys. There’s only a conversation, a hike, and a boss battle between me and the end of this level, which means the only thing that can stop me is absolutely anything.

Every pixel between skybox and interface can kill me--anecdotally, if not in my concrete and repeated personal experience.
Every pixel between skybox and interface can kill me--anecdotally, if not in my concrete and repeated personal experience.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Ruts vs. Battlespire CH28: Hard Daedra’s Night”

 


 

This Dumb Industry: The Windows 10 Store

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Sep 27, 2016

Filed under: Column 156 comments

It’s a slow Tuesday afternoon and I want to accomplish two things:

  1. I want to play a current-gen racing game with supercars and such, because I’ve just binge-watched Top Gear and it’s given me a case of racing itch.
  2. I want to buy a game through the Windows 10 Store. Not because I expect it to be a pleasant, consumer-friendly experience, but because I want to see what the next-gen Games for Windows LIVE looks like. Just how bad can it possibly be? My goal is to have an experience worth writing about.

Only one of these goals was achieved. I’ll let you guess which one.

It started off so well…

As luck would have it, Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is free. There are actually two Forza games coming out right now: Apex, and Forza Horizon 3. I don’t understand why we have the same branding used on two different series with different numbers. I don’t know enough about the racing genre to understand the complex lineages at work here, but who cares? Apex is free, which is an ideal price-point for me. If it works out, maybe I’ll buy Forza Horizon 3.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dumb Industry: The Windows 10 Store”

 


 

Diecast #169: The Bunker, Event [0], and Halloween Horror Nights

By Shamus Posted Monday Sep 26, 2016

Filed under: Diecast 85 comments


Hosts: Josh, Rutskarn, Campster. Episode edited by Rachel.

Fun fact that has nothing whatsoever to do with the show: If I put a properly escaped HTML line break in the title of this post using <br/> then it will – for reasons I’ll never understand – break the embed code above that shows the audio player and download links.

Yes, I’m supposedly a programmer. No, I have no idea why it does this. Yes, I should probably be curious and worried that this is a symptom of a deeper problem with WordPress / this theme / my brain. No, I’m not going to bother looking into it.

Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #169: The Bunker, Event [0], and Halloween Horror Nights”

 


 

Shamus Plays WoW #4: What Happens in Goldshire…

By Shamus Posted Sunday Sep 25, 2016

Filed under: WoW 36 comments

Norman “Dethbringerr” Warlock and Gobstab his faithful demonic companion have just finished Northshire, the newbie human area of World of Warcraft. (Pre-Cataclysm.) No matter which race you pick, the game will start you out in a little penned-in area for your first five levels. Then it cuts you loose in a larger area for levels 6-10. Outside of the newbie areas the game stops coddling you. Monsters will attack you. You’ll have lot of quests going at once. You’ll probably be doing some professions. Lots of running.

For Humans, once you’re done in the newbie area you’re sent on to Goldshire.

This is just a short trip. The walk takes maybe a minute or so.
This is just a short trip. The walk takes maybe a minute or so.

“So what’s so bad about Goldshire?”, I ask once we’ve left the church behind. “Is it haunted or something?”

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Shamus Plays WoW #4: What Happens in Goldshire…”

 


 

Site Theme

By Shamus Posted Friday Sep 23, 2016

Filed under: Notices 132 comments

It’s amazing how easy it is to fall into common pitfalls of software engineering, even when you’ve run afoul of them before and you should supposedly know better.

Today’s pitfall is “scope creep”, where a small, sensible change gradually grows into something large, ambitious, and impractical.

I needed to add a byline to the end of each post. This wasn’t required when 99% of the posts on the site were authored by me, and those last 1% were unexpected edge-cases where it was usually pretty obvious who wrote the thing. But these days I’m only writing ~75% of them, and so it’s really important to make it clear who the author is. I know from experience that most people ignore the name at the top of the post. So I added a little bio and a link to the author’s Patreon to the end of the article.

But hey, while I’m here making changes…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Site Theme”

 


 

Final Fantasy X Part 14: Nuns and Guns

By Shamus Posted Thursday Sep 22, 2016

Filed under: Retrospectives 87 comments

This scene is schizophrenic. We start off with a cutscene that shows the Wedding procession, which is unwilling Yuna and unhinged Seymour surrounded by a crowd of unarmed blue nuns.

Who are all these people? Nuns? Bridesmaids? Paparazzi?
Who are all these people? Nuns? Bridesmaids? Paparazzi?

Okay, so it’s just a bunch of nuns for us to deal with.

Then we get another view, and suddenly the nuns are gone. Instead, there are legions of knights with rifles, and a bunch of forbidden machina.

Hey, what happened to the nuns? They were standing in this very spot a few seconds ago, and there wasn't enough room for anyone else.
Hey, what happened to the nuns? They were standing in this very spot a few seconds ago, and there wasn't enough room for anyone else.

Okay, so NOT nuns then? Looks like we’re about to assault an army in an entrenched position. This seems like a terrible idea.

The next cut shows our heroes leaping into battle. Bullets are flying everywhere, but nobody seems worried. Tidus is even smiling.

They look still in screenshot, but the party is actually sliding down these cables at terrific speed. They're going so fast it's not clear why they don't pancake when they land on the platform.
They look still in screenshot, but the party is actually sliding down these cables at terrific speed. They're going so fast it's not clear why they don't pancake when they land on the platform.

I get it now, this is a JRPG where bullets do as much damage as a stiff slap.

Then there are a few standard encounters with robots and guys with rifles. Also there are nutjobs with flamethrowers, even though they weren’t shown in any of the previous cutscenes. I love the idea that Seymour decided he wanted a bunch of dudes with FLAMETHROWERS to defend his wedding ceremony on this narrow platform.

Our heroes make short work of the mooks and reach the platform where Maester Seymour is trying to marry Yuna. Then we get a cutscene where the party is surrounded and captured by dudes with guns.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Final Fantasy X Part 14: Nuns and Guns”