T w e n t y S i d e d
EDIT: The gang watched Josh play Overwatch. I am led to believe that fun was had. I’ll take your word for it. Thanks for watching.
Ruts vs. Battlespire: In Conclusion
The Battlespire experience is bafflement and molar-popping frustration, but you already know that. I’ve been mining these experiences for comedy for thirty-three posts now. You already know exactly how I feel about the game. What you don’t know, because I haven’t made room to talk about it, is what I actually think about it.
So let’s talk about that. Let me begin by sharing this excerpt from the final pages of the Battlespire manual.
“Julian is fond of paraphrasing one of our mutual heroes, Sandy Petersen (designer-developer of Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Doom, and other light classics), to the effect that the best computer role-playing game experience is far less fun than the weakest pen-and-paper roleplaying game session. Julian has also stated as his Lofty Aim the creation of a computer role-playing game experience as satisfying as a pen-and-paper roleplaying game session. Julian, of course, is mad as a loon, but it is a fine and admirable madness.
Is Battlespire as much fun as a pen-and-paper roleplaying session?
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Ruts vs. Battlespire: In Conclusion”
Overwatch Stream
Tomorrow night Josh, Chris, and Mumbles will be streaming Overwatch and being awesome for your amusement. Josh will be playing as Sombra so you can all see the new character in action. The stream starts at 6pm on the east coast:
It will appear on the Spoiler Warning stream at the appointed time. I hope you’ll be there.
This Dumb Industry: Hitman’s Days are Numbered
I hated Hitman: Absolution. Developer IO Interactive took their clever, unique sandbox game and tried to turn it into a story-based stealth shooter. What we got was a tepid stealth shooter, a horrendous story, and (worst of all) a terrible Hitman game.
I thought this was it for the franchise. When a series takes a dramatic turn like this it’s usually a sign that the company culture has shifted. Maybe new creative people are in charge, or budgets have been drastically cut, or the property has been given to an entirely new developer, or corporate is pushing the creative people to make the product more “mainstream”. In any case, this is usually a one-way transformation. Maybe if the backlash is big enough the next game will walk back a few of the changes while stubbornly clinging to their new vision, but I can’t think of a franchise that’s tanked this hard and later returned to its former glory.
But here we are. It’s been four years since the abominable Absolution and we get Hitman: No Subtitle. It’s not just a return to formula, but a high point for the series as a whole. The levels are, if anything, larger than what we’ve seen in the last few entries, bucking the prevailing trend of games that sacrifice scale in favor of shinier polygons. And yet it manages to look stellar despite these gigantic levels. The locations are varied and exotic, and the targets are all interesting and appropriately deserving of Agent 47’s style of deadpan murder. There are usually multiple targets in each mission, with many different ways to approach them.
These levels are enormous, and packed with detail.
I honestly have no idea how they turned the writing around so quickly. Absolution’s cutscenes were interminable. The vapid dialog chattered on for several minutes, spoon-feeding us forced exposition that was somehow both obvious and nonsensical. They were ugly, overlong, boring, and at odds with the tone and themes of the series. It was just so magnificently wrong. And yet here comes Hitman 2016 with a lightweight story that returns to the cloak-and-dagger stuff the series is known for. The dialog is compact and the writer trusts the audience to understand the sides without needing to spell everything out for us. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or anything. It’s not trying to be. We get exactly as much story as we need to set the tone and give context, but otherwise the focus is on the missions.
The disguise system has been fixed after Absolution made it nonsensical and borderline useless. Swiping the right outfit will typically let you roam around freely like you should. In Absolution, so many people could see through your disguise that you often wonder why you bothered wearing the damn thing. Here in Hitman: [awkward silence] there are occasionally people that can out you, but now they’re rare challenges that force you to adapt and not a hive mind of paranoid killjoys.
So it’s good, right? Well…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dumb Industry: Hitman’s Days are Numbered”
Diecast #175: Doctor Strange, Titanfall 2, Overwatch
Hosts: Josh, Shamus, Campster, Mumbles. Episode edited by Issac.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #175: Doctor Strange, Titanfall 2, Overwatch”
Shamus Plays WoW #8: Lazy, Star-Crossed Lovers
We’re back at the MacLure farmstead. We come upon their worn, doorless, barely-furnished farmhouse.
Years ago I tried to make an off-kilter model like this house as part of my job. It turns out to be really hard to get just right amount of crookedness to look fun and whimsical instead of broken and glitchy.
Just inside we see a young girl on the verge of womanhood. Her face is downcast. He eyes are reddened from tears. She paces around the room fitfully. Norman sees her and nudges me with his foot. “This right here,” he whispers, “This is our big chance to help! Mother always says that when it comes to doing good, helping the poor is second only to punishing bad people.”
I sigh and reply with a shrug. Whatever. Let’s get this over with.
Norman knocks, introduces himself, and skirts around the question of why he has a two-foot-tall (but astoundingly fearsome) demon by his side. The girl introduces herself as Maybell Maclure.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Shamus Plays WoW #8: Lazy, Star-Crossed Lovers”
Until Dawn EP3: Girlfriend Arguments
Link (YouTube) |
At the end of the episode the good doctor gives a psych test. From the standpoint of scientific rigor, it’s about as useful as a “What kind of lover are you?” quiz from the pages of Cosmo. But let me answer them anyway:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Until Dawn EP3: Girlfriend Arguments”
From The Archives:
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Secret of Good Secrets
Sometimes in-game secrets are fun and sometimes they're lame. Here's why.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
The Gradient of Plot Holes
Most stories have plot holes. The failure isn't that they exist, it's when you notice them while immersed in the story.
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
Patreon!
Why Google sucks, and what made me switch to crowdfunding for this site.
Grand Theft Railroad
Grand Theft Auto is a lousy, cheating jerk of a game.
Ludonarrative Dissonance
What is this silly word, why did some people get so irritated by it, and why did it fall out of use?
The Game That Ruined Me
Be careful what you learn with your muscle-memory, because it will be very hard to un-learn it.