So I’ve been writing on this site for eleven years. If this site was Duke Nukem Forever, it would be 73% of the way to its disastrous completion by this point.Let’s talk about the site and how I’m running it these days.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Eleven Years of Twenty Sided”
Link (YouTube) |
Mumbles pointed out that she’s logged more hours in Fallout 4 than New Vegas. Same with me. It’s interesting because we’ve both spent the last 33 episodes crapping on Fallout 4 and comparing it unfavorably to New Vegas.
I knew I’d played more Fallout 4 than News Vegas, but I was still shocked when I looked up the numbers. (174 for New Vegas vs. 600+ for Fallout 4.) There are a few reasons for this:
But I think the biggest reason I’ve clocked so many more hours in FO4 than NV is that I play the two games very differently. When I’m playing New Vegas, I’m usually interacting with the structured content like having dialog or doing quests. In Fallout 4, I spend my time doing everything I can to avoid the structured content, because it’s awful. So I do free-form stuff like building bases, exploring aimlessly, and obsessively searching for “treasure”. And judged on those merits, Fallout 4 really does have better unstructured content.
If you’re curious, I’ve got 1,100 hours in Skyrim. (Again, greatly inflated by Alt-Tab time and also by the ridiculous amount of time I put into playing mods.) I bought Fallout 3 on disk instead of Steam, so I don’t have numbers for hours played for that one.
Of course my dream game would have New Vegas quality structured content and Fallout 4 quality unstructured content, but I’d rather have some decent QA testing more than either of those things.
Care to share your hours played for Bethesda games? I’m curious to see the results.
I’m going to be seeing a lot of whatever’s going on in this next screenshot, because as of the next hundred hours of gameplay it’ll be the first thing I see when I load my “New Zone” slot. Which, in defiance of my convention, isn’t a New Zone at all. It’s just my last chance to save before the New Zone where I can’t save my game.
Fuck you for making me a liar, Battlespire.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Ruts vs. Battlespire CH24: The Most Daedraous Game”
This column needs a couple of ablative disclaimer paragraphs before I start making my point. I know brevity is the soul of wit, but it’s also a good way to end up misunderstood and dragged into a pointless flamewar.
First off, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is really good. I enthusiastically endorse it. I’m going to criticize it here, but I want to stress that most of these criticisms are pretty academic. The story is fine, and I’m not offended by anything they’re doing here. It’s just that I think developer Eidos Montreal missed an opportunity to tell a smarter, more cohesive story.
Secondly, the no politics rule is still in effect. I’m going to be dropping some politically-charged buzzwords in here. SJW. Black Lives Matter. Right-wing talk radio. But note that we’re not actually talking about these groups. Or the people who belong to them. Or the people who oppose them. I’m just acknowledging that these groups exist in the real world without discussing, advocating, or critiquing their positions. I encourage you to do the same. In fact, I insist. Wouldn’t you rather talk about videogames than argue about politics?
With that out of the way, I want to back up a couple of weeks and talk about the pre-release controversy. This is not because I love controversy and can’t get enough of it. It’s actually the opposite. I hate controversy, and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to have a calm discussion now that the game is out and tempers have cooled.
The controversy was over this image:
A protest where someone is holding a sign saying “AUGS LiVE MATTERS”, or possibly, “AUGS LiVEs MATTERS”.
Which is of course a reference to Black Lives Matter, which is an ongoing controversy / movement / news story we have going on in the United States. The ad managed to annoy people on both sides of the debate, both pro-BLM and anti-BLM. The first because they didn’t like seeing the slogan of their important movement appropriated for a videogame that very likely wasn’t going to give the topic a serious treatment, and the other because they didn’t want a game to spend its runtime sanctimoniously shoving someone else’s opinion in their face. And I agree with both groups: I’ve been on both sides of this problem. I’ve had works of fiction annoy me in exactly these ways.
Controversies like this usually lead to a wrong-headed protest, followed by an equally wrong-headed rebuttal:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels”
Here is an extra-long Diecast to distract you from the fact that these posts are still wonky and I need to fix that.
Hosts: Josh, Rutskarn, Shamus, Campster, Mumbles.
Episode edited by Rachel.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #165: No Man’s Sky, Mankind Divided, Harry Potter”
Link (YouTube) |
To be totally honest, I really like episodes that I’m not in. Maybe it’s because I haven’t already lived through it so everything is a surprise, or maybe the show is funnier without all my bloviating. Campster and Josh did a pretty good job of making this fun and hilarious. Also, note that Campster is the one playing this time around, and Josh is spectating for once.
Anyway. This game just went on my Steam wishlist.
BETHESDA OFFICIAL FAQ: BATTLESPIRE (COMING IN 1997)
Q: Is it going to have as many bugs as Daggerfall?
A: Ha. Not this time. Battlespire is just entering preliminary beta testing and will not ship until it is bug-free.
RUTSKARN UNOFFICIAL FAQ: BATTLESPIRE (RECORDED 2016)
“I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hell followed close behind him.”
My internet’s been out for two weeks. I’m not saying that’s Battlespire‘s fault. I may have blamed it, in a moment of weakness, but I’m also not saying that it’s intelligent enough to hear my outburst through my microphone–and I am not claiming that a videogame can recognize, contextualize, deliberately provoke and thoroughly enjoy human pain. That would be silly.
The exorcist agrees with me.
I didn’t bring any new screenshots with me today–I’m not quite ready to move on. Technically, I haven’t made any progress since the last session. Which is not the same as saying I haven’t played the game; I’ve played it for hours. I just haven’t progressed.
I haven’t saved my game in two weeks. And there’s a damn good reason for that, as I’m about to share. It just so happens I’ve entered the No Scum Zone.
Allow me to explain.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Ruts vs. Battlespire CH23: Abandon Every Hope”
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
No Man's Sky is a game seemingly engineered to create a cycle of anticipation and disappointment.
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.
Here is how I'd conquer the game-publishing business. (Hint: NOT by copying EA, 2K, Activision, Take-Two, or Ubisoft.)
How did this niche racing game make a gameworld so massive, and why is that a big deal?
T w e n t y S i d e d
