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Diecast #135: 2016

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 4, 2016

Filed under: Diecast 181 comments
Diecast #134: Steampocalypse, 2015 Wrap-up, Star WarsPrevious Post
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The official bylaws of All Internet Videogames Discussion dictate that December is the month of looking back and January is the month of looking forward. So we made this episode to bring our podcast into compliance. Also because we didn’t have anything else to discuss. Also because we actually wanted to talk about these games. Also because it was the only way to get Josh to shut up about Crusader Kings.

Related: Look at this post from last January where I looked ahead to 2015.



Direct link to this episode.

Hosts: Josh, Rutskarn, Shamus, Campster.

Episode edited by Rachel.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #135: 2016”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Diecast #134: Steampocalypse, 2015 Wrap-up, Star WarsPrevious Post
Next PostDiecast #136: Oculus Rift, Cibele, Skyrim Mods

181 comments

 

Remembering the 1970’s

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jan 3, 2016

Filed under: Random 217 comments
Why The Christmas Shopping Season is Worse Every Year (Repost)Previous Post
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Everyone else is busy looking forward to what 2016 will bring, so for my first post of the year I thought I’d go retro-hipster on you and look back to the 1970s. I see a lot of these crappy posts on Facebook like, “Only 60’s/70’s/80’s/90’s kids will remember…” But they’re filled with the same points again and againOften the re-poster is lazy and just changes the decade without altering the list, which results in crap lists that make no sense in a world where childhood lasts less than 20 years. and it’s often obvious stuff you could pick up from watching (say) “That 70’s Show”. But That 70’s Show is to the 1970’s what the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is to dying of scurvy on the high seas in 1675.

So I thought I’d try to dig deep and come up with a bunch of details from the time period that don’t make the usual lists, and maybe a few that don’t make it into movies based in the time period. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Remembering the 1970’s”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Why The Christmas Shopping Season is Worse Every Year (Repost)Previous Post
Next PostNew Year Resolution

217 comments

 

Knights of the Old Republic EP39: No Witnesses!

By Shamus Posted Friday Jan 1, 2016

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 46 comments
Knights of the Old Republic EP38: ManaaniganPrevious Post
Next PostKnights of the Old Republic EP40: SERIOUSLY Hurt Locker


Link (YouTube)

So maybe we didn’t make a lot of progress this week. And maybe our commentary rarely rose above the level of “LOL videogame logic!” But damn it, this was fun.

Let’s never ever do this again.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Knights of the Old Republic EP38: ManaaniganPrevious Post
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46 comments

 

Hangout: New Year 2015: It’s Over!

By Josh Posted Thursday Dec 31, 2015

Filed under: Notices 26 comments
New Year's Stream 2016Previous Post
Next PostSpam Script

EDIT: Thanks for watching. We'll have the full stream up on YouTube some time in the next week. Until then, you can watch the VOD here.

Original Post:

We’re going to play festive holiday games like Crusader Kings where you take over the world and plot the death of your family. It’s all in good fun!

 

Josh Viel is the primary editor and producer of the Spoiler Warning video series. You can support the show by backing the Patreon.

New Year's Stream 2016Previous Post
Next PostSpam Script

26 comments

 

Knights of the Old Republic EP38: Manaanigan

By Josh Posted Thursday Dec 31, 2015

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 42 comments
Knights of the Old Republic EP37: The Shocking Conclusion of KOTORPrevious Post
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Link (YouTube)

I’m not sure whether I respect KOTOR’s handling of the Selkath kids quest or am annoyed by it. On the one hand, in a modern (and unreasonably terrified you might miss content) game, the quest would have triggered when you approached the locked door whether you had it or not. And to an extent, that makes logical sense; at the very least, it doesn’t seem as if you knowing about the missing children ahead of time would make any difference as to whether or not the door would be open.

On the other hand, that aforementioned phobia that players might dare to actually miss content (the horror!) intensely irritates me on some base, indescribable level. And I have to give KOTOR props for committing to it, even if the player decides to take it as far as committing court-assisted suicide; I legitimately expected someone from the Republic to show up and go “No no no no,” right up to the moment we got electric-chaired.

I guess, ultimately, what I’m saying is that I respect KOTOR’s quest design, I just wish it was a little less clumsy with it. Which really is how I’ve come to feel about the game as a whole.

 

Josh Viel is the primary editor and producer of the Spoiler Warning video series. You can support the show by backing the Patreon.

Knights of the Old Republic EP37: The Shocking Conclusion of KOTORPrevious Post
Next PostKnights of the Old Republic EP39: No Witnesses!

42 comments

 

Knights of the Old Republic EP37: The Shocking Conclusion of KOTOR

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Dec 30, 2015

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 77 comments
The Long Dark Spoiler Warning ChristmasPrevious Post
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Link (YouTube)

Fair warning: This episode is bound to be an instant classic. It starts off with some armchair game design, loses its way, makes a bunch of inside jokes, and then goes off-topic, while unendurable ages of indistinguishable combat roll on. Then we discover we came all this way for nothing, before it’s revealed that we REALLY came all this way for NOTHING.

That’s a really strange ending for a AAA game, even in 2003. It lacked closure. Oh well. Next up I think we’re going to play Dragon Age: Origins: The Deep Roads: Maximum Difficulty: Solo Run.

See you there.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The Long Dark Spoiler Warning ChristmasPrevious Post
Next PostKnights of the Old Republic EP38: Manaanigan

77 comments

 

Good Robot #40: Overdraw

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 29, 2015

Filed under: Good Robot 90 comments
Good Robot #39: Teaching Players to Good RobotPrevious Post
Next PostGood Robot #41: Why Promote Your Game?

My to-do list grows and shrinks as the project rolls on. I’ll have 20 items on my to-do list one week. I’ll get 13 of them done. Then at our next weekly meeting, those 13 are reviewed. Some are marked as done. Some end up back on the list because my solution was too narrow, or didn’t work in all cases, or I misunderstood the problem. Then a few new issues will get piled onto the list.

So after the meeting my to-do list will be back up to 25 or so items and we’ll begin again. So it goes.

But some items have never been touched. They’ve haunted the bottom of the list, never getting done, never getting looked at. The oldest item on my list now is actually a collection of bullet-points that can all roughly be summed up as “performance problems”. To wit: The game runs too slow.

Not on my machine, mind you. It’s fine on my machine. But on craptopsCrappy laptops, or any similarly under-powered machine. is runs at about half the framerate it should. So what’s going on?

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Good Robot #40: Overdraw”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Good Robot #39: Teaching Players to Good RobotPrevious Post
Next PostGood Robot #41: Why Promote Your Game?

90 comments

 
OLDER POSTS
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Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3

Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.

 

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Here's how this site grew from short essays to novel-length quasi-analytical retrospectives.

 

Control

A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.

 

The Middle Ages

Would you have survived in the middle ages?

 

Crash Dot Com

Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.