No Star Wars talk this week. It’s a little too soon. But I suspect next week will be the big spoiler discussion. Be ready!
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #133: Disney, Mailbag”
So what’s the big difference between Skyrim and Oblivion? What draws the line of burning gasoline between what the series used to be and what it’s probably going to be forever?
Simply, they simplified. They made the game more straightforward and turned everything upside-down in the process.
Processes of simplification have occurred before in this franchise, but never quite under these circumstances. The first big features cull took place between Daggerfall and Morrowind when the latter title dropped half the former’s skills and subsystems, but this was a move born from the strictest pragmatism; most of the stuff dropped just plain didn’t work. Morrowind‘s developers were soberly aware of what they could actually make interesting and worthwhile and while they clearly wanted to preserve the same basic feeling Daggerfall contained, and wanted as much complexity in the game as possible, they were no longer willing to just throw something in there just for the hell of it, just in case somebody liked it. Which had been the prevailing design philosophy since the original epic of feature creep that spawned the series, but never mind. It was time to exercise discipline and restraint.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Altered Scrolls, Part 15: Thoreau’s Razor”
And now for my top 3. Disappointingly, everyone guessed these in yesterday’s post. I think they even got the ordering right. But maybe it’s for the best. The downside of having surprises in your list is that it means people expected something else. Which leads to arguments. Which leads to anger. Which leads to the Dark Side. Or something like that.
Anyway. Here they are:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Dénouement 2015 Part 4: The End”
The finale of Horizon has Shepard’s team repairing the colony’s anti-air guns while under assault from the Collectors. The guns were a gift from the Alliance, but they weren’t working. Once EDI completes a calibration / hotfix, they give the Collector ship a pounding until the Collectors retreat.
After each main story mission, we head back to holograph land to talk to The Illusive Man. These conversations have a lot in common with the Kashley conversation earlier: The other person talks nonsense, your dialog choices aren’t fair, and when you choose one Shepard says something different anyway.
Last week I said the Kashley conversation was a disaster and you could find problems with almost every line of dialog. The same is true here. So let’s do that. Here is an except of the post-mission debrief with The Illusive Man: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect Retrospective 27: Everyone Has Read the Script”
As in years past, I’m not going to pad or cut my list to hit some nice round multiple of ten. This is just a list of games that were part of the conversation, or that I thought were important, or that I really liked, or that I want to talk about. The only thing they have in common is that I really liked them.
Also, as we discovered in my top 64 games list, numbered lists are basically bullshit. I stand by the presence of every title on this list, but the order is pretty arbitrary. So please don’t try to haggle with me over ordering. On another day and in another mood, I’d make the same list in a totally different order.
Well, except for the top two. The “top two” really are the top two. But we’ll talk about them tomorrow. For now, let’s talk about the other favorites…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Dénouement 2015 Part 3: The Winners”
Leading up to the match that day, I’ve gone and got a nice shave, cleaned the more unruly and primitively intelligent heaps of rubbish out of my office, and fixed myself a healthy breakfast by picking the pig fat out of my Big Moot Number Nine. I’m feeling good about today. It’s a good day to lose to elves.
And they’re all good days from here on out, aren’t they? No debts to pay off. No falling axes to dodge. My meals are provided by the sponsor and my salary is fixed by pitifully grateful investors. Sure, our fans are a tad on the worrisome side, but I have worrisome people for that sort of thing. It’s just such a breath of fresh air to know there’s nothing on the other side of an all-gracious clobbering but a snack and a modest paycheck.
There’s a knock on my office door. Some of my calm crinkles; the knock came from groin height. “Come on, then,” I say.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Half Time CH12: Potatoe Bug”
In any given year, the number of hours available for gaming is always exceeded by the the number of games available for playing. Also every year are confused inquiries from people, demanding to know why I was so foolish as to not play X. So I thought I’d do a post of ablative excuses and explanations before I start talking about my winners.
Remember that this isn’t an end-of-year list from the staff of a big gaming site. I’m just one guy, and I play games based on what strikes my fancy, not based on what publishers send me or public demand. This means I’ll include odd stuff, or overlook big stuff, or abandon games without finishing them.
None of these games are bad. They’re just stuff I didn’t get around to playing or finishing.
Also – and I hope you don’t think I’m condescending to you when I say this in bold – but None of these games are bad.
I know how you are, internet. And sometimes you get a little too defensive if I don’t play the game you like, or react the way you expect. Just be cool.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Dénouement 2015 Part 2: The No Show List”
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2012.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2016.
From the company that brought us Fallout 76 comes a storefront / Steam competitor. It's a work of perfect awfulness. This is a monument to un-usability and anti-features.
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
I called 2018 "The Year of Good News". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.
The true story of three strange days in 1989, when the last months of my adolescence ran out and the first few sparks of adulthood appeared.
T w e n t y S i d e d
