Hey everypeoples, Josh is going to play a whole mess of Rome 2: The Sequel to Rome. I’ll be there. Randy will be there. Josh will be there. The Romans will be there. It’ll be fun.
The stream is here. Let’s get the parley started!
UPDATE: Things were lively and fun for the first couple of hours while Josh was being griefed by horrible AI, bugs, and humorous scripting. But then he got a headache and we kinda ran out of steam. Thanks to everyone who showed up.
Here is an hour and a half of five people talking about videogames. We got together and realized that one of the big problems in the world is that people don’t spend enough time talking about videogames. So we went beyond the call of duty and gave you an extra half an hour.
You’re welcome.
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Hosts: Rutskarn, Josh, Chris, Mumbles, and Shamus.
Show notes:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #28: Papers Please, Saints Row, Sim City on Mac, Focus Testing”
As many of you requested, I’m not going to document every feature that goes into this thing. This means we’re going to jump ahead and start talking about stuff I’m dealing with now-ish. A side effect of this is that you’re going to see unexplained features appear and be tempted to ask, “But, what is this feature and how does it work?” Understand that the answer to that question would take a post. A post which would have precluded the writing of this one.
You can’t trick me into writing twice as much by asking me to write about current stuff and then asking me to fill in the blanks in the comments. Well, you CAN, but it’s going to make for a less interesting series for everyone. So just get yourself into some sort of zen state where you’re okay with seeing unexplained mystery content.
So on Friday I talked about the line-of-sight system I came up with. A few people suggested a completely different way of doing it that would be many, many times faster. And now we come to the part of the project where we have to make the hard choices.
See, there’s one thing I didn’t mention on Friday. That’s this:
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Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Good Robot 8: Suggestion Box”
Link (YouTube) |
Wow. Is that anger? Bitterness? Cursing game developers? Man, this part of the game makes me nostalgic for our Fallout 3 season.
This was a watershed moment for the Spoiler Warning crew. This is pretty much the low point of BioShock for us. This is where it all went bad. We recorded this episode almost three years ago, and to this day we still refer back to it. As in: “Man, it’s not a bad game, but I’m afraid it would turn into another BioShock.”
Still, our pain is your… gain? I guess?
This coming Tuesday, Sept 3 2013, we will be doing a hangout. If you’ve been looking to hang out with the Spoiler Warning cast then this is probably your best bet for all your out-hanging needs. It’s at 8pm GMT, 3pm Eastern time, noon on the west coast.
Josh will be playing Rome II: Total War, a sequel to the regrettably flawed Rome: Partial War and WAY better than Rome: Diplomatic Negotiations Aren’t Going Very Well.
A post will go up on Tuesday with links to the stream and such. This post is just to let you make room on your busy schedule for wasting time on the internet.
As I play the game, I get this idea that a lot of AI problems are probably due to asymmetrical vision. Not all of them. It’s not that easy to make great AI. But there’s something inherently derpy about an enemy when you can see them and they can’t see you.
There’s a 90’s movie where fat guy Chris Farley plays a ninja. There’s a bunch of shtick where he tries to hide like a ninja but fails because he’s huge. The humor (where applicable) comes from the idea that this 300 pound man is standing behind a floor lamp and thinks he’s hidden, when in reality he’s basically standing in the open. He’s so dumb! He thinks we can’t see him!
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I’m noticing a lot of this in my game. Foes are parked behind a wall, waiting to ambush me. But instead of “Ooh, ambush!” I think, “Oh, idiot ninja that thinks I can’t see him.” These are some really dumb AI, but the thing that makes them look dumb isn’t their AI, it’s the fact that I can see them hiding.
So let’s experiment with the idea of restricting what the player can see to the things their character could see.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Good Robot 7: Lines of Sight”
Link (YouTube) |
NOTE: Eagle-eyed readers may have caught the mistake I made earlier today: For about ten minutes I did accidentally post episode 13 instead of episode 12 here. My bad. In my defense, I was in another window, writing you a post about something unrelated to BioShock. So you kind of win either way.
At any rate, here are my original comments for this post as they appeared way back in 2010:
The Big Daddy transformation was a cavalcade of lazy plotting, supported by a layer of contrivances, and glued together with a few pounds of sloppy videogame logic. I think it actually undermines the earlier themes about free will. Now that you’re no longer a slave and you’re free to think for yourself, the game requires you to do something dumber and more illogical than anything that you did while you were supposedly under control of others.
This section of the game very nearly wins the title of “Most Obnoxious Plot Door”, a title which currently belongs to Neverwinter Nights 2. But BioShock gets off the hook because this plot door only takes about thirty minutes, not five hours.
It’s a shame we had to cut this sequence in the middle. We point out the rest of the flaws with the Big Daddy Quest in the next episode. Then there’s one more mini-episode after that one where we wrap this series up. We’ve already selected our next game, so your pleas are futile.
Enjoy!
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Here is how I'd conquer the game-publishing business. (Hint: NOT by copying EA, 2K, Activision, Take-Two, or Ubisoft.)
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
This is it. This is the dumbest cutscene ever created for a AAA game. It's so bad it's simultaneously hilarious and painful. This is "The Room" of video game cutscenes.
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.
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
A look at the main Borderlands games. What works, what doesn't, and where the series can go from here.
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
This is a massive step down in story, gameplay, and art design when compared to the 2014 soft reboot. Yet critics rated this one much higher. What's going on here?
T w e n t y S i d e d
