And we round out the week by making our way through a sprawling abandoned bunker complex, full of old fuel, equipment, and electronics. You know, on an island that’s impossible to set up supply lines with because every boat that approaches is destroyed by a storm and no one can ever leave.
Link (YouTube) |
Don’t worry, things get much less plausible later.
It’s been a long time since we failed this much in a single episode. We failed at navigating, at platforming, and puzzle-solving. Josh usually takes the blame when this sort of thing happens, but the truth is that Chris and I did’t know what to do either. If you had asked me before the episode if I knew where we were going and what we were doing, I’d have laughed. I’ve done this three times now! OF COURSE I’ll remember it. Yet when the moment came I couldn’t remember a dang thing, not even the solution to this very easy tutorial puzzle.
Link (YouTube) |
The frustrating thing is that this is the best stuff in the game, and we’re not exactly selling that idea. The game has given us a break from playing Whack-A-Mook to finally deliver some long-overdue characterization. Then is lets us enjoy the platforming and puzzles while we take in some really solid environmental design.
Like others have already said: Some of the early combat in this game ought to have been cut down or pushed back so we could get here sooner. Up until now the player has been stuck on linear paths, and mostly talking to unknown characters on the radio. We needed to establish Roth and get the player to this little playground so they can enjoy the mechanics.
Link (YouTube) |
Wherein we talk about Lara’s fight with the totally-not-a-rapist-you-guys and get killed by arrows a lot. Oh yes.
Hang on a second… A Starcraft post filed under “programming”? What sort of organizational shenanigans are going on here, Shamus? Is this some kind of trick? I’ll tell you: Last week I was pondering the mechanics of a Starcraft II rush. I wound up making the hilarious mistake of assuming it would be an easy thing to analyze with a bit of code.
A “rush” in Starcraft is where you forego building workers, constructing defenses, or expanding. Instead you begin the game by building as many of the most basic army unit as you can in the hopes of crushing your opponent before they have anything on the field. A rush is usually considered an “all in”, because if your initial attack fails then you’ll be at a massive disadvantage. You don’t have many workers, or defenses, or expansions. All you’ve got is this small handful of units. Your opponent will be far more wealthy than you, and will be able to out-spend you over the next five minutes or so.
It’s basically like a trick play in NFL. They’re rare because they’re risky, and the risk intensifies the more often you attempt them. It’s considered a lame, cheesy trick only used by the unskilled, the desperate, or (occasionally) the troll. There’s even a Sexy and I Know It parody song about it that makes fun of the notorious and meme-spawning Zerg rush:
Link (YouTube) |
Trivia: The rapper (?) in that song is Husky, of BRONZE LEAGUE HEROES fame.
Setting aside the jokes, the memes, the flame wars over game balance, and arguments over race: Just how much is the advantage of rushing, and how far behind will you be if you fail? What’s the damage, in a total numerical sense? How many units will you be ahead, and assuming there’s no game-ending engagement how long will it take for your opponent to pull ahead of you? I’m sure a pro player could intuit the answer just from the sheer volume of games they’ve played, but I wanted to see the breakdown on a chart where the rest of us mortals can visualize it. I so decided to write a little program to figure it out.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis”
We had a long, meandering conversation about videogames, business, and other dumb things. We recorded the exchange so that you can enjoy the sensation of being trapped in a conversation with us where you can’t get a word in.
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Show notes:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #16: XBone, Zynga, Call of Doggie”
Link (YouTube) |
Has it really been three years since we made this episode? (August of 2010.) I guess so. Here is what I had to say about the BioShock DRM in the original post on this episode:
In this episode I brought up the subject of the BioShock DRM. While exotic and new at the time, it's pretty much the order of the day now for a lot of PC games. Josh mentioned it's getting better, which is also true. It depends on where you draw the line and what games you care about. Ubisoft has taken the idea to new an absurd heights. Other companies are following the example set by Steam and are trying to sugarcoat their phone-home systems by actually offering some features in return. Blizzard is a great example of this. The new Battle.net requires periodically renewing activation (this is based on hearsay) but offers a ton of new features. Evaluating what you're really getting for your $60 is becoming increasingly complex.
Still, I'll always remember BioShock as a forerunner is this regard.
Interesting to see how this idea has spread and evolved. By “this idea” I mean “naked DRM”. With Battle.net, Steam, and Impulse you have varying levels of activation going on, but the systems provide service for your trouble. You can download the game again, you no longer need the disk, it keeps the game updated, etc. Now maybe these features are valuable to you or maybe they’re useless. But they do give the companies a fig leaf to cover their activation. This is different from the online activation you had in 2k Games and Ubisoft titles where activation was only there to give you permission and offered no other features. (Or worse, offered negative features by making you create an account so they could spam you.)
2K Games tried online activation, and after a few years of insisting it was awesome they gave up on it. Ubisoft tried it on an even grander scale, requiring not just activation but continuous connection. They insisted it was working, then admitted it didn’t and gave up on it. Now Microsoft is going for the big time with an always-on console. Games will be locked to the console and you can’t give or loan games. Well, you can, but titles can only be gifted once and only to people on your friend list and you can only lend games if you log in to your account on their console… or something. You need a flowchart to follow the fine print.
If all your friends jumped off a bridge, and got very badly hurt, and said that jumping off a bridge was a bad choice… would you jump off an even bigger bridge?
Note to Microsoft: Everyone is laughing at you.
Hey Shamus! Wasn’t this post supposed to be about BioShock?
Shuddup.
The year is 2009, and I am stuck. We don’t make enough to live in this house. The house is underwater, so we can’t sell. I'm actually relieved when I figure this out. I’ve been thinking that I'm “bad with money” in the sense of being an irresponsible spendthrift. Now I see we're not really. Well, aside from stupidly buying Too Much House. Other than that one bad move, we’re generally careful and sensible. We shop for food at Aldi. We buy second-hand clothes. We drive an old car. We don't eat out. We don't shower our kids in hundreds of dollars in gifts at Christmas.
But things are bad. We’re basically watching a systemic failure in progress. We could start stacking debt on credit cards to delay the inevitable, but that’s like driving your car off a cliff to keep it from getting repossessed.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Twelve-Year Mistake Part 5: Job’s Done!”
Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.
Fidget spinners are ruining education! We need to... oh, never mind the fad is over. This is not the first time we've had a dumb moral panic.
What was the problem with the Playstation 3 hardware and why did Sony build it that way?
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
A videogame that judges its audience, criticizes its genre, and hates its premise. How did this thing get made?
People fault EA for being greedy, but their real sin is just how terrible they are at it.
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
Do you like electronic music? Do you like free stuff? Are you okay with amateur music from someone who's learning? Yes? Because that's what this is.
I teach myself music composition by imitating the style of various videogame soundtracks. How did it turn out? Listen for yourself.
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
T w e n t y S i d e d
