AI, CPU Cycles, and Twitter

By Shamus Posted Sunday Apr 7, 2013

Filed under: Rants 156 comments

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This post could also be titled, “Much Ado About Nothing”. It began as an ill-advised Twitter tirade, and turned into a confusing argument in which pretty much everyone was in misunderstood agreement. If the medium is the message, then the message of Twitter is that nobody has the time to communicate clearly.

The dispute is all settled down now, but it’s still nagging at me and so I want to put everything here as an official record of the foolishness. It begins with this preview of the upcoming Thief game, where we learn that:

As I learned straight from the developers that showed us the game, the artificial intelligence in Thief is something that is only possible on next-gen hardware. Whereas in past games, a soldier might react in an “if, then” manner – for example, if a glass breaks, then walk towards the sound – your enemies in Thief won’t be so predictable. Say you snuff out a lantern and attract the attention of a guard. At first, the enemy may simply mumble to himself that it must have been the wind, but should you do it again, the chances of the guard growing suspicious heightens. Do it a third time and he may launch an all-out sweep of the area, and each time is different.

Emphasis mine.

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Diecast Special: BioShock Infinite

By Shamus Posted Saturday Apr 6, 2013

Filed under: Diecast 126 comments

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I sat down with Josh, Chris, and Jarenth and we discussed BioShock Infinite at length. It should go without saying, but just in case you’re intuition-impaired: This podcast will feature complete and total spoilers for all aspects of the game.

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No timestamps for this one. The discussion is mostly freeform.

As promised, here is the screenshot I mentioned in the discussion:

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Dishonored EP12: Your Score is Apple

By Shamus Posted Thursday Apr 4, 2013

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 100 comments


Link (YouTube)

This episode was recorded at the tail end of a long session that included a podcast. We were all pretty ragged by this point, which is why we were so quiet until everything went wrong.

Thinking more about the level-size problem:

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Dishonored 11: The Boringest Guy Ever

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Apr 3, 2013

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 103 comments

We waste a bunch of time looking up a safe combination in this episode. It’s not bad, unless you know ahead of time that the code is 4-7-3. If you knew that, then it would be really frustrating to watch. My advice? It’s probably best to not know that the code is 4-7-3 when you watch it.


Link (YouTube)

I looked. I couldn’t find the bridge dive video Chris mentioned.

EDIT: Here’s one!

 


 

Diecast #7: Piracy, APB Reloaded 2, and Activision’s Face

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Apr 2, 2013

Filed under: Diecast 153 comments

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On the upside, the podcast is proving to be really popular. On the downside, we seem to be slipping on our production of Spoiler Warning videos. Oops.

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Show notes:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #7: Piracy, APB Reloaded 2, and Activision’s Face”

 


 

Experienced Points: Lara’s Damsel in Distress

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Apr 2, 2013

Filed under: Column 52 comments

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My column this week is a rant about Samantha, the damsel in distress of the new Tomb Raider game.

It was really temping to contrast Samantha with Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite, but I was afraid of doing cross-game comparisons that would likely get sidetracked into a frustrating “game X is superior to game Y” debate and confuse rather than illuminate the issue.

My other major issue with the new Tomb Raider is it fondness for cutscene incompetence. Just about every cutscene involves Lara doing something really stupid or reckless. The writers also LOVE the use of off-screen space to poof in bad guys. There’s more than one situation where Lara seems be be alone, then a cutscene happens and someone punches her unconscious from just offscreen.

Having all of your cutscenes deliver setbacks by having the player character perpetrate awful blunders is a great way to make the player hate either the writer or their avatar. I realize these problems are nothing new to videogames, but they are problems that really grate on me because they seem to be the offspring of laziness and bad habits.

 


 

Site Theme

By Shamus Posted Monday Apr 1, 2013

Filed under: Notices 112 comments

Dear people of the future: This was originally posted on April 1st, 2013. For about 12 hours, the site was decorated with a My Little Pony background. In fact, the site looked more or less like this:

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Ha ha.

But a lot of people really liked having some color in the background there, which had previously been some low-contrast abstract grey rectangles. I like it too. Ironic pony-placement aside, it does add something to the site. Of course, maybe I like it just because it’s new. I get the same thing with my desktop wallpaper. After a few weeks of the same image I get sick of it, and whatever replaces it looks “better” simply because it’s novel, not because it’s objectively a better image.

So I’ve put some color on the background in the form of more thematically-themed dice. You know, as a nod to those tabletop games I’m always writing about on this site.

Some other modest adjustments have been made to the format. Let me know if I’ve created any usability problems.