Link (YouTube) |
This is a good spot to end for the week. Next week the plan is to have the final two entries, which will end Half-Life 2. After that, we’ll have the second half of 8 by Zombies.
The timeline of Half-Life 2:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Half Life 2 Special EP19:
Set Piece – The GAME”
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After I dumped on Left 4 Dead 2 yesterday, a few people wanted to know what I didn’t like about the game. As of this writing I have clocked 269 hours of Left 4 Dead, and 8 hours of Left 4 Dead 2. And yet, I can’t point to any single mechanic or problem that’s a definitive failure. I just… I like the original better.
This is going to be kind of vague and mealy-mouthed, which is why I haven’t covered this game in the past. If you’re looking for deep analysis then this is not the post for you. But remember, you asked for this…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Left 4 Dead 2”
Link (YouTube) |
Another episode, another new glitch that I’ve never seen in my dozen or so times through this game. Actually, two glitches, if we’re going to include the one in the last seconds of the video.
If you’re wondering who Erik Wolpaw and Chet are, they ran the gaming site Old Man Murray around the turn of the century. The site did “edgy, crazy game reviews” almost a full decade before Zero Punctuation came on the scene. I think Yahtzee even cites them as an influence. They were often very personal in their criticism, naming developers and mocking them individually in the process of lampooning the game as a whole. The site was updates weekly or monthly, but I checked it daily. Loved that site.
They were hired by Valve software and became important creative figures at the company. There was once a YouTube video during the Left 2 Dead 2 backlash where someone *cited Chet for LYING!!!OMG! about upcoming Left 4 Dead content. On one hand, I felt kind of bad for him being accused of orchestrating a massive, obvious deception. On the other hand, that’s exactly the sort of thing they did on Old Man Murray. Of course, on OMM they would have done it with some level of self-awareness, perhaps painting the whole thing as an Illuminati plot, alien conspiracy, the work of commies, or pinning the blame on an implausible third-world despot. It would have been funny to read for people on both sides of the debate. But the point is, they dished out a lot of bile in their day, and I wonder if Chet ever saw the backlash as a certain degree of comeuppance.
If you want to know more about Erik, I highly recommend Portal 2: The Final Hours, which is available on Steam for a single dollar right now. It’s a flash-powered multimedia E-book… thing. Lots of neat bits about how the company works.
* For the record, I’m sure this wasn’t an insidious pre-meditated plan to deceive people into buying the game. In fact, this is exactly the problem you’ll face if you let your creative people talk freely in public. They will talk about the plans you’ve made around the water cooler, which are then taken as incontrovertible commitments on behalf of their employer. To a certain extent, that’s fair. When statements come out of the mouth of someone at a company, you can’t expect the audience to understand the position of the speaker in the company and the average consumer can’t possibly detect the difference between deliberate hype-building and some artist just talking about stuff she hopes she gets to work on someday. This is why companies are so guarded with their announcements. Once you say something in public, you can’t change your mind or someone, somewhere is going to say you lied to them.
This is not to say I’m happy about how Left 4 Dead 2 turned out. I’d say more, but I think we’re pushing the limits of what you can do with a qualifying asterisk.
Link (YouTube) |
Spoiler Warning returns in semi-grand fashion! We’re still waiting on certain cast members to finish Mass Effect 3. Or perhaps even simply begin the game. And it is entirely possible that key members of the cast have yet to install the game. I don’t know how aggressively passive-aggressive I need to be here, but we can’t start the new season until these events have transpired.
In the meantime, we’ve returned to our old standby. Procrastinating. Also Half-Life 2. This final block of episodes will actually take us to the end of the game. We have five episodes of HL2 coming up, as well as the second half of the 8 By Zombies thing. We’ll have three episodes this week, then three next week. After that? No promises.
Here is the Scotch-Korean Skittles commercial that Chris mentioned.
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Yesterday I berated The Old Republic for the horrific art failures. I stand by everything I said, but in the interest of fairness I thought I’d point out that the game does have a couple of incongruously gorgeous locations. The above shot was sent in from a reader, and is apparently a shot of Alderaan. I don’t think I can get there in the free trial, but it’s nice to know it exists. Here’s another great location:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Postcards from The Old Republic”
Josh is playing Civ V. We’re talking online games. Stop by and shout things at us in chat. This will be something not unlike fun:
http://www.livestream.com/chocolatehammer
That was fun. Thanks for stopping by. You can see the archived session here.
People have been heaping shame on Star Wars: The Old Republic for months now. I can’t hope to add anything new, so the best I can manage is to just say everything again, only longer and with more digressions. You know how we do things around here.
The art, like everything else in SWTOR, is never truly awful. It’s just bland. Ordinary. Safe. Unremarkable. There are little flashes of brilliance in there if you’re willing to sift for them, but this game does not deliver an experience in keeping with the standards set by BioWare or the reported two hundred million that was spent on it. There is something unbearably sterile about The Old Republic.
Now, I am not an artist, as I’ve proven many times in the past. I don’t have an eye for it and so I don’t know how to really dig down and explain things when things go wrong. But I ask that you humor me while I try to grope around and figure this out. This is a really important failing of the game, and it’s worth dissecting.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Star Wars The Old Republic: Artless in Alderaan”
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
What makes this borderline indie title so much better than the AAA juggernauts that came before?
When the source code for Doom 3 was released, we got a look at some of the style conventions used by the developers. Here I analyze this style and explain what it all means.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2013.
An attempt to make a good looking cityscape with nothing but simple tricks and a few rectangles of light.
Here is how I'd conquer the game-publishing business. (Hint: NOT by copying EA, 2K, Activision, Take-Two, or Ubisoft.)
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
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.
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
T w e n t y S i d e d
