Postcards from The Old Republic

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jul 17, 2012

Filed under: Game Reviews 94 comments

swtor_alderaan.jpg

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”

 


 

Hangout 7/16 – IT’S OVER!

By Shamus Posted Monday Jul 16, 2012

Filed under: Notices 41 comments

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.

 


 

Star Wars The Old Republic: Artless in Alderaan

By Shamus Posted Monday Jul 16, 2012

Filed under: Game Reviews 111 comments

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”

 


 

Upcoming Hangout 7/16

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jul 15, 2012

Filed under: Notices 63 comments

The Spoiler Warning crew will be doing another hangout on Monday, July 16th at 6pm Eastern Time in the USA. For other time zones, check this page. Josh has told me that he’s definitely going to be playing Civilization V, or Shogun 2, The Secret World, or Crusader Kings. Which means he’ll probably play Angry Birds.

I’ll post the related stream when the event goes live.

 


 

This Dang Website III: Dang Harder

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jul 12, 2012

Filed under: Notices 189 comments

The site overhaul continues. I apologize for the upheaval. I think we’re nearly done. I want to thank everyone for their patience, bug reports, screen shots, CSS advice, layout advice, and general suggestions.

The changes so far:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dang Website III: Dang Harder”

 


 

8 By Zombies Part 1

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jul 12, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 72 comments

8byzombies.jpg

We recorded this game a couple of weeks ago. Now here is the final product of that endeavor. The Spoiler Warning all-stars in an eight-player pre-recorded live broadcast of Left 4 Dead 2, versus mode, using Left 4 Dead 1 levels. Here is the final footage, edited together to give you the viewpoints of both teams.


Link (YouTube)

I think we’ve agreed that we’re not doing this again anytime soon. While it makes for hilarious footage, it actually requires a major investment of time to cut together two separate feeds, plus two audio tracks, plus the audio track from the Livestream to fix patches where people were cut off or muted. Also, I don’t know if our friendships can withstand this level of sadistic curb-stomping of team Pro Strat vs. Team Newbie.

This weekend we MAY actually begin our Mass Effect 3 season. The time is right. However, I have it on good authority that certain members of the cast have been saying they will, “Start [my] play-through, probably tomorrow,” for almost a month now. Credulity being in finite supply, I am beginning to doubt this will actually happen. We’ll see.

 


 

Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Trial

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jul 11, 2012

Filed under: Rants 184 comments

swtorlogo.jpg

Okay, so apparently SWTOR is now free to play up to level 15. Now, I’ve tried to play this game before, an ordeal that wasted a lot of my time and did not result in me playing the game, mostly due to the complete ineptitude of the policy makers.

But I’m willing to give it another go. I already have an account created. I already have the client downloaded. It should be fairly painless this time around. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Trial”