NEWER POSTS

Site Changes

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jan 12, 2012

Filed under: Notices 176 comments
Site UpdatePrevious Post
Next PostGame Boss - Rematch

As I warned last week, I’m messing with the site theme. This post is here to act as a catch-all for feedback so that all of the various “WTF DIS SUX?!?!?!” comments don’t end up mixed in with the other threads.

One thing I really regret is that I never kept any sort of visual record of this thing. Back before video games ate this site, I had a lot more focus on tabletop gaming, and the site had a (embarrassing, crappy) Olde English styled title. The site was done primarily in yellow, of all things. This is the only image of the site to survive from the first four years. And for reference, here is what it looked like yesterday.

However bad today’s update may look to you, let us reflect on how far we’ve come since September 2007.

Also: I don’t have a smartphone, but I understand those are huge these days, even though they’re actually small. Someone mentioned the site has just a bit of horizontal scrolling on a smartphone. Anyone have any advice on how a web tinkerer like me can view or test how a site will perform on typical mobile devices?

I’m interested mostly in feedback on readability and usability. I’ve tested in Chrome, Firefox, and (saints have mercy) Internet Explorer 8. Looks the same on those three, which must be some kind of miracle. Let me know if anything is broken, hard to read, hard to find, or hard to use.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Site UpdatePrevious Post
Next PostGame Boss - Rematch

176 comments

 

Deus Ex Human Revolution EP1:
You All Asked For This

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jan 11, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 254 comments
Spoiler Warning Presents Batman: London City, EP 2 Previous Post
Next PostDeus Ex Human Revolution EP2:
Six Month Loading Screen

Our original plan was to do a week of the first Deus Ex, but that plan fell through because of… Uh. Well, you’ll see.


Link (YouTube)

Mumbles is taking this season off. We may have another host join at the end of January. I’m still working on it. Announcements will follow.

In my defense, Deus Ex: Original Flavor looked and sounded fine on my computer, but the resulting broadcast was a horrific mess for the other hosts. I could fix it by switching DE to OpenGL mode. That would work, but only if I retained the default of 16bit color and super-low resolution. If I changed those, the game would crash. I am once again reminded of just what a fantastic Rube Golberg contraption our setup is. It’s a miracle this show works at all.

Also, if you’re anxious for a dose of Mumbles and you’re keen to find out what she thought of the original Deus Ex, then check out her article on Damnlag.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Spoiler Warning Presents Batman: London City, EP 2 Previous Post
Next PostDeus Ex Human Revolution EP2:
Six Month Loading Screen

254 comments

 

Batman Arkham City: Nitpicks

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 10, 2012

Filed under: Batman 104 comments
Batman Arkham City: Joker's Last LaughPrevious Post
Next PostBatman Arkham Origins: Over-Analysis Part 1

splash_arkham_city.jpg

At some point I’ll have a column discussing the Riddler quests, but in the meantime I want to pick apart the story at a few points. I realize you can’t really hold a seventy-year-old comic book hero to quite the same standard that you might use for, say, a taut political thriller. Batman doesn’t kill people. Joker is crazy in a very specific sort of way. The world is filled with hundreds of meatheads who are still willing to face Batman in a brawl and take orders from treacherous supervillains who would kill them for giggles. And so on. We accept a long list of ideas without question when we sign on for an adventure with this guy, and if it were otherwise then this wouldn’t be a Batman story.

So, given that we are in a Batman world, there are still a few points I want to haggle over. These aren’t really plot holes, but more like quibbles over a few thematic elements or character behaviors. The story stumbled at these points for me, and I wanted to go over those for no particular reason. Actually, I CAN’T STOP MYSELF. I MUST NITPICK. SOMEONE HELP ME.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Batman Arkham City: Nitpicks”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Batman Arkham City: Joker's Last LaughPrevious Post
Next PostBatman Arkham Origins: Over-Analysis Part 1

104 comments

 

Batman Arkham City: Joker’s Last Laugh

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 9, 2012

Filed under: Batman 165 comments
Next PostBatman Arkham City: Nitpicks

Reader Taliesin was nice enough to get me a copy of Batman: Arkham City. If I’d played it before the new year, it would have made my list of memorable games of 2011. Like Arkham Asylum, this is a balanced, polished experience with tons of content. The difficulty modes run the spectrum from “I’ve just arrived from the Middle Ages and have never seen a computer before” to “OMG this game is so hard I’m bleeding in real life”. It’s got a wonderfully detailed world and buffet-style gameplay.

This game has a plot twist. It’s a good one. This is hard to pull off. I mean, any writer can just execute a sudden “it was a clone / evil twin / time-travel” twist at any point if they want to. That’s not hard, but it’s basically cheating and it’s not satisfying for the audience. A good twist is one where we don’t see it coming but we can plainly see it in retrospect. This means telegraphing your twist and using misdirection to hide these clues.

Playing through the game a second time, I could see they never cheated. Okay, I’m not a hardcore Batfan and maybe there are cues I’m missing, but from my casual familiarity with the lore, it was telegraphed fair and square. Nicely done. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a plot twist like this since Jade Empire or KOTOR. There’s no way around it. If you want to pull this off, you need to be a good writer with a subtle touch, even when dealing with subject matter as loud and frenetic as comic book superheroes. In fact, it might be harder, because comic book fans have seen these sort of twists done again and again over the years, and can usually see them coming before you even start dropping clues. It’s hard to pull off a good con without cheating, and moreso when the guy doing the con is…

Look, there’s no way to discuss it without spoiling it. From here on, we’re going to be spoiling the game in absolute terms. I don’t have space to outline the whole plot, so if you haven’t played then you might have trouble keeping up. Here we go:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Batman Arkham City: Joker’s Last Laugh”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Next PostBatman Arkham City: Nitpicks

165 comments

 

Darths & Droids Episode IV: A New Joke

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jan 8, 2012

Filed under: Nerd Culture 116 comments
The Problem with YouTubePrevious Post
Next PostPlot Holes Part 1: Trust in the Storyteller

It is a time of landmarks for webcomics. There are heroes on both sides. Enemies are everywhere.

Last Friday, XKCD hit 1,000 comics! In the alt-text, the comic said something to the effect of, “There are only 24 more comics until we hit a big round number”. I think like this all the time. It is rather telling that after a lifetime spent on base ten number systems, I find greater elegance, order, and symmetry in base two. (Or base sixteen.)

Heather and I enjoy collecting curious little pamphlets, cookbooks, and other bits of printed materials from the turn of the twentieth century. One artifact we’ve found is a pamphlet from a society lobbying to change our entire number system away from base ten… to base twelve. The reasoning was that twelve is divisible by both two and three, making it more useful for situations where you’re using a lot of threes. Still, base twelve sounds really screwy to my computer-coding mind.

The number two just overshadows everything else in my mind, because so many computer graphics problems involve dividing things into two. Heck, most FPS games in the 90’s used BSP technology, which stands for “binary space partitioning”, which is literally “dividing space in two”. From 3D graphics to database searches, everything seems to revolve around the number of two, so basing your number system on a power of two probably looks very appealing to a lot of programmers.

Where was I? Oh, right. Webcomics!

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Darths & Droids Episode IV: A New Joke”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The Problem with YouTubePrevious Post
Next PostPlot Holes Part 1: Trust in the Storyteller

116 comments

 

Site Update

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jan 4, 2012

Filed under: Notices 221 comments
Saints Row The Third: New Year's Eve LivestreamPrevious Post
Next PostSite Changes

I’m tinkering with the site today, fixing long-standing issues and annoyances. (The bug where dates would sometimes not show at the top of a post should be fixed.) If there’s something broken or odd that you’ve always wanted to see fixed, then now is the time to speak up.

Also: I’m considering, and will probably experiment with, replacing my Google ads with Project Wonderful ads to see how they hold up. From talking to other people, I gather that my site is making a lot less than other sites with similar traffic levels. If that’s because I only have one ad and I keep it away from the content, then so be it. But I want to make sure I’m not just making some obvious mistake or passing up a better deal. So, ads may come and go, or move around, or whatever. Things will settle down once I have enough data to make a decent comparison.

So, heads up, basically. Try not to freak out. Let me know if something looks really wrong.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Saints Row The Third: New Year's Eve LivestreamPrevious Post
Next PostSite Changes

221 comments

 

Errant Signal: Half-Life

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 3, 2012

Filed under: Video Games 353 comments
Skyrim: The Adventures of Elfman the Man-ElfPrevious Post
Next PostThe Old Republic Forum Follies

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, it’s probably obvious that I enjoy analyzing and discussing games at least as much as I enjoy playing them. I sing the praises of games I like as a way of spreading the joy, and I criticize games that annoy me as a kind of catharsis. I think games journalism is very much lacking in this sort of careful introspection, and I’m always glad to see someone new join the ranks.

Here is a guy who is doing this in a big way and deserves a lot more attention than what he’s getting. His analysis of Grand Theft Auto IV is the most incisive I’ve seen. You may remember I did a side-by-side review of GTA IV and Saints Row 2. I pointed out these problems, but Campster’s review gets into why they’re problems and how they are at such odds with the core gameplay. As of this writing, Campster’s GTA review has less than 2,000 views, and that’s a shame. Please do your best to remedy this.

I first discovered Campster when a reader forwarded me a link to his review of Half-Life (the series) and his position that the game is “overrated”. As an admitted Half-Life 2 fan, I think some people are hoping I’ll jump in here and defend Valve’s flagship title. My defense is probably going to be much milder than most people might imagine, but I’m willing to offer it.

Here is Campster’s take on Half-Life. My response follows.


Link (YouTube)

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Errant Signal: Half-Life”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Skyrim: The Adventures of Elfman the Man-ElfPrevious Post
Next PostThe Old Republic Forum Follies

353 comments

 
OLDER POSTS
From The Archives:

Good Robot Dev Blog

An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.

 

Dear Hollywood: Do a Mash Reboot

Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.

 

Programming Vexations

Here is a 13 part series where I talk about programming games, programming languages, and programming problems.

 

Could Have Been Great

Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.

 

Artless in Alderaan

People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.

 

Diablo III Retrospective

We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.

 

Final Fantasy X

A game about the ghost of an underwater football player who travels through time to save the world from a tick that controls kaiju satan. Really.

 

Twelve Years

Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.

 

Marvel's Civil War

Team Cap or Team Iron Man? More importantly, what basis would you use for making that decision?

 

Zenimax vs. Facebook

This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.