T w e n t y S i d e d
Mordin Solus. Salarian. Doctor. Brilliant. Even has amusing combat taunts. Best character in the game.
Link (YouTube) |
Shamus Plays WoW #7:
The Cataclysm Begins!
Part seven is now up. Go make with the reading and such.
This series was a bit of a challenge. Like my other series, I had a kind of arc I wanted to cover with my main character. (Or characters, in this case.) But here I had this wildcard that I didn’t know when Cataclysm would go live. I had hoped that it would wait until after my protagonists had reached Westfall. I wanted the switch to Cataclysm to be a major turning point for both characters, and I wanted it to really show off the changes to the world. It didn’t work out that way. I had the idea of Norman getting rid of Gobstab and then calling him back, and I sort of held onto that so that it could be inserted whenever Blizzard decided to launch it. Sadly, my story was just getting started when it came time to make the switch. Even just one or two weeks would have been a lot nicer. Had to throw out quite a few jokes and ideas. Drat the luck.
So Cataclysm ended up not being a very big deal in my story. There aren’t any major areas of destruction where my characters are working, and so I don’t think it will come up again for a few weeks.
Ah well. It’s still fun to write.
Spoiler Warning S4E7: What Cover?
I don’t have time to watch the episode and do a proper post write up, but I’ve left you the template so you can fill it in yourself. Good luck!
[Short, playful intro that refers to the content of the episode. Then a setup for a lame joke.]
Link (YouTube) |
[More in-depth commentary, clarifying things that were said in the episode. Then an attempt to counter-balance the episode. If it was too negative, then praise the game. If too much gushing, then kick the game a few times.]
[Some comments on how the series is going and what we plan to do.]
[A bit making fun of Josh’s playstyle.]
[A sign-off that cashes in on the lame joke setup at the start.]
Spoiler Warning S4E6: Troll Science
I’ll be honest, it’s been two weeks since we recorded this and I can’t even remember what it’s about. Jade Empire, was it?
Link (YouTube) |
Okay, that wasn’t Jade Empire.
On the upside, we are getting to the good part of the game.
Postcards from %$&!@!
It’s late Saturday night. So late, in fact, that it’s actually early Sunday morning. I’m working on the software I wrote to make Drawn to Knowledge. Also surfing the web and listening to music, as you do. Suddenly I notice these stray red pixels on the screen. Hey! What are those? They’re not really single pixels but bocks of pixels, scattered in repeating patterns across the screen. Is my program malfunctioning or… No, that doesn’t make sense. I’d be seeing it in my program, not the entire display. Ah! More of them! The mouse isn’t moving right!
Crap, looks like reboot time. Ah. Never mind. The computer seems to have shut itself off. Damn it. What did I have open? Did I lose any work? Sighing, I power cycle the computer. The boot screen appears.
The dots are still there.
NOOOOOOOOoooo!
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Postcards from %$&!@!”
Richard Feynman: Science and Chess
Richard Feynman describes scientific inquiry as someone observing a game of chess.
Link (YouTube) |
Years ago I was reading A Brief History of Time and I came up with a very similar analogy where I was likening the study of quantum physics to observing a game of billiards. For example, perhaps you can only observe the table between turns, when everything is still. Eventually we’ve come up with a list of rules and observations:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Richard Feynman: Science and Chess”
Experienced Points: The Future is Still Retail
I had some extra hubris this week, so I thought I’d write an article about how a genius rocket scientist and the sixth richest man in the world are both wrong, and I’m right.
To top this, tomorrow I’ll have a critique of quantum mechanical theory, which I think needs some work.
Honestly. Do I have to do everything around here?
From The Archives:
Top 64 Videogames
Lists of 'best games ever' are dumb and annoying. But like a self-loathing hipster I made one anyway.
Autoblography
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
Shamus Plays LOTRO
As someone who loves Tolkein lore and despises silly MMO quests, this game left me deeply conflicted.
The Middle Ages
Would you have survived in the middle ages?
Project Frontier
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
The Dumbest Cutscene
This is it. This is the dumbest cutscene ever created for a AAA game. It's so bad it's simultaneously hilarious and painful. This is "The Room" of video game cutscenes.
The Gradient of Plot Holes
Most stories have plot holes. The failure isn't that they exist, it's when you notice them while immersed in the story.
Dead Island
A stream-of-gameplay review of Dead Island. This game is a cavalcade of bugs and bad design choices.
Playstation 3
What was the problem with the Playstation 3 hardware and why did Sony build it that way?
The Plot-Driven Door
You know how videogames sometimes do that thing where it's preposterously hard to go through a simple door? This one is really bad.