T w e n t y S i d e d
Here is a rap song video about the Large Hadron Collider, in which you can see pictures of the massive facility, as well as view footage of white people dancing very badly.
You’re welcome.
ObsCure: Final Thoughts
Setting
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| Schools. They don’t make ’em like they used to. Staircases are like rollercoasters: The fancy metal ones just don’t have the charm of their wooden ancestors. Note the textured wallpaper in the upper right. The level designers did their homework for this game. |
The school of Leafmore High is wonderfully realized. There is something deliciously bleak about antique institutional buildings. With their former ornate glory reduced to scuffed woodwork and peeling paint, those buildings take on a hunted quality even in broad daylight. At night their dim, jaundiced lighting and flaky electrical systems can spook you well before the monsters crawl out of the woodwork. I spent a couple of my pre-highschool years in buildings from roughly the same time period, and they were every bit as hollow and dreary as Leafmore High.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “ObsCure: Final Thoughts”
Stolen Pixels #22:
Awesome’d: Episode 1
Thus begins my tribute the the recent excellence of episodic gaming. I don’t like the idea of big-name developers that put out a game with no ending and then hold the story ransom until they can get funding for the next installment. (And I’m looking at you, Assassin’s Creed and Dreamfall.) But Telltale Games is doing this episodic thing right.
This is the first in a five-part series that will chart my course from here to self-indulgent irrelevancy. (So we’ll basically be going full circle.)
If I Ran the Show
A good question from Galen in the earlier post on Spore DRM:
I’m just curious now, from the other perspective, lets say you made the game. What would you do as DRM assuming your game was good enough to sell… a lot. I’m definately not siding with EA here. I’m just noticing that when you review games you say how you would do it (FPS trackball, Survival Horror posts). So what would you do if it were your money and time that will be pirated?
That depends on how much control I had. If I was working for any normal publisher, then I wouldn’t have any choice at all. I’d have to use whatever system they told me to.
But if I was making an indie game, or if I miraculously had the clout to dictate terms to a publisher, then I’d take my own advice:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “If I Ran the Show”
ObsCure: First Impressions
I’m beginning to realize that the game I hold up as an example of Survival Horror perfection – Silent Hill 2 – is a complete aberration. It was the first Survival Horror game I really played (aside from dabbling a bit with a couple of games for a half hour or so) and I assumed there were more like it out there. As far as I can tell, there aren’t. I can’t help but judge Survival Horror titles – games ostensibly designed to frighten the player – by the criteria I wrote about a while ago on how to scare players. That’s not really fair, since what I’m looking for is apparently very different from what the designers are trying to do. But until I become so fabulously rich that I can make my own game for other people to pick apart, I have to make do with what I find on the shelf. I buy these Survival Horror titles, each time hoping that my list of ideal features and the designer’s list of features have an area of intersection on some unidentified Venn Diagram.
ObsCure is very much a standard SH game. All the usual suspects are here: 1) Clunky combat 2) Rationed saves 3) Aggressively difficult gameplay and 4) A story that collapses like a house of baking powder if you accidentally think about it.
This is not to say it’s a bad game. In fact, if you’re a fan of old-school survival games then this is probably exactly what you’re looking for. But I’m going to pick it apart for not being the game I want it to be, because I’m petty and unfair. This nitpickery begins now: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “ObsCure: First Impressions”
Spore: DRM Backlash in the News
It seems PC Gamers managed to rattle their cages loud enough to get the attention of the Washington Post and Forbes with their protest of Spore.
Several people commented that Amazon.uk has every right to remove reviews from people who haven’t played the game. I completely agree. Actually, Amazon has the right to remove any review from anyone at all – it’s their site and they can do as they please. They do need to be aware – and I’m sure they are – that regularly removing low reviews would cause people to distrust the whole system. But I don’t think that’s a problem here.
The thousands of people who gave Spore a one-star review on Amazon without playing the game weren’t reviewing the game as much as taking part in an impromptu protest. I agree with their cause and I’m very glad that Amazon USA let those reviews stand, since it was most likely the catalyst for the news stories above. If nothing else it’s forced EA public relations people to come out on stage so we can boo them.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spore: DRM Backlash in the News”
The Right Toy for the Job
Imagine that someone makes a platforming game in the style of the classic Super Mario Brothers. Only, they replace the jump button with something crazy. Like mouse gestures. No, I don’t mean like Super Mario Galaxy where you just wave the Wiimote around to do that spin move, I mean full-on mouse gestures where you click and doodle you get your avatar to leap and jump.
It would obviously be a lot harder, assuming it was possible at all. You can’t “flutter” a gesture the way you can flutter a button. It takes longer to do a gesture than tap a button. The game would be less fluid and responsive, and the pace would have to be slower, more deliberate.
The designer could compensate by making the game more forgiving and by slowing things down. The game could be made to work in the sense that it would be playable, but mouse-gesture platforming still wouldn’t be the same gameplay.
There is a certain cathartic pleasure to playing these sorts of games. Aside from the scenery, the threadbare story, or whatever bells and whistles have been grafted onto the given title to distinguish it from the rest, the simple act of moving and jumping can be entertainment in itself. The seamless translation of player thoughts and intentions to on-screen activity – the player’s will instantly projected into an animated world – is what really defines the experience. The rest is mostly makeup. If the designer replaced buttons with mouse gestures, the game would lose more than the ease and pacing. It would lose a lot of the fun, and no degree of practice on the part of the player would make it possible to play this new game the way they played Super Mario Brothers, because there would be latency between the player’s thoughts and the gameworld.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Right Toy for the Job”
From The Archives:
Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.
Fable II
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.
The No Politics Rule
Here are 6 reasons why I forbid political discussions on this site. #4 will amaze you. Or not.
Linux vs. Windows
Finally, the age-old debate has been settled.
MMO Population Problems
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
Trekrospective
A look back at Star Trek, from the Original Series to the Abrams Reboot.
Crysis 2
Crysis 2 has basically the same plot as Half-Life 2. So why is one a classic and the other simply obnoxious and tiresome?
The Best of 2015
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
Batman: Arkham Origins
A breakdown of how this game faltered when the franchise was given to a different studio.
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.