I intended to mention it on the show, but it slipped my mind: I actually have a new video coming out this week. Look for it tomorrow. It’s about boomer shooters. Or baby boomers. Or something like that.
Link (YouTube) |
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #376: Hyper Terra Ghost”
This week the Rocketeer takes us on the long journey through the Mosphoran Highwaste, across the Salikawood, over the Phon Coast, to the Tchita Uplands, into the Sochen Cave Palace, and to many other places I can’t be bothered to look up on the wiki now that they’ve all blurred together in my mind.
While we’re on this long journey, I’d like to ask you:
Remember the start of the game?
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “FF12 Sightseeing Tour Part 11: The Dream Team”
We, the heroes, have a loooooong walk ahead of us. Yes, while great Yensan Sandsea before the Tomb of Raithwall consisted of the Ogir-Yensa and Nam-Yensa, the road to Archades’ capital will see us depart from Nalbina Fortress through the Mosphoran Highwaste, the Salikawood, the Phon Coast, the Tchita Uplands,Pronounced “SEE-ta” and the Sochen Cave Palace,Pronounced “SAW-shen” with detours through the Nabreus Deadlands and the Necrohol of NabudisPronounced “nah-boo-DEES” itself if I feel like a badass, and I always feel like a badass.Pronounced “tool”
After moving so very hurriedly for most of the game, the pace slows to a near crawl around this point. Know merely that a daunting length of time passed between that last paragraph and this next one; nothing of any note happens, save for one small but significant scene at a small camp in Phon Coast.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “A Travelog of Ivalice, Part 11: Capital Offenses”
I know not everyone is here for personal-life stuff. And that’s cool! Come back tomorrow and we can dunk on some videogames. This is a bit of a downer, so I don’t blame you if you want to scroll elsewhere in your feed in your search for distraction. I kinda need to write this, but you don’t need to read it.
But if you’re curious how I’m doing, then here it is… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “(Lack of) Health Update”
This week I felt like I couldn’t do a normal Diecast episode. I’ll have a post about that tomorrow. In the meantime, Paul decided to record an episode with a special guest. I won’t spoil it except to say I really enjoyed it and I hope you’ll give it a listen.
Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast Special: The Shameless Cast”
This week The Rocketeer takes us through some cutscenes where that scamp Vayne murders his father the Emperor and mischievously dissolves the senate, thus making himself the autocratic ruler of an expansionist military empire. What a rascal.
In this series I’ve been trying to make the case that this writer is maybe not as incompetent as they seem. This is hard to prove. Maybe impossible.Other people have pointed out that the author has done good work elsewhere. That’s nice, but that’s not really how we discuss “the author” around here. At some point we have to give the author the benefit of the doubt that the good parts are good on purpose, and the bad parts are bad due to problems other than the writing, like cut content that leaves holes in the story, shifting scope and direction that necessitates 11th hour rewrites, fluctuating team composition that pulls writers away from jobs before the work is done and polished, or large-scale coordination problems where individual ideas work in isolation but are incompatible with each other. But then a reasonable reader might ask me: What has this writer done to deserve this benefit of the doubt? Why don’t I just declare them incompetent and have done with it? It’s not like I’ve shied away from that sort of condemnation in the past.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “FF12 Sightseeing Tour Part 10: The Chess Match”
Emerging from the jungle, we enter directly into… a glacial mountain range? Yeah, the geography in this game makes no sense. It’s time for the ice level and goddammit an ice level is what we’re gonna get. Bur-Omisace, known the world over as a holy place and an enclave of peace, has attracted a great number of refugees with the war building up, and even as we pass through the mountains a great number of them are on their way. Balthier blames the Empire for their suffering, but Larsa is quick to point out that he’s trying to head the war off, and is certain his father shares his views. But Balthier merely tells him that he can never truly know another, not even your own father.
Well, let’s just check in on the old man, eh? In Gramis’ study, Vayne is meeting with his father. The Senate has determined that Vayne needs to be sent away, but Vayne pleads that whether he stays or goes the Empire’s problems will be just the same. Moreover, he has become convinced that the Senate hates House Solidor unconditionally, and will never stop their games of seizing whatever concessions they can until they can do away with them entirely. To this end, Vayne suggests finding some pretext to have the Senate gotten rid of, just as they use the disaster over Jagd Yensa to get rid of Vayne.
Gramis is tongue-in-cheek about how fast Vayne is to suggest the most ruthless course of action, but, as Vayne points out, it was Gramis himself who established this as standard procedure for the Solidors many years ago. Furthermore, he insists that it isn’t for his sake, but Larsa’s; Larsa can’t contend with the Senate the way he and Gramis can, and they must take action on his behalf so that Larsa doesn’t have to learn the hard way and become as jaded and callous as they are. Gramis is skeptical indeed that Vayne would care about his brother’s innocence, but Vayne, morbidly candid, admits that his hands are already stained with blood, and he has no innocence left to preserve.
The Emperor knows the future is no longer his to guide. His last words are thus: “And so House Solidor lives on.”
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “A Travelog of Ivalice, Part 10: Pour Some Slaughter on Me”
Who is this imbecile and why is he wandering around Europe unsupervised?
What is a skinner box, how does it interact with neurotransmitters, and what does it have to do with shooting people in the face for rare loot?
What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?
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.
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
What was the problem with the Playstation 3 hardware and why did Sony build it that way?
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
A videogame that judges its audience, criticizes its genre, and hates its premise. How did this thing get made?
T w e n t y S i d e d
