T w e n t y S i d e d
Another good video by those wiley writers.
Free Game: Sam & Max Episode 4
I’ve been very negative of episodic games before, mostly because I don’t want video games to turn into soap opera stories that string you along forever because they want to keep selling you games. This was a real concern with Dreamfall, which brought the tale to a gut-wrenching low and then abandoned the player without any assurance that a sequel would be made.
(The jury is still out for me on Half-Life 2. I thought the ending to the game itself was a cheap cliffhanger, the opening of Episode 1 was a deus ex machina, and that episode ended in a cliffhanger as well. I’m not crazy about this, but unlike Dreamfall Half-Life is more than just the story. It has fantastic gameplay to back up the story. I’m ready to forgive Valve’s cliffhanger excesses if they can bring Episode 3 to a satisfying close.)
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| Sam & Max, freelance police. |
Sam and Max are “freelance police”. Sam is a Humphrey Bogart-ish dog. Max is his insane saw-toothed bunny rabbit sidekick. The two of them inhabit a world otherwise populated by humans who don’t seem to question the existence of a Dog & Rabbit freelance police team. This is modern adventure gaming at its best: Click on stuff, listen to the funny dialog, pick up everything that isn’t nailed down, solve puzzles, and watch the surreal events unfold.
I can’t sum up the plot in any meaningful way. It’s just too strange. Episode 4 is titled Abe Lincoln Must Die! and indeed you do meet Abe Lincoln, visit the White House, and sucker-punch the President of the United States. (Sort of.) The game steers clear of partisan politicial humor and aims for more universal themes like “the government wastes a lot of money” and “politicians are liars”. This is a smart move not just because it appeals to people all over the political spectrum, but because the more specific, headline-driven humor tends to age poorly and quickly. The game got me to laugh a number of times.
You can get the full game here. On the right you can see a big green button for “Get the free DEMO”, and just to the left of that is a link to “buy” the full game for $0.00. Yes I realize that is strange. No, I don’t know why it’s like that.
It’s nice to see adventure games thriving again. I’m sorry I didn’t check out this franchise sooner. Great stuff.
This is How Writers Should Fight
I’ve been sort of agnostic about the outcome of the writer’s strike since I heard about it. I didn’t think much of what the writers have done over the years, so I certainly didn’t feel any attachment to them personally. When I read their arguments it was mostly a lot of dull details about sales numbers and percentages of percentages. Their picket signs were infantile or unimaginative. These guys are writers? Could have fooled me.
But finally some of them got their act together and employed their craft in the service of their goals, and this is the result:
Brilliant. This video:
- Brings a face to their side of the debate. Instead of a line of morose writers marching in silence, we have a couple of engaging personalities trying to entertain us.
- Ingratiates the writers to the audience. Hey, I like these guys because they made me laugh.
- Clearly articulates their side of the dispute. The skit encapsulates their message within some easy to understand and memorable illustrations.
- Does all of this for free. The studios are paying for advertising space to get their message out to the public. The writers are packaging their stuff within free entertainment that people can share virally.
This is what it should look like when you face off against writers in a public dispute. You should quickly find yourself eviscerated by a sharp wit.
On the other hand, I can’t imagine how this helps the writers. Disputes like this are not settled by public opinion. Most people are siding with the writers already, and bringing more people over to their side doesn’t really help them in any tangible way. My apathy didn’t hurt them before, and my sympathy doesn’t help them now.
Television
In my snarky post on the writer’s strike lots of people stuck up for some of their favorite TV shows, which really surprised me. I never had any sort of allegiance to the thing when I watched, and was sort of taken aback by the fondness some people expressed for various shows. I thought TV was, if not a dying medium, then perhaps a medium inhabiting an iron lung while relatives sat outside and whispered to each other about who should get the good china someday.
Last time I saw television it was a wasteland of “Reality television” shows. “Reality” in this case means “contrived situations designed to maximize conflict, which are then carefully edited for dramatic effect”. I always thought of the shows as social cockfighting. What few hours of prime time weren’t given over to this sort of gossipy angst were spent on dreadful sitcoms where the laugh track would jump in on every third unfunny remark to let you know where you might laugh if you were currently mildly retarded and high on nitrous oxide. I gave up on television and never looked back.
Some TV fans pointed out that in many cases shows have moved from telling interchangeable episodic stories to tackling more complex story arcs. It sounds like this trend was just about to take off about the last time I watched television, back in 2000. I’m a big believer in story arcs and tire quickly of static-state shows, so this is good news for people who’s jibs are of a cut not dissimilar to my own.
(And yes, I consider shows like ST: Voyager to be static-state. While there was an overall plot that lurched forward every once in a blue moon, you could still mostly watch the show in any given order and it wouldn’t make much of a difference. It’s like reading a book where you get a first chapter introducing the premise, then twenty chapters of frantic activity while the plot spins its wheels, then everything is abruptly resolved in the final chapter. I realize it was a limitation of the medium (since the writers wanted their show to be able to go into syndication) but it made the shows unsatisfying for me. Frustrating, even.)
(And yes I know you’re not supposed to put a whole paragraph in parentheses, and you’re not supposed to nest parentheses. Who makes these rules, anyway? If it were up to me you could nest sub-thoughts as deep as you like. Using curly brackets! And indentation!)
Still, I’m not about to return to TV anytime soon, although it is nice to hear the medium is evolving. I’m not signed up for cable TV, so it would be impossible for me to watch even if I suddenly got the urge. But now I know that someday these shows might end and retire to DVD – perhaps even after a satisfying conclusion – and that gives me something to look forward to.
The other thing that keeps me away from TV is the commercials. I’ve heard other non-TV watchers comment on this as well. Once you get away from TV for a couple of months, it sort of hurts to go back.
Television ads are loud, obnoxious, heavy-handed, obvious, grating, patronizing, demeaning, mean-spirited, predictable and (worst of all) mood shattering. I hate getting immersed in a story only to be yanked out, distracted, insulted, annoyed, and then thrown back into the narrative. It’s like being mugged in the middle of a conversation, and the other person simply wants to pick up where you left off once the assailant has departed.
Blocking out or ignoring commercials seems to be an ability that you develop over time. You get acclimated to them and learn to ignore them. Advertisers know this, which is why they are always trying to make them more intense and distracting. They all want your attention, and have to drown out all the other stuff in your brain to get it. Their goal is to more or less get you to stop thinking about the show you were enjoying so you can think about the crap they’re selling. People get desensitized to the current level of half-naked girls, screaming salesmen, and pestilent jingles, and so they have to intensify their efforts to overcome the viewers’ heightened immunity to audio and visual pollution. This is fine as long as you keep up, but if you leave television for months or years you’ll lose that filtering ability. Without it, the potency of modern advertising quickly reaches toxic levels. Once every other year I’ll end up in front of someone else’s television. I find that by the time a commercial break ends I’ll have forgotten what show I’m watching entirely. It’s disorienting and aggravating.
If I’m ever going to watch television shows again, it will probably have to be on DVD. It’s nice to know they are making shows I might enjoy. I remember the late nineties as a wasteland of unwatchable dreck, and I really didn’t think anything had changed until I saw the comments last week. Nice to know the stuff is there if the urge for that sort of thing ever returns.
Although I still maintain that there are upsides to the strike. It gives me no small pleasure to see these two on a picket line instead of “writing” or performing.
File under: Misc
Here are various miscellany, which I have gathered together in an attempt to pass them off as a “post”…
- I want to say sorry to the Comic Irregulars, the people behind Darths & Droids. I kind of short changed them the other day when I made it sound like David Morgan-Mar did the comic alone. It’s a team effort. You guys are great. Keep up the good work.
- Augury has a great series of posts on the weapons in the Unreal Tournament 3 Demo. I posted on this a while ago, but his series is a lot more in-depth. I actually learned a few details about the performance of the various weapons that I found surprising. (Example: I didn’t realize the BioRifle has the same damage output as the Enforcer in primary fire mode. I just assumed that it was a lot higher because… I dunno… the gun is bigger?) Very educational.
- The lack of posts here on the site? Oh, you noticed? No, I’m not taking part in the Writer’s Strike. Yes, My usual goal is two posts a day. Typically, I like to have a quick post at 8 am (written early that morning) and an essay at noon. (Usually written during the previous weekend.) I’ve managed two posts so far this week, and that’s if you include the half-assed thing you’re reading right now. Part of this is due to the fact that I goofed off all weekend, which stopped me from writing essays. The other reason is that I’ve begun an exercise regimen in the mornings, which stopped me from writing the quick posts. Thus the drought.
- I actually have a post for later today. I know, I know: What a hero. Really, you’re too kind.
Darths & Droids
I’ve been eagerly reading David Morgan-Mar‘s movie screencap comic Darths & Droids. He’s conjuring up the funny at a steady pace, and has even coaxed a few laughs out of my sour, recently-decaffeinated Ogreface. He mentions in the comments at the end of this strip that he very deliberately chose a different thrust for Darths, a move which I think will really pay off in the long run.
In DMotR, the story was mostly the product of one character (the Dungeon Master) who forced everyone through his story despite their many attempts to break free. I don’t know that I ever explicitly said so, but most of the time I imagined that the novels were the story the DM had in mind, and the movies were the result of simple mistakes and player sabotage. It didn’t always work out that way in practice, but that’s how I liked to think of it.
In Darths & Droids, the guy (?) running the game is not a railroader, and so the story is constantly being adapted to take into account the unpredictable actions of the players. This is a lot more like a “regular” game. For example, the Darths & Droids GM had no plans for the players to visit the surface of Naboo. When Ben and Jim (his two players so far) decide to go down to the planet, he has to come up with a world on the fly, and ends up freestyling a lot of stuff.
This change in the nature of the meta-story was a wise move, and let Morgan-Mar avoid falling into a rut where he’d be stuck re-hashing a lot of my “railroading DM” material.
On Sunday he struck gold with his explanation of why the politics on Naboo were so… unconventional. Alas, if only those of us who sat through the movie had such a comforting rationale for the rampant lunacy to which we were being exposed. It would have been nice to imagine that The Phantom Menace was the product of an elementary school relation of George Lucas, and not the work of the man himself. Now those of us who grew up with Star Wars are forced to wonder if the guy has finally lost it, or if he ever really had it to begin with. Did Star Wars become stupid, or was it always this way and I was too young to notice?
Also, I’d like to point out that Morgan Marr would be a great name for a Star Wars character.
Free Games: Open Arena and Nexuiz
In last week’s post on Unreal Tournament vs. Quake ]I[ Arena, a couple of readers provided links to some games based on the Quake ]I[ Arena source code.
Id Software is in the habit of releasing the source code for their games under the GPL once the game has finished its run. It is one of many reasons I love and admire the company, even at times when I might be lukewarm to their games. They are a great bunch and have done a lot to enrich the medium as well as the fans. In 2005 they released the source to Quake 3 Arena, and since then I’m sure thousands have downloaded and experimented with the source. Of course, only a small percent of those projects ever see public release. Below are a couple that have made it far enough to make a worthy release and build a fanbase.
(I experimented with the source for the original Quake back in 2001, and what I remember most is that John Carmack is a very readable coder. When I had trouble understanding his code, it was because he was doing something clever or complex, not because the code itself was hard to follow. I can promise you this is not usually the case when dealing with source code. Making your code readable and easy to follow is extra work and requires dicipline, and I really appreciate the effort he puts into his work.)
The thing about releasing the games this way is that they do not give away the art assets, only the source. This means you have everything you need to build your own version of the Quake executable, but you have no maps, textures, sound effects, music, movies, player models, weapons, or interface graphics. That stuff is all copyrighted. If you want to make your own version of the game, you need to come up with all of that stuff yourself. This is a tall order, and I admire any group of enthusists that can come together and create a game like this.
I’m sure there are other projects out there, but Open Arena and Nexuiz are the ones that were brought to my attention and therefore the games that I played.
Open Arena
Reader Saborlas provided a link to Open Arena. It looks to be a fairly faithful reproduction of the original Q3A gameplay. The game mechanics remain largely unchanged, right down to the things the announcer says and the feedback sound when you tag a foe with weapons fire. Even the interface is the same, except with new art. Playing this game feels just like Quake to me, although someone with more time invested with the original might find differences I couldn’t detect.
It supports play against bots, although the AI seemed a little strange. The bots tended to stick to a very predictable circut, and would often run along in close proximity to other foes without fighting. Since the game is using the perfectly serviceble AI from Q3A, I’m assuming this must be a problem with the design of the level.
In any case, it is by no means complete. There are only a handful of maps, but what is there is solid and interesting.
Nexuiz
Dihydrogen linked to Nexuiz, which is older (the project has been going for a couple of years now) and seems to have a different thrust. They aren’t making an exact copy of Q3A, but instead are trying to create something along the same lines but with different gameplay. The weapons, sounds, and interface are all very different.
I wasn’t able to give the game an honest evaluation. The mouse settings wouldn’t let me turn the sensitivity up high enough for the game to feel right. Even with it maxed out, turning my character still felt like piloting a barge. I’m not sure what went wrong there.
Both games have their quirks. These are both works-in-progress, but they are interesting and worth a look.
From The Archives:
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
The Loot Lottery
What makes the gameplay of Borderlands so addictive for some, and what does that have to do with slot machines?
Stop Asking Me to Play Dark Souls!
An unhinged rant where I maybe slightly over-reacted to the water torture of Souls evangelism.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Denuvo and the "Death" of Piracy
Denuvo videogame DRM didn't actually kill piracy, but it did stop it for several months. Here's what we learned from that.
Object-Disoriented Programming
C++ is a wonderful language for making horrible code.
The Truth About Piracy
What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
The Best of 2013
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2013.
Bethesda’s Launcher is Everything You Expect
From the company that brought us Fallout 76 comes a storefront / Steam competitor. It's a work of perfect awfulness. This is a monument to un-usability and anti-features.
Why Batman Can't Kill
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.