Archive for April 4th, 2011

Seriously. Don’t.

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Oh, hi! Bill here. Tom passed out on the floor of his living room (he had a few too many wine coolers, poor fella) shortly after shockingly asking me to contribute to the front page of his Fidgit blog or whatever, which I thought was pretty bold of him. The conversation went something like this:

Tom: “Hey man, you know what would be awesome? If you wrote for the front page of Quarterttothree!”

Me: “Dude you just threw up all over your stuffed animals. Wait, what did you just say?”

Tom: “You heard me. The front page. I think you might be able to keep pace with the talent level I’ve got going there. You could kinda point out and comment on the popular or interesting threads in the forums, like the Usenet Therapy columns on Gamecenter used to do.”

Me: “What’s the catch?”

Tom: “There’s no catch! Did you move my bottle of pink lemonade Schnapps? Oh, there it is. What were we talking about? Oh yeah. You can do and say whatever you want.”

Me: “…”

Tom: “Oh I feel all spinny! Be right back.” *Never returns*

After the jump, Bill ruins Quarter to Three Continue reading →

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I’m pretty sure everybody reading this has at one time or another had the experience of overpromising something, only to underdeliver in the end. Whether it’s a competitive game of League of Legends or a magical presidency of hope and change, we all know what it’s like to make commitments we’re just not able to keep. While I know I never actually promised anything as part of this series of articles, I was secretly hoping to be able to do one thing before I finished, and that was explain in detail how the combat system works. Unfortunately, I’m here to tell you that isn’t happening. Several weeks of scrutinizing the combat results and flipping through the manual has driven home the fact that short of learning assembly language or whatever COBOL derivative developers use to make games these days, the only way I’m going to be able to come through with that information is to steal it from Gary Grigsby’s hard drive. And since that’s something I’m loath to do unless fighting the terrorists, I’m going to have to settle for the layman’s version. I hope you’re not too disappointed.

The good news is that it doesn’t really matter, anyway.

After the jump, make peace with our bipartisan compromise solution to combat results. Continue reading →

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You can’t trust people who play videogames. They see things that aren’t there. Cheating AI, rigged die rolls, stacked decks. Or, worse, smart AI where there is no such thing. Piecemeal attacks are the AI probing your defenses! Bad pathfinding is actually a feint, or maybe even an attempt to flank you! Then they post these things on the internet. Then it’s true, because the bar for something being true on the internet is pretty low.

So when I heard in a few places that the AI in Shogun 2 spawns free armies in the fog of war, I didn’t really pay it much attention. I’ve played a fair bit and I’ve never gotten the impression that was happening. But more to the point, I couldn’t care less, because the AI provides exactly as much of a challenge as I want. If that means spawning free armies in the fog of war, spawn away, Shogun 2.

But it turns out no such thing is happening. An unidentified developer from Creative Assembly explains that the AI plays by the same basic rules as the player. But you can hardly blame people for being so flummoxed that Creative Assembly has made such a great game with a formidable AI. I know how they feel.

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Test Drive Unlimited 2 starts in a weird place. A rooftop dance party near the coast of Ibiza. Normally that would an annoying way to start a game based on driving. But you’ll come to realize this is a game based on two core concepts: driving with friends, and expressing your inner douchebag.

After the jump, the douche-doo that I do Continue reading →

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Hero of Leaf Valley takes an interesting approach to tutorials, and I’m of two minds about it. For farming and fishing, the controls are explained to you and you’re cut loose to try them out on your farm. But for other tasks — riding horses, mining for ore, cutting lumber, and cooking — you can do “part-time work” for your neighbors.

After the jump, how hard can it be to cut down trees? Continue reading →

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Source Code is Moon director Duncan Jones’ sophomore effort. Are our expectations too high? Find out on this week’s podcast. And at the one hour and one minute mark, this week’s 3×3 is our favorite uses of CG in a movie.

Podcast (movies): Play in new window | Download

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