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discount thoughts skip to main skip to sidebar discount thoughts this blog function is now deprecated pages discount thoughts about discount thoughts comment policy the page of shame september 6 2011 farewell discount thoughts hello discount thoughts well this has been coming for some time i haven t been exactly thrilled with jamming all these different kinds of content into a single blog and i ve felt a little pressed to make discount thoughts into only a blog exclusively about video games which is not what i ever meant for it to be so i ve decided to end discount thoughts in its present form and move to independent hosting where i can have some freedom to experiment and branch out that means leaving blogger this site will remain active in purely archival form for some time but there will be no further updates and comments will be closed if you re seeing this in your rss reader it s only because i didn t quite switch the feed over correctly so what of the new blogs well there are now three discount thoughts will be the home of my personal posts and everything that doesn t fit into the two subject blogs conformational flux will be the home of my posts on scientific articles and commentaries on science ludonarratology will be the home of my videogame related writing i hope you ll come along and enjoy the future at my new websites read the rest labels omphalos august 19 2011 brief thoughts week of august 19 from dust s pc port has always online drm is crap really who didn t see this coming ubisoft has a richly deserved reputation for hating on the pc and from dust s drm and terrible port can hardly be a surprise in light of the company s past actions ubisoft s upcoming driver san francisco will probably also have this asinine drm ubisoft claims it will not but a similar claim was made for from dust as the man said fool me once shame on shame on you fool me won t get fooled again fortunately a cracked version is already available so you can still play it on pc without ubi s hateful drm but don t be a dick guys buy a legit copy and run the cracked one or you can just play pc games from companies other than ubisoft that is after all what they clearly want read the rest 4 comments labels roundup august 17 2011 capsule trauma status complete all endings and pictures obtained most intriguing idea using hidden object gameplay as an analogy for self examination best design decision the ghost photo navigation system worst design decision describing the possible endings under the discoveries tab these are telegraphed enough as is read the rest 0 comments labels capsule comment august 16 2011 capsule child of eden status completed all levels final level in feel eden mode most intriguing idea gameplay as synaesthesia best design decision the feel eden mode worst design decision having modes that are not feel eden read the rest 0 comments labels capsule comment august 12 2011 brief thoughts week of august 12 rage to require 22 gb install on xbox 360 the game is also shipping on three discs two for the main game 1 for multiplayer my understanding is that rage will still be playable from disc albeit with a notable performance hit it s a little silly to be outraged by this no pun intended despite microsoft s ludicrous price gouging on hard drives the existence of the hard drives always made this sort of requirement a temptation and ps3 owners have already enjoyed mandatory installs for some games the next generation of consoles will all have hard drives because we re reaching an era where the performance hit due to streaming data from disc is becoming noticeable given the increasing penetration of broadband and wi fi and the growing publisher side popularity of always on drm as well as their desire to squelch sales of used games the total abandonment of optical media may be nearer than we think read the rest 3 comments labels briefs august 5 2011 roundup week of august 5 2011 this was a big week for fans of loot whoring rpgs yeah diablo iii to have always on drm no modding real money transactions let s not beat around the bush here or buy in to blizzard s frankly insulting rationalizations for the always online requirement these are not choices in favor of optimization they represent drm that can only make the single player experience worse the no modding choice in particular takes a dump on one of the great advantages of the pc i can t say i care one way or another about paying real money for digital swords nor would it matter that ship has sailed returned to harbor laden with riches from distant lands and sailed again this is a case where i can vote with my dollars though so runic games probably owes activision blizzard a thank you note the story s amusing coda is presented by blizzard s robert bridenbecker whose bewildered response to the outcry is so larded with pr speak it barely seems like a communication from a human being read the rest 0 comments labels roundup august 2 2011 scenario and story in bastion bastion is a game with marvelous art a wonderful soundtrack and solid mechanics but it was not sold to the public on the strength of these aspects rather it was sold on its storytelling system in which a narrator responds to what the main character called only the kid is doing in the game however the narrator actually does relatively little of this and bastion s plot is thinly realized offering little insight into its characters and their motivations rather the game s storytelling system primarily delivers background information on the city of caelondia and the calamity that has caused the destruction of the city and its environs bastion s narrative puts scenario first and story second in a way that both supports and weakens its central themes read the rest 4 comments labels bastion game critique video games july 28 2011 brief thoughts from july nintendo drops 3ds price by 80 it had to be done given the below expectations sales numbers and widespread hyperventilation over them the ds also had a slow start in terms of both sales and software but that was before mobile phones were the most widespread handheld platform as such a price cut may not be enough to save the 3ds the new price certainly doesn t do much for me my only experience with the handheld gave me a splitting headache and the lineup of games includes exactly one thing i want to play and even then i m satisfied with oot s original graphics as for early adopters the free virtual console games they ll get should take away a bit of the sting but they probably feel a bit betrayed while the price drop may shore up 3ds sales it may adversely affect the wii u launch it would only make sense to hold off on buying a new home console after all given nintendo s demonstrated willingness to burn its most loyal fans speaking of which read the rest 2 comments labels briefs video games july 11 2011 actor director producer the player role in rpg battles i have more to say about final fantasy xiii but that post is so depressing to write i thought i d hold off for now and elaborate on a point i made in my post discussing its combat mechanics role playing games tend to get broadly divided into turn based and action categories distinctions that are not particularly informative often get used inaccurately and don t usefully elaborate the relationship between the player and the system the battle systems in rpgs can be described in a variety of orthogonal ways each of which has some value for describing the game s engagement with the player here i want to focus on the role of the player in dictating the course of the battle traditionally the player has either been an actor or a director but in the past decade or so producer style play has also become common depending on context any of these player roles can be used to generate a compelling play experience but an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses is essential read the rest 2 comments labels idiosyncratic vocabulary video games july 6 2011 final fantasy xiii a series of tubes the worst reason to hate final fantasy xiii is because of its linearity non linearity doesn t necessarily improve a game and following a constrained path doesn t necessarily make it worse all final fantasy games including the most highly praised ones have been essentially linear in both story and world design and ffxiii is not even unique in degree given ffx a player s desire to break out of a constrained experience is usually not a result of linearity per se but instead reflects a failure of the game s story to engage that player failure is a reasonably good description of ffxiii s story which is surprising because square enix had done so much of this stuff before read the rest 1 comments labels adventure games final fantasy game critique july 5 2011 final fantasy xiii the best part despite respectable review scores and reasonably good sales final fantasy xiii is widely derided for many good reasons and a few bad ones defenders of the game often point to the battle system as the game s saving grace i found myself sharing the sentiment when i played through the game recently that might be seen as damning by faint praise given that so much of the game was attacked but the combat system really is quite strong and manages to incorporate principles that are familiar from hard core rpgs in a dynamic and accessible way while it probably won t satisfy players who cut their teeth on those older systems ffxiii represents an interesting fusion of principles read the rest 0 comments labels final fantasy game critique video games june 27 2011 the road course this past weekend marked an interesting turn in the nascar racing season by which i mean a right turn both the sprint cup and nationwide tour visited road courses a rare departure for a racing brand built on ovals the weight center of gravity and wheelbase of a stock car can make even the ovals difficult to drive at racing speeds so even though the road courses make use of the same basic skills they pose a unique and difficult challenge so much so that it was once typical to see ringers with road racing expertise make an appearance at the two annual road races the change up can result in some uniquely exciting racing or as happened this weekend in both races bruising wrecks video games that try to change up their gameplay midstream face similar risks to understand this we need look no further than the shmups appearing in goichi suda s third person action games no more heroes and shadows of the damned read the rest 0 comments labels game critique nascar no more heroes shadows of the damned video games older posts home subscribe to posts atom notice this blog has moved to new digs at www mwclarkson com the gaming posts specifically have moved to ludonarratology while the science posts can now be found at conformational flux i hope you will come over and see the new things i have been doing at these sites rss feed subscribe to discount thoughts about me sparky view my complete profile also a contributor to critical distance gamecritics com ray bradbury s love camel motley crew other sites i like research blogging ray bradbury s love camel erv public library of science biomagresbank expasy isi web of knowledge protein data bank pubmed follow sparkyclarkson at http twitter com sparkyclarkson license information this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution noncommercial share alike 3 0 united states license past thoughts 2011 31 september 1 farewell discount thoughts hello discount thoug august 6 july 4 june 5 may 2 april 4 march 4 february 2 january 3 2010 55 december 3 november 3 october 7 september 3 august 6 july 1 june 7 may 3 april 4 march 7 february 8 january 3 2009 64 december 4 november 7 october 6 september 6 august 8 july 3 june 1 may 3 april 6 march 7 february 3 january 10 2008 112 december 6 november 4 october 7 september 4 august 7 july 6 june 12 may 7 april 13 march 14 february 20 january 12 2007 63 december 4 november 12 october 14 september 15 august 17 july 1 popular posts the real john marston scenario and story in bastion rapid evolution of lizards in the adriatic allostery without conformational change the curious case of kainé who wants to be lloyd irving the evolution of protein folds obligatory pax post the trouble with tripitaka dynamic origins of pbx1 homeodomain allostery