Episode 484: Letters!

This week’s podcast was delayed in publishing thanks to the holiday week being more hectic than usual. However, better late than never, and there’s even some listener feedback included!

The news items include:

  • Valkyria Chronicles 4 is mobilizing for deployment in the west in 2018
  • Clicker Heroes 2 developer abandons microtransaction model citing ethical concerns
  • Rainbow Six Siege is getting a high-tech ninja named Vigil
  • Minecraft is adding tridents, shipwrecks, dolphins and coral reefs in Spring 2018

Let us know what you think.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Mass Effect 3: What REALLY Went Wrong, And How To Fix ItMass Effect 3: What REALLY Went Wrong, And How To Fix It

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE ENDING AND EVENTS OF MASS EFFECT 3. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WISH THE GAME TO BE SPOILED FOR YOU.

In this day and age, one learns to take internet outrage with a heavy dollop of salt. The videogame community tends to be reactionary in the worst way, for a few reasons: they tend to be young, they tend to express their immediate feelings almost as a stream of consciousness, and let’s face it, the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory comes into play as well.

When it comes to game endings, when I hear that the community is upset about a game’s ending, I almost always take that as a good sign that the ending is daring and provocative. For example, there was an outcry over the abruptness of the ending of Halo 2, which had the nerve to conclude with a cliffhanger. The 2009 Prince of Persia reboot ended with the player undoing all of the work to free an ancient evil god they’d just imprisoned.

So when I heard that there was a growing outcry about the endings of Mass Effect 3, my interest peaked, because invariably, that meant the story was provocative and daring, instead of predictable and boring.

(more…)

Episode 464: EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II plansEpisode 464: EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II plans

Since the podcast recording last Wednesday had audio issues and the news was, frankly, boring, the crew decided to record a new 464th episode on Easter Sunday, after some more interesting stuff was announced near the end of the week. That, and Scott expresses his enthusiasm for Thimbleweed Park, the spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle, using a SCUMM-like interface.

This week’s news items include:

  • Diving into Project Scorpio’s backwards compatibility, 4K, VR, and 1080p support
  • Nintendo discontinues the NES Classic Edition
  • It looks like Star Wars: Battlefront II will ditch the Season Pass

All that and some Listener Feedback.

Diablo 3 Content Creation PhaseDiablo 3 Content Creation Phase

Now that Blizzard feels their engine is solid, it’s time to move on to creating content for the full game. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3‘s lead designer, says the game engine is in an advance stage of completion and much of the art team has moved onto Act 2. Don’t read into that, he said game engine.

Blizzard is obviously not hurting for money, given the success of World of Warcraft and they’ve always taken their time with projects to make them solid products. Blizzard’s name is on the line and they’re brand consists of three major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. When you produce so few games you’re expected to do them perfectly.

How do they do it? As Wilson says, “If we haven’t rebuilt something five times it really doesn’t deserve to be shipped. That’s pretty much our policy.” (eurogamer) While a game engine is the foundation for a great game experience, the content is king. Blizzard is deep in the mire of content production so, although the engine might be solid, the final product is probably still far from complete.

End result, expect a high quality product once again from Blizzard.