Rant: Sick & Tired

You've heard the news.  Some asshole decided to be the quintessential sore loser at a Madden tournament and killed four people, including himself.  And once again, the same waltz plays, over and over, with two sides taking absolutist positions which anybody with even a nanogram of sense has to realize will never come about.

I am getting mighty sick of this shit.

From The Morgue: Five U.S. Generals Who Screwed Up Badly

No, this isn't gaming related in the slightest.  But it's proof that I have interests beyond gaming (though I will confess there are a few gaming references scattered throughout).  This particular piece was pitched to Cracked, which ostensibly has a policy of "submit anything and we'll publish it."  Their process is pretty haphazard and I stuffed this one into the morgue when it became clear they weren't particularly interested in it.  Apparently, my sense of humor isn't something that lends itself to their brand.  Yes, there are gaming references, and I'm leaving them in as I found them.

Random Access Mutterings: Veteran of The Tiberium Wars

There's a downside to being an older gamer which I don't think I'd ever really considered before.  I can remember the origins of some "new" games, recalling the source material of the games that came before them, and watching in faint horror as they're repurposed into something contemptible.  A recent article on Kotaku covered Electronic Arts' new mobile game, Command & Conquer: Rivals, and the writer caught all manner of hell for it from commenters.  In some respects, the commenters were wrong.  In others, they were absolutely right.

Letting Off Steam

Valve is catching hell over its recent decision to allow pretty much any sort of game on Steam, with the caveats of anything "illegal" or "straight-up trolling" still being subject to scrutiny.  Naturally, people are freaking out.  They foresee the descent of Steam into a cesspool of hateful "games" which will serve as positive reinforcement for abhorrent behaviors.  Somehow, I doubt this is what will happen, at least as far as how some pundits are looking at it.

After-Action Report: Destiny 2 - Warmind (Campaign & Updates)

(WARNING: Minor spoilers for the main story campaign in Warmind)

The worst add-on in Year 1 of the original Destiny was arguably The Dark Below.  Some may point out the storyline and the grind for House of Wolves got to be pretty bad, but it gave us new areas, a whole new weapon type (sidearms), the Prison of Elders, and related good stuff.  But TDB suffered from basically being a tremendous tease for The Taken King.  It gave us the Crota raid, sure.  It packed in new weapons and made swords briefly playable (which was more than players had gotten up to that point).  It had a lot of great story ideas which didn't execute quite as well as they probably should have, but was partially redeemed with TTK came out.

Up until a day ago, I was firmly of the opinion that Curse of Osiris would remain the champion of bad Destiny 2 expansions.  The inevitable first fumble trying to extend the main game.  And yet, I'm starting to think there may be a pattern involved which does not bode well for the series.  It seems like the first expansion Bungie makes which centers around the Hive is also going to be the one digging the giant crater that later expansions will have to haul themselves out of.  Because there is some serious failure happening in Warmind, and it's killing me.

Random Access Mutterings: Asymmetrical Warfare in Assassin's Creed

An article from Stephen Totilo appeared on Kotaku recently which discussed the editor-in-chief's growing sympathy towards (and some might argue self-flagellation over) the various enemies he's been dispatching in Assassin's Creed: Origins.  Specifically, he came across a love letter addressed to the captain of a base he was infiltrating, and it apparently gave Totilo the feels.  A twinge of "gamer's angst" about the otherwise nameless mooks that the player is required to dispatch in order to advance the game.

To which I respond: Quit whinging, Stephen.

Random Access Mutterings: Streets of San Francisco

I recently went to GDC 2018 on a press pass.  It was an interesting time, met some very interesting developers, saw some really cool games, got a little motion sick in my very first VR experience, and damned near drowned from all the rain coming down.  But a tweet from an Australian developer is causing a bit of a ruckus.