nerdbutts

The Power Of Silence: Why The SimCity Story Went Away | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Why has the SimCity story gone away? It’s a good question. And the answer for it reveals much about how both the games industry, and the games journalism

The quest for Shadow of the Colossus' last big secret

This is a fascinating article on the search to discover new secrets in the desolate landscape of Shadow of the Colossus, which is one of my favorite games. The end result of this article, for me, is the idea that there might be an area of study we could refer to as video game archaeology. I’ve seen this term used in reference to archiving old games that might have fallen by the wayside, but I mean it more in the sense of digging through the structure of the game to find abandoned ideas or artifacts from previous versions of the game. I know this is the purview of hackers, for the most part, but it’d be nice to see it given some legitimacy, and I think this article (and Nomad’s blog of unused colossi) point the way.

Okay! This is more like it. This week’s episode more than makes up for last week’s terrible, terrible mess. The pacing is smooth, the dialogue, while still pretty straightforward and sometimes borderline cliche, serves the story. The instructor’s notes on each of the soldiers at the beginning of the episode gets across everything we need to know about who these people are and where they stand in the relation to each other. In fact, they could have axed that last episode entirely and we might have been better off for it.

Read More

As you read this, almost 1800 films will have disappeared from Netflix instant streaming. Why? As Gothamist explains, the libraries of Warner Bros, Universal and MGM are going exclusive. Exclusive to what? Well, to Warner Bros new streaming setup, of course. They want a bigger piece of the streaming action, our goodly Bros, so they’re yanking the titles and launching their own service.

Read More

The blog over at the Rampant Games site has a fantastic essay on why “always on” DRM is a huge pain in the ass and damages our relationship to the medium. I always like to hear developers speak on these topics; it’s a different perspective from that of the angry gamer, and usually more informed as to the difficulty developers face. It’s definitely worth a look-see.

So, this week’s episode takes us through some basic training stuff. Okay, that’s fine, I guess. My problem with episodes of this type is that we’re being introduced to a bunch of people who will presumably be with our three main characters for a while, but I never know who to pay attention to, and in this case a lot of them didn’t really seem interesting enough to merit focus.

Read More

Help Us Save Our Cat, Lunchbox on Fundly

Our cat’s nerve sheath sarcoma is growing rapidly. We’re trying to get enough to get her tail removed, saving her life.

Hey, folks. I don’t often post things of this nature on here (since that’s not what this site’s for), but our cat, Lunchbox, has had a big, nasty tumor on the base of her tail for a while now. We’re trying to get her tail removed, which will be curative, but the tumor is growing fast and our window to get the surgery done is closing just as quickly. We’ve got most of the money; we just need a little bit to put us over the top. She’s like our kid, really, and if we get this surgery done we can have years and years with her. Anything you can do to help out would be great. Sorry for the “begging for money” post, and if you want to reblog it, you’ll be my hero.

Thanks,

Dave

Edited to add some pics of the little lady sitting nicely, and one of her doing her impression of a loaf of bread.

In contrast to Hataraku Maou-Sama!, Attack on Titan (Japanese title Shingeki no Kyojin) starts off really, really strong in the first episode and then deals with its aftermath with a lot of crying and hand-wringing in the second. Spoilers!

The story: all of humanity lives within the border of an enormous wall. There are two other walls within those walls, each providing another layer of protection. Protection from what? Well, as we see right off the bat in episode one, there are giant, vaguely-humanoid, malformed beings known as Titans who devour humans on sight. They don’t seem very smart, but they make up for it with sheer power. The outside wall has kept them at bay for two hundred years.

Read More

It’s the spring anime season! This means there’s a bunch of new anime making the rounds. I’ve been hearing the buzz on a few new series, and decided to go check ‘em out. There’s a few other reviews coming up, but the first series I watched two episodes of is Hataraku Maou-Sama! The exclamation is part of the title. The Devil Works! Like that, though most often, I see the title translated as The Devil is a Part-timer!

Read More

So I finally set up a Twitter account for the website. If you’re so inclined, my username is, very imaginatively, nerdbutts. Follow me if you like. Most likely I’ll tweet some tidbits of nerdery and social justice that don’t need a full post here/I’m too lazy to make a post about. Also I may or may not attack idiot racists whenever Public Shaming puts up something new. You know, just for funsies.