Diecast #285: Guitar, Rimworld, Saints Row the Third
Happy New Year! Reminder: Next week I’ll have SoldierHawk on the show. If you have any questions for her, the show email is in the header image.
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Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast285
Show notes:
00:00 Happy New Year
I played games for the new year. I started playing Saints Row 3 at 11:30pm. The next time I looked at the clock it was 12:20. In my defense, I’ve done quite a few of these things by now. This was the fifth time in my life I’ve watched the decade roll over, and it’s not as special as it used to be.
02:21 Shamus is “playing” the guitar.
In this segment I claimed that it doesn’t say “Squier” on my guitar. This is incorrect. It says so in GREAT BIG LETTERS on the head. For bonus incompetence, the guitar was right beside me when I recorded this. If I’d just moved my eyes a few degrees to the right, I’d have been looking at the object in question rather than relying on my faulty memory.
So far my playing style sounds like this:
Passable strumming a D chord » Awkward Pause » Shaky strumming a C chord » Awkward Pause » Passable strumming a G chord » Awkward Pause » Mangled D chord » Muttered cursing
But who cares? It’s fun!
05:52 Paul is playing Rimworld with his Wife
14:37 Shamus is playing Saints Row: The Third
Such an excellent game. It’s a shame the series died with its developer. I suppose it’s possible the rights could make it into the hands of someone new, but there’s no reason to expect that a new team would nail this particular feel. Likely as not we’d end up with something like Crackdown 3, and nobody needs that. There are enough broken hearts out there already.
19:58 Paul Wrote a Book Review:
You can read it here.
In this section I alluded to game developers that have been bad at taking criticism, but I didn’t name any names. It really is funny when you find yourself on both sides on the critic / creative divide. I’ll see a creator defending their work by claiming that the audience “just doesn’t get it”. It’s a cringe-y argument, because making sure the audience “gets it” is literally your job. But then I’ll release a game or a book, and I’ll find myself drawn to those sorts of defenses. It takes a certain degree of self-discipline to take the criticism and apply it rather than trying to invalidate the critic’s arguments.
If nothing else, I think spending a little time on both sides of the divide will make you better at both.
26:48 Mailbag: Elder Scrolls Mods
Dear Diecast,
It’s incredible to me how much effort and passion the fans of The Elder Scrolls series are capable of putting into some of the biggest modifications for these games. Between Tamriel Rebuilt, Skywind, Beyond Skyrim and Daggerfall Unity, it seems that it is a really good time to be a fan of the franchise – if one can find the time to play these enormous projects. Are you interested in one of them? If so, what drew you in?
Cheers,
Darek
This is the Vice City in GTA Mod I discussed on the show:
Link (YouTube)
It really is amazing what the community can do.
33:54 Mailbag: Detroit: Become Human
Hi guys,
I recently remembered that Detroit is coming to PC, so I will use my superpowers of persuasion to convince or bribe Shamus into reviewing it, because of course, this game contains his favorite two things: QTEs and lots of story!
/s
Joking apart, I would love for you to review Detroit, because it was actually decent, I think, even if I don’t love QTEs that much too.
This email is continued in the next section…
39:37 Mailbag: Partner Games
My wife likes to watch games because she can’t play (no patience and no dexterity), and so she enjoys when games have lots of story and ‘cinematic’ styling. So we try to find games that i can play and she can enjoy watching. We played Detroit, The Last Guardian, A Plague Tale, a bit of Death Stranding (she lost interest once the cutscenes started to be less frequent), Life is Strange, Tomb Raider… It can be diverse.
So, have one of you had this kind of… erm… common hobby I guess ? with you partner of choice ? And would you have a few game recommandations ? We try to find games that are interesting story-wise, and if possible not always about killing thousands of people (’tis the reason we stopped the nu-Tomb Raiders, we liked the old ones more).
Thanks and cheers
Prancibald