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Critical miss

One of the most disconcerting things about the world we live in is that it’s not quite how we perceive it. What we see is not necessarily what may actually be there because the brain sometimes makes faulty assumptions about the things our eyes take in. Betty Edwards demonstrated this easily with her drawing of two differently positioned tables which were apparently of different lengths as well. They were, of course, the same exact size but that seemed impossible before measurement. Optical illusions are certainly neat but there’s a greater point to be made here: we are easily fooled. That’s something to remember.

If we’re able to, that is. Another weird thing about us is we don’t really remember all that well because our memories aren’t foolproof either. Rather than accurate records, memories are reconstructions by the brain, adaptations based on actual events but not necessarily completely faithful to them. (Consequently, eyewitness testimony is one of the least reliable forms of evidence in courtrooms.)

So, not only are we easily fooled by what we see but we have trouble remembering things as they actually were.

Given those considerations, we could be forgiven for having a lot of doubts when casting a critical eye on something. Indeed, making a judgment call about anything seems really hard.

Cue sad violin music.

Continued…

Posted in Games.

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By Gobi – Sunday, June 24, 2012

The old that is strong does not wither

Wow
(Source.)

Posted in Games.

rev="post-4079" 3 comments

By Gobi – Sunday, April 8, 2012

Draw Something


“If this is a model for entertainment in the post-PC era, we’re in for a good time.”
To be fair, she did make an effort to use two colours

Posted in Games.

rev="post-4075" 2 comments

By Gobi – Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The long and short of it

How long should a game be?

Six hours? Sixty?

What is the right length?

As with the related questions, “How much should a game cost?” and “How costly should a game’s development be?”, the issue is nowhere near as simple as it appears on the surface and the article purporting to reveal the truth of the matter is somewhat suspect as it gives disproportionate weight to the truthiness of some truths while overlooking other inconvenient truths.

The short answer to the question is the standard shifty-eyed, feet-shuffling evasion: “Well, it depends.” The long answer boils down to the same thing but it does at the very least bring up some interesting discussion points along the way to the same unsatisfactory conclusion.

You were only killing time and it'll kill you right back - J. Steinman

(Source.)

Continued…

Posted in Games.

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By Gobi – Saturday, February 18, 2012

Apocalypse through a window

It is the year 2012 and according to ancient Mayan beliefs and prophecies, this is the year writers are obliged to make cute references to the Apocalypse in their intros. Even when discussing X-COM: Apocalypse.

X-COM Apocalypse: Don't Get Hurt

The Steam version of X-COM: Apocalypse utilises the brilliant emulator, DOSBox, which runs the game in fullscreen mode by default. Although it’s perfectly playable that way, X-COM’s top scientists have determined that staring at blown-up jaggies on large displays for prolonged periods of time is not conducive to defending Mega-Primus because the experience is, and here I quote their report, “like, a total downer, man.”

(Memo to self: forbid top scientists from conducting further “research” on Psyclone.)

Fortunately, DOSBox is easily configurable. Unfortunately, its ins and outs may not be intuitive. For instance, running X-Com: Apocalypse in a DOSBox window is easy enough: change the fullscreen setting to “false”. The downside is the gripping drama in Mega-Primus plays out in an itsy-bitsy 640×480 window and our top scientists, impaired as they were, were frustrated in their attempts to scale the window. X-COM operative “Major Isoor”, looking to solve another problem, has the solution. The trick is to change both the windowresolution and the output settings.

The DOSBox file to tweak is dosbox.conf, which in Steam’s default installation is located in Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/xcom apocalypse. (Be sure to back up the dosbox.conf file before editing it.)

To run the game in a 1024×768 window, make the following edits.

fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=original
windowresolution=1024×768
output=ddraw

If the game feels a little sluggish running under DOSBox, experiment with the cycles setting. A 30000 setting feels right on my machine but 20000 might be a good place to start.

cycles=20000

To prevent the opening cinematic from playing every time the game launches, locate the “xcomapoc.exe” line in dosbox.conf and make the following change:

xcomapoc.exe skip

With that taken care of, Commander, let me remind you of your mandate from the Senate: invaders must die.

Posted in Games, X-COM.

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By Gobi – Saturday, January 28, 2012