Weregamer's Game Musings

I like the games I like, and I'm no longer in the business of making games, so in many ways this article is not to my address. But it was still really worth my time to read carefully. It never gets anywhere near the stupid misogynistic pseudo-editorial "defense of games" crap that I'm not naming to avoid the still-raging humans pretending to be flamebots, and it comes from the opposite, and very constructive direction. And it quotes Tim Gunn more than once, in a very on-topic way. Tim Gunn is an awesome individual, even though I doubt he's ever been in the same room as a videogame for long. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-07-video-games-are-boring

The Wii U was (IMO) a dumb idea that (factually) tanked, evidence that Nintendo had no clue how to follow up what made the Wii a breakthrough product. But it looks like they may have figured out what they are doing right with the 3DS, and how to really cash in on the new trend toward multiscreen entertainment at home without being needlessly expensive, asymmetrically lame on multiplayer, and totally separate from their successful handhelds. http://kotaku.com/heres-your-first-look-at-the-nx-nintendos-upcoming-con-1788004927

This is a really clever idea, especially after some of the total boners on pre-order ideas by other companies in the recent past (I'm thinking of the craptastic thing Bethesda tried and abandoned for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.) . The pre-order bonus for Civ 6 will be immediate access to a Civ that all other players will get for free three months later. So it's not a financial offer - latecomers won't have to pay anything. But it's still a great incentive for those of us who would buy the game anyway, to take the risk of pre-ordering. Admittedly, Firaxis is one of the few companies that I don't feel I'm risking much to preoorder from. Even Civ: Beyond Earth , which was quite a bit weaker than I'd hoped and expected, was not such a disappointment that I felt I'd not have bought it if I'd waited for reviews. And Starships was clearly telegraphed and priced as a "lite" game. But this approach is something that I hope other companies will...

This game was on one-day sale on Steam this week, and it had some really glowing reviews (especially at Rock, Paper, Shotgun which is one of the sites I trust most). After playing for a couple nights, I have realized that I like this game a lot but I'm not enjoying playing it. Some of the problem is the inept Windows coding and lack of display settings. No video settings at all - it can only run at desktop resolution, and while it might have been OK in 2010 when the game was first written, that makes things just too tiny on a moderate screen at high resolution. A bigger part of the problem is that the screen is uselessly cluttered for manipulating stuff or watching the details of what happens when there are more than a couple things on screen. If you are used to EVE, or otherwise can adjust to a UI where you see things on the screen but have to use menus to select and manipulate them, it's only annoying (like EVE, but without the good reasons EVE has this problem). But if...