Painfully Obvious

Feb1

82% (Minimum score is 0; maximum is 100.)

1

Mass Effect 2

On one hand, it boasts a story of comparable quality and a leap forward in combat gameplay. It easily warrants more than one playthrough.

On the other hand… must they excise so much of what makes a game an RPG? I’m speaking mostly about the level system, looting, item customization, and a handful of other things that were completely retooled from the previous Mass Effect.

But in one other aspect, too. In the real world, stuff exists on the edges of the frame. Stuff you’ll never end up examining in detail, but which exists even so. This stuff is important! It lends crucial verisimilitude to the game’s universe! When it’s trimmed, as it seems to have been in Mass Effect 2, that universe feels stark and linear, as though you were on a “save the galaxy” amusement park ride. Tycho explains it better.

Jan25

2

Bourbon Street after Saints win

I was at the Saints’ first playoff victory in 2001. On the way out, walking along the concourse, we were high-fiving perfect strangers as they walked in the other direction. Last night, my parents called me as they drove home from where they’d gone to watch the game. I could hear people yelling, cars honking, and fireworks cracking.

0

Saints 31, Vikings 28

Unless I’ve been dreaming for the last eight hours, the Saints are going to the Super Bowl. Here, Tracy Porter celebrates the interception that kept the score tied at the end of the fourth quarter.

Jan19

2

Mock geolocation

Useful if you’re working on a website meant for mobile devices. Firefox 3.5 has geolocation, but I use this with Safari and GreaseKit. Replace with whatever latitude and longitude you prefer, naturally.

if (!('geolocation' in navigator)) {
  navigator.geolocation = {
    watchPosition: function(success, f, options) {
      var broadcast = function() {
        var position = {
          coords: {
            latitude: 30.2696384,
            longitude: -97.74947,
            accuracy: 10000,
          },
          timestamp: (new Date()).valueOf()
        };
        success(position);
      };

      broadcast();
      window.setInterval(broadcast, 10000);
    }
  };
}

Jan2

1

A stream-of-consciousness browsing session brought me to this writeup on how the Source engine deals with lag. Also serves as a parable for web developers — don’t rely on the client to validate input, for the same reason that a game server can’t trust a participant to tell it if that bullet hit anything. See also Ninjam, a clever latency workaround for online jam sessions. And consider that even without the inherent delays of Internet traffic, the speed of light would be a constraint on distant collaboration.

95% (Minimum score is 0; maximum is 100.)

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

You don’t need me to tell you how good this game is; the rest of the gaming world got there first. I don’t know if any one game can be a “system-seller” — but if you already own a PS3, it’s inexcusable not to own Uncharted 2.

It’s not just good; it’s unusually, surprisingly good. It’s unusual for a game to be this much better than its prequel. It’s unusual for a game to make such large graphical leaps over its prequel on same-generation hardware.

But most of all, it’s unusual for a game to have this much polish. Video games are developed according to rigorous schedules, lest the technology become outdated before the game’s done. Nearly all games, regardless of quality, have to scale back their ambitions in order to ship on time.

Maybe there’s stuff that didn’t make it into Uncharted 2. But it doesn’t look that way from the outside. If Naughty Dog have figured out how to streamline the game development process, then they possess a competitive edge far more important than tech specs.

Dec27

Maggie

My parents’ Yorkie rests atop my brother-in-law Mike.

Dec24

Cat in a basket

Stayed with friends in Houston last night. Claire, one of their cats, prefers the basket (which is meant for holding cat toys) over his cat tent.

Starlite Theatre

Took this today while passing through Brenham on my way to Houston. A few minutes on Google tells me this theatre was opened in the 1950s and closed in 1980.

Dec17

I was saying around the office that I think what was missing from the Lieberman public option sellout deal was a healthy dose of liberal catharsis. Like if Lieberman got the leadership to agree to drop the public option, but in exchange Bernie Sanders gets to slap Lieberman five times in the face as hard as he can.

— Matthew Yglesias