Notes: Videogames

Somewhere on the streets of Tbilisi. As a big fan of the Dishonored series, I just couldn’t walk past this. I’m sure there’s a safe nearby that this code unlocks!

Colleagues are actively experimenting with o1-preview from OpenAI: the model turned out to be genuinely interesting. Unfortunately, tasks for it don’t come up too often — regular 4o handles most day-to-day stuff just fine. Bug-finding in code, analyzing medical tests in an unfamiliar language, or trying to recall the name of a childhood book with only a vague recollection of the plot — I can’t easily think of anything it wouldn’t handle.

It’s always fascinating to see how the AI reasons, jokes, and generally tries to act human. I’d say it won’t pass the Turing test just yet, but every now and then, it comes eerily close.

The answer below made me smile. Even leaving philosophy aside — looks like Skynet is off the table! :) Though, I’m afraid the future from the SOMA ending is still possible.

When ChatGPT remembers a detail from a conversation for the future, it displays a "Memory updated" badge above its response. Like, got it:

Every time I see it, it makes me smile because it instantly reminds me of The Walking Dead and the meme “Clementine will remember that”. In that game, the characters surrounding the protagonist would remember his decisions, and it would influence their behavior. This included Clementine — a girl the main character saved at the beginning of the game.

In the game, this mechanic was honestly implemented in a rather mediocre way, but when it comes to ChatGPT — it works. The attention to detail is so strong that sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m talking to a language model, not an extraordinarily attentive and very knowledgeable person.

The nice episode of the “We Are Doomed” IT podcast about developer burnout. No insights, but you can hear something useful for yourself. I liked the analogy with video games, somewhere close to the middle:

There was such a game — Diablo. RPG, all sorts of spells, you know. A character has mana and health, and when you have no mana to cast… Ha, I sound like a nerd! Well, nevermind. Briefly speaking, when you have no mana to cast, it's taken from your health.

— Doctor Cat

They’ve given the legendary, but now pretty creaky, Half-Life a careful makeover and thrown in a bunch of new ideas. It turned out great; you can really see the fans put their hearts into it :-) Xen benefited especially, although I think the factory could have been shorter. Still, the reworked Nihilanth fight more than makes up for all the suffering.

There are minor issues with music, optimization, and translation, but nothing particularly serious. Given how long it was in development, it’s amazing they got it out at all. Long projects tend to wear people out and burn them out, and that’s before you even get to the enormous job of bringing a twenty-year-old game up to date! Quite a nasty piece of work you managed over there, guys. I am impressed.

The little one and I finished River City Girls together, a recently released beat ’em up. That’s the genre where you beat up everyone you don’t like.

In the photo, I’m watching ten-year-old Lisa confidently send a crowd of Japanese bruisers flying.

I have two complaints about this game. First, its Altered Items: their descriptions feel a bit tame next to the SCP Foundation writers’ wild ideas. There are some pleasant exceptions, but this part still feels weaker than the rest of the game’s paranormal material.

My second gripe is where they chose to play My Dark Disquet by Poets of the Fall. Damn it, that track is far too good for such an unremarkable section! I expected it during the credits or some crazy fight.

I know both complaints sound a bit silly, but that really is all I’ve got. Control looks fantastic, plays brilliantly, and tells a great story. The only reason I won’t be giving anyone this game for New Year is that the Epic Games Store doesn’t support gifting yet :-)

I was already sold on the redheaded devil in the Control trailer, and now the folks at Remedy have played an unbeatable hand with this video.

Listen to this: it’s almost indecently good! Can we somehow fast-forward to the end of August? :-)

And if the game is good, this usually happens without you noticing. There you are, playing some niche Asian horror game, and then, click! A couple of hours later you come to your senses somewhere on Wikipedia, on the page about the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.

The article about the Fermi paradox really is good, by the way: an overview, perhaps, but a lively one written by someone who loves the subject.

It’s the near future, and you are the artificial intelligence of a space station struck by disaster. Your systems are malfunctioning, most data is lost, and the crew is God knows where. You need to work out what happened and put things right.

That’s how No Code’s recent Observation starts. The game is fantastic. If you’re into sci-fi, especially the classics, Arthur C. Clarke and that kind of thing, you’ll love it. Of the games I’ve played recently in this genre, only SOMA is better.

Do yourself a favor: skip the reviews, because journalists can’t string two words together without spoilers. Skip the official trailer too. The game has a brilliant intro, and you should see it as part of the story, not on YouTube.

The intro’s music was written by Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails, by the way. The visuals don’t make sense when you first see them, but once you work out what you’re looking at, they really get to you.

Dear diary! Today I got paid to draw Doomguy teaching Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled how to fire a heavy assault rifle. Today was a good day!

― izra

I love artists. Special people :-)

(Also pictured: me teaching my daughter how to rush with zealots in StarCraft 2.)

A fairly short story, but it makes an impression. You can’t lose, and there isn’t much choice beyond dialogue options. But the sound, the visuals, and the beautifully written characters are surprising and touching, even when you guess the plot twists before they happen.

Overall, the game reminded me of something between Firewatch and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. I’d have liked a slightly longer story and a lot more drama, but I still loved how it ended. My feelings about the ending can be summed up by, spoiler warning, this picture :-)

We recently released another version of FirstBIT ERP, our business automation product for the UAE. A ton of work went into it, everything works as intended, there’s plenty to be proud of, and so on. I put a lot of effort into building a full data exchange with Bitrix24, for example, and I’m very happy I managed to finish it.

But deep down I’m still a little envious of our game development colleagues: our patch notes are interesting too, of course, but you won’t find anything like this in them.

A lovely isometric exploration game about a town filled with classic Japanese ghosts and a girl looking for her missing sister. It’s not all that scary; mostly it keeps you on edge. Not all that hard either, though you do have to pay attention: there are lots of ghosts, they all behave differently, and you can’t afford to wander around daydreaming. It’s not all that fast, though you’ll need quick reflexes here and there, especially near the end.

I came away feeling really good about it. Maybe they didn’t have millions to spend, but you can tell they tried to make the best game they could.

Game journalists and YouTubers are competing to tear Close to the Sun apart in their reviews, but I unexpectedly liked it. It’s certainly no masterpiece, yet it captures the atmosphere of an enormous Flying Dutchman brilliantly. Parts of it bring BioShock to mind, but I’m not about to tear a story apart just because it reminds me of something else.

There’s also a fantastic single playing over the end credits, which literally sold me the game a couple of days ago. You can listen to it without touching the game itself.

This is a tricky game to recommend, but it really is art, in the most literal sense. I can’t remember the last time a game had me so spellbound I couldn’t tear myself away.

Maybe it was the art, maybe the music, or maybe how honestly the creators captured the feeling they were trying to get across.

I wasn’t expecting much, but this game surprised me. It looks good, the attention to detail shows, and overall it’s rather nice. Toward the end, it’s even touching.

Play it properly: turn off the lights, put on headphones, and, of course, switch off your inner nitpicker.

A good video about loneliness, its causes, and its consequences. Spoiler: it’s serious, right down to the biological level. The narration is in English, but Russian subtitles are available if needed.

(A tweet that sums it up nicely.)

(Also, apparently I’ve played enough StarCraft II that I can only hear the title in Zeratul’s voice, with the music from Alone.)

One thing that makes learning English much easier is practice that practically falls into your lap. Sometimes it’s more useful than examples from something like the Cambridge Dictionary, simply because it sticks better.

Yesterday in class, for example, we were working on hypothetical situations and getting our heads around wish and if only. Today, the first thing in my feed was this tweet. Hard to make it any clearer :-)

Or take the difference between try and trying, which we recently reviewed. I memorized it long ago thanks to Felicity’s strained “I do my best” in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. That scene sticks with you, and so does the sense that she just can’t do what’s being asked of her.

The folks at Valve keep teasing fans of their games, whether out of habit or because someone there really thinks it’s a great way to stay in people’s minds.

Sure, we all know where things stand with Valve making games. Few people seriously expect Half-Life 3 or, say, a Portal sequel. Still, I can’t help smiling at the effortless grace of Valve dealing with its fans. Like a bull in a china shop.