Can an AI chatbot be an on-demand walkthrough?
Plus Lego sales, gaming earbuds and we all are getting old.
Hello there, and happy quarterly Steam Sale to all who participate. This is usually where I’d give advice on avoiding the pitfalls and psychological tricks of deep discounts for things you don’t need, but I just ignored all the advice and loaded up on random stuff I might never play. Except Mail Mole. I promise I’m going to play that the very next time I have a spare minute.
This week I go on an extended rant about using an AI chatbot to answer game help questions on the fly, and have a new batch of game anniversaries for the month just passed, while Alice is trying out a fancy set of gaming earbuds and walking through the current LEGO sales. Let’s go!
Help or hallucination
By Tim
Generative AI is great at absorbing human creations, then presenting them as its own without much credit or understanding. And so I wondered, with the wealth of game help content all over the internet, could a chatbot make for a good play companion?
I put Google’s Gemini on the phone-call-like Live mode, and asked it to remind me how to get the Pegasus Boots as I started a new game in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
“You'll need to head to Kakariko Village after beating the first dungeon, the Eastern Palace. Head to Sahasrahla's house, which is the big one with the green roof. Talk to him, and he'll give you the boots to reward you for your progress.”
Strike one. Sahasrahla is not in Kakariko Village, and I don’t think there is a big house with a green roof there. After the Palace you find him in a nearby shack.
Next I asked if there were any heart containers I could get at this point in the game, to test if it could recognise how far in I was.
“Unfortunately, there aren't any full Heart Containers you can get at that point in the game. You can get a couple of Heart Pieces though, which will let you upgrade your health a little bit.”
Strike two. You can get a full heart container by beating the boss of the Eastern Palace, and you can get enough pieces to make a full container before you even get the boots.
I asked where the heart pieces were located and Gemini struck out, giving one location that was a total lie and a second that was “in the well just outside of Kakariko Village, where you get the Pegasus Boots”. There is a piece in the well, but you don’t get the boots in the village. At this point the AI is clearly just using its own previous incorrect answers to add context and sound confident.
So that’s a fail for a classic Zelda, but what about a recent game? I asked another question I already knew the answer to, this time about Astro Bot: where is the hidden portal in Tree of Funk?
“To find the hidden portal in the Tree of Funk level, you'll need to use your Astro Bot's springy jumps. Look for a high platform with some musical notes floating around it. Jump on the notes to get some extra height, then use your springy jumps to reach the hidden area with the portal.”
This is all made up, because there is no hidden portal in Tree of Funk. And unless I’m mistaken, “springy jumps” and music notes don’t factor into the level at all. I even asked it to clarify exactly where this was in the level; it said it was towards the end, by the pink and purple decorations. A total fabrication.
Frankly, if AI was good at this I‘d still be cross. Google has trained outlets to produce clear and useful guides in order to be indexed and receive income-earning traffic, and now it has a chatbot that can just steal that information and present it directly, cutting them off from revenue. In that way I guess you could view the fact that Gemini is very bad at this (at least for now) as a good thing.
What to play
Another massive seasonal Steam sale is on, so check your wishlists. Some big games I spotted under $10 are Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for $9, the entire Mass Effect trilogy for $7, the Hitman World of Assassination base game for $4, Cities Skylines for $4 and the unfortunate Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League for $5.
Nintendo has added two Game Boy games to its Switch Online library: Donkey Kong Land and Donkey Kong Land 2. I (Tim) played these back in the day and they were very impressive at the time, converting the graphics and sound of the Super Nintendo games to Game Boy with as much fidelity as could be reasonably expected. Which is to say they were massively compromised. The 8-bit score still tugs at the heart strings though.
There are also three new games in the Sega Mega Drive app, which is only available for Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers. Toejam & Earl: Panic on Funkotron is a wonky and weird sid-scroller, but it’s a good time in co-op if you and your partner are into cooked content. MERCS is a home conversion of the Capcom vertically scrolling shooter that’s essentially an ‘80s action movie: the US government has sent you on a plausibly deniable mission to blow up an African nation. And Vectorman is a tough platforming shooter with a peak 1995 look: pre-rendered post-apocalypse.
Free on Epic games is top-down rougelite shooter Brotato.
There are good true Wireless headphones for consoles now
By Alice
True wireless headphones have taken the world by storm. They’re not my favourite form factor, because they’re harder to wear for long stretches without ear canal discomfort, but you can’t deny how easy they are to store and transport, so I end up using them a lot. SteelSeries has just released the Arctis GameBuds for console and PC, and I’ve been using them for the last six weeks.
The biggest game changer in the Arctis GameBuds is that they connect to the Arctis app on iPhone and Android for customisation. The difference between the default flat EQ and the tuned Fortnite EQ is noticeable, and there are presets for heaps of other games. They’ve got spatial audio, and Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless (I was able to seamlessly have a work call while playing Fortnite the other day, and it’s what dreams are made of). The transparency mode has been a gift, because I no longer have to rely on my squad to tell me when my baby’s crying so I can tend to her (my usual headset has excellent passive noise isolation and a sensitive microphone, and my friends and I have an agreement).
The best part of the GameBuds, though, is that the case has a spot to store the USB dongle. Like most wireless gaming headsets, it needs a dongle to get audio to the buds. However, most headphones have nowhere to store the dongle, so I have at least half a dozen perfectly nice headsets that I will never get to use because I have no idea where their dongles are. Being able to put the dongle in the case is an excellent feature.
SteelSeries was relatively recently purchased by Jabra, and while I haven’t been impressed by Jabra’s audio chops in the past (I am a big fan of SteelSeries audio, though), Jabra has always had a pretty good fit on earbuds. The sound on the GameBuds is pure SteelSeries, but the fit is Jabra, making them the best of both words.
The $359 price tag is a bit high, but if you crave a true wireless gaming headset and find a good sale, then they’re worth considering.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Black Friday weekend is the biggest weekend for Lego if you’re wanting deals, bonus points, and freebies. It’s also been a weekend when the good sets for adults are released in the lead up to Christmas. This weekend is living up to all those expectations.
The biggest deal is 75% off the $7.50 discount codes, bringing them down to just 168 Insider points. So if you’ve been saving your points for a rainy day, it’s pouring right now.
The big new set is ship The Endurance, a gorgeous 3011 piece set bringing Ernest Shackleton’s doomed ship to life. It’s $399 and looks spectacular. You can also get three freebies with it (while stocks last) of Shackleton’s Life Boat (exclusive with The Endurance), the Winter Holiday Train (with purchases over $280) and the Retro Record Player (free with purchases over $400).
There’s also 20% off a range of sets, with my picks being Travel Moments ($199 from $249), PAC Man Arcade ($320 from $400) and Walt Disney Tribute Camera ($144 from $170).
However, you’ll want to plan your orders carefully, as there are different freebies on Cyber Monday, including Venom Street Bike and Friends Mobile Music Trailer free with purchases over $80.
However, it’s always key to remember that lego.com.au almost never offers the best discount on Lego. Unless you have a bunch of points saved up to get a bunch of $7.50 discount codes, or you’re after the freebies, there are better deals elsewhere. Target’s got up to 35% off, Myer’s got up to 40% off, Big W, Kmart and Toy World have other deals. So, shop around for what’s on your Wishlist.
Also keep in mind that some sets will be retiring on the 31st of December. The Botanical Collection Dried Flower Centrepiece is my favourite of those, but there’s also Knuckles and Shadow Brickheadz, the 3-in-1 Medieval Castle, Marvel Hulkbuster and the Indiana Jones Temple of the Golden Idol. So, if you want them, grab them while they’re on sale (up to 40% off).
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
I regret to inform you that it’s the end of November, which means almost another year gone, and they’re starting to go pretty fast because you’re old. On the other hand, the things you love and remember are also old. Hmm wait, that doesn’t sound comforting. Anyway, here are some games that had a major anniversary this month.
Now 20: Half-Life 2 Valve’s incredible sci-fi adventure set a new standard for first-person shooter campaigns, achieving an interesting story without cut-scenes, a physics sandbox with great puzzles, and a world that felt free and open to explore. It remains a blast to play today, and a recent update to the Steam version adds new developer commentary, an entire documentary, and the excellent sequel episodes. It’s also now smoother on modern machines, fully compatible with controllers and the Steam Deck.
Now 30: Donkey Kong Country I tend to think of Donkey Kong Country as the reinvention of a franchise that was dusty and old in the early nineties. But the truth is that the arcade Donkey Kong was around as old in 1994 as Donkey Kong Country Returns, for the Wii, is now. With its unbelievable soundtrack and astonishing pre-rendered graphics (which can really only be appreciated today on a CRT, with a good scaler or on a very small screen), DKC became the best-selling non-Mario game on the Super Nintendo.
Now 45: Asteroids This one is as old now as World War II was when I was born (I just wanted to see how weird I could get with the passage of time comparisons). Asteroids is Atari’s best-selling arcade game of all time, and for good reason. Compared to contemporaries like Space Invaders it feels much more active, with your little ship able to boost and rotate all over the screen. And the vector monitor, which really must be seen in person for the full effect, produced compelling visuals despite being entirely composed of white lines on a black background.