Videogames: All Valves on Deck

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Ok, that's what I thought.

In that case, I agree with me. Thanks me, good point! Restricting my sharing clips of the game they sold me is super problematic in my eyes.

Why? 

I don't get this at all and would love to understand more, because I work at Microsoft and worked at Xbox. Why is it problematic to sell you a game you can play privately but restrict what you can use their social network to broadcast? 

Heck, you can get the clip and actually send it to other people as you like; you just can't use their social network to do it. If you want to download the clip and send it over email or text it or whatever that's fine too. I don't honestly get the issue, and would like to understand better.

[The Anti-Targ]

CENSORSHIP crisis!!!!

Microsoft does not want certain content on its social media platform. As the platform owner it has every right to gate-keep content, it's their [virtual] property and users are renting space. So long as they are being consistent with how they apply terms and conditions for using the social media platform it's a non-issue.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

I find it hilarious that games with copious amount of gore like the RE series and god of war get a pass on censorship and parents readily buy them for their 13 year old kids, but the moment a booby is seen it’s banned or 18+ only lol. Same bullshit logic in games that allow you to massacre NPCs but draw the line on killing npc kids (looking at you rockstar) or that controversy on YouTube blocking the channel where the guy feeds a female npc to an alligator in RDR2 but bats an eye over the countless other YouTube videos of violently killing male npcs in the same game. It’s all just a bunch of pixels in the end….

 

Edited January 9 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Darryk]

5 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I find it hilarious that games with copious amount of gore like the RE series and god of war get a pass on censorship and parents readily buy them for their 13 year old kids, but the moment a booby is seen it’s banned or 18+ only lol.

Hasn't this always been the case in America?

[Durckad]

6 hours ago, Darryk said:

Hasn't this always been the case in America?

Yes, we are a silly country.

[Impmk2]

Sekiro update: Owl part 2 dead. And wow the Divine Dragon was strange and easy.

Now on to Demon of Hatred. Why has a Dark Souls boss been teleported into this game?!

[The Anti-Targ]

20 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I find it hilarious that games with copious amount of gore like the RE series and god of war get a pass on censorship and parents readily buy them for their 13 year old kids, but the moment a booby is seen it’s banned or 18+ only lol. Same bullshit logic in games that allow you to massacre NPCs but draw the line on killing npc kids (looking at you rockstar) or that controversy on YouTube blocking the channel where the guy feeds a female npc to an alligator in RDR2 but bats an eye over the countless other YouTube videos of violently killing male npcs in the same game. It’s all just a bunch of pixels in the end….

 

Point of order, God of War has boobies (at least the early games have). It also has booby ladies impaled on spikes so Kratos can keep a door open.

Video games are not unique in this moral hypocrisy that sees sex as a greater evil than violence. But it is what it is, and companies need to manage parental moral outrage.

I guess its safe to post here: Kaitlyn Dever has been cast as Abby in HBO's The Last of Us season 2. Personally I'm not totally on board. Abby's physicality is part of her character, as much as it is for characters like Thor and Capt America. Unless she's going to 'roid up and get real buff it will be a bit of a let down. She's a good acting talent though, I've liked her in the things she's been in previously. It's not like such people don't exist. I have a colleague who pretty much has exactly the same musculature as Abby, she's a retired international power lifter and hammer thrower. It does seem, though, that there are basically no ripped female actors under 30. Natalie Portman has shown that women can bulk up somewhat for a part though. I hope Dever is method enough to make the same effort.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

I’ve not played the last of us games but I understand the fandom really hated part 2 and where Neil Druckmann has taken the story? Do you guys who’ve played it hold similiar thoughts ? I’m a fan of the tv series and hope S2 is as good ! 

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Video games are not unique in this moral hypocrisy that sees sex as a greater evil than violence. But it is what it is, and companies need to manage parental moral outrage.

I can't remember if it was Roger Ebert or Richard Roeper or some other film critic, but around the time of the release of The Matrix, one of them called bullshit on the US for giving The Matrix a lighter rating - full of violence, blood, and murder, than something else that was in general release that year which had one or two swear words and somehow a stronger rating. 

Point being: the US is famous for a rather hypocritical ratings system that is more offended/outraged by sex and swearing than violence. This is A Known Issue.

[Ser Not Appearing]

Haven't played the games and don't know what happens in season 2 but I have fears because the setup at the end of season 1 makes for a really annoying trope usage where ...

Spoiler

... she turns against him for lying. I hope the forced conflict is just a passing detail and not a heavy fixture of the season. If the whole season centers around it, I think it'll be hard to have it feel satisfying. That sorry of thing drives me nuts.

 

[Rhom]

57 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I’ve not played the last of us games but I understand the fandom really hated part 2 and where Neil Druckmann has taken the story? Do you guys who’ve played it hold similiar thoughts ? I’m a fan of the tv series and hope S2 is as good ! 

Eh.  I didn’t hate Part 2.  There were a lot of fans who didn’t like the shift in perspective I guess.  But I thought it was okay overall and worked for the story they wanted to tell.

ETA:  Just Googled this Dever gal and saw a picture of this stick thin gal at the Met Gala.  Yeah.  That ain’t Abby.

Edited January 10 by Rhom

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I’ve not played the last of us games but I understand the fandom really hated part 2 and where Neil Druckmann has taken the story? Do you guys who’ve played it hold similiar thoughts ? I’m a fan of the tv series and hope S2 is as good ! 

I can't deny that it's a love hate game, but I personally loved it. And some of the reasons people hated it is exactly why I loved it. It elicits emotions in players that some gamers perhaps didn't want to feel, or didn't want to feel in the way the game brought out those emotions.

The first game and season 1 explored various aspects of the human condition. The second game explores different aspects of the human condition. I think a lot of people would like to see a season that slots between game 1 and 2, that perhaps draws from much of the flashback scenes from game 2. I would not object to such a thing. Dever, like Ramsey, looks like she can play younger than she is, so it's entirely possible season 2 will be an in between season. There is a time jump between game 1 and 2. Is that a spoiler?

3 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Haven't played the games and don't know what happens in season 2 but I have fears because the setup at the end of season 1 makes for a really annoying trope usage where ...

  Hide contents

... she turns against him for lying. I hope the forced conflict is just a passing detail and not a heavy fixture of the season. If the whole season centers around it, I think it'll be hard to have it feel satisfying. That sorry of thing drives me nuts.

 

Is it possible to respond to this without minor spoilers by implication? Just in case...

Spoiler

If the TV show is faithful to game 2 you have nothing to worry about, IMO. This is neither confirming nor denying that Ellie confronts the lying.

 

3 hours ago, IlyaP said:

I can't remember if it was Roger Ebert or Richard Roeper or some other film critic, but around the time of the release of The Matrix, one of them called bullshit on the US for giving The Matrix a lighter rating - full of violence, blood, and murder, than something else that was in general release that year which had one or two swear words and somehow a stronger rating. 

Point being: the US is famous for a rather hypocritical ratings system that is more offended/outraged by sex and swearing than violence. This is A Known Issue.

To be fair the USA is not unique in this hypocrisy. There has been rating creep both with sexual content and violence here over the years and I think there has been a tendancy to be more lenient on violence than sex. Boobies used to be M, now so long as it's just a flash its more like PG/M borderline. Penises and vaginas were R now they're M.

[Ran]

Played Heaven's Vault, released in 2019. First heard about it from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and their review always intrigued me. You play the role of Aliya Elasra, a sort of sailor-archaeologist in a nebula where literal waterways connect various moons. There's a deep amount of world-building and history, and the goal of the game starts with a mystery -- find a missing a historian -- and ends up leading to discovering details about the ancient history of the setting.

The key puzzle feature of the game is the written language called Ancient, which you have to decipher progressively as you find inscriptions. That's the main aspect that interested me, as it's not typical to see games about that (a friend, seeing that I was playing it via Steam, mentioned a more recent game in a similar vein that some people say is even better: Chants of Sennaar). The other parts of the gameplay loop are exploring around new sites (mostly to find objects, ideally with new inscriptions) and talking to people... and then sailing on the river. This last part proved to be kind of nice and relaxing to begin with, but as there's no stakes (you can't destroy your ship or anything), it just felt like makework. The game could definitely have used many more fast travel options than it provided; you sometimes get to sit on a hammock and tell your robot companion Six to take you somewhere, but the game may only give you two options, neither of which you want to go to. Sometimes when sailing it'll also let the robot guide the ship, but again, more rarely than I would have liked.

All in all, an enjoyable experience. There are a few different ending options, and the game is constructed such that you never can learn the entirety of the language in a single play through (apparently there are ~1,000 words of Ancient, and in a typical game you might learn 40 or 50), nor are you likely to discover every location and detail about the setting in a single playthrough, so there's a Start+ that allows you to replay the game while upping the linguistic challenge by giving you more complex inscriptions.

It's a fairly chill game, and in the end the best part was uncovering the layers of history. It's not the sort of game I'd replay, so I hit the spoilers to discover alternatives, and there's some pretty cool stuff that comes out about the history if you make certain choices. My own play-through, I was getting some of the sense, but a lot was murky by the time I entered end-game.

Anyways, solid game for those who want a relaxed adventure game.

Edited January 10 by Ran

[Whiskeyjack]

9 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I’ve not played the last of us games but I understand the fandom really hated part 2 and where Neil Druckmann has taken the story? Do you guys who’ve played it hold similiar thoughts ? I’m a fan of the tv series and hope S2 is as good ! 

The Anti-Targ answered this well, but to add my thoughts - it definitely wasn't universal hatred.  Personally, I think it was an amazing game.  I think the story is excellent, love the way its told, and feel like the themes are very thought-provoking.  No image from any game has ever stayed with me more than the end of the final confrontation.  I also think the gameplay is perfect, but its basically just an upgraded version of the first game, so that depends on whether or not you like that style of game.

I feel like there are 3 groups of people who disliked the game.  Won't go into details except to say that I think one is based on the way the game was structured, one is based on the story itself, and one is a bunch of people who probably didn't even play the game and threw a fit because they thought it was "too woke." 

I can understand the first group, even if I don't agree with them.  I can acknowledge the second group, but feel like maybe we're just looking for different things in the shows/movies/games that we watch and play.  The third group is made up of complete idiots, and to me they constitute the majority of "the fandom who really hated part 2" that you're talking about. 

[The Anti-Targ]

So this Mass Effect leak that the baddies are going to be Leviathan and the geth. In a lot of ways it makes sense based on ME3.

The Leviathans are bloody scary in their mind control powers, they have orbs all over the place, and the war asset even had infiltration teams distributing even more orbs behind reaper lines. If destroy is the ME3 ending that is carried through to ME4/5 then what the Leviathans decide to do now that they don't have the reapers visiting every 50,000 years forcing them to stay hidden is a big question. I think it would be rather bad for this game to just ignore them and make like they decided to simple stay put and live in hiding the way they have for the last several tens of millions of years. One way to keep them on the sidelines until they figure out whether to do something with them is for Leviathans to be extremely slow breeding and growing, such that it would take them 10s of thousands of years to get to a population level whether they could be a galactic threat, which would give Bioware the space to completely exhaust the franchise and move on to something else without ever having to address them as a possible threat. Leave it to books to keep telling stories for tens and hundreds of thousands of years into the future.

At the end of ME3 the intelligence says conflict between organics and synthetics is inevitable. The pre-Reaper Leviathan history suggests what the intelligence said is likely to be true, since it was this conflict that cause the Leviathans to create the intelligence to solve the problem. So in the absence of the synthesis ending being canon conflict with synthetics is highly probable. Interesting to consider would be if a completely different synthetic civilisation arises. We already had EDI who came about because of the rogue VI on Luna, which Cerberus then developed into a full AI. And then we had the AI on the citadel in ME1 that Shepard is reasonably sure was destroyed (but its only a side mission and not everyone would have bothered with it, so canon could be that Shepard didn't deal with that AI). So AIs seem to pop up. It would seem to be lazy for geth to be the baddies since we've gone through a whole arc with them, so to make them evil again would basically mean a rinse and repeat of the Morning War but expanding across the galaxy. But some kind of AI antagonist would be reasonable. Also, while far from most people's ideal for ME3, making geth the big bad would mean ignoring the destroy the geth choice in ME3 that some people might want to make their preferred outcome (i.e. people who agree that AI civilisations are a bad idea no matter how benign they appear to be), which would mean geth quarian peace is also a forced outcome, since no way will Bioware make genocide of the quarians the official canon.

The Leviathan and AI questions are hanging there that Bioware should be looking to address in a satisfactory way, whether that means them being antagonists, allies or bystanders.

Someone bringing the scourge across from Andromeda might be the big bad. Which would kind of take us back to the dark energy problem that I think Bioware was originally considering as the reason for the Reapers, and connects to the Haestrom mission in ME2, which has been left hanging as an anomaly without explanation. Would be interesting if at the start of ME4/5 it is discovered that the Sun is going through the same changes as Dholen just before it went red giant way too early.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

On Chapter 6 of Red Dead 2, if the story of GTA 6 turns out to be of the same quality I’ll be pretty happy to give it a try when it comes out !  I do wish the missions had more variety though and the stealth wasn’t so broken. 

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So this Mass Effect leak that the baddies are going to be Leviathan and the geth. In a lot of ways it makes sense based on ME3.

ME leak? Do you mean this, or something else? 

 

[mcbigski]

3 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So this Mass Effect leak that the baddies are going to be Leviathan and the geth. In a lot of ways it makes sense based on ME3.

Played ME 1 -3, with some but not all of the dlc.  Didn't play Andromeda.  Where did the Leviathan first appear?  

And I guess there's a ME additional sequel coming out?

[IlyaP]

5 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Where did the Leviathan first appear?  

The Leviathan DLC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_3:_Leviathan

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Since most of the original BioWare has left or been fired from the studio , do you guys think ME and DA can be resurrected to their original greatness by these new games ? 

Edited January 11 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II