You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nr, nr, nr.” By 1968 you can’t say “nr”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nr, nr.”
Republican strategist Lee Atwater.
Atwater’s point here is that dogwhistles work, and they’ve been a core strategy of regressive bigots for decades.
Today’s hateful bigots understand that they can’t openly say “I want to legislate trans people out of existence, even if that means they all die.” So they engage in layers of abstraction, and wrap their abstractions up in leftist talking points. They claim to be defenders of “free speech” even as they support laws that empty out libraries of books, remove shows from television or make discussion of anything LGBTQ related impossible online.
So to you, the innocent rube, removing a pronoun selection from a game might not sound like an attack on trans people, but it very much is. The mod was a rallying cry, a call to fellow bigots to express themselves while pointedly saying to every trans person watching “You are not safe. We are here, we hate you, and we want to erase your existence.”
The existence of the pronoun selector impacted them in absolutely no way, shape, or form. There was nothing to be gained from its removal other than the statement it made, the proud declaration of their hatred encoded in a language of abstraction that made it visible only to their allies and their targets.
And the fact that they can get away with this; the fact that they can openly torment their chosen victims while the average idiot pats them on the head and calls them a “victim of censorship”… That’s their favourite part.
I understand the concept of dog whistles and the historical usage of coded language to advance certain agendas. My primary concern here is not the mod itself, but rather how moderation decisions are made and the criteria used. If we can’t openly discuss these topics, it’s hard to determine what is or isn’t acceptable. I’m not advocating for intolerance; I’m advocating for clarity in community guidelines.
I’ve been playing a lot and it’s the first soulslike that’s genuinely great. It obviously borrows a lot but the mechanics they added in like the arm, skill tree, weapon assembling etc. do a great job at expanding some ideas rather then just copy pasting.
I agree with some people that it’s deceptively more similar to Sekiro than Dark Souls. Even with the first dodge upgrade I feel like it’s a bit undertuned compared to perfect blocks. Dodging feels finnicky because it has little I-frames and many enemies and bosses have insane tracking that’s hard to dodge. Hopefully they might balance it out a little in the future.
I’m very happy the game didn’t turn out to just be puppets as the first few areas suggest. The game really gets going when you come across some real monster variety. The area I’m in now is straight out of resident evil 4.
The one other complaint I have is the dialogue. It’s so hit or miss. Like it’s trying to be Bloodborne but also a comedy? It feels bizarre to see a lot of horror and be completely taken out by Gemminy making jokes. Just doesn’t work for me.
I can tell I’m really into a game when I end up ditching the objectives to just screw around. If I’m following the quest arrow I’m probably just in it for the plot or for some completionist urge, but if I really like the game I’ll start wandering off the main path to just enjoy the environment and satisfy my own curiosity about things.
Similarly, it’s if I really start looking at the scenery. Like zooming in on desks and and where textures meet and stuff to a) see all the worldbuilding details, and b) to see the level designer / env artist’s work up closer.
Being a patient gamer has worked out once again. I’m planning on picking the game up in about a month after they ironed out most of the issues with the big update. Excited to finally try the game after hearing so much about it.
Ditto. Next big sale after 2.0 launch is when I’ll play it for the first time. I’ve not begun Starfield either, already we know they’re going to fix the HDR and add some QoL improvements.
Yeah I don’t mean make it a different game but stuff like HDR settings, eat button, mod support can make it a much better experience than what it was during vip access or launch.
Modding maybe, but that doesn’t help console players. An eat button and HDR settings are so hilariously inadequate that I think the people excited for those changes already like the game and don’t see the actual issues.
ICYMI Mod support would come to consoles as well, now how good or bad it would be is something we’ll have to see.
Yeah, I mean if someone is excited to play any game and they can’t even adjust brightness or have to witness very long loading screens, they would want it to be fixed before their playthrough.
I waited on CP2077 till a year into release and had a blast playing it on the Deck. I’m going to do the same thing with Starfield where I will wait to see if they can get it running in the Deck and maybe then give it a shot.
I really enjoyed the base game, I just waited a little after launch (like always) to play with some bug fixes updates.
I was just coming back from a gigantic period in my life where I didn’t game much, and never on PC - Cyberpunk was the first AAA I played right after coming back. This meant I wasn’t following the game for years and building a lot of expectations, and it didn’t disappoint me because “mechanic X was missing!” because I never knew I could expect X anyways.
I also wanted something a bit more linear, but still an open world, which is something this game balances pretty well.
The end result is that I really liked it. In fact, I prefer it to GTA V, which is a game that, in my opinion, struggles with balancing it’s mission structure with the actual game world.
When I’m researching things about the game even when I’m not playing.
Starfield is definitely doing that for me. Before that Distant Worlds 2, X4 Foundations, Elite Dangerous, Skyrim, Space Engineers, Empyrion, GTA V, and Minecraft have all done that.
I start ‘solving’ the game’s puzzles in my dreams, or random mechanics from the game show up in my dreams somehow. When that happens I know a game has its hooks deep into me.
I tried the game for a few hours but I just couldn’t get into it.
Something about the dodge mechanic was not feeling right and I hated the overreliance on blocking/parrying. It’s the one mechanic I’ve hated in all soulsborne games and never used when beating the games.
Also noticed how some enemies seem to have their attacks rubberbanded onto you even when you dodge.
Realizing I would have to rely on the parrying for the whole games was what made me finally stop playing today. I just don’t find that fun or enjoyable.
I’m hopeful that they can rework the dodge more, but that was also my hope from playing the demo too and I still don’t like it as it is now in the full game.
I was also hoping for better dodging as I am terrible at parrying. I struggled with Sekiro because it’s so reliant on parrying but I did enjoy it up until I got to Genichiro as I was never able to beat him.
Yeah it was the moment when I realized Lies of P reminded me of playing Sekiro when I stopped lol. I’m just disappointed they make you have to parry. Not parrying lead to me getting combo locked during that first carnival boss so many times. Getting hit multiple times without being able to dodge or parry after the first hit was annoying.
Heard that the game has a dodge/roll upgrade a bit farther into it but I just didn’t have it in me to deal with more of the parrying to get that far.
Grateful the game was on gamepass so I was able to check it out before buying it. Hopefully my friend that’s 100% Sekiro will give it a try soon. He might enjoy the combat more than I did. He never dodged in bloodborne but instead stood still and just parry’d the bosses until it worked lol.
This comment chain might be the first thing that's making me actually interested in the game lol. Sekiro is one of my favorite games and Genichiro is when I actually realized that because it finally got me into that sword dance flow state, or as the folks say - it clicked at that point. If LoP can get even close to that I'll probably like it a lot
It’s currently included with Game Pass plus there is a demo (I think it’s still available) so you can try it without having to buy it. Spending $60+ always gives me pause.
Looks like they removed the demo since it fully launched now, but yeah I almost never buy games at full price on day one. I don't mind waiting tho, plenty of other games to play until they put out a discount and/or remove denuvo anyway.
I didn't get a chance to play the demo so dunno, but I'm looking forward to reviews or a hefty discount down the line, it might still be worth giving a try. Considering the weapon variety I'm guessing they went more for novelty than a single perfected weapon style anyway so you're probably right that it won't end up being sekiro 2
I’m glad I’ve barely started it even though it’s been in my library for a while. Hopefully this is much closer to their vision. Looking forward to Thursday!
bin.pol.social
Aktywne