Controversial opinion. Out of the three, I deem Fallout 76 the best. xD
It’s all the wackiness of Fallout made into a game and I love it, and it’s goddamn beautiful.
Fallout 3…I finished it but it was more out of obligation to myself. Fallout 4 is lukewarm, like, all parts of it are okay…ish…but the amount of lost potential hurts. And fuck dialog circles. And shallowing R in RPG.
And I guess due to that, there wasn’t much to overcome for F76. It has fuller building system than F4. While it lacks depth in quests, it does lore building quite well, and is goddamn beautiful.
And no, I don’t really interact with the online part too much except collecting and selling furniture schematics to newbies at a discount.
My issue with 76 is that due to the nature of it having to be on a multiplayer server at all times, there was no permancence to anything.
For example, when I would base build in FO4, I could spend some time clearing out the surrounding area of hostiles and be confident that it would stay clear for a least a good while. It’s how you survive. If I complete a quest, I get the reward and move forward in my plotline.
The first time I tried 76, I popped my base down without realizing I was accidentally within trigger range of one of the random quests that exist (Robots taking over a greenhouse or some shit), and literally every time I loaded up into the game, the exact same quest would trigger, because it has to. That’s how 76 works.
So I moved my base, except this time I cleared out a small group or raiders that had set up camp just a little ways down the road, and wouldn’t you know it…they respawn every…single…time I load the game.
That’s just how 76 is designed to work. Other than the main plot quests that are “instanced”, meaning that you complete them and it goes away, literally everything else, from fetch quests, to raider camps, to robots and monsters, to clearing out buildings all respawn and there’s nothing you can do to have some sense of permanence in your little settlement.
However, Fallout 4 also worked like that, unless you dislike it for that too. Clean the quarry near Sanctuary, boom, they move back in. Clear bandits on the entrance to Boston, boom, they move back in. I found that irksome and never did the quary quest due to that xD
Fallout 3 and New Vegas were more permament…or I remember wrongly. ^^’
But personally after I learned that I adapted and I don’t find this that irksome, if anything, I find it adding some weird quality to the game. Like yeah, you cleared the bandits but even lorewise everywhere are notes suggesting that bandits also clear bandits all the time. Bots you mentioned have literally auto message cause Responders couldn’t get them to work properly. But again, I do feel ya ^^’
Overall I would absolutely love if Beth made a Fallout with the views and building depth of F76, with building scope of F4 and story depth of F:NV.
The first was the camera and its quests. You had dailies and weeklies for like 6 weeks before you could even find the camera in game. Once they added it the camera was nearly impossible to find.
Well, that’s early part of it, no? When they released it, I steered clear - bought it relatively recently, what, maybe year ago? Everybody knew it was dogshit early ^^’ Hell, let’s not remind ourselves about their launch xD
Right now they rework a lot of it and goddamn I love the reworks. Fun seeing them iterate through feedback. I mean, one would think that Bethesda isn’t one to learn yet here we see it in real time xD
In Skyrim you can romance any of a wide variety of characters marked as “marriageable” in the game’s files. That really just means the voice actor was willing to record the marriage ceremony lines. Since voice actors were reused, if a voice actor recorded their lines, most if not all of their characters would be marriageable. To marry a character, you complete a task for them that makes them call you a friend (typically a quest they give you when you first meet them). You then wear an amulet of Mara (the game’s goddess of love) and speak to them. They ask if you fancy them, you say yes. They propose marriage, you go to the temple of Mara and be there the next day. During the ceremony you can say yes or no. And the game does not give two shits what your gender is. If you’re a male character, you can freely marry any marriageable male character, and vice versa for females. I play female characters because I like to look at them. I’d rather look at a female than a male. And I always marry Mjoll the Lioness because she’s trying to tear down the most fun guild in the game, so I move her out of town and make her a housewife. (Her quest is a lot of fun, too.)
In Fallout 4 you can romance maybe half a dozen characters? All of your companions who are not robotic or animal. One of the robots can be converted into an android you can hook up with. You can’t marry any of them, and you can romance all of them. None of them care what your gender is. Many have quests you have to do, but even beyond that, you have to push up their approval rating of you, by doing things they approve of (e.g. Matt Mercer’s character loves when you pick locks and steal) and by not doing things they don’t like (e.g. there’s a junkie girl who loves when you do drugs, until you cure her addiction, then she hates when you do drugs). Once they’re romanced, you can take them to any bed for a fade-to-black sex scene (neither heard nor seen).
In Cyberpunk 2077, there are four characters you can romance and hook up with, but no marriage. Each one has a genital preference and a voice preference. So you can absolutely be trans in the game. You choose a body type (fem or masc) and a voice type (fem or masc). Depending on your choice, you get 2 people you can romance. The other two will not reach the romance stage with you no matter what.
I guess the characters in GTA are straight? I don’t play bro shooters and such. Not my thing. Tomb Raider? Up in the air what Lara Croft prefers. You could take that either way. I love the Life is Strange games and those lean gay/lesbian. In the first one, Max can kiss both a girl and a guy, and it seems equal, but if you read her diary, she has no attraction to the guy, but she absolutely crushes on the girl. In the second one, the guy is absolutely gay, but the focus is on his little brother who is too young to have a sexual orientation (I think he’s 8?). It’s less obvious in the third one, but that girl definitely has lesbian vibes. And the fourth one is Max again.
What you are describing is a concept of the mechanically bisexual. The options as given often allow players to choose in a sandbox game whether they experience the game as a completely non-queer experience or not. It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience which rep wise is considered a step better than when all romance options in games were mandatorily heterosexual but also kind of a cop out where player choice means all characters are often Shrodinger’s bi. If you want to experience say Skyrim as an almost entirely queer free experience - you can. Your choices flip that representation on and off like a lightswitch so if you have queerphobic tendencies the game doth not offend much. No one ever hits on you first.
Rep wise Gay characters are ones specifically ones where the queerness isn’t optional, it’s a part of the canon of the character. Straight characters often are so in fixed story narratives where they have hetero relationships and if they have brushes that look like same sex romance it’s played for laughs and treated as not really an option. Since culture still sort of assumes straightness as a default if the character only ever is coded romantically by the frame of the game to be attracted to the opposite sex they can be termed a “straight character” because as a player the game’s interfacing with that character’s sexuality is mandatory. An example is the Prince of Persia games or the Final Fantasy series which have a romantically coded opposite sex paramours that you don’t have an option not to interface with the character’s sexuallity.
This is way more common in older games and fixed story franchises.
So outside of visual novels, are there good queer games where you get hit on first? I’m in if the story is good and the gameplay is engaging. I am straight but not narrow, and games are fictional.
By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.
By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.
The problem often becomes that the entire sexuallity of mechanically bi characters or all characters in the game are often under player control. In a some circumstances games with this mechanism will have the characters who are not chosen as romantic options pair with no one ever or defer to straight behaviour. This is in deference to games wanting to have it’s cake and eat it too.
Examples of this in action :
Stardew Valley where if you don’t choose a same sex option to romance - no other characters ever have any romances ever. The one exception is Leah who has an ex who shows up late in the romance pursuit who tries to win her back. However, the ex is whatever gender the PC is so if it’s a hetero relationship, it still appears to be a hetero relationship.
Harvest Moon Mineral Town (later editions) give the player to options to romance same sex options… But everyone you don’t choose pairs up in hetero relationships and no other characters.
In both games there is no other queer rep so the player essentially opts in or out to all queer representation in the game. Blanket Heterosexuallity or bi-invisibility until given player approval is the default.
Indy games are generally the leaders for actual queer rep that isn’t optional to the game’s plot where characters sexuallities are not revealed by the player opt in.
Okay, I definitely agree with you on the player being the only romance option for NPCs… for the most part. Looking at it, I do see plenty of existing romances in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Cyberpunk 2077 — the examples I gave — and I think they’re mostly straight. In Cyberpunk, Judy Alvarez, an established lesbian character who will only romance you if you’re female, has a female ex who is a main character. You meet her before you meet Judy. She’s the one who gets you the heist gig, sort of. The one who hires Dex, who hires you and Jackie. It may not be obvious at first, but if you follow Judy’s story, even as a male character, it will be obvious. And Fallout 4 had a romance with two robots, but that’s mainly played for laughs and most people will never see it. (You have to go to the school in Diamond City and speak with the female robot, who will ask you about love. Give the most heartfelt answer and, the next night, you will see her wed a male robot outside the all-faith chapel, if you’re there for it — you could be elsewhere and you will miss it.) But that’s a robot relationship, and it’s hetero.
I do want to say one or two of them had a couple gay/lesbian romances.
Going a bit off-topic, Animal Crossing — largely considered a kids’ game — actually has a bunch of stuff just beneath the surface that most people will overlook. Flick, the bug collector, is considered by many fans to be FTM trans. He identifies as male but appears to be AFAB. There’s a peacock who identifies as female — peacocks are specifically the male of the peafowl species. Peahens are the females, and they don’t have the big feathery thing. So that’s a female character who was AMAB. Plenty of other characters rock the trans flag as well. Kids would never notice this, and being a Japanese game, they have to be very careful as that country is super conservative. (There’s actually a pretty deep rabbit hole on that game’s lore. Some characters hint toward the game being a game, breaking the fourth wall. There are also hints the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and you’re the last human.)
I’m with you though, in that I would like to see more same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ representation in my games.
It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience
Because, surprise surprise, most non-romance games don’t have romance as significant part of the game. You don’t get straight tailored experience in Skyrim either. Unless you believe killing bandits or mammoths is how you romance a straight person.
kind of a cop out
This mentality is why so many gamers outside the homophobic conservative circles are pissed at game developers and groups like Sweet Baby Inc. Not cramming gender politics into a game that has nothing to do with them is not a cop out. It is good game design. Skyrim is not a romance simulator and it shouldn’t be turned into one just to “be more inclusive”.
Hey, just a heads up assuming “gender politics” don’t matter and being upset if a character is noticeably queer - makes you a part of the homophobic conservative circles. People, irl are queer, omitting queer people from settings where they would just exist as part of the world because “they shouldn’t be there” is a little queerphobic.
Conservative circles have been screaming about woke games forever just when options to have non-binary people exist at character creation or when there is one gay side character. A lot of folks in the arts, including in game development, are queer and like to make stories that didn’t exist when they were growing up. Your opinion is your own but assuming it’s universally considered “good game design” to force developers to exclude the things they are passionate to put in their games to appease a howling mob that is never happy even when they get what they say they want is a bit rich.
No. Not wanting to have your car stolen by a gay person does not make you a homophobe. It just makes you a normal person that doesn’t want to be stolen from. Equally, wanting a game to be entertainment, not political messaging does not make you conservative.
Most people had no issue with diverse characters that are part of a game, see Life is Strange. They do when you turn a game into political PSA at the expense of the rest of the game, see Valeguard.
Ah yes, the two sexualities - political and non-political. You really aren’t as far along as you think.
I can accept that you are unhappy and want your games to not make you feel uncomfortable. Gods forbid they ever be like every other form of media and actually have a message they want to convey or try anything new. I can say having something tailored specifically for you is quite nice - now that more of us actually get to experience that.
and want your games to not make you feel uncomfortable.
You are missing the point entirely. Playing as a homosexual character did not make me feel uncomfortable, even though I understand if it did for some people. Even so, not every game is for everyone. It is fine to have games focused at different audiences.
But when you hand over writing your game characters and story to groups like SBI, whose only qualification is “inclusive writing”, than it destroys games for everyone and you get entirely justified backlash from gamers.
Same if you take an established franchise and change the target audience.
Unfortunately, just like you don’t make distinction between the actual homophobes and people who just want good writing and game design, a lot of gamers once pissed of don’t distinguish between good inclusion and forced, badly executed one. And than you get the polarized BS of today.
There’s no “actual homophobes” vs " not homophobic but still unhappy that queer people and ‘forced inclusion’ are in a game people" - that’s just different degrees of homophobia.
Games changed a bit so that they aren’t all made for you specifically. Those franchises didn’t belong to you and for some people those ‘ruined games’ are their favorite games. Everyone has studios they don’t like. Not all representation is gunna be great because not all writing is going to be great but when inclusion “ruins it for everyone” in your veiw look around and ask if the people around you who are discussing it is actually a good cross section of “everyone”.
There’s no “actual homophobes” vs " not homophobic but still unhappy that queer people and ‘forced inclusion’ are in a game people"
That’s the same kind of argument as saying criticizing Israeli genocide is antisemitism. There are objectively bad things done in the name of inclusion. Criticizing them is not homophobic. If you are going to pretend they are, that you are somehow above criticism just because your stated goal is noble, don’t be surprised when people turn against you.
Are these “bad things in the name of inclusion” just making a game you don’t like? The push against “inclusion” on a general scale has lead to real world harms because a bunch of babies can’t come to terms with there being pieces of media with choices they don’t like and threw a fucking tantrum. There isn’t really a side anymore where railing against the harms of “inclusion” isn’t propping up the arguement that minorities “earned” the actions against them by asking “too much”.
People will take your words as tacit endorsement that queer people “had this coming” because a bunch of businesses responded to a body of queer theory and made some fucking games. The anti-DEI crowd is the Conservative crowd and you might be on the fringe but you aren’t outside the radius.
People will take your words as tacit endorsement that queer people “had this coming” because a bunch of businesses responded to a body of queer theory and made some fucking games.
That is exactly why your stance is pissing me off so much. People like you, who don’t care how their ideas impact other people as long as they are inclusive, are pushing massive amounts of people towards the conservative side of the argument. I don’t think that makes those people conservative, for some reason you do. Regardless, we both agree it hurts queer people.
So was it worth it? A bunch of poorly written queer characters in games and movies in exchange for pissing off a portion of otherwise tolerant population and pushing it towards conservatism?
Was it worth it? Coming down hard on queer and telling us we’re terrible people for daring tp ask for something better and throwing your lot in with the oppressors at the smallest hurdle?
Yes, deflect the question, misrepresent the issue, and blame everyone around. Just avoid any introspection.
There is no “worth it” here for the non-queer gamers in the first place. It costs them (seemingly) nothing to throw queers under the proverbial bus and oppose any inclusivity. The only thing stopping people is sympathy and goodwill. Being a decent human being. Which tends to go out of the window quickly, when you actively try to destroy what those people care about. People don’t have sympathy for people that “picked a fight” with them first. They just “fight” back.
And before you pretend games are insignificant and people shouldn’t do this “just because of games”, remember you picked this “fight” because of representation in games as well. Can’t have it both ways. Games either don’t matter (in which case what are we arguing about) or they do.
Gamers care about games. They have always pushed back hard against people messing with their games, whether it is “concerned parents” (religious conservatives), queers, or payment processors. If you believe that it is just homophobia, you are deluding yourself.
So I ask you again, is it really worth it to push things like SBI, that produce objectively bad games for everyone, knowing it will destroy sympathy and goodwill you have with gamers?
You don’t have to answer here, just think about it. Because you can’t expect understanding and sympathy from others if you are not trying to understand and sympathise with them as well.
Because I don’t find you terribly sympathetic. Yes, I would like better inclusion and more variety in games and can look at past examples and point out what worked and what didn’t from a queer perspective but you came in hot with your nose out of joint about how what is being asked is bad “for everyone” as though you are the arbitor of the everyman.
It’s worthless to conceed ground over and over again to people who always wanted us to disappear. It doesn’t work. You want to go on the woke advisory board on Steam and see how nit picky they get? This isn’t about media. This is part of an interconnected effort to get all of us to disappear from public life forever and it didn’t start, it never stopped and the point is it won’t until it all goes back to the way it used to be.
What is “in it” for the non-queer gamers is realizing they aren’t the center of the fucking universe. That they can show their support for something that isn’t explicitly for them and leave homophobic assholes with no wonderful jungle of slightly less homophobic assholes to hide behind. But no the second it costs you anything suddenly it’s the end of the fucking world. People want to feel all nice and accepting and open minded but they never want it to actually inconvenience them.
By all means keep on harping your one fucking studio you hate. I hope it keeps you warm.
Sure, make it my fault for disagreeing that following fundamental principles of good game design is somehow a cop out. Whatever makes you sleep better.
What is “in it” for the non-queer gamers…
And you proceed to describe what would benefit queer people, if they managed to keep non-queer gamers on their side or at least neutral. Which just proves my point.
People want to feel all nice and accepting and open minded but they never want it to actually inconvenience them.
Some people don’t want to be inconvenienced at all, most people don’t want to be inconvenienced for no good reason. There is a big difference.
It’s worthless to conceed ground over and over again to people who always wanted us to disappear. It doesn’t work.
Yes, what you are doing now seems to be working great. Best of luck with that.
Started a new playthrough of Far Cry 6 since I never got to finish it when it came out. The story is a little heavy-handed but serviceable, and there is some dimensionality to the characters that helps keep things interesting, like I actually care about what’s happening. The game is also really good about not railroading you through the story, you can choose when you start story missions, and there’s three branches of storyline for most of it so you can play in whatever order you want, or just ignore it completely - I spent about 10 straight hours of gameplay just doing random side quests and looking for collectibles, it’s a huge improvement on the Far Cry 5 story/missions.
The gunplay feels really satisfying, and there’s a ton of different equipment options so you can really play whatever style you want. Stealth is really fun but not completely OP, you still have to be really deliberate and careful. You can switch between pretty much any of your weapons/gear, so you always have a ton of options, but it also feels kind of OP, especially later in the game.The difficulty options are pretty good too, it doesn’t feel like higher difficulty = everybody is a bullet sponge.
The movement and especially climbing mechanics are kind of clunky but it doesn’t take too much away from the gameplay overall. The open world is huge and there’s a lot to see and explore if that’s your thing, and it feels very lived in, it doesn’t feel like a vast expanse of nothing.
Still working on Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360 version, emulated on Xenia Canary). I’m currently halfway through Chapter 12 out of 14 on Path of the Warrior, so I’m almost at the point where I can see the finish line. Still unsure whether I can beat it as I’ve heard the final stretch is pure hell.
I have never played a game that made me feel quite like this, I have to be honest. It’s one of the best and one of the worst games I’ve ever played simultaneously. If this was released today it would be absolutely lambasted for its blatantly untested, horrifically balanced and absurdly unfun encounters.
And it’s such a shame and a waste because the pieces are all there for a spectacular tour de force of an action game and you can see that side of it shine through from time to time. Whenever the game clicks and is good, it’s fucking incredible. Lightning fast, blood and limbs flying everywhere, incredible animations and brutal execution moves as you’re zipping through combat and weaving through combos. They really had the fundamentals here for something special, and the first half of the game is mostly good - albeit still with some complete garbage like Gigadeath sprinkled in.
From around the halfway point on though it’s become perhaps the most infuriating game I’ve ever played. Some of the gameplay design is just completely incomprehensible and encounters devolve into being spammed with projectiles from offsceen while you’re showered in constant explosions that deafen you and make you unable to see shit while you’re stunlocked to death unless you ignore using your combos and instead just abuse i-frames. Boss fights like the Double Armadillo I just finished feel like a straight up “fuck you” from Itagaki. Time and again I finish a fight and say “who the fuck thought this was a good idea?” out loud.
And the worst part is I’m developing such a Stockholm Syndrome I’m already looking at Ninja Gaiden 2 Black prices.
Tried VOID/BREAKER, a roguelite FPS, that released into Early Access last week. The game definitely has potential, but needs more time to cook.
You have a grappling hook, that can function like telekinesis powers and throw certain objects at enemies, or hook to specific points in the small combat arenas, although that isn’t is fun as it should be. It’s just too slow and there’s seemingly always something in the way.
Then you can also find mods for your weapons to change and upgrade it. You’re supposed to find synergies for the mods and essentially “break the game”, but most of the time it’s just to make the numbers go higher. I finished a run twice (first time is with some story elements, after that it just loops), and I think one time I got a few mods that worked well together.
The game also has destructible environments, although that’s also kinda lacking, unless you find a bunch of mods to boost it.
So in the end you’ll be going through the same three environments, that look extremely similar, fighting mostly the same enemies, that also look very similar, shooting with mostly basic guns, while lobbing a grenade or some random object at enemies every couple of seconds.
The building blocks are there, like I said, the game has potential, but it’s just not there yet.
Otherwise with Silksongreleasing in like 10 days, my Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous playthrough will have to wait a bit more. I’m not gonna stop in the middle of a run.
It wa really hard having fun ripping through the wasteland as the ugliest self-indulgent chaotic-evil idiot savant I could be, while knowing the backstory is from perfect picket fences and I could lecture Dominic Torreto on family.
I won’t even play the game without modding it, and first in line is always Start Me Up. You can write your own story about who you are and it converts all the Sean quests into “find this dead guy’s kid.” So much better.
I started and finished Herdling all in one go. Nice, relaxed game with a beautiful atmosphere. The mechanics are relatively simple but with the game being so short, they don’t overstay their welcome. There was also a link at the end of the credits sequence which lead to a promotion where you can send the publisher a self-addressed envelope and they send you… something back. I did that, so I’m curious what it will be. Expecting stickers though.
I’ve also been playing some Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. 24 hours in and only scratching the surface, so classic CRPG I guess. The game strikes quite a good balance between story/reading, combat and space exploration.
Oh fuck, Hard DK has found his way to you too then :)
Streamer Alpharad got a “Hard DK” bit running since they got their ass handed over to them by a crazy Mario Party CPU DK that was just gambling like mad and winning everything.
They trained an incredibly good amiibo CPU DK in Smash they called Hard DK in reference to this.
I’ll never forgive DK for Mario Party that faithful evening. Maybe i should look into the DK Amiibo, it’d be fun to contribute to my friend group’s bit like that. Assuming the Amiibo isn’t crazy expensive.
Amiibos are a bit expensive. There are a few DK amiibos, they should all work with Smash because amiibos have a character identifier that’s recognized between games and amiibo series.
The ones from smash bros and super mario series should be around the “normal” price (for me it’s about 13-15 euros). Maybe you can find a second hand one for cheaper.
There’s a new one with DK and Pauline for Bananza, like other new amiibos it costs a bit more (around 18€ for me). It unlocks a costume in Bananza as an extra.
There’s also an old Skylander DK figure that doubles as an amiibo if I remember correctly. It’s kinda ugly and cheap-looking, and probably not easy to find, but who knows.
Damn, Skylanders is a name I haven’t heard in a while. I wonder if I had the DK one growing up. I collected those things like hot cakes so it’s possible. Anything to avoid spending more money. Alternatively I think I bought some NFC tags I can write myself now that I think about it specifically for this purpose
Looks like a cool game, but considering how many reviewers bring up complaints about the platforming I think I’m going to steer clear to protect my sanity.
A minor note: in the name Doai-eki (土合駅), the eki (駅) part means “train station”. So “Doai eki train station” in English is a tad redundant. Kinda like The La Brea Tar Pits.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne