SnotFlickerman

SnotFlickerman, 3 godziny temu

Tav: Shouldn’t have wished to live in more interesting times.

SnotFlickerman, 11 dni temu (edited 11 dni temu)

Yeah this title wasn’t begging for a remaster.

It was interesting, at the time, but far more interesting, thoughtful, and artistic indie games have popped up since.

It’s artstyle isn’t as unique as it was on release, nor is the gameplay. It’s no small wonder it did not do well.

This guy must have been huffing his own farts thinking this was a good time and market to do it in.

It’s never been tougher for indie games, and people are outright bored by linear narratives. Braid is presented with events out-of-order but it still tells a linear story.

Much more complex narratives exist now, and Braid just can’t compete on that level.

SnotFlickerman, 12 dni temu

Tom Nook is a rotten bell-grubbing bastard.

But its a cute fun game. I only ever played the one on GameCube and a tiny bit of New Leaf. I liked finding old NES games on the GameCube one and playing them on the in-game NES.

SnotFlickerman, 19 dni temu

A man chooses.

A slave obeys.

SnotFlickerman, 22 dni temu

In other news, Microsoft shuts down Bethesda game studios…

SnotFlickerman, 25 dni temu

I honestly felt it was weaker than both Bioshock and System Shock 2. It was stronger than Bioshock 2, but I mean… that doesn’t take a lot.

Both System Shock 2 and Bioshock built the game systems first and foremost to be fun and engaging, and then wrote an engaging story around those mechanics. Bioshock was literally taking dumbed down systems from System Shock 2 and rewriting a more engaging and thoughtful story around the familiar systems. Bioshock Infinite seemed much more like they had a story idea first and then tried to adapt Bioshock-esque gameplay hamfistedly stapled onto said story. The others feel like the gameplay came first, and the story evolved naturally to align with the gameplay.

Games like Neir Automata really show where a synthesis of game systems design and game story design are really important and become even more impactful to the story, and in this Bioshock Infinite failed in comparison to earlier installments in the series (and its spiritual predecessor, System Shock 2).

I feel like it’s hard to talk about Bioshock as a series at all without discussing System Shock 2, because that’s where Levine first pioneered his story with the engaging antagonist who speaks to you through a radio, and Bioshock is where he refined it into what comes close to literature. Bioshock Infinite marks a regression, more worried about the story that Levine wanted to tell than the gameplay to support it. Due to that the story falls flat, feels stilted, and Levine’s generic take of “everyone can be a bad guy” feels hollow, because it’s not backed up by compelling gameplay that supports it.

As McLuhan put it, “the medium is the message” and video games inherently work better through a synthesis of gameplay and story, without one dominating over the other. Games that lean too far in one direction or the other (Metal Gear Solid’s interminably long cut-scenes for instance) take you too far out of the gaming medium and too far into other, more detached mediums.

SnotFlickerman, 24 dni temu

I came back because I read a bunch about Levine’s new game, Judas… and it sounds like his approach to Judas is exactly what I’m asking for.

He talks about “narrative legos” a lot while developing this game, and I think that’s the kind of thing he really needed to implement to be able to tell the story he actually wanted to tell.

I found one interview (already forgot which one) where he described Bioshock Infinite’s linear story as holding him back, and that’s part of why it’s a weaker installment, because it can’t change the story in response to your actions. That’s clearly what Levine was trying to do with stuff like the choice of harvesting of the Little Sisters or not, or in Infinite, choosing to be a racist piece of shit or not. He was held back technologically, and I think the “narrative legos” idea is why Judas languished so long in development hell.

Here’s hoping Levine learned his lessons this time around.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

Disappointing that its a Fallout 2 mod and not a fix-up of the Van Buren codebase but I guess only the tech demo ever got leaked, not any full code.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

For Nintendo, the main purpose is to put a dent in piracy.

You can bet your ass anti-piracy measures will be the biggest upgrades made to the console.

Switch games were being emulated quickly after release and there’s a lot of PCs with the same form factor now that are technically beefy enough to emulate stuff. (*looks at SteamDeck)

This breaks the previous emulation cycle and gives them a chance to boost anti-piracy measures since they’re clearly not beefing up the Switch 2 to PC hardware standards.

The hardware will defnitely be emulatable on other systems, so they have to dump everything into anti-piracy measures.

I mean they don’t have to but this is Nintendo we are talking about here.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu (edited miesiąc temu)

Super Mario Land also gave birth to Wario as an enemy and then eventually his own gameboy Spin-off Warioland (subheaded as ‘Super Mario Land 3’), which went on to have more installments than Super Mario Land itself!

Wario is one of Nintendo’s best characters and deeply underutilized (along with Waluigi).

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

This universe came about because they would design fun gameplay first and then write an absurd story around it.

The “reasons” for things were usually dictated by gameplay and the stories reflected that.

It’s why Katamari Damacy is one of my favorite games, because it took that notion and really ran with it. It’s story is as absurd and over-the-top as the gameplay of rolling up objects to make stars in the sky. The gameplay is absurd and not in any way reflective of any reality except the reality of the game world itself.

The Mario series has always kept that ethos as well. The stories have grown and changed as long as the Mario gameplay has, each a response to a new set of moves, and at one point the move from 2D to 3D, all of it forever changing the path forward and the details of the canon Mario universe.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

“Califooooooorniaaaaaaa.”

Also didn’t the girl go on to be the singer in Rilo Kiley?

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

crying baby island simulator

I understand the hate but that game was so damn good, if you could ignore the baby cries.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

Official Microsoft controllers were absolute peak with the Xbox 360…

…but modern Microsoft Xbox controllers have absolute dogshit build quality. Just the worst, constantly breaking for no reason. I’m just done with Xbox controllers because old DualShock 4’s are cheap and quality.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

Soon:

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/32d356e3-3d86-4f51-979b-73210e3d517f.png

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

I never asked for this.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

Top-tier writeup. The original will always hold a special place in my heart but Mankind Divided was an excellent modern interpretation of similar systems of gameplay.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

System Shock 2 is begging for a remake with actually functioning netcode for multiplayer way more than the original.

Bioshock would eventually iterate on this, but the RPG systems of System Shock 2 are so, so deep, and I always appreciated that you could still get attacked by enemies while trying to hack machines. It made doing things like hacking feel very dangerous. Bioshock literally pauses time for you it’s so weak by comparison.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

You know, you bring up a really good point, honestly.

My friend had a similar complaint about Baldurs Gate III.

“Why so much body horror and gore? When I was growing up and playing DnD, we were never exploring that kind of stuff. DnD can be so much more than just body horror and gore.” Not verbatim, but you get the idea.

As much as I love BG3, I don’t actually disagree with his sentiment at all.

There should be an opportunity for people to play similar style of games that aren’t so gory or depressing or both. Not every stealth game needs to be cyberpunk and depressing.

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

Another series worthy of discussion!

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

but do you know about the 3 shells?

SnotFlickerman, miesiąc temu

Tonight at 11, Japanese company centers japanese media in its media showcase.

SnotFlickerman, 2 miesiące temu

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/f54bc1b4-5235-4d42-bf24-3d3d65ba4f22.jpeg

“Ramirez has caught the parking lot frog” sums it up so succinctly.

SnotFlickerman, 2 miesiące temu

After how expertly Fallout nailed its landing by using literal assets from the game for set design…

Yeah this is gonna flop hard.

SnotFlickerman, 2 miesiące temu (edited 2 miesiące temu)

This is one of those things where Valve actually actively sucks and is actively ignoring a growing problem because the old game just isn’t profitable anymore.

Expect this to get zero interest or time spent on it from Valve because they’re knee-deep in trying to release a Hero Shooter (rolls eyes).

I have a lot of respect for Valve, but situations like this really need to make people step back and question how much Valve care about the community that uses the Steam service, or do they really care more about how much money they make?

The fact that they keep creating micro-transactions for a game that’s been completely taken over by bots says “They don’t give a shit, they just want the money.”

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Let’s not let Valve get away with shit just because they’re “good guys” compared to other businesses.

Anti-consumer is anti-consumer is anti-consumer. Valve doesn’t get a pass for being Valve.

EDIT: To be clear, I understand that they aren’t required to keep supporting a nearly-two-decade-old game, but letting it become a place where outright abuse happens is a different story. If you can’t control the abuse and you don’t want to do anything about it: do the thing nobody will like but will solve the problem: kill the damn game already if you don’t want to support it. That’s what I expect to happen before they face this issue, they’ll shut down official servers and make the game unavailable before they try to solve the bot problem for a game so old. Valve has made it clear for years that they don’t listen to or give a flying fuck about the TF2 community.

SnotFlickerman, 3 miesiące temu

You know what they call bad writers?

Hacks.

So… this tracks.

Seriously, good writing doesn’t happen with “lifehacks,” that’s how you get worthless shit like Max Landis writing Bright. (Don’t you love white people trying to write about racism… without writing about racism? Just plop in any old fantasy race and it works, right? Right!?)

I recall almost two decades ago I got into it with a woman who was going to school at Digipen, and she told me what Digipen taught students about writing a game.

She said the point was to create the most everyman main character, so you could have the most customers identify with them, and be able to sell more units.

Which I basically said “They’re teaching you the worst writing techniques possible. Literature students would faint at this idea.”

She didn’t care, she claimed this was “good writing.”

No wonder so many games have such dogshit writing if this is how we’re teaching game writers to write for fucks sake. Pick up a god damned book and get thoughtful, people.

Like seriously, let’s get game adaptations of weird, interesting books like Steppenwolf or Naked Lunch.

SnotFlickerman, 3 miesiące temu

Also, the trailer refers to Hobbits as “creatures” instead of “people.”

What’s with a little fantasy dehumanization, eh, eh?

SnotFlickerman, 3 miesiące temu (edited 3 miesiące temu)

Mass Effect Andromeda is mostly hated, but hot damn, it’s disappointing that it was, because it brought back all the best aspects of the original Mass Effect and iterated upon them greatly. Open world planets to explore with a big, fun to drive vehicle.

I would say it’s main failing was the story and the companions, which was generally forgettable, but the world building was quite good and the environments were beautiful.

For all the failures of the facial animations and dead eyes upon release, the actual game itself is really beautiful when it comes to scenic vistas and so on. Part of the trouble is you spend a large mount of the early game stuck inside samey indoor environments with these dead eyed NPCs, so when it came out, the opening of the game gave people a bad view by focusing you on the games worst offenses right out of the gate. That’s a hard hill for a lot of people to climb over, understandably so.

I just think it was incredibly disappointing because it was in many ways a way stronger game (gameplay-wise and environment-wise) than Mass Effect 2/3. It was a huge step up in quality for the franchise, but because of a botched story and facial animations, it nearly killed the franchise entirely.

It was also one of those games that suffered from Gamergate bullshit. Complaints of Sarah Ryder not being attractive enough and complaints too many LGBT characters. I remember when I used to think EA was lying that they thought they won Worst Company from The Consumerist because they had anti-LGBT people doing write-in campaigns against them. I believe them now, even though it felt like they were hiding behind that at the time. Because those are bullshit complaints.

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Also, is it just me or did Baldur’s Gate 3 prove you could do a modern version of one of these games in the classic isometric overhead view style?

I’d love to see a Mass Effect style game in a modern isometric overhead view turn-based tactical combat type situation, like X-COM but more like an RPG than a tactical combat game with minor RPG elements.

SnotFlickerman, 4 miesiące temu

This just in: Shitty and unethical company known for shitty, unethical practices and absolutely bonkers PR statements like “AAAA games” unsurprisingly continues to be shitty and unethical company. There’s not more at 11 because that’s all there is to it.

SnotFlickerman, 4 miesiące temu

It’s impossible to hear this song and not see a punked the fuck out Johnny 5 saving the day.

SnotFlickerman, 4 miesiące temu

Steam suspicously absent from this conversation, but I’m willing to be patient and see.

It’s a positive attitude for Spencer to take, but would have to see it in practice to be able to make judgment on if he really stands behind those words or if he is simply making a strategic business decision whose real motives are simply masked by these words.

The latter is par for the course for corporations, so we don’t have a lot to lean on in favor of him truly holding these values, sadly. One can hope, however, that miracles can and do happen.

SnotFlickerman, 4 miesiące temu

Literally nobody asked for this.

It will likely bomb, especially if it’s as crammed with microtransactions as I fully expect it will be.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

Excellent breakdown. This almost definitely only applies to the Deluxe Edition that is a physical copy.

Steam explicitly doesn’t let you give your account away or sell it, likely because they service so many different companies, that it would be impossible to handle the licensing changeover for all your games. It’s still frustrating, but it also makes a little sense, considering each game is often owned by a series of different companies.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

Now Nintendo is going to start going after the smaller guys, who definitely can’t afford to fight.

The plus side is Ryujinx is Free Open Source Software so a million forks can begun being made right now. Yuzu had closed source aspects, which was its downfall in replication from this point forward. Ryujinx will likely have thousands of clone repositories made after today alone.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

I’m interested in them mostly because my NES, SNES, Genesis and OG GameBoy all still work, and it would be nice to be able to still use my cartridges once they finally bite the dust. I got real lucky with the NES getting refurbished by Nintendo of America in the early 2000’s before they released the Wii and were still servicing all their old consoles.

So yeah, I’m curious about how functional they are, for sure.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

SimCopter has a very special place in my heart as possibly the prank that led to the formation of the Yes Men.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCopter#Easter_egg

The game gained controversy when it was discovered that designer Jacques Servin inserted an Easter egg that generated shirtless men in Speedo trunks who hugged and kissed each other and appear in great numbers on certain dates, such as Friday the 13th. The egg was caught shortly after release and removed from future copies of the game. He cited his actions as a response to the intolerable working conditions he allegedly suffered at Maxis, particularly working 60-hour weeks and being denied time off. He also reported that he added the “studs”, as he called them, after a heterosexual programmer programmed “bimbo” female characters into the game, and that he wanted to highlight the “implicit heterosexuality” of many games.

Based “Andy Bichlbaum.”

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

These kind of protests are almost exclusively what the Yes Men do! They got their start when they were making a parody website of the WTO (Then GATT) and suddenly had a bunch of serious industry people mistaking their parody site for the real one and sending them emails inviting them to conferences. Thus Andy Bichlbaum and the Yes Men were born! They always go way beyond absurd to try to capture people’s attention, but most often with groups of “experts” everyone takes them all to seriously.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

The rising costs of developing blockbuster games has also raised the stakes. “When you’re talking about a budget that’s $100mn plus, even for a big company, if you miss with two or three of those then commercially you’re on the ropes,” Harding-Rolls said.

Oh boo hoo, is the only type of game you can think of to release is a"blockbuster" type game?

Because last I checked, small titles regularly do quite well, like Hi-Fi Rush did so well compared to the fucking bomb that is Starfield. Same company, small game vs. big game. Small game did well, big game tanked.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

trust thermocline

Quality reference. Also, in reverse, companies such as Larian prove that trust works.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the buggiest messes I’ve ever played. In that, it gives me warm fuzzy memories of the originals, which were similarly buggy monstrosities.

Despite the bugginess, the deep involvement of Larian with the community at every step of the games development and release proves that trust can get you nothing but accolades, even when your game is a buggy mess for six months post-release.

I’m okay with the post-release bugginess because I can trust that Larian actually cares about resolving those things.

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

Maybe they spent too much time with the Encyclopedia of Numbers?

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

Is Foamstars fun?

If you have to ask this question about a video game, a meduim that lives or dies based on how “fun” it is, the answer is probably no.

Fun games don’t have people asking if its fun or not.

SnotFlickerman, 5 miesięcy temu

I have yet to see anyone ask “But is it actually fun?” about, say, Baldur’s Gate 3.

Maybe part of the reason why is because games like Hogwarts Legacy don’t respect player agency and spend their time forcing you to play the game the way the developers wanted, while Baldur’s Gate 3 allows you to experiment and try to break guardrails.

Hogwarts Legacy literally won’t let you jump over a fence that your legs are visibly taller than. I only finished that game because I wanted to be able to write correctly about how deeply that game disrespects player choice and is all-in on “you play our game the way we intended, or you don’t play.”

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

The 21st century has been repeated instances of “the man behind the curtain” getting completely caught in the curtain, yanking it down, causing a small fire, pissing himself a little bit, and then standing up, waving his hands and yelling at the gathering crowd “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” while the fire begins to grow.

The world wouldn’t be so frustrating if it wasn’t so clear that so much of leadership (corporate, especially so) has no fucking clue what they’re doing, certainly no more in depth clue than their own workforce, and they’ve been coasting on things like stock buybacks for the better part of three decades. They continuously fail but they use their absolutely massive wealth to constantly shield themselves from liability, or any responsibility really, from their near-constant fuck-ups that piss off consumers, poison the environment, and harm workers.

Anyway, much like with their constant fucking-with-the-consumer on Windows 11, they’re just barrelling down the “fuck the people who invested in our hardware ecosystem” path because “fuck consumers, amirite?” They mostly cater to other businesses now, which is part of why it’s a lot easier/cheaper to get a Windows license than it used to be (although that’s been changing). This is the same with so many businesses now, they mostly just serve… other businesses, that’s where the real money is… because they’ve bled the US consumer dry and so they’re prioritizing corporate clients, who have deep coffers.

It’s much like what’s going on at Warner Bros, where shitcanning a movie and deleting it entirely is more “cost-effective” to a movie studio than releasing it. They don’t give one flying fuck how much it pisses of consumers or the people who made it, all they’re worried about is the numbers in WB’s and their own bank accounts. They couldn’t give less of a fuck about what’s in consumers bank accounts or the laborers and artists who made the films bank accounts.

They’ve fully insulated themselves, the aristocracy never left. They just use the power of money to control and influence the power of the State instead of being a King themselves. They’re simply dictators of their own little feifdoms.

The worst part is how many of The Aristocrats live up to the worst versions of the joke.

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

And just wait until they pull a Nintendo and just stop having stuff in their catalogue…

Oh that game you remember from your childhood? Lost to time, go fuck yourself, corporate profits come before nostalgia or even accurate human history.

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

And everyone else just realizes how bad this means things are going for the gaming industry as a whole.

This isn’t good news for anyone who likes actually owning their games instead of just having a license, if they own a console.

That ship sailed in PC gaming forever ago, which is honestly fine considering storefronts like GOG exist, but it’s still going to be a gut-punch to people who have invested financially heavily in the Xbox ecosystem.

It’s going to mean smaller selections of games, more gambling/gacha bullshit, and “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” will dominate the industry. When licensing runs out for music, they’ll just pull a game instead of trying to “fix” it, if it’s not profitable enough. We’re entering an era where there will be a dead-zone of lost media and history because so much of it is increasingly locked up behind corporate barriers.

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

And the voices of millions of anti-social-justice-warriors cried out in agony.

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

Next Month: CAPCOM’s Guide to Over-saturating an Already Over-saturated Zombie-Game Market.

Next Year: CAPCOM cancels five Resident Evil games in development.

SnotFlickerman, 6 miesięcy temu

They are, but five of them? It seems like they’re ready and willing to kill current goodwill in respect to their games by stepping on the gas instead of realizing why people suddenly liked the games again.