Speaking from a feminstic but also Australian position, I think it’s kinda problematic to outright ban language internationally when the connotation of concern is specific to one culture. We use that word pretty liberally here, and it isn’t done so with remotely the same definition; instead, it is typically used interchangeably with “dickhead” and “arsehole”. Whilst I definitely support your efforts, I don’t think this is the right way to go about it, as it’s a very clear use of American exceptionalism when Americans, taken as a part of the world, make up a minority of people on the Internet.
ON TOPIC:
Yeahhhh, Elon both frightens and disgusts me. What a selfish twat.
Yeah, ultimately this article reads as if it is questioning the quality of a work on the basis of how the audience engages (or doesn’t engage) with it. Ultimately there is one case where the character dies due to a bad dialogue choice, and that response is very clearly a joke one for if you’re not roleplaying.
I dunno, it just seems as if the article is clickbait, and if this game dev would prefer playing a game 90% ludonarrative dissonance and 10% no meaningful player choice.
Great question! Really loved the Bioshock series, along with Bethesda FPSs (although they’re not great, I rather enjoy the open worlds). Cyberpunk was great fun, although disappointing in a lot of ways. The Doom series is a personal favourite, although Eternal wasn’t perfect, I really loved how the stories were handled in the previous two games.
For me, I like to seek a balance between story and gameplay. My big thing though is immersion, and being able to really understand the Universe the game takes place in.
Whilst not FPSs, the closest thing to Halo that I loved (Space-Opera shooters), the Mass Effect trilogy tops the list.
I’m gonna piss a lot of people off, and say that I really, really cannot stand Halo - the whole franchise, not just the 343 stuff.
The way I see it, my problem with the series is twofold: storytelling and gunplay. The storytelling is weak at best: whilst I’m usually a huge fan of environmental storytelling, there’s just so little information in game for me to go off! It wasn’t until I read the Reach novel that I figured out who the Covenant were beyond just “evil aliens”. I questioned this issue on the site we don’t talk about and was told to read the books, but put simply, if I have to read a book to understand your plot, then you haven’t told your plot well enough. Chief is presented in the game as this incredible figure (as are the Spartans), but the games never really tell you why, and as such I never really care about Chief or his bullshit.
Regarding the gunplay, I find it (and movement) simply too floaty to be enjoyable. There isn’t enough recoil from a lot of the weapons, and the SFX on most of the guns don’t give a great sense of power.
I understand that it’s a massive series of nostalgia for a massive number of people. I understand that it redefined FPSes, and I respect the games for this. They deserve every bit of praise people give them. They aren’t bad games, but I just do not enjoy them.
Not remotely microtransactions at all. The purchase you’re referring to is the deluxe edition upgrade, which came free to anyone who played the game during the beta, and costs $10 USD for:
The Soundtrack
An Artbook
An ingame dice skin
Some completely cosmetic items that are outclassed by literally every other thing in the game.
Honestly? To call this a microtransaction is making a pretty big and unjustified claim. This is a bonus to chuck the devs a little extra money for the soundtrack and artbook. The additional stuff is moreso a bonus for purchasing the first two. By comparison, CoD charges $18USD for a gun skin.
Successful and good are completely different and unrelated metrics. Fifty Shades of Grey was extremely successful, but no one in their right mind would ever call it good. Psychonauts was met with universal acclaim, and is widely considered to be one of the best games of all time, and yet it was a complete flop and needed more than a decade to get a sequel.
Bethesda games are extremely successful. They are not good games, and their success is not a good thing. Bethesda kicked off microtransactions in 2007 with Horse Armour. This decision completely fucked the wider industry. Not a fan.
Honestly mate? Not at all. I’m concerned about Starfield because of Bethesda’s track record since Fallout 4, and in particular, their constant attempts to introduce paid ‘mods’ to their games through the creation club (which are always overpriced for tiny amounts of content) as well as how broken their games have been at launch since Morrowind. When my PC, which can run Baldur’s Gate 3 on max settings, can’t run Oblivion without mods without regular crashes, then there’s a big problem.
I want Starfield to be good. But Bethesda do not make good games. They make broad games, but there’s no depth, and what is there is fairly consistently buggy. They have the Pokemon problem though, where people are willing to give them a pass because of the big name. I guarantee you, if a smaller developer released games in the state that Bethesda does, their games would be (rightfully) panned.