Your video game hot take(s) thread

Dirty Hipsters

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There's a number of reasons why the Holocaust is remembered:

-There's still people alive today who survived it.

-Genocides are as old as human history, but the Holocaust stands out because of its percision - an entire aparatus dedicated to the extermination of a group of people, whereas many other genocides in history have been more 'general' - for instance, the Mongols managed to wipe out 10% of the world's population, but their genocide was more "equal opportunity." Or, since the Bengal famine has been mentioned, a genocide of neglect rather than a systemic effort to wipe out a given group.

-The Holocaust has a high death toll of 7 million, so even by raw numbers, it does stand out, even if other 20th century genocides equalled or surpassed it (e.g. the Holdomor has a death count of 3-12 million, Mao's Great Leap Forward has a death toll of 10-50 million, etc.)

-Most of us live in Western countries, so we're of course going to be more aware of the Holocaust than other genocides.

-There's arguably the question of Israel itself. The desire for a Jewish homeland predates the Holocaust, but it was the Holocaust, in part, that allowed Israel to be created.
There's also the fact that the Holocaust was so well documented, both by the Nazis who carried it out, and later by the Allies who found the concentration camps. We just have a lot more information about the Holocaust than we do about any other genocide, which means it gets a lot more talked about since there's just so much concrete evidence and information.
 

Casual Shinji

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If gameplay is fun it can never be too hard. So if you're finding a game too hard to continue you're probably not having fun with it anyway.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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I think you're missing my point. I'm not questioning that corporations, given the opportunity to exploit workers with zero oversight, won't do it. They will. I'm saying that, narratively, as an interactive video game I'M playing, the level of depth they put into it, from a gaming perspective, is incredibly boring. The ONLY plot point, on EVERY planet, is "corporations bad". Ok, yes I agree, and? I mean you have that Totally Not Rick clone scientist guy that thawed you out, constantly remarking, when you encounter ANOTHER example of "corporations bad" chiming in with "Gosh! corporations sure are bad! look how bad they are!" Yes Rick, I GET IT! This is location number 8 that is hammering home this same plot point. I understand. Can we do something else with this game? Can you maybe, I dunno, explore it more deeply? No? We're going to have slapstick levels of idiocy, and Monty Python levels of bureaucratic red tape, to the point that I couldn't take the game seriously. I mean IT didn't seem to want to be taken seriously, from the moment we start, we fall in and land on some schlub, killing him, and are met with a guy bleeding out, but who is too busy giving the corporation jingle to us to explain his true needs. And then we just red tape our way into owning the ship. It's just, all a farce. Which, ok fine, you've made the game a farce, but don't expect me to take your writing seriously if that's all you are bringing to the table. 20+ hours of farce, that's just frankly, not my cup of tea.

My main complaint with TOW, isn't the game itself, it's the fans. How they went on, for months, if not years, about *pompous british voice* "Oh Obsidian's going to show Bethesda what for by jove! A REAL Fallout game! Huff huff huff! None of this tragedy of FO 4 and 76!! A TRUE FALLOUT GAME!!" *puff pipe and sip tea in smug gamer superiority* And then I start playing the game, and my one common thought, aside from "Fucking yes, I get it! Corporation Bad!" was "Gosh, I sure do feel like I'm playing Fallout 4 when playing this! I mean SO many elements, on EVERY level, are basically just copy/pasted from Bethesda. Yet somehow, this game good, FO4 bad....hmm...me thinks the Obsidian fanboys are huffing their own farts too much!"
Ah, it seems you're coming at it from a very different angle, I was only really meaning to focus on the perception that the portrayal of unregulated capitalism in game is not as exaggerated as it may first appear. The quality of the rest of the game else wasn't what I was trying to approach, and my only experience with Obsidian is a vague distant memory of not completing New Vegas on someone else's laptop, so they're not a dev with any emotional attachment.

It's like when the simpsons did jokes about the American uber-conservatives shouting "communist" at anyone they don't like, I used to assume it was massive exaggeration for hunour's sake, but growing up and learning more about US politics, they really do call anything they don't like "communist" or "communism."
But yeah, that aside, the game has faults, it's been a while but I remember a few of them.

My issue with Morrigan is that she can never see the wisdom of being polite and gracious to get what you want with minimal fuss. I agree it’s excellent she’s not fawning over you, but for a character who is intelligent and pragmatic as she is it comes across as remarkably bull-headed. And even then it merely adds dimension to her.

But Varric Tethras is my Thedas Bro For Life and I was prepared to flip a fucking table of Inquisition put him unavoidably on the chopping block.
Yeah, I can certainly understand that being an annoyance for other people. It's been a few years, so hopefully I'm remembering right, but wasn't there some questlines where you meet her mother and it becomes clearer why she is as unrelenting as she is? Like it's more a conditioned survival mechanism than calculated desicion making? That's the impression I got anyway, but it has been a long time, so I'm not ruling out that being entirely dreamt up. 😉
 

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happyninja42

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Ah, it seems you're coming at it from a very different angle, I was only really meaning to focus on the perception that the portrayal of unregulated capitalism in game is not as exaggerated as it may first appear. The quality of the rest of the game else wasn't what I was trying to approach, and my only experience with Obsidian is a vague distant memory of not completing New Vegas on someone else's laptop, so they're not a dev with any emotional attachment.
I'm not a fan of Obsidian either, and in fact, I find New Vegas a terribly boring game, most of their library I find uninteresting to be honest. I have no issue with them setting up the game with a message about capitalism and corporate greed, that's fine, and as a viewpoint, I mostly share it. But they did nothing of substance with it. That is my issue. And the already mentioned obvious cloning of game elements from Bethesda, yet the fans seem oblivious to this, and praise TOW like the second coming, while simultaneously vilifying FO 4, despite Obsidian CLEARLY copying from their test sheet for most of the game design. I just, I guess I just never saw anyone criticizing the game from the angle you are presenting. Granted I haven't paid too much attention to the game after playing it, and stopping midway through due to boredom. But I did watch a few critiques of it, and the underlying theme in those, was just "ok yes, capitalism bad...and? are you going anywhere with that premise? No? just, token comments about it and nothing more substantive? ...well...ok then."
 

BrawlMan

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Thank you.

In that case, the Helghast did nothing wrong. The ISA bastards are the true villains of the Killzone series. Radac is the truth hero of the story. It sucks he was only in one game.

  • Custom Robo is the best multiplayer game on GameCube. my friend and my brother spent so many hours battling each other and trying all the customized parts I unlocked through single player.
  • Viewtiful Joe the best brawler and best Capcom game on GameCube.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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I'm not a fan of Obsidian either, and in fact, I find New Vegas a terribly boring game, most of their library I find uninteresting to be honest. I have no issue with them setting up the game with a message about capitalism and corporate greed, that's fine, and as a viewpoint, I mostly share it. But they did nothing of substance with it. That is my issue. And the already mentioned obvious cloning of game elements from Bethesda, yet the fans seem oblivious to this, and praise TOW like the second coming, while simultaneously vilifying FO 4, despite Obsidian CLEARLY copying from their test sheet for most of the game design. I just, I guess I just never saw anyone criticizing the game from the angle you are presenting. Granted I haven't paid too much attention to the game after playing it, and stopping midway through due to boredom. But I did watch a few critiques of it, and the underlying theme in those, was just "ok yes, capitalism bad...and? are you going anywhere with that premise? No? just, token comments about it and nothing more substantive? ...well...ok then."
Sorry for the initial confusion there. Am pretty bad at wording myself clearly at the best of times, for various silly reasons. Added to the normal internet troubles of miscommunication, it's a bit of a regular issue am trying to avoid.
This site would not let me save edits for that last post at all, it wouldn't tell me why, so now all those awful spelling mistakes are immortalised and I look a right old tittie-biscuit forever! 😔
 

BrawlMan

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Sorry for the initial confusion there. Am pretty bad at wording myself clearly at the best of times, for various silly reasons. Added to the normal internet troubles of miscommunication, it's a bit of a regular issue am trying to avoid.
This site would not let me save edits for that last post at all, it wouldn't tell me why, so now all those awful spelling mistakes are immortalised and I look a right old tittie-biscuit forever!
There is a way around that, if you're having trouble saving or the site won't let you. What you usually got to do is copy and paste everything you wrote or corrected, cut it. Then paste it into a word document or sticky note document. Delete the old comment and put whatever you had before and post as a new message. That usually works for me. I know I have trouble posting a reply, if there are too many emoticons or quotes. For whatever reason, the site just doesn't like emoticons even, if you just add one. It always has to be added in after the fact or with just one quote.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Thank you.

In that case, the Helghast did nothing wrong. The ISA bastards are the true villains of the Killzone series. Radac is the truth hero of the story. It sucks he was only in one game.

  • Custom Robo is the best multiplayer game on GameCube. my friend and my brother spent so many hours battling each other and trying all the customized parts I unlocked through single player.
  • Viewtiful Joe the best brawler and best Capcom game on GameCube.
You might have seen it before, but it’s worth posting again here for reference-


Sucks they couldn’t do more with this incredible lore in the games. That’s why it would be really awesome to see a good writing team (like Gow reboot and Horizon quality or beyond) to tackle this more properly in a new PS5 cold boot of the series.
 
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BrawlMan

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You might have seen it before, but it’s worth posting again here for reference-


Sucks they couldn’t do more with this incredible lore in the games. That’s why it would be really awesome to see a good writing team (like Gow reboot and Horizon quality or beyond) to tackle this more properly in a new PS5 cold boot of the series.
I've skimmed this before, and I am not reading all that tonight. I do thank you. I would not mind a reboot of Killzone. I still want a port of the original trilogy though.
 
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Dalisclock

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If traversing the open world isn't fun, then your game shouldn't be open world.
To add to that, if there's nothing substantial (stopping to pick flowers every so often doesn't count) to do in the open world but go to the next mission, you should ditch the open world part and just make it a series of missions.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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there is a way around that if you're having trouble saving or the side won't let you. What you usually got to do is copy and paste everything you wrote or corrected, cut it. Then paste it into a word document or sticky note document. Delete the old comment and put whatever you had before and post as a new message. That usually works for me. I know I have trouble posting a reply if there are too many emoticons or quotes. For whatever reason the site just doesn't like emoticons even if you just add one. It always has to be added in after the fact or with just one quote.
Ooh, thanks for the pro tip dude! I did try a couple of randomly guessed methods to trick the website into working once more, but to no avail. Never thought of trying this way till you mentioned. There's also a character limit that doesn't tell you where you passed it too, which has proven annoying at times with trial-and-error editing taking up far more fiddly time than it should, while the error message is the same as the error message for when it doesn't want to save the edit, so it's usually unclear what and who's in the wrong in those moments.
 

BrawlMan

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There's also a character limit that doesn't tell you where you passed it too, which has proven annoying at times with trial-and-error editing taking up far more fiddly time than it should, while the error message is the same as the error message for when it doesn't want to save the edit, so it's usually unclear what and who's in the wrong in those moments.
Which weird and annoying. I frequent the DevilMayCry.org forum and the site format is nearly identical to this version of the Escapists forum. The only difference being the DMC forum has been using this forum format for a long time and there are no character limits as far as I can tell.
 
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BrawlMan

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Despite the issues with RE3Remake, I would play it (and I have) multiple times over RE VII.
 
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