General gaming superthread

Octavia · Post by **Octavia** (?) » Tue Nov 12, 2019 1:24 pm

If only OKCupid had statistics about sexual and romantic behavior for people who crash-landed on remote planets.

Just like every other aspect of the game, it's a complete oversimplification of something that's very complex in order to make it more easily programmable. Fortunately, there are plenty of mods to change any part of the game.

(?) · Post by **Perrydotto** (?) » Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:00 pm

Being more openminded about feminism and sexuality isn't hard to program. At the very least, giving female characters a penalty is ... pretty unfortunate.

Also things you like can be flawed and that's okay. :ponynet:

At any rate I'm glad if the creator improved his stance and gave that aspect a do-over.

Octavia · Post by **Octavia** (?) » Wed Nov 13, 2019 3:18 am

It's certainly easier to program via lazily copying data from a bad source (OkCupid) than to actually think about the complexities of gender and sexuality. But rather than going for "realism" by using that source, what would've actually been the easiest and a better option would've been to just make it so anyone can do any of the social options with anyone else. But then you just know you'd get idiot gamers complaining that there are too many non-straight pawns, but definitely not because of homophobia, because it's "unrealistic."

In RimWorld, you can't really guide people into relationships like in The Sims or Stardew Valley. RNG decides all. So I definitely don't feel as invested in the relationship aspect as with other games. Like every game, it has its flaws, but I've really been enjoying playing it since my friend gifted it to me a few weeks ago, and I'm usually tremendously picky about what games I like, so it's nice to have found a new one that seems to have stuck.

Captain Rufus · Post by **Captain Rufus** (?) » Wed Nov 13, 2019 4:05 am

I decided instead of Bloodborne I would buy Dark Souls Remastered. Because I enjoy being abused. And hitting things with very large 2 handed weapons. And swearing.

(?) · Post by **Venusy** (?) » Thu Nov 21, 2019 7:27 am

That last quote is the best one.

Demeh · Post by **Demeh** (?) » Tue Nov 26, 2019 5:13 pm

Oh my god

The chapter 9 Celeste experience

I had 2502 deaths there, more than a third of all my total deaths combined after having done all A-sides and B-sides

but I did it

holy shit

What an excellent fucking game

Octavia · Post by **Octavia** (?) » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:05 pm

My partner's been playing the shit out of Celeste chapter 9 as well. He wanted to complete all of it before the new Stardew dropped.

Gloomy Rube · Post by **Gloomy Rube** (?) » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:05 pm

Congratulations!

Captain Rufus · Post by **Captain Rufus** (?) » Wed Nov 27, 2019 5:34 pm

I'm taking a Dark Souls break.. to play Demon's Souls. Because uhh.. dunno.

I just love this style of gameplay.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 012038.jpg

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 012313.jpg

I'm basically playing Drizzt Do Potter vs Cliff Racers. (Level 50 now after getting my magic powers tough enough to deal with a boss whose tongue can apparently go through solid rock.)

I have a buffed Scimitar for slicing and a couple magic spells for stuff like burning bugs that explode and kill my character in 1 hit. Even when I run far away. Or have 20 meters of solid rock in between us.

Vivianinatoga · Post by **Vivianinatoga** (?) » Sat Nov 30, 2019 6:45 pm

I tried playing Tropico 5 for a bit and was turned off. I'd been in the mood for an RTS style game for a long time and the idea of creating your own island utopia sounded pretty neat. But in the tutorial, the game definitely tries to hammer in the notion that you will have to do Bad Person things sometimes in order to succeed and that is a lesson I will refuse to learn.

SlateSlabrock · Post by **SlateSlabrock** (?) » Sat Nov 30, 2019 7:18 pm

I skipped Tropico 5 because 3, 4, and 5 were all basically the same game with some tinkering around the edges in the mechanics, and I doubt they changed enough to make stuff like assassinating dissident faction leaders important. Usually, as long as you keep an eye on which needs your citizens are complaining about the most and prioritizing those, everyone stays happy enough to not worry about any of that.

On the other hand, I kinda bounced off of Tropico 6 because they did finally change a lot of stuff about the game, and now it's more heavily based around specific tasks from factions and foreign governments, which are annoying to try to deal with at the same time you keep your people happy. Also, the more detailed art style makes the buildings harder to tell apart at a glance.

Angel Beat · Post by **Angel Beat** (?) » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:29 am

Myes, I'm quite enjoying the Surge 2 after getting it during the Black Friday steam sale.

Madeline · Post by **Madeline** (?) » Sun Dec 01, 2019 2:03 am

You can finally get all of the Civ6 expansions for Switch now.

(?) · Post by **Fizzbuzz** (?) » Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:11 pm

That is good to hear. I kept looking back at Civ on the Switch but was worried that whatever porting company Firaxis farmed it out to wouldn't support it with the expansion packs, so I held off on getting it despite my initial interest.

Too bad the full package is $110. I'm, uh, gonna wait for the base game to go on sale.

Madeline · Post by **Madeline** (?) » Tue Dec 03, 2019 4:58 pm

Holy shit

Yeah, better wait for a big sale on that one (or the inevitable “complete/gold” edition in a year or two).

(?) · Post by **Perrydotto** (?) » Tue Dec 03, 2019 5:10 pm

It's a real shame that Civ games basically need the expansions these days to really reach their best. Civ 5 was alright on launch but got tons better with the expacs. Civ 6 is pretty likely to be the same.

DaikatunaRevengeance · Post by **DaikatunaRevengeance** (?) » Tue Dec 03, 2019 5:46 pm

The Sims situation.

Angel Beat · Post by **Angel Beat** (?) » Tue Dec 03, 2019 11:20 pm

Big weapon is big. (And splits up into two for fast attacks.)

Madeline · Post by **Madeline** (?) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 3:35 am

My brother fixed his PS4’s disc drive, so now I can play PS4 games again

(I immediately started playing Bloodstained on it again because I have an addiction to Metroidvanias

)

Madeline · Post by **Madeline** (?) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 3:35 am

could’ve played horizon, bloodborne, or spider-man, but no, I’m hunting draculas

again

(for the purposes of this post, the demon big bads of this game are draculas)

Madeline · Post by **Madeline** (?) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 3:37 am

when everyone is a dracula, then no one will be a dracula
—syndrome

Pocket · Post by **Pocket** (?) » Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:35 pm

Angel Beat · Post by **Angel Beat** (?) » Mon Dec 09, 2019 3:59 am

rawr im scawy

Gloomy Rube · Post by **Gloomy Rube** (?) » Tue Dec 10, 2019 3:15 pm

Metroid Prime trilogy got a mod on PC so if you dump the iso or have a dvd drive that can read Wii discs, you can play with WASD controls and mouse look.

so I've been doing that a lot

some fights are a lot easier, some are harder, because they expect you to use lockon so the hitboxes are kinda weird

Gloomy Rube · Post by **Gloomy Rube** (?) » Tue Dec 10, 2019 3:17 pm

having mouse look instead of having to use the wii mote to look around is such an amazing thing though.

like the only issues are switching visors requires you to boop 2 keys to simulate the "point at an option" thing but you get used to it after a while.

If anyone else has a copy of metroid prime trilogy for the wii, I highly recommend trying it out! It's called 'primehack'.

(?) · Post by **Venusy** (?) » Wed Dec 11, 2019 4:29 pm

Huh, I wonder if that'd help with some of the issues with the games in Dolphin VR...

Weird Autumn · Post by **Weird Autumn** (?) » Thu Dec 12, 2019 4:08 pm

Sayonara Wild Hearts is my favorite game of 2019 & I need you to play it

Octavia · Post by **Octavia** (?) » Thu Dec 12, 2019 7:39 pm

My partner played the shit out of Sayonara Wild Hearts and I think it's his favorite game of 2019 as well.

diribigal · Post by **diribigal** (?) » Mon Dec 16, 2019 5:19 am

Weird Autumn wrote: ↑
Thu Dec 12, 2019 4:08 pm
Sayonara Wild Hearts is my favorite game of 2019 & I need you to play it

Ok, now that it's on PC I played it. Some things I didn't/can't appreciate because I'm not the peak target audience, and the difficulty seems a bit all over the place, but I enjoyed it all the same. And like Rez/Child of Eden, it's a game set to music and vibration I could see coming back to again and again.

On that note, it looks like maybe Child of Eden for emulated PS3 is in a playable state, but I imagine that's super computer intense...

Captain Rufus · Post by **Captain Rufus** (?) » Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:56 pm

I have completed Demon's Souls. Yay.

Mechanical Ape · Post by **Mechanical Ape** (?) » Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:10 pm

Holy smokes, Disco Elysium is amazing and I've only been playing for an hour. This game is scratching so many itches for me.

I own Tides of Numenara but *this* game feels like the real successor to Planescape: Torment.

Who are the talented people who made this and what else have they done?

(?) · Post by **Perrydotto** (?) » Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:57 pm

Mechanical Ape wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:10 pm
Holy smokes, Disco Elysium is amazing and I've only been playing for an hour. This game is scratching so many itches for me.

I own Tides of Numenara but *this* game feels like the real successor to Planescape: Torment.

Who are the talented people who made this and what else have they done?

It's the studio's first game but it's based on the previous works of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kurvitz

Weird Autumn · Post by **Weird Autumn** (?) » Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:53 pm

sadly the only itch disco elysium scratches for me is the itch to be reminded of the compromises i make to exist in the world as a queer person and how the experiences and perspective of shitty middle-aged white men will always be seen as more important and serious and deserving of deep literary and critical scrutiny than mine

that spot is getting pretty raw and sore from the scratching ngl

...sorry I'm being a downer about a really good thing that people really like and find meaningful and important in their own lives, it's just wound up sticking in my craw the same way The Witcher 3 did because it's this really important game that I know I should play but having to play as the main character they give me is really very uncomfortable and alienating for a lot of reasons and I'm gonna be hearing about how this is the best and most important and best-written RPG ever made for years to come and it's just this low-level hum that makes me feel weirdly unheard and ignored

Captain Rufus · Post by **Captain Rufus** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 3:07 am

Maybe not everything needs to be made to cover the experiences of every one? Its impossible to do really. Best I can say is maybe make the game you want if you can. But requiring every game to ensure every group is properly represented is an impossibility if not outright ludicrous. (And that's before getting into the mainstream not exactly being interested in non mainstream voices and stories which is a whole other topic. Hell, we can barely get games not mostly about beefy generic white dudes or their Japanese counterparts which are wispy teenage boys with attendant Girl Next Door romance option! )

Does it suck? Yeah. But reality usually does.

(?) · Post by **Perrydotto** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:05 am

Captain Rufus wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 23, 2019 3:07 am
Maybe not everything needs to be made to cover the experiences of every one? Its impossible to do really. Best I can say is maybe make the game you want if you can. But requiring every game to ensure every group is properly represented is an impossibility if not outright ludicrous. (And that's before getting into the mainstream not exactly being interested in non mainstream voices and stories which is a whole other topic. Hell, we can barely get games not mostly about beefy generic white dudes or their Japanese counterparts which are wispy teenage boys with attendant Girl Next Door romance option! )

Does it suck? Yeah. But reality usually does.

Why are you being so incredibly dismissive of her post? Where did she say she needs every game to cover every experience? She is frustrated that really cool games with deep storytelling are still mostly about white men as protagonists. She's allowed to feel frustrated with that, and when you look at the statistics, the numbers are indeed still heavily skewed in that regard in videogames. "I really wish something this highly praised and cool was about someone like me for once" is not an unfair thing to say.

Also, seriously, telling people "Well shit sucks but that's reality for you so why do you complain" is just rude. Not everyone shares your overly cynical view of the world and still cares for things to be better.

Your attitude about people's legit grievances really sucks. If you don't care because you can't relate, then just don't respond to the post, but don't tell people off for having issues you cannot relate to.

(?) · Post by **Fizzbuzz** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:17 am

You just described the problem right there:

Captain Rufus wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 23, 2019 3:07 am
And that's before getting into the mainstream not exactly being interested in non mainstream voices and stories which is a whole other topic. Hell, we can barely get games not mostly about beefy generic white dudes or their Japanese counterparts which are wispy teenage boys with attendant Girl Next Door romance option!

In a perfect world, games and other media starring white men wouldn't be a problem in and of themselves since there'd be plenty of other media with all sorts of other groups represented. The problem is that generic white men are still taking too much of the spotlight, as you say there, enough that our media landscape leaves rather few options for women, people of color, and queer people who'd like to be represented. Indie gaming has helped provide better representation, but when the games with the biggest budgets or the games with the most critical acclaim continue to be about generic white men, if you're anything other than that then I expect it gets rather bothersome to be stuck with that again and again.

Mechanical Ape · Post by **Mechanical Ape** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 12:08 pm

While the protagonist of Disco Elysium is a white middle aged male, I can’t say I’d call him generic, except maybe in the sense that being fucked up and led around by your id is pretty universal to the human condition. Like, I don’t have this person’s specific problems but I do understand his struggles in a primal-empathy sort of way. Which is what makes him a real character, I think: different from the reader while still being relatable to the reader.

Would anything change if he weren’t a middle aged white man, though? I haven’t played far enough to tell.

Snowfire · Post by **Snowfire** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 12:24 pm

Captain Rufus wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 23, 2019 3:07 am
Maybe not everything needs to be made to cover the experiences of every one? Its impossible to do really. Best I can say is maybe make the game you want if you can. But requiring every game to ensure every group is properly represented is an impossibility if not outright ludicrous. (And that's before getting into the mainstream not exactly being interested in non mainstream voices and stories which is a whole other topic. Hell, we can barely get games not mostly about beefy generic white dudes or their Japanese counterparts which are wispy teenage boys with attendant Girl Next Door romance option! )

Does it suck? Yeah. But reality usually does.

Gonna agree with Perry here and say that this is a really shitty take. Autumn wanting games to have more representation is not an unrealistic thing to want. And your "well why don't YOU make the game you want" response is really a shit argument.

(?) · Post by **Perrydotto** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 12:29 pm

Mechanical Ape wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 23, 2019 12:08 pm
While the protagonist of Disco Elysium is a white middle aged male, I can’t say I’d call him generic, except maybe in the sense that being fucked up and led around by your id is pretty universal to the human condition. Like, I don’t have this person’s specific problems but I do understand his struggles in a primal-empathy sort of way. Which is what makes him a real character, I think: different from the reader while still being relatable to the reader.

Would anything change if he weren’t a middle aged white man, though? I haven’t played far enough to tell.

Disco Elysium is a fantastic game and I really cannot begrudge it individually. It's just sadly part of the ongoing line of fantastic things that get all the money and all the care and all the praise are about complicated white men. They can be wonderfully written complicated white men, but you really gotta wonder when stories about protagonists of other groups are going to get the same level of resources, care and praise. People could absolutely make a game as dense and beautiful as Disco Elysium about a woman, a person of color, an LGBT person, etc. instead, it's not like there is some forbidden magic to it. The choice just way more often than not falls onto another white man instead, and that's what's so fundamentally frustrating.

Fontra · Post by **Fontra** (?) » Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:48 pm

Part of the problem is the game industry tends to consist mainly of white men and japanese men and tend to be of the "write what you know" philosophy. Inasmuch as "write what you know" means one should stick to a background one is familiar with and actually has authority to speak upon.

This isn't always true of course, but it is what I gather from an armchair analysis of media.