Synnah

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by Synnah

  1. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Hey that's true! He does review the game! Your argument is completely invalid because of this one thing that that guy pointed out. Brilliant. And check out the criticism on offer:
  2. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    I don't even know where to begin with this bit of writing. I'm fine with your game being full of weird sex stuff, if that's what your game is (And it's probably less problematic in a game like that than in something like GTA or Watch_Dogs, which set about depicting a realistic world and are thus making a statement with the inclusion of rape or assault on women), although 'rape-as-a-mild-punitive-mechanic' is still kind of icky. But for the first review on a site born from GamerGate to encapsulate rape culture in the first paragraph... Well, no-one's really surprised, I guess. Edit: added link to the article, for clarity.
  3. I've been enjoying Desert Golfing a lot recently, and seeing people discussing it on Twitter has definitely helped that enjoyment. I kind of wish I'd reached hole 500 before hearing about it in the podcast, but that's my own fault for being lax, I guess (And also I had a bug that forced me to clear my save data and lose about 180 holes of progress). Regarding the way the game generates its holes, the game's creator Justin Smith (Who also made Realistic Summer Sports Simulator and the amazing So Long, Oregon!) replied to a conversation between Douglas Wilson and Bennett Foddy on Twitter to confirm that the generation of the levels was procedural, but that every player gets the same set of holes. He also said that it was statistically going to generate an impossible hole eventually, which was thought to be hole 2866. Until the first guy to reach it realised that you could bounce the ball off some offscreen scenery! Basically Desert Golfing is fascinating. I'm still waiting for Danielle's opinions on Sunless Sea!
  4. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    That is unbelievable. He's just fucking with people, right? It takes about 80 tweets before he concedes that maybe the New Yorker does in fact have 'fact-checking mechanism' (But refuses to acknowledge that it has a department, in spite of all the articles that refer to it as just that), and then he basically just says, "Well anyway they're wrong". Honestly the only people winning in that argument were those who did the same right back at him: It's insane.
  5. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    I saw the 'doxxing' accusations too. The use of the word was blatant twisting of facts to defame someone. And it turned out that the article in question wasn't outing a transwoman, but outing a guy for posing as a transwoman online. So yeah, the main takeaway for me over the past couple of weeks has been how easily people will jump to conclusions, and how quickly these false conclusions are spread as fact. The burden of effort is then on those who have to take the time to disprove them. The internet in a nutshell.
  6. This in particular pisses me off; What happened to Quinn was the most violent form of censorship, but none of them gave a shit about that. Presumably this is a reference to Feminist Frequency, and confusing Anita's critique with a call for censorship. The lack of awareness is staggering.
  7. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Genuinely really happy about this turn of events. And it sort of highlights what kind of mickey mouse operation these guys were running if the person they were targeting was able to quietly observe them and gather evidence this whole time. Who knew an IRC room could be so insecure? gee uh it must suck to be that guy
  8. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    The perfect smiley.
  9. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    That they think there's anything at all 'extreme' about the 'SJW's that are opposing them is telling. Have they obsessed so much about us that we have become bogeymen to them? Because I don't see the extremism in calling for an end to online harassment and better representation in games. It's crazy to me. I think the chat about Gaming's Feminist Illuminati goes some way to explaining why this happens; the T-shirt itself is a joke about how guys like them think that there is an actual Feminist Cabal, but then the joke feeds back into itself and they assume it's proof that they were right all along. The fact that http://gamingsfeministilluminati.com/ is just photos of people wearing the T-shirts does little to enlighten them.
  10. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    There have been a lot of really good think-pieces on the whole affair (Upstreamism's post on Medium, Liz Ryerson's piece from yesterday, Devin Faraci's article about where the anger and frustration of the gamer comes from), but it feels like the majority of #gamergate's supporters are just going to dismiss them out of hand, because they're written by journalists or developers, and thus they're 'corrupt'. I don't really know what the end-game is when you're dealing with a group of people that is largely so closed to any form of reasoned argument, and who are being orchestrated by the coagulated mass of bodies that is 4chan. It's so frustrating and depressing to have a bunch of people shouting 'Down with journalistic corruption!' while people are being harassed out of the industry under the same banner, and for the one hand to be seemingly oblivious to what the other hand is doing. The Idle forums have been pretty much keeping me sane throughout all this. Reasoned, intelligent discussion is the perfect antidote to the confused shitstorm happening outside.
  11. Welltris was my first brush with Tetris as well, being an Atari gamer growing up, and not having played a Tetris bootleg. It was not a good game. I just got my block-matching fix from Klax.
  12. I believe the account is Dwarf Fortress.txt. Also, the Crusader Kings II patch notes are pretty much always full of amazing stuff.
  13. The first 45 minutes of this 'cast are why I love you guys. The whole situation's had me on edge for the past week, too, and I haven't even had to deal the number of idiots that Chris has, let alone the volume that Zoe and Anita have had to deal with for months/years now. I've just been reading the things those guys have been saying, and getting more and more angry and frustrated. Because not doing so feels somehow socially irresponsible, like I need to remind myself how bad things actually are. On a more positive note, Olly's Social Justice Warrior shirt design is fantastic, and I am totally down for reclaiming the term by wearing it on my body.
  14. I was enticed by the Naturebox ads, but it's not available in the UK, so I got a Graze subscription instead. Not as many awesome peas, but they have some pretty great nuts and olives.
  15. Google has pictures! The blade sort of lived on for a while in the Xbox Guide overlay, but eventually the design of that went off blade.
  16. I lost my shit at Jake's speech synth voice malfunction. Also Dubbed Anime Jake Rodkin. I generally have a similar reaction to Tom Chick's reviews as Sean does. I have to admit I couldn't really fault his review of Transistor, though (Although I haven't yet played the game); it's slightly hyperbolic, but he backs up his points. I still take issue with his two-star review of Journey, however. It feels half-assed, like he set out to dislike the game and as such is overly dismissive of it, and barely even touches on the co-op aspect, which is arguably the crux of the experience. I mean, sure, it's possible that he just played through the game once and never really had much contact with other players; would that be the game's fault for not providing a consistent experience, then, or his for not thoroughly exploring a major gameplay feature? His opinion is his, of course, and it's totally valid, but in the case of Journey I can't help but feel like he was playing it wrong because he didn't get the same things out of it that I did, and there's nothing in his review to convince me otherwise. It is a gut reaction.
  17. I was aware of Spelunker, but for some reason never played it, even in the wake of Spelunkymania. I should probably rectify that!
  18. Abyss Odyssey also surprised me yesterday! In my surprise, I bought it, and am looking forward to playing it. I grew up in the Irish countryside, so getting hold of games was incredibly difficult for me as a child. My grandfather lived in the UK, and would occasionally send me cassettes with copied Atari 800XL games that he got from someone he worked with (I'm not proud of this! I also didn't really have any other choice). Discovering these games, with no information other than the name written in pen on a cassette inlay, was an important part of my formative years. Rare trips to Northern Ireland enabled me to splash £2.99 on games in Woolworths. Later, in the 90s when gaming culture had moved on to SNES, Megadrive and PlayStation, and there were at least ways of getting these games in Ireland, I was still rocking an Atari ST; Yearly trips to England were the only time when I could buy new games, often from a market stall, smelling of fish and cigarettes. In more direct response to Chris' Full Throttle story, I remember buying Sensible Software's WizKid from an Electronics Boutique in Coventry at the ages of 13 or 14. As I was paying the guy at the counter said to me, "Are YOU a wiz kid?". Somewhat perplexed, I faked laughter and walked out of the shop with my purchase.
  19. Crusader K+ngs II

    The confusion of the caption seemed to imply that it was the same person, but perhaps you're right. The portraits appear to be of two different people. That's disappointing!
  20. Crusader K+ngs II

    A Steam friend of mine posted this amazing screenshot. This fucking game.
  21. Please. Jake doesn't pretend to be a pig, he channels his porcine side.
  22. That's what I figured. I'm generally pretty clued up on Potter Haps, though! Agreed. If that's what the character is in her head, that's what he should be on the page. After a certain point she must have known that there was basically nothing she could do that would threaten the books' popularity, so why worry about the easily-offended minority? I'll take 3!
  23. I lost my shit at this, too. I've read all of the books, and I don't even remember if I knew that Dumbledore was gay.
  24. Ghosts 'n Goblins was the first game in the series, released in 1985, with Ghouls 'n' Ghosts coming out in 1988; both were originally arcade games, but got ported to just about every platform that existed in the latter half of the 80s. Weirdly, on 16-bit computers (Amiga and Atari ST), Ghouls 'n Ghosts was released first, in 1989, with a port of Ghosts 'n Goblins coming out a year later in 1990. This confused the hell out of me as a kid, because it made me assume that Ghosts 'n Goblins was the sequel, and I wondered why it was shonkier and more limited. Anyway, the Genesis had a pretty faithful port of Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and the SNES got Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, which is basically a sequel to the arcade game. Good to have Danielle as a more permanent fixture on the cast!