youmeyou

The dude from Haunted Castle is giving me strong Matt Berry vibes

This is addressed in the video. The difference between damsels and heros is agency. Both get locked up and put in compromising situations. But the hero breaks himself out while the damsel must be saved. Also: "muddy a story analysis with gender politics?" Seriously? Gender politics, race politics, class politics are present in every piece of culture ever produced. It takes willful ignorance to attempt to sell your work as something divorced from politics. In fact, it is a political statement of itself to do so.

Won't someone think of the Virtues!

As i stated previously: she's making more videos. So this doesn't even classify as "extra money with no where to go" 160,000 is really not much money at all stretched out over a dozen (or more) videos. I'm assuming she also has to pay her researchers (in addition to her producer) This seems quite relavent to the Skull Girls skulldoggery what just went down. http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-little-fighting-game-that-could/1100-4587/

It's not vague, it's nuanced. You're interpreting it as black and white: a woman must be either a damsel or hero. A woman can exhibit properties of both, at the same time, in the same game! But by and large we've seen women primarily be portrayed as disempowered damsels. And even those moments of empowerment are quickly revoked, such as in the Zelda examples. The Monkey Island example fits this as well. It doesn't make these bad games, but it does necessitate a need for new, inclusive and forward thinking games.

I though the video was pretty fascinating myself. I had no idea the history of that Star Fox adventure and how Fox was shoehorned in. I didn't know Princess Peach was an accident in Mario 2. It's new knowledge to me and like the Daily Show, the rest of the video works well by digging up examples ad nauseum to make an unmistakable point. Her delivery could certainly have been a little more relaxed, but people are already complaining about her not being 'academic' enough. Clearly she's not living up to YouTubes standards! As to the funding. It's an interesting (if very loaded) question but it seems pretty obvious that she's just going to make more videos. She says as much in this early interview: Erich: The project is Kickstarter funded and is currently well past its initial goal. How well did you think the project funding would go? What is your reaction to the money raised and the fan response so far? Anita: To be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect, as this is the first time I've attempted to raise money before I began a video series. When planning the Kickstarter I kept the initial goal low and the scope of the project smaller for that reason. The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. We reached our initial goal in the first 24 hours. Because of this I’ve been able to expand and evolve the project to cover a wider variety of tropes and characters. http://www.pmsclan.com/content.php?task=detail&pid=641

Think I'm going to put my playtime on hold until both NVidia and Crystal Dynamics figure out performance issues http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/07/nvidia-apologises-for-crummy-tomb-raider-performance/ Kind of crazy how long it took CD to release code to NVidia, especially in regards to the brand new TressFx stuff AMD developed. Maybe it's to get back at NVidia for PhysX?

I should have traded in my PS1 for an N64. Ok, well, I probably shouldn't have, because it was a great system. But I'm devastated I missed out on Star Fox 64, Mario 64 and especially Shadows of the Empire. I used to look at images of speeders lassoing giant walkers on Hoth in Nintendo Power (which I still was subscribed to even though my last Nintendo system was the NES) and feel so jealous about how fun it looked! Console wars are really the worst.

Having not seen the stream, this is how I picture it went down: Congrats guys!

Max Payne 3 isn't worth even 1 cent. (ok that's harsh, but I really didn't like it)

I'm hoping the QTEs dial down a lot and it was more a result of them going for a cinematic intro. Because the actual traversal is really well done, from the way you reach your arm out to stabilize against walls to the way you stumble if you drop from too high a ledge. And the forests are lush and really nicely designed. Running around finding salvage or random artifacts feels quite natural and not terribly forced (yet).

Played about an hour so far. It's gorgeous, and putting my PC through its paces. Damned if I'm going to turn off the fancy hair effects even though it chugs the cutscenes! The introduction is a mess of quicktime events, which is really unfortunate. When will developers realize this is not an interesting or empowering method of player interaction. It is dragons layer, extrapolated. And because they decided to go with universal icons instead of having to specify button inputs, I've been having a hell of a time figuring out what buttons to press. Got shot in the head 4 times trying to not get raped. Video games. Only experienced a little of the combat toward the end but it seems very well executed. Uncharted style sneaking around with a nicely implemented auto cover behavior. Arrowing fools is as satisfying as you'd expect. Fighting wolves is pretty interesting too, you're given an Alan Wake style dodge mechanic to get out of the way of their attacks. Did one Tomb so far and she didn't even say she hated tombs (like in the commercials)! Its puzzle was the kind of rube goldbergian contraption you might expect from a game of this genre. Its solution was mostly about causing physics things to happen as opposed to pulling levers which felt a bit fresher than Tomb Raider puzzles of the past. So far I haven't experienced any narrative that hasn't been shown in trailers, so I'm interested to see where the story develops. Especially if things get interesting toward the end as Brad Shoemaker mentioned on last week's show.

Don't you mean the best part?

After reading this review: http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=779 and seeing it was briefly on sale for a few clams (sale is over now) I decided to try Kane & Lynch: Dog Days Talk about a game that was unfairly maligned. The above review nails it. This game serves as an indictment of false moral dichotomies in video games much along the same lines as Spec Ops. Except you already start out as a monster so perhaps it isn't as subtle in its message. Still, it's a really interesting take on cover shooters, arguably the game Max Payne 3 was trying to be but failed miserably at. Sure there are cut scenes there to cement the fact that your avatar is a dirt bag but the real meat of player discomfort comes from the shooting galleries that fill up with bodies as your character curses himself his partner and the world in mumbled guttural inanities. One scene where you blow up a propane shop feels almost as intense as the white phosphorous section in Spec Ops. The sound blows out to white noise and dust fills the air as cops stagger around dazed from the explosion waiting for you to finish them off. The sound and camera work recollects the nerve fraying post effects of Hotline Miami. The camera is never still, always wobbling, always keeping you off balance. You can't be accurate with your weapon, you are forced to fire wildly around corners as you slam your heavy and broken frame against the wall in search of cover. There's always a discomforting tone in the soundtrack, lots of diagetic noise of radios and factory machinery, sometime police sirens. Really stunning sound design. (Good article about the sound here: http://crudepixel.com/2012/05/worth-hearing-kane-and-lynch-2/) As far as the mechanics go its nothing new. It's mostly hammering home the ugliness of what a shooting gallery essentially is. And it does that well, despite plenty of flaws. Not to mention I played through the campaign in 3.5 hours, which is a perfect length for a game this wholly uncomfortable.

That's interesting, perhaps it's just because I played Brotherhood first then went back to play AC2. And I found AC2 really began to drag on what with the schlepping between cities all the time. It just felt like Brotherhood was a tighter experience, less fluff, mechanics all working well together, but it could entirely have to do with my fatigue with the series upon starting up AC2. Good point about the story too, though I'm not sure it'd be comprehensible even in order.

No, I think it's more the personal interactions that sell the world to me. Seeing a group of soldiers sitting around listening to a guy play a guitar, witnessing a lone Stalker get jumped by a pack of wild dogs, participating in the robust trade economy (as opposed to just buying tons of guns I don't want or need). Actually the trade economy is probably a huge part of it. At least in SoC there'd be tons of missions that were just: "I need a rare artifact, I don't know where it is, go find it." It's self contained, and suits the self contained gameplay style you describe better than the missions FC2 gives you which seem transparently setup to create cool shootouts and don't really make sense otherwise. First of all, why is your character doing any of this? Surely you don't need diamond stockpiles to go after a renegade arms dealer. How does no faction ever recognize you out in the field? Surely someone would tell someone else about a lone gunman massacring literally everyone in the country. At least set it up like Fallout NV where helping one faction hurts your standing with another.

Obviously I enjoy certain parts of the game a great deal. Otherwise I wouldn't have sunk nearly as much time into it. It's true, the aimlessness is the main thing that bothers me. But I've enjoyed the heck out of the Stalker games which are arguably as aimless and I'm just trying to figure out what makes them more interesting and more enjoyable in my mind, if only to figure out my own personal tastes.

Damn, sorry to hear that dude! Hopefully you clear up your issues for next time. Managed to get a good little squad together today. Got a lot of liberator time in too. Even had a flying V going at the end! PodcastJones is the best pilot.

Honestly if you were going to play one game of the series I would recommend Brotherhood. AC2 is leaps and bounds better than AC1 but Brotherhood is a superior game cut from the same cloth.

While I do agree that the game can totally be played that way, I don't think it is narratively set up to be played that way. There is a big bad boss character that I'm ostensibly supposed to find more about by completing missions. I've completed 11 hours of missions and still don't know who anyone is or why anyone is doing anything. I think that is absolutely a fault of the game. The explicit narrative stinks. The emergent narrative is great, but only if you completely ignore the explicit narrative. And that's clearly what many people have done, but I don't think that discounts my own problems with it.

Finished up 6th 7th and 8th (since I was on a roll) 6th 7th is definitely fantastic. I think I'm starting to see the difficulty curve begin to take shape. The next guy, 8, I have so far found 1 fruit directly in front of the temple. Plenty of lizards but I just never spot fruits for some reason. Are they only in super big trees or are they in shrubbery as well? It doesn't seem to effect the gameplay that much that I haven't found any, I still haven't died so maybe I don't even really need them. The lizard stamina probably helps though, and it helps that I know the save temples are where they are to be found. Also I do see the tedious thing. It's a game that feels like it could have been tested more, and smoothed out a bit. The controls feel a few steps away from being accurate. There's stuff that's constantly hampering my control of wander. It's not always clear when I can pull back the sword to strike, so I often have to press the button repeatedly until it registers. Switching weapons is super awkward, i have to reach over with my right hand while running because if i let go of the left stick wander stops completely and there's a weird pause after switching. Just a lot of rough stuff that could have been smoother but I attribute it to the game's age and origins. It's still a wonderful experience and I look forward to seeing the rest of the colossi.

Well it basically limits my ability to role play or find a connection with my character. I have no interest in his mission, it seems pointless and destructive (which is surely the intended reading of it). So it's hard to look at the game in my Steam library and think "time to go feel shitty about myself for a few hours." Of course, it's a benefit that the game isn't feeding the traditional hero's journey to me, but it's a tough pill to swallow. I've been ruminating on how FC2 compares the the Stalker games. I do think they share a lot in common. The inhospitable landscape, the roving bandit factions, the sense that you're no hero you're just a merc trying to survive a world that's doing its best to see that you don't. The thing is, the Stalker worlds feel far more fleshed out and interesting to me. The fact that you can journey with other Stalkers, trade with them, find various loot and artifacts to sell or use. I can properly role play and think about survival and strategize around that. Far Cry 2 has none of the peripheral elements of a sandbox game. Its streamlined nature is both a benefit as it does feel very pure of purpose, but also a curse as there's not very much to it and after 10 hours or so of playing I can't imagine it has much more to show me.

Actually I don't think I can... never tried making an event before.

I don't think Lu is around, and no one was on the mumble. How about posse up same time tomorrow? I'll make an event.

4 pistols 2 naked babes and a transparent franchise cash-in.