sclpls

I'm all for dialogs, but that requires two parties that are willing to listen to what the other party is saying. That's why I mentioned how tired I am of hearing the "agenda" trope used. It's a rhetorical tactic used to ignore people that you disagree with. More than happy to talk to people that just don't know any better, or just have a different but respectful point of view. People that don't want to listen can't get educated until their attitude changes though.

I wonder if they are going to work out of the Idle Thumbs studio? If so, that is going to send Dear Mom shares through the roof...

It definitely solidifies in my mind that RPS is one of the best games writing websites around. Accusations of having an agenda are getting tiresome though. Apparently the desire to make an effort at some human decency = nefarious agenda.

This is slightly off-topic so I apologize but it is interesting to me that in the inevitable comparisons between Eclipse and Twilight Imperium lots of people claim that TI is a much stronger game thematically which never made sense to me since they both are kind of generic space opera settings. I mean they're both a lot of fun to play, but that particular claim never made any sense to me. Anyway, I really need to try Netrunner out

Prescient?

Haha I was about to post the same thing, including reaction! Next Thumbs episode should be a good one...

This thread disturbs me...

Nice to hear Nick on the podcast, I loved his enthusiasm for the game, and hopefully he can join in on some future episodes. If you're ever going to get Jake on the podcast though I think you're going to have to do a Pikmin 2 episode... That game Troy mentioned about organizing the political cabinet of Lincoln sounds strikingly similar to a game I played back in the 90s, but was about the American Revolution, right down to everything being interesting except for the terrible battle system. Sadly I don't recall the name at all. I never played Gettysburg, and this episode certainly makes me sad that I missed out on it. We can all hope (and luckily have some confidence) that Shenandoah Studios will bring a similar quality to their iPad effort.

Yeah, Chris' video was entertaining. I enjoy both Chris and Tom's videos because of their delight in mayhem.

That's a good point that I hadn't thought about. As a general rule I dislike grinding, it makes me feel like the designer couldn't be bothered to try and balance a game. Obviously some people enjoy the grind though, so it's just not for me!

He's a pretty shady character. You probably blocked him after that night when he asked if you wanted a piece of Obama.

Definitely gotta go with Rob on this. I've been teaching myself how to write code, but I don't see how that makes Rome 2 a better game than others in the Total War series. Or maybe I should just start disbelieving my lying eyes.

Another well written article examining the good design choices in Gone Home. http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2013/09/why-gone-home-is-so-immersive/

No one is arguing that the game should get low marks for not being "opinionated in a way that is different from me". The game developer decided it was worth including a narrative in the game however, and if that narrative is lacking there's no reason from a purely critical perspective that it shouldn't get docked points if people think that narrative is bad. Rockstar has been very explicit that they want to tell complicated narratives. It would not be difficult at all for them to simply have some open sandbox for people to mess around in. Games like Minecraft have been incredibly successful without any narrative story to hang a hat on. No one is expecting Transformers to be a "daring romantic tragedy" (or whatever), but if a critic thinks it is a dumb movie, why shouldn't that critic give it low marks?

More GTA satire (but not the satire of GTA!) http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-features-of-grand-theft-auto-v,33883

I am under the working assumption that Manny Calavera has been around for quite some time...

Yeah, I agree with a lot of that, and I would say a lot of that attitude is not unique to GTA either. I remember when Bioshock Infinite came out one of the dudes from Capybara Games was complaining on twitter about how that game was everything that was wrong with video games, which I thought was a rather obnoxious hyperbolic statement to make. That being said I want to stand up for Leigh's satirical review. GTA IV really did get some absurd over-the-top praise for a game that made a lot of remarkable technological achievements, but was otherwise in many ways an inferior game to the games that existed in the previous console generation. That critique is maybe a little less relevant when this time around you do see a lot of reviewers willing to criticize the game for its misogyny (while stuck in the ridiculous situation of still awarding it a 9.5 out of 10 or whatever because who wants to risk getting blacklisted when a GTA game will provide so many view page hits). Readers ought to know the game being played here, and I think Leigh's piece does a reasonable job of exposing the awkward situation games reviewing is in.

I liked the line in the Polygon review criticizing the GTA series for being, "relentlessly cynical about the American experience — the college freshman worldview". Also good satire depends on being remarkably focused, and Rockstar games are way too broad in terms of what they are trying to encompass for them to be effective as satire or parody. If the overall message of a work is "everything about society is kind of dumb huh?", well, that's just not a very interesting point of view. I'm still looking forward to experiencing the game, but it doesn't surprise me that it doesn't sound like the narrative is going to have anything to say that I will find interesting.

GFW meetups are always awesome. I could also use some more of A Life Well Wasted in my life.

Yeah, it's not that the game doesn't have some solid points to it. The setting, when it doesn't plop you into generic sci-fi territory, is quite lovely, and there are moments when the tactical combat can be thrilling. But there were also so many design decisions that were clearly intractable problems that it was just too late to rework, and so many unfinished ideas. The game's a fascinating mess, but not something you can really recommend.

http://believableworlds.tumblr.com/

Now that the date of Chris' birthday has been spoiled I've lost all will to celebrate. Oh wait, no, the opposite of that. Happy belated birthday Lord Remo!

I'm glad Chris has gotten really into Spelunky. I remember how challenging the ice caves were when I first encountered them, and being confounded by the conventional wisdom that they were really easy. I would say he has the right idea about needing to just learn the world, and the best way to do that is to just focus in on getting the shortcut built. Those shortcuts are not helpful if you're trying to complete the game because that build up of equipment is critical for survival in later worlds, but they are incredibly useful for when you are just trying to get your bearings and learn how everything works in a new world area. I hope he sticks with it, I still have so much fun playing the game even though I still haven't beaten it to date (I've gotten close a couple of times but I have a real knack for screwing up closing the deal).

I experienced all that guilt/anxiety when I used to work as a freelance writer. Sure, being able to see a movie in the middle of the day is nice, but people that have only experienced fixed work schedules often don't realize how good they have it. I don't miss my freelancing days at all.

This is what immediately sprang into my head as well