Niyeaux

Hold on, how did this turn into a conversation about representation in games? My post last page that sparked all this was about games criticism, not games themselves. I'm all for having queer black women as protagonists or whatever, and am totally fine with playing as them. Games are an artistic medium, and the creator should make the protagonist whatever type of person fits their story, not the type of person they think will sell games to straight white dudes. This seems completely self-evident in a world where we want games to be accepted as legitimate art. However, I don't think that extends to game criticism in quite the same way. I agree with shammack, in that I don't think gender or race or what have you are the determining factors in what your taste in games will be. I'd much rather read a review from someone who has a track record of having the same taste as me, and who happens to be a latino trans-women, versus reading a review by a straight white dude who thinks Call of Duty is the pinnacle of the FPS genre. For this reason, I think special-interest games journalism is kind of a dead end, unless you're a person who's super into the politics of supporting demographic x in the games journalism industry.

Maybe it's just me, but this is exactly the sort of curated reviews that I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever. The advantage to curated reviews is that the person curating them has their own tastes, and over the course of their work you become familiar with those tastes. If you have similar tastes, you can generally rely on their opinions on things to align with your own, at least to some degree. Whether that person is gay or a woman or a racial minority or what have you is completely irrelevant - there's lots of straight white dudes who's taste in games I'd completely hate, and probably some queer black women who have extremely similar taste in games as I do. I'm a straight white male. So why should I care what demographic the writer falls into?

Man, that recent episode of RadioLab, the "Are You Sure?" one, was so incredibly bad. After that super mundane story about some dude waffling about his marriage and his belief in God, they drop a completely uncritical Pascal's Wager explanation, without elaborating on it at all, before moving onto the next story. Ugh.

I don't like the PS3 controller either, though. The triggers on that thing suck pretty bad too.

The Verge is definitely not the only outlet to complain about the triggers on the controller, which is disappointing. As someone who plays a lot of racing games, not having a reliable analog throttle control might be a deal breaker for me.

Is there no episode this week because of GDC shenanigans?

That video makes it look like a remarkably finished game. How is this a 2014 release?

I have the utmost faith in this studio, and this game. The trailer is absolutely incredible. GOTY 2014?

Looks amazing. It's a city builder that's about actually keeping a civilization alive and functioning, instead of just being about making money. I dig it.

Man, that new ALWW episode is some incredible stuff. The way they produce that podcast, with the super surreal music and everything, reminds me of Waking Life, except it's real people telling real stories. Crazy business.

That series has always had plenty of nods to other games and gaming tropes, even if it hasn't been outright parody of a specific game in the past. The silly zombie sequence in the last game, the part where you drive the cubic tank, etc.

Shovel Knight looks awesome. Might have to back that one when I get paid.

It works! Thanks man. That video is sweet.

This conversation is really frustrating to read without being able to watch the video in the OP. Can someone throw up a mirror for us Canadians?

OP, you should really get into SR3 while you wait. It's super cheap these days.

PROTIP: Pressing CTRL+F5 refreshes and reloads all of the cached data for the site you're on. Helps me with broken sites all the time.

I see no one has mentioned that Richard Garriott, a man who spent 30 million dollars of his own money to go on a vacation to the ISS, is begging for one million dollars to make an RPG that looks like it was made in 2003. And people are funding it.

Yeah, I'm a Chrome user too, and the forum works perfectly for me.

God, that mannequin story was unreal. I can totally imagine how confusing that would be at first site, and how much it would mess with your brain for the five seconds it takes to figure out what's actually happening. Great episode, guys.

A bit off-topic, but there seems to be a lot of game developers who post in this thread, so I figured I'd mention it here: are there any 2D sprite artists amongst you thumbs? I'm writing a game, and I need someone who can do top-down 2D art for it. It's a bit of a Hotline Miami-esque affair, gameplay-wise, but with a more somber aesthetic set in the Vietnam War. It's got some cool plot twists, and (spoilers) it's going to end up being a bit of a social commentary on PTSD and the way America treats its veterans. If anyone wants to help out (or knows someone who would), I'd love to get a team together and get this thing made. For now, I'm just working on a design document, narrative/dialogue, some level design, and a friend of mine is on-board to make music for it. The objective would be to release it as a PC game, maybe run it through Greenlight.

Did anyone happen to get a screenshot of SimCity's ridiculous 91 metascore on launch day? I could reeeally use that screenshot for an article I'm working on.

Yeah, I've got some humble bundle codes up for grabs, too. One for Dungeon Defenders and one for NightSky HD.

I have a steam code for Frozen Synapse that I'd like to trade away for something. Watching all the recent SimCity coverage (and being disappointed by it) has given me the city-building itch, so if anyone has steam copies of any of the Anno or Tropico games, I might be into a trade for those. Other things too, though, so tell me whatcha got.

The Giant Bomb quicklook definitely makes this game look like totally not my jam. The tiny city size and the inability to save and reload are complete dealbreakers.

Well yeah, exactly. That's why saying the developers deliberately sexualized the violence against her is a bit silly. They don't have to do it deliberately - that's just how certain male brains will interpret violence against an attractive woman.