BadHat

The rare "steam user who doesn't have HL2 yet" spotted in the wild. Truly a once in a lifetime sighting.

I caved and got this a few months back. The updates are coming thick and fast which makes it really enjoyable to follow week to week. I wanted to get into the daily challenges but got into some other games right around when that update dropped so haven't given it a proper crack yet. Might be worth recording some runs. Tell me about it. I still haven't beaten it.

I have humble codes for: Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee SpeedRunners

Hmm. Not sure how to feel about this, I already mentioned I'm not the biggest Kotaku fan in another thread. Then again I haven't made a real effort to browse their front page recently so maybe I should give them another shot before I totally disregard them. Still, if this gives Patrick the freedom to write more interesting content, and he keeps highlighting interesting stuff with things like Worth Reading, I'll keep following him. I threw his Kinja page into my RSS reader and it seems to just be showing me his comments completely out of context. How do you see the US front page? I just noticed it redirects me to the australian site and I don't see an option to switch back... Edit: I tricked it into working with a proxy extension I use. Good lord what is this layout. Oh god, I can't convince my eyes to focus on anything. Where does one article end and another begin. Aahhhhhh.

So glad I got that second monitor now. Humble Bundle has an AGDQ package going on which includes a month of Twitch Turbo (I don't know how useful this actually is but hey), and also the game Speedrunners at the $6 bracket which is fucking fantastic.

Did you read the replies? I don't have to imagine the connotations, people are picking up on his statement as a way to say "yeah, fuck off SJWs, stop taking everything so seriously and have fun!" It's a problem when it's used as a mandate instead of a suggestion. Like I said, I don't think Dan intended it this way even a little bit, but it's an incredibly common refrain for people who are dismissive of thinking critically about games, and it does show Dan's ignorance of that. In Dan's defence, he does play and talk emphatically about some unconventional games, so I can't fault him on taste and I don't think he ascribes to the whole "non-game" thing. I guess I just wish he was a bit more cognisant of what he was saying. Also just gonna agree with this. I think it's fantastic that Dan is enjoying himself, and I really enjoy his happy-go-lucky attitude most of the time. I guess in a more general sense I find it a little troubling that, in the instances where he does display his ignorance, he always seems kind of proud of it because of how happy he always is. In a vacuum this is fine, but he's broadcasting this to an audience who seem to be revelling in and even encouraging this behaviour. When so much of the current climate is informed by people whose only stake in the conversation is how their enjoyment, or FUN!, is being impacted by people "taking things too seriously," I just think some shitty people might see Dan as an unwitting ally. So really, it's not about Dan himself so much, it's just an unfortunate symptom of how shitty things are right now.

Do you not think it's kind of shitty to suggest that people need reminding of this? Like anyone being negatively affected by games culture right now is going to read this and go, "oh yeah, I should just have fun"? I really like Dan and I don't think he has a shred of malice in him, but how is that not just the most condescending statement. Seriously, look at the replies to that tweet and tell me that he's not giving support to the shittiest, most dismissive people. Even if it's totally inadvertent, and I believe it was, it still displays how thoughtless he is about this stuff. Which, in the scheme of things, whatever, it's just some guy making some dumb tweets, but it does make me value his opinion a lot less.

Oh, awesome, that's him! Gonna have to look into what he's up to now...

Yeah I would not buy this steam sale even if it was 75% off.

That post really riendeaud me speechless.

I got Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit to play with some friends (pretty fun!), then Ground Zeroes and The Fall based on how highly they were praised on the Giant Bomb GOTY casts. I'm kind of okay with not buying a load of games any more considering what percentage of them I usually end up playing...

Not to mention, I don't really like Kotaku either (at least not the majority of their output). Last I checked, feeling that way about them or the wider Gawker network was not an especially controversial opinion. Actually, Kotaku used to be pretty skeevy too, their liberal/SJW bent is really a pretty recent turn, and if I were a bit more cynical I'd say it was mostly a populist thing and wasn't meant to be a grand moral gesture (that or they just grew up). But I guess because they're trying to appeal to a wider group of people that makes them the establishment and therefore any criticism of them, no matter how broadly it might apply to other sites or groups or people, is totally fair game. There was a blog I used to check now and then called Game Journos are Incompetent Fuckwits where some freelance writer broke down shitty games journalism, the majority of it from Kotaku. Looking back he was definitely way too acerbic about it, and he got stuck on some of the same issues GGers do now, but the ironic part was he'd occasionally post about how he was a feminist and how that informed his position. I'd really really love to hear what that guy thinks of GG, but I can't find an active twitter or anything.

Oh hell yes. I watch these every year and every year I tell myself I'll keep up with his show in the new year. Maybe this time I actually might...

I got curious and found it for myself (I think?) - https://storify.com/1Novid/zodiac-mf-gets-it-why-dont-yall I don't really have anything to say about this because I have no fucking idea what his point is, except that his idea of "rebellion" is more well-worn and overplayed than the Bill Hicks vinyls he probably has somewhere under his pile of faded Nirvana tees and studded belts. "FUCK HAPPENED TO NEVER TRUST ANYONE OVER 30?" Haha how does anyone take this seriously. He was left off of Giant Bomb's GOTY lists for some weird reason. He took it well.

Whoops, I already said my bit in a different thread.

I really don't mean this as a dig against GB, but Cara seems like too "good" of a writer for them. If not in terms of quality, then the kinds of subjects she tends to tackle don't seem like they'd gel very well with their existing output. Or maybe sitting in a room quick looking horrible games would be a welcome change from crowd (edit: COUCH! haha) surfing with sexy strangers. If she wasn't a game dev, Samatha Kalman would be a perfect fit. She's always so much fun when she shows up on the bombcast or streams. I can't be too sad about it until I know for sure where he's going. Patrick is one of my favourite contributors, but he was already detached enough from the rest of the crew that he can probably keep doing the same sort of content on his own and be successful. He definitely has enough fans and supporters to go the Patreon route if he wants. Only thing I'll miss is Bombin in the AM, which I started out not giving a crap about but became one of the features I most looked forward to each week. Actually, both Patrick and Alex were originally my least favourite GB staff, but I probably ended up respecting them the most. As for the main staff, I'll probably keep checking their stuff as long as Jeff sticks around. I know a lot of people think he's too cynical but I honestly love his "fuck video games" attitude and think he's funny as shit. For all his faults, Dan is kind of the perfect foil for him because he's so goddamn positive about everything. The rest of the staff usually just laugh off Jeff's snarky comments, but Dan actually engages with him in a light hearted way that seems to catch him off-guard sometimes.

Yeah, on average the players I've encountered have actually been fantastic (such a relief after dealing with WoW players for years ), but you're right about some of the writing and ambient world stuff. One thing that strikes me every time I run Sastasha (the first dungeon you unlock, for you readers at home) is the female concubines scattered around the captain's quarters. There's no real story connected to this and yet it manages to be unsettling just because of the details they chose to include. Namely that the captain himself is a roegadyn (giant burly hulk-like people) and all his concubines are miqo'te and lalafell women (fey catgirls and small child-like women, respectively). The only spoken parts are from a few of the women who have incidental lines of dialog like "when will this nightmare end?" There is zero engagement with this as anything but an incidental world detail (look how bad this man is!!), the women don't even attempt to escape once you off the captain. It's kind of a shame when, like you say, the actual story and characters are pretty well rounded and maturely written. The localization is generally incredible too (minus a few voice actors... oh god Minfilia plz no). But hey on a more positive note here's what my character was up to a couple nights ago.

I thought this was fantastic until she got to the nerd ego massaging. "I believe in all of us. Nerds are brilliant. We are great at learning stuff. We can do anything we put our minds to..." I doubt she meant it this way, but to me this is exactly the kind of attitude aggrieved nerds have about their own usefulness that creates these shitty, entitled points of view. People who, as she pointed out, suffered real trauma and real alienation because they failed to live up to the masculine ideals that society puts on young men, are then given this convenient out to declare themselves nerdy and therefore, in some way, more capable and useful than the douchey jocks who made their formative years such a hellscape. But it's a load of shit because the only requirement for being a "nerd," or a "nice guy," or, hell, a "gamer," is that you're not one of the crowd, that you don't fit in. It occurs to me that these identities are built primarily out of just being ostracised. Therefore, any attempt by another marginalised group to claim the same might be met with scepticism because they've built a kind of ownership out of their own outsider status. It sucks because no matter how appealing this is, no matter how hard-won it must feel for these guys (and girls?) to finally feel a little comfortable in their own skin after society has resoundingly declared them worthless, a loser, it still plays into the same shitty gender paradigms as those loathsome jocks who made their lives hell. Because really, the jocks weren't doing anything wrong except for "being a jerk." They were just playing the game, and winning. Being a "nerd" is just a convenient way to frame your own position in the game as less privileged than others. In no way does it force people to engage with the idea that the game is fucking rigged, and they're just playing their part, willingly or not. (Feel like it's important to point out I'm not talking about anyone who identifies as a nerd, or gamer, or whatever, just that it's an attractive identity for bullied or misunderstood people to latch onto and use as a shield against criticism or self-reflection. Also that, even though I describe this in harsh terms, I don't really hold it against most people for falling into these traps. More I blame the culture that surrounds it for reinforcing the same shitty stereotypes for socially inept guys to play into (see: every mainstream underdog story since the year 1980). Also also, that I'm speaking partially from personal experience and am therefore in no way above any of this.)

Well, I loved the shit out of Boy. Which is also a film I'd recommend to any non-kiwis.

This is really fantastic, thanks. Gonna have to have a poke through that list (since it won't play any more), Mr. Hopkins has some damn fine taste.

Here's a very enjoyable short film.

Was that MrBtongue by any chance? I didn't know what the video was about going in, noticed the like/dislike ratio and went, "oh, he must have mentioned GG."

My hard drive just flipped it's shit so I can't freely browse my music right now, but my album of the year was hands down The Contortionist - Language. What at first just seemed like a very confident retread of popular metal tropes, soon revealed itself to be an extremely intricate, well-written and tightly-woven piece of music. At last count I was sitting on at least 50 full listens, all over the course of a couple months.

I don't necessarily think that everyone who says something like "why not just call it equalism/humanism" is doing so out of malice, mostly I just assume ignorance on their part. Often the most visible portion of feminism, or any social cause, is the most ridiculous part, because those are the things that spread the quickest and play to the largest audience (and, let's be honest, feminism can be easy to poke fun at from the outside sometimes). So someone with no real interest in engaging it sees those things and figures it's just a bunch of hipsters whining on tumblr. Then there's places like reddit where it's hard not to be exposed to arguments against feminism which are very reductive but also quite seductive (hey I'm a poet), which often come very close to toeing the line of MRA thought, but when presented/received naively can seem very straight forward and logical. For instance, it's not uncommon to see statements about "equalism" or whatever followed by a comment like "well, what's wrong with men's rights?" And, on the face of it, there isn't anything. But it takes so much context and information to unpack and contest that point that, unless the person is in a position where they're willing to take on a new perspective, it can be difficult to talk them off that ledge without sounding like you're just being dismissive towards them. I sometimes wonder if a proper men's movement whose ideals were sympathetic towards feminism and institutionalised sexism would help attract more people to the idea. But then I read a little about the men's lib movement in the 70s and it seems like that's where the current men's rights movement came from, so...

I'd been avoiding that because most of the stuff Jemaine has gotten involved with since the conchords took off (heh) has been pretty garbage. Will have to check it out.