Architecture

There's precious little information out there about this, though I guess Polygon noticed it as well: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/23/5745986/watch-dogs-gameplay-video-walkthrough

This is how I ended up with Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed IV. Experienced my first BSOD since overclocking my CPU back in January. Pretty sure it was a thermal trip due to Ubi's shoddy optimization. I've got the Batman games running at 1080p with AA on and most of the bells and whistles, including PhysX and yet my CPU never jumps over 70C. But Splinter Cell: Blacklist, running on Unreal 2.5 with no advanced physics simulations and some incredibly flat, canned lighting? FATAL ERROR! It's too bad, as Blacklist is definitely the best SC game since Chaos Theory.

So I was watching a Twitch stream last night of Watch_Dogs. In the game, your mobile device automatically updates you with "relevant" information about the NPCs around you, I suppose to give the player insight into the fiction of the world (apparently some in-game missions are also initiated through this system). I think the conceit is that the player can leverage this information against his unsuspecting targets. Anyway, one of the descriptors that came up for an NPC was "HOMOSEXUAL." In a big, bold sans serif typeface, just eating up the screen. I was so disgusted, I'm not even sure where to begin. Anyway, it motivated me to waltz back in here and just say that I'm sorry for having caused any friction on this board. I found myself here because the discourse on the IT podcast seems so much more informed than the others I listen to, and I figured it would extend to the listeners of the show as well. I'd like to whole-heartedly apologize to anyone I might've offended, as my intention was solely to figure out why others were so averse to giving Ubisoft Montreal the benefit of the doubt. Now it's absurdly clear that I was wrong.

EDIT: I apologize, this thread is spinning too fast.

Holy shit, what?

Gormongous, stop editing your posts.

The answer is I don't feel comfortable declaring one way or the other until I have enough information in front of me to make an informed decision. Is it really that hard to understand?

I don't have any statistical data to back up either scenario, so I honestly don't have an answer to any of those questions. You've totally lost me at this point.

Actually, yes. That's so out-of-orbit to me, I don't even know where to begin.

My question is why you think it's okay to murder fake people, but not have a fake character subjugate them?

Clooney would make a better Batman today than 20 years ago.

I respectfully disagree with your assessment. My primary problem is the fact that there is so very little to contextualize what we've been presented that I'm reluctant to pass judgment one way or the other. I have agreed since the beginning that Ubisoft has a long road to hoe, but I personally feel that the violently negative reaction seems a little hypocritical when the fact that the game is about murdering people for a pleasurable effect. There is absolutely nothing wrong with questioning what we, as a maturing gamer culture, are being given. But I am curiously bemused to see that Far Cry 4's box art is more controversial than the rampant racism, misogyny and classism of Grand Theft Auto.

Bjorn, I'm honestly not trying to provoke you. Let us take this off-board, shall we?

OH MY GOD, THERE IS ANOTHER PATCH.

All three Arkham games can be had from Amazon for $22.50 currently.

Buuuuuuuuuump. Re-installed the latest Splinter Cell. There's a new patch every time I try to launch it. Why didn't I just download all of the patches with the rest of the game? Middle fingers all around, Ubisoft.

You led off with sarcasm. At this point, it's just a circuitous argument, and of what use is it for me to spend time researching who at Ubisoft might have talked to someone from Nepal about the recent 10-year civil war? Does MachineGames need to speak to victims of the Holocaust to properly contextualize Nazism in Wolfenstein? I have zero interest in even attempting to respond to your flippant rebukes. You said this in the MGS V thread: Why is Far Cry 4 different?

See, this is what rubs me the wrong way--the open hostility, not the negative reaction. You're not willing to give a millimeter at all, so why should I?

Why would you doubt this? They're spending tens--if not hundreds--of millions of dollars. Many AAA games budget for location scouting for reference material (didn't Campo Santo recently do this as well for Firewatch?). Is it really so impossible to believe that Ubisoft might have sent a small team from Shanghai to Nepal? Even if they didn't actually visit Nepal, I'm sure copious amounts of research was done.

Well there's certainly such a thing as the "wrong" batsuit:

I'm guessing it'll be two-toned, but black & gray as opposed to navy blue & gray. It looks to be a combination of Frank Miller's '80s redesign and Jim Lee's New 52 costume. Either way, I'm sad that in a movie where they got Batman's suit right, they will undoubtedly get everything else wrong.

I guess it depends on what you're doing, but I constantly need to pull in images from all over the place so I leave Photoshop in one monitor and everything else happens on a second screen.

+ = I agree that this latest incarnation of the suit looks more Nolanesque than in titles previous, but I still maintain that Rocksteady was drawing heavily from those films all along.

Western Imperialism cannot exist without Westerners, of which there appear to be none in Far Cry 4 thus far (excepting that awful-looking Hurk DLC pre-order bonus). It's more akin to you accidentally stumbling into me and me perceiving it as an act of violence, even after you apologize profusely. Or if you describe someone as niggardly and I continue to assume you're racist after you explain yourself. This isn't about intent, this is about the misinterpretation of a single image with mounting evidence to the contrary.