SuperBiasedMan

(minor spoilers throughout that aren't worth spoiler tagging) The thing is I don't think it's as much a commentary on violence as it is a commentary on the way games portray violence as the primary mechanism to affect the world. With that lens, I think it makes a lot of sense that two 'canon' paths through the game are either never killing anyone/thing or killing literally everything so much so that you don't even have to do puzzles in the genocide route and you can just roll right through the zones. I do think there's a degree of weirdness that a game that is being critical of a violent dogma requires the same or the opposite dogma to get a true ending. But again, it's not critical so much of the dogmatism as it is the idea that violence is the total focus of it. The game is explicitly about determination and how powerful a force it is, but wants you to use it for nonviolence rather than violence to show what can be possible (in games/in theory) rather than have someone always make a beeline for the same old thing. I also think the fact that the neutral endings point you towards the good ending makes sense for this.

You got my hopes up then I checked and saw that it is still indeed twice that price in Ireland.

My enthusiasm comes from the fact that I always get extremely mid range phones. Everythingeventually runs out of space, gets slow and bloats but I keep using it until a physical component goes bust. Then I get to refresh with a brand new phone that will run smoothly for a brief period.

Generally speaking the app bloat on Android comes from the phone manufacturer pre installing apps that they block you from removing. So its not Android per se, it's dependent on the particular phone model you get and what they put on it.

Not speaking for anyone else but I agree with this. However my conclusion is that I think we shouldn't bother having scores rather than try to make scoring more rigorous. I skim reviews to find out what people liked or didn't like about games to see if I care about the criticisms and get excited by the praise of it. I'd personally prefer that reviews didn't have scores, because I do think they're harmful when they're used as an objective marker and when publishers are making decisions based on review scores.

I was lazy this time and made my usual shepherd's pie recipe. Nothing fancy, but damn good. Mushrooms, onion, peas and carrots with veggie mince. Also tons of tinned tomato with mashed potatoes on top. Also due to deferrals, I'm taking an early turn, and my suggestion is Burgers! You can make a burger out of lots of things, beef, chicken, beans, tofu or burgers! You might eat them a lot, but how often do you actually try to make a burger from scratch? Making burgers is often a relatively quick and easy meal, goes good with home made chips or a salad. Plus you get to pile on toppings too.

Also I don't know if this was intended as a course correction from S1 or just coincidence but out of the gate Beau Bowe is seen as sympathetic. The narrative with Adnan was starting with the assumption that he was correctly incarcerated (even though doubt is planted in episode one) while it seemed like from the start Sarah was not accepting the narrative that placed blame squarely on Bowe's shoulders. Come to think of it, it may have also had something to do with the fact that before the season Bowe was known and widely villified, whereas Adnan was basically unknown before the show started.

This is also a good and relevant point. I felt like shuffling it out for a while and i have too many podcasts now so it's probably going to be dropped for a bit.

I hope that Serial continues being about untangling big complicated systems. It did that pretty well in both series. I think the disappointment was that the human individual story was a lot more compelling in S1 than S2, and I gather that was the more important part for a lot of people.

The Hyper Light Drifter discussion was really interesting because I'm "bad at video games" and found HLD challenging but completely fine (aside from some super hard extra collectible stuff). I think the challenge of the game, at least personally, comes from survival skills more than reading the enemies well. I played Dark Souls very cautiously, but in a way that didn't work in the game. I eventually got to a point where I'd fire arrows at enemies and then run away from them, but the game pushed back on me playing it 'wrong'. In some ways I think it's that I'm better in 2D, but I also think it's because the survival aspect is more important to HLD (thematically too). I look forward to deep dives on it from smarter, more observant people. Also you guys started on the path to our dystopian kitchen future but didn't bring it to the natural conclusion. Obviously after everyone starts wearing VR helmets to make their kitchen nicer, they don't need to worry about having their actual furniture be good. It's just more convenient to VR in what you want, plus you can do it at a friend's house too! So of course, that's when IKEA just starts selling licences to their furniture designs. Forget about owning future, you can just get a licence for a really nice looking VR skin for your shitty kitchen instead.

I've beaten 2 bosses and gotten to the west boss. The other two were no problem but this one's been wrecking me a bit. I went back to town to get upgrades for the sake of the small boost that gives me, and was frustrated to find a bunch of enemies respawned. I had thought that they basically never did, except if something triggered a respawn. But it seems like maybe they respawn if you leave the whole area and then return later? If that's the case I'm much less inclined to be a completionist after finishing the game. The combat's good but I don't want to wade through enemies while checking every nook and cranny.

There's a weird thing that poisons the water when debating someone's right to lets play. Youtube disproportionately sides with the 'original content owners' (for lack of a better term). This isn't specific to games, but they make it very easy for the media owners to have serious effects on a streamers channel (which may be their livelihood). The streamers' primary recourse is a reportedly slow unfair and arcane process, while the original owner will at worst get told that their copyright claim was rejected. Ultimately I fall slightly more on the side of developers because the internet has bred a culture where media is up for the taking. Even aside from piracy, it's seen commonly where people will take a picture some artist has drawn, remove any identifying marks (or sometimes wont bother with that) and repost it as their own. There's absolutely an argument to be made for not locking down media from discussion and criticism that can be more valuable when showing direct footage of the game, but there also seems to be an entitlement in a lot of people that refuse to allow the game creators to decide what people do with their game.

You can add spoiler tags with

Oh, and on retrospect the north is where the tutorial area is, and it loops back to bring you to the town too.

Yeah I went West first hahah. I've swooped around to East where I think I'm about to collect the last of the four pieces of this corner of the quadforce.

I've played a bunch today and enjoyed the heck out of it. Expected to be less interested in the mechanics than I am. The combat is so movement based that it's clicking with me in spite of the difficulty. And the lack of consequences over dieing sweetens the deal. I am concerned it will become frustrating to try find where to go after I've done my first exploring everywhere. It's easy to wander aimlessly and ignore the map the first time, but when I go back to areas trying to find that diamond I missed it'll be a real pain if I can't tell where I have and haven't been before.

I'm on for tomorrow! I might have some minor questions about the mechanics but I'll just catch you on slack for those.

haha good joke thread cordeos

Given how many people here (like me) aren't big on the killing part of this. I wonder if the game will have the option of non combat (either inbuilt or through mods).

Hearing about Brendon's scheduling was interesting. I'd really like to do something similar for my free time projects but I've never found myself to be consistent enough to do it. I forget if there's an email so I'll just ask here and hope Teddy sees. We've heard a bit about the general run up to Hyper Light Drifter's release, but since it's happening literally today in a few hours I'm curious about what release day is like. You're already done the work (I... think) so are you just watching social media and the feedback? Reading reviews and watching let's plays? Or maybe you want to totally distract from the event for a while, take a break from the all consuming project that's finally released. I'd love to know what the day is, because it's such a strange idea to have years of life culminate in a single day where it becomes public. Also, good luck! I just got my Steam key and I look forward to playing when I can.

The weirdest version of this I've had was when I played a DS game called The World Ends With You. I loved it, and the philosophy of it super resonated with me, but I felt like I'd already internalised it's "message" a year or so before I played it. If it had existed sooner it could have genuinely pushed me into having that realisation, but what really happened was that I felt like it was a really good illustration of something I already realised.

Yeah I'd replay essentially the same, I'm not looking for new content. Just revisiting what I've seen before.

I feel like I'm approaching the time when I'd be up for replaying this, it's been a while now and it'd be worth the revisit.