Fingus

The PlayAsia tweets are steeped in channer lingo so whoever runs that account is definitely familiar with GG or at the very least the culture that it spawned from. This whole thing is pretty straightforward the way I see it. Koei-Tecmo decided that publishing DOAX3 in the west wasn't worth it because historically these game's haven't done particularly well, so they don't want to dedicate resources to both distributing it and dealing with the backlash that always follows these games. Let's be honest, there would be no shortage of snarky reviews slamming the game because it's such an easy target. Not to mention that Twitter and YouTube would have a field day with it. The western market is simply not very welcoming to this style of game, or at least it's not as normalized as it is in japan. It's not a huge financial strain for them to have a couple community managers work the negative press, but likely more of a hassle than they see it being worth. I think Jim Sterling nailed it. Corporations don't give a shit about controversy, they make decisions based on money. Microtransactions generate WAY more controversy and from a bigger crowd than sexism does, but how many publishers do you see backing down to that? I'm not sure if Koei-Tecmo intended to incite controversy. Their statement was in pretty poor english, but the message I got from it was "It doesn't make much financial sense to distribute to the west, and we don't really feel like dealing with the complaints of sexism.". But people of course latched onto the sexism part of it, and PlayAsia definitely swooped in and fanned the flames to capitalize on it.

I ran into a dumb issue with PSN. I have a US PS4 and copy of Bloodborne, since I lived there for a while but have now moved back to Europe. I looked at the box and it said "Region: ALL" so I assumed I could buy the DLC off the EU PSN store and have it work (which I have to do anyway due to no longer having a US billing address). Guess what, turns out that even if the game isn't region locked the PSN store content is! So I had to buy PSN store credit on Amazon and hope that the PS Europe will refund me. DLC so far is pretty interesting. Especially for a Souls Lore Dork like me.

Nina is brilliant, and the premise for this game is really compelling. Bought it on steam and I'll probably get to it once I finish SOMA. Now that is one hell of a tonal shift.

Oh that would explain a lot. I guess I was watching the wrong movie. Since we're talking anime. Trigun.

Saw Deliverance not too long ago, and outside of the (justifiably) famous dueling banjos scene none of it really felt that noteworthy. I thought the premise was strong, but it didn't really go anywhere interesting. All I remember is Burt Reynolds running around in the forest with a really shitty post effect filter to make it look like night. Also tried watching Bad Boys more recently. I didn't get to finish it so I didn't get to any real action scenes which might have made up for it? I just got Smith and Lawrence being compelled by the script to be unlikable idiots who can't communicate.

I really loathe David Cage. I do like the games he's trying to make, but he always ends up missing the mark so disastrously I can't shake the feeling he's inadvertently poisoning the well. An unfounded fear of course, since there have been great narrative based games coming out for years now. So I do hope he's been paying attention to what other developers have been doing with storytelling in games, because the reason I'm so bitter towards him is because of all the wasted potential. Still, I don't have high hopes for Detroit. The premises of his previous games were at least interesting or unique, but this just seems like a blatant analogy for racism that has been done by others much better and given his history he will probably bungle. The trailer was just cringeworthy film student tripe. When she turned to the camera and said "this is my story" I physically recoiled. I won't dismiss this game outright, but from what I've seen not much has changed. I'll remain cautiously pessimistic.

While we are all generally pretty harsh on the weak ending, keep in mind that it's bad by Metal Gear standards. It's still a fantastic game that is absolutely worth playing, especially since every open world game in the future is no doubt gonna take a page from this.

Oh that's how you get it? Man, I was dreading that the last mother base soldier mission was unlocked once you do all the side ops.

And people did. Also there was an option to immediately unblur if both sides opted in, which of course led to a culture where women were just harassed to immediately opt in. Anyway, let's not derail the twine thread with twine.

Somewhere i read a rumor that the system OS will be built on Android. Which if done right could mean that the NX could run popular mobile games like Clash of Clans and Puzzle&Dragons, which given their new partnership with DeNA would make sense. I doubt they'd just let the Play Store on it. More likely they'd allow approved mobile games onto the new eShop. I also imagine this means hackers would have an easier time rooting the system, which means we've potentially got ourselves a fancy new emulation box at our hands.

Anyone who has worked in the games industry, or at the very least are paying close attention to how things work behind the scenes, will find The Writer Will Do Something depressingly familiar. This guy has clearly been around the block because this shit's on point. That's funny, because I worked at the company that made that app. It was a pretty neat concept for a dating app. You'd get matched with a stranger, but both of your pictures were blurred and would gradually unblur as your conversation went on. Of course it was an utter failure.

Of course Austin Walker absolutely nails it. http://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/undertale-review/1900-715/

How does a neutral run end? As in, you killed a few bosses but not all. Or you spared all the bosses but killed random mobs. And I'm surprised you feel the game has no message. Aside from what has been argued above I think it also challenges your ideas of what motivates pacifism. For example when I started playing the game I and I decided to reset the save and start over to avoid that. The game actually recognized that and kept heckling or reminding me of what I had done. A certain character mocked me saying no matter if I reset I've still done the deed. And that same character raises the question why I'm even doing it. Which made me think. Is it because I'm an altruistic being? Well I already did it once, not to mention all the time in other games. Is it guilt? Because I sure as hell felt bad going through the beginning a second time, especially with the game aknowledging what I'd done. Is it pride? Being able to sit on the moral high horse. Or is it it fear of consequences? Thinking purely in gameplay I was worried that I'd miss something or lock away content if I did the encounter wrong. So what is it? Are you a liar, a sinner, vain, or a coward? Or are you just inherently a good person?

Just completed this game, with the true ending. And man oh man, I don't really know where to start. Well first of all I agree with a lot of what you're saying about the ending. By the way, can we talk about how utterly brilliant and subversive this game's use of interface is? I think that is one of the most impressive parts about it. I was amazed at the ways it managed to come up with new ways to surprise me with breaking conventions, and then it went a step further and started breaking its own conventions, and then it would go even further again and break the new rules it had placed in their stead. The fight with Papyrus is the earliest example of where it gets really creative with how it bends the rules and interface in really unexpected ways. I took my hands off the keyboard to exclaim "wow" out loud after he had used his Super Regular Attack. And the game just keeps going further with it from that point. It really is a deconstruction of how we interact with video games. Easily my GOTY, maybe only contested by Bloodborne. I would like to do a genocide run for the complete experience, but I hesitate to because the ending was so satisfying I don't want to sully those good memories by bathing in the blood of all my friends. There is a youtube series called Tasteful Understated Nerdrage by a MrBTongue who has a lot of intelligent and compelling analysis of games. One of his videos brings up the concept of Gezamtkuntswerk, or in english a "Complete Work of Art", in relation to video games. The central thesis being that harmony between all of a work's elements can elevate a work to something above just the sum of it's parts, regardless of the individual quality of each of them. I think it's fair to say that Undertale is without a doubt a complete work of art.

Oh my god : (

I'm kinda waiting for a mashup like that. I don't wanna watch the whole thing twice just to get Dan's gleeful spite.

More than that, firing him is the ethical thing to do because he's not a true fan/gamer. And of course the comments later become dominated by a console vs PC battle of vomit.

My autocomplete put me at my old address in San Francisco, rather than my hometown of Oslo. Oh well, guess I'll have two pins on the map then.

RSI updated their response with a letter they sent to The Escapist. And boy is it masterly penned. They reached deep in their cupboards to find their most venomous inkwell. The burns just don't stop. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist

The Star Citizen thing gets weirder. Here is a Reddit post made on September 22, a leaked email in which the former character lead of CIG is elaborating why he decided to quit. It has been making the rounds in the games artist communities. https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3lyfb1/david_jennison_former_lead_character_artist_in/ He makes some very specific complaints and accusations regarding what a complete shitshow the production is. Things that sound plausible and are consistent with other things I've heard Where it gets weird is that a few hours after this post going up it was edited to clarify that the source was Derek Smart, who in turn got it from an unknown source. Not to mention the timing coinciding with the escapist articles. This starts to make it seem like a coordinated smear campaign by Smart. I don't doubt that a lot of the complaints about how that project us run are true. I've been hearing similar anecdotes for a while. What I suspect is the case is that Smart is using these actual issues to piggyback his slander and hyperbole. To loop this back to GG. My suspicions are that Smart is slowly easing himself into GG (it will seem more authentic than him just suddenly waving their banner) so he can have an angry mob of hardcore gamers he can mobilize in his crusade on Star Citizen. There is plenty of stuff they could latch on to. Crowdfunded, woman in a leadership position, Roberts being anti-GG. And that kinda worries me. The rest of the figureheads ostensibly jumped on the bandwagon for attention or money. Smart on the other hand has a very clear agenda.

I didn't take umbrage with his stance on the terminology. I was more annoyed with him categorically dismissing white hat hacking and penetration tests. These vulnerabilities exist regardless and I'd much rather that someone with good intentions discover them instead of someone criminal. I wouldn't complain if someone found my car window open and before they rolled it back up and locked the door they left a note telling me, even though they technically broke into my car. I don't really care for Randi's general hyperbole and shotgun approach either, but that's a different discussion.

Game & FireWatch Jam?

I started a slack group for an art community I'm part of, so I applaud this initiative.

I personally hadn't seen too much of Arthur in a long while, so to have him suddenly reemerge banging that shitty drum is pretty disappointing. What a bummer, I used to like him. I woke up to this Twitter thread, what an embarrassment: https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/649220940161658880

The best part is that we got them for free from one of our publishers in SEA. Actually no, the best part is that it has a massage gyro in each breast. And they heat up.