Fingus

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    141

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Fingus

  1. Posted

    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. 

  2. Posted

    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.

  3. Posted

    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.

  5. Posted

    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.

  6. Posted

    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.

  9. Posted

    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.

  10. Posted

    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.

  11. Posted

    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.

     

     

    I thought a Facebook app for Twine stories would be kinda clever, but I think success has changed Twine:

    attachicon.gifimage.jpg

     

    That's funny, because I worked at the company that made that app. :D

    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.

  13. Posted

    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

    killed Toriel

    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?

  14. Posted

    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.

     

    Specifically Asriel. The build up with the VHS tapes in the True Lab, and Toriel and Asgore's backstory made the reveal work well. But his motivation didn't really make much sense to me. Why would the child of probably the two kindest and sweetest people in the kingdom turn into such a relentless monster? That he was attacked by humans is just too simplistic, especially considering how nuanced the rest of the characters are written.

    If you wanna get meta about it, which is appropriate for this game, you could interpret it as him having already completed a pacifist run and is now doing a Genocide playthrough. But that's not really overtly stated anywhere so I'm hesitant to make that conclusion.

     

    But mechanically I had no issues with the final boss(es). Asgore's fight was entirely appropriate because you are in a situation that can't be solved with peace. Heck, he even breaks your Mercy button making it utterly clear that it's not an option. After exhausting the Act commands and noticing he doesn't react to you missing your attacks like Toriel did it became quite clear to me that attacking was the only option.

     

    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.

  20. Posted

    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.

  21. Posted

    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.