Smart Jason

Am I a tactical monstrosity for finding the tank a horribly inefficient waste of two action points in any given turn? I remember feeling this way in 2008 as well.

Start New Game Overwrite previous save data

Yeah, been playing this most of today (minus a break due to the surprise launch of Massive Chalice - not a bad day at all for tactics). The port's what you've heard. Cutscenes run at PS3 resolution, the graphics options are basic and configurable only outside of the game itself, but they're there. Japanese language option - I forget if that was in the console version. If is wasn't, that alone makes it a worthwhile port, in my opinion. I find it completely satisfactory. (I also find it charmingly novel that the save screen recreates the PlayStation 3's system standard save screen; I may be the only one in the world.) I got, I'd estimate, about halfway through the original game back in 2008 and I find it appropriately challenging coming back to it now. I definitely didn't remember just how poor the pacing can feel, at least early on. I can normally deal with slow starts and narrative-heavy openings (i.e., Persona, Metal Gear), but I think the fact that I'm literally scrolling through a list of cutscenes just to get to the next gameplay segment turns me off. I do consider the cinematics well-directed, though. Right now I'm just trying to balance the difficulty curve of the game with my reluctance (and my 2008-era natural indulgence) to grind skirmishes. I assume the game doesn't expect me to do so? Anyone with more experience, feel free to correct me. Feel free to make this thread bristle with gameplay tips, because I could use 'em.

I know saying that GamerGate often treads self-parody is trite by now, but the more time I spent parsing this (which I just took from Brianna Wu's Twitter, so maybe we're both being fooled) for quotes the more I felt like I was reading Clickhole. OK, standard anti-SJW rhetoric so far. Then the author starts plugging his other site. (Emphasis is my own.)

Hi, I'm Smart Jason, and I'm a big, dumb idiot.

I don't want to start a big argument about Kickstarter entitlement, but I'm pretty indignant right now that one could have backed Massive Chalice last year for $20 and still not be able to play it, while someone else could, as of today, purchase the game on Early Access on Steam for $22.50. I backed at the $35 tier (which gets me two copies and a "backer relic," but I think I mostly just wanted to support the game above the minimum tier), but I could have just bought it now, for less, and played it sooner.

The allusions to Christmas make it sound like a bunch of kids preparing to battle Santa for new toys and consoles.

Shadow of Mordor does a very clever little thing of dispensing much of its main character's backstory through short snippets of dialogue which play with a hazy memory reverberation effect on its loading screens. You'll hear Talion give his son his first sword, his wife Ioreth reveal her pregnancy, his acceptance of his station at the Black Gate, and so on. If you're playing the game loaded on an SSD, of course, you'll likely just hear the first few words of most of these and skip over the rest of them as the level will load before the, already brief, memories finish. One that I made sure never to skip, however, and (to my knowledge) the only that gets repeated from the game itself, is the sound of Ioreth singing, from the stealth tutorial. "On winds and waters may you cross, see mountains white and blue..." I am a fan of musicals. Most people I meet are not, so I get to explain to them why often enough (if they'll hear me out). It's not just a matter of being exposed to musicals at the right time in my childhood development - I'd venture most of us grow up with the same canon of Disney films, have "A Whole New World" and "Heigh Ho" and "Let It Go" etched into their pop culture subconscious. For me, however, there is something extremely profound about the combination of lyrical song and narrative, which has led me through a life of not just singing television theme songs to myself because they're catchy, but because they're a conduit to immerse myself in all the feelings and memories I have of great shows, of maintaining this encyclopedic library of showtune lyrics in my head (it's far from truly encompassing, to be fair to myself, but what I love, I know by heart) because I listen to their soundtracks ad nauseam and embarrassingly in-character. For me, there is something in the act of a character expressing feeling and motivation through song which makes a work of fiction suddenly transcend. And I am, stylistically speaking, a fiend for that Rennaisance Faire style of medieval fantasy song which Shadow of Mordor reprises. Whether it's the Lord of the Rings films, memories of sobbing to myself with a spontaneous outpouring of emotion during (by far) the most innocuous chapter in book three of A Song of Ice and Fire just because Tom of Sevenstreams was singing to Arya in it, or the only moments of life I was ever able to find in all of Skyrim: Now, I put a lot of time into Skyrim, and finished the story, but a game like that never takes root with me due to a lack of an emotional core, a feeling of any true character identity or acknowledgment in the world. Sitting in a tavern, requesting a song, though, those were the minutes I forgot that mightiest complaint. So, this is a thread about lyrical songs, which - if you're anything like me - can do more than any of other element of design to bring out the vitality and soul of a game. And, obviously, I'm not talking about instrumental music and soundtracks as a whole - those get more than enough love. I mean everything from the absurdly saccharine: To the chilling moment you know that a game with one of the most renowned soundtracks in recent years isn't fooling around: Nor do I mean the term "original song" to be so limiting as to exclude such goosebump-inducing utilizations of real music in original ways as: You see, I play games in order to experience an emotional profundity that I can't achieve through any other artistic medium due to the interactivity (and blah, blah, blah, all the other pontificating navel-gazing we've all read a million times, I know). Song is a vessel through which that can be made with such impact that it's almost startling. I could go on, I would love to just keep posting YouTube videos, but for now I hope to encourage others to embed some of their favorite songs and moments and bards while we wait for that holy grail of a true musical game to be invented.

I'm still totally into this, I just wanted to stay agnostic because I expected both games to fill up. Since there's still plenty of open space, apparently, is there any advice on which game would be easier for someone who's never played with either system?

Mattie's asked to be removed as an IGF Judge following today's incident. Looks like she might be leaving Twitter as well, which sucks. I notice a lot of people are blaming the Indie Games Festival for "siding" with GamerGate, which I don't think is entirely fair. They didn't remove her (as actually I feared they might), the worst they did was ask her not to reference the event in jest. Admittedly, that's giving GamerGate more credibility than it deserves, but I don't see it as choosing sides any more than doing complicit harm by staying neutral. Actually, fuck that, since posting this I saw that Mattie felt that IGF threw her under the bus, and I'm not going to second guess her. Either way, add one more name to the list of those bullied and harassed out by the bigotry of this culture. However, as those who followed her over the past week or so know, even bringing her up in a capacity which can provoke a response from GamerGate does more harm than good. Stifle this shit, support diversity and positivity, don't engage these psychos for any reason. That's my new perspective, feeling particularly affirmed in it after this and after listening to Brianna Wu on the Indie Haven podcast today.

This is all valid, but number two stuck out to me as the most ludicrous. Did it not cross his mind how only engaging people whose job it is to be polite and interact with customers undermined his point, or was it a matter of having to blur faces if this was truly a hidden camera and he approached random women and he likely got permission from the store ahead of time (I assume this is how it works)? Seriously, this is such an obviously pointless "experiment" that, if I were the soulless human-shaped garbage pile doing it, I would have at least had the faith in its inefficacy to do it out on the street and edit it to make it look like like women at random enjoy receiving compliments and being wished "God bless."

Bear in mind that TotalBiscuit, in his efforts to be "pro-consumer" and a watchdog and all that, played a major part in the beginnings of GamerGate months ago by being the first major voice to publicize allegations of impropriety between Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson. He's never had to apologize for the consequences and damage that's caused - as you can hear from his podcast with Stephen Totilo, he's still maintaining that there was something there worth investigating - even though it was clearly a non-issue that snowballed into a larger hate campaign. I don't think it's libelous to call TotalBiscuit a narcissist. There are so many screencaps and quotes from him ranging from incidentally mentioning that he and his network are one of the largest in gaming on YouTube and are untouchable, to the downright venomous in which he attempts no veneer of humility when interacting with the audience he'd ironically pose to represent. I'll never see TotalBiscuit as someone who got swept into GamerGate as someone who believed in the purity of their message. He made an extremely irresponsible video, publicizing the private lives of Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson without due research or forethought to how his legions of fans would react - and ever since he's been too proud to accept the indictment that this should have never been an inciting incident in the first place (and one which irrevocably soils the entire movement). It's only by the sheer grace of chronology that a day later Leigh Alexander said, in response to the harassment that he indirectly wrought, that gamers are dead, and then things started falling into place as they have, did he get to purport himself as a moderate.

Train Heist is pretty amazing when you think about the fact that they developed this completely unique map (including the escape spot/possibly spawn point that is a beautiful, tranquil lake unlike anything else found in the game) that can only be found via random event in a different mission and is never accessible on its own. It had the highest base experience payout in the game (Hoxton Breakout has since eclipsed it) and offered potentially the highest cash payout as well if you went for all the shells in addition to the main mission bags. Even still, I never play it. Fuck that.

Oh man, I completely disagree. I think that kind of exploration and reinvention of the world map is precisely what Final Fantasy's been longing for for a decade. I'm just still skeptical that they're going to have the resources to make it work (believe me, I'd be in further disagreement with anyone anticipating XV with blind hype).

In my experience, every stealth mission is as easily soloable with one person as with a team, with the following exceptions (and they all have to do with the same principle): 1. Diamond Store is tricky with one person, but still achievable. It has the most dispersed amount of civilians, and unlike the standard Bank Heist, they're very difficult to isolate. This means that once you finally make your move, there's a moment of very hectic "crowd control" (read: mass murder). 2. Four Stores is either extremely simple to solo on any difficulty under Death Wish due to the presence The ATM, but stealthing it on the highest difficulty actually requires a ton of coordination (for not much payout). It basically becomes a game of trying to destroy every camera on the map before your ECMs run out, murdering every civilian in your path, and then hoping against hope that you have time to answer both pagers on your own (isolating the first guard before beginning the ECM rush may be a necessity). 3. GO Bank is likely the hardest stealth mission whether you're doing it solo or with a group. The reason, all too common, is again civilian traffic. This is one of two maps on which they infinitely spawn, so while you're trying to keep things organized within the bank or have the streets clear, you'll be perpetually bombarded with new walking question marks; adding to the tension of knowing that the mission is designed to give you a random time limit even under the best circumstances. This one goes much, much smoother with a team that knows what they're doing. Semi-related to Korax's point, though, once you do know how to stealth a given mission (Bank Heist variants being the classic one, but Election Day, Shadow Raid, and Framing Frame are the real bounties), there's no reason not to run them on Death Wish. Unlike loud missions, the difference in challenge is not really proportional to the difference in payout, and it can be super lucrative if you're patient.

I'd be happy to join if there's room.

If you're hyped like me for Valkyria Chronicles on PC, I believe the current best offer in North America is $13.86 on Green Man. That's with the standard 10% off pre-order discount that Steam's running, plus an additional 23% off using the code BWG00E-QJP45O-INFGR1, which is valid until this Friday. I've been super cheap lately and I think I'm even biting on this one.

I'd be super excited to join whichever game has an open spot at the end of the day!

Oh, I actually didn't mean to volunteer for GMing and actually my games are generally super serious and maudlin so I don't know if I'd be a good fit considering the discussions of goofiness in this thread! However, if we do get a healthy group together for a campaign and collectively learn a system together, I'd be down to GM in the future. Just not for this first attempt.

I'm, uh, I'm sorry? I didn't actually mean to offend anyone. I thought there was a general tone of levity in this thread about Christmas.

I only have experience with White Wolf's World of Darkness setting, both playing within and running, as well as a couple of games of a small fan-made system, Final Fantasy d6. I am open to anything and would try to be a quick learner for anything else. I think it'd be neat if we were all on the same page of trying something new - something whomever was running the game was excited to pick up and looking for an excuse to learn.

Happy Halloween, Idle Thumbs board! If you're not following Danielle on Twitter, you should know that her long-hyped Hallow's Eve treat to the world is now available! The Wonderful World of Dad Jokes is out on Itch.io - featuring puns, puzzles, pumpkins, and pussycats! Jokes that are so charmingly awful that they're bad... to the funny bone! Full disclosure: this game is made by an Idle Thumbs host whom I think is cool and the player character is an eight bit woman of color, so there's clearly a coordinated, nepotistic collusion in my posting about it. This is about ethics in paternalism.

Not to add another uselessly passive vote of "me too," but I used to do this Sort Of Thing a lot and would engage with profound interest. My schedule's pretty open.

The implicit assumption that everyone celebrates Thanksgiving is way less offensive than the assumption that people celebrate Christmas, because the latter takes for granted that you're part of some kooky co-opted solstice whereas the former does you the honor and privilege of including you in the trademark holiday of the Capital of Earth.

You made a million hand turkeys cry by omission.