syntheticgerbil

This is how I tend to feel about what I watched it. I don't particularly find Anita engaging, fine enough, but I guess I do want to hear videos on the portrayal of women in games. The problem is she doesn't really say much else outside of rattling off information that leads to the trope, giving a few sarcastic or annoyed comments, and then moving on to the next example. At the very least, it feels a lot less negative and composed than the Feminist Frequency videos I had watched during the whole Kickstarter debacle, but I don't feel like I'm listening to someone exploring a topic with multiple viewpoints allowed and it all tends to just be her getting down on one thing after another. If she is truly going to find good examples in the next video, to me that is a really bad idea, because I feel this would be more successful if she found a female portrayal that is the antidote for the specific negative trope she has in mind. As it stands, I just feel like I'm being griped at. And can she PLEASE stop showing this one photo of her playing video games as a child over and over?! I get it, she has credentials because of that photo. It even appeared and was discussed in her TED Talk. If I really want to be impressed by her game playing credentials, then I'll be impressed by what games she picks as her good and bad examples. So far it's been easy targets, Bayonetta and Nintendo princesses. The Zelda topic is interesting, but what if she started exploring the multitude of adventure games with female lead characters? If she mentions Zanthia at all, I'll be happy, as she's a lead that has sexism partied around her for some of the cheap humor in the game, but I also found her to be an endearing and strong character. Maybe she could tackle Meryl from Metal Gear? I don't know, something else besides the 101 stuff. Pointing out sleaze like Double Dragon's panty shot doesn't mean much, and in Wayforward's defense, they don't have the panty shot, and I'm pretty sure they were making fun of the original intro, not reveling in it like it's some kind of genius. Anita has spent time before in one of her videos not on games about how sexism getting displayed in an ironic or schlocky manner in a form of media allows the true sexist nature of the creators off the hook since they are winking at you. I just don't feel like that's universally true or that things have to be so squeaky clean in every case, and that focusing in on it is a waste of time. I would enjoy more focus on female characters that are getting there but have some kind of shortcoming in the way they are portrayed and then analyzing which angles the writer/designer/artist could have taken to make a more believable and agreeable female character. Zelda/Shiek and Tetra is a nice start, but not much was said, most likely because Nintendo's writing and portrayal of most of their characters tends to be pretty mute and weak all around. I mean the stories in Nintendo games are built upon tropes almost exclusively.

To clarify on the dicking, I'm not really speaking of the aspect of the company where the team polishes the games they scooped up for release, but the mysterious think tank and R&D arm that supposedly happens day in and out. If everyone can move their desk to wherever they feel like and there's no hierarchy, then surely even after lay offs, there are still teams left that should be coming up with novel game ideas, from Valve alone, not people on forums they hired or employees at other companies with an existing prototype. Maybe there's no one at Valve that even does that though, I don't have any inside sources outside of the snack bar video and I don't know of anyone who works there so I can't clarify. Maybe everyone truly is spread around exclusively polishing and tinkering with Dota2, TF2, and Half Life Episode X?

Not really interested on going back and forth over Valve, but Merus boils it down best here:

I just don't think having a neverending supply of money makes you want to tweak something to the point of never releasing it. Well of course because then you could actually make a judgment based on what they are producing instead of imagining all of the amazing things they are working on based on the inspired words of Gabe Newell and their employee handbook.

Well I'm with Merus on this 100%. Don't want them to feel alone on this, but I figured I'd say something even though arguing against Valve is a deathwish in the video games community. I am inclined not to think that the brightest people are self proclaimed geniuses that just dick around all day on little pet projects. The most brilliant minds that we remember throughout the years DO SOMETHING. A brilliant mind would want their stuff out there if they feel it's brilliant, they would want to create. The only major game changing work they seem to do is with Steam now. Gussying up existing games and concepts isn't really "brilliant" now is it? The funny thing is is that all of these amazing things you guys are saying Valve is currently working on is also purely your imagination. We don't see or hear of any productions so how could we even have any point of reference? Make all the excuses you want, but there is a reason Merus is bringing up the points he is making. To act like Valve is amazing because it's one neverending Amnesia Fortnight only shows why Double Fine probably deserves more respect. They do so with the intention of exploring and and then executing instead of stopping short on the former.

I'd be the boss from Braid since it would mean the boss is me. Or the boss is a small redhead child with a suit. Either that or it's the atomic bomb somehow.

Christ, I am just now playing this with my friend and I am loving it. I don't know what else to say other than we got easily stuck in a game loop last night for 7 hours (work next day of course) where it was like, "Okay after this level we've gotta go." Then beat the level, get new weapons which we marvel at and then get curious how they are going to play out on the next mission or give us a gold on a different mission. Repeat 5 times until it gets way too late. Don't know what else I can say other than I like that this game is more of a bite sized chunk, whereas I can imagine a full blown AAA game of this nature might get a bit exhausting. Looking at the item drops for the DLC in the survival modes, I'm sure I'll get a pretty lengthy "small" out of it. Probably 5-6 times over the time I spent on Costume Quest. Also this, once figuring out that those triggers made you do stupid hand gestures and that the gestures change with your garb, it's never ending moronic fun.

They will only be in small trees if there are some in a big tree. The big trees need to either be the ones standing straight up or the ones bent to the side. Sometimes there may only be one in a big tree but then a small tree nearby has 3. It's a bit random and it doesn't help that everything except the orange fruits are really difficult to see.

Geez, that's awful.

Added you Nerdwire! I will never stop browsing it.

I think the fact that he was given the title "Co-director" is idiotic anyway. From reading the book and every interview I've read, it seems like Steve Purcell has been more involved with the movie for a much longer period than Brenda's replacement, director Mark Andrews. Brave has always sounded like it is a mess of current Pixar management and fear where the full story will probably never come out. I don't feel like Brave really deserved the award though, but again it's Pixar, so they always win. It's not like the U.S. ever really more than one good animated feature a year though, if that, so the competition is never tough. I really wish Steve Purcell made something again that felt like him, doesn't even have to be comics. As a long time fan I was hoping I might get to see shades more of the type of storytelling style he has done in his Toy Box comics in Brave, but had I not known he was involved in the movie ahead of time, I would have never guessed.

Is it far far away from the place on the reality TV show?

Yeah, I can see that.

Thanks again Mr. Remo! I was always imagining it'd be like this, except filled to the brim. I really wish I knew this too. I've looked it up a few times and it just refers to an anti-Scientology website. And then to make it even more convoluted, it doesn't quite make sense what the Scientology website is called "clambake" either. I originally played Brutal Legend on hard for the stacking trophies, and it was pretty frustrating on many of the RTS battles. But getting past that hump also helped for the multiplayer later.

:tup: Hooray! Thanks a million!

I'm still getting a lot of mileage out of the Streetpassing, but unless you live in Japan or go to multiple conventions all over the globe a month, you're never going to get all of the achievements for streetpassing. I was lucky enough in the past to have people I work with that regularly brought their 3DS, but now it's down to one guy, so getting puzzle pieces and completing Find Mii 2 is slow going. I also have enough fodder to just hire former streetpasses for Find Mii regularly so everytime I walk 1000 steps I reset the system clock. I always have the wrong time and day because of it though. Not sure why Nintendo felt any need to give that stupid limit. The pink puzzle piece part has got me stumped. Fortunately a friend's girlfriend has nearly all pink puzzle pieces but I'm not around her often enough to collect them all. She's the source for most of mine though. So because of this I carry my 3DS everywhere no matter what, hoping I can get a streetpass even though it's getting kind of chipped and battered at this point. Would be nice if somehow the streetpass opened up to my online friends instead of randomly moving around the city. I wonder if anyone at Nintendo realizes that their streetpass system requirements are really only best suited to Japan.

Ah okay, maybe it was because the sunlight wasn't strong enough for 5? 6 and 7 make sense since the former is inside and the latter is underwater.

I must draw one for each stationary! It's very important. After that, they go to everyone on my list.

Hah, I came into this thread to ask if we were supposed to have killed the 8th Colossus next, as I just finished with 5, 6, and 7, but it appears I am now on schedule again. I don't know what to say about 5, 6, and 7, except that they felt much easier than the first four. Maybe I'm just getting more used to this game's quirks? I think I forgot how to spot the weak spots before climbing the colossi. I shine the sword on them, correct? It seemed to not be working correctly so I just went ahead and jumped on the guys, shuffling around blank areas until a weak spot lit up. Does the weak spot reveal only work with some colossi maybe? I keep meaning to ask this every time I post: The sound the game makes when you pick up a lizard tail or fruit, is that the official Playstation noise from the commercials or am I just imagining things? Is Shadow the origin of the sound? Also I keep forgetting, but is this game in any way connected to the story of Ico? I see the shadow people are similar but not the same, but that's about it in terms of connection I get outside of any known intention besides the architecture.

Oh yeah, keep adding your friend codes to the thread in the Multiplayer forum so that I can send you idiotic swapnotes.

That is a great butt.

Loved the gross Windows 95 startup sound. My dad loved that theme but it was objectively the worst. Also when Jake says the dates, it always feels like he's talking to someone whose name is the year. Like, "Hey you 2013, it's February 20th!"

What's with all this sailing?!

So uh, did we see a console shot anywhere?

Best way to spot differences is to open each image in a different tab and then click back and forth.