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I finished You Have to Win the Game with 80.08%, in an hours, with 283 deaths. Some part were really VVVVV while other parts were Knytt.

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That "forever" room had me irritable for a while, but overall really thought it was a good time. Vvvvvv had me much more ragey about some of the puzzle rooms, not a good feeling

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I think I finished The Stanley Parable with my girlfriend the other day. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It was funny and I love meta recursive shit and I LOVE that this kind of stuff (thoughtful narratives and playing with the constructs of a computer game)  is happening in games now. We played Gone Home together and had a great time, and I'm thinking we'll play Kentucky Route Zero next and then I should probably get The Walking Dead S1. She seems to really enjoy this kind of thing, much much moreso than "regular" games.

 

Anyway, Stanley Parable. My reading of it was that it was essentially saying was that video games are stupid. Which is fine. Am I totally fucking wrong here? Or am I wrong for trying to get a big reading out of it? 

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I just beat all the game from the Adventure Game Studio Bake Sale II, mind you, these are still hobbyist adventure game makers trying to make money to pay for server costs, so don't expect a Wadjeteye good game here...

 

At the same time, this time the bundle is tiny and only has four games:

 

-BEER!: Kinda Wario-esque find the beer minigames, kinda dumb?

-THAT DAMN DOG!: The game presents itself as a sitcom and looks decent enough for an AGS game, the main character is the awful, fat, dumb sterotypical buy who is usually the main protagonist in most sitcoms, although without any charm (they were supposed to have some charm, right?). Lots of canned laughter, jokes "worthy" of a sitcom and "hilarious" antics...

-Blue Lobe Inc: This game is kinda meta since about a group of AGS members trying to finish a game for their Kickstarter, it has a lot of adventure game jokes and it's weird how the arty style is so... so-so, when the art of the game you make (and get to play) looks almost like a decent Lucasarts game. You'll probably find it amusing if you like adventure games enough?

-2034 AC 2 (After Canada): A post apocalyptic game that takes place in Canada, were nothing has changed and things are kinda boring and everybody is nice.. unless you talk ill of their hockey team that is.

This was my favorite of the bunch, it's about a Mountie woman who secrets finds her job boring so she daydreams that the apocalypse did actually affect Canada and she's some bad ass mofo.

It's also the perfect representation of Canada where every house is an igloo and other stereotypes.

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 My reading of it was that it was essentially saying was that video games are stupid. Which is fine. Am I totally fucking wrong here? Or am I wrong for trying to get a big reading out of it? 

 

I think you're boiling it down a little too far: I interpreted it as saying that there's tension between the designer and the player that plays out in interesting ways, and that if either 'wins' the result is unsatisfying. But true consonance is too much to hope for.

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I read the Stanley Parables message as something like "there's no optimal way to do this* so just enjoy what's happening in front of you and don't fret about what could/should have been happening instead."

* "this" being "make a video game/play a video game/tell a story/experience a story" for starters.

I think it's easy to have a cynical read on the Stanley Parable, but for that you have to ignore it clearly reveling in its own fun and delight around every turn.

(Merus your read might be closer to the intended one, if there is an intended read.)

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I'm not sure the Stanley Parable has a message. Much like how the paths don't hang together with each other narratively to paint a cohesive world, I'm not sure they work together to give one message either. You can say that each path has a message, but many of those messages are so divergent or unrelated to each other that the statement "The Stanley Parable has a message" seems misleading at best. 

Depending on how one defines very broad terms like "message", I can certainly see saying that the Stanley Parable is about the player-developer interaction, that's certainly most of what I took away from the game, but I also got the sense that the game was trying to be entertaining, and bringing up these interesting points about player-developer was just one of the ways it did that.

 

I read the Stanley Parables message as something like "there's no optimal way to do this* so just enjoy what's happening in front of you and don't fret about what could/should have been happening instead."

 

I'm in a weird state of agreeing and disagreeing with this. The game is definitely having fun with itself, and the point is often just to enjoy the experience, but that can be true without it being the message. After all, the point of a lot, if not most entertainment "Just enjoy what's happening in front of you", but most of them don't have that as their message.

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I almost finished super meat boy after quitting over and over because I would hang myself up on getting A+ on every stage, dark and light and never got past world 2. I finally let that go and I'm on the last world now. Might take another stab at it on the 3+ hour drive home today.

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Today I finished Dead Island :tdown:

So this should be Borderlands 1 with zombies. Just like borderlands it became tedious before I reched the end. Actually... it started to become tedious in act 1. From act 3 and further I was just trying to get to the end as fast as possible. Pretty much all quests were stupid fetch quests. For variation they added babysit quests which of course was annoying as usual because of the suicidal AI.

As soon as they started throwing in tons of guns (mid-way through act 2 I think?) I really started to hate that game. I'd really like to finish it at some point, but I don't even know why.

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As soon as they started throwing in tons of guns (mid-way through act 2 I think?) I really started to hate that game. I'd really like to finish it at some point, but I don't even know why.

 

I really loved Act 1 of that game, and then Act 2 just took that love and clubbed it like a baby seal.  Couldn't even be bothered to finish that act, let alone the game. 

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finally went back and 100% achiveo'd Bastion

 

this score attack for "hard bargin" was my 5th playthrough i think, the whole thing is still great.  pike & mortar all day

 

 

i think im going to hit the "order" button now for Transistor.

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There are so many good games out (or coming out) by publishers I like. I think I might pull the trigger on Transistor though, because Bastion is up on my top games of all time list.

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I read the Stanley Parables message as something like "there's no optimal way to do this* so just enjoy what's happening in front of you and don't fret about what could/should have been happening instead."

* "this" being "make a video game/play a video game/tell a story/experience a story" for starters.

I think it's easy to have a cynical read on the Stanley Parable, but for that you have to ignore it clearly reveling in its own fun and delight around every turn.

(Merus your read might be closer to the intended one, if there is an intended read.)

 

I've now found "intended reads" annoying in creative works. Made the mistake that what the author "really" intended matters early in college, but now I've found its more fun to, if you even have one as a creator or not, just let people make up their own minds about it. And even argue about it among themselves. So maybe the arguing is more fun than getting to a definitive conclusion.

 

As for myself, I just sort of looked at The Stanley Parable, said "oh I see what you did there" then kind of went through it a few times because heck, I already had it.

 

Speaking of completed games, someone tell me if Watching Dogs is good next week. I'll pick up the latest iteration of "Shoot Dem Nazis" at some point later on in a steam sale, just to shoot dem Nazis, but right now I don't have a Wii-U (and am not getting one) so Mario Kart 8 isn't being played, and nothing else seems to be on the horizon till October. (Transistor is nigh out I know, but Bastion and etc. just aren't my type of game.)

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Things on my wishlist (some of which are probably not your cup of tea) that have come out recently or will be out soon:

Transistor

Dynasty Warriors 8: 3 subtitles edition

Everquest Landmark

Hack n Slash

Warthunder Tanks Expansion

Jagged Alliance: Flashback

 

Edit: I just realized how much of this list is early access. i guess I'm falling for the pre-order trap hook, line, and sinker.

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Things on my wishlist (some of which are probably not your cup of tea) that have come out recently or will be out soon:

Transistor

Dynasty Warriors 8: 3 subtitles edition

Everquest Landmark

Hack n Slash

Warthunder Tanks Expansion

Jagged Alliance: Flashback

 

Edit: I just realized how much of this list is early access. i guess I'm falling for the pre-order trap hook, line, and sinker.

 

Hey that's right, Hack n Slash should be available soon.

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I think you could even run argument about The Stanley Parable in the opposite direction, that video games are great, because there can be a system that "plays with you."  It's fun and funny, because it's providing you with feedback. Particularly because it's design is for you to NOT follow the rules, and then see how much rule break it supports.  

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Just finished The Last of Us. Overall I liked it quite a bit. Visually the stuff they are pulling off with the PS3 is amazing and the amount of unique artwork in that game is insane. I can't even imagine how many man-hours went into making all that content. I really liked how they did the stealth combat though I'd say it's not well introduced so it took time to get into the swing of things. And I would say several of the combat scenarios just had too many guys...it made Joel into too much of a one man army. I'd type up more but I'm on my phone and it's annoying. I think the last thing I'll say is I wish they had dialed back on the collectibles...felt too video gamey for the tone they were going for.

Oh and there must have been at least five "how ya holding ups" in it so thanks for ruining that for me Sean

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I 100% Saints Row IV, I did all the mission and got every collectible... I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a "AAA" game this much... It's better than Blood Dragon at riffing the 80's and 90's and it makes fun of games in general in good way, making fun and praising them at the same time, although mostly this game seems to be making fun of Mass Effect...

 

After seeing the ending, I'm hoping the make fun of Assassin's Creed in the next game, if they ever make one.

 

It did feel like a bit sloggy at the end with so many missions before the finale, but the moment it did feel like a slog, the game just stopped being a slog and let the ending sequence begin.

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That's a coincidence. I also just finished Saints Row IV. I didn't 100% it though, I'd had my fill of the side quests, especially as I played so much of SR3 and many were similar. 

Fantastic game though, really enjoyed playing it and for me the stand-out parts all included licensed music. I honestly can't think of another game that has used it so well. 

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I beat Escape Goat 2, I only rescued the exact amount of sheep to escape because the extra dungeons are just ridiculous.

 

It adds quite a few new power ups, but they are only used in the level you find them, which I guess is good? It's more Escape Goat with extra goat cheese, so that's good?

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I also beat Escape Goat 2, including the extra levels. I moved on to some of the secret levels and developed a strong urge to throw my controller through my monitor, so I think I'll take a break for now. That said, I enjoyed my time with it. The difficulty curve was done really well. I think I only had to look up solutions for levels twice. The puzzles are really well designed in that game.  :tup:

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Well I guess I completed Shelter. I mean, two of my guys got eagled, two must have been owled, and one got far too moist. Then the Great White Eagle transmogrified me into morsels for her own brood.

Mission success?

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