Phaseknox

I started playing The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, it’s a side scrolling platform puzzle game with some horror elements.

I finished Almost My Floor.

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

Avengers

Raging Bytes

Almost My Floor

13 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I'm surprised that you find it surprising you're coming off like that. I have to ask then: why do you think a bunch of users always get on your case about this over the years? Like, did you find this to be some strange mystery every time?

I don’t really recall a bunch of users always getting on my case over the years for liking to play as female characters in video games, but I know that they sometimes make fun of me for it because I’m so adamant about it.
 

13 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Soft sexism means you're sexist, but not in a particularly overt or galling way, just under the radar. It may not even affect women in real life, but you have a bad, patriarchally ingrained sexism that maintains a certain status quo in your head and your life that is ideologically unhealthy. You've so bought in to it that you think you're fine, your views on this are fine, and you make your views nice and presentable so they're palatable even though the views themselves are cringy and somewhat offputting.

I seriously didn’t realize that I was coming across like this. You’re the first to bring it to my attention, and I didn’t know that you had this view of me. It’s a bit disheartening to hear.

13 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I wish you'd open your mind up to what all of us are saying and at least try to attempt some self-examination on this issue, just to try and see what we're all talking about. Instead you double down on wild rage clickbait conspiracy theories that are adjacent to getting red pilled. In the past I'd break down all of your posts in this thread to show you in all the ways this is troubling but I've done that before and your mind doesn't change at all. Three users in this thread this time did the same and you're still defending yourself and your views. So I'm not sure it's worth bothering for me to do so. Your cognitive dissonance is strong on this issue.

I appreciate you bringing all of this to my attention, because I guess that I’ve been kind of naive to how I’ve been coming across with my views on certain things and how I’ve been presenting them. I know that I can be hardheaded at times and set in my ways, but I do listen and want to do better.

13 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

With harassment and death threats? I mean.. you could always just not buy their game. This era of toxic fandom is NEVER justified. Someone makes something you don't want or like, don't buy it.

With harassment and death threats? Of course not, I didn’t realize that the hate could be so extreme. That’s different from people just voicing their opinions on what they disagree with or dislike, or not buying the games like you said.

13 hours ago, legend said:

Ooph. My man, you have no idea. The amount of shit developers get is legendary. And to top if off, they work incredibly long hours, for often comparably low pay to other fields, and then get laid off when the game they put the whole lives into was successful, because the execs need to report "growth" every quarter for shareholders over the people who bled for it and laying people off is the easy way for them to do it.

It’s worse than I realized. 

11 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

It's good to be open and wanting to discuss things, but when you say things like: "I don't mean to cause a stir with any of it", the reason you are causing a stir is because the things you're saying are softly sexist. Should we not call you out when you do so? You just going: "no it's not soft sexism" when multiple people over the years have told you otherwise over and over just makes you seem disingenuous. 

 

Saying "of course we're not always going to agree or see eye to eye on things" is like saying that we don't agree on what racism is, or that nazis are bad. This isn't about debating our favorite pizza toppings, this is about pathological, ingrained sexism on a subconscious level on your part. Whether you work on yourself and admit that to yourself or not is up to you, but that's why this always causes a stir. You have some clearly deep, pathological problems when it comes to this specifically. You have everyone from responsible, smart users like @Ghost_MH to @legend to @Keyser_Soze explaining this yet again to you in this thread. They're wrong? I'm wrong? We're all wrong? But just on this topic, not other topics? C'mon.

I’m not really familiar with the term soft sexism, this is the first that I’ve heard it referred to me. Multiple people haven’t mentioned it over the years over and over. And pathological, ingrained sexism on a subconscious level? Clearly deep, pathological problems? I didn’t realize that I was coming across like that. And I don’t recall saying that anyone was wrong about anything. However, I don’t deny that I do need to work on myself in some ways.

1 hour ago, legend said:

Looking like the character is not proof.

1. Writers don't direct the art, nor create the character models.

2. There is a credited model for  the actual character, who is so much the actual model, she got toxic attacks for it.

3. Insomniac directly confirmed that they used the same model for the appearance as the first, because of the false accusations.

 

All facts point to it not being the writer. Clinging to "no, it has to be her because she looks like her, all official sources must be lying" is not proof of anything. It's conspiracy theory. 

 

That's the essence of the whole point: you're leaping to a false accusation on flimsy grounds for this belief in general, although this instance is particularly acute.

Fair enough, I didn’t realize that it was just speculation that Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 was modeled from the insomniac employee because they definitely look a lot alike. But regardless she does look somewhat different and less attractive (IMO) compared to how she looked in the first Spider-Man game, and I don’t know why they changed her.

1 hour ago, legend said:

You can prefer characters to look however you want, but making baseless accusations about the motivations of developers just because you don't like it really isn't cool. Especially not when developers are treated like absolute shit for all the hard work they put in. Don't pile this nonsense on top.

I didn’t make baseless accusations about the motivations of developers, I just gave my personal opinion on how things somewhat appear from my perspective. If others disagree then that’s fine. As for developers they usually only get treated like absolute shit when they do things that go against what their fanbase wants, a good example is Volition and Saints Row. They doubled down during the development of the Saints Row reboot despite fans voicing their dislike with the direction that they were going with it, and look where that got them. Developers don’t always do the right thing, and when they don’t they should be called out on it.

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

We've had this conversation numerous times, others have had this conversation with you numerous times, which is why I didn't bother this time. You have others now, again, having this conversation with you and you're still not getting it. You've rationalized and justified it to yourself for so long that what I just quoted sounds normal to you. You post ragebait click videos full of BS. You're somewhat down a bad rabbit hole, but you don't want to see it. I'm not gonna continue to bother myself, but here we are again with this.

I do feel as if I’ve probably had this same conversation too many times at this point, it does feel like going around in circles. I guess that I just can’t resist the topic since I primarily like playing as female characters in games these days. I don’t mean to cause a stir with any of it, I just like to discuss this stuff since I enjoy gaming and talking with other gamers about the hobby. We’re of course not always going to agree or see eye to eye on things, but that just comes with the territory in general. Regardless I still like to get other perspectives on things, because I like to see where others are coming from.

9 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

I don't know what to tell you. I played through Control. She looks like a lower resolution Courtney Hope.

 

 

Again, what are you even on about?

She was only one of many examples that I gave, and I admittedly probably shouldn’t have used her as an example because she does look pretty close to her real life actress who is attractive IMO.

9 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

I need you to understand that you're bothered that real life athletes aren't attractive enough for you. We aren't talking about make believe characters invented for a videogame, but like real people that exist in meat space.

The golfers that you can play as in the PGA Tour 2K games ARE make believe characters invented for a video game and not real life golfers. The only sports game that I play is golf, and you’re able to select or create fictional characters in them like in many RPGs.

9 hours ago, legend said:

Holy crap man, that video *is not* proof! That is a person speculating, speculation that goes directly against the actual facts. This is conspiracy level nonsense. The developers have already come out and said it's the same model and that same model publicly stated that she *quit* because of the backlash She's not a make believe person.

Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 looks almost exactly like that Insomniac employee that worked on the game, it has to be more than a mere coincidence because Mary Jane didn’t look like that in the first Spider-Man game. She was prettier, and looked more like the real life model that she was modeled from. With that said, I wasn’t aware that the real life model received backlash. It’s not her fault that Insomniac altered her look in the game.

9 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

Saying backlash is being too nice here. It was targeted harassment and phones calls toxic stalkers. Like these are real people being targeted by these rage grifters looking to make a quick buck.

I wasn’t aware of this, the harassment clearly wasn’t deserved or justified in any conceivable way. What does the real life model have to do with how Insomniac decided to make Mary Jane look in the game? 

8 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Why cherry pick? Have Asian developed games never had a less attractive looking female character? And I posted plenty of western devs in there.

It’s not cherry picking, the discussion is about western game devs doing it while Asian game devs don’t. I can’t think of a single Asian developed game that has what I consider to be an unattractive female protagonist in it, and I play a lot of Asian developed games. You did give some examples of attractive female characters in western developed games, and so did I. I never claimed that all western developed games feature unattractive female characters, because they clearly don’t.

8 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I think rather than "These studios are intentionally making less attractive characters" maybe it's a lot of different factors. Maybe they don't have the talent. Maybe they don't have the technology, and maybe they don't have the time to get it right. You mention a sports game but they can't even get the guys right half of the time and they gotta churn these things out. As for everyone else, like I said it's probably just a technology limitation among other things. For example in those Hellblade 2 videos they show that they certainly have the means to make the game and characters look amazing now and they showed the tech they had when they made the first one and there is a vast difference.

You could be right, I’m not ruling it out. What you said definitely does seem to be the case in some instances, but I do still feel like it’s intentional at times as well. I just can’t look at a female character like the one in the Fable reboot for example and think otherwise.

7 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

no surprise PhaseKnox's regressive gender values spring up yet again with no self awareness that he's spouting soft sexism with poor, seemingly non-sexist arguments. Frankly the fact this is all going over their head isn't surprising.

I don’t have regressive gender values, and I’m not sexist. Quite the opposite actually, because sexists refuse to play as female characters in games regardless of what they look like. I just happened to develop what I consider to be a mental condition where I primarily desire to play as female characters in games now as opposed to male ones, and I think that part of it is due to me playing as so many male characters over the years. I got tired of playing as them all the time, and I was also starting to find them less appealing as main characters as well. I tend to prefer the attitudes, personalities and voice actors of female characters. As for what they look like, I just like the characters that I play as in games in general to be what I consider appealing, attractive and cool looking regardless of their gender.

5 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

I just need to point out that it's really hard to go over the rest of your list and take it seriously when your very first choice looks exactly like her actress.

 

 

What are you even on about?

The game character (Jesse Faden) looks similar to her actress (Courtney Hope), but not exact IMO. Jesse looks less attractive/pretty to me than Courtney.
 

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Here are all the games released just this year  with female characters and let's see how more games have fewer attractive characters

 

So the idea there are "no attractive" or "fewer attractive" characters in games is an asinine thing to say.

42 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

You missed Nintendo's games from last year. Because not even Nintendo is immune from giving us games with attractive characters.

This discussion is about female characters in western developed games looking less attractive, not Asian developed ones so I don’t know why you’re both listing female characters from Asian developed games. And no one said that there are no attractive or fewer attractive looking characters in games in general, just that it seems like female characters are sometimes being made less attractive looking in western developed games which does somewhat seem to be the case to me which I gave some examples of.

35 minutes ago, legend said:

This is too long a list go down one by one, but let me give you a general response that covers a lot of it: these devs are not deliberately making characters ugly, but here are some things you may be conflating with that belief:

• The industry much more regularly uses scanning tech for characters for actual actors/models. Most real world people are not the hyper exaggerated female appearance like we agreed is less prolific. Furthermore, we both agreed they're not as sexualized as previously; they're not wearing night party making all the time nor wearing skimpy clothing. So you *do* get a difference there. But that doesn't make them *ugly* and saying as much is pretty gross. 
• Coupled with the above, some of the issues you have may be due to immaturity of technology not translating well. It's more of a tech problem from games than a deliberate effort to make models ugly, especially if you cherry pick scenes since in games it's incredibly difficult to make sure every scene lights and renders well. If you know game developers or at least follow game developers on social media, you will find them commenting about these problems and challenges. Some studios are better at it than others or invest more time and money into it. Games are expensive and despite working insane hours, developers *still* don't have enough time and get readily laid off anyway. You need to give people some slack instead of forming a conspiracy that they're deliberately making characters ugly.
• When you scan models, sometimes those models change in appearance while the developers still want to keep the same person. MJ in Spider-man 2, who you listed, is the same model as in Spider-man 1. But the gaming community yelling about studios "deliberately making female characters ugly" just assumed they got someone different because their woke or something. They didn't. There's rumors that she did have some facial surgery from an accident, I don't really know and it doesn't really matter. The point is, this "deliberately making characters ugly" was a completely false accusation and the result of that gross behavior is the model quit modeling and working for games because it became so toxic.

First of all I never used the term ugly since I don’t think that most of the examples that I gave are ugly per se, just less attractive IMO. Secondly, I do think that in some cases what you’re saying may be correct but it didn’t seem to be a problem for the devs who made the attractive female characters that I mentioned. And it’s been proven that Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 was partly modeled from a female employee working on the game:

13 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I laughed when he said PGA tour golfers weren't attractive.

Why? I like playing as what I personally consider appealing and attractive looking characters in every game that I play including sports games.

10 hours ago, legend said:

I do agree with sexualization deliberately being less overt. I do not agree that they're deliberately making the characters less attractive in any meaningful capacity.

Some examples of western developed games with female characters in them that seem to have been deliberately made less attractive looking (IMO) include: Control, Deliver Us Mars, The Division series, Fable reboot, Ghost Recon Wildlands/Breakpoint, The Last of Us Part II, Mass Effect Andromeda, Outriders, PGA Tour 2K21/23, Rage 2, Returnal, Scars Above, Spider-Man 2, Star Wars Outlaws and Wolfenstein: Youngblood. And look what they recently did to the preexisting female characters in Pokémon GO:

Perhaps it’s more noticeable to me since I primarily like playing as female characters in games, but as someone who does it seems to be more blatant and often from my perspective.

5 hours ago, legend said:

I think this game is a victim of the fact that it's liked by people insisting that western devs are deliberately making female characters ugly and insisting that all women in games should look like super models.

I do feel that some western devs have been deliberately making female characters less attractive to thwart the so-called “male gaze” and to prevent the characters from being objectified and sexualized, but attractiveness and sexualization are not one and the same.

I almost exclusively like to play as female characters in games these days, and I admit that part of the reason why is because I personally find them to be more aesthetically appealing than male characters. And I’m talking about realistic looking athletic badass female characters, not overly sexualized ones. I prefer playing as acrobatic, agile, fast and quick female characters as opposed to big bulky muscly slow tank male characters. I also tend to prefer their attitudes, personalities and voice actors to their male counterparts as well. 

Some examples of female characters that I like from the past decade include: Aloy (Horizon series), Aveline de Grandpre (Assassin’s Creed Liberation), Evie Frye (Assassin’s Creed Syndicate), Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey), Dani Rojas (Far Cry 6), Katharine (King’s Bounty II), Amicia de Rune (A Plague Tale series), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider survival trilogy) and Chloe Frazer (Uncharted: The Lost Legacy). They’re all realistic looking, naturally attractive (not super models) and not sexualized in any way.
 

With that said, I don’t have a problem with occasional sexy anime style female characters like Bayonetta, 2B and Eve because I like anime. Stellar Blade is an over the top AA Asian developed fantasy horror sci-fi action adventure game that’s not meant to be realistic in any way, so I don’t feel that the characters in it are out of place for what it is.

I started playing Almost My Floor, it’s a 2D side scrolling psychological horror point-and-click adventure game.

I finished Raging Bytes.

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

Avengers

Raging Bytes

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

@stepee I didn't realize the visuals got an upgrade for the dlc in Forbidden West. Not only does the environment look better but the sky and clouds look incredible. 

 

This will be difficult to beat visually this gen. 

That’s why it’s not on PS4.

New albums by Dawn of Ashes and Nocturna.

@Dodger

@DPCyric

I bought the first game back when it came out and quite enjoyed it, but it had a lot of bugs at that time and a gamebreaking one unfortunately ended my progress so I got rid of it. The Royal Edition that includes all of the DLC is currently on sale for $4, so I bought it. I’m looking forward to playing this sequel when I get a PS5.

I started playing Raging Bytes, it’s a 2D top down view pixel art zombie apocalypse game with 3D turn-based combat. It has a retro style charm to it.

I finished Avengers, it was a decent third person action beat ‘em up platformer that could have been a lot better if the single player experience was the focus instead of the co-op/multiplayer live service stuff.

2024 Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

A Space for the Unbound

Avengers

23 hours ago, best3444 said:

I recently bought Kingdom Come Deliverence and it is extremely realistic to a fault imo. Granted I didn't get too far but it's pretty complicated in it's systems and you can litteraly die by not eating lol. The visuals are absolutely incredible though and so are the characters and voice acting. If you give it your undivided attention it probably is a really unique gaming experience. 

I originally bought it when it came out, and played quite a bit of it. I enjoyed it for the most part, but it had a lot of bugs. I stopped playing it because I got a gamebreaking bug, and got rid of it. I never really planned on getting it again, but the Royal Edition that includes all of the DLC is currently on sale for $4 so I bought it.

Aurora’s Journey and the Pitiful Lackey

Cybertrash Statyx

Indigo Prophecy

Kingdom Come: Deliverance Royal Edition

Raging Bytes

On 4/14/2024 at 1:29 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

Yeah the single player campaign and gameplay is very fun. They game fell apart as a live service game, but they NAILED the gameplay of each Avenger and all of the additional characters they added.

The live service stuff is annoying, bloated and intrusive, but the single player story campaign has been pretty fun. I just recently played through Black Widow’s level, and it was one of the best so far. She’s my favorite character in the game.

I started playing Avengers, and I’m digging it so far. It’s a fun third person action beat ‘em up platformer with good graphics and gameplay.

I finally decided to play this after buying it almost three years ago (I can’t believe that it’s been that long). I’ve been enjoying it. It’s been better than I was expecting it to be. The story is cinematic, the graphics are really impressive, gameplay is a mix of combat and platforming and there’s a lot of exciting scripted events and set pieces.

I really liked playing as the different Avengers in the beginning to get a feel for what each is like, and after the prologue the real adventure begins with you playing as Kamala Khan who I like in the Ms. Marvel show and that I like in this game as well.

The story has been entertaining, the beat ‘em up combat and platforming is a lot of fun and there’s been exciting events constantly happening.

New Maggie Lindemann album.

I started playing Dragon Quest Heroes and while the graphics and gameplay are good, the game itself is an extremely repetitive stage based enemy horde battler nothing like the Dragon Quest RPGs.

I heard that Dragon Quest Heroes II was more of an RPG by comparison, so I started playing it. It’s definitely better with more RPG elements, but is still more of an action game than an RPG. However, it has enough RPG elements to make it more than just a pure enemy horde battler like the first game so it’s holding my interest for now.

11 hours ago, stepee said:

Horizon Burning Shores - Awesome dlc/expansion - just as good if not better than the main game.

I have Horizon Forbidden West for PS4 which unfortunately didn’t get this expansion. Since I plan on getting a PS5 Pro when it comes out I’m probably just going to wait and play Horizon Forbidden West on it since not only will it look and run better, but I can play this expansion as well.