ShreddieMercury

I have more limited time for games now with a young daughter, and find myself gravitating towards simpler games and stuff that I can hop quickly in and out of (lots of racing games at the moment). I also find my patience and energy dwindle when I'm presented with extensive menus, stats, and skill trees, so these big RPG's are tough for me at this point

I understand the complaints about the minute-to-minute gameplay systems in Bethesda's games, but the sum of these parts has always (for me) resulted in some of the most immersive and fun experiences across all of games. It's easy to pick apart Skyrim in a granular way, but much harder to articulate how epic and fun the experience of playing the game is once you sink into it. This game looks incredible. I won't be playing it, but I'm happy for people who love big, meaty RPG games. These seem rarer now, and between this and BG3, it's an amazing year for the genre.

Agreed, and it's wild to me how far back this goes. Browsing reviews from 20 years ago will give you the same exact kind of comments and arguments, with the difference being that they're even more vitriolic and higher in volume now.

You are right on, and the sinister colonialism that's part of basically all western game design now deserves a serious look. Also guns. The difference I'm trying to draw here, and why I think games are more nuanced, is that they can contain both Tetris and Life and Strange, Rez and Papers, Please. In some of the best games (and my favorite) in the entire medium, the interactivity alone is the game. In others, that same tactile, core interactivity is not integral (or is at least secondary) to the experience. How can you reconcile that with the exact same critical approach? You've written very articulately in the past about games like The Last of Us, which are desperate to be taken seriously and think they have something to say, only to be gamified outside of their cutscenes by collectibles and achievements that are discordant with their themes. I think that's why game criticism is in a tough spot. Anything is possible within games, which makes them amazing and worthwhile while also terrifying and often disappointing. But effectively criticizing something as multi-dimensional as a video game from all possible angles, including whatever embedded societal and economic oppression they may represent, seems an impossible and thankless task in an environment where the general audience is terminally online and misinformed. Not that it shouldn't be done, and often, but I do think the context is important. I've written all of this and don't even know if it's making much sense. My main issue is with aggregate review scores, and my frustration with simultaneously how pointless they are yet how much weight they carry. Games deserve better than this system, but it's not going anywhere.

For sure. I'm not interested in lots of new, AAA graphical powerhouse type games. I mostly play older stuff, mixed with indies and emulation. It seems like it would be a pretty great device for that stuff.

I think it's the fact that it can be argued as the first premier, first-party exclusive for Xbox after a severe dry spell, releasing at the tail end of a phenomenal year for games, in a genre (space?) where people's expectations are generally very unrealistic. Maybe that's overblown, but it feels like the temperature of this game has been continually rising, and Microsoft surely has very high expectations for the game's performance given the long development cycle and extreme QA effort. I'm honestly not interested in playing the game, and don't have the time for something this sprawling, but the conversation around it even pre-release has been quite the ride. I expect the reviews to be highly dramatic, and I can't wait.

Oh cool, I didn't realize there was a dock! Thinking about getting one of these so I can play Steam stuff on my television. I assume there is good controller support too?

77? Can you plug a Steam Deck into a monitor or a television?

True, but I also think that the problem is that games are so layered that it's a tall task to evaluate them in total, and too much is still misunderstood about them. Some outlets are desperate to attach some grander meaning or theme to games (Waypoint was very guilty of this) while ignoring things that don't serve that purpose, and they only tackle games from this one specific angle. Are we reviewing the story only? The technical performance? The (often unintentional) political implications? God forbid, the gameplay? I don't envy anybody covering games at this stage, because more than ever they deserve the type of nuance and critical thought that their general audience is either dismissive or outright hostile toward.

Starfield is in a very unfortunate spot. If Microsoft had better handled the last generation and the start of this one in terms of first party output, there wouldn't be half as much riding on this game as there is now. Given that it's Xbox's first high profile exclusive since the tremendously disappointing Halo Infinite, and that the corporate drama in between these releases has been astronomical, expectations are out of control and there is no way to meet them, no matter how good the game is. I'm guessing that this will end up being a very good, bordering on great game in the typical Bethesda mold, but given everything up to now, its fate is to be an extreme flashpoint in the inane world of modern gaming discourse.

AAA video game criticism doesn't exist. It's all marketing because gamers can't read. The hullabaloo around this game is hilarious. It's quite the inflection point for the console wars and it's glorious to behold.

On one hand, big cool mechs. On the other, developed by Fromsoft. Still waiting for a MechAssault reboot.

Definitely a few words here I don't recognize so I'll need to educate myself.

Agreed that it's not as good as JSRF. But I do think this is as close as we're gonna get, and you can tell that this was an obvious passion project for the development team. It's very much the opposite of the typically safe and cynical development that grips much the industry, and I think it deserves a ton of credit for it's authenticity and blatant disregard for industry norms and video game culture, as it wasn't heavily marketed or even sent to major outlets for review. It feels true to the counter culture spirit of its inspiration. This is less an issue with the game and more a personal preference, but what's missing for me are the essential Japanese qualities of the Jet Set Radio games. JSR and JSRF could only have come from SEGA at that particular moment in time, from those specific development personalities. This is an obvious copy of those games, but in lifting nearly everything from them, they still can't replicate a huge part of what made them so special. I also don't think the story is anything to write home about, and it's more of a hindrance to this game than it was to Jet Set Radio. Still, it's a near miracle that we got this game from such a talented team that clearly understands the special alchemy of SEGA's brilliant originals.

They fucking did it. Against all odds, the spirit of the Dreamcast lives. The best video game OST since Jet Set Radio, and the most authentic and expressive game I've played since the 6th generation. I can't believe that something like this came out in our modern era. A true gift.

My most anticipated game this year. Comes out on Playstation and Xbox on 9/1 as well.

It could be weaker than the Switch and Nintendo's games will still be miles better than anything from the competition.

Doom Eternal in particular is an excellent example. That game has a hyper specific way that it wants to be played, and if you click with it, it's quite incredible. I found it to be just a bit too bloated mechanics-wise; if the flamethrower or grenade or just one thing could be dropped, I think it would sit amont the best FPS of all time. As it stands for me, it's just a bit too fiddly. But this is exactly what I'm getting at.

Great examples, but I wasn't referring to exploits necessarily. I'm not certain about this, but snaking in MK doesn't seem to have been intentionally implemented. Is that communicated anywhere to the player? I'm more thinking about where the standard game design itself reinforces the best way to play because it's the most fun. I would say in general that if exploits make a game more fun, then that's a flaw in the overall design that should have been addressed. Opinions vary on that I'm sure, but I appreciate when a developer clearly knows all the angles, and encourages an intended type of play. I know it's a weird question. It's something that I've been thinking a lot about when I play games recently.

For as long as I've played games, I would think that I'd be better at interpreting how games want to be played. I find that it can take me time to click with certain games, because I don't always give myself over to their mechanics. Jedi Survivor is a recent example - I tried to force my own ideas about how to handle the combat, and I really wasn't vibing with it. Once I tried to approach the game on its own terms, I started having a much better time. But is the game's specific approach more fun? I think this is an interesting and underrated aspect of game design in general. Is the best or most optimal way to play a game also the most fun way to play it? This question might not really make sense for games with lots of choices or player flexibility, although ideally all options should be engaging and fun. But in games that have a more specific or narrow design ethos, I feel that the most fun type of play should be encouraged and reinforced. An example from my experience would be NiGHTS into Dreams. It's possible to play the game and miss 80% of what makes it fun, which is maximizing your time and movement to get a better rank. It's very obtuse and doesn't explain itself properly, but once you understand how it wants to be played, it becomes an entirely different and mesmerizing experience. Do you have examples where maximizing a game's mechanics is the most fun option? Also, apologies if I am not articulating this correctly

Very understandable to be highly skeptical, but the lack of interest and complete dismissal in this thread for something that's by all appearances absolutely fascinating is so wild to me. We have verifiably intelligent and by all accounts trustworthy government officials TALKING ABOUT UFO EVIDENCE PUBLICLY. How is this not interesting and exciting?

How did you get "maybe aliens tho" from what I wrote? I'm saying that using our current scientific understanding to absolutely rule out certain possibilities, which we can't categorically disprove, doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe not in the literal sense, especially since the enlightenment and the rapid advancement of science. But to go from, "the earth is flat" to " just kidding the earth is round" to "all planets are round and the sun rotates around the earth" to "just kidding the earth rotates around the sun" to "okay actually the earth is one of trillions and trillions of other likely comparable planets around comparable stars" suggests to me that whatever understanding we have now will be seen as similarly quaint to future humans.

I think it's ignorant to assume that we have anything close to a full understanding of physics, or how the universe works in total. Humans continually think that they've reached the sum of all knowledge, and then that understanding is shattered time and time again. I also believe that it would be impossible to understand any other intelligent civilizations' intentions through an anthropocentric lens. Any alien activity would be literally incomprehensible to us. So any attempt to perceive the patterns or reasoning of alien entities would be futile, unless they made legitimate and purposeful contact. UFO's have always ignited my imagination. We haven't ever seen a single shred of proof that we have been visited by an alien species, but it doesn't make the phenomenon any less fascinating. I find UFO stories really interesting and have enjoyed reading them my whole life, but again, never once has literally a single bit of evidence been provided. I will say that there seems to be a lot of smoke here about something, and it's quite surreal to be reading some of these terms being thrown around by government officials and major news publications. But until something, anything, that proves these claims is provided, I find it best to remain highly skeptical. That said, I also don't think it's a bad thing to be curious and open to the idea that there are things we do not, and may not ever understand.

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