New Testingstan

also, the day you'll be able to transparently play the games you bought on Steam-PC on consoles, I might reconsider console-gaming


(spoiler: not really as the reason I play PC games is mostly because I'm always on my PC anyway, and also because there isn't many strategy games on consoles. Also, PC gaming master race)

Oxymoron wrote:

evilsoup wrote:I'm reminded of Transmetropoliton

what does, apart from the fact it's a comic with a noir aesthetic set in new york?

the bit where the game is hardwired to use an anglophone keyboard
english is an ugly language
but it expresses hate so well

Oxymoron wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:your first mistake was probably playing a game on a pc instead of something good :V

given I have one laying around and the simplicity of the controls otherwise,

I guess I could try using a 360 controller?

that's actually probably a pretty good idea, it's what i usually use

i dunno if walking dead on pc has native support of 360 controllers but there's plenty of programs out there to trick it into working

so has anyone else read this thing on the state of video game reviews/criticism?

I went to go read it, but then just kinda skimmed it when I realized that most of it was about Bioshock Infinite, which I haven't played. In fact, I haven't played any of the games that were mentioned, since I almost never buy games the same year they come out (I think Saints Row IV was the first time I did that in close to a decade), and so I feel I wouldn't really get a whole lot out of it.

I agree with the general premise that professional reviews are a joke. I don't trust them for pretty much any type of media. For the most part, I just have people I know whose opinions of different media allow me to pretty reliably gauge whether or not I'd like it. I check that list of people to see what they think about something before I spend any of my time and/or money on it. There's one guy in particular I know from college who I found tends to be a huge fan of TV shows that I find boring. The more enthusiastic he is about the show, the more I know to avoid it. Only works for TV shows, though. He's a less reliable predictor when it comes to video games or movies.

I actually found the part about Bioshock Infinite more interesting and informative than the more general stuff towards the end. I have had very little contact with that game so I had no idea it had the switch in antagonist part way through.

Civil War Man wrote:I went to go read it, but then just kinda skimmed it when I realized that most of it was about Bioshock Infinite, which I haven't played. In fact, I haven't played any of the games that were mentioned, since I almost never buy games the same year they come out (I think Saints Row IV was the first time I did that in close to a decade), and so I feel I wouldn't really get a whole lot out of it.

I haven't played Infinite either but I think the whole piece works precisely because his criticisms of the game and the way it was received could be extended to most triple A titles. Player freedom is limited because most of the choice is illusory, gameplay is fundamentally easy (and ultimately boring) and the story - like player choice - claims to have depth and sophistication when in reality it has nothing of the kind. Pointing this out is seen as the purview of game criticism which, unlike in other media, is a ghetto separated from 'reviews'.

The guy could learn to lay off the rule of three stuff in some of his sentences. Like, I get it dude. I'm not an idiot.

thejester wrote:I haven't played Infinite either but I think the whole piece works precisely because his criticisms of the game and the way it was received could be extended to most triple A titles. Player freedom is limited because most of the choice is illusory, gameplay is fundamentally easy (and ultimately boring) and the story - like player choice - claims to have depth and sophistication when in reality it has nothing of the kind. Pointing this out is seen as the purview of game criticism which, unlike in other media, is a ghetto separated from 'reviews'.

I wouldn't say it's a problem unique to video game criticism. Certainly worse, but it's probably present in other media to certain degrees. With games, we have the reviewers getting their ad revenue from the same companies whose products they are reviewing, while over in the movie business the same corporations outright own both the studio that produces the movie and the publication that reviews it. Probably the only critics who don't get pressure to inflate reviews for movies made by their parent companies are the ones who've made a big enough name for themselves that they can afford to be candid, but with Ebert dead that list has gotten pretty short.

Yo Los. You up for some BF3 this weekend?

i think so

friend of mine who is also my new boss on the 20th got it for christmas as well so i'll bug him about it

i got sucked into civ 5

you poor, benighted fool

do you at least have the expansions that fixed it

i got the gold edition during a steam sale, so... maybe?

gaiz u wanna play some HAWKEN

customizable tea bagging subroutines for your robots

I got Out of the Park 14, which is a baseball management simulator. Essentially an excel spreadsheet of a game.

For $19 on the Apple Store, it's pretty fun. I get to scout new players, as well as help with lineups and such.

Final Fantasy VI on Android

I don't know about the character designs...they look slightly odd to me. Maybe they'd be better in action and/or on my phone than these previews, idk.

But hey, Terra's hair is still green so points for that.

Hmm. Mechwarrior Tactics actually looks pretty interesting.

That was paid for with money funneled from MWO

RogueIce wrote:Final Fantasy VI on Android

I don't know about the character designs...they look slightly odd to me. Maybe they'd be better in action and/or on my phone than these previews, idk.

But hey, Terra's hair is still green so points for that.

Wait till it goes on sale. At some point they might also localize Final Fantasy Tactics. It came out a year ago on android in Japan but there's been no word on it here.

I've now got Sonic the Hedgehog on my Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo's huge sleeper hit (that's holding its ground against mobile/tablet/laptop apps while the Nintendo Wii U crashed very hard).

Metal Gear Rising is just the craziest goddamn thing and I love it.

It's super awesome. I just wish I was good enough to beat it.

Maybe set it to easy assist?