We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

I'd love to chip in my super insightful and important opinions but i don't have much time at the moment, so i'd just like to mention that i'm enjoying the current conversation and i agree with what nta said about MM.

I'd love to chip in my super insightful and important opinions but i don't have much time at the moment, so i'd just like to mention that i'm enjoying the current conversation and i agree with what nta said about MM.

MM and LA are extremely rich in worldview (throwing in not-entirely-unrelated link to a blag I’ve read lately). It’s part of what I like about ’em.

I been meaning to write about Majora's Mask for a while now. While I intend to discuss the structure of time loop narratives (fairly powerful if you do it right, but I don't see it done much-- I think Groundhog Day and Infinity Blade are the only other ones I know), I could probably do a post about the whole of it. Probably a bit of a waste as others have already done far more eloquently than I, but who knows.

I should play that again some time.

Unrelated, but I keep seeing ads for Assassin's Creed 4, and I'm not sure that "learn about" is the most confidence-instilling verb they could use for "new weapons"

I was watching Babylon 5 over the past few months; I thought the way they went about a time loop was pretty well done, though it was not repeated. In a game format, you would probably want to explore it more and let players stick around as many times as they like, but in a more linear format you might do better to just have the implications explored thoroughly on one go-around.

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- Only happened once in two episodes two years apart (so you saw dozens in between and would likely forget any inconsistencies), for a show lasting five years.
- Before the first one, it was a known mystery. Between the two, it was a different mystery. After the second one, very few questions remained about what happened and why.
- It wasn’t a pointlessly standalone affair; it could have been a dropped plot arc without too much issue (and there were reasons to believe it could have been), but it had serious effects on the rest of the story and was intensely dramatic in scope. It was something worth using time travel for in a universe where time travel is impractical and nigh on impossible.

It wasn’t as much of a visual effects blowout as, say, the ST:DS9 ST:TOS anniversary episode, but it had many strengths in being intended this way from the start.

Oh, right, Star Trek and Stargate. I... probably forgot them because those episodes, for me, usually ended up needlessly dramatic i.e. unintentionally funny, but yeah, I oughtta look some of those up too, when I get around to it.

Although... those shows usually don't have the Getting To Know The World element in, which is one of the more pertinent in my analysis, because everyone already knows each other. Star Trek usually uses time loops as an excuse to kill off/blow up someone/thing important repeatedly to establish The Stakes, rather than as a method to grow the characters. Also so they can reuse footage when the funds run low

B5 and DS9 are slightly different. They kind of kicked off the modern trend of arc-based TV being more than mere soaps (well, in this country, at least). Highly recommended... if you have a spare 200+ hours and an unimpeachable love of sci-fi TV, anyway.

One thing B5 did was make me mad, though, because there are so many similarities with Mass Effect it’s pretty crazy. Sure, there is only so much you can do in a similar setting without going through the same motions, but still. Oh well, ME is (IMHO) prettier.

ain't sure about how it's gonna be exactly, but the item rental store in the new zelda game seems to be designed to avoid item creep, although it might result in having to backtrack a few times when you've scoped out a location and know what you need there

in later games, zelda plays with the bomb's actual mechanics, rather than making it a focus of searching the walls (even though I still love bonking into them with the sword to find those walls because it's funny)

puzzles involving explosion timing? check. puzzles involving your accuracy with throwing the bomb? check. puzzles involving both of those things at the same time because you're trying to aim at a wall on the other side of a conveyor belt and you can't actually stand on the conveyor belt yourself? check. puzzles where YOU'RE on the conveyor belt, trying to hit a tiny fucking target with a bomb, and trying not to fall off the conveyor belt because the game only understands you're throwing in a direction when you're moving? check. bomb throwing puzzles in 2d that involve both gravity and timing? check. 2d boss that requires you to aim your bombs at the top of his head while everything's flying around the room like a ghost ferris wheel that shoots fireballs? check. wall that can't be normally bombed because the floor in front of it is lava, but you eventually figure out that you can use bombs and arrows at the same time? actually that one's kinda stupid

not even counting bombchus (the world's most expensive and annoying invention), larger bombs which are literally specific keys for specific doors, and the bomb mask (the world's least thought out invention), I think bombs have more to say than hunting for some stupid walls that have no sign of being bombable in the least

unrelated note: i liked that part in link to the past when that asshole wizard tries to get away by phasing through the wall, but then you realize you can just slash through the drapery, and you can even slash the other two draperies, even though there's nothing behind those ones

I for one think its grand that LoZ has gone wire-to-wire here, with the most frustratingly hard and obtuse game being the first in the series and the most frustratingly easy and obvious game being the latest.

Fi didn't let me figure out a damn thing

unrelated note: i liked that part in link to the past when that asshole wizard tries to get away by phasing through the wall, but then you realize you can just slash through the drapery, and you can even slash the other two draperies, even though there's nothing behind those ones

“Polonius? What are you doing behind the curtain?”

for all his handholding I still enjoyed issun as a character when he was allowed to not be annoying handholder and instead an actual character

:/

In a recent programming assignment, I had to make a thing where you herded a flock of sheep. Turns out tuning a congregating mass of unruly semi-autonomous agents to be manageable or even fun is hard as holy hell. I can see why Lemmings is about playing God; it’s just about the only thing I wanted to do with those dumb simulacra by the end.

Miyamoto (pulling out both his cheeks): Like this.
Everyone: (laughs)

freeze frame, scroll credits

just dump the programming you need for snake into the game, and have the snake hunt down and house all of the sheep within its body

One of the extra credit assignments was predators. But nobody did them, because that assignment was pretty tough.

And the one that was due on Sunday was impossible. The only assignment in seven years that genuinely kicked my ass and I could not on some level blame myself for not completing; for the past week, it has been my life, no other subjects allowed. It looks like maybe only six people will graduate with this degree this year. Barely anyone passed the prerequisite and it’s on the critical path. Oh well! *cliche comedy show band playoff*

edit:

aww yeh

FTL: the gift that keeps on giving

even when you don't want any more

gods why won't they stop coming

One thing B5 did was make me mad, though, because there are so many similarities with Mass Effect it’s pretty crazy. Sure, there is only so much you can do in a similar setting without going through the same motions, but still. Oh well, ME is (IMHO) prettier.

This is a little late on my part (I haven't checked this thread in a while) but wasn't Mass Effect made 9 years after Babylon 5?

This is a little late on my part (I haven't checked this thread in a while) but wasn't Mass Effect made 9 years after Babylon 5?

No, the station won’t be dedicated for another 240-odd years.

(ME came later, but creation dates are a bit fuzzy.)

Help everybody's favorite Kool Kat explore the intersection of light and form in Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turell Retrospective!

god i love arcane kids

well this is going in my list of games that physically hurt to look at

I suspect that if this guy's wrong, they'll never find the body

He’s already wrong; shouldn’t have posted that on the Internet :\

Here, have an early Coco Bandicoot concept art I dug up way back when instead.

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In an incredible coincidence I was just watching that video

Yeah so I really don't want to be mad at Sarkeesian, because a lot of gamers are against feminism on principle and also horrible and I don't want to be on that side, but her videos are resoundingly "ehhh".
As my high school English teacher would have said, listing examples does not constitute analysis. This had significantly less mass example overload than the others, but I really wish she would just say something.
The Mass Effect thing was interesting (or at least the conclusions I reached on my own thanks to the presented information were :V). I actually never knew that they only used male Shepard in the promotional campaigns. I get the feeling that a lot of the lack of representation for people other than white dudes in video games/movies/television comes more from a corporate assumption that only white dudes sell than from writer bias, but it's difficult to say.

I wouldn't put the onus solely on the producers, either. There's a whole lot of consumers who espouse not just openly misogynistic drivel but a lot of subtle stuff, too, like talk about how characters in, say, Call of Duty need to be JUSTIFIED to be women but not to be men (obviously men is the default right??). Gaming culture as a whole is pretty toxic but it goes beyond that, too, as seen by how openly misogynist our society is in all levels including all forms of media.

i was going to say something but now i cant stop laughing at how aaron diaz made concept designs for female link the zelda game because of one of her videos

but yeah im glad that she can do this and that shes got this platform because if nothing else we get asshats out of the woodwork and CONSTANT DISCUSSION once every few months

its prolly indicative of my ignorance that I dont know who/what the heck you're talkin' about when you say the name "sarkeesian"

however on the sssssubject of games and LoZ, Link Between Worlds is out friday

this is a thing because I still haven't played Link To The Past