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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • Thanks for the long and interesting writeup! I’m still working through AC 1 and enjoying it, I’ll see if I stay on the train as long as you :).

    I did play Ghost of Tsushima. One of the most beautiful looking games I’ve ever played with amazing combat and good characters. For me, it was just way to long and repetitive. I eventually found the solution, playing each of the three acts and the DLC with a long break in between each time, so it felt fresh again. In the end I even got the platinum trophy for it, but I still see it as a great 8/10 game that could have been an all time favorite if it was trimmed to about half its runtime. Here’s hoping that they don’t make the same mistakes for Ghost of Yotei. If they can keep the good and trim the bloat, this could be the game of a generation.




  • It’s hard to discuss such a massive series. It feels as if everything has been said about it and people have largely gotten tired of the formula, but hear me out.

    I actually never played any of them, I recently started playing the first one (from 2007) on my Steam Deck and I am actually loving it. It’s such a simple, straightforward game, with a basic but engaging story and honestly gorgeous visuals for the time. The mechanics are delightfully limited, in a sense that it really helps me to turn of my brain and just enjoy myself. I really like the world and how dense it is: all objectives are reasonably close and movement is quick and agile. A real gem for the Steam Deck!

    I most certainly will get the sequel trilogy, as that one seems to be loved by a lot of people.






  • I completely agree with your last part, the story would have been perfect if it was switched.

    To counter your other argument, the surrogate lesbian daughter is still more visually stereotypically attractive though. The number of hate posts for Abby that even go into transfobic territory and misgendering was massive. I made the mistake of wanting to read some discussion on part 2 after playing it on reddit: the whole sub is just hate (there probably is an alternative but I didn’t look further, I was to disgusted by it).

    But your opinion on Joel vs Abby is valid, it’s actually annoying that actual discussion about storytelling gets overshadowed by bigots.

    On a similar note, I had issues with the change in direction of Doctor Who which accidently coincided with the casting of the first female Doctor, and it was so hard to have genuinely critical discussions without misogynists taking over or being accused of being one myself.


  • I also cannot understand how you could play the Last of Us Part 1 and not realise how horrible Joel is.

    Spoilers for both games ahead.

    The ending of 1 was super difficult for me to play and super powerful in its delivery. It was horrible to decide to “save” Ellie by literally murdering everyone in the research station and destroying all hope for a cure. I was really impressed that they went there storywise, but then when in 2 Joel gets killed, all these so-called “fans” are angry because their lovely protagonist was killed. It’s like they willfully ignore the complicated morals that were already present in the first game. When Abby does horrible stuff, they hate her. When Joel does horrible stuff in 1, it’s fine. Part 2 had some problems, but I hugely respect what they were going for and how it polarised the community.


  • The bad reactions to this seemed minimal to me, but my god the woman in the Galactic trailer is driving them nuts.

    Which I really don’t understand, because I find her look and vibe the good part of that trailer. The slurping drink and forced pop song on the other hand…



  • I would describe myself as a pantheist: I see the existence of the universe as a whole and the multifaceted consciousness in it as divine. So science is as much a technical as a spiritual journey for me, and love / amazement / experience of the world seems the highest form of living.

    I also feel that children often embody this in a very pure form, and it is only when society and social constructs kick in that we seem to forget our purpose and get all tangled up in imaginary goals and obligations.



  • While technically correct, they do have it in China itself, it’s a modified version called Douyin. It is more restricted, censored and tightly controlled.

    I agree that it is a cyberweapon, but don’t think that it’s only used against foreigners, they use it just as much to observe and influence their own population.

    Finally, I would like to point out that to a lesser extent this is also the case for a lot of USA owned social media and tech companies. Edward Snowden’s revelations for example indicate this. While the extent of government control and influence is much larger in China, I wouldn’t underestimate the influences of Meta, Google and Microsoft for example.





  • I think that is a bit the conceit of the collection: classic games in looks / features, but taking into account the progress that has been made in game design and mechanics. I actually prefer it this way, like an alternate timeline in which computers didn’t get more powerful and people were forced to iterate on ideas within these constraints.