ConstableJelly
@ConstableJelly@beehaw.org
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 12th 2 days ago:
Watcher Knights I think are near the top of my list. I just rewatched my recording of beating them and I was fumbling so badly lol. It’s obvious I’m running with the “pure desperation” tactic rather a more skillful approach, but it finally managed to work out.
I was addicted to exploring that world but I am satisfied with the one playthrough I think.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 12th 2 days ago:
I was persuaded to pick Elden Ring back up despite not really feeling a pull for it, but lo and behold once I was back in I fell in deep. I never actually finished the game with my first dex/bleed-based character, so I continued making my way through Crumbling Farum Azula. I’ve given Malekith a couple of attempts but I’m pretty burned out on bosses at the moment. I started up a new sorcery-based character and that’s been the real joy. Magic really does make the game significantly easier, and part of me wishes I’d done my first playthrough this way. But I’d beaten Demon’s Souls remake not too long before starting Elden Ring originally and wanted something different.
To fall back on when I get too frustrated, I’ve been playing 10tons’s Undead Horde. Their game Dysmantle wound up being a major highlight the year that I played it (I really, really liked it), so I finally bought Undead Horde 1 and 2. It’s not nearly as good as Dysmantle, but it’s a really great, lightweight dungeon crawler. I like their vibe very much and am really looking forward to Dysplaced.
I also gave the Saints Row reboot a try since it was free a while back on PS+ and it’s really, really (really) dumb. It’s also kind of fun, a little at a time. Not sure it’ll hold my interest all the way through but it’s nice having an open world game that’s just…easy to play and asks very little of the player.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 12th 2 days ago:
I’m further behind in Ori but I’m enjoying it greatly. I’m not a big metroidvania aficionado, but I played and loved Hollow Knight despite it’s difficulty (some of the bosses really tested my tolerance for punishment). I appreciate that Ori is (so far) a more accessible game.
- Comment on Eurogamer: What is the point of Xbox? (Opinion) 5 days ago:
They claim that entertainment companies exist “to provide that entertainment.” Sure I think creative leads and the devs (especially in the games industry) are there to provide entertainment that they are passionate about. But idk if I can ever see a period where the publisher was in it for the art, despite what they may say.
I agree with you, except that up until the early-to-mid aughts, before Fortnight, and skinner box mobile games, and the promise of persistent revenue capitalizing on addictive tendencies and FOMO, publishers believed that the best path to profit was good games. Konami, to pick the (previously) worst example, published one of the weirdest, most cinematic, ambitious, influential games of all time with Metal Gear Solid. And then, eventually, they saw a straighter, shorter path to profit.
I am…way more personally upset about the Arkane closure than I usually get about these things. I have so much respect for what that studio created. This article is great though and gives the holistic perspective I’ve been looking for the past few days:
The point here, ultimately, is that this cycle has been repeating, and repeating, and repeating, and it does not show any sign of coming to an end. Xbox buys talent, mismanages it in search of impossible scale, and cuts it loose - be that the 20-year experts of Fable, or the battle-scarred makers of Dishonored, or the invigorating new generation behind Hi-Fi Rush. Xbox’s leadership clearly knows it’s a problem…they have to step behind this first, surface-level layer of justification for closing studios, and get to the real cause - not the decisions themselves, but the principles that inform them. The principles that say expertise, creativity and talent are less valuable than the cost to let them flourish.
- Comment on The return of Gamergate is smaller and sadder 1 month ago:
There’s a PlayStation community I was subscribed to whose main mod posted a gamergatey rant over the weekend with a number of factual inaccuracies. I wanted desperately to assume they were just benignly uninformed, but it didn’t turn out that way.
I’m not interested in subscribing to a community at risk of being affected by that kind of toxicity, so I had to leave. Which is a bummer because I liked having PS-specific news in my feed.
- Comment on Trademark Tussle: Remedy Entertainment And Take Two Clash Over Logo 3 months ago:
Seems nothing has changed in the past 2 years: Take Two Is Being a Dick
- Comment on Ubisoft Wants You To Be Comfortable Not Owning Your Games 3 months ago:
I’ve said before that being a PS Plus subscriber has changed the types of games I play by making indie games more accessible to try, with low stakes. Prior, I usually reserved my funds for what I assumed was the biggest bang with AAA titles.
There’s value there with having a library of games to just try out. That being said, the trajectory of subscription services generally and “digital ownership” (see Playstation’s recent Discovery kerfuffle) is really concerning.
I think Ubisoft’s mindset here is on the wrong track (surprise…). Luckily, as others have said, there’s not a lot of temptation here for Ubisoft’s modern library (Prince of Persia being an admitted exception).
- Submitted 3 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 67 comments
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 14th 3 months ago:
Alan Wake 2. I’ll spare any commentary on all the things it does well and that make it a one of the most ambitiously distinctive (AAA) games…ever? because that’s been well covered.
On the other hand, I am kinda surprised that the combat is as… deficient as it is. I never liked the combat experience in the first game. I don’t like how the enemies were programmed to run off screen to the sides of view because Alan isn’t nimble enough to pivot direction sufficiently to track multiple enemies, and it just felt cheap and frustrating. Dodging is clunky too.
Control was the next Remedy game I thought the combat in that game was fantastic. The gunplay felt right, and the paranormal powers were weighty and responsive. Even the levitate power looks and feels fantastic; the animation is super cool and I love watching it.
So I had high hopes for Alan Wake 2, but the combat again feels too imprecise and unbalanced. Dodging is still clunky, projectiles clip through objects, etc.
Oh well. It’s a bummer, but in a game like this it’s well overshadowed by the strengths.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 14th 3 months ago:
You’ve seen everything Hellblade has to offer in the combat department. I enjoyed it personally; it’s really slick in its simplicity, but you are right that it’s not the main draw. Hellblade shines in its performances, journey, and presentation, like you said. Some of the set pieces are just striking in the best (and worst) ways.
It’s a really effective and unique experience overall.
- Submitted 3 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 6 comments
- Comment on Suicide Squad Boss Downplays Live-Service Elements Of Obviously Live-Service Game 4 months ago:
You think it’ll make money?
Mainly because of the hype/marketing, but I may be overestimating it. It’s a good point that Avengers bombed, but I do think Rocksteady is a more competent developer than CD (I’m not personally a big fan of their Tomb Raider games).
I also just tend to think anything is possible until it isn’t. It wouldn’t be the first game to buck expectations if it somehow managed to be a hit.
Either way, the fact that this is the only game Rocksteady releases in nearly 10 years will be a deep source of bitterness.
- Comment on Suicide Squad Boss Downplays Live-Service Elements Of Obviously Live-Service Game 4 months ago:
I’m really interested for this game to release. I expect it to be a critical failure and a commercial break-even, mostly due to Rocksteady’s (as yet untarnished) pedigree and marketing.
But I also haven’t ruled out that it will be a surprise hit. I didn’t even realize this wasn’t being fully marketed as a live-service game, and who knows, maybe all the hogwash in this article about the “trinity” of gameplay elements and sharing experiences with friends will actually work somehow.
But if it is all the worst things about the live service trend, I do hope it fails for the greater good, all due respect to the individuals who’ve done their best with it.
- Submitted 4 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 20 comments
- Comment on Google has started disabling third-party cookies for Chrome users 4 months ago:
No argument here. There’s a global paradigm shift needed to break out of that mindset should it even be possible, but it still boggles my mind in the meantime the resources invested in sustaining this ecosystem.
- Comment on The fall of Firefox: Mozilla's once-popular web browser slides into irrelevance 4 months ago:
That came as a surprise to me too. 2.5% is just so little.
- Comment on Google has started disabling third-party cookies for Chrome users 4 months ago:
“Tracking protection” sounds more like “alternative tracking.”
Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative, just like its name implies, was designed to be an alternative to cookies that will allow advertisers to serve users ads while also protecting their privacy. It assigns users to groups according to their interests, based on their recent browsing activities, and advertisers can use that information to match them with relevant ads.
Lot of time, money, and effort toward a moderate improvement rather than just not perceiving users as products. But…improvement is improvement.
What’s the downside?
- Comment on The fall of Firefox: Mozilla's once-popular web browser slides into irrelevance 4 months ago:
Me? Not at all. I actually posted this out of concern because, as I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a Firefox user, and my layman’s impression was that its reputation has been improving over the past couple years. I assumed its user base was doing the same as people grew increasingly concerned with Google’s intentions.
Apparently ZDnet has some reputational issues itself I was unaware of.
- Comment on The fall of Firefox: Mozilla's once-popular web browser slides into irrelevance 4 months ago:
Boy that paints a grim picture.
- Comment on The fall of Firefox: Mozilla's once-popular web browser slides into irrelevance 4 months ago:
I don’t think so. The article claims Firefox lost some of its lead developers to Google when it started developing Chrome and then took a long time to regain its footing around 2017. That sounds about right to my recollection. I had admittedly switched to Chrome myself for a while (I’m not terribly tech-savvy, maybe a little more than average) but switched back to Firefox last year. I am still pretty deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem though in other ways.
- Comment on Get ready to hear more about "pre-internet" times 4 months ago:
Haha yeah, when I say I had a cell phone, I mean that I was essentially reachable at all times. I didn’t start using text messaging regularly until like…2009, and didn’t use it for anything else until I got my first Droid a few years later.
Fair point though, my response was very American-centric.
- Submitted 4 months ago to technology@beehaw.org | 122 comments
- Comment on Starbucks accused of manipulating app payments for $900 million profit 4 months ago:
I prefer CHEAP, ACIDIC coffee because I did the pourover too fast on mediocre store-bought grounds that are too fine, LOL.
😄. Get yourself a decent burr grinder, a French press, and some Aldi oat milk (if you don’t want black) and you can make as good a cup of coffee as you can get at the best coffee shops.
- Comment on Get ready to hear more about "pre-internet" times 4 months ago:
As a relatively elder millennial (1987), I’d concede the title of last true pre-internet generation to Gen X. We got AOL dial-up when I was in 6th grade, which was a little behind the curve compared to my peers, but not much. So I certainly lived through a seminal transition period as the internet developed and became…what it is today.
But the hallmark experiences of the pre-internet times, payphones, paper maps, coordinating with others, I only did so in my limited capacity as a child. I had a cell phone by…10th grade, I could at least print out MapQuest directions, etc.
I remember a lot, but didn’t truly interact with most of it.
- Comment on You probably don't need a VPN 4 months ago:
Neutral party here, I read it naturally as a supplement to your comment, not an opposition. I don’t detect an argumentative tone personally.
- Comment on Watch out, this LastPass email with "Important information about your account" is a phish 7 months ago:
They do but they’re using the new “human English” dictionary, which autoincorrects correctly spelled words to give the piece an air of human authenticity, particularly for AI written articles.
/s
- Comment on Ketchup Entertainment To Release New “Hellboy” Film 8 months ago:
Not at all a fan of Brian Taylor’s directing style, and it seems like a terrible fit to me for what little I know of Hellboy. Then again I thought Neil Marshall was a perfect fit before 2019 came out, so…guess I’ll just withhold judgment.