Flamekebab

@Flamekebab@piefed.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again⁩ ⁨⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  For me this is more about open world games losing cool features than wanting to play a game with that feature. In GTA 4 it affected the choices I’d make whilst driving as it was entirely possible to make a vehicle nearly impossible to drive without coming close to blowing it up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨lol, wrong⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Not what this is about but it reminds me of a lamp my mother asked me to fix every time I came home for about five years. I’d check it, find it worked, report back, she’d forget and once again assume it didn’t work otherwise she’d be using it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I couldn’t be bothered to come up with a neat way to say “GTA-like games” and decided to hope that the reader could intuit that context.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A cool feature/mechanic you want to see in games again⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  The vehicle damage modelling from GTA 4. The fact that it hasn’t been surpassed is tremendously disappointing to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My backlog is devastated⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  s/backlog/library/g

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Because hardware, software, culture, incomes, demand, supply, and many, many other factors have all changed since the 1980s. It’s not a straight comparison. Inflation is a factor but it is not the only factor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s a little more complex than that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  They can set the asking price to whatever they like but a lot of us cannot justify those amounts for what amounts to a toy. By this stage in a console generation I would expect a lot more games and a lot cheaper hardware. The reasons that haven’t happened aren’t of interest to me as a consumer (they’re of interest to me as a nerd!).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  No, but the price points of the current consoles are hilariously optimistic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 494 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Eventually I plan on playing Spaghetti Kart - partly for that reason!

  I would agree that the sprawling roster and tracklist are a bit much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the thing I find amusing in this thread. Consoles are a known quantity and it needs to either compete or undercut them. I have a Steam Deck that I paid £320 for (brought up to £400 by the SSD I added). I would most definitely not pay more than £450 for a Steam Box. It may well cost more than that but it is a luxury and I would seriously struggle to justify more than that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  s/backlog/library/g

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  …and those are just flying off the shelves!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gaming Pet Peeves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Whilst I didn’t enjoy the mechanics of Control, I was very impressed at the settings it offered. I could essentially turn off combat if I wanted. Yes, it won’t be the same game experience, but if I choose to play that way - let me!

  In the old days we had cheat codes for this stuff. I cheated my way through a lot of games and then revisited later without cheats. Some of those became my favourite games of all time (Theme Hospital and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 both spring to mind).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 494 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve not played a newer or older Mario Kart game with better fundamentals. I’d like more tracks for it but other than that it’s perfect. The newer ones are pretty but there’s too much going on in many of the tracks (and I’m really not fond of the flying/water thing they do either).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I see the patterns⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Uncensored.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Return to the year 2000 with classic multiplayer DOS games in your browser⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I never encountered a single Windows 9x game that wouldn’t run on Windows 2000 Pro. It was my primary OS in 2003 or so, having moved from Windows 98 SE.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Return to the year 2000 with classic multiplayer DOS games in your browser⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  XP? The bloated offspring of Windows 2000?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Return to the year 2000 with classic multiplayer DOS games in your browser⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I ran loads of normal (Windows 9x) games on Windows 2000 Pro.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Return to the year 2000 with classic multiplayer DOS games in your browser⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, Red Alert came out in 1996 and was available for DOS.

  Red Alert 2, not so much. DOS ports fell off hard by about ’98, so this headline is weird.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ex-leader of Reform UK in Wales sentenced to 10-and-a-half years for taking pro-Russian bribes⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I meant the Reform lot are worthless arseholes. Anyway, I’m Welsh!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ex-leader of Reform UK in Wales sentenced to 10-and-a-half years for taking pro-Russian bribes⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  A good start. Now get the rest in the bin - worthless arseholes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m sorry that I don’t remember many story specifics from thirteen years ago. I remember the group I was working on behalf of seemed utterly awful so I very much didn’t feel like I was on the side of “the good guys”. The whole system seemed rotten on all sides and I didn’t feel like I was doing anything positive regardless. I recall the boatman just being an arse towards me throughout and having the opportunity to off him at the end was at least satisfying. He does straight up betray the player in high chaos, so traitorous is an apt description.

  As I said, my complaint was more with framing that the specific consequences.

  I’m reminded of an episode of American Dad in which someone needs to kill someone (…anyone) for plot reasons.
  “…and you’ll be doing your killing with this.”

  When I played Dishonored it felt like I was given tools like that and then reprimanded for my lack of subtlety. If I’d been told “Use these only as a last resort as subtletly is the priority” and I’d used them then I’d have felt like I’d just barely scraped through a mission. Instead I did a thorough job, from my perspective, eliminating threats to the group I was working for, avoiding raising any alarms, and then being told I did a shitty job. You gave me a toolset geared towards extreme violence, why the shocked Pikachu face?

  I think it’s really cool that the game is setup so that it can be traversed non-violently (I can’t recall whether there are any targets that absolutely must be killed, but I remember most, if not all, had non lethal options). Given the tools I had though, I didn’t feel like going that route, and I really didn’t appreciate the mission givers acting like I was doing a bad job when I used the tools I was given. It felt very much like “Well the proper way to play this is the sneaky sneaky way - but I suppose deep begrudging sigh we’ll allow you to do things this way” was the message the game communicated to me.

  I wasn’t cheesing the systems presented, messing with pathfinding bugs, that kind of thing. I used the tools given in a canonically acceptable way. Don’t give me a loaded gun and then complain about a loud bang!

  “This person is a problem. We’ve left some tools for you."
  (events transpire)
  “Oh my gods, what did you do?! They’re dead!”

  Sorry, was I supposed to have a little chat with them, convince them to mend their ways? Was the collapsible sword for cutting cake? The gun for firing into the air in celebration of an understanding? Those exploding knife mine things for… uhhh.

  These are my perceptions and recollections, over a decade later. They may not be entirely accurate, but it’s what I remember. The game left me with a lasting impression that it disapproved of my approach and I found its mixed messages deeply irritating. I didn’t feel I was being mechanically punished and I was aware that being more violent would increase “chaos”, but I felt that should be my choice for tackling the problems and the mission givers should treat it Corvo making decisions in the field that he felt were appropriate. He wasn’t there to just be a triggerman, as far as he was concerned, but to make decisions in his area of expertise.

  If you disagree with my experiences I can’t stop you, but that was what I took away from the game. If it failed to communicate things to me it’s certainly not because I lack media savvy or gaming experience. I’m annoyed that I didn’t have more fun with it - I played to the end because throughout I hoped that I would enjoy the next bit more. Then it was the end of the game and a bunch of people were telling me that my opinion was wrong.

  I’m really not interested in dragging this out further.

  …because I knew that if you continued to engage I would feel compelled to do so, rather than going to bed or whatever. Dishonored annoys me to this day. I do not get the love for it. I’m glad the rest of you had such a good time with it and annoyed that I didn’t get that enjoyment. I put the effort in, where’s my fun?!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It sounds like I’m incapable of expressing my point in a way that you can understand.

  It is not that there are consequences I take issue with. The chaos system is fine. It’s a matter of framing.

  I’m really not interested in dragging this out further. How about you just decide that I’m dumb and we both get on with our lives?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Let me put it another way then:
  They made the creative choice to build the game that way. I think it was a bad choice and hurt the narrative experience significantly and can think of multiple better options that would have made it a better game. Evidently I am very much in the minority on this but my experience playing the game is just as valid as anyone else’s.

  I’m not some strange creature that has emerged from an undersea cave with no understanding of narrative conventions or game structures. I’ve been playing games since the early ‘90s, including plenty from the ‘80s, and have continued playing since, across many genres.

  I think the way they chose to structure their game could have been better and I was actively annoyed by the way they went about handling “high chaos”. Other games before and since did it better.

  You are more than welcome to disagree with my opinion! Most people seem to!

  …but it is not me being some idiot who doesn’t understand gaming and I’m frankly rather tired of being told I’m the problem here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A better equivalent would be a GTA game giving you a mission with a tank and then the mission givers seriously, not for comedy, giving the player shit for doing anything but driving on the road avoiding all cars.

  My problem is with the tonal dissonance of giving the player weapons designed to be fun only for the game to complain when they’re used.

  The opposite being a Bond game. Really he should only be using sneaky spy weapons but he’s given a ridiculous arsenal and expected to use it. If you give me a machine gun then why would you expect me not to use it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, that’s the best explanation I’ve seen. It’s been too long for me to remember the specifics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Whilst it’s been twelve years I remember returning to the between mission hub and characters literally complaining. The boatman in particular.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re confusing getting and agreeing with. I understand what it was going for, that doesn’t mean I like it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Much like in Spec Ops: The Line the player can just stop playing. I mean, you’re not wrong, but it seems silly to me.

  Some games handle this by making it the ultra-violent approach essentially non-viable but that’s not how Dishonored decided to roll.

  the narrative framing sets you up to be a highly-trained stealthy assassin

  I quietly took out guards rather than avoiding them. No alarms were raised, etc.. Seems pretty stealthy to me.

  Ultimately I just didn’t appreciate the mixed messaging of “here are tools for extreme violence” and “why did you commit extreme violence?”. If non-lethal means were such a priority why was I given tools that heavily favour lethality?