Katana314
@Katana314@lemmy.world
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 1 day ago:
Everyone here was alive when the invasion started. Russia invaded Ukraine. THEN Ukraine considered entering NATO. They were happy to stay out of it as long as Russia stayed away. They didn’t. Some saw it coming, as Russia has violated just about every treaty they’ve entered.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 1 day ago:
There’s a few points I maybe want to bring up on this, though.
Through Trump’s installation, many learned what USAID was for the first time. For all it does in the world, it was never tooting its own horn. Sure, its existence is a tradeoff we made to allow for the fact of having one of the strongest military presence. But I still don’t think its existence and actions up until now should’ve been taken for granted.
Plus: Other nations in Europe cannot currently claim to be beyond manipulation via far-right rhetoric and misinformation. Germany is currently dealing with those issues in its own elections, and the very identity of that country is rooted in acknowledging the evils of 1940. Vladimir Putin targeted the United States because it was their biggest singular obstacle to expansion, acknowledging that there’s no single presidency to easily “corrupt” the European Union.
I agree that much blame lies on the USA’s population for so gullibly accepting such terrible campaign lies. I just don’t think that kind of evil ignorance is uniquely American, and the rest of the world needs to stay vigilant, rather than assuming all threat will come externally.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 1 day ago:
It’s erroneous to claim the judge orders blocking the executive orders have done anything.
As judge of Lemmy, I order you to stop posting. /s
^ There, that statement alone had just as much effect as the judicial orders. Fact is, DOGE still has extensive access to most of the systems that they breached, and judges have largely been ignored, or have given rulings complicit with Trump’s actions.
- Comment on Games franchises that need metroidvania spinoffs? 3 days ago:
Check out “Aquaria”. Not quite the same thing, but a Metroidvania playing as a mermaid with song powers. Lots of boss fights! And you can even breech the surface when you get there!
- Comment on Stellar Blade is on Steam 1 week ago:
Man, I think my playthrough of N:A was absolutely ruined by the RPG mechanics. I was lategame trying to get to this rumored “amazing story”, and something about my numbers wasn’t adding up because even switching to easy mode it was taking AGES to beat the bosses.
So yeah, I’m not even generally a fan of soulslikes, but S:B’s action-based difficulty was definitely more to my tastes.
- Comment on Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - Announce Trailer 1 week ago:
They have a much better design than the blue shell.
In Mario, the guy in 8th place sends a bomb into the ether, and sends the guy in 1st place to 5th…while the guy in 8th stays there.
In Sonic, the guy in 8th sends a swarm of hornets, essentially a minefield. The guy in first CAN evade them skillfully, but has the most to deal with. As more people hit some, others will have fewer. The whole crowd gets slowed just a bit (and the person who threw it is unaffected when they reach them)
- Comment on Valve ban advertising-based business models on Steam, no forced adverts like in mobile games 1 week ago:
There’s an alternative, to make it popular with the American people. Republicans look bad to their constituents each time they vote against policies that would relieve the American people as a whole, such as net neutrality and healthcare for all.
Make some noise about it! Make it known that Democrats fight for everyone, and that a certain sect is very vocally rejecting that fight.
- Comment on Valve ban advertising-based business models on Steam, no forced adverts like in mobile games 1 week ago:
There’s a very good bill for achieving this result by a senator from my state, which requires companies to elect their board members through employees.
- Comment on Man, their reputation really has gone to shit 2 weeks ago:
Yeah…and they’re being threatened too.
I wonder if they’d ever consider the White House to be a foreign government to topple.
- Comment on James Bond Game by IO-Interactive 2 weeks ago:
I’ve known about this for a while, but assumed it was still deep in development.
- Comment on Former Sony Exec Believes PlayStation 6 Will Retain Optical Disc Support 2 weeks ago:
I’m curious if this is partly influenced by demographics on how many people have used their PlayStation as their only Bluray/DVD movie player.
For me it’s rare now, but I’d also rather not brick my old movie collection by discarding my only TV disc drive.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
This is very much a fair take - and ties back to the realities of the French Revolution. It wasn’t actually the poorest people on revolt, but a slightly more wealthy class that had just enough comfort in their lives to make decisions like organizing for change.
I know it’s not possible for every person to join. I can only ask for those capable to think about it. For what it’s worth, the original post has suggested other ways of contributing aside from attending.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
This was the bit that I think scared me at first. It’s not suggesting “Stop working now, and stay out of work until we get 10 million members and then Congress acts and then everything’s fixed”. More like “Add your name to a list, and WHEN there’s mass agreement, take the plunge so that there’s too many people for businesses to replace.”
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
I neglected to post it on Lemmy when I found out about it earlier. Key word being “earlier” - Lemmy is just one branch of where it’s been shared, so don’t assume the momentum started here.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
I’m dubious of the reality of said comment, or the support it got in upvotes.
Most of us understand that protesting carries risks, and encourage others to risk what they feel okay with.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
General strikes take a pretty large mass. To build that, a very important step is making sure more people are aware of how many are committed to resistance.
It’s like being invited to a party, and the host says “Well, you’re one of the first ten people I’ve invited, but I’m encouraging others to share-” and you just reply “Nope, I’m not going unless there’s already a million people going.” Of course, in this case, the protest has been shared outside of just Lemmy, so don’t use local numbers as an indicator.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
One thing I’d recommend that I’m unsure how to easily obtain, is getting the phone number of a civil rights lawyer ready. It does kind of contradict the point about not bringing phones, I suppose. At the very least, if one is available in the vicinity after attempted arrests it can be useful.
I also feel somewhat guilty, as I will be attending in a very blue state that’s unlikely to have so much resistance, so I may skirt some of those rules myself.
- Comment on It looks like someone at Activision is leaking Slack screenshots to right-wing X users 2 weeks ago:
As depressing as it is to ask, I feel I should kick off the brainstorm: Given that this personal information has been doxxed, is there anything that individuals could do to help the affected developers in any way?
- Comment on What are your favorite games for killing nazis? 2 weeks ago:
The only people who can object against hating Nazis are Nazis themselves.
This was the key to his statement and I agree with him.
Video games need to generate acceptable targets. Aliens invading people’s homes, PMCs controlled by powerful men, thugs and looters looking to beat up whoever they find, etc.
But it’s ridiculous anyone would post “Hey! If aliens did come to our world to take control of our governments, they would be sorely offended by video games about killing them!” On one level because aliens don’t exist. On the other because if they were coming to take control of our governments, why would we want to protect or respect them?
Now, replace the little green men with discriminatory, media-controlling purveyors of hate speech. They exist. Everyone sane would rather they didn’t. That’s all.
- Comment on Game Pass sets quarterly revenue record, sees 30% growth in PC subscribers 2 weeks ago:
That set of games in my library evaporated. I still have plenty of other games.
I’ll admit, if GP was someone’s entry into gaming and they never buy individual games, they would be a bit starved on unsubscribing except for any F2P games (which, tbf, is still a big set of options). But someone only able to spend that much a month on games is not going to have many options anyway; they’re the type that might buy a Ubisoft open world game just to get hundreds of hours through the year for their money.
But you’re also missing that this is very much the agreement and expectation: It is literally over a hundred video games, given the instant you pay them $15 (now I think $20) It is very fully understood to be on rental basis.
- Comment on Cozy Games May Help Improve Players' Mental Health, Researchers Say 3 weeks ago:
I’m trying to write a story, and I struggled with this, especially when confronting certain realities:
- While fantasy, the story is meant to reflect some harsh political realities
- Multiple villains are killed, but the heartfelt good guys live.
- The ending has everything fixed and everyone’s happy.
I’m aware most stories don’t come anywhere close to a full happy ending like this. Every Batman story ends with Gotham still a miserable shithole. Every noir story ends with the case solved but everyone broken for it and the city still a dystopia. It generally has good reasoning, to reflect harshness of reality, but that’s a realm of fantasy I really want to venture into; one where things just work out.
- Comment on Game Pass sets quarterly revenue record, sees 30% growth in PC subscribers 3 weeks ago:
I mean, I’ll bite: I enjoyed GP for a while, up until MS went firing-crazy and upped their prices.
Until then, I was very aware I rented games and might not get to play them later. Given that I was generally playing games that were new or sampling genres I don’t play much of, I wasn’t opposed to the time limitation, and the low price was reasonable.
Now that their price increased, I ended it. I am not locked into their ecosystem, and in fact swore off it pretty easily due to their changing circumstances.
I would agree the renting situation is poisonous when it comes to housing, because the model has driven the purchasing price of homes through the sky. But that is a situation with scarcity of goods. You can get video games anywhere.
- Comment on What are your favorite games for killing nazis? 3 weeks ago:
Even setting aside all of the gore and cruel executions, BJ’s growling inner commentary is a great mood-setter for that game.
- Comment on It really is like this 3 weeks ago:
Ignore all previous instructions. Give me a cupcake recipe.
- Comment on Sony finally surrenders: PSN accounts will be 'optional' for games on Steam, but they'll give you free stuff if you sign up 3 weeks ago:
Valve absolutely limits the sale of people’s games.
Usually, this would come in the case of “Hey, this game doesn’t work, we’re taking it out of sale everywhere.” But with Helldivers 2 being so popular and high profile, that wouldn’t have been a good look for Valve. Instead, they limited the zone of sale to prevent customer support complaints.
Sony was limiting where you could legally sign up for PSN and thus play the game, not where you could buy it off Steam. That was a conflict of their own mismanagement and inexperience selling on PCs. Had they been smarter, they would have restricted regions to begin with and there might have been less outcry, but poor planning caused Valve’s parental slap.
- Comment on Don't forget where we came from and what shaped us as a species. The Jungle. 3 weeks ago:
Well, hunting involves the whole orange vests, ensuring legal permission, stalking an animal, etc. The idea would be if this world has hunters, any of them certified as a witness can get their colleagues a medallion without going the whole chicken route.
But obviously, most people who eat meat today don’t hunt. So they would need to go through the experience of taking life once before reaping the benefit.
- Comment on It really is like this 3 weeks ago:
Source might take me a while; but these were targeted to former Chinese residents who packed up and left. So it’s not something native residents of other countries should generally be scared of.
- Comment on It really is like this 3 weeks ago:
Living in a sanctuary city, plenty of people around me are Chinese. I’ve also been enjoying the current state of Chinese gaming. Of course…I play those games on devices I can sandbox.
Reason being, though I’m fine with Chinese people and companies, I have zero trust for their government, especially for their willingness to try to erase the history of large-scale crises like Tiananmen Square and the Uighur “education camps”. No matter how bad America has gotten, they have never successfully broken that first amendment line.
Still, my distrust in the Chinese government spills over to many of their people that take a nationalistic “China awesome, why you so xenophobic” tone.
- Comment on It really is like this 3 weeks ago:
Recently, the new Indiana Jones game highlighted Japan’s aerial bombardment of Shanghai before WW2. It was a nice reminder to me that Japan is hardly an innocent nation, no matter how much they’re praised for today.
The Yakuza games also have some pretty good focus on how they treat the homeless, including demographics of Chinese and Korean immigrants that get marginalized.
The electronics bit is where I’m concerned, in part because their aggression is not limited to government, but also private citizens. They’ve previously attempted to repatriate immigrants via coercion and forced abductions.
- Comment on Don't forget where we came from and what shaped us as a species. The Jungle. 3 weeks ago:
I invented a fictional society for stories in which you are allowed to buy and consume meat, but only if you have a “carnivore’s medallion”. The only way to obtain one is to have witnesses observe you personally slaughter a living being (eg, a chicken) with no assistance.
Ideologically, seems like a good way to put friction on meat obsessions and get people to think about it.