paultimate14

@paultimate14@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is a game that you know is bad but really enjoy(ed)?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe my memory is different, but I recall Infinite being extremely well-received at the time. Much better than Fallout 4 was. Like, it was talked about as being one of the greatest games of all-time.

  Rather, I think its a rare case where public opinion sours over time. Part of that is because the game itself really doesn’t hold up to being replayed. The best part of the game is the story, and mostly because of the sense of mystery that pulls the player forward and leads up the the big twist reveal at the end. In a lot of media like that, its really fun to go back and are all of the little pieces of foreshadowing that you overlook or misinterpret the first time. Or heck, maybe some people pick up on it and predict the ending, and that can also be incredibly satisfying. But Infinite doesn’t have any of that. When I replayed Infinite a couple years ago, I got to the ending thinking “yeah there was absolutely no way I woukd have been able to figure that out on my own the first time”, which was really unsatisfying.

  Not only that, by parts of the story are actively bad when you stop to think about it. There was the whole arc where they go to a different dimension where Daisy is leading a revolt against Comstock and she just kind of decides for no reason that Booker is an enemy who has to die. It really felt like they just ran out of ideas to make the enemies you had been fighting up until then visually interesting so they tried to cram in a different faction somehow. The scene where Elizabeth sneaks up on Daisy and kills her with a pair of scissors to the neck felt incredibly out of character and unearned. There were moments during the revolt sequence when Booker acts sickened by the violence against Comstock’s soldiers, though he never reacted like that to those soldiers oppressing civilians earlier in the game.

  Some of it is cultural context too. Fascism has been on the rise globally since the game has come out, so I think a lot of the audience (myself included) is less interested in condemning the oppressed for violence against their oppressors than they may have been at the time of release. When you put it next to BioShock 1, it seems like Ken Levine is just using political extremism in general as a narrative device for conflict rather than actually trying to make any particular statement about politics. That kind of centrism has not aged well.

  Without that, the rest of the game falls apart. The peaceful segments are good additions for the sake of pacing, but the NPC’s don’t really interact with you much and are more just scenery. They aren’t people that you ever care about, so changing the world state to the violent one where you’re shooting enemies never feels all that meaningful.

  The action sequences are okay, but not good enough to stand the game up on its own like some of its contemporaries did. Games like Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed have their own issues of course, but it was really fun to just run around as Ezio or Drake in most of the games in a way that it never was for Booker. The enemies in Infinite feel repetetive, almost every “arena room” area feels the same. The guns aren’t that interesting and the gimmick of the vigors wears off quickly. Elizabeth isn’t all that interesting in combat, just an occasional extra source of health or ammo. The time rifts are basically the same. The sky hook was cool, but wasn’t used often and there wasn’t usually much of a benefit to being airborne vs grounded anyways.

  So the only thing left to really enjoy is the spectacle. It still looks good. The art style is a great balance between realism and stylized that looked great at the time and has aged well. The sound is all good- voice acting, sound effects, music, all of it. The setting and environments are creative and interesting.

  So I’d say it is worth playing once for most people, but doesn’t live up to its Metacritic score. In tier terms, it seemed upon release like an S-tier game but has aged into more of a B-tier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OnlyFans 'agents' control and threaten creators while taking half their earnings, BBC finds⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  OnlyFans has “strict onboarding processes, payment controls and ongoing account moderation”, the company spokesperson says. If concerns about an account are raised, OnlyFans will immediately restrict the account, investigate, and take action to ensure the creator is in control of their account, they added.

  But when a female BBC reporter set up an account with a verified photo, she was able to use a male colleague’s bank account details to receive test payments.

  OnlyFans told the BBC that: “In the UK, where a creator requests a payout from their OnlyFans accounts, our third-party payment providers undertake confirmation of payee checks when processing that payment. Where this check is not successful the payment will be rejected.”

  That’s kind of vague, but it seems like the BBC is just expecting some sort of magical, privacy-invading, AI facial scanning technology to happen. I would not expect a photo to be involved with any payment processing at all. If I sell something on eBay do I need a photo ID to get my money? If I sell anything anywhere else, or start my own business with my own website, or my friends and family just want to send me money, do I need to have a photo and facial recognition every time?

  And OnlyFans points to their 3rd party payment processors. OnlyFans isn’t in the business of processing payments- that is outsourced like almost every other business does too. And there are perfectly legitimate reasons why a model might want those payments to go to someone else. There are legitimate agents and agencies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OnlyFans 'agents' control and threaten creators while taking half their earnings, BBC finds⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So… What’s the solution? The article seems to keep implying that this is OF’s problem to solve but doesn’t propose any solutions. OF’s spokesperson pointed out that these contracts are between models and “agents” so OF does not even necessarily know about them, let alone habe control over them.

  And things like fraud, extortion, and assault are already illegal and happen in other industries.

  Maybe some education and resources for models to avoid and escape these situations?

  Maybe a licensing and approval system for such agents? That would probably be better done by the public rather than private sector.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I don't know about that one⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  No, though I eentftom not dreaming at all (or not remembering them) to dreaming occasionally.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I don't know about that one⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I smoked weed and went progressively harder for the last few years.I really enjoyed it a lot: my joints felt better, sleep was easier, I found more joy in movies, TV shows, music, food, and sex. Exercise was easier and I lost weight.

  Starting last fall I noticed my memory was getting bad, and at times my mind woukd just shut down. So at first I cut back, then stopped it entirely. Been completely off for 3 months nkw, which should be more than enough time for all the THC to be out of my system and my canmabanoid receptors to be reset. I never used it until my 30’s so there should.be pretty much no risk of long-term issues.

  Since then, I’m proud to report that those same problems just got even worse AND I’ve lost all of the benefits! Yay!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Feeling superior⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  See interesting article link to research paper Sample size is <100 students at one college

  Like, on a certain level I get it. I just get frustrated that so much of my time gets wasted on looking into this stuff. And I have so many conversations with other people I know who ONLY read the pop-science article and not the actual paper, or they read the paper but just skip to the juicy bits.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Third Shift, a Game Boy styled horror game that combines first, second, and third person perspectives where you play the newest employee in a Museum on night shift, released on Steam⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The go-to example I always think of for 2nd person is Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, the boss battle against the Tyhrranoid Mother. You cycle through phases of the boss, and one shifts the camera’s perspective to the targeting system of the boss, while you still control Ratchet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Driving game poll⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m interested, but I think the Dev woukd need to find a way to incentivize “normal” driving.

  I think back to my youth playing Driver on the PS1, and it was a lot of fun just… Driving around. Exploring the world. Even dealing with traffic was fun when I was only a kid who could nkt drive myself.

  I tried tk do similar in GTA3, and I even had a wheel and pedlas I would use for it. Unfortunately GTA3 is incredibly unlrealistic. The physics are cartoonish, the AI behavior is dumb, the pedestrians are dumb, the cops are dumb. The game incenvitcizes chaos.

  The question is: how do we make things likr speed limits and stop signs and pedestrian crossings fun?

  My instinct is to model off the real world to an extent. Could involve delivering things that are fragile and cannot handle a bunch of G’s. Could be fines or a karma system of some kind for rolling stops. Could be that a realistic damage modeling system makes dents and scratches look terrible and lead to rust, and repairs are just as expensive as they are in real life. Maybe a LOT of the car is consumable or wearable. Not just gas and tires, but all the fluids too, and brake pads. Maybe taking a turn too hard damages the suspension. Crashing into something means you not only need to repair your car, but also whatever you hit.

  The more I list this out, the more this seems like a punishing and tedious slog. It seems really hard to design a game that incentivizes something like this, at least with most of the current mechanics in games today. Maybe a multiplayer social component would help? Like a virtual parking lot and drag strip for people to meet up on the weekends and check each other’s virtual rides out? I would not be interested in that, but my uncle might be.

  Maybe it could be heavily story-based. I would go noir-style, where as you drive around either you see things or your driver character provides some narration. Something like “that abandoned building over there used to be an ice cream parlor. That’s where I had my first kiss. I wonder what ever happened to Suzie? I drove a '69 Cobra that night. Lovely car” and then the Cobra is available in the shop. Maybe there is a mystery about stuff going on in the world. Maybe it is a post-apocalyptic world and you’re scavenging, mostly alone and unchallenged, in the ruins of a city, slowly learning what led to this. I think about how Detroit’s population went from ~1.8 million to 0.6 million in ~50 years and what it would have been like to stay there and experience that.

  Maybe a parody of Crazy Taxi called Sane Uber where the main priority is ride comfort?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game franchises you like, but wish were anothet genre of video game?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Similarly, what about wishing for another linear and stoey-focused 3D Zelda?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hee Hee Ho Ho Ha Ha⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  OK boomer

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some good, solid cables for charging and data transfer?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Anker owns Eufy, a security camera company. A few years ago people were able to access footage remotely, even thpugh Eufy claimed it was only stored locally. Anker, as the parent company, doubled-down and responded poorly at first.

  digitaltrends.com/…/anker-admit-eufy-security-iss…

  Now, that does not impact stuff like cables or battery banks at all. In 2024 when I was shopping for new battery banks, Anker had the best value so I bought Anker. But the corporate response is kind of sketchy so I’m never in a hurry to buy from them anymore. And I woudk never buy anything where security or privacy could be an issue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"You Were Supposed to Feel Lost": Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Shock of Playing as Raiden⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I liked it, but this was also the first Metal Gear game in ever played so I wasn’t as invested in Snake.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re just proposing a much more drastic and rapid change than I am. I agree that a wealth tax would be a more immediate effect. It is also much more drsstixnand far less tested. The idea is interesting and I am neither opposed to it nor calling for it. I do not think it it necessary.

  Increasing income tax rates and corporate tax rates would be a much slower approach. I didn’t mention them, but I would also add in property tax rates and capital gains. Luxury sales taxes, inheritancd taxes. In the US, make OASDI a progressive instead of regressive tax.

  For existing billionaires, there are plenty of laws they’ve already broken to get where they are that just need to be enforced. Wage theft, antitrust, union busting, fraud. The SEC should have buried Musk in a dungeon years ago. So I see the answer to eliminating existing wealth being fines rather than taxes.

  Of course, there is also room to increase the minimum wage and minimum benefits. That would hell redistribute wealth too.

  I don’t know Gabe Newell, or even anyone who works at Valve personally, but every account I have ever read about Valve is that they usually treated and paid their employees well. Investigate all of these megacorps and prosecute appropriately.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Taxing billionaires is not some new and untested concept. In the US throughout the 1900’s the highest income tax brackets were often in the 70%'s, reaching into the 90%'s at times, and we did not see what you are suggesting.

  Increasing the taxes on Gabe Newell’s profits from owning Valve would not suddenly cause him to lose money, just to gain less money. If corporate taxes and income taxes were increased across the board, then it is not as if he would benefit from selling Valve stock to invest elsewhere, and Valve would not be a more or less attractive place to invest relative to other options either. I am not sure why you think this would cause Gabe Newell to back out or investors to jump in. Heck, these rates have all changed pretty frequently within Valve’s existence and have not had a significant impact.

  Also just to say, there is also the matter of jurisdiction as he lives in New Zealand while Valve is a US based company.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
  1. Taxing those outside investors too
  2. Taxing Valve as a corporation more, making them less profitable and less attractive to said investors.
  3. I’m not even convinced this would be an issue at all really. Remember Valve is not publicly traded. I suspect Gabe would hold on to controlling ownership as long as it was profitable, and remember that taxes are usually on profits.
  4. Even if outside investors move in and enshittify, the moment they start doing anticompetitive you hit them with antitrust suits. Not to mention the industry can also be regulated even before all this: a lot of governments are cracking down on lootboxes already.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Even if Valve’s offering sucked, I still have not seen anyone point out a business practice I would call anticompetitive. They are not buying up studios or publishers, or even paying for timed exclusivity. I have not seen any hint that they are colluding with competitors on prices or fees. I haven’t seen then accused of stealing IP or poaching personnel. They readily welcome Microsoft and Sony to release games on Steam, and they have released their own games on consoles including the Switch. They let you install Windows or whatever else on the Deck, if you want to for some reason.

  Billionaires should not exist, and Gabe Newell is no exception. He should be taxed more. I don’t love one company having so much control of this space. But I also don’t want to have a dozen different crappy launchers from different companies to deal with. There are a lot of benefits to the user to having everything centralized in one place.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PlayStation Store Dynamic Pricing Is Real⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s also known as Price Discrimination, and depending on the details and jurisdiction sometimes it IS illegal.

  Laws need to be updated to keep up with tech, and ENFORCED.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What Phone do you guys use?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sony Xperia 1 IV. Their naming scheme is terrible.

  Main reason is because I wanted a future-proof, flagship phone with a headphone jack and micro SD card slot. Both have proven very useful, and I am still kind of in shock that most manufacturers have dropped them.

  Stock android. Still using the NoVa launcher because I haven’t had the free time to try out others, plus my pi-hole seems to block the ads they have been introducing for now.

  The Xperia has a weirdly narrow screen. I like it in a vacuum better than todays phablets, but I think the occasional webpage scales weirdly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Human experimentation, one way or the other.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I honestly am starting to think the anti-vaxx crowd has been astroturfed by pharmaceutical corporations in order to convince the general public that anyone who questions Big Pharma is some loomy who thinks vaccines cause autism wants to drink raw milk.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jensen Huang says gamers are 'completely wrong' about DLSS 5 — Nvidia CEO responds to DLSS 5 backlash⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s why in rooting for a small mom and pop competitor to the space, like checks notes … Intel.

  We’re fucked aren’t we?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Streaming didnt exist in 1970⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What about 1870 then?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨18-26 year olds, How do you plan to dodge the draft?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The US government has been investing billions into AI, drones, and other autonomous and remote weapons systems.

  Sending a bunch of young men to the opposite side of the world would be not just unpopular, it incredibly expensive. Food, clothing, equipment, healthcare costs. I highly doubt the end goal is to actually annex Iran, so they’re much better off trying to find a local group to support in taking over the country and establishing a US-friendly puppet state. There’s no need to have Americans in guerilla warfare for that.

  The only way I see them doing that is if they WANT to kill off a chunk of the male population in that age group. Which… Maybe? I could certainly see Trump and Hegseth trying to send “undesirables” overseas to die, but they’ve also made moves like banning trans people from military service. Unless they reverse policies, it looks like Trump will prefer to cozy up to the military rather than use it as a tool for getting rid of people.

  Maybe Trump will just do what Netenyahu tells him to. But I think this is more about trying to manufacture a reason to cancel mid-term elections like they outlined in 2025 than anything else. With the added benefit of funneling more government money into the military-industrial complex.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Make sure you know what your kid is getting themselves into⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was a good boy who didn’t do drugs until adulthood, and I have medical marijuana now. The feedback I’ve gotten from pretty much everyone who did drugs in the 90’s and 00’s vs today is the same as your experience. The “weed nerds” have spent decades in their labs and the state-by-state legalization has greatly accelerated their progress.

  Even my pharmacist warned me when I first got my medical card “if this is your first time using medical marijuana it’s a lot stronger than what is usually on the street, so watch out”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Make sure you know what your kid is getting themselves into⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not saying you’re wrong, but that article is just typical fear mongering BS. It keeps the eyes of parents glued to the screen and consuming ads. Doesn’t even say what “spice” is. Articles like this are basically broiler-llate and come out every few months. Notice how they manage to blame social media, and how they don’t mention any adults using it at all.

  I found the wikipedia article on these things more useful and less biased. Spice seems to mostly refer to a designer drug that is similar to THC, but is not THC. And while it is often used to lace marijuana or mixed with weed vapes, it isn’t just weed.

  It’s like hearing about people adding PCP or LSD to weed and freaking out about how dangerous weed is. Like… Yeah you shouldn’t buy drugs from some random guy on Snapchat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨the two party system is just one big party⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  DOGE would not have happened under Biden or Harris. Millions of people are dying because of cuts to US AID.

  Venezuela would not have happened. Like, how crazy is it that you lost a handful of the most egregious things Trump has done recently and yet somehow invading another country and kidnapping their leader a couple months ago doesn’t make the cut? I don’t mean that as a criticism of you, just how much insane shit Trump has done.

  Cuts to Education have been and will be devastating for years. Shutting down tons of science and information-gathering agencies. Economic data is going to be non-existent or useless for the foreseeable future. All the lovely anti-trust action Lina Khan was starting to do under Biden has been erased. All the work Jessica Rosenworcel was doing to restore Net Neutrality under Biden has been erased. The Republican party is about to pass a bill that will disenfranchise both trans people and women. The EPA has been gutted. Trump has given and cut off funds to states, both for regular projects and disaster relief funds, based on how they voted for him, while Biden (and no other president I am aware of) has done anything like that before.

  So-called “communists” have a tendency to become EnLiGhTeNeD cEnTrIsTs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Make a note⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You need to wait ~45 minutes, then loudly complain “these edibles ain’t shit!”

  That’s the activation phrase. The THC in your metabolism needs to hear that to start working.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨29 years since our homecoming queen was taken from us⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My wife and I just started watching this a couple months ago. We’re partway through Season 3.

  Over the weekend we saw Nine Inch Nails live. To our complete shock, once the band left the stage and the lights came on the house music that played while everyone left was… The mysterious and sad piano theme from Twin Peaks.

  A bit of research later revealed that David Lynch directed a NIN music video, and he has featured their songs in movies. And perhaps more notable… NIN appeared on the show in season 3, just two episodes ahead of where we were. It was a wild coincidence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wandering Bard > Bad Dragon

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Game preservation only works if people care" As GOG doubles down on its commitment to saving old games, it's asking players "who give a s**t" to support its crusade⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What incredible hyperbole. It is superisleading to describe that as going “All-In on AI”. It’s a change to the disclosure rules Valve requires for publishers, not that Valve is using AI themselves like GOG is.

  I would prefer if they required disclosure of the use of any AI tools involved, but at this point AI has been so thoroughly shoved into every piece of software you can really just assume that some AI somewhere touched anything made after 2022. Generative AI is the bigger problem and this move focuses the attention on that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Video games are losing the "attention war" to gambling, porn, and crypto, according to industry report⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s being mean to gas station sandwiches, but otherwise I agree