gwheel

@gwheel@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Half-Life Delusion⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure if the author’s point here is “A lot of games emulated Half Life’s scripted sequences but in a worse way and that is Half Life’s fault” or “Half Life’s style of immersion overshadowed immersive sims and sandbox games and that was bad”. I could maybe get on board with the second but you can’t then go praising Naughty Dog because they mixed cinematics with their scripted gameplay.

  As the author says, scripted sequences are a tool alongside cinematics and anything else. In the case of COD (I haven’t played a new one in around 15 years, so I’m talking from the perspective of COD4 and its derivatives. I don’t know how anything recent is structured) the briefing screens during loading are literally cinematics delivering narrative in a stylistically appropriate way. They do take away agency via QTEs (which act as resets for the gameplay and limit dynamism) or extended ‘you can jiggle your camera’ cutscenes, but those aren’t inherently bad, and Half Life doesn’t do them anyway.

  Outside of maybe two moments in Half Life you have all of your weapons and abilities available, so those scripted sequences are not a cutscene you are forced to jiggle your camera at, but environmental set dressing or one-off combat scenarios. A cutscene showing a tank smashing into the room through a wall would break the flow of the firefight, and having it there from the start would take away the player’s ability to set up an ambush with tripwire mines or one of their other tools. A good scripted event doesn’t reduce interactivity, it is a stimulus for the player to interact with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Most of Lemmy right now⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The less wealthy the neighborhood the more likely private schools do better.

  That’s because private schools act as a filter for the families that can afford them. Kids from poorer families are more likely to have an unstable home life, insufficient access to meals outside of school lunches, and other things which are the biggest factors in educational success. The voucher system takes funding from the public schools used by the poorest kids and gives it to the private schools used by families that could already afford to go elsewhere.

  Private schools can also arbitrarily accept/reject students which gives them an advantage in outcome metrics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4k Disc Ripping tips/tricks⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I tried recovering a bad bluray with aaru, it was able to create a partial dump but I wasn’t able to fully read it. After about a week of churning it was still picking up more sectors but even if it might have gotten it in time I didn’t want to work my drive that hard.

  I ended up finding a working copy of that movie at goodwill, but I still have other discs not reading. I decided it isn’t worth going beyond what you described, at some point the disc is just genuinely bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Get ready for a smashing time as Wreckfest 2 comes to Early Access in March⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No split screen, lan is a ton of fun. Online is entirely server browser, which is fine except that you need to port forward to run a private lobby. I’m hoping this one makes private matches a bit simpler.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨House of the Dead 2 Remake - Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There are pc light guns that play fantastically with emulators, but the first HOTD remake still needs a mod to get them barely working so I’m not optimistic here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US lawyers will reportedly try to force Google to sell Chrome and unbundle Android⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also possible they are putting stuff out early in the hope that public support protects them from the next admin