The Michael Bay method of video game production - overproduced with no substance

If you wish to discuss the controversy, feel free to make a post or link to an article. I’m personally not interested in hosting a link to these weirdos.

Started and finished 1000xResist over the course of a few days. In general I often find myself turned off by games with aging graphics, not for any good reason but more that I just find less of a pull towards them. I have more trouble being engaged or immersed, unless there’s a really strong art focus. This is one such game that I was worried I wouldn’t get pulled into, and in fact one that sat on a list of “maybe I’ll pick it up” because it was so highly reviewed but I was worried about that facet. It did not take very long for the game to grip me, however, because of it’s excellent storytelling. In fact, the game is almost entirely about storytelling, so there’s not a ton that I can share other than to say that it deals with a lot of difficult themes like intense trauma, bullying, having a tough childhood, extreme ideologies, and the long term effects of violence. It also deals with more societal and human issues like protests, fascism, extreme duress, how self-interested and powerful individuals can cause serious problems and inflict violence, being optimistic or nihilistic in the face of overwhelming odds, and the threat of extinction.

While it isn’t a very long game, consisting of maybe a dozen hours of gameplay, I found myself putting it down for a while after certain chapters in order to process what just happened. The story throws a lot of curveballs and reveals information that can easily change the way you frame entire chapters of the story from earlier, but it never feels like it’s done in a way that inspires whiplash - nothing ever feels like a ‘sudden’ realization and I’m honestly not sure how much of it can be attributed to such a difficult story (if everything is fucked, what’s one more thing?) and how much is because they do a masterful job at slowly unraveling the enigma of the story that very few pieces of information ever really feel out of place. There’s unfortunately only so much I can write without spoiling the story, but I will say that it was one of the best stories I’ve heard or played through and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes a good story or wants to explore the themes I’ve mentioned above. Also, if anyone else out there played through this, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story… what did you think? Do you have any lingering questions left over? Were there parts of the story that irked you or that you found particularly moving?

Thank you for engaging 💜

Just because there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism doesn’t mean that we have zero control over what we consume. It’s perfectly fine to hold a viewpoint of trying to minimize harm where you can and when you’re aware of it. Where you draw your lines doesn’t have to be perfect either (after all, we’re human).

wow what a thoughtful reply thank you, you really read that article and brought a lot of good points to the table for us to discuss

Absolutely, thank you!

For those that are curious, here’s the exact questions used and the %s by demographic

Generally speaking I’d also fall into the rather play games category, but it really depends on the context. Unfortunately there aren’t too many couch co-op kind of games anymore so if the goal is to spend time with someone playing a video game doesn’t often work great.

Cheers for this, found two games that seem interesting that I never heard about before!

Been thinking about picking this one up

manamana

big weird flex but okay vibes except actually not okay

Just a heads up, we probably don’t have a ton of Russian speakers on Beehaw. This might do better posted elsewhere.

Since I finished erdtree I jumped into DMC5. Combat feels so awkward in this game and it’s so clear the control schemes are from ages ago. It’s had me thinking about whether I want to just pick up another game on my list like BG3 or cyberpunk 2077 and finally play through it, or if I want to just start a new character or re-do the erdtree DLC (made a copy of my SL110 char before beginning DLC) so I can do all the new content properly. Still slowly working my way thru DMC5 but I’m like 7 missions in and while it’s getting better as I unlock skills it just doesn’t feel smooth.

Yea annoying hitboxes and a lot of move past you attacks where you gotta go chase after him or he does the stupid charge which doesn’t stop right after it hits you and can hit you twice if you’re near a wall or hit you after the roll i-frames expire. Overall fairly easy moves to learn the dodge patterns, although the gravity stuff can be extra annoying.

Just finished last boss of erdtree. That one needs some serious tuning- some of the moves are far too powerful and annoying. Unsure if I want to roll another character since it’s been so long since I played through the game. Spent some amount of hours in coop helping others after beating it since I don’t really have another game on deck right now. Missed out on a fair deal of DLC quests and storylines because I didn’t read everything before my first run through, I could reboot a save pre-DLC and respec into something completely different and then play through it instead of a fresh character I guess.

Investing a bunch of time into Erdtree. I think some of the bosses probably need a bit of tweaking, in particular Rellana seems to be a spot where lots of folks are struggling. I wonder if someone will figure out the Scaudtree fragment mitigation/dmg boost, but there’s definitely a lack of pre-Rellana fragments or just a general struggle with this boss based on how quickly you can get summoned and how quickly people seem to just straight up die when fighting this boss lmao. Took a lot of tries to down him the first time myself but I also haven’t touched this game since release and I played through it pretty quick.

The sinister part about these non-competes and NDAs is that it requires you to either know the law in your country at a level well above that of a layperson, or be willing to take a risk that you do get sued into oblivion to be willing to take the risk of violating it. Companies should be held liable for creating unenforceable non-competes as it can cause serious harm to individuals.