As long as we’re on the topic:

It translates to “the ends justifies the means.” Gamefreak, what the fuck?

Same.

The writing wastes a LOT of time. Yes, I get it, that’s the vibe they want to set, but the vibe was set like 5 minutes ago, and all you’ve done since is print synonyms for “drunk asshole.”

It’s also paraded as pro-communist media, and it really isn’t at all. People are so capitalist-brained, that any game which places communism and capitalism on equal footing, pointing out the faults in both and mocking them relentlessly, is somehow “pro-communist.” In particular, the games plot-relevant example of a die-hard communist is not someone to aspire to. Neither are the capitalists or fascists, but that’s kind of the point: it’s hard to say it supports any political viewpoint when it shits on everyone fairly equally.

Honestly, I wanted and expected a lot more out of it. Particularly in the ending.

Though it was absolutely worth the playthrough. It’s a fantastic game, just not this pinnacle of writing the way the internet plays it off to be.

Let’s be straight: as amazing as Baldur’s Gate 3 is today, Act 3 launched half baked and half broken. My first playthrough experience was horrible, largely thanks to broken flags and missing content from the Upper City, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have comparable experiences with early versions of Original Sin 2. Hell, they rewrote basically the entire final act of that game with the definitive edition, and I’m under the impression Original Sin 1 had a similiar situation, though I didn’t play it enough between the original and the definitive edition to experience it.

Now, part of all this is because Larian opts to make decisions to cut content and reduce scope rather than abuse their staff or delay a project. In Baldur’s Gate specificslly, I won’t say I am perfectly happy with the outcome, but they are a good studio that practices reasonable employee ethics, and ultimately puts in the work to get there with the product as well. I’d have no issue buying Divinity day one or even pre-ordering, but I do not expect a perfectly complete and polished experience on release.

You can’t just expect people to actively interpret media. We have entire school systems designed to avoid educating them with those skills.

Boys, my little rhythm gamer heart has quite possibly never been as blessed as it is this week. Rhythm Doctor, unbeatable, now Bits and Bops?

We just need Tango Gameworks to officially announce that their studio is up and running working on Hi-Fi Rush 2, and my cup will have completely run over.

No, no, it’s only untrustworthy American propaganda when it challenges their world view. Right now it’s a series of cherry-picked, possibly altered snips designed to push the fascists narrative, so it’s great.

Also, everyone who disagrees with you is a liberal.

Played the entire thing start to finish last night. The new content is incredible, as expected.

Come for the quirky, one-button rhythm game. Stay for the character driven story about the weight of the expectations we place on ourselves and each other, and the way that effects our mental health, physical health, relationships, and worldview.

To be clear, I am extremely pro-immigration, but many of the immigration policies as written are tools used to suppress wages. This is the reason we see so many immigrants, often with degrees and training we refuse to recognize in Canada, in low paying, minimum wage jobs. I personally had the pleasure of working with a wonderful woman from the middle east who was a qualified teacher, stuck working 30 hours a week in a grocery store deli because we refused to recognize her degree or decade of experience. She spoke perfect English, was incredibly pleasant, and visibly intelligent and well-mannered, but she’s a brown immigrant, so fuck it, minimum wage for her.

We can take immigrants at the rate we have been while not using them to further wealth inequalities. But as a friend of mine says, the purpose of a system is what it does, and the current iteration is not about creating a multi-cultural nation.

For additional clarity, this isn’t to say that you’re wrong and immigration isn’t being used as a scapegoat. I’d just argue that the problem is more substantial than simply calling the issue a scapegoat suggests. There is a real problem, but it’s not in that we’re accepting immigrants at all; it’s the conditions we’ve agreed to accept them under.

Man, I’m not happy about it, but I can’t get quality Internet in my location, so I think? I am happy to have a Starlink competitor that isn’t openly a neo-nazi, even if it is my second least favorite well-known billionaire. Or maybe third, pending whether or not you believe Trump is as wealthy as he claims to be.

God, this timeline has set my bar so fucking low. Essential services like Internet need to be made public ASAP.

There are people who exist between “I build, format and otherwise manage my own gaming rig,” and “I don’t need a PC for games.”

My partner is a perfect example. She has my old PC shell, with some $500 of GPU, internal memory, and accessories, hooked up to the TV. She uses it daily, almost exclusively for Steam games and streaming services that she finds more comfortable to navigate with a keyboard and mouse. A smaller, quieter, streamlined, “this more or less will do the things you want to do straight out of the box” product would have saved both her (and I, because that thing has had some troubleshooting) a lot of headache, while looking far more presentable to boot.

Maybe she’s the odd one out and the target audience is more niche than my bias’ recognize, but I guess we’ll see for sure when this thing releases.

Turning into? Sony has been worse than Nintendo or Disney for years. They’re the OG “we’re going to silently brick your machine to protect our digital assets.”

At least Nintendo had the decency to put in their EULA that they’re going to fuck you for trying to pirate content on their proprietary hardware. Sony just bricked your personal PC because fuck you and then lied about it.

I’m going to spoiler it and talk about it, because I am genuinely interested in other people’s opinion/experiences on this.

Just finished Chapter 3 of 8. It has some very classic Telltale foibles. Sometimes the script seems to assume you made a decisions that you didn’t make and it makes the dialogue feel awkward. Other times, the sarcastic tone in a written dialogue choice isn’t clear when you select the option and the resulting scene isn’t at all what you thought you were suggesting. I suspect by the time I am done, I’ll have the general sense of “oh, my decisions didn’t ACTUALLY matter,” as is Telltale tradition, but I’m not far enough to judge in that space yet

Despite these fairly common for Telltale problems, it’s an incredibly witty and entertaining piece of entertainment, and perhaps one of better “no, seriously, there’s a game in here” Telltale products. The “dispatch” mechanic is, imo, a fun management game, and they tie it into the narrative in ways that feel clever. Everyone is at each others throats because of a story beat? People are actively sabotaging each other on the job and it’s making your job as their dispatcher harder. As a comedy and near-film, the writing is laugh-out-loud funny, the voice acting and character animation is top notch, and there’s an interesting story and world holding it all together. I’m sure people will argue that it’s a better movie than it is a game, and, as much as I enjoy the corporate dispatcher half of the game, I am sure many will agree, as the dialogue writing is truly the stand-out element of the game.

It’s very good. Not perfect, but very good, and compared to the older Telltale games, a real home-run.

Capitalism is built on the notion that wealth is virtue.

If you are rich, you made good decisions and the invisible hand has guided money to your pockets. You’ve created things that contribute to the comfort/progress of society as a whole, and your reward for it is to be held above others.

If you are poor, you have not been actively contributing to society. You have instead been a drain, and the invisible hand is punishing you got this. Your inability to find meaningful ways to contribute is a vice, which should be looked down on. Ultimately, if you cannot afford to live, that is survival of the fittest, and the world is better off without you.

If you believe any of the above to be true, you are delusional scum of the earth, and you are the reason everything sucks. You’d also feel right at home with the right-wing chuds currently undoing decades of progress.

Uh, yeah. Using other people as a means to your end is pretty well defined as immoral. Don’t try and throw your moral bankruptcy back at the whole world like we all feel the same.

I can’t wait to see the exemption for “part time workers” and suddenly everyone making less than a triple digit salary has exactly 32 hours a week, or whatever is legally permissible to pass as “part time work” in your country.

You’ve provided a fantastic common-sense solution designed off the simple premise that no one needs 12x of a living wage, and I can’t agree enough, but I know the capitalists would fuck it up at every stage possible, while simultaneously arguing that they’re justified in doing so because the method of economy that they worships has given them moral purchase to look down on the poors.

The ceo makes $96.5 million a year.

This should be severely punishable by the law. It causes more societal harm than many crimes with serious penalties.

You deserve a medal. I couldn’t even imagine responding to this post without speaking down to OP, so I opted to move on. Thank you for giving the advice he needs to hear and not sounding like a cunt about it they way I would have.

Bless.

Fairly confident I wound up with some malware from a “GOG” download from one of the sites in the megathread. I’ve already formatted and the files are long gone but I’ll tuck this link away for the future.

Fascinating. As much shit as I talk, I did discover a lot of good games via those discs. The Blades of Exile franchise, for example, really stands out as a series of underrated early windows RPGs.