Reality vs Adventure

I'm glad you made this post as I'm such a fan of the game and to see this show completely took a hold of me. I actually had a tear fall on each side of my cheek when his daughter got shot. That hit drama at its finest with superb acting. I loved the overall presentation. Like at the beginning when they were driving and trying to get away from the crowds in town and you were in a kind of 1st person mode inside the car, watching the streets like the game instead of an outside 3rd person view showing the whole vehicle and area like shows usually would do. That intensified it so much and added the chaos effect. On another thread when you mentioned the characters are a bit "scruffy and miserable," that is what I love about the whole cast. They all just seem more real. Even Tess and Marlene actresses impressed me. They are tough, but not over the top like a flamboyant she-ra or something. Anna Torv and Merle Dandridge, I'm now a fan of both. And the Pedro/Bella duo is fucking excellent. You mentioned you think they got soft on the violence, but I wondered the same about that actually during the time when they were outside hiding from the guards. In the game you can have a shoot out. I wondered how that would look in the show. I mean, to go and start killing them would look bad because they are people doing their job right? I like that they didn't interact in a shoot out. But that one guard that Joel brutally killed. Well, at least they gave a reasonable excuse due to what happened to his daughter, plus that is definite grounds for execution just being outside the quarantine as we saw. It was a do or die situation. So there is a bit of an ethics debate involved in that scene. Plus, that violence where he lost it, is so much better violence than a typical shoot out. There was an interesting scene when Ellie was outside for the first time and she stands up, looks around awestruck, then spotlights were about to spot her and Tess yanks her back down. The look on Joel's face was classic. He was like, oh shit, we're so fucked. We never should have agreed to this...LOL. Oh yeah, at the end of the show they played a Depeche Mode song!!! That's really cool cause I love Depeche Mode!! I also want to hear what others think about the show. I'm highly impressed.

I started playing GTA 5 for the 1st time about a year ago and I'm still playing it. It's up there as one of my favorite games. Despite the hype and the multiplayer, it has a reputation well earned as a legendary game. I don't even play multiplayer, just the storyline and the bonus Director's Mode where I can tear things up without worrying about consequences. I would have liked to try multiplayer, but I'm just really not into that sort of stuff. Not that I wouldn't love it, I'm just not motivated to pay a subscription just to play multiplayer. GTA 5 has a great story, great gameplay, great satire, great graphics, and fun as hell. I also like how the characters grow on me and being able to switch characters to play. The driving is one of the best I've played in a game. And for a 10 year old game, it holds up in every possible way well into this new generation of games.

In just one month, China has reported 60,000 Covid deaths since they lifted their Covid restrictions. Think about that. China went from only 5,233 deaths in the couple year period since Covid started, to 60,000 deaths now in one month since restrictions were lifted. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64276608

It could mean he will do something in episodes where each episode is focused instead of huge gigabyte series. TLOU 2 was 96gb straight from download w/o updates. This to me seems like a money making scheme where they divide it up into smaller episodes to make more money. But I could be wrong and may not be the intention at all. I think he may be gaining some enlightening experience due to TLOU TV series coming out and maybe he is intrigued by that kind of model. Who knows, maybe he has his sights set in the Hollywood industry. He definitely has worked with brilliant minds in Naughty Dog will excellent story oriented games. But going the route of 'TV Show' would sacrifice gameplay in order to make it more show/story oriented. I prefer a bit of gameplay. But who knows. He and his team has talent.

They have to learn the hard way. When you sponsor something that has questionable value like NFT's which has repeatedly had a loss after loss, then your marketing becomes forced with little mind to your customers. Why not have their customers vote on it. And if Square Enix ignores the result, that would be bad business. And if it is what their customers want, then who can complain. I'd rather we choose instead of forcing it. Or they could just go old school and do whatever they want and wait for backlash. lol

That does sound pretty cool to hook up Oculus to PC. How does that even work though with a headset? Does it provide better graphics that way through the Oculus? Does the PC convert it's graphics into the headset? And of course sound improvement too right, if you have a speaker system? I think you are on to something that just might be top notch gaming experience.

Man, that is insane! I wonder how common it is in the world. And here I was laughing my ass off at the exaggeration of a game, but that happening is all too real. YIKES

I thought this would be a worthy mention. Sarah Huckabee Sanders used to be the Press Secretary under the Trump administration and recently in the mid term elections she won as a republican governor of Arkansas. It's kind of a joke for her to become governor if you knew the clown show she was as press secretary. But that is another story. She just started her term as governor and one of the first things she does is ban the use of the word LatinX in all government documents. As if there aren't any other important issues, her concern is LatinX. I mean, this is really that important that you have to ban it? Wow.

AI also has a purpose of affecting emotions and not just by NPC's, but also by the environment. A great example is the Layers of Fear series. It's visually psychedelic as if everything has a mind of its own. There are no other NPC's except for your character you play as. Every scene tells a story or captures a mood, and it can change from moment to moment.

That was pretty fast. This is the sort of thing I fear as the gaming world gets more digital. Oculus is strictly digital and we are already seeing how you are forced to spend money to upgrade as they end support for an older version of the headset after just 3 years. Think about that. You invest your money in a headset for it to sort of 'expire' in 3 years.

This show starts Jan 15th 2023 which is a few days away!! Unless they changed the schedule I don't know about. I will be tuning in 100% on Sunday. I bought popcorn yesterday.

Looks like the gaming industry is just beginning to get involved with unions. That is a good thing. Unions can invite talent as employees want protections and a voice. Who doesn't want that? Crazies don't; they love abuse. Just like anywhere, some companies will unionize and others won't. We for sure will start to see battles take place as the big umbrella corps like Microsoft oversees many smaller companies who have their own unions forming. Unions are a natural threat to corporations; vice versa. Kind of like, where is your diamond from? Is it a blood diamond or mined with unionization? What kind of blood was put into the games you play? Wouldn't it be sweeter if the people were happy and free the whole time developing your games? Without unions, well...we have already seen the ugly side. Why not try something new.

That's cool you played some games on the Oculus VR. The scariest game I ever played was The Exorcist on the Oculus. The VR amplifies it so much when you are free to move and interact. Plus, I'm a sucker for all the demon stuff. Scares the s**t out of me when the human face is evil. That is also one of the reasons why I thought RE7 was really scary on the console when people freakin turn devil on you. AAggghhhh!!!!! lol. And I didn't even play that in VR...Wish I did.

Today Bolsonaro supporters who all deny their election loss and want a military coup, have stormed the Brazil congress building at the capital. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64204860 That looks all too familiar as the USA just had the 2 year ceremony of the capital attack on Jan 6. And during that ceremony a couple days ago, only one republican congress member showed up. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro, who started all this while trying to be like Trump, is now in Florida hiding with all the American republicans who hate elections. And those republicans also want Brazil to have a military coup. Like I've said, Florida is now breeding ground for international terrorism with republicans plotting coups around the world.

I’m no scientist so I don’t have the answer. I do know the ability of empathy. When you lack empathy you become a follower of every single violation of humanity that is possible. So how does this relate to technology? Well, think about the tech you use everyday. The loud NOISE is what I’m getting at. Your pets have a higher sense of hearing. If you are in a smaller housing area like an efficiency or a bedroom then please get head phones for entertainment needs. Put your pet in another room if you want to get loud. And don’t ignore your pets. Thank you. I take a bow.

Well this is something where I have zero confidence in Russia's government to promote gaming and provide funding for it as some kind of policy. You have a government where it has violated human rights invading another country and against its own people. This is probably part of their re-education camps and provide a way to reach the new youth that Russians have kidnapped from Ukraine. Everything is what you would expect in a regime. Developers and publishers no doubt would be pressured by the government especially when it's on Putin's dime. Would they go so far as to promote their propaganda in games? Why wouldn't they? It's who they are. They could probably be successful in their own country, but on the international scale, they would have to get around sanctions and bad reputation. This is nothing new I guess. All forms of entertainment gets used for propaganda. It's just that making games coming from the mind of Putin and trying to sell to the world is frightening. Putin was head of the KGB so he knows exactly what messaging to add. I'm sure the games will be laced with all sorts of hidden brainwashing messages. Bet their developers will be forced to live and work in government sponsored gaming camps where the KGB and military add a bit of pizzazz to the development of games. Then assholes in the world will copy the attempt, and other assholes will modify the games and exploit it even more to kids, exactly what Putin wants. Sanctions probably will prevent that from happening. But if the wrong people are in control of your government that are pro Putin, then they will copy his formula and try to do the same in the gaming world and make it state sponsored propaganda with government funding, government stamped for approval. Musk the oligarch will buy up developers and turn gaming into a terrorist hobby. It's right around the corner.

That's pretty cool. I just hope it's durable since you can move the parts around. I'd like to hear what people with disabilities say about using it. Hope it lets them enjoy gaming.

I've always been wondering when I will get out my ps2 and play some old games on there because I was thinking about games I never finished its story or never finished the series. So I said the heck with it and for the first time I started watching the whole video game movie, all cut scenes with some gameplay, no commentary. I am quite fascinated by that. To me it is better than watching a movie or show because I really get into it more even just by watching. I even check the health on screen and ammo. And the person playing the game is usually pretty damn good at it. You could call it cheating I guess, but it is convenient if you don't have the game or the console or even the time to go through the whole process of playing it. It's a neat way to catch up on old games. Of course there are some games I seriously would rather play than watch. I've been watching Indigo Prophecy because I remember playing it and almost finished i but not quite, and I always wanted to go back and play it. Anyone else enjoy watching games on youtube or any other video service? I'm getting excited to watch some of these older games. Of course nothing beats the experience of actually playing the game, but for convenience I think this is pretty cool and entertaining.

There are so many places to travel to and it depends on what you are in the mood for that year. Scenery, sports, culture, relax, explore. It is interesting to find out where people want to go. Cost is always a factor. Let’s say it isn’t for this topic. I have a dream vacation I thought about and I remember mapping it out in a travel forum a long time ago. It is starting in southern France, and work your way through Switzerland and northern Italy, through Austria and into Germany to cruise the Rhine that is lined with castles. I had it planned at one point. I saved money for it but wasn’t a destiny. I still think that would be a brilliant vacation I actually did go on a perfect vacation some years ago. This was 22 days in all. I flew from USA to Paris and stayed a couple nights; took a budget airline to Rome where I had a tour guide for the next two weeks. We went from Rome to Florence to the border of Italy and Switzerland at Lake Maggiore area, on to Venice, down through Umbria to village of Assisi, down to Pompeii, and on south to Sorrento. I continued after my guide on down the Amalfi Coast. Drove back to Rome, took budget airline back to Paris to conclude my best experience of a piece of the world. It was a vacation of my own life time.

That's gotta be interesting to be a hitman in VR. I've always wanted to go up behind someone with wire and choke em...lololol...

I found a video that says its ps5 showing all render modes for TLOU2. If Part 2 has the modes, then most likely the Part 1 remaster does too. For sure the Part 1 remake does. This is the only video I can find. At 1.48 minutes it shows 8-bit

I was playing GTA 5 and I got to wondering. There is a scene where the woman was running and got pulled into a jet engine and shredded to liquified red pulp. I wondered, can that really happen? No, it's just a game. Very next day, by some strange coincidence, that same very thing did happen with Envoy Air. A person got sucked into the engine while they were walking on the ground. YIKES!!! That answers my question. That actually can happen.

That's a good point. Games are getting bigger and bigger and without disc, they will be sitting there waiting for the download on release day and nobody will even be able to play the game on the day of release...LOL. They will probably have it where a certain percent of game is downloaded where you can play, which would be the opening first 5 minutes of gameplay and that's it. All the gaming forums will be filled with---"I'm still waiting for download."

Exactly, the trials and tribulations. There are so many stories that can be made with this. A largely untouched kind of genre. I guess some sports games have to start off a bit cheap on the story to break the ice a bit and see if players like adding a story to their sports. The potential is huge is what I’m thinking. I mean, even take a look at this year’s FIFA in Qatar, and all the drama. That’s all a story in itself. There would be a big audience for a good sport story.

Look what happened to music. Who buys a cd anymore? It went from records, to tapes, to cd's, to illegally streaming and lawsuits, to full embrace of digital music. Movies went from VHS, to DVD, to Red Box rentals and elimination of all other rental places. Movie theaters almost lost it during Covid. And more and more people are streaming their shows and movies. Consoles have gone from cartridges, to disc, to streaming and selling digital only consoles as a sort of cheaper alternative to full disc drive. Even VR headsets are digital only. And since VR is the future, that's an indication that gaming will become pure digital. That is not a good business strategy because we are all at the mercy of our internet speeds, number of gigabytes allowed, satellites, inclement weather, bad Wifi, and whatever other problems in the internet world will challenge digital only sales and downloads of gaming. If you move, travel, can't afford internet, you will never be able to access your games. Digital only gaming will also ruin the collector's world of gaming unless you collect the old stuff. But everything will get old one day. How will you show off your games, consoles, art work? Art will end up being NFT's. People will spend money in the digital world without actually owning anything. Living in the future, how will you play or purchase any old games from an older generation when all the servers get shut down permanently as the industry spurs on your purchasing power for the newer stuff without giving you a choice! I do see the gaming world heading in that direction. And it sucks! I think competitors will be important in those gloomy days when your choices become extremely limited and the only availability of games is priced sky high. What usually happens, is that starting out, the prices will be cheap for the digital alternative to reel you in there. Then once they own you, they cut off all your options and force you to pay high prices and subscriptions. Then those suppliers get bought off and bought off till there is very little competition left. Or, you will be forced to pay multiple subscriptions to play different games. And that I see happening too.