Crazycrab

Wrong.

Who said I was offended? You said in one sentence that any game that doesn't offer multiple choice routes isn't worth playing, essentially making them unworthy of even being made. Making a statement like that is not just an opinion. It is an attempt at discrediting linear games that have the same path every time. Open world games are not the only ones worth playing, and I know I'm not the only one here that sees that. You don't have to like linear style games, but completely discrediting them as worthless for multiple playthroughs is what is wrong.

Sorry, I know it's been a while since I've been here now. I've meant to visit more but life has just kept getting in the way since that winter storm that knocked out my state's power grid back in February. I had no choice (financially) but to keep going to work throughout that and the store I work at was on back-up generators for two days so wasn't able to open. That left me with lots of spare time to do little more than just sit/stand around chatting with the few other people who bothered coming in and one of them was a new hire (what a time to start, right?!). The two of us just clicked and since then we've become an item. I'm all vaccinated now and everything too, so we've finally gotten the chance to start going on formal dates. Anyway, that all's tied up a lot of my leisure time of late, and that which I haven't spent in some way involved with her either directly or indirectly has been spent on other forums I've been frequenting longer and have developed a more established presence on and investment in. Sorry about that! I have enjoyed my time here so far!
Anyway, just wanted to get to know everyone a little better than I've been able to up to now. Where would you say you stand on the political spectrum?
Personally, I don't really and truly feel like there's one political label that truly sums up my overarching worldview, but I will say that I regard myself as pretty far to the left when it comes to the sorts of economic policies I feel should be in place and a little less far to the left maybe -- sorta center-left -- when it comes to my opinions regarding like the culture wars and such.
Personally, I hate capitalism. Have for basically my whole life really. Maybe it can be chalked up to the fact that I've spent my whole life struggling economically and I make no claim to really have all the answers (yes I'm aware that "socialist" systems have often yielded terribly authoritarian systems of government and have never proven quite as productive as more market-based approaches to development and sustenance; I'm aware of these problems and am not living in denial thereof), but just everything in me feels like there simply has to be a better way to organize our economy. I don't claim to truly know what it is, but it just has to be possible for us to do better than this. Capitalism is too callous, too unconcerned with those it leaves behind, too exploitative, too atomizing and lonely, too devoid of real purpose, too rapacious toward the natural world, too suffocating of art and culture and the human soul, for me to want to go on living under such conditions. And I mean I try not too about as much as I can within reason for that matter. Most of the movies I get into are indie movies, most of the games I get into are indie games, most of the music I get into is what you might call offbeat and relatively obscure (often also indie), the PBS News Hour remains my favorite daily newscast to this day, etc. etc. I'm just that kind of person who values earnestness and the human soul. Anyway...there has to be a better way than our profit system.
My personal gravitation is in favor of something called communalism, which restructures individual communities such that more or less everything -- at least the means of production -- is owned, controlled, and directly managed by that community as a whole through processes of democratic local planning of production and distribution.
I'm also good with alternative socialistic ideas like a system wherein workplaces are owned and controlled by their workers directly, especially if they're not operated on a for-profit basis. Seriously, I value everything over profit. I think everything else should come first. The survival of working people should come before profits. Ecological sustainability should come before profits. Justice toward consumers should come before profits. Free artistic expression should be valued over profits. Everything is more important than profits, in my opinion. I've come to loathe the whole concept. Though one final alternative I feel okay with would be a simple and more market-friendly approach wherein we simply adopt a reasonably high universal basic income that guarantees everyone that their basic needs will be met and frees them up in terms of both resources and leisure time to like go into any business they might wish to pursue for themselves and we can have a flourishing of small business ventures with lots of active, aggressive trust-busting to break up the ones that become "too big to fail", something like that. That's about as market-friendly as I get though, honestly.
In terms of my social views, I'm one of those GC feminist types (the kind they warned you about!) who has some...issues...with the trajectory of the gender identity movement, particularly with regard to how some of its main public policy goals can negatively impact the rights and interests of the most vulnerable women, such as inmates in women's prisons and shelters for battered women and rare and dying lesbian cultural spaces and other places I have been for example and also who takes a dim view of like the sex and beauty industries and frankly most religions (including a lot of the fashionable minority ones) and so on. I get criticized for my "puritanical, extreme, anti-male, anti-trans" views more than for anything else really (especially on gaming forums for some reason) so I mostly try not to bring them up, or at least not too much,  in most places. It's tough though because I feel strongly about women's issues. Also related: not a big fan of queer theory or critical race theory and intersectionality theory in no small part because I've had so many run-ins with unreasonable social censorship and demands for it that I've become a fairly staunch opponent of what people call cancel culture.
I am also a gun owner (both for hunting and self-defense reasons), which I bring up mostly because that seems to be a negative personal quality to many on the American left today.
I do also also, however, consider myself a supporter of reasonable gun control policies, Black Lives Matter (for the most part anyway), immigration and refugees (for the most part anyway), abortion rights, and I'm against the coronavirus (sorry conservatives). Have never voted for a Republican in my life and still am not tempted to.
Wouldn't call myself a conservative, a moderate, a liberal, or a libertarian, and progressives don't generally wish to be associated with me anymore so I guess it's only respectful of their wishes that I not call myself one of those either. Guess I don't know what I am really. Just an individual person with my own opinions.

How about you (anyone)?

I think your being WAY to forgiving.  The Spartans in the actual Battle of Thermopylae wore a full bronze chestplate, not the bullshit nothing in the movie.  Never trust Hollywood.
 
I know where you're coming from.  The Celts used to charge into battle wearing next to nothing to intimate the enemy but that is a rare exception.  The reality is tactic doesn't really work. If your a soldier and you see your enemy running towards you with their "tits flapping around" then survival instinct will kick in over the distraction and you will kill them.  I'd much rather have the confidence that what I'm wearing is offering at least some protection or camouflage over "Hey, look at these abs!"

This kind of thing has been a peeve of mine for a while now.  At the end of the day it's all about context, take this for example:
 

 
Now obviously as a practical piece of armour this is beyond idiotic.  Not only does it not protect anything but it puts all the weight on her shoulders and other joints which is where you want it the least if your swinging a sword.  As a piece of art however, it looks really cool so if your game or movie is a fantasy that is not supposed to be realistic anyway I could accept it.  But if you're making a historical epic and you've got Joan of Arc leading the charge at Orleans wearing something like that then it's fair to say I wouldn't be the only one flipping my shit!  Now before anyone starts it's not just with women either:
 

 
I've got no issue with sexy armour but just keep it where it belongs.

If your playing on PS3 (correct me if I'm wrong) then this port of Skyrim and DLC is known to have a lot of problems.  Not to mention just recently Sony shut down PSN store on PS3 and PSP which means that some games aren't getting patches.  I don't know if Skyrim is one of them but it's something you need to keep in mind now.

Interestingly this the first game from Dontnod who would later go on to make Life is Strange and in my opinion, Remember Me is SO underrated.  I think it gets overlooked because the style of 3rd person action and platforming gameplay was very typical at the time (Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Darksiders among many others) so it kinda got lost in the crowd.  It's really good though.

If your playing on PS3 (correct me if I'm wrong) then this port of Skyrim and DLC is known to have a lot of problems.  Not to mention just recently Sony shut down PSN store on PS3 and PSP which means that some games aren't getting patches.  I don't know if Skyrim is one of them but it's something you need to keep in mind now.

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I am amazed consistently at how helpful our members are. I can think of multiple times I have asked questions about games and folks here have gone above and beyond with sharing their experiences or even researching answers to troubleshoot. So, I just wanted to say thanks to y’all for being so awesome 🙂
 

Why would they be making a new TLOU remake then? These people are so full of it! I totally agree that I'd be more excited by a new Jak & Daxter and it'd definitely excite a lot more PS owners.
That's exactly what I'm saying! I'm curious as to why the interviewer never hit back with that question. I get the feeling that a lot of times, gaming media are so patronizing of gaming companies instead of really asking some critical questions of their practices.

If their focus is on new games then they obviously wouldn't be remaking The Last of Us, or at the very least they pass the bulk of that project to another studio like they were originally going to.  This is complete bullshit.

Wow, this announcement is ... bizarre to me, lol. I'm not sure what to say. This seems superfluous and pointless to me, but as someone who hasn't yet touched a PS4, much less a PS5, I don't really know if I can comment on it.
The story, the dialogue, the exposition, the acting ... all are pristine to me. But could gameplay, graphics, and environments be improved?
I guess I could potentially see the use for something that is more than a remaster and less than a remake, if that makes sense.

There is one major problem with a Silent Hill Remake...
 

 

I'd expect their to be a lot of changes.  In the original just as much if not more of the storytelling and character development is done through interactive gameplay rather than cutscenes.  To adapt that in to non-interactive media then it's obvious those parts will have to done differently.

I'd expect their to be a lot of changes.  In the original just as much if not more of the storytelling and character development is done through interactive gameplay rather than cutscenes.  To adapt that in to non-interactive media then it's obvious those parts will have to done differently.

I agree because I have the base game and every other month I always get a notification that another DLC is coming out.
 
This is a fact.
Star Citizen is at $350 Billion at the time of writing and they're no closer to releasing that pyramid scheme of a game. Star Citizen has to be one of the longest running scams ever.

DOA 5 and 6 have to be up there.  They each have hundreds of costumes across multiple season passes at a total cost of up to around $1000 for everything.  Bloody insane.

If I was an alien listening to and watching humans do the deed, I'd think they were hurting each other by the the sounds and looks on their faces. Is this face pleasure or pain???

In the case of Dead or Alive I don't think it's even an accident!  😁
 
In the case of... In general.  I think I see this more often in movies and TV than in games.  In my experience most games that feature sex and violence will either WAY exaggerate the sex sounds (much like porn) or mute them to most likely distance it from this very connection.
 
So I don't think I've ever really had an issue with this

This is essentially the best roundup I've seen so far, and am likely going to see. Nobody won from this; journalists involved call today a post-Gamergate industry implying we've moved on, and Kotaku-In-Action (ironically abbreviated to KIA) is struggling to come up with new accomplishments to add to its questionable list.
For all the talk of ethics in journalism, it has been since its inception unethical because its inception was advertisement by the makers of video games. It still is whether or not you believe Gamergate is still alive and kicking. Most journalism that goes on is second-hand reporting on leaks or press releases, essentially anything a developer/publisher wants people to know. Jason Schreir's reporting is unique because it's actual journalism, not just parroting what developers come out with. Even when I write for HubPages I'm still guilty of it, it's just that I add a cynical spin.
To improve the ethics in journalism you have to either be a journalist who can regulate themself, an editor who can regulate their staff, or someone with the legislative pull to regulate the industry at large (the lattermost is especially difficult, because those with said pull can't be at all blogs/magazines/papers at once). While I will give credit to Gamergate for highlighting the lack of ethics in games journalism, the movement has also encouraged a lot of piss poor behaviour from people who, ironically, don't make the investigative leaps to find out what games journalism is like.

It doesn't matter to much in Skyrim.  Each race still has it's own characteristics and powers but unlike Oblivion the system is set in a way that you won't be punished for picking a certain race/build combination or leveling wrong.  Whether you want a warrior, theif, assassin or mage type build you can basically pick whatever race you want and go for it.
 
There is a 3rd person but I think most players prefer playing in first, especially if your like me and like a stealth build with a bow as your primary.  Like I said it's really up to you, just what comes naturally.

Every day. Oh, in gaming? Every day. 

There will never be a women’s league. Considering that gaming doesn’t take the same physical ability that is required for sports like basketball or hockey, there’s no real characteristic that would divide men and women in skill. In some battle royale games, there are women who are like goddesses and others that are so bad a brain dead monkey would be a more challenging opponent. The same is said for men. So I personally don’t see a logical reason to make a league for only women. TERF’s would definitely disagree with that, but fuck those delusional cunts.

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That's cool about the night witches! Having to fly in those dinky planes and turn the engine off; damn!!! And I haven't even thought about the ninjas and their role during feudal Japan. It's interesting that most actually came from the lower class. So status wasn't important to them. They did their job as an assassin, saboteur, spy, and kept what they did secret. They never wanted credit or anything like that. And if caught, they would take their own life. It was funny at the beginning of Ghost of Tsushima (no spoilers) the samurai despised thieves and people that would hide around or stalk the night. If you play the game you will see how that relates to this. 
I agree that there are so many battle tactics that need stealth over face to face combat. One that comes to mind was the powerful British against American revolutionaries who would ambush the British as they stood out in the open in formation. That would have been terrifying standing there taking shots and watching your comrads fall before your eyes. And not be able to do anything but load your damn weapon. 
Even though the samurai honor seems so justified, so too is stealth which may be even more justified. But even that at times has its controversy because what is used for good, also is used for bad.