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Miss Wallace posted:There was a pinball game, a board game, and I think a card game though! The card game isn't in English iirc I wonder how that card game even works....
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Jun 13, 2016 04:29
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John Murdoch posted:I read it as it came out. It's pretty good, though sometimes Shamus gets extra cranky over certain things or ends up going on tangents to argue with stuff that came up in the comments, which can be a turn-off. I also wish he went a little more in-depth in certain places, but I suppose if he did it would've ballooned out even further than 50 parts. I started reading it, and so far it's pretty good at helping me understand why I couldn't get into any Mass Effect game after 1. I remember thinking during the kerfuffle over the ending that a bittersweet/harsh ending could work well with what the first game had set up. I mean, something like Shepard and most of the galaxy dying to defeat the Reapers forever.
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Jun 13, 2016 05:06
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I'm also one of the people who liked the first game best, despite the gameplay being weaker. 2's was alright and I did enjoy the whole ending sequence a lot but it definitely got dumber. As for 3, Tuchanka was the only place I actually liked since it took everything you did through the entire series and tied it all together in that storyline. Everything before and after ranged from very bad to aggressively mediocre. I'll have to give that stuff a read-through. I always enjoyed MrBtongue's videos on the series myself.
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Jun 13, 2016 05:40
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It's worth noting that Shamus' Mass Effect series was nominated for a Hugo award (for Best Fan Writer). This is likely due to the Puppies bullshit, however I doubt Shamus agrees with them on their main stance.
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Jun 13, 2016 06:24
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Which Mass Effect novel gave us a ninja eating cereal?
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Jun 13, 2016 06:40
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Akett posted:It's worth noting that Shamus' Mass Effect series was nominated for a Hugo award (for Best Fan Writer). This is likely due to the Puppies bullshit, however I doubt Shamus agrees with them on their main stance. Sorry what? I'm giving this a read, I liked all three games but yeah its quite jarring the shift from 1 to 2 and 3. Though I have to say this Shamus fellow seems a bit passive aggressive, the first footnote says this "Yes, Shepard can also be a female, but I’m not going to add one of these footnotes EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! Shepard comes up in pronoun form. You’re smart, you know how this works." I mean he could easily have said he plays Shepard as a male so he's going to just refer to character as a bloke because that's just easier. 
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Jun 13, 2016 06:46
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MonsieurChoc posted:I started reading it, and so far it's pretty good at helping me understand why I couldn't get into any Mass Effect game after 1. One of the endings is apparently kinda like that. (Still haven't actually played ME3 SP myself.) I think it might be the one they added with the ending DLC. Basically the galaxy falls to the Reapers, but enough information gets left behind to ensure that the next cycle can destroy them for good.
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Jun 13, 2016 06:47
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Baka-nin posted:Sorry what? In short, there's a gamergate like organization that wants the Hugo awards to be apolitical. They've rigged the nominations for this year and last year. They're usually called Rabid Puppies or Sad Puppies or things like that, for some reason. I don't really know too much, it seems mostly asinine.
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Jun 13, 2016 06:57
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Akett posted:In short, there's a gamergate like organization that wants the Hugo awards to be apolitical. They've rigged the nominations for this year and last year. They're usually called Rabid Puppies or Sad Puppies or things like that, for some reason. I don't really know too much, it seems mostly asinine. And by "apolitical" they mean "no coloreds, gays or women allowed".
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Jun 13, 2016 07:10
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That got me thinking about a different sci-fi space opera series with a huge world-building database that saw a switch in team for it's two sequels: Xenosaga. Except Xenosaga went back to the style of the first game for the ending instead of staying with the unpopular style of the second.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:14
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Andrew Verse posted:And by "apolitical" they mean "no coloreds, gays or women allowed". I thought that was covered by "gamergate like." Apolitical is their ethics in gmaes journalism.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T1t05WLPs Amusing list but it's a loving shame that horseshit preview by Polygon of Rockband 4 isn't on here.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:20
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Andrew Verse posted:And by "apolitical" they mean "no coloreds, gays or women allowed". Apolitical has always been code for non party Conservatism. Besides it could be worse, most major American SF writers put out an ad supporting the Vietnam war. Edit: I've read the first part of that Mass Effect thing and I'm liking it, seems to be less prickly and I like the bit were he compares ME1 to KOTOR a game I finished yesterday, and had major deja vue while playing. Also the pictures have amusing comments. Baka-nin fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 07:21
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Akett posted:In short, there's a gamergate like organization that wants the Hugo awards to be apolitical. They've rigged the nominations for this year and last year. They're usually called Rabid Puppies or Sad Puppies or things like that, for some reason. I don't really know too much, it seems mostly asinine. Sad Puppies started as an attempt by Larry Correia to get his own book nominated. He said it was supposed to be a "poke in the eye" nomination, voting in some straight pulp novel, but it's pretty obvious that dude just wanted a nomination. He wasn't even successful the first year, but was the second after Torgersen started blogging about it all. Brad Torgersen hooked up with Sad Puppies and codified their overall stance on his blog, saying that they were protesting over the fact that for years the Hugos have been dominated by socially-minded works (not actually true, but roll with it or none of this makes sense) unlike the good old days of classic science fiction (again, ignore basically all of the sci-fi canon for this to make sense) when "sci-fi" meant adventure and space ships and ray guns and not complex allegories for gender identity (Left Hand of Darkness won the Hugo for Best Novel in 1970, fyi) and that awards were going to the "most political" books and not the "best" books. Torgersen then wrote the slate for the third year of Puppies. Sad Puppies is conceptually okay-ish, I guess, with the biggest flaw being that Torgersen is a human-skin-suit full of cold oatmeal, has boring tastes, and has a hilariously tenuous grasp on the political history of science fiction. Then perpetually sad and lonely man Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day, decided that padding the slate wasn't good enough, they needed to dominate, so he started the Rabid Puppies slate, which consists of a mix of pro-Vox Day/anti-SJW fare (Vox likes to nominate himself a lot) and things that he and his fans perceive as a "gently caress you" nomination, like Chuck Tingle. Beale's stated goal is to either win everything or else make the whole affair unusable and pointless. Beale was also already involved with Gamergate, because that poo poo's a dickhole-sinkhole, and recruited them to be his personal army. They've been semi-effective at making a puddle of piss on the ground, though this year their collective slates were less well represented. Beale, being a self-aggrandizing bastard, also likes to pretend that he's effective by doing poo poo like putting Neal Stephenson and Neil Gaiman on the slate then acting like he got them their nomination. Like he was crowing about "Puppy-approved" Guardians of the Galaxy winning a Hugo in 2015. Oh, and the Sad Puppies name was originally a reference to the Sara Mclaughlan SPCA commercials, the idea being that the Hugos were going to "sad puppy" fare.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:33
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Another thing that I liked about Mass Effect 1 over the others is presentation. Even making a new character was cool with the whole framing device of corrupted data. It really was playing a Star Trek game the first time around.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:34
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LFK posted:Sad Puppies started as an attempt by Larry Correia to get his own book nominated. He said it was supposed to be a "poke in the eye" nomination, voting in some straight pulp novel, but it's pretty obvious that dude just wanted a nomination. He wasn't even successful the first year, but was the second after Torgersen started blogging about it all. Although Vox's Chuck Tingle nomination has kind of backfired hilariously, because Tingle's already stated that he's sending Zoe Quinn to accept his award on his behalf if he wins.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:51
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Saying Sci-Fi wasn't political "back in the days" is a sure sign that you know jack-poo poo about old sci-fi. My god, that's  -inducing stupid.
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Jun 13, 2016 07:59
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Tracula posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T1t05WLPs I think that list highlights why, with the exception of US Gamer, I don't put a lot of faith in most gaming sites. Games writing doesn't have a lack of ethics, but it does have severe lack of intelligent writers. One of the reasons I wanted to post the Mass Effect retrospective is because it highlights just how dumb this piece from Rock, Paper, Shotgun is. John Murdoch posted:As someone who's always felt like the odd one out for preferring ME1 over 2 despite the clunkier gameplay, it was rather cathartic to see ME2 eviscerated for all of its wonky nonsense. If it makes you feel better, while I was really taken with ME2, reading through the retrospective did change my opinion on it (it probably helps that it's been a while since I've played ME2, and I don't remember a lot about it). However, I think Shamus points out that the issues in writing mainly lie with the main plot with Cerberus; the character writing between your crew members is where it really shines through. I have Mass Effect 3, but I haven't played it yet, mostly because I'm reluctant to shell out the cash for the DLC (I know the Extended Ending DLC is free, but people say the Citadel DLC is really good.)
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Jun 13, 2016 08:29
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Arcsquad12 posted:Another thing that I liked about Mass Effect 1 over the others is presentation. Even making a new character was cool with the whole framing device of corrupted data. It really was playing a Star Trek game the first time around. Or a Babylon 5 game.  Max Wilco posted:I think the problem going from ME1 to ME2 is that they really stripped a lot out of the gameplay when it could have been improved. My big issue with ME1 was with the inventory management and what a mess it was to sell and compare equipment. I was hoping that it would be improved going to ME2, but I was surprised to see that it was gone completely. I certainly wouldn't have minded if they stuck closer to ME1's approach, though I also try not to be too fussy when it comes to redesigns or streamlining. For me, it's less that ME2 didn't carry on from ME1 elegantly, it's that it did kind of a mediocre job at what it did do, probably because they started pretty much from scratch. For all of its problems, ME3 at least benefited from the further refinements they made to the gameplay, even if there's still some quirks. ME2 is undeniably saved by the strong character writing. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 08:54
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Yvonmukluk posted:Although Vox's Chuck Tingle nomination has kind of backfired hilariously, because Tingle's already stated that he's sending Zoe Quinn to accept his award on his behalf if he wins. That, and he's caused a lot of legitimate literary figures and outlets to begin to question, and at worst straight up deny the legitimacy of the Hugos as awards any more, writing them off as useless now because their nomination process can be so easily hijacked by any repugnant jackass with a loud enough internet microphone. See the massive slate of No Award winners of last year.
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Jun 13, 2016 10:15
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nine-gear crow posted:That, and he's caused a lot of legitimate literary figures and outlets to begin to question, and at worst straight up deny the legitimacy of the Hugos as awards any more, writing them off as useless now because their nomination process can be so easily hijacked by any repugnant jackass with a loud enough internet microphone. See the massive slate of No Award winners of last year. I thought the Hugos were going to try to do something to curb slate voting, but I guess they didn't.
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Jun 13, 2016 11:32
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wins.
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John Murdoch posted:Or a Babylon 5 game. Yeah, Mass Effect 1 definitely got a lot of influence from Babylon 5, moreso than Star Trek even. What I really love is that the humans are kind of a B or C role to start compared to the other species in the galaxy and fight for their spot on the council and to be respected.
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Jun 13, 2016 11:50
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PassTheRemote posted:I thought the Hugos were going to try to do something to curb slate voting, but I guess they didn't. They have come up with a solution, but they couldn't implement it until next year. This year is apparently going to be the last of the old-style Hugo nominations that the Puppies have been able to exploit.
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Jun 13, 2016 12:11
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Baka-nin posted:Sorry what? Shamus likes to be a bit jokey about the nitpickers in the comments on his blog, when he says stuff like that it's generally meant to be good natured hyperbole.
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Jun 13, 2016 12:45
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MonsieurChoc posted:Saying Sci-Fi wasn't political "back in the days" is a sure sign that you know jack-poo poo about old sci-fi. My god, that's
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Jun 13, 2016 13:12
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achillesforever6 posted:Yeah just read any Ray Bradbury novel/short story or "The Day the Earth Stood Still" or EC Comics like "Judgement Day" (which still blows my mind that it was made in the 1950s) Massive props to them for sticking to their guns with Judgement Day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC_Comics#.22Judgment_Day.22 And seriously loving lol to say that sci-fi wasn't political back in the day. Are we gonna say that the original Star Trek series wasn't loving political? How about the father of modern military sci-fi, Robert Heinlein. He wasn't political either I suppose.
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Jun 13, 2016 13:36
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Tracula posted:Massive props to them for sticking to their guns with Judgement Day. EC Comics had a lot of social commentary stories, Judgement Day is probably my favorite.
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Jun 13, 2016 13:54
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I will never, ever, ever understand the people who get pissy that ME2 swapped out the first one's absolutely godawful combat for something more playable. And ME1's writing was absolutely not better than 2's, it had a tedious story that waited until the final hour to actually build up any steam, the characters were mostly pretty bland with the exception of Ashley, the Mako sequences were hours of pure padding, and even the non-barren worlds you visit are utterly forgettable. ME2 is a paragon of story design in the AAA space, with a more character-driven story filled with much more interesting characters, and even the returning ones are improved. The modular story structure is revolutionary, and so far has not been topped by a AAA game, with the suicide mission being an abject loving triumph of story design. Mass Effect 2 is one of the best game of all time. Mass Effect 1 is a loving slog, the only point of replaying which is to continue your save into the actually good ME games.
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Jun 13, 2016 14:09
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400 pages of this....and I've read (or skimmed) every one.  Content: For those interested in gaming discussion, you could do worse than check out Crate and Crowbar, a sort of pub-like discussion (hence the pub name) about video games, news and design and industry chat hosted by a group of 5 male and 1 female British games designers/journalists. They sometimes have guests on but usually it is 3 or 4 of them. They cover a wide range of games, from indie to AAA. They usually do review discussions, debate news articles and then answer questions in the second half of the podcast. They put out podcasts weekly, running 80-120 minutes each. E: Some of the members were part of the PC Gamer podcast (a British magazine on games). They set this up as a side project. I don't know if the PCG podcast still exists. I haven't played a video game since 1993 and probably never will again but I really enjoy these podcasters' intelligent, informed and witty discussions. There are no in-jokes, running gags and few pop-culture references, which makes the podcasts super accessible. They are funny but it helps that the dry humour comes from the situations and absurdities they are discussing rather than levering in a gag or pop-culture reference. On the downside, you might have a little trouble telling them apart now the Scottish guy has left. I don't think they have a particular British slant on things but maybe I'm missing that because I am British. They started a Patreon to fund technical support for the website and audio recording. They did so well that that was all funded fairly quickly. They then closed the Patreon because it had met its goal. Top chaps (and chappesses).  I have no interest in video games at all and yet I find their podcasts really fun and informative. Maybe that's a recommendation and maybe that isn't. Anyway, you can find their website here: http://crateandcrowbar.com/ They have an active and friendly forum here: http://crateandcrowbar.com/forum/ I'd be interested to see what people itt think. Josef K. Sourdust fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 14:31
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ME1's big three-quarters twist felt a little weak to me, too, especially after the  game-changing stuff they hit you with in Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.Oh, so the main villain isn't the scary alien dude, but his ship? Big whoop.
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Jun 13, 2016 14:34
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Miss Wallace posted:Yeah guys, remember when this thread had pages upon pages of Quantum Leap and Baywatch? Classic me. Fair point. Unless you can convince me otherwise when you eventually tackle Quantum Leap it's going to continue being a "what do they see in this" type show. But to be more relevant, any Gamergate or Sarkeesian talk bores me to tears. 
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Jun 13, 2016 15:24
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DStecks posted:I will never, ever, ever understand the people who get pissy that ME2 swapped out the first one's absolutely godawful combat for something more playable. And ME1's writing was absolutely not better than 2's, it had a tedious story that waited until the final hour to actually build up any steam, the characters were mostly pretty bland with the exception of Ashley, the Mako sequences were hours of pure padding, and even the non-barren worlds you visit are utterly forgettable. Hmm, let me see. Nope, you're still completely wrong. (Ashley being the only not bland character is just the cherry on the sundae on wrongness here) Edit: Actually, sorry, that was a bit of a kneejerk reaction due to you being kind of a jerk that randomly explodes like old TNT. You're actually kind of right when you talk about "story design" and "strong character writing", those are ME2's saving grace (and the linked article goes into a lot of depht about it, it's good!) You're just wrong when talking about ME1, because you don't like slow worldbuilding stories I guess randomly or the characters (some pretty memorable characters in ME1, none of whom were Ashley). Mass Effect 2 definitely isn't one of the best games of all time. ME1 isn't either, come to think of it. The point also remains that ME2's main story is complete garbage. MonsieurChoc fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 15:45
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I remember when the second Dragon Age came out and everyone on SA could not go five seconds without angrily pissing in Bioware's general direction, because in big nerd debates that don't have clear answers, SA is invariably partisan in the most obnoxious way possible.
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Jun 13, 2016 16:01
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Re-reading my post, yeah it's not very well written. So, dstecks, read this post instead! "You are right about some things, wrong about others, and the rest is up to personal taste/opinions." That should take care of that.
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Jun 13, 2016 16:29
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MonsieurChoc posted:Saying Sci-Fi wasn't political "back in the days" is a sure sign that you know jack-poo poo about old sci-fi. My god, that's Just a reminder that the concept of Sci-Fi was literally pioneered with Mary Shelly, a young woman who just wanted to tell a spooky story with maybe a neat deeper meaning to her friends, to the point where even the 'fathers' of the genre like Isaac Asimov have given her credit for functionally creating the genre. But yea those drat womenz are invading...
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Jun 13, 2016 16:29
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John Murdoch posted:His central thesis is sound - the ME trilogy wasn't spoiled at the 11th hour by a lame ending, the ending was the culmination of steadily weakening writing that was at its strongest in the first game. And even if most people seem to prefer the more loose, action-y style of the sequels to the harder sci-fi of the first, he makes a pretty clear case that the sequels aren't even that good at being action stories. I also always preferred ME1 over ME2. I also was not surprised by the bad ending because there was a lot of extremely clumsy writing throughout ME3. I still liked ME2 because I felt that its character were well done, but the overall story seemed so meandering and unfocused compared to the first. The real bitch of it is that ME3 had a few really goddamn awesome moments, honestly that made me hate the game a lot more. If it was just bad throughout, whatever, but seeing glimmers of something that could have been so much better sucked a lot harder. Darth Walrus posted:ME1's big three-quarters twist felt a little weak to me, too, especially after the I was fine with his ship being a member of a race of giant doom creatures. I wasn't fine with the joke of a justification for why they did what they did in ME3; writers need to learn that they don't need to explain every loving thing. We did not need a reason for the Reapers to cleanse the galaxy. Leave them as an unknowable horror. Also the Human-Reaper in ME2 was so loving stupid-looking that I could not take that fight seriously.
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Jun 13, 2016 16:31
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Alacron posted:The other Noah, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, is such a stand up guy with regards to Patreon that he is telling people that he's gotten other employment in games journalism so they can stop donating to his Patreon if they want. Can't it be both? Whenever I watch him, I feel like I'm watching Rick Steves, if Rick Steves devoted his energy to video games instead of travel.
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Jun 13, 2016 17:23
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remember when marzgirl went though all of the land before time series? i wish someone had done the same but with Ernest films. there is like 6 to 8 of them that went straight to dvd, one of them is him going to Africa. there have to be protental with that, i can see a Lupa or Phelous doing this. some of the Ernest films are a part of my childhood and despite being very stupid there make me laugh but ironically and unironically.
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Jun 13, 2016 19:29
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Jsor posted:Shamus likes to be a bit jokey about the nitpickers in the comments on his blog, when he says stuff like that it's generally meant to be good natured hyperbole. Yeah that's coming through more as the thing goes on. I'm on part 15 and this seems particularly relevant for the thread. quote:Often when I do this sort of long-form analysis people will respond with “Why are you so angry?” and “Why did you write a book-length tirade about this?” I think this is a side-effect of the common “nerd rage” shtick that some critics do. People see something critical and they just assume it’s supposed to be performed in the voice of a spittle-spewing madman. Me thinks Shamus has been around the vlog reviewer block.
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Jun 13, 2016 19:57
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Tracula posted:Yeah, Mass Effect 1 definitely got a lot of influence from Babylon 5, moreso than Star Trek even. What I really love is that the humans are kind of a B or C role to start compared to the other species in the galaxy and fight for their spot on the council and to be respected. And then by mass effect 3 the whole game is about fighting to get enough resources to take back Earth because that will somehow save the galaxy. That always bugged me from the minute me3's advertising started. Earth is not important in the grand scheme of the mass effect universe but the franchise's continuous push towards a more human centric plot makes it so.
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Jun 13, 2016 20:41
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