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orcane posted:In GTA5 everyone has smartphones (the game is from 2013). Michael has an iPhone, Franklin's resembles a Samsung phone and Trevor uses a Windows phone with a busted screen. Oh I read it as IV not V. I shouldn't post when half awake. 
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Apr 18, 2022 03:30
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Oxxidation posted:i've been pissy about the story of Returnal for a long time but the free DLC adds a completely believable and innocuous detail that doesn't address my central issue with the plot but still kind of has me falling in love with it And that detail is?
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Apr 18, 2022 03:32
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Len posted:And that detail is? background: the game turns out to be yet another "guilty dying dream" plot where the main character's looping through a self-inflicted personal hell based on past trauma (and greek mythology). said trauma originates in two car crashes: the first involving main character selene and her mother theia - where theia, an aspiring astronaut, severs her spine and becomes a nightmare to live with until selene finally kills her by shoving her wheelchair down the stairs - and the second involving selene and her son helios, where selene claws her way out of the car and leaves helios to drown before expiring of her injuries. selene's implied to have been just as resentful towards helios as her mother was towards her (since his birth scuttled her own wishes to go into space) and both car crashes occurred in the same place, hence Returnal's fixation on repetition and unbreakable loops/cycles of abuse the whole thing annoyed me because a) the dying-dream schtick is done to death and for a while it didn't look like the story was going in that direction, and b) the helios thing struck me as annoyingly ambiguous and also kind of a cheat, because the mythological helios is selene's brother, not her son then in the dlc you can read a newspaper clipping about the first crash, and buried at the very end of the text - to the point where it's not even in the "press square to make all these words pop up onscreen in a readable format" option - is the tiny little detail that the crash involved theia and two children, not one, and only one child was recovered. haven't gotten to the end yet, but the implication is that helios was selene's brother after all, and she named her son in his memory only to abandon him to his death in the exact same way, in the exact same spot. the way Returnal forces her to repeat her actions and die over and over again is a much more believable contrapasso in light of that fact
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Apr 18, 2022 03:55
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People are making assumptions about the whole dying dream thing, the game isn't exactly clear about any of it.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:05
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If anything it tries so utterly hard to convince you of the exact opposite of that lol edit: Whether because it's the truth or not. I did love the detail Oxxidation mentions though, those first person sequences are full of environmental details that mean things or refer to elements of the story but aren't included in the narration. CJacobs has a new favorite as of 04:28 on Apr 18, 2022 |
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Apr 18, 2022 04:25
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you can either believe that the game relies on a sci-fi deepfaring space program and a classic Apollo-esque space program both existing within the same twenty-year span and the planet being under the grip of time-altering space-octopus magic, or you can accept that it's a death fantasy occurring in the mind of a severely troubled woman who by her own confession mentally sorts everything into greek-myth metaphors to keep herself "balanced." the former requires way too many leaps, especially in the last quarter of the game where the house sequences descend completely into allegory the DLC's leaning harder than ever into the latter regardless, since the cat's already out of the bag e: the clincher is in one of the final house sequences, where you find selene's rejection letter from the ASTRA program, tying into the voicelog where her interview takes a sharp downward turn when the subject of her deceased family is brought up. atropos can't be real because she was never able to go into space to begin with, which is also one of her central neuroses Oxxidation has a new favorite as of 04:46 on Apr 18, 2022 |
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Apr 18, 2022 04:32
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I finished Mafia today. I appreciate games that know they have about 8-10 hours of interesting ideas, make sure those hours are tight and don't drag things out. More for the other thread but I don't want to make two posts, the last mission kinda sucked though because having a big revenge shootout thing is played out to hell now, even if it might have been more novel when the original version came out. For how many issues I remember having with the narrative of the first Red Dead Redemption, I really liked how it was willing to have the ending go small to fit the story instead of trying to have it be a big epic sequence. I wish more games would do that when its called for.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:43
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Oxxidation posted:you can either believe that the game relies on a sci-fi deepfaring space program and a classic Apollo-esque space program both existing within the same twenty-year span and the planet being under the grip of time-altering space-octopus magic, or you can accept that it's a death fantasy occurring in the mind of a severely troubled woman who by her own confession mentally sorts everything into greek-myth metaphors to keep herself "balanced." the former requires way too many leaps, especially in the last quarter of the game where the house sequences descend completely into allegory Personally I think Atropos is a completely real place, and the creature is drawing her there to feed on her misery. It was a neutral planet at first, ruined by being adapted to her horrible brain, and now the parasites have taken it over. At the end of the game she escapes by 'defeating' her personal demons; in her logs ON Atropos she talks about reaching whenever she gets the chance, and ends up back on Atropos. The Act 2 ending shows you that directly happening and that the gribbly is taking her away. After all, it's the second time she's landed in that exact spot according to the DLC's hints. In Act 3, she wakes up outside the car, no opportunity to decide to reach or not, so it doesn't really fit with her metaphor. Whether she then goes onto become an ASTRA scout is unlikely because the DLC hints hugely that the game does, in fact, take place in the modern-ish day and that PS5 wasn't a fluke. edit: "Going to Atropos" is surely a metaphor for the isolation that you feel when you mentally return to a place of trauma and embark on that journey of self-discovery but that doesn't mean it's gotta ONLY be a metaphor. CJacobs has a new favorite as of 05:16 on Apr 18, 2022 |
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Apr 18, 2022 04:57
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except in this case, where it is in fact just a metaphor you’ve tried out this theory before and it’s still crucially flawed in that you assume the space octopus (let’s call it Xaos for simplicity, some of the logs suggest as much) is some external force kickstarting events. except Xaos is also an image originating from Selene’s trauma - it’s her stuffed octopus in monstrous shape. in keeping with its origin, it also isn’t necessarily treated as antagonistic, more like a Virgil-esque guide forcing Selene to confront and comprehend the root of her pain
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Apr 18, 2022 05:18
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Last week, Final Fantasy XIV added the first in a series of raids where you fight the actual-factual gods of the setting, which had previously basically only been set dressing. That itself is neat, but there's three especially good little things centered around the god they picked as the final boss. 1. Most of the soundtrack of the raids are stapled together out of music from a relevant area. Nald'thal are the twin patron gods of the city of Ul'Dah, so the music is mostly based on its various themes, including one from 1.0. 2. They turned an in-universe blasphemous swear into an actual mechanic. 'Thal's balls' has been a go-to expletive for the English localization (the god itself was apparently named solely so they could make the joke)... and now that we fight Thal, one of his big attacks really is just to drop his balls on us. 3. And not really part of the raid itself, but now that they're getting focus, people are starting to realize exactly why that god has the domains they do. Nald'thal are the twin gods of both commerce, and the underworld. Death and taxes.
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Apr 18, 2022 05:19
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Oxxidation posted:except in this case, where it is in fact just a metaphor I used to be more firm on Atropos being a real place Selene went to after the game's events, having not learned her lesson in the end and gone off to commit the mistakes we see in the gameplay, but the amount of real information about the post-FIRST-crash events in the DLC pretty much torpedoes that theory. By her more lucid stories from there, it seems Selene just kept taking care of her mother and then went off to higher education and that still didn't help her become a spacewoman so she came home. Even after the game's crash removes Helios she still wouldn't have time or room or... lifespan. Nah, I would rather equate Xaos to say Bill Murray's alarm clock in Groundhog Day for example. It wakes him up and plays the song that bothers him but it's not the officiator of his psychiatry. There is no officiator because the loop itself, like cycles Returnal, is based around arbitrarily discovering the right course out of it. Returnal is like if the alarm clock got the same sense of sense of dread we do outta seeing Bill Murray wake up after the montage, you know the one (edit: and if it got a sense of satisfaction seeing him fail moreover). What puts Selene underwater in Act 3 instead of in the car such that she can swim up, in my opinion, was realizing that she was keeping herself there more than it was. The creature dragged her there but she was the one 'choosing' to go there again and again and sort through her issues, ignorantly destroying a planet with an existing culture in the process. I think it never would have provided her any 'answers' as it had none to offer and would have just kept mutating.The Act 1 ending could be the game's 'real' ending by that metric. As for Xaos looking like Octo, I got nothing given there's a gun in the game that has the actual Octo on the front of it. Personally I think it doesn't so much, Octo's an octopus so it has a whole head part whereas Xaos echoes the sun face more clearly and has all the tentacles coming from its back. It could have happened over time, it could always have looked that way given the appearance of the little parasites, it could be a weird homage to Selene as the Atropians supposedly made until they went nuts. Its appearance could be made to taunt her or any number of factors, but it physically touches her and she sees it, so to me it's gotta be something she didn't come up with. edit: Had to change this post a little because my wording was ambiguous, sorry. Returnal is fun to talk about in that way, an exercise in learning to discuss recursion elegantly. CJacobs has a new favorite as of 06:29 on Apr 18, 2022 |
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Apr 18, 2022 05:43
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Cleretic posted:3. And not really part of the raid itself, but now that they're getting focus, people are starting to realize exactly why that god has the domains they do. Nald'thal are the twin gods of both commerce, and the underworld. Death and taxes. pretty sure hades predates the coining of that phrase by quite a bit!
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Apr 18, 2022 11:13
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moonmazed posted:pretty sure hades predates the coining of that phrase by quite a bit! He probably does, but Hades wasn't the god of commerce. That's Hermes.
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Apr 18, 2022 11:27
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Cleretic posted:He probably does, but Hades wasn't the god of commerce. That's Hermes. Hades is the god of wealth though.
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Apr 18, 2022 11:53
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Hades is the god of wealth though. First of all, it's real stupid that Greek myth had separate gods of commerce and wealth. Second of all, the god of wealth was Plutus! He's a completely different person to Hades, but they were merged into one by the Roman pantheon as Pluto.
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Apr 18, 2022 12:38
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Cleretic posted:First of all, it's real stupid that Greek myth had separate gods of commerce and wealth. Hades specifically had dominion of valuable minerals, since they were all underground. Gemstones and such, basically. Though I suppose for that reason Plutus is Hades' child in some interpretations. In either case, wealth and commerce are separate things since you can have either without the other
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Apr 18, 2022 12:46
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Is Elden Ring chat still allowed? Because I love how every vaguely humanoid enemy has a loot table that includes everything they are wearing and usually their weapon. It is so nice to see an enemy and if you like their look you can farm for it yourself I know the Elder Scrolls games also have this feature but all loot sucks and is boring in that series
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Apr 18, 2022 17:26
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Manager Hoyden posted:Is Elden Ring chat still allowed? Shame the drop rate is SO poo poo, it's like trying to get the BSS in DS1 but for every enemy instead of just those fuckers.
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Apr 18, 2022 17:36
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Jam those pickled fowl feet into your maw
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Apr 18, 2022 18:02
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Kitfox88 posted:Shame the drop rate is SO poo poo, it's like trying to get the BSS in DS1 but for every enemy instead of just those fuckers. boost the stat that ups drop rate as much as you can imo
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Apr 18, 2022 19:49
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flatluigi posted:boost the stat that ups drop rate as much as you can imo Which dovetails nicely into another little thing: The same stat that effects drop rate also effects the speed that you inflict status effects, which can be utterly devastating.
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Apr 18, 2022 20:14
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Since demon's souls, the soulsborne games have had a problem with the last stat on being something useless. In demon souls it was luck, which had a small effect on drop rates and buffed one gimmick weapon. In Dark souls it was resistance, which improved your damage resistance and that was it, which is the same thing that would happen if you bought literally any other stat only every other stat would also give you a bonus of some other kind. In bloodborne, the arcane stat wasn't really useless but it required deep investments before it really mattered. It really started taking off after you put like 60, 70 points into it. So going into Elden ring, everyone kind of thought that arcane would be a useless dump stat. Instead it's, well, almost game breakingly good. With the right combination of weapons or gear you can delete most anything in seconds with the benefit of arcane.
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Apr 19, 2022 03:21
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Arcane being a god stat only makes sense because it’s the Bloodborne poo poo stat (blood poo poo, temporarily turning yourself into an abomination, etc) and Bloodborne was godly.
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Apr 19, 2022 03:33
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arcane in Bloodborne is always good, enough enemies drop bloodstones that rushing 20+ early on lets you really stay ahead of the upgrade curve on weapons, which has way more of an immediate and noticeable effect than just pumping str or dex
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Apr 19, 2022 03:36
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Rockman Reserve posted:arcane in Bloodborne is always good, enough enemies drop bloodstones that rushing 20+ early on lets you really stay ahead of the upgrade curve on weapons, which has way more of an immediate and noticeable effect than just pumping str or dex It’s also a great way to make sure that vials and bullets drop much more frequently, which is something people complain about all the time.
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Apr 19, 2022 03:38
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Arcane in Bloodborne was fun as hell with enough investment. Putting Ebrietas down with 2-3 hits from A Call Beyond ruled
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Apr 19, 2022 07:12
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And you can pew pew everyone with the Blacksky Eye from the DLC
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Apr 19, 2022 07:35
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Kit Walker posted:Arcane in Bloodborne was fun as hell with enough investment. Putting Ebrietas down with 2-3 hits from A Call Beyond ruled yeah honestly I only became an arcane convert on my most recent character because I figured “oh well, I know I’m gonna wanna gently caress with that later and I might as well get the prereqs when leveling up is super cheap early on” but it’s seriously a complete game changer
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Apr 19, 2022 07:50
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Oxxidation posted:you can either believe that the game relies on a sci-fi deepfaring space program and a classic Apollo-esque space program both existing within the same twenty-year span and the planet being under the grip of time-altering space-octopus magic, or you can accept that it's a death fantasy occurring in the mind of a severely troubled woman who by her own confession mentally sorts everything into greek-myth metaphors to keep herself "balanced." the former requires way too many leaps, especially in the last quarter of the game where the house sequences descend completely into allegory Also the recurring leitmotif Don’t Fear the Reaper. Once you recognize it, you realize it has been in all of the ambient background music since the beginning of the game. It was the song playing on the radio during Selene’s crash
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Apr 19, 2022 11:56
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Philippe posted:And you can pew pew everyone with the Blacksky Eye from the DLC I had so much fun zapping unfathomable abominations with my eye beam when I did an Arcane run, and was delighted to find that Elden Ring included multiple eye beam based spells.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:36
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Elden Ring just had a big patch that, among other things, added a pop up to indicate the tutorial area, which is nice but well: https://twitter.com/thefifthmatt/status/1516539518727299075?t=nClaO86duv4-DOqpOsyCqQ&s=19 That's the real news
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Apr 20, 2022 22:50
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Elden Ring again. It's a tinfoil hat to keep alien mind beams away.
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Apr 22, 2022 18:23
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I really like all the weird NPC interactions in Elden Ring - the other week I realized Gostoc doesn’t lock you in the room with the knight and the key to the ladder in Stormveil if you lie to him and tell him you want to take the main gate and then go in the back way anyway, he ends up outside on the rooftops waiting to see you get turned into a pincushion.
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Apr 23, 2022 20:33
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What the gently caress that was HIM?
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Apr 24, 2022 01:50
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Do not regret for a second my choice to kill that guy when I saw him stomping on Godrick's corpse
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Apr 24, 2022 01:53
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Last Celebration posted:What the gently caress that was HIM? He also steals a percentage of your runes when you die in Stormveil.
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Apr 24, 2022 02:00
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The fact Gostoc is so amazingly dickish and also easily killed makes the fact he gives a really useful item (though not a one-of-a-kind one) at the end of the questline he’s involved in icing on the cake. You want to murder the poo poo out if him but shouldn’t.
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Apr 24, 2022 02:03
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Bussamove posted:The fact Gostoc is so amazingly dickish and also easily killed makes the fact he gives a really useful item (though not a one-of-a-kind one) at the end of the questline he’s involved in icing on the cake. You want to murder the poo poo out if him but shouldn’t. No actually you should.
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Apr 24, 2022 02:07
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Can’t you murder him after receiving the item?
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Apr 24, 2022 02:18
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haveblue posted:Can’t you murder him after receiving the item? Yes you can, but you shouldn't wait.
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Apr 24, 2022 02:23
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