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You’re right… it’s better
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Jun 20, 2023 20:30
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 01:56 |
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I mean you can disagree with January’s reasoning, but the character, such as it is, is an honest one. It’s very open about its reasons for doing anything (including things that could read as sketch) and does not embellish or lie about anything, even when doing so could ease its way. It’s a character you can doubt, but you’re only paranoid about its motives the first time you play. It sort of naturally assumes that its arguments are self-evidently correct, and as such, is basically guileless. Which is not invalid, as characterization. It’s just that the operators, as weird and uncanny as they are, don’t engage with the paranoiac elements of the story because they’re not quite actors the way the human characters are. January’s interference against using the escape pod is not really that manipulative — it can’t seem to comprehend that Morgan wouldn’t agree with it, and in the end seems to view its actions as removing impediments rather than removing options. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 20, 2023 |
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Jun 20, 2023 22:38
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Serephina posted:There's an excerpt from an in-game news clipping about how some rich rear end in a top hat got an operator in a posh ivory humanoid chassis to be the executor of his will, much to the irritation of his family and sparking legal debate on it. Seeing how executors have to be of sound mind, that's pretty strong support for 'strong AI'.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:36
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In any case I think a constructivist ontology / theory of mind (ie “a perfect physical representation of a person’s living brain is a meaningfully perfect clone of the person”) isn’t something the game actually endorses. January is distinct from the Morgan that created it, certainly distinct from the “Morgan” the player controls, and neither it nor October really see themselves as Morgans (January states this outright iirc), hence their full dependence on persuading the player-Morgan rather than pursuing their goals independently. They are designed with limited agency because their goal is to aid, not act. At the same time there’s the implication that Morgan is advancing operator design at the time of the game (eg, Skillet the chefbot), and whether the station personality operators at the ending are more advanced than January is kind of an open question, though the idea that Alex has been alone in the world aside from imperfect chatbot versions of his colleagues would be suitably bleak Twilight Zone vibes. Ofc if the sentient gun had made it into the game that would have sealed things anyway — the proposed arc would seem to imply that true artificial consciousness comes with extreme existential despair, which none of the other AIs would seem to exhibit. Ergo, they are not true AI.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:59
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Tortolia posted:I would still say that Prey is better since it's based on two decades of enhancements to the genre design, but as someone who Kickstarted SS2023 and had basically written off that money I've been extremely pleased with it. Hoping Nightdive takes a crack at a remaster of the second game. Also it’s not made of cubes What I’ll say about SSR is that it is shows the game to be a precursor to the modern immersive sim rather than an actual one. A significant precursor, but an adulterated FPS all the same. Citadel station does not feel like a place, it feels like a series of Doom levels, and not even very good ones. It does not remotely compare to Talos One. At the risk of making ppl mad I’d say that Duke Nukem 3D is as much of a modern immersive sim as SS1, if you don’t care about audio logs. The first porno theater level feels more like a realized locale than basically any SSR level
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Jul 10, 2023 16:45
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Strippers are in the 2nd level of D3D not the first. PREY’s strippers are in the mysterious dark spot beyond the Talos radiation shield and no one has gotten there yet. Also when you throw cash at them it turns out to be a stack of mimics
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Jul 10, 2023 17:19
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Yeah all I’m saying is that SS1 and Prey aren’t really comparable — and that even if you scaled the criteria to things that SS1 actually attempts, I still think Prey is better in those respects. The updates of gameplay to SS1 in the remake are pretty conservative, though Nightdive was actually going to do more before the neckbeard crowd shut them down when it was announced. Obviously, I wish they’d changed more. Prey vs SS2, now there’s an interesting comparison. I think there’s an argument to be made that SS2 would actually benefit more from the light touch used for SSR — the “friction” (to use a term people throw around a lot re: the most ambitious immersive sim yet made, Tears of the Kingdom) and difficulty are what made it really memorable, but there’s always such a thin line between friction and imbalance. SS2 had the flaw common to most every classic tabletop and CRPG: It gives you several build options but punishes you for pursuing the really interesting ones. Tbqh I think if Arkane had been given the time to meaningfully implement the survival mechanics into the main game, Prey would have fully been what SS2 aspired to be. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 19:16
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I mean there are red keys and red doors. Also the levels really do sprawl
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Jul 10, 2023 20:06
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I mean there are some elements of immersive sim in A:I, but immersive sims, like roleplaying games generally, have O positive blood where design is concerned. I wouldn’t call it an immersive sim per se. There’s obviously a heavy emphasis on place — like any good modern IS, its visual designers (if not the level designers) went HAM. There are interesting ways the AI can behave (it has justly praised AI!), but at least on my playthrough(s), emergent systems and level interaction beyond noisemaker distraction hasn’t been emphasized. Even that one bit where you use the floor to electrocute immortan joes is more like an adventure game puzzle than even the most rudimentary Bioshock “use fire to melt ice” systemic interaction. Still better than Amnesia, though. All that might just be a function of how being spotted by the alien sans a flamethrower / lucky Molotov toss is guaranteed death in almost every circumstance. If there were more ways to delay attack or even juggle the thing, you could make more noticeable use of, for example, the cool-seeming big red buttons that lock doors behind you. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jul 12, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 23:32
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 01:56 |
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You gotta be careful as the psychic blast from the dying telepath can pop the heads of mind controlled ppl if they’re close enough
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Jul 15, 2023 22:26
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