Malaki-LEGEND.sys

Outside of trolls the internet over just trying to stir the pot, I'm pretty sure this is the general consensus of her detractors.

That article Mirby pointed out gives some great perspective. For starters, and this has been a point of contention for me for awhile, why do certain games even HAVE a multiplayer option? Assassin's Creed 2, Tomb Raider, Spec Ops: The Line, Ninja Gaiden 3, Bioshock, the list goes on. These games live and die by their single player narratives and gameplay, and yet they add a very superfluous multiplayer that people might try for a day and never look at again; Wasted time and money. Secondly, and this might earn me some ire, why do we employee so many people whose salaries have ballooned FAR beyond what they should be worth? Don't get me wrong, a person needs to be compensated fairly, but really? An average of $76,400 a year for a programmer with less than 3 years of experience? And people wonder why companies are quick to gut employees when a game doesn't meet sales projections such as Tomb Raider with it's 3.4 million(which apparently meant shipped, not actual sold from a correction Garnett Lee made on an episode of Weekend Confirmed). Honestly, the biggest reason I didn't buy games used before was because of a lack of quality control; games could be covered in assorted types of shit or not even work. Now however this problem is nearly done away with, and I didn't feel bad at all about buying a used copy of New Super Mario Bros. U when it cost me the price of a last gen Wii game as opposed to freaking 60 bones. Games are getting more and more expensive, and the industry is becoming more and more anti-consumer with the Xbone and PS4. Don't know how much more I can take.

So far we just have the Gamepad and an extra Wiimote plus, but we'll be getting another Wiimote by Tuesday which is great since I'll have the day off and a friend will be visiting us, so more chaos! And hot damn is NintendoLand fun. We just finished playing about 2 hours of it just the two of us, and so much laughing and rage was had. Definitely don't regret grabbing the system now.

New Super Mario Bros. U is fun as hell with multiple people, and playing what is essentially God mode in boost mode. Seriously, we fight over the damn thing. Who knew?

Well right now we have New Super Mario Bros. U, NintendoLand, and we grabbed Super Metroid for $0.33 earlier. I've played a few levels of NSMBU, and I think I like it quite a bit thus far. I'd REALLY love to hear word on a new Final Fantasy title if that rumor were true. Hell, even if it were just a Wii U version of FFXIV 2.0 that'd be great, and I think given the functionality between the Wii U, the GamePad, and the 3DS, a Wii U Crystal Chronicles would work pretty well, but I dunno. Much like FFX ain't my favorite FF game, Wind Waker isn;'t my favorite Zelda game, so I don't really know if I'd be keen on grabbing it unless they added more dungeons, less stupid fetch quests. I guess we'll be waiting on e3, but we pretty much grabbed the thing on the promise of what's on the horizon. Honestly, I think this has turned into Nintendo's strategy all along; get their latest system out in Nov./Dec., then wait a few months 'til e3 to release actual news when everyone's starved for new releases.

So the girl and I just got a Wii U Deluxe with New Super Mario Bros. U today. What other games should we grab in the near future and what's on the horizon, people?

Except that even as a discussion topic, all she's doing is offering an opinion based on an overbearing sense of cynicism, personal bias, and sexist rhetoric. Video games surely don't exist in a vacuum, but then I as an artist don't and shouldn't have to give a fuck about maintaining some sense of social responsibility in terms of what I want to create. That's my creative license as an artist and what she's proposing isn't too far off from censorship. In addition to her indecision on whether or not women should or shouldn't be involved in depictions of violence, which is not only confusing and batty, but the way she words it is also partly offensive, as she's indirectly saying that it's perfectly cool for men to be brutally maimed and/or incapacitated.

Duke Nukem Forever specifically, but isn't it also agreed that outside of being a great FPS for its time, Duke Nukem as a series is just an over the top parody of pretty much everything action movie?

Just reposting what I wrote back on the Joystiq article: I'm honestly disappointed in Sarkeesian's video series. To be totally honest, it seems to have the same level of utility that every paper that I and classmates in both my bachelor's and master's Psychology degrees have written over the course of eight years, which is to say none at all; It just regurgitates the same information that we've known for years without offering any real science or solutions to the issue at hand. I think my biggest overall complaint is how she frames her arguments as an extension of feminist interests as opposed to creating better narratives and doing a better overall job of creating a good game in general. She picks examples of games that liberally use boring writing tropes that are just as guilty of being terrible games. I mean really? Using Duke Nukem as an example of anything? Dante's Inferno? These are games that nobody ever cared about even upon release! I have much more to add, but I'm still trying to organize my thoughts on all of this, but really, I guess my main criticism is that she doesn't seem interested in what is best for the industry, creative mediums and women's issues as a whole, as much as it's about what she wants. I also added a preamble about respecting opinions and what not, but you guys are relatively rational, so that ain't needed here.

Also not to reopen old arguments, but I concur with some posters that I don't really get all the angst against sports games. Let's ignore the whole idea behind televised sports for a minute(because I personally find that boring), and admit that basketball? Actually pretty fun. Soccer? You betcha. They are GAMES after all. Yeah, it's fun to get some friends and play some basketball together, or just do some free throws yourself, but yeah, it's sometimes hard to make that all happen. I guess the biggest issue I have is that really, every game EA produces each year is just another roster switch with minimal gameplay changes, but didn't they create some kind of DLC scheme where you could just pay a bit for the roster or something? Is that still an issue? Other than that, I can't really say I have much of an issue with sports games or Call of Duty(because hey, Call of Duty isn't that bad either), so I won't really fault MS for those reveals. While I do have my own "armchair intellectual" thoughts on the system(and that hypothetical internet situation I mentioned was actually my situation for about 7 months), I've already migrated back to the PC, and it seems that slowly but surely, a lot of the devs that I care about are doing the same, and that number seems like it'll be increasing given the architecture of both new consoles, so as long as I can convince the majority of my buddies to migrate back to PC as well, I don't see a reason to own either system. That'll probably change once the next Final Fantasy isn't announced for the PC again though...

Actually, it kind of IS an outrage. What if you're in a living arrangement that for whatever reason has you forced to use a wireless connection that is quite a ways from your system and thus is about as reliable as a Michael Pachter prediction? Regardless of any valid reason, it's still outrageous. I bought a game for full retail or whatever price, and most people outside this forum either don't know or care about the difference between buying a license and buying a product, and I expect the thing to work. Not everyone wants their living rooms looking like an electronics store. I can sympathize however with the argument that it just isn't that cost effective, especially in the case of the original Xbox to the 360 given the lack of stellar titles in general that weren't produced by Bungie or Team Ninja, but what if someone has a bunch of third party titles on their 360, or would like to explore some third party titles from older systems on their brand new shiny Xbox One console? Also, I can see some ruined Christmas hopes due to mom mistaking the Xbox One for the original Xbox. "Wow! I can get Timmy this Xbox console for just $50 instead of that other one for $400!" Stranger things have happened.

Because this thread has been chock full of compelling statistical evidence. Come now, you can't say with a straight face after playing in more than a few Live/online matches in many games and see the vitriolic posting on forums that there ISN'T something generally wrong with a medium to large portion of the gaming audience. Naturally my statement doesn't speak to the entire audience(and I'm a bit insulted that you'd think I'd speak in absolutes), but there's a pretty clear reason why we have these stereotypes about online gamers. They don't pop out of thin air after all. Again, not really adding much to this specific topic, but just something to think about.

I surely hope someone has taken into account or has at least mentioned the fact that that taken as a larger piece, the gaming audience isn't this massive communion of thoughtful, socially-conscious Mother Teresas but rather a foul amalgamation of prepubescent, asocial, amoral, disenfranchised, dregs that think cursing and farting is still funny, and this is without taking into account all the man children out there. Because I honestly think that far too many people think "gamers"(which is a dumb thing anyway) are these idealized ubermenschen without actually seeing the audience what it's for, and more importantly, realizing that this is the audience companies are going to be catering to. Not entirely related to the greater argument, but still a point I'm hoping people are considering.

Why is it cool for Zircon to post opinions from the target audience in this thread, and yet I get totally thrown under the bus for posting opinions from the target audience in our previous thread on sexism?

I don't really have a problem with this. I'm more interested in a steady stream of interesting news rather than a big presentation about shit nobody cares about. I feel it also let's them focus more on reaching their core market. The people who want to know about Nintendo are going to be dedicated enough to check out their Nintendo Directs, and thus Nintendo can gauge how much interest there really is for certain titles based on what seems at least to me to be a much more reliable metric as opposed to an E3 showing. Hell, they're better off hitting Gamescom and PAX at this point. E3 is old hat.

1) Because what you just pointed out is a terrible idea. 2) There were many things that blew people's minds in FFVII. Its plot wasn't one of them. Nope, I don't have anything else to contribute to this topic which is strangely still alive.

Give me a fucking break. As if the original Dante were any interesting in the first place. I'm actually shocked that so many people with seemingly comic book-level(defined herein as base adolescent) interests don't take a vested interest in DmC seeing that it was actually written by a comic book writer.

And all of a sudden, Warren Spector shed a lone tear...

What can I say other than the game is excellent? It's definitely informed by Sony's Uncharted series, but with a character and a setting/scenario that I find much more interesting. I really like what they did with the combat, however it DID feel a mite too linear which made the exploration suffer, although I guess that was a given due to the narrative they were going for(which I thought was excellent). I guess I'd like to see a story immediately following the story of Tomb Raider where Lara begins to really hone her combat and acrobatic skills as she takes an even greater interest in her father's stories and how she eventually hooks up with Zip and Alister.

Bleeeck! Why don't you like what I like!?

If anything, it being released as a PS4 exclusive would actually get people to buy the thing. I'm honestly worried about the attach rate of next-gen consoles, but that's tangential to this discussion. If they handle Versus-or rather FFXV hereby rumored as they handled Type-0, i.e. pretty much get rid of anything that would connect it to the FFXIII series, then I don't really see the problem if it DID end up being the next numbered title. It had just better be amazing. As much as I love the FFXIII series, it DID have big issues and sales/public opinion weren't great for it either. FFXIV just shat the bed. Whatever comes next is going to really make or break it for the series.

I'm hoping he meant to say "it was a rhetorical question."

Grabbed it for myself and the girlfriend earlier today as part of a Steam Mid-week Madness sale for $15. I'm having trouble getting it to work with my gamepad(less to do with the game and more to do with shitty gamepad), but from what I've played, it's essentially like a balls out version of Diddy Kong Racing which is certainly no bad thing.

The game looks and plays amazing on the PC, and I'm absolutely pissed off at the fan base for even assuming that this entry lacks any of the crazy action and polish of previous entries. The writing still isn't the most amazing stuff in the world, but it has definitely graduated from grating to interesting, and Ninja Theory did a good job with facial captures, which adds A LOT to each story scene I've found. That being said, the controls can be pretty complex, and after every battle I have to stretch my hands and fingers just because I feel like I gave them a pretty nice workout(I'm playing on Nephilim AKA the only way to play). I definitely cannot recommend playing it on anything but a gamepad. I Still haven't finished it, but I appreciate that it has a nice length and deep gameplay mechanics. Stringing together combos on the fly feels really great, and the grappling mechanics make for some lengthy attacks and interesting platforming. Seriously, if DmC and Tomb Raider(just finished that one on Tuesday) are any sign of where gaming and gaming narratives are going, then by all means sign me up!

$13.99 is the price of two Bic Macs. If you can't scrap at least THAT together per 30 day period, then you should probably pick up a different hobby. Of course it's all about value judgement as well so you're more than welcome to not pay at your leisure, but you end of saving money at the end of the day if you just subscribe to one $13.99 a month game rather than pissing away $60(or whatever amount of dollars really) each time you need a quick gaming fix. Of course Legacy players get the "complete" subscription for $10 a month, so yeah...