devise22

@colourful_hippie: He should ban him before that. I'm just waiting for an adult to enter the room and actually do something here. At some point, someone responsible in the American Government and public eye has to actually qualify Proud Boys and Trumpism for what it is. Cultist, troll, terrorists. Period. This "but we'll piss off the base" approach needs to end, and the longer even Biden's statements are weak on the subject the worse this looks for all the US imo.

This is a really tough question honestly, as it is fair to criticize the lack of or lobby for more free content on the site. Especially since in the olden days and for much of it's existence this site has had history with covering or Quick Looking a fair amount of releases.

On the other hand; even if we ignore the uniqueness of the problems the current landscape in reality creates, before 2020 the QL stream was slowing. It has become clear for some time now that there is a "shift" in what covering video games means today versus back then. Will E3 even come back? I guess what I'm saying is for the GB crew (or anybody who covers video games) to shift to a more premium centric approach first isn't exactly something unexpected or really new. If your looking for coverage of almost any video game, it's out there. Everybody tripled down on doing what GB did in many ways, also to such a degree that GB itself kind of feels more "editorial" if you will by comparison. Most of the people vastly popular who cover games have no background in games journalism at all these days is what I mean there. So GB still being a site mostly comprised of that ilk sets it apart. The other "big" sites have a few lifers on staff but freelance so much that nobody really carves a real identity.

Ultimately I don't know, I get that for many showing up to the site to enjoy a Quick Look of a game your interested in buying has always been useful, and a staple. I just also know that if you were to ask me if QL's were to be more selective and the site were to take a more premium focused approach I'd still be okay with it, and do feel like it's pretty much a sign of the times more than anything else.

I picked up a Switch Lite over the holidays to finally check out some indy's and other things I've missed this past generation. Hades has pretty much been the only thing I've touched since, and was absolutely the first game I played in 2021 and what I've played the most thus far I'd say. At least it's holding up to the hype thus far though.

@pnutz83 The irony of your crusade in here against the descriptor "offensive" considering you could argue you are getting offended that people are offended about something is pretty wild to me. Seriously though; it's just a word. Stop getting so caught up in the zeitgeist to presume it means exactly the worst case scenario that your implying it does. People are OFFENDED by Cyberpunk and have a right to be. Anyone that isn't doesn't need to weigh in to determine if it's offensive only acknowledge that some people find aspects of the game offensive. But even now this devolves into a debate about the correct wordage for the appropriate "level" of offensive this is.

Why does this level of criticism have to be so hard for people to just accept and move on with? I don't get it. Regardless of your opinion of the game itself, or what it does. Like the fact that there had to be follow up posts covering the basic principles of how to apply empathy in a situation like this is almost insulting to where a discourse like this SHOULD be at by this point in time.

RIP Brodie. Still nothing more to say on it, such a heartbreaker.

Eh, okay? I don't know, I've never been a big holiday person through much of my life but this entire calendar year been very odd in general so it's tough to say. Despite living in Canada my Dad is a full on Trumper. Combine that with the fact that I've never really had good ties with my family in general, and of course Covid, where their lack of seriousness over it pretty much ended my relationship with any of my family this year. So I did spend the holidays alone this year as opposed to being guilted into spending it around toxic people/toxic situations.

It was welcoming not to deal with the stress of what family brings, but still a bit lonely. With the exception of some messages with a few friends and some folks online my interactions were kept pretty low. I mostly just hung with the roommate watching Jeopardy and played Hades.

That said the best thing for my stress this holiday season was to just pass on some good wishes and joy where possible. There is nothing more cathartic for a lonely X-mas than seeing your good will bring joy to others, seriously. However big or small the gesture, if your feeling down this year due to the situation I'd totally recommend finding an outlet to share and show some support, especially with everything going on the world right now.

Hope you all have a safe and good holiday. Here's to another year of GB and maybe a better year for the real world in 2021.

@theoracleofgame: Haha yeah I'm in the same category. I guess for me the distinction is that despite it being offensive (it is) how it lazily presents itself really impacts how offensive it can be. Like the ambient gang dialogue in combat specifically contains a lot of offensive word choices that feel entirely meant to justify them as generic enemies. Not only is it offensive but it's a lazy attempt to make your enemies feel bad. They also do nothing with it from what I've seen, as someone above mentioned about Wolfenstein as an example of something that more so did.

It almost kind of makes some of Cyberpunks stuff doubly offensive, because the decisions on how to use their edginess often come across as "well we met the line, these are shit people your meant to kill anyways." It's just so bare minimum that it absolutely doesn't justify their use of offensive shit in game, especially when you consider that much of the offensive content is baked into the games overall aesthetic.

I'm watching my roommate play it from time to time and yeah I'm not overly offended by anything in it but I do have to agree with some in here, it's so edgy. Like there are things in it that without the context the game provides are absolutely offensive to say. My concern over the games edgy/offensive nature is more just how lazy it all comes across.

In Borderland the meme humor felt like their pitch, the "hey we did satire and the internet in our shooter" approach. Whether it worked for you or not (mostly not for me) is besides the point that at least you could see their pitch. Cyberpunk's tone is so all over the place I don't really get the pitch sometimes. Some of the enemy gangs have some of the laziest edgy combat dialogue I've heard, and it does come across as a bit more "shock you" to make you want to fuck them up. Far too many NPC's in the game just have dialogue straight out of subreddits and it's just kind offputting. I get they are trying to make these people feel real to the era they are set, but it all just comes across pretty stereotyped.

Ultimately there is just an aspect to the writing, some of the style choices and just overall with a lot of the games attempts at using humor that make you think the people who made these decisions thought they were much "cooler" than they are. When in reality even the semi cool shit in the game isn't like that groundbreaking or anything. It's a game a little too obsessed with it's own ideas honestly, and I think that is why it can often come across as offensive.

As someone who was their for the majority of this live, yeah this is worth a watch. If your missing on some of the classic GB format with long heated debates but all in good nature this has that in spades. It's long, but like that was kind of the point of the format haha.

Also @humanity clearly a typo in the thread title because if I recall it's Dan, Mary and Mark making the GOTY video.