monetarydread

I am on a break at work, so I don’t have time to search for it... but ai know that Jeff, on his tumblr, said that they weren’t going to cover the game because of little interest on their part and the controversy surrounding the game.

@stephen_von_cloud: You are entitled to your opinion, but c'mon, if you have done any reading on the subject you have to know you are in the minority on that opinion right? I loved Max Payne 3 on PC, but have you tried to play the game with a controller? It is objectively one of the worst controlling shooters on console because the free aim option requires immense accuracy and reflexes that way too demanding/fast for most people, or you can choose the auto-aim option that basically does all the work for you.

Also those three games arguably do have controls that are weirder and potentially worse than most other games. They have applied physics/momentum to determine how your character moves around the environment and that results in this weird, floaty, unresponsive, animation-priority character movement that is completely in opposition to how almost every other game controls. Most games have this instant movement, so you are running forward and push left, your character just moves left instead of this weird momentum thing where the character tries to react realistically. There is potential value in being realistic, especially if you actually believe in things like Ludonarrative dissonance being important to pay attention to, but it is for sure a stylistic choice and by no means a better choice.

@seikenfreak: I am reading your section about opinions being more valid than others. I have to disagree with that, this isn't some group of university professors arguing whether a game should be canonized or not, this is a video game website talking about what games are most relevant for the staff at this particular website. Even if your original stance is correct, as far as the subjective opinions of the giantbomb crew and discussion of "most disappointing game is concerned," the opinion of the person who was most vocal about how the first RDR was the best game of last generation and now thinks RDR2 is a disappointing game should hold more value then, right?

As for Jeff, he is very vocal about liking games in the open-world genre and is specific on the reasons why he doesn't like RDR/RDR2. So why should his opinion be any less valid? Just because there is authorial intent behind some of the games decisions doesn't mean that the game absolved from making those decisions. If I am forced to watch a bunch of shitty, animations that take way too long because the developer wanted a game that is slower paced to represent the movies the game is influenced by, doesn't mean that the game is still filled with shitty animations that slow down the pace of the game. The only thing that Jeff has implied that he isn't a fan of is role-playing immersion at the expense of fun and that is a completely valid point to bring to the discussion.

@dgtlty: RDR2 put almost 100% focus on story, doubled down on the busywork-style role playing elements, and the animation-priority styled control scheme from the first game felt even more slow, unresponsive and unwieldy than before.

Dan is the kind of person who doesn't give a shit about a games story unless it's the equivalent of a summer blockbuster and he isn't the person to get so immersed in an experience that actual role-playing adds anything (edit: I asume Dan also doesn't give a damn about Ludonarrative Dissonance), so those portions of RDR mean nothing to his opinion of the game and are more of a negative than a positive. This means that only things left that really mattered to his opinion of the game is how it plays. When it comes to the game-play of RDR2 Dan felt like the game didn't evolve past the 1st version while doubling down on all the bullshit time-wasters, like not being able to skip skinning animations that take WAY too long and add nothing to the game. He was able to look past that before, but with RDR2 the story went more in a direction that meant nothing to him, the game was filled with even more boring busywork, and the controls felt even more like garbage than before so you now have a recipe for games Dan doesn't like. He mentioned that he had those complaints about the first game but, after Jeff pried it out of him, it seemed like RDR2 doubled down on the stuff Dan hated and minimized the crazy, vidya-game aspects Dan liked from the 1st game.

At least that is what I seem to remember from the discussion.

@not_a_bumblebee: Yo. I'm glad to see someone else giving the new Baki a chance and you summed up why it's great perfectly.

To answer your question though, there is a lot to be gained by watching the older 46ish episodes yet I wouldn't say you have to watch them. The original anime is from the late 90's/ealy-2000's and it had low production values for even back then. What is worst is that the anime has some amazing moments that are definitely worth seeing, but almost half the shows episodes just aren't worth it... hell, I would say that S1 was mediocre, s2 was interesting but too long (it's every single fight in a 16 man tournament, complete with at-least a half episode of backstory for every character), s3 really amps up the crazy, and if we see a s4 we will see arguably the best storyline of the manga.

So I guess my recommendation would be to watch the old series if you are looking for a new anime, are willing to put up the issues, and there is nothing else to watch instead. If there is anything else to watch I would recommend just reading the manga. it's like Hajime No Ippo in that the manga started forever ago and never really stopped. The anime can never come close to catching up with the story so you are going to have to start reading the issues eventually. Also, there is a second cour for the 3rd season that hasn't aired outside of Japan yet, so you have something to look forward to.

Ideas:

• What SSD do you have? I know that some cheaper SSD's do not have the ability to be a boot drive.
• Did you clone your SSD ever? There are lots of reasons why this could be an issue, but when I messed up an cloned my HDD and used that image on my SSD it caused a GPT/MBR (edit: the Master Boot Record is like a phonebook for the location of data) error.
  • If the MBR is faulty you can just google, "fix MBR" and that will help.

Here is a video to watch on setting up an SSD.

@warofart: I checked out those keycaps and damn!, thats >$200 USD worth of keycaps. That site charges like $55 plus shipping for those.

As for the post, I own a Corsair K70 with Cherry reds and o-rings to prevent them from bottoming out and my roommate owns the same version with Blues. I bought this for gaming, and I prefer typing on mechanical keys, but the noise of these things is annoying.

Skyrim - Once upon a time I didn't bother to learn how to mod Skyrim properly. After around 600 hours my save file stopped working because the mods corrupted my save file. This might have been the one time I actually played the game again.

@guip1408: Why don't you think so?

For me, some of the reasoning that makes me choose Spider Man at 1, Monster Hunter at 3, and GOW somewhere in the top-5 comes down to listening to the podcast and knowing how GOTY has worked in the past (I have been following the site the the Arrow Pointing Down blog). Take MHW as an example, going off of the podcast and info from the site, name one other game that has been as universally loved by the crew as this one? Hell, it is even loved by Jeff and that guy has gone on rants as to how much he dislikes the previous entries in the series and how MHW is amazing because they finally made a game that allows him to see the appeal of the series. Now there are serious arguments for the problems with the game, but again, it grabbed the attention of almost everyone on staff and historically those are the games that tend to win GOTY on this site. There are arguably better games, like Red Dead 2, but that game has a major division in popularity between the staff. Jeff hates it and lots of the staff that did enjoy it have given up on the game with people like Dan saying that this is one of the most disappointing games of the year for him. The exact same thing can be said for God of War, half the staff didn't like that game enough to actually make it past the half-way point, they just quit because the game play was tedious and the story wasn't enough to pull them along. So whats left? Return of the Obra Dinn, Tetris Effect, Dead Cells, Celeste? Those are all games that the staff has dismissed for one reason or another. Celeste is too boring and generic with its only real appeal being nostalgia and the story twist and a good chunk of the staff think that tight game play is more important than story. A good chunk of the staff agree that Dead Cells is a great game, but the length of runs has repeatedly been mentioned as a major turn off for several members. Tetris Effect might be a sleeper, and everyone seems to love it... but it's just Tetris with a Lumines skin and VR support that the staff agrees is fun for a moment but is better on a regular TV. Obra DInn is a good game, but we run into a problem where it seems like Vinny is the only one who has given the game its due so he will probably be the only one really pushing for it.

Now Spider Man being #1. It probably isn't the best game of the year and it is one that most people on the site have said is flawed... but then they all pretty much played it through to the end and can you name another game this year that has happened with? If almost everyone on staff has played through such a long game then there must be something there. I am guessing it is like GOTY 2011 all over again where Saints Row: The Third, Portal 2 and Bastion were the games that the staff were most passionate about. Yet, Skyrim won almost by default because passions were high about SR3, Portal and Bastion yet that passion wasn't unanimous and Skyrim was good enough for the staff members to all have put in a good chunk of time.

Edit: As for the rest of the predictions. Hottest Mess; that prediction came from the fact that there are a LOT of broken, half-baked online games this year. It seems like Fallout 76 is a lock, and now that I type this down I am doubting my prediction... then again, The Quiet Man exists. The rebranding of "best short form game," is something that seems to happen almost every year, so mentioning another rebranding is barely a prediction. The best story prediction is basically what happens EVERY year in GOTY, with the only real exceptions being when Patrick or Austin was on staff... but those two are gone now and Vinny, Abby and Brad are the only two members left who prefer story enough to fight for a game like Obra Dinn. Brad has been vocal about giving an award to something other than a thumpin techno soundtrack enough times now that it is beginning to be a trope so another barely prediction, prediction. Another barely prediction, prediction is in the Red Dead Argument... there is a real chance I am wrong here, but GOTY podcasts do show that Jeff is the alpha arguer of the group and he has a history of using that skill to shut down games he isn't a fan of. Hell, I remember the Skyrim GOTY win and Jeff sounded like he was almost on the verge of putting his foot down and just declaring Saints Row the winner that year.... same thing with Mario Maker. The Abby portion is maybe a little unfair, she has only been on one GOTY podcast grind so far. I assume she has learned how to better argue her point, but if there is one thing I remember from last years GOTY was how annoyingly aggressive she was with Cuphead even when several staff members flat out told her it wasn't happening.

So are my predictions accurate? Mostly definitely not. They are educated guesses, but the staff has a tendency to cram a lot of those half-finished games in before GOTY podcasts, so all the info I use to predict can be completely invalid.

@vinone: the full version of Fire Pro was released on August 28th for PS4. Considering that the full release on PC happened after the GOTY podcasts, the proper console release was this year, and the PS4 version had a massive single-player mode included with it, there is an argument for it's inclusion in GOTY this year.

My Predictions:

• God of War will make it to the top 5
• Into The Breach makes the top 10
• Spider Man wins GOTY this year after a long argument... it doesn't feel like the game won, so much as it's the least divisive game on the list.
• Hitman will make it into the top 5, despite the fact that the crew hasn't said much about it on the podcast.
• Monster Hunter World will somehow sneak it's way into the top-3, surprising everyone but Jason.
• The longest non-GOTY segment will be for "hottest mess"
• We get another re-branding of "Best Short-Form Game," or whatever they called it last year.
• Best story will be contentious because Vinny will swear by "return of the Obra Dinn," or some other random indie adventure, but he will be pretty much the only person who has played it all. So the crew will suggest things like Red Dead or God of War for thirty minutes until they just give Vinny his damn pick already because Vinny is the only person who actually gives a damn about story that much.
• Brad will argue for some soft-classical type soundtrack again for "best music." The award will go to some game with a thumpin techno soundtrack and Brad will be displeased.
• Alex tends to argue for only one or two games a year, a-la Thumper. This year he will be arguing for "Fire Pro Wrestling."
• Red Dead will barely make it into the top 10
  • Abby will pull a Cuphead again and try to argue for it being #1 until Jeff shuts that down because he doesn't think it's top-10 material. It ends up at #8 because Jeff is the best arguer in the group but the rest of the group won't accept it being out of the top-10.