Giant Bomb Presents: The Ethics of Freedom Cry

Eh it can still be a great party, but if someone walks in and rips ass really bad, it puts a damper on the mood.

The thing is, they will never have equal rights because people make a living on complaining about inequality.

You're absolutely right, people who can't hack it because a piece of content is published that doesn't cater to their interests are really a drag.

And by "rips ass", you mean discussing the very real disenfranchisement of large groups of people in the society that you live in?

Or, you know, people being horribly homophobic. But I'm sure people saying inequality exists and is bad is probably the greater of two evils there.

@declanusaur: What is it with you and complaining about people who want equal rights? You know what, people make money off of complaining about not being able to oppress. Some actually make money off of oppression. You okay with that?

The vast majority of the world is. Where do you think most of your stuff came from? There is a big difference between keyboard activism and actually having a problem with something.

Yeah can't stand them at all.

@zombieslayingin3d: Step up and actually say something resembling an argument. I mean, Patrick hardly ever talks about political issues at all. If this is one such example I’m sure you can point out exactly what is wrong with it. Right? So please do. Tell me what specifically is wrong with this podcast.

If you want to you can also tell me what is specifically wrong with other things but I would prefer it to be this podcast since, you know, you for some reason commented on it. What’s actually your problem with it? Actually tell me your argument.

Holy.

Shit.

Just.

Wow.

All of your "Rorie's going to delete these posts as soon as he sees them, and then you'll see how badly Giant Bomb wants to stifle people who disagree with Patrick!" posts are still up, more than 24 hours later.

Curious.

Yeah, real curious that he doesn't delete stuff claiming he deletes stuff. I wonder whats up with that. Like really what could it be???

@declanusaur: Count and come back to me with actual numbers if you think I’m saying something so egregiously wrong. Aside from a link or two in Worth Reading (dwarfed by the other content in those posts) maybe once every three months or so? Four times a year? Compared with the massive amounts of other content he puts on the site that’s hardly ever.

I’m still waiting for actual arguments relating to this podcast, by the way.

Uh... he-...hey. Hey. Just wanted to say I enjoyed hearing Evan's unique perspective.

Uh... oh... okay, I'm leaving. No one yell at me.

It's a fine interview. For the most part it is just critiquing the game and a lot of the game mechanics on what could have been done better and what was done well along with Evan's historical perspective.

If you are looking at wider issues regarding slavery and history well that's the easier question to answer.

If you look far enough back into your own history you will generally find a time when your ancestors were conquered and treated vilely and made slaves. The Roman's were just one of a few who conquered my ancestors.

Do remember, the moment you start taking games too seriously is the time you need to stop playing and take a long hard look at your life.

P.S. I just say my piece and go. You can agree or disagree, it doesn't matter to me in the slightest. I just don't do the debate thing as people tend to get pissy. You rarely change someones mind so debates end up turning into arguments. Not my scene brothers and sisters.

P.P.S. If you don't like certain content, don't read/watch or listen to it. Nobody is forcing you too.

Stay happy!

It's a shame that every time someone tries to discuss something like this, the "YOU'RE A SJW!" gang come creeping up. I find it strange that this seem to only happen to video games as a medium: I've never seen a very vocal set of fans of movies or books dismissing discussions about race and equality on the basis of it being "SJW" or similar complaints. I hope you guys don't want video games to be taken seriouly by anyone, because the medium won't if we're not allowed to discuss topics that movie sites discuss all the time (too few women and minorities in Hollywood has been a hot subject for years and years).

And if someone calls this "clickbait" they do not know the meaning of the word. This is a podcast without a clickbait-y headline, you don't get to throw that shit around just because it's a serious subject.

It is really a shame that so many people get offended about the idea of trying to treat others like human beings. The term Social Justice Warrior seems strikingly similar to "White Knight", a remark used by people to denigrate decency.

@development: OHMYGOD SWJ GET HIM!!!

No one forces you to consume everything on the site. These kinds of articles do not affect the quality or quantity of output from anyone else on the site. It's easily avoided if you have no interest or are actively put off but these kinds of thoughtful conversations.

You're just looking for a fight. Nothing more, nothing less.

And unfortunately people (like me) engaged with you.

All it would take is ignoring the same vocal minority in this community that pop up nearly every time to regurgitate they're closed minded opinions. Or just banning them wholesale.

God, if only.

yeah man rorie's real scared of offending you and letting you vocalize your stuff when he could just ban you so you never talk again

@rockyraccoon37: The second reply on that chain of comments just shows exactly how jumpy and overly defensive most of the detractors on this site are. So quick to kick up a fuss over perceived slights against them, no interest in commenting on any of patrick's articles beyond a vague generic "I hate patrick, all his articles say I'm a jerk." on every article, regardless of the topic.

Jaysus there are some prissy drama queens commenting on this one.

This sentence right here sums up why everyone gets so fucking up in arms every time Patrick writes an article, or makes a podcast, talking about an issue which he finds fucked up. They see a little of themselves in there, and they had never considered the proposition that they could in fact be a complete dick head. Rather than reflect on those things they reject it and lash out.

I swear the Giantbomb fan community has to be the most starkly opposite group of people in comparison to the people that create the content they enjoy. All the staff members are funny, intelligent, well meaning and friendly people. Almost everyone that uses comment sections and the chat are literal children or people with a children's worldveiw. It's stunning how willfully ignorant a group of people can be, all for the name of vidja games.

To paraphrase Jeff Gerstmann: if you people actually think that Patrick is changing the site or we should not approve of the content he creates, please stop watching our stuff.

I did come here after listening to see of anyone wanted to talk about why there really aren't man Black character leads in video games and I see the people here have another agenda.

I guess I'll add. I like Patrick. I liked Freedom Cry. I don't really like Kotaku but I ended up really liking Evan after hearing him speak here. I'm prepared for everyone to call me a kiss ass. Also it's nice to see Patrick in here defending himself, there's way to much Klepkek hate on his articles, you guys could always avoid his stuff if you really feel this strongly about him.

I felt the machete was a much needed addition to AC4 and would have liked to see more heavy weapons in the main game. All the pointy swords were nice but beyond stats and some minor aesthetics they didn't really bring anything unique to the combat. I didn't play 3 but I've definitely heard that people felt that the combat in that game had a lot more weapon variety. The machete here feels right, not only is it a nice change of pace, it also fits the character and the overall tone of the game quite well. It's kind of sad that so much effort goes into making each installment of the AC franchise feel like it's own world and yet all the character mostly use the same weapons even though their lives would have been hundreds of years apart and their fighting backgrounds wildly different. The assassin combat in general is too homogenous, it doesn't seem to matter that Kenway would have spent 80% of his time fighting on a rocking boat and thus may have adopted a much different technique than say Altair who would have been a trained swordsmen or Ezio who was less experienced at the same age but certainly more graceful and elegant.

In FC the machete is tonally correct, it's a blunt instrument, it's brutal, a symbol of revenge. They could have easily made FC into a tarantino-eque revenge game with X butchering every well-to-do pomp within eyeshot but it's mostly tasteful (for an AC game) and the few changes made the gameplay are satisfying without seeming out of place.

Can I ascend my earthly form yet?

Also, these fuckin' spammers! Why they feel a need to follow the crew then start posting spam is beyond me.

I'm late to the party, but people criticize Patrick and Evan for talking about slavery when the subject is a game where the story involves slavery?

I mean, how can they talk about the game without talking about slavery? Would you hate a movie critic because he had written an article about 12 Years a Slave?

People are freaking insane.

So glad this is on the site. I've been super curious about people's opinion on this DLC but haven't seen much out there.

This was a really interesting interview- thanks Patrick and Evan!

Cool interview, Patrick! Evan is always a cool dude to hear from, and his articles are some of the best on Kotaku.

Also, suuuuuuuper funny that declanusaur doesn't get why people are telling him to go back to /v/. If you go around calling someone a Social Justice Warrior, it's as bad as calling someone a White Knight. The terms attempt to trivialize opinions on racism/sexism, as if people are just talking about those topics to impress people or because it gets attention. If you call someone a SJW, you clearly aren't looking to actually have a discussion, and you just want to denigrate somebody's convictions because you don't think they're genuine or something.

Also, lol at everybody saying "this isn't the Giant Bomb I remember!". If this wasn't Giant Bomb, Jeff would fire Patrick's ass. Pro tip: Jeff thinks Patrick does good work, so I don't see that happening any time soon.

Haven't finished an AC since 3, but got back into it with Origins/Odyssey (more so Odyssey). Still need to go back and play Freedom Cry some day.