Worth Reading: 11/10/2014

I'm normally not a big fan of Vox, but that article is excellent.

@patrickklepek, I really enjoyed the Ezra Klein piece but was disappointed that he didn't challenge us, or himself for that matter, to come up with ways to deescalate and move away from the new normals that he discussed. It could be something as simple as speak and write with more nuance, beware of generalizations, consider empathy over your own self interest.
There's something to be said for connecting the dots and showing correlating issues but what's the point of calling attention to something without adding anything constructive.
Which leads me to ask you and others, what do you think is the way forward or rather away from this super polarized world?

Great write-up as always!

I'm a bit curious about you guys' take on the recent "Freemium Isn't Free" episode of South Park though. I've fallen off from watching every week, but that episode was spot-on with its criticisms and got a few really good laughs out of me.

Ok, that pay respects video made me laugh far more than it should have.

And oh, hey, Tom McShea!

I hope that Vox article inspires Patrick and others to shed the skin of party-line voting.

What was once two shades of positive progress has become a monolithic dogma that encourages discord to trick voters into perpetuating they're relevancy. They're dangerous religion, though worse because they don't even have to pretend to care when they ask hundreds of millions of people to throw their money at them allowing them to further stifle any other voice.

Dem and Rep are now utterly meaningless terms. Look to other parties, look to anyone, just please, please don't vote for someone because you assume that a candidate's label means that they have your best interests in mind.

Gradual memory loss such as Alzheimer's Disease or dementia is the worst but I'm a huge sucker for that stuff. Not reaction videos/trailers though, those are terrible.

Is Critical Distance in trouble?

P.S. Congratualtions to Alexa Ray Corriea on joining Gspot.

"Close Your" looks amazing.

...it grants players the ability to dash in mid-air. Until that point, one of my problems with the game was a growing frustration with navigating the environment exactly the way I wanted.

Good to know, thanks. I'm early in and am also really annoyed with the mechanics of getting around town.

I really, really reject the idea that being against GG is somehow inherently "liberal", or political in general. Just because right-wing nutjobs injected their politics into GG doesn't mean the inverse is true for the "other side" (which here is; people that oppose brutal, gendered harassment).

I wouldn't say PS1 games were that much better at doing emotions. I just think they realized the limitations of the genre and worked better around such limitations. They were more abstract and thus more emotional conclusions could be drawn from less.

Now games just try so hard to force an emotion and they always do it poorly.

I agree with you 100%. I believe that in order to change or improve something, a clear goal with a defined end state is needed.

This may a controversial statement but Twitter needs to end. At its best it was used for the angry and self important. Now is is more a forum for harassment and partisanship. Society existed before it and will exist after its inevitable death. I just believe the process should be spend up.

I think everyone should be able to describe their "opposition" party in positive terms. Understand what it is that they believe. If you can't describe the positives of beliefs held by people you disagree with, we will never have any discussion ever. Just realize that everybody wants peace and prosperity. We just forgot how to talk about it.

That article hit it on the head. I read it and basically said "holy shit, that's exactly what is going on". It's people sticking to their tribes and lambasting the other. It's a huge problem with the media and society at large.

''In a way, I think PS1 era JRPG were light years ahead emotionally of what we've seen so far from mainstream western RPGs.''

This lady is high on the pink haze of pure, uncut, black tar mexican nostalgia. You might be able to make a case for SNES era JRPGs but PS1 era? The era when they replaced good characters with wooden planks with spiky hair?

okay, so Rogue Legacy is addicting, the people that played that for hundreds of hours would have played another game for just as long had it not existed. No one forced you play rogue legacy. I played it for about 14 hours. And I had had my fill.

It is totally political and it is totally liberal. Especially in the gaming media.

I wonder what would happen if you close one eye in Close Your?

Nah, the Opposite Side is actively sabotaging that, and therefore must be destroyed.

Just saw a live action video advertisement for Sunset overdrive that was like 8 minutes long and was hilarious. One of the few games, huge Insomniac fan, that has me interested in buying a new console but ill continue to wait.

@pyrodactyl: I'm not a massive PS1 JRPG afficionado, but from what I have played, Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy IX are both amazing - and Valkyrie Profile had some really interesting story ideas, even if I didn't like the game as a whole that much. The PS1 had plenty of legitamatley good JRPG stories.

Nina! <3

Hmm. That Game Sins. It says its 'inspired by" Cinema Sins. I doubt the whole Cinema Sins things has a copyright or is trademarked, but it's pretty on the nose for lack of a better word, 'stolen'. I'm not one for knowing what's ok in situations like that, but is it?

Also he's bad at that. He's clearly involving opinion and almost reviewing certain aspects instead of just 'sins' so to speak.

The PS1 was to JRPGs as the N64 was to 3D platformers. The absolute zenith could be found there, but so could the occasional overindulgence and pale imitation. Happens with any Golden Age of anything.

That the CD format gave so many JRPG developers a chance to stretch their legs a bit is an important factor to consider. Chrono Trigger and FF6 were amazing, but both those games were fit to bursting and had to take very creative measures to maximize space. A PS1 RPG didn't have nearly as many constraints, for better and for worse.

Of course, very few things in this world age as badly as fifth-generation polygons. The appeal of that generation is going to be a hard thing to explain to young 'uns someday.

Real fuckin serious danger of OD'ing on nostalgia in that first tweet.

@bad_karate:

I was so on board for me to start looking for places other than Twitter and this gave me a glimmer that maybe tech companies are going to take that kind of harassment serious and protect people from those large scale mob attacks.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/women-on-twitter-can-now-fill-out-a-form-to-report-online-ha
And yeah it would be nice if everyone could describe their belief and have discussions about it but a lot of people are unable to do it without threatening and attacking others. And that's behavior that needs to be curbed especially for the people who find themselves on the receiving end more often than not.

I think it's a great article exactly because it doesn't provide a solution or (much) personal commentary from Ezra. You're doing the right thing here by thinking for yourself and drawing your own conclusions based on some good information about what's going on.

The reason that Activision hasn't released a solid sales number is exceedingly obvious. Sales success in a vacuum isn't important here. Destiny's place in the minds of shareholders as the new Call of Duty, the premier franchise that will get Modern Warfare 2 numbers as opposed to Ghosts numbers, is.

It's clear that Call of Duty is slipping from it 20 million unit plus perch, and that for shareholder confidence to remain level a new hotness (Destiny) has to take its place. It's not. It's selling well, but it's not. If it was, Activision would shout it to the high heavens. Much like how Ghosts sales figures were less advertised by Activision compared to previous instalments, Destiny is being obscured so as to not look bad when out next to Call of Duty. With a lot of its PR being focused on the resources spent on making Destiny "the" thing, it not getting "the" sales numbers means I think we can all agree on the reality of its situation in the marketplace.

He even uses the same in-side jokes as Cinema Sins, doing this as a one time homage is fine, even if you're bad at it. But it seems he's been doing it for a while.

Really solid Kickstarter spotlight. I'm thinking about getting three of those. The horror game isn't interesting enough to invest in already. Maybe when it's out.

Patrick laments the tribalization of both sides of GamerGate, but I don't think I ever recall him not acting along "party lines".

He can start now.

@pewps: Of course not he is peaty deep with in one side of the entire debate and have done thing to change that.

ehh, both sides in gamergate are really fucken dumb and i can't believe that argument's gone on for so long lol. the fact is videogames are not that important

That Ezra Klein article is such garbage, i really dont understand why people treat it like its the second coming. Trying to paint people just trying to exist as playing politics? Yuck. Trying to say that politics is something that is new to games? Yuck.

@patrickklepek This amazing Oculus Rift video barely missed the round-up I think!

@MalekMouzon: That's great and all that there's a form to fill out a form to report harassment but it's way too late. The majority of harassment all has one thing in common, Twitter. I know that people should be able to say how they feel and twitter can be used for positive things. But we don't need it. It has turned into a terrible place and a tool for those that wish to harass and attack. Twitter just sucks now. Get rid of it and move on. Then was can destroy the next thing too, whatever it is. You all know we will.

Huh? The N64 had Mario 64 and I guess Banjo 1, but the rest of the platformers from what I can remember are pretty pitiful. The PS2 had 3 great Jak and 3 great Ratchet games, though. That being said the PS1 JRPGs were wonderful. They had obvious restraints like the load times and crummy graphics early on, but by Vagrant Story and Xenogears they were pretty magnificent.

Well Patrick, I think I'm going to have to disagree with you about Sunset Overdrive. I love(relative to the games that have come out recently anyway) that game. It's traversal system is great. It's one open world I feel almost no reason in which to use the fast travel mechanic, but I can't say I enjoy that world. I'll get a collectible if I notice it, but I don't find the city itself interesting enough to warrant me going full Vinny on the collectibles. After I finish it, I don't see myself coming back to it for any meaningful amount of time. It's no big deal and probably makes this long reply a bit silly, and it's probably just my taste in aesthetic. It's just not a depressing wasteland with old tunes on the radio.

@MalekMouzon: Crack open your router, blow up your mail box, and pray everyone leaves you alone.

Jonathan Haidt wrote a really good book about why political conflict has become so pervasive--The Righteous Mind. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.

I would argue that the anti-GG side is far more political than the GG side. I would challenge @patrickklepek to read the following http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/21/gamer-gate-three-stages-to-obit/ as a counterpoint to the VOX article. That is, GamerGate is a reaction, for good or for ill. If you would like a more even handed approach, Ken (of the same site) is spot on: http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/26/ten-short-rants-about-gamergate/.

I would caution against using people or organizations implicated in the scandal. It seems to me like cultivating an echo chamber as opposed to facilitating debate. Also, on a personal note, I would urge you to remember that the idea that "the personal is political" is not the opinion of most members of GamerGate. Indeed, many in the movement reject that idea all together as an outside notion, imported from feminism (see Sargon of Akkad for examples of this).

Patrick,

Thanks for bringing Ezra Kleins article to my attention. I study Political Science so i found it rather interesting. I havn't been following gamergate thank god. I think he's certainly correct about politicisation of everything but theres a couple of problems applying it to gamergate.

Firstly he hints at the fact both sides to this debate are left wing, which i consider to mean this is really an issue debate rather than an ideology debate. Secondly Feminism isn't an ideology in political science its more of a critical thought methodology applied to ideas and issues.

Alex.

I really liked the discussion about rogue legacy and the preface about when a game "clicks". It's obviously different for every player but sometimes when a game isn't "intended" to sustain hundreds of hours of game play, there is something very special about the formula beyond game design. It is all about the fun!

As to "Gamergate"... well... I wish we could all everything rationally without devolving into attacks but I don't know enough about the incident to comment beyond this...

Thanks for the article Patrick, you're awesome

No, Zelda 2 is the Mario 2 of the Zelda series. It's actually very, very accurate to state it that way since Nintendo had some weird direct sequels at the time.

In a way, I think PS1 era JRPG were light years ahead emotionally of what we've seen so far from mainstream western RPGs.

The better ones, yeah (Suikoden 1&2, Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile 1)...

Cara Ellison hangs out with Japanese independent designer Ojiro Fumoto.

Fumoto's in a wierd place of being a "reverse Weeaboo" and under the crushing weight of a shriveled non-Otaku domestic marketplace. EasyGameStation's guys have also commented about yearning to be like Nigoro and have non-cutesy art direction.

Him selling a game-game nowadays without a lineage or IAP is also the path of thorns and sharp stones as well.

In a way, I think PS1 era JRPG were light years ahead emotionally of what we've seen so far from mainstream western RPGs.

Nonsense. Only a handful of the PSX JRPGs had any kind of emotional impact (Valkyrie Profile is the standout). In comparison, this is when Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and Planescape: Torment were already released or soon to be released (BG2 is 2000, PS:T 1999). I love Valkyrie Profile but I wouldn't put it above Torment, not by a long shot.

The question is what "mainstream RPGs" are we comparing to? I imagine it has to be Bioware's recent efforts. Mass Effect at it's best hits on an emotional level equal to any of PS1 titles. I like Dragon's Age for it's world building and quality of characters but the stories aren't really reaching for emotional depth (which is fine, there's value in telling simple stories well). Nobody else is throwing significant resources into the RPG genre, but Shadowrun packed emotional punch (maybe not big emotions like love but certainly ideas like honor, duty, and kinship). RPGs as a genre have also become so blurred that comparing a rather known quantity like JRPGs compared to modern games where roleplaying elements are sprinkled into every genre that will accept them (Bastion is a towering example of an action game with long lasting emotional resonance, Dust: An Elysian Tale is another example). Frankly it seems like an "interesting" tweet from someone who doesn't fully understand the standouts of the genre, and merely wants to justify their undying love for Japanese culture. The fact that she choose the PS1 era is particularly strange, as while there was a more consistent quality, I don't think of any of that generation's titles were of a Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger level (and the SNES-era was certainly a time where western RPGs were largely narrative starved dungeon crawls).