[This Machine Kills Fascis]

Yeah.

Man.

You guys.

You guys have some weird opinions. Or maybe some not-weird-enough opinions--I dunno.

It's funny that Tim and Brandon are sort of the progenitors of the SB brand and yet a lot of their tastes are way outside the parameters of the hivemind--Brandon especially!

Tim, we have, like, the opposite opinion on what games should be.

And yet everyone agrees on Godhand, because duh.
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"Godzilla could be anyone."

[The King]

Played a Bonk game today.

Pretty sure this podcast had something to do with that.
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[Ronk]

i have listened to all of these at work today. good job, podcast team! it's a pretty great format, and anything that you don't finish discussing, i just check out via the web anyways, so it's all kept tight and interesting.

also i have added bonk and monster world IV to my list of games i should play soon.

also more adilegian-recorded segments
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[Gorblax]

[dementia]

The lighting round really made me laugh this time. Fucking Benigni, man.

[108]

[Mallen]

[The Troops]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

I hope neither of you gets the games you want.

[The Troops]

Seriously, though. I've been sitting here watching a person play Borderlands 2, and I think I'm gonna call it.

"Modern Warfare + Loot: The Sequel" -- the most radical game design possible in this age?

Image in my mind of a development studio right now: Men huddled, whimpering, "We have 401K's, and children in private schools. We can't let this company tank!" An executive producer inhales, exhales, and lays a single card on the table. It reads: "Red dot sight." Glances and semi-confident nods follow. Above them, an inspirational dot matrix printer banner encircles the room, and it is just the word "Metacritic" over and over.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

actually, that's unnecessarily harsh

I hope the games you want come out, but you're never able to play them, or by the time they do, your desires have changed to the point that you are unable to enjoy them.

[thestage]

[Talbain]

[Pat the Great]

hating on people for being excited for Borderlands 2 is like hating on people for being excited about the Avengers. sure, i guess you could bitch about it, but why bother? it's hardly a sign of the degeneracy of our medium.
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-pat m.
twitter

[Talbain]

Realistically Farmville and Visual Novels are more problematic to the medium's evolution. So in a sense, the medium probably has gone backwards rather than forward over the larger scope of what's a game.

The Last Story is actually a good example of the latter. It has all the regular trappings of jRPG, but includes a silly, linear story where you make "decisions" by deciding whether or not you want the game to progress, and what's worse is that in some cases answering Yes or No in certain situations leads straight to a Game Over, making these non-decisions meaningless. There's also the QTEs... I suppose that's another part of design that really needs to disappear. Simon Says isn't a terribly interesting game.
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[BenoitRen]

GAMES I DON'T LIKE ARE PROBLEMATIC TO THE MEDIUM'S EVOLUTION
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Get Xenoblade Chronicles!

[Talbain]

Except what these games are doing is using psychology rather than solid mechanics. It's relatively easy to make a game like Farmville or a Visual Novel with tragic heroes, but both eschew complex mechanics in favor of using human desire as their primary means of garnering purchases. And it ultimately doesn't end well for anyone. The players end up feeling robbed of both their money and their time. This isn't good for the medium. It's not even good for their genres, as it makes people who are aware of these strategies less inclined to be interested in them again (and in extreme cases, has led to lawsuits).
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

The Last Story is not using psychology

[Talbain]

[BenoitRen]

Most old-school JRPGs also had a lot of meaningless non-decisions yet I didn't see you complaining about them when preferring to play those instead.
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Get Xenoblade Chronicles!

[Gorblax]

full disclosure: when posting that, tim had been awake far longer than any human has any right to be. Stop posting in this thread when sleep deprived, tim! There's an axe thread for that!
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[Talbain]

[parker]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

have tim or the troops written up what they want games to be anywhere (key word: written)

actually I guess a better question is have they stated they've already made sure there aren't any games like that

[Pat the Great]

[Fight!]

[thestage]

so many fools in the world not knowin' how to be human~~~ *sigh*

[Fight!]

I don't know how to describe it, man. :( I just mean, you know, those idiosyncratic elements present in the games that keep me playing video games seem remarkably similar to the personality quirks in the people who make them. And the same sort of thing is true for games I really hate. I think a lot of people who worked on Borderlands 2 would be happier at a Marlboro.
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I took my lucky break and I broke it in two

[thestage]

to say that a game features a certain measure of mechanical roteness or numerical (which will be pejoratively parsed as "psychological") dependency is not to say that it exists specifically in service of those tropes. it is a convention, a structure, a note one can plug into the game; like any other structure, it can be misused, to be sure, but this misuse is not inherent in the form. there is a certain tendency toward nihilism today in people who talk about video games, of grand cataclysmic dismissals of forms, all of which are not only wrong or improper, but also infectious and destructive; where everyone is already assumed to know everything about practical video game design by virtue of knowing nothing about practical video game design, and so are free to do away with it in favor of what passes for theory. the "right" video games have been boiled down either to system-less aesthetic romps stitched together by quirk or affection, or mechanical self-loathing affairs disguised as self-aware "questionings." borderlands 2 becomes profound and +1 against the man if the NPCs remind you to hate yourself and the guns blow up and delete your save if you spec your character effectively. a simulated glitch covers the entire screen in damage numbers. chiptunes warble and drop an octave. I can see the tumblr.

what I am trying to say is "numbers and loot go up" in borderlands is not prima facie evidence of the devil. an affected dismissal of an entire landscape of play is a rather dismal substitute for the legwork needed to cogently separate the chaff from the wheat. this doesn't mean you aren't allowed to dislike borderlands 2 (or game X) without first writing a thesis (lord knows I'd be fucked), but it does mean you have to stop to question your methods and intentions before giving them free reign, because chances are they are much more self-serving than they are useful.

[Loki Laufeyson]

rolling my eyes on this page
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http://lunaticobscurity.blogspot.com/ - newest post: Snezhaja Koroleva (Arcade)
http://lunargarbagehell.blogspot.com/ - newest post: Batman: Digital Justice

[The King]

Loki's eyes are rolling around on the page, AHHHHH
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[thestage]

no, I already looted them

[The King]

The occasional interesting game comes out of the gaming industry, Portal for example was pretty well liked by most folk. That came out this console generation. I think other games would see opinions split a bit, but for me I quite enjoyed Mirror's Edge and Gears of War, perhaps others didn't like those two, but they can probably think of a few not-Portal games this generation they liked. The percentage of gaming industry output that interests me may have slowed, but it still exists.

Meanwhile, the indie scene is booming. The indie scene has commercial output, stuff like; Canabalt, 1000 Spikes.
The indie scene also has free (for realsies, not free-to-play) stuff like the output of folks like Dessgeega, Cactus, ect.
One of the really interesting things is that both commercial and non-commercial avenues of development are open to anyone with an idea (and ideally an artist). Steam, Smartphone e-marketplaces, PC releases via internet, XBLIG. There are good options for getting stuff out there.

Videogames aren't dead (yet).
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[Brooks]

Don't really have time for a constant stream of amazing videogames anyway, who does

[This Machine Kills Fascis]

Lately, I've only played Increpare games and Skullgirls, so I feel like games are better than ever!

I mean, it feels slightly superfluous to sing the praises of Increpare around here, since SB has the most increpare discussion I've ever seen in one place (though it's always scattered), but Lavelle's games really, really give me hope and optimism for the medium. It's like someone is finally fulfilling on the promise of "art games," and showing the way.

I mean, he's not perfect. A lot of his games have an overly-negative aesthetic that reads as juvenile to me. And I hate his writing.

But the mechanics and concepts are often brilliantly inventive and--for me--genuinely inspiring. And my personal definition of successful art is basically, "Something that inspires me."

Anyway, I don't see any reason to focus on what's wrong with games, when you can focus on what's right. But then, my ideology on media is basically that quality, progressive media is always losing to mediocrity, so you have to just pull the good things around you like a blanket and hide from the harsh, harsh world, full of reality TV shows. I don't believe that you can "save" mass media. In a capitalist society, it will always be regulated by mediocrity and greed. But there's so much stuff out there these days that the 5% of stuff that is good turns out to be pretty substantial.

Tim, I'll respond to your post more directly when I'm not running late!
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"Godzilla could be anyone."

[The Troops]

y'all got that sadden

[JoeX111]

Last episode's lightning round was wonderful. More screaming! More insanity! More screamanity!

[108]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

the_troops have you tried EYE yet?

[special blend]

[Gorblax]

Every time the podcast is late blame toups
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