Brian ⚔️

She may not have been the most comfortable place to live, but she kept us safe no matter where we went or what we did. Fair winds and following seas old friend. kitsapsun.com/story/news/loc…

@YorchTorchGames Ghost of Tsushima on the left, opposing Ghost of Yotei on the right. Beyond Two Souls on the left opposing Mixtape on the right.

I've been reading your comments and suggestions regarding Mixtape and the games weak men play. Let's make the ultimate list, then. What would you add?

@AftermathZGame I still pine for the old Quantic Dream stuff. Interactive stories, but engaging and fantastic ones with ace acting and deep plots.

I think I could help clarify this a bit. This comes from someone who has no love or hate towards Mixtape, just a professional opinion from an educator in game development. The debate over whether Mixtape counts as a game or an interactive story stems from a traditional definition that shifted around 2012. In game development courses, we were taught (and still teach) Jesper Juul's classic game model. It emphasizes that games require quantifiable outcomes and win/loss conditions, or at least meaningful failure states. This draws from other theorists too but was formalised by Jesper, the theorist and designer himself. A lot of us who learned and still teach this older framework may view titles without meaningful failure states or 'game over' screens as interactive media rather than full game. Pre-2012, this probably wouldn't have been classified as a game. Today's industry and audience are much more accepting of narrative driven experiences. Grok and modern outlets go by current broad acceptance, but that's different from the traditional understanding many gamers and educators grew up with. I've worked on a 'walking simulator' myself, and we deliberately added risk, challenge, and ways to lose so it could ship as a proper game. I've also played horror titles with no real failure states that felt more like interactive stories. This doesn't take away from Mixtape being well received interactive media. But rating it a 10/10 as a video game is exactly why the community feels split. After 10+ years of teaching game development, I personally wouldn't classify something without ways to lose as a full video game in the traditional sense. People can and should still enjoy it for what it is, but it does call in to question: Is the bar of entry for what classes as a game being lowered, and why? Gaming has expanded to include more artistic forms, but the traditional framework still helps explain why some of us feel the 'game' label stretches thin here. Either way, if you enjoy the story, it doesn't always matter how it's told, but there is no harm in calling a book, a book.

@AI_EmeraldApple Probably more simple than that. Surely many of them were just paid to shill.

I still can't believe this is real. I remember this drama back when Cuphead was released, and most of the journalists' reviews clearly indicated that they couldn't even beat the first boss. Same with other games like black myth Wukong, where reviewers complained about the absence of certain elements in the game, where it exists later in the game. No wonder they love Mixtape. You don't even need to press buttons...

@Project_Orc @Become_as_gods Cool

@Become_as_gods We are currently expanding the character creation, it includes detailed customization options for both male and female - as well a clan related visual attributes!

Can we play as a female orc too? Will there be multiple sliders for body customization, so we can customize all aspects of the characters' body?

@nuhre_ Honestly... most of us knew the gist of that without needing to actually play the game. It was kinda obvious. You decided to pay money and support it with player count anyway for whatever reason.

After 2 hours and 20 minutes, I finished Mixtape and I fucking hated it. Thanks. And I’m using the term “game” extremely loosely here, because this is barely a game and honestly shouldn’t even qualify as one. You can feel that the people behind it are 40-year-olds still coping with being bullied in high school by living vicariously through these characters. It’s basically one of those interactive movies you’d get in a cereal box and “play” with your TV remote. The “gameplay” mostly consists of pushing the left stick forward or holding W. That’s it. There are QTEs, except they’re not quick, not timed, and barely even events. They’re just random optional button prompts thrown in to make it feel more “gamey” than it actually is. And the writing is fucking abysmal. Not because the characters are teens and therefore inherently cringe, but because you can tell it’s written by middle-aged people cosplaying as teenagers who think being obnoxious and a public nuisance is somehow “rad.” I’d say it was painful to play, but that would imply I actually played something. It was painful to watch. This should’ve been a low-budget animated movie five people watched once on a streaming service and immediately forgot about. “10s across the board” and “GOTY,” my ass. If you genuinely think this thing belongs in the same category as actual games, you’re delusional. You probably also think CoComelon is peak entertainment. The only redeeming quality is the soundtrack, and that’s because 99% of the music was made by actual talented artists and bands instead of the people responsible for this disaster. The writing sucked. The animation sucked. The story barely made sense. The characters were insufferable, and I didn’t care about a single one of them, except Slater, because he’s literally just my fiancé.

@ArturSmiarowski I love the world simulation in Soulash 2. Really cool stuff. I just wish I felt a bit more connection to some of the individuals in a town, or something like that. Hard to satisfy.

Game development is the most demanding and exciting game I’ve ever played. 9 years progressing the Soulash series, and there’s still so much ahead. Beats every MMO I've tried.

@xShephardx I've tried to play it several times. I just don't like the whole "chat options as combat" thing. But I really do like the writing and want to experience the story.

Disco Elysium DROPPED ❌ Not for me, i just wanted to give it a shot anyway, the writing is phenomenal but the gameplay thrives on failure and a unoptimized approach to its mechanics which is the opposite of my what i like doing. Also like theres no actual gameplay, wish i could like it 🤷🏻‍♀️

@elonmusk I would love one.

Cybertruck

@EndymionYT @RevenantRemnant Revenant is precisely on point.

If I play & review a game, I'm a shill but I don't play the game I'm also a shill lol I can't win oh well I play games to relay info & give my opinions. I suffered through Veilguard, Forspoken & Shadows to name a few, so I can do it again Thanks for giving my content a chance at least

Don't pull an @EndymionYT and waste $70 on woke slop Saros, it was obvious what the game was going to have in terms of agenda pushing and even moreso with who the publisher is. If people really want wokeness to go away then it starts with the games you choose to support.

@Photomusicrock This girl rocks.

Rising country music star Avery Anna performs probably the best cover of Ozzy Osbourne "No More Tears."

@YorchTorchGames I enjoyed that article. Well done.

@Grummz If all of this is true, I will happily buy it and play it even though I just completed my 2nd full playthrough of AC:IV in end of 2024. It's arguably the best AC out there when all is taken into consideration.

Ubisoft redemption arc. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is looking fantastic. Like a return to the old Ubisoft before all the BS that destroyed the studio. I have to say this makes we want to play the game. Some details: - Remake with anvil engine. - Upgraded combat - New content: new quests, characters and story - No multiplayer mode, focused on Edward's Caribbean story. A lot of original devs returned to help make this. Up for preorder now. Ubisoft really lost their way, culminating in the scuttling of the company and spinning of the best IPs to a new Tencent invested entity. Gotta say it's looking like they are starting to make the right moves.

@YorchTorchGames I actually don't think the character model is bad. She's attractive, well put together... much better than, say, Fable mc. She doesn't belong in a Viking epic though for sure. This is besides the obvious hijacking of GoW franchise which is of course absurd.

Who looked at this and said, "Yeah, that's exactly what God of War fans want"?

@elonmusk I miss @ScottAdamsSays Wish he could see this. Would have loved to hear his take on it.

🎯

This is kind of insane when you realize just how much our entire political spectacle is manipulated from the shadows. Vindicating, sure... but also insane. Our society has a cancer growing deep at the root. It needs to be exposed.

@HMBohemond I will actually play it now, because of this! Great decision on their part. Slow decision... but good to see they finally got there.

Funcom is ending mandatory PVP in Dune Awakening. All PVP regions in Hagga Basin are getting turned to PVE, and the Deep Desert will be split into two instances. A PVE only instance, and a PVP only instance with a 2.5x harvesting yield buff. We are so back! This opens up the game to way more people.

On this day in 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant. Lee showed up dressed in his best, looking like a dignified gentleman. Grant was covered in mud after riding all morning. Before anything was signed, the two men spoke about their shared service in the Mexican War -- a reminder that Confederates and Union soldiers were nonetheless countrymen tied by mystic chords of memory. Grant did not create terms of surrender to humiliate the South. Grant and Lincoln understood that to unify the nation, you could not imprison half of it. Confederates were allowed to keep their sidearms and personal horses. When Grant learned that Lee's men were quite literally starving after having not eaten for days, he ordered 25,000 rations sent to them immediately. Lee said this would have "a very happy effect" on his men. When Lee rode away after signing terms of surrender, Union soldiers cheered. Grant forced them to stop, reminding Union soldiers that Confederates were "now our countrymen" and there would be no cheering over their downfall. (In fact, days later when actual ceremonial surrender occurred, Union Gen. Josh Chamberlain reportedly ordered his men to salute passing Confederates as a sign of respect) Lee also worked diligently to stop Confederates from waging guerrilla warfare, encouraging them to set their arms aside and return home and in peace. He was a titan in his own right. If the spirit of 1865 had been driven by the urge to shame and punish, the Union would not have lasted. So many people today misunderstand that and as such, they try to rewrite America history. God Bless America.

@wickedgame Too much co-op focus.

Patch 1 lands March 18, and it's a big one ❤️ -Duel your friends. -Cozy up your home for serious buffs. -Keep tabs on your realm with the new Realm Diary. -And finally, text chat with your co-op crew in-game. Watch the official highlight trailer now↓ youtu.be/29Q-hCjJq8Q

@thomasmahler @dark1x Unless travel is the attraction. I love airship games. Especially ones where I can base build. I lament that the worlds are often too small. Alternatively if its got a camping or horseback style, that could be cool too. No idea if Crimson Desert has this.

Since my whole timeline is full of people swooning about @dark1x claim that getting from one point of Crimson Desert’s map to another took a whopping 4 hours, let me share what’s going through my mind: I’ve been doing Level Design for 17 years now - I designed most of the levels / world for the Ori games and I’m still supervising LD on Wicked, so I think I can share some valuable insight. I always find it a bit worrying when everyone gets excited about ‘oh my god, they crafted an insanely huge world!’. In fact, I have basically the exact opposite reaction, which is more like: ‘Oh no, they started with a huge terrain, I hope they had an army of level designers to actually create a meaningful world instead of just a procedurally crafted, empty husk.’ I know how difficult it is to design good levels and how much time it takes us to build ours - so just hearing that, I already know that there’s likely not going to be a lot of actual good level design in Crimson Desert. And I actually don’t want to sound too disparaging or ruin anyone’s fun because Crimson Desert certainly looks insane and I can’t wait to play it myself either, but I also know how important and how underrated good level and world design is for a title and what the effect is if you have to OK huge, but empty worlds. I’d say at this point even some of the best studios in the world weren’t able to crack that nut. Even Nintendo struggled for a long time with the world size of Breath of the Wild and ultimately they had to put hundreds of devs on it to fill it up with content, but even their content then mostly consisted of ‘oh, here’s another Korok Seed!’ and other such lukewarm experiences. Since procedural level generation produces pretty crappy results and since we don’t have AI yet that can actually create well designed levels, the only way out of feeling like being in an empty world is to make every inch interactive. Minecraft did that and it was quite genius - but I doubt that’s what CD is going for. I understand the allure of ‘they created an entire universe!’, but be careful what you wish for: In Gaming Worlds, huge usually also means extremely shallow.

@EndymionYT Oh please, you paid and dove in as soon as it was available.

Still too much