Currently Playing in 2019....

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Tafdolphin
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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Tafdolphin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:10 am

OrangeRKN wrote:Audio logs are worse than text logs (which are still bad) because while both completely break the flow of the gameplay, at least I can read text quickly at my own pace. Audio logs are incredibly slow in comparison. Either I stop playing to listen to the audio logs, or I keep playing and invariably miss them.


Alternate interpretation: they are mechanically less obstructive than written logs as they do not require a break in gameplay flow in order to disseminate information (or at the very least, they offer a choice to the player whereas written notes do not).

I don't disagree with you though. When they were first popularised by games like System Shock they were a new and innovative storytelling technique (SS1 being contemporaneous with the original DOOM remember) but they've increasingly become a lazy way to artificially inject content. Even in the original BioShock they were oddly out of place.

Luckily, games like Tacoma have taken the idea and run with it, basing an entire game around complex, multi-layered diagetic recordings. I really hope someone takes that idea and runs with it.

EDIT:

Photek wrote:as for centrist politics in infinite I disagree, they show religion in a very bad light and tie it to racism, as well as capitalism.


Also, had to come back to this. This wasn't at all what I was referring to when I said BS Infinite was Centrist in its view.

Spoilers, obvs.

There are two specific examples that demonstrate the game's complete mishandling of politics, especially related to race.

The first is the raffle scene. This is built up to quite a bit during the intro, and when it is revealed it is shocking. There is a plethora of racist paraphernalia on display as a mixed race couple is paraded before a braying audience. Now, you might say, the whole point of this sequence is to show how awful the people of Colombia are. But what does it do with this? How does it justify its inclusion of this imagery?

By giving you a binary choice: be racist and throw the ball at the couple, or don't be racist and throw it at the master of ceremonies. Immediately it is inviting a comparison between the two viewpoints on equal terms. In BS Infinite, racism is just as valid a viewpoint as not being racist.

Later on we meet the Vox Populi, a group of revolutionaries fighting against the racist and discriminatory leaders of Colombia. At first we fight alongside them, then through various bloated plot contrivances against them. The leader of this group is then shown trying to murder a child. The player is meant to learn that any viewpoint, taken to an extreme, is bad.

But again, the game holds 'a bunch of racists' up against 'a bunch of anti-racists' and says..."Aren't they really just as bad as each other?" It directly equates racism with anti-racism, simply because the latter are violent. This is exactly, exactly, the rhetoric Trump used after Charlottesville.

Infinite tries to be clever and subversive, twisting the trope of the downtrodden as heroes and the establishment as the villains, but it does this in a context which is deeply routed in a complete false equivalence.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Johnny Jalfrezi » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:04 am

Cor, I wish I'd never opened me gob about Bioshock! Anyways, I chucked another couple of hours into it last night and, yep, it's still bollocks. Wish the sound design thing hadn't been mentioned on here though - now it's been pointed out it really is fecking awful! I also wish I had was rational enough to just say 'Nope, I'm not enjoying this. Let's play something else', instead of ploughing on and wading through all the attrition, just to get to the end. I have an 80-game backlog, too, and this is how I'm choosing to spend my spare time...

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Photek » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:34 am

Tafdolphin wrote:
Photek wrote:as for centrist politics in infinite I disagree, they show religion in a very bad light and tie it to racism, as well as capitalism.


Also, had to come back to this. This wasn't at all what I was referring to when I said BS Infinite was Centrist in its view.

Spoilers, obvs.

There are two specific examples that demonstrate the game's complete mishandling of politics, especially related to race.

The first is the raffle scene. This is built up to quite a bit during the intro, and when it is revealed it is shocking. There is a plethora of racist paraphernalia on display as a mixed race couple is paraded before a braying audience. Now, you might say, the whole point of this sequence is to show how awful the people of Colombia are. But what does it do with this? How does it justify its inclusion of this imagery?

By giving you a binary choice: be racist and throw the ball at the couple, or don't be racist and throw it at the master of ceremonies. Immediately it is inviting a comparison between the two viewpoints on equal terms. In BS Infinite, racism is just as valid a viewpoint as not being racist.

Later on we meet the Vox Populi, a group of revolutionaries fighting against the racist and discriminatory leaders of Colombia. At first we fight alongside them, then through various bloated plot contrivances against them. The leader of this group is then shown trying to murder a child. The player is meant to learn that any viewpoint, taken to an extreme, is bad.

But again, the game holds 'a bunch of racists' up against 'a bunch of anti-racists' and says..."Aren't they really just as bad as each other?" It directly equates racism with anti-racism, simply because the latter are violent. This is exactly, exactly, the rhetoric Trump used after Charlottesville.

Infinite tries to be clever and subversive, twisting the trope of the downtrodden as heroes and the establishment as the villains, but it does this in a context which is deeply routed in a complete false equivalence.

Major false equivalency going on here, you're equating what a president of the US says to the narrative of a game from over 5 years ago.

You're taking the narrative and applying your own revisionist history to it, one can as much gain from the Vox Populi narrative and subsequent parrallel universe's that all violence is wrong no matter what the cause. You're reading FAR too much into the simple point that in one universe the Vox Populi are fighting against racism and in another they themselves have become corrupt with power which happens all the time in uprisings and revolutions, it also is a placeholder to the theme of the game, showing the differences in universes, the same but different. "There's always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city."

I think applying Trumps line of "there's bad on both sides" to BS Infinite is outrageous. I admit the criticism that the racism on show is half baked at best but tackling such a thing is hard to do in this medium and what they do show has all the subtlety of a sledge hammer but at least it tried to show something. Only Mafia 3 in recent memory tackles it and allows the N word on occasion.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by OrangeRKN » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:42 am

Tafdolphin wrote:Alternate interpretation: they are mechanically less obstructive than written logs as they do not require a break in gameplay flow in order to disseminate information (or at the very least, they offer a choice to the player whereas written notes do not).


I personally find it very difficult to listen and take in information if I'm doing something unrelated. As soon as I start playing the game while some unrelated audio is playing, I will not be able to give it enough attention to properly process what is being said (I always turn on subtitles because I can follow subtitles while playing a lot better).

So invariably if I want to listen to an audio log, I'll be sat on the menu screen as it plays or stood still in game (or doing something requiring little attention like just traveling across the map in certain games).

That's way more obstructive for me because listening to audio takes a lot longer than reading a transcript.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Robbo-92 » Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:23 am

Been playing plenty of F1 2017 again, now upto the final race in season 2. Upgrades are being thrown on the car at pretty much every race now, gone from the 7th best car back to being comfortably best of the rest behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. Probably still another season of development before I'll be completeing for the WDC/WCC but it'll be worth it (if I get that far of course........).

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Tafdolphin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:45 am

Photek wrote:Major false equivalency going on here, you're equating what a president of the US says to the narrative of a game from over 5 years ago.

You're taking the narrative and applying your own revisionist history to it, one can as much gain from the Vox Populi narrative and subsequent parrallel universe's that all violence is wrong no matter what the cause. You're reading FAR too much into the simple point that in one universe the Vox Populi are fighting against racism and in another they themselves have become corrupt with power which happens all the time in uprisings and revolutions, it also is a placeholder to the theme of the game, showing the differences in universes, the same but different. "There's always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city."

I think applying Trumps line of "there's bad on both sides" to BS Infinite is outrageous. I admit the criticism that the racism on show is half baked at best but tackling such a thing is hard to do in this medium and what they do show has all the subtlety of a sledge hammer but at least it tried to show something. Only Mafia 3 in recent memory tackles it and allows the N word on occasion.


A false equivalence is the assumption that two logically opposing concepts have equal value when they do not. For example, being racist and not being racist. They are opposing concepts, but clearly they are not of equal value. This was my problem with BS Infinite's politics. If you wish to know more, please re-read my original post.

What I did with Trump's comments and BS Infinite's examples was a straight comparison. I did not set them at loggerheads, claiming they were opposites of equal value. I said they were the same thing. Which they are. So, I compared them.

On the other hand, the main thrust of your reply is that because Trump's statement came several years after BS Infinite, any such comparison between the two is lacking in merit due to the timeframes involved. Again, this is inherently wrong. For example, the alt-right are frequently compared to the National Socialist Party of 1930's Germany, a comparison which encompasses over 70 years, yet this comparison is valid given that the former is the modern day equivalent of the latter, at least in terms of popular representation of one style of social politics.

So when you state that comparing BS Infinite's false equivalency issues to Trump's false equivalency issues is "outrageous" I therefore assume you would claim the same for any comparison of like occurrences over an extended period of time?

As for 'taking a revisionist history' to the game's narrative, I take it you meant that I was bringing my own interpretation to it? I was. We're allowed to do that.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Photek » Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:55 am

I like you Taf, but you really are IMO what is wrong with the ‘left’. I’m left leaning myself but some of the rhetoric is IMO (again) absurd. I don’t want to derail this topic anymore.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Tafdolphin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 11:56 am

Photek wrote:I like you Taf, but you really are IMO what is wrong with the ‘left’.


Does anyone know how to set up a sig randomiser? I love my current one but this is real good gooseberry fool.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Photek » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:00 pm

I hate the term Social Justice Warrior because it's over used but in this instance, It may just actually suit you man. :wub:

It's probably just my Toxic Masculinity showing through tho.

Last edited by Photek on Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Mafro » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:06 pm

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Tafdolphin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:24 pm

Photek wrote:I hate the term Social Justice Warrior because it's over used but in this instance, It may just actually suit you man. :wub:

It's probably just my Toxic Masculinity showing through tho.


Well that's just mean.

Look, I made a series of points and your response was to call me outrageous then stomp off in a huff when I pointed out said response was perhaps not addressing the issue. I feel fine about my contribution. Also I've got some good sig material out of it, and am now officially an SJW.

It's win win for me.

(Also, that gif is never not funny. Maf :wub: )

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Tafdolphin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:37 pm

Right?

Also, here's some more words on the subject! Yay!

It originally launched just three years ago, but BioShock Infinite, even compared to the other, older BioShock games, feels dated. Its obiter dictum on politics—whether far right or far left, everyone is equally questionable—in this US election year rings particularly false. Only a writer unaware of politics could suggest a Donald Trump is as promising a presidential candidate as a Hillary Clinton. Similarly, the game's examination of religion, and its symbiotic relationship to patriotism, is too open to interpretation.


https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article ... ction-year

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Photek » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:39 pm

Taf, I just couldn't do it again, I couldn't have a long protracted discussion over Bioshock Infinite again with you.

You managed something rather remarkable though, Willy Wonka invented a device that could deliver a bar of chocolate to a TV viewer and in a similar way with your words you've managed to give me full, undiluted, concentrated Aids. I could feel my HIV levels veer as positive as your life choices, which is to say I'm HIV positive AF.

So as you sit typing into your laptop naked from the waist down and sipping coffee from your square cup (because hey, everything has to have an edge) smile to yourself, be happy and own that Hubris, cuddle it, and it'll keep you warm for the cold nights ahead.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Peter Crisp » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:43 pm

So, what are people playing then or is that a stupid question at this point?

I'm trying to get into Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition on PS4 while failing to play the Beta of Battlefield 5 (I have EA Access) early as it just goes nope! at me for no reason.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Kriken » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:46 pm

Yakuza, PS2 version still. Also still dipping into Sonic CD after finishing the game and getting the good ending with time stones, mainly for time attack but I'm a bit tempted to go for the other achievements too. Enjoying the game a lot. I'm also still meaning to round off WarioWare Gold, by at least getting all the minigames. For me it's a sort of meh entry in the series if not an unwelcome one, just because it's not that fresh. Definitely one a newcomer to the series can appreciate a lot more.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Tafdolphin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:47 pm

Photek wrote:Laptop naked from the waist down etc


strawberry floating hell man, looks like I didn't so much touch a nerve as completely blast it from your body! Anyway, I've done my victory lap now.

As we were.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Knoyleo » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:49 pm

Photek wrote:Taf, I just couldn't do it again, I couldn't have a long protracted discussion over Bioshock Infinite again with you.

You managed something rather remarkable though, Willy Wonka invented a device that could deliver a bar of chocolate to a TV viewer and in a similar way with your words you've managed to give me full, undiluted, concentrated Aids. I could feel my HIV levels veer as positive as your life choices, which is to say I'm HIV positive AF.

So as you sit typing into your laptop naked from the waist down and sipping coffee from your square cup (because hey, everything has to have an edge) smile to yourself, be happy and own that Hubris, cuddle it, and it'll keep you warm for the cold nights ahead.

Wow, it's just like I'm back at school on the early 2000s.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Jenuall » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:49 pm

Tafdolphin wrote:There are two specific examples that demonstrate the game's complete mishandling of politics, especially related to race.

The first is the raffle scene. This is built up to quite a bit during the intro, and when it is revealed it is shocking. There is a plethora of racist paraphernalia on display as a mixed race couple is paraded before a braying audience. Now, you might say, the whole point of this sequence is to show how awful the people of Colombia are. But what does it do with this? How does it justify its inclusion of this imagery?

By giving you a binary choice: be racist and throw the ball at the couple, or don't be racist and throw it at the master of ceremonies. Immediately it is inviting a comparison between the two viewpoints on equal terms. In BS Infinite, racism is just as valid a viewpoint as not being racist.


I don't comprehend this interpretation at all.

Yes the user is given a binary choice of who to throw the ball at, but in what way does that make those two options "on equal terms" and "just as valid" to one another? The simple existence of an option does not provide any context or measure for the validity of that option - only the cost and consequence, both historically and in the immediate or the long term response to this instance, of performing that action can lend any interpretation as to how "valid" that choice was.

Similarly we have no information for either the player or even the characters decision making process with which to support an analysis of their choice - throwing the ball at the master of ceremonies does not mean the player is not racist, they may have other reasons for making that decision - maybe they just hate authority figures, or are generally anti-establishment? They could well still be racist but their hatred of people of colour was just outweighed by their hatred of people at raffles?

Bioshock Infinite (or Bio-Shite as I like to call it!) is a terrible game in may ways and fails to say anything of interest through its narrative, but personally I didn't take away that it put both racist and non-racist views as "equal".

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Lex-Man » Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:11 pm

Doesn't that reading of Bioshock can't of miss the ending.
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That said I do agree there is something unsettling about the way they try to draw parallels between the two factions.

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PostRe: Currently Playing in 2018....
by Photek » Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:30 pm

I'm really enjoying Bad North, it's taken the RTS genre and boiled it down to it's core, it's as simplistic as it is gorgeous. Tough as nails too.

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