Video Games (long-haired ethics people need not apply)

games
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The console vs. PC debate in here is interesting. I used to be a PC-only player for FPS games because I just couldn’t figure out the controls that well for consoles. I got better over time because of a few console games that interested me (Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 among them). That’s really all it takes, some practice - and it has to be a game you like, of course, to practice with.

The games are tuned slightly differently, because the instant precision aiming just isn’t possible, but they’re not as different as you might expect (which you learn quickly when you play certain FPS games online and 13-year-olds have amazing aim).

Mirror’s Edge is an interesting example. I am pretty sure it was developed as a console game, and the PC version was a port. The controls are perfectly mapped to the PS3 controller to be intuitive and ergonomic. All of the complicated parkour stuff feels fluid and natural using the controller (though it doesn’t make it easy). To me it seemed like one of the core ideas behind the game was to be an FPS where being able to actually aim weapons wasn’t necessary (you can beat the game without firing a gun once), in part because aiming with a controller can be difficult.

Portal, a sorta-similar game, is then another interesting one. I played the original on PC and thought it was great, and the keyboard and mouse controls were perfect. When Portal 2 came out, my computers at the time weren’t going to be capable of playing it except at the lowest settings. But I had a PS3 so I bought that version (they give you a PC steam key with the console version so no risk) and I had no trouble with it, even though there are sections where you need to very precisely aim with very precise timing. As I recall, there was just one section of one puzzle that really gave me a lot of trouble where I was thinking “this would be so easy with a mouse!”, which is better than I expected. Actually, you can plug a mouse and keyboard into the PS3, but the only PS3 game I know of that supports mouselook is Unreal Tournament.

Which leads to my next point… other than Unreal Tournament (which I don’t think anyone actually plays on the PS3), when you play multiplayer on a console, you’re on a level playing field in every possible way. Everyone else has to aim the same way, and their computers are not better than yours. The upgrade treadmill a lot of people are on is obscene in comparison.

That’s why I intend to stick with consoles… I am a Mac user and my macbook pro from 2009 is still going strong but can’t play anything current. If I was going to get a computer for playing games on, it would be the same as a console - a machine for a single purpose, because I’m really not going to do anything else on it.

The only thing is that now with the PS4 you have to pay for online service, like you have had to for the X Box 360 and the XBone. That’s the reason I got a PS3 (besides playing blu-rays) - I can be as casual as I want and play a random online match once every few months if I want, without having to pay extra for the privilege.

Regarding Fallout 3/NV, I played these on a computer (actually the aforementioned macbook pro, with a windows partition that I no longer have) and I had a lot of trouble aiming. I used VATs as much as I would have on a console, I expect, and some types of enemies I just always had a really hard time with.

On a side note, I just found out that the developers of the Battlefield series I like so much are actually currently making a new Star Wars Battlefront game (no doubt to coincide with the new movie). Very much looking forward to that, though it does mean I’ll need a new system of some sort to play it on.

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182

Is there a reason to? Would it be to preserve the Games folder for BBS-specific games and badassery, and use Offworld for, like, discussion of everything else game-related? I suppose that would make sense, but it would be helpful if someone like Jeff or Rob went ahead and retitled Games as more specifically BBS Games.

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Started Fall Out 4, which is very nice. Just got off Warcraft. Latest expansion gives some definite improvements, but also makes you inclined to work instead of actually game. Played that off and on for about ten years. Played some of Rift recently.

Just updated my phone and to my surprise they have kotor on there now, which is great. (Knights of the Old Republic). They have also redone some other oldies. But bought kotor and shadowrunner.

Have played a number of the top games over the year, since making a gaming box, but most have been “meh”, after a short while. Longest time spent on Rome II.

I read about those sorts, and they truly are deplorable. On a fairly decent basis, maybe every 12 hours of pvp on Warcraft some idiot would say something. Usually homophobic jabs, sometimes using terms like “rape” for descriptions of attacking the other team, much more rarely something against a female character usually questioning if she is really female. The more routine idiocy are such other moral failings like newbie idiots who somehow believe they are the best of players freaking out when a game is losing and somehow believing it is everyone’s fault but theirs.

For the most part, though the chat is not too horrible, and valuable enough to actually keep on.

Usually someone slams the homophobe sexist idiots. I usually take them as virgin teenage males that are just genuinely idiots and pent up. Online I have followed via boingboing and ars mostly, some vice and daily dot, these new idiots. They strike me as “up there” in terms of disgustingness, and very transparent. If I were to profile them I would say they are individuals who suffer “man rage”, and are on the very low end of the attractiveness vector. I have other considerations on that front, but have not studied enough to prove my theories.

I have four daughters, the three youngest are all very much video game players. They have been since the youngest age. My wife is studying comp sec at an east coast university. My highermost boss is a woman. The stats are obvious that women play as much as men do if not more.

Not real sure then what this boast is these sorts pride themselves off on, and the only reason I can see them being so female hating is that they feel they have very little chance of ever having a relationship.

They are definitely up there in terms of evil, reminds me of the sort of crap I used to see with neo-nazis and their lot. But, even more insecure, they seem grand targets for burning, as that sort of attitude reveals they are really “off” and while obviously faring well enough with each other they are invariable outsiders without the slightest hope or chance.

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The upgrade treadmill has slowed considerably. For one thing, a lot of games are developed to be cross-platform, so PC games tend to be constrained by the requirements for consoles. Also, for some reason I don’t understand, Windows applications are nearly always 32-bit applications, despite 64-bit CPUs having been standard for years now – even applications that could really take advantage of increased memory access, like, say, Skyrim.

Also, with Steam, GOG.com, and HumbleBundle featuring lots of indie games and discounted older games, Russell Munroe’s strategy works very well now:

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185

Well, I think so. The old games thread was chartered under the category “Forum Games and Similar Shenanigans.”

I admit to trying to shoe-horning video games into that old category (via this thread), as vidya is my penchant, it tis my wont. I wanted some place to discuss video games, since it seems so many of us share that pastime.

But now that we have an “OffWorld” category, and, yea Hallelujah, a higher imprint devoted to the awesome beat of Video games, I think this general discussion of video games is better placed under the banner of Offword.

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Not that I can see. Offworld content is Boing Boing content.

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Any comments?

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I though it was a tradition that Final Fantasy games had three (no more, no less) playable female characters?

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So to give the most natural feeling, to make them feel sincere and honest, having them all the same gender made sense in that way.

Quotes like that make me want to see the members of the writing team. If there are any women on the writing staff, I’d like to know whether they agree with that statement.

The world might be ready to see the curtain lifted on what boys do when girls aren’t around, when they come out of the tent all prim and proper.

Jesus, isn’t the history of fiction littered with examples of “boys being boys.”

Yawn.

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190

Christ on a cracker. Enough about what boys do or think or see or dream or desire or fear or mourn or whatever. If there’s one thing the world has not been holding its breath for, it’s any kind of secret exposé of the Hidden Life of Men, as if such a thing ever existed in any kind of meaningful, mysterious way that hadn’t been thoroughly explored throughout several thousand years of human literature and culture. I personally haven’t felt the need to revisit it since John Carpenter’s The Thing.

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191

Fixt that for yuh. :slight_smile:

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Heh. That implies you think The Two Coreys was the vital Last Word on such matters.

To which all I can say, toe innocently scuffing the dirt, is “Corey who?”

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I’ll probably pass on FFXV, I haven’t finished one of these since FFX.

Not sure I like what they did to Cid though.

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I’m gonna start dressing like that when I’m wrenching on my Cougar in the driveway. Looks cool and comfortable, with plenty of freedom of movement.

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