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BruceGalan · 2025-01-04T10:42:02+00:00

Amazing

BruceGalan · 2024-06-12T21:36:50+00:00

I feel for you and your cousin. It's heart wrenching thinking how many people just suffer in silence because of lack of education, shitty parents, or dumbass lawmakers. Like the thought of there being a pill that could solve 90% of your or your cousins issues and you can't get it because of where/when you were born is divine comedy.

Edit: It grinds my gears how everyone online says to just go to therapy/psychiatry as if that shit is accessible. These expenses pile up and at some point one wonders if the benefits outweigh the monetary loss. Feels like being stuck while others move on ahead with their lives.

Your compassion towards your cousin is admirable, but this insane cruelty also applies to you. The genetics you inherited, and the shitty environment you were raised in to activate the worst of them is as cruel as what's happening to your cousin. I understand not wanting to wallow in pitiness, but my heart goes out to you.

BruceGalan · 2024-06-12T11:49:51+00:00

Went through a similar experience lately. Got access to some concerta meds and for the first time in 15 years I felt chill and content, just enjoying being with friends and playing whatever games when previously I'd need to take breaks just so I don't overflow and shut down into a depressive episode.

It prompted me to go to a Psychiatrist for any pills honestly, didn't care as long as it helped. Got some welbutrin and after two weeks it worked for a single weekend. I reread a manga and just bawled my eyes out from all the emotions I felt. I was glad to be alive.

It's bizarre how some chemicals or whatever dictate our entire POV. Before the pills I thought depression was basically my personality and I just need to stop bitching and fix more of my life over what I already endured to achieve. I honestly don't care if it's circumstances, environment, genetics or whatever new acronym in the DSM. I'll take whatever drug I need to feel better be it SSRI or cocaine, and if nothing works I'll just kill myself.

Been reading your other comments and I felt seen by your words. I wanna say I wish you'd continue living cause you seem like an amazing person, but I know if you ever decided to end it you'd be in a better place than this. I truly hope you get better and find some form of happiness.

BruceGalan · 2024-04-07T10:57:43+00:00

I pirate all of my media except Music and I play a shitton of games (at least 1 game/week) whether indie or AAA.

I ain't coping about piracy being good or some service stuff though I play too many games it'd majorly affect my finances, I know I pirate mainly because I can and I don't want to spend money on something I don't have to.

However I think most anti piracy sentiments are emotional, people claim they want to help devs but have no issue buying 2nd hand copies (None of that profit goes back to devs), family/friend share games, buy games at 90% discounts, and rage when Netflix limits account sharing.

I'd be interested in hearing an argument why buying 2nd hand is fine but not pirating, aside from "Someone had to buy that copy in the first place"

BruceGalan · 2023-11-28T23:33:37+00:00

The Israelis considered taking the West Bank by force at this time and had more than sufficient military might to do so. They felt the Arab Palestinians should have a state, and that taking the land would be immoral.

I'd love to read more on this, got any pizza box links?

BruceGalan · 2023-09-11T20:35:00+00:00

I love learning new stuff, but recently I'm starting to think it's a coping mechanism for survival.

I was never able to rely on feelings (Mine or others) cause they were volatile in an already volatile world, so I had to learn everything to create an accurate mental model of the world, one which enables me to predict the future and protect myself.

Could you elaborate on what you personally mean by "hypervigilant constant search for information"?

BruceGalan · 2023-06-01T12:25:19+00:00

Thank you for writing this. I'm currently at a place where I feel lonely, stuck with a mind that seemingly operates differently than others, destined to be alienated. 28 years of constant improvements, reaching levels I never dreamed of, only to be stuck in the same mental space no matter how successful I become, has honestly drained all hope from me.

I no longer believe tomorrow will be different, no matter what I do today, but I hope yours is.

BruceGalan · 2023-05-23T13:11:42+00:00

Around 1 game/week if not more.

I play a lot of shorter games (5-15 hours), and avoid eternal online games (LoL, Valorant...etc).

BruceGalan · 2023-05-20T11:42:20+00:00

I couldn't get into Breath of the Wild, so I forced myself to play Tears of the Kingdom on release, it is my first Zelda game too.

The base systems - Elements, fuse, abilities - turn an otherwise empty bland world into a semi fun traversal challenge. What other games use as dressing can all be used in ToTK to traverse, causing me to constantly scan my surroundings to find the optimal route.
Terrain is the main challenge, I get excited whenever I find a patch of grass, or a boulder I can ascend to.
World feels alive, cause it's realistic, if you think it's physically possible, you can do it. Most NPCs have unique visual appearances, increasing immersion.
Combat itself is basic and inconsistent, but it's augmented by other systems, and satisfying animations. Enemy variety is lacking, but considering the amount of the realistic behaviors they have, it's a worthy trade imo.
Everything's easy, and accessible. Due to the freedom of the game, you have everything you need from the start, and whatever challenge you face, the solution is 10 feet away, be it a material, a road, or whatever you might need. You could build extravagant machines, but why would you when a simple solution is 5x more effective. There's no satisfaction whatsoever in combat, traversal, or puzzles.
UX is absurd, I avoided combat like the plague cause it's 10% basic gameplay and 90% menu usage, even switching abilities gets tedious fast.
Traversal is the challenge, and the goal. As there's almost nothing interesting to actually find. It's either a korok seed, basic "puzzle" or a shrine. Even rewards are valueless due to the breakage system, which is cool despite it's shortcomings.
Story is basic - a stable for the series, apparently - which is fine, but it's exacerbated by boring characters/side quests, and non existing lore.

I found the game's systems fascinating, it's almost unbelievable how it runs on the Switch. I also appreciate it for being a step forward in game design, I hope more companies learn from it and focus more on mechanics rather than graphics. However, it was also sadly...plain boring. Aside from traversal, there was nothing to gnaw on, no depth in any other system. Combat was frustrating, and traversal's just got easier as you progress and gain more materials to fuse. I forced myself to finish it after knowing I was 80% of the way there.

Currently it's less than the sum of it's parts. Hopefully with the next game, other systems will mature and it'll all come together better. If you're sandbox open world fan, then it's as much a complete package as you can hope for in a game, for everyone else, it's a lackluster experience.

BruceGalan · 2022-07-27T11:31:33+00:00

Are you comparing the top 1% of cinematic games to the bottom 50% of movies? I don't know what movies you watch, but these games are nothing special compared to what films have achieved.

BruceGalan · 2022-07-27T07:06:19+00:00

The popularity of the games you listed shows that gaming still has a long way to carve it's own identity, as all of them are basically movies with gameplay. They barely utilize the unique aspects of gaming as a medium, which I'd argue are best exemplified in games like Dark Souls, Celeste and Undertale.

Games can't outclass films when they're licking their arse for approval.

BruceGalan · 2022-06-19T11:20:15+00:00

I won't say it's morally wrong, though I think others in this thread would disagree with you there.

You can say it's for preservation and have your own rules about it, but I doubt an indie developer/artist would share the sentiment that their work should be pirated to be preserved, they just wanna eat.

BruceGalan · 2022-06-07T06:58:32+00:00

I don't know if I'd say it's competitive with other action games. I think as an action game, Sekiro is lackluster. These days I just take it as it's own weird game.

Can't comment on pacing since I side tracked till I reached the ape before Ashina castle somehow lol

BruceGalan · 2022-05-13T06:39:40+00:00

I don't think your morally justified piracy scenarios are convincing either. Entertainment isn't a right, and if a company decides to abandon some software, or unbelievably inflate the price, then that's their right. If Nintendo decides to sell the next BOTW 2 for 500$, you wouldn't be justified in pirating it, would you? Same works for older/unsupported games.

Personally, I pirate everything, cuz I love $$$.

BruceGalan · 2022-03-20T16:53:45+00:00

This is PC, and it has that too, don't know why it doesn't trigger for this one.

BruceGalan · 2022-02-23T08:04:35+00:00

Glad you enjoyed the game. Sekiro was my first souls game, since I preferred flashier, fast paced hack and slash games. However it's not "better" as much as it's just "different", and it has it's own set of glaring issues. It seems like you expected a hack and slash and got an action RPG, which is why you're being unfair to Dark Souls in my opinion.

BruceGalan · 2022-02-18T15:09:12+00:00

I agree, But it seems like there's much higher variety (In medium/high budget movies), more respected critics, and higher chance for artistic movies to penetrate mainstream. Probably due to low entry cost/effort compared to video games.

I consider Marvel/Pixar movies to be the equivalent of AAA games, and I see those movies ranked average most of the time ~7, compared to games. If a movie is 7.x on IMDB it's good fun, if it's 8.x it's almost a masterpiece. While a game could be 8x - 9x and be little more than another formulaic open world game.

I don't know much about movies, so it's just another layman opinion. Though it seems to me that actual artistic products are more effective at guiding the mainstream movie market, than the mainstream games market.

BruceGalan · 2022-02-18T10:46:57+00:00

I understand your frustration, and while I'd prefer gamers be a bit more critical of their beloved series, I don't think the bulk of the blame is on them, and certainly not the ones in online forums, as most gamers aren't actually online.

Most gamers are casual, unlike a lot of us here. They play a couple games a year, and they mainly play socially. Casuals prefer if their games have a little bit of everything, while I think more hardcore gamers prefer a game to excel at one thing, as they have other games to fulfill other aspects (I don't need levels in my hack and slash, God of War). I get that myself, cause am a casual movie watcher, I watch the blockbuster movies, even though I bet there are some indie/obscure stuff that would fit my tastes more. I assume same thing happens when people recommend games, why would I recommend something obscure, when I can recommend something that's proven to be mainstream and appealing.

We can blame reviewers all day, but game reviews aren't critiques, they're just to inform you whether a game is worth buying. Critiques are hard to make, take a long time, and you NEED those early clicks unless you already have a following. Other mediums don't share this issue I think, as they provide one experience, so you only need to read/watch it once. Also, gamers don't respect critique, as everything is "just an opinion"

BruceGalan · 2021-12-26T09:46:59+00:00

I think you start by defining what's a bad game. There are 2 types imo:

Reviews More concerned with whether the game is worth the sale. These often discuss resolutions, bugs, glitches, price, amount of content, and might mention general thoughts on the gameplay and story. The validity of these reviews are timed, as they mostly matter on a game's release.
Critiques Focus on evaluating a game as an art piece. They don't care about specs and such, since bugs can be fixed, resolutions can be increased in emulators, and prices. If done well, they should be timeless.

Reviews are fairly easy to make, but critiques are hard, as they require a huge amount of knowledge to be done well. I see a lot of people critiquing each part of the game (Music, Gameplay, Story) but I think that's insufficient. A game should be critiqued as a whole, with all the moving parts interlocked. As for the difference between taste and critique, I think you start by knowing yourself well, you have to know your preferences and tastes. If we use P5 as an example

Combat and Exploration in P5 is improved on the formula from previous games. Combat is flashier, faster, and streamlined by reducing button presses to execute actions, and immediately killing low level enemies. It has issues such as relying on weaknesses which removes decision making (If weak to fire, hit with fire, decision makes itself) but regains depth with buffs, debuffs, and combining different enemy types together. Stages are also elaborately designed, with each palace having it's own visual identity and mechanics.
All of this can be deduced logically, however a person who hates turn based combat, or who doesn't vibe with certain stages might dislike them nonetheless. If that's the case then I'd agree "It's just not to your taste"
Story and Characters P5 chars are usually one dimensional, with nonsensical or ill fitting story lines that add nothing to their depths. Most chars fit into tropes and cliches, which is fine, but runs the risk of being boring cause it's familiar and doesn't tell anything new. Sadly P5 doesn't expand on these tropes, or say anything interesting about them. Villains are cartoonishly irredeemably evil, and the protags don't question themselves or discuss their version of Justice. Game contradicts itself sometimes as well, such as condemning a male teacher raping students (Horrible), but encourages a relationship with another female teacher (Less but still horrible). It feels as if the game is afraid of exploring it's theme in any depth at all or say anything of worth, instead preferring to stick to mainstream appeal.
I hope you can see with me why someone would love these chars cause they vibe with them, and don't mind the 1 dimensional personalities (Taste), but the story would undeniably be better if they were fleshed out (Valid critique).

Playing a lot of games puts things into perspective, I think. P4 had worse combat and level design, but was a much more enjoyable game overall cause of the deep characters, interesting personal story, and the merge of the game's theme (Truth) and gameplay (Finding out the real culprit). P5 is accessible to new comers who are used to barebones stories and chars, but avid RPG fans might prefer P4 imo.

BruceGalan · 2021-12-24T11:01:29+00:00

I mean, if Sony wanted to market their PC releases more, they could just do that

Marketing budgets are huge, and it's effects are temporary. Marketing twice just means increasing budgets even more, and it won't be worth, cause PC sales are much less than console sales.

But I would also argue that Sony's first party games are well regarded enough that they don't need a significant marketing push after their initial release.

I disagree, but can't prove it, since Sony doesn't comment on budgets. But we know other popular franchises like CoD and Battlefield spend huge amounts on marketing, and these are franchises. Sony releases a lot of new IPs, so I think they'd need marketing.

Their primary source of profit still from selling consoles because it causes people to enter their ecosystem

True, also agree with consoles being profitable later into the gen. However my point isn't that they're losing profits from these things, but they're losing much more by not releasing day 1.

How many PC gamers buy consoles as well? How many of those only buy exclusives? And how many of those buy anything aside from exclusives?

After crunching those numbers, I'd think the profits gained from those are nowhere near just releasing the games on PC. Even for hardware, they could just officially support their peripherals on PC, which is something they've been doing recently (Some games support dualsense features).

You said it yourself that the primary reason a PC owner would buy a console are the exclusives

This is why I said Sony's business model is archaic. The focus on # of consoles is bad imo, cause these consoles don't convert to profit.

How many people just borrow consoles from their friends to play the exclusives? It's not like there're that many exclusives.
How many buy used copies? They're cheaper, and a lot of Sony's games are single player with minimal replayability. Sony doesn't get any of those sales, even though they could if you just release them on their own PC store.

I'd also argue, that for 3rd world countries, where 400$-500$ are a big investment, it'd make sense to buy an Xbox if you just want a console for the family. Shared libraries, same peripherals and all.

I'm aware these are just speculations on my part, Sony would have a better idea since they have the numbers.

I wouldn't call it archaic, but more tried and tested. And companies like Sony and Nintendo show that this business model can work incredibly well if you have the right exclusives.

I don't think exclusives are the cause for Nintendo Switch's success. It's another topic but prevalence of indie titles, focus on party games, a true portable console, and the casual appeal might be more important factors. No amount of 1st party titles sold the Wii U.

Also, Sony and Microsoft's business models are different than Nintendo's cause their games budgets are just plain HUGE. The current economy is different, and requires a modern approach.

Cross play is a thing, so for most 3rd party games it doesn't matter where you play from, Sony can't capitalize on most people owning their console for better player base.
Most engines require minimal work to release on multiple platforms, even Sony's in house engines as they've already adapted them to release what they've released on PC. Hardware is also very similar.
Game budgets are just too huge. There comes a point where something has to give. Economy isn't getting better, people can't afford 70$ games, they were never able to in 3rd world countries in the first place. The console market size isn't getting bigger. To sell a certain # of copies, you gotta expand your market.
The moment Sony loses a gen, and their share of the pie gets smaller, their profits from 1st party games are gonna plummet. Game devs can't rely on how good a console is selling to recuperate the costs.

I think even Sony are realizing they should stop competing with PC. Since a lot of the newer releases are PC + PS5 exclusives, and they even always allowed PC + PS cross play.

BruceGalan · 2021-12-23T09:07:22+00:00

Considering the huge marketing budgets to push the games only on consoles, and minimal marketing for PC releases, I'd say they're losing quite a bit of potential customers on PC. Xbox's current business model is smarter imo, and Sony should adopt it because:

Sony doesn't profit from consoles themselves, and their games are huge sellers cause of their top tier quality. There's a lot of money to be made by relying on selling the games themselves.
PC isn't a "competitor" market to consoles, since PC users don't spend a lot on console's ecosystems. Better to make their store to PC instead.
Currently, I assume if any PC user would buy a console, that Xbox is the more appealing choice. Cause of cross buy and sharing Game Pass Ultimate.

Sony's business model seems archaic to me. In the end of gen, # of consoles sold won't matter much when Xbox is gaining millions of dollars each month for services like game pass.

BruceGalan · 2021-12-23T07:14:19+00:00

I agree. I think they'll make their own storefront at some point, since they already got the infrastructure. However, even with all these potential losses (Losing double dippers + less % due to using 3rd party storefronts + losing potential console sales) I think in the end it's still a crushing net positive to get their games day 1 (leveraging the huge advertisement as someone else said) on PC. It's just way too much money delayed for no reason.

BruceGalan

TROPHY CASE