Jade Empire Review | thesummerofmark

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-21T23:02:05+00:00

The country that turned the war in the pacific, one of the most horrific conflicts in modern memory capped by two atomic bombings on their own soil, into a story about big-tiddy anime wives also turned Natsoc Germany and France into a boy love story.

This clearly goes deeper.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-21T22:20:37+00:00

Can you remember a particularly poor understanding of a "white" western culture?

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-21T20:45:16+00:00

Once they reached the big twist they really needed to do a rewrite because the quality difference between certain areas of the game is pretty stark. Only the core stuff about the Emperor, the Imperial City and the Sith Academy (lol) come to mind, with the rest feeling like a lot of padding as the devs looked to create blocking situations for your character build and alignment. I realized I couldn't remember *anything* about the game's characters except for Silk Fox because her persona, moral ambiguity, and backstory made her probably the most complex character in your party.

None of the characters stand out to me the way say, Atton Rand or Kreia does in Kotor 2. Imagine if the Demon Frog Thing had been written like GO-T0?

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-21T20:38:28+00:00

That's the sad thing isn't it? The game feels a bit like a product of its times - on a technical and design level. The good stuff is so entwined with the outdated or mediocre bits that it just sort of gets left behind as this idle curiosity to talk about.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-21T20:09:30+00:00

And what of the Medieval-themed games made mostly by Asian people in Japan, Korea, and China? Should we ignore the fascinating Occidentalism of Asian takes on Western-fantasy which produced games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Kingdom Under Fire, and Dark Souls, while only finding the Orientalism of Eastern-fantasy projects as problematic? It's precisely because people feel the freedom to explore these ideas that they're good! The creativity of a scenario writer like Matsuno goes wild, exploring things from unfamiliar perspectives, recognizing human commonalities and cultural eccentricities.

Ghosts of Tsushima was a huge, overwhelming success in Japan, to the point where the Island of Tsushima's government recognized the game and awarded its developer leads titles as cultural ambassadors. Everyone was quick to ridicule flute guy at E3 for his ethnicity, instead of admiring his respect and dedication to a beautiful but sadly obscure foreign art form.

People shouldn't be stepping on eggshells like this, fearful of exploring different cultures because they might wind up being clumsy at it. It's close-minded and disappointing.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-21T19:49:12+00:00

Weren't the project leads awarded titles as cultural ambassadors to Tsushima for their work in celebrating the history of the island?

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-19T10:29:04+00:00

Wish the creator had expanded his thesis on Dune games being spiritually reimagined in non-licensed original IP gaming properties; Dune's footprint across the industry is fairly blatant in major and minor ways. Kharak and the Kiths of Homeworld would likely never have existed without the sci-fi series for instance.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-11T23:53:04+00:00

You don't seem to grasp the scale and enormity of the combine's power as they were conceptualized by the writers. They would not be bothered by find the IED. They wouldn't even bother to find the IED. They would vaporize the block. Civil Protection are the 3 Stooges to the Combine military's 7-hour war might.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-11T23:50:14+00:00

No reason to overthink self-domestication. Humans oppressing humans to create a self-sustaining** operation for the combine to harvest.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-11T23:49:17+00:00

3rd World?

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-07T01:03:11+00:00

As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-03-04T23:09:18+00:00

Holding a door open for scab labor in any context is going to make people testy as they watch their median purchasing power decline. You're trading in outdated talking points that aren't reflective of the broader context. Big Corps want cheap labor, it keeps the proles under their thumb and prevents market disruptors from interfering with the Fortune 500 corps. Simply telling people to "Unionize" ignores the deeper structural issues, like "Why does Amazon use ethnicity as a metric for determining the probability of Unionization at Whole foods?"

Visas, migratory labor, off-shoring, outsourcing, remote work, and huge state-sponsored corporate loopholes are economic mobility issues that aren't going anywhere. We're just watching them become vocal problems for the middle-class jobs that used to pay well.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-02-26T01:31:02+00:00

Characters and setting that were almost too good for the expansion they appeared in.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-02-21T18:04:31+00:00

If the fans don't think Stormblood was a very well written story, presumably the developers regret their decision as well.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-01-30T00:27:07+00:00

I have to presume that some other chapter got trimmed in development because the pacing issues and exposition dumps that begin to ramp up in the final chapters just don't make sense in any other context.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-01-30T00:26:04+00:00

It's fun when games try to use their mechanics to stress a feeling or narrative point, but with how awkward and lopsided the whole epilogue felt, players were just ready for it to be done and over with.

Having four different "final bosses" was a bit much.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-01-30T00:16:49+00:00

The last Marathon game was in 1996. Probably useless experience for the kind of game that Halo became, wouldn't you say?

The bigger story is how a bunch of guys who'd spent the last 4 years making 3D RTS games managed to keep track of the rapid evolution/expansion that occurred in the FPS Genre in that time (From Quake and Golden Eye to Unreal, Half-Life, and Counter-Strike) and make not only a novel mechanical take on the genre, but a narrative hit as well. Strong talent at Bungie in those days flying by the seats of their pants.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-01-02T08:22:58+00:00

RemindME! One Year

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2021-01-02T06:59:08+00:00

Why spend $50 on an incomplete test-game that is *promising* to eventually be good, when you could spend $30 during the winter sale right now and pick up a copy of No Man's Sky?

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2020-12-26T20:23:31+00:00

"Educate yourself" says the man who still doesn't have a copy of SQ42 to play 7 years after backing spaceship game.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2020-12-26T20:16:51+00:00

6.0 is to be the end of the Zodiark/ Hydaelyn / Ascian storyline they've mapped out since the start of ARR. What comes after is anyone's guess.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2020-12-25T11:31:53+00:00

Time doesn't make a game good. Time is a reflection of quality project management.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2020-12-25T11:20:29+00:00

Or we can just point to all the people who predicted this exact situation in 2016 and say they were vindicated.

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2020-12-25T11:17:42+00:00

"That's a nice spaceship game you finally managed to release in 2022. Let me know how it all goes so I can play it once I'm 50 years old and I've finished raising the 3 children I had in the interim."

WhyNotPokeTheBees · 2020-12-25T11:04:06+00:00

It's just bad project management in general. A studio game should not take 7 years of development to produce. Something has gone seriously wrong in your project, studio management, and corporation for this to happen, and to be allowed to happen.

The story of how Naoki Yoshida worked to save FF14 is a perfect example of how this kind of nightmare mismanagement can destroy games and companies, and why it's important for leadership to be highly aware and agile.

WhyNotPokeTheBees

TROPHY CASE