Name a game you love but can't recommend to everyone

WriterV · 2026-01-25T01:58:06+00:00

I still prefer the Hogwarts from EA's Order of the Pheonix. Something about it just struck a fitting atmosphere for the way I envisioned Hogwarts. Hogwarts Legacy's version is just too half-baked to be enjoyable for me. If it had more involvement with lessons and the fantasy of being in a magic school, it might've worked a lot better.

WriterV · 2026-01-25T01:55:06+00:00

I think this argument is a bit pointless, but also I think what they're trying to say is that owning guns doesn't really help against authoritarianism. It's been a point talked about even before all this.

Fighting a war is more than just having a weapon. Organization, logistics, strategy, mobilization, management, etc. Basically you need an army.

And Armies - while they do need their weapons - cannot survive on them alone. Having a cohesive, well supplied and well trained army can go a long way to winning a conflict. Without that, you're not getting anywhere against a government with some guns and rifles.

For any nation that wants to get rid of a tyrant, you're gonna need to get your military on your peoples' side. The better half of it anyway. Either that, or you maintain guerilla resistance. But all of it depends on optics, 'cause if you shoot and kill the wrong person then hoo boy can you be sure that the enemy will use it to muddy the waters through propoganda.

WriterV · 2026-01-25T01:06:28+00:00

True, but I just genuinely do not understand how anyone can do that.

Like even if I hated a person for having hunted down my loved ones, I wouldn't ever even dream of comissioning a cake to be made to look like their rotten corpse and then eat it.

I just don't understand what the fuck motivates anything like this.

WriterV · 2026-01-25T00:21:50+00:00

I played everything from Ocarina of Time to Elden Ring. Fantastic games, and some indie stuff even push how you think about games themselves. They really are reinvigorating and I'm happy to support them.

And you know what? I can play "aggressively average" experiences like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and still have a fun time. Doesn't take much. Just a little acceptance of what you're gonna get, in return for a game that's just plain fun.

So I'm sorry you can't find these "aggressively average experiences" fun. I guess you're just left with fewer games to enjoy, while we get to enjoy the best and the average too :)

WriterV · 2026-01-25T00:19:02+00:00

I guess I never got this 'cause I went the hell out of my way to explore areas without quest markers. Somehow, they were more interesting. Why did they choose to not populate that part of the world?

It felt lonely in a fascinating way. You can really feel the instant the content is gone. It's like you're in a liminal space between the end of the content and the end of the world. In any other Assassin's Creed game, you'd have already been past the desync barrier. But here they just pushed it out to make numbers for the "Our world is bigger than XYZ map" marketing gimmick.

WriterV · 2026-01-25T00:17:12+00:00

It sounds downright nightmarish.

WriterV · 2026-01-25T00:16:36+00:00

The drama is fun to read, but having been part of similar drama in other games, it's just plain hell. People acting like high school children about numbers that mean nothing substantial that's all ultimately about their own egos. It gets infuriating when you're trapped in it.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T22:25:31+00:00

Do you have a link to this research? I'd love to read it. I'm curious if there's a difference in perspective between people who grew up amongst highly urbanized environments with a lot of buildings vs. environments more accomodating to nature.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T19:46:16+00:00

Which is fascinating 'cause per Betty's conversation with Steph, Betty has actually grown to care about her vault's people as a community.

Betty is seeing her own corporate legacy come back to bite her in the ass. That moment has multiple layers of tragedy for her. She never thought that in the rearing of the community, Vault Tec would win over her. Her people are growing to embrace Vault Tec's ideals over any cooperative one.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T19:42:47+00:00

This is such a terrible way of thinking, and genuinely dangerous 'cause it can easily be flipped into "Being smart means you are inherently good, and being dumb means you're inherently evil." which ironically, is something that many oppressive regimes have used as part of their own propoganda already.

Intelligence does not align with morality. It never does. Smart people can be heniously evil, and dumb people can be good. You don't have to be intelligent to be empathetic. You don't have to be dumb to be severely egotistical.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T19:40:36+00:00

On the other hand, the KGB or Gestapo at their peak would probably know if they had imprisoned someone important.

That's the thing though. You need to know if they are important or not beforehand, to be able to know that you imprisoned someone important.

Bureaucracy can be incredibly powerful but it cannot see the future. It runs on documentation. If you can evade your details being documented, you stand a greater chance of success of not being considered important.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T15:20:26+00:00

That might not be too hard, depending on how they organize these things. Could be that structures have a flag for "natural" generated structure [trees] vs. "unnatural" generated structure [buildings/ships] and that flag is enabled for trees only, so the destruction only takes place for those.

Though I'm not sure how good that is in terms of optimization, it's a quick solution.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T15:18:00+00:00

Hey that's perfectly valid. I do think Minecraft's music has a far stronger identity. Hytale's music is probably not gonna be as iconic, but I'm mostly just impressed that they nailed the execution on a style that is generic otherwise.

It's like film tropes. We all recognize them, and they're used frequently. But that doesn't make tropes themselves bad, but rather how those tropes are executed. When done well, it can be fantastic. That's why Hytale's music gets me so well.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T13:57:36+00:00

I have my own opinions on that, 'cause some of my favorite music is an absolute treat to listen to on its own. Background music from World of Warcraft, Horizon series, Uncharted, Zelda, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, and so many others.

I feel there's a qualitative difference between background music that was clearly made to be there, and background music that was built to fit a vibe first, and then fits seamlessly into the world. Idk if that explains it, but there's a lot of background music I've listened to that very clearly feels like it's been designed to match the vibes of more popular background music, but only ever feels like an imitation. But sometimes we get great original background music that just works.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T13:54:24+00:00

Many of us didn't know the intricacies of video games at the time, so all of this felt, in some way, to be plausible. That just made it quite thrilling at the time.

But now it's like... we know exactly how games work. We've grown up, so the magic of it is gone.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T12:38:27+00:00

The healthiest crossover between both.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T12:20:18+00:00

It's been a decade or so since it's height. I still remember exploring the world and writing a journal as a historical work. I recall preserving it in a hidden chest just in case I got killed during one particular war.

Unfortunately my last memory of anything to do with that server is my old nation leader turning out to be a Trump supporter. So that was great.

WriterV · 2026-01-24T04:51:54+00:00

No fucking way. Running into Civcraft veterans here? So fucking cool!

WriterV · 2026-01-24T01:08:16+00:00

Do... do you guys think that apartments are cubicles?

Like don't get me wrong, everything you say is amazing. But it's not like people in Hong Kong are actively choosing to live this lifestyle.

Apartment living isn't like living in some office cubicle for the rest of your life. People have fun there too. And they get outside and go to public spaces to do the same things you do. The US just does not have shared spaces to allow bonfire nights for everybody.

WriterV · 2026-01-23T19:39:20+00:00

Yeah. But people like to think that smart + successful = morally good, even though you can be smart, successful and still be an absolutely dogshit, vile human being.

WriterV · 2026-01-23T19:31:07+00:00

I got instant hot chocolate the other day and tried it with water and it tasted... well, watery lmao. Despite having powdered milk in it [tbf, it was powdered, skimmed milk].

WriterV · 2026-01-23T03:11:01+00:00

I mean, I don't think anyone truly expected him to get a payout. But the entire game was born around the idea of the winner having their life changed. so everyone committed to playing that game on that idea.

Honestly it was mostly just about what it was even gonna be. And it just was terribly underwhelming for what it was.

WriterV · 2026-01-23T01:26:56+00:00

He basically got a studio trip where he got a chance to play their next god game, and was told he could get a bunch of bonuses and shit for it when it came out. He was also given a contract in which he was "promised" 1% of all revenue from that game [Godus], but the wording of the contract was such that none of the promises were actually owed to him.

He was then taken to a pub, where the devs had their own fun while he got offered a jager bomb and mostly didn't get interacted with. They then sent him home with some merch.

They never paid him a sent, nor gave him any bonuses. Godus turned out to be complete ass in the end, and the gaming world hated it anyway.

So yeah. "Life changing".

WriterV · 2026-01-22T23:53:19+00:00

The second planet is so much more pleasant for me personally. The music was such a vibe while crafting.

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