True, but also consistently under fire for actually being a good journalist. If you’re reading this keep up the good fight!

Hey there! Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s spelled gruesome. It’s hard to learn the spelling of a word you heard, or the pronunciation of a word you read. No judgement and I hope this was meaningful to you.

Same, bought space age but loading up a new save file just makes my heart ache for my immaculate bus and signal setups

Speaking of megaman please do me a favour and try battle network.

Completely agreed. I think I struggled for too long in Farewell and had to turn on the assist mode (which is extremely judgement free, btw).

Can’t believe Celeste is so buried in a thread about platformers. It’s challenging but never unfair (game mechanics even weigh in the player’s favour, e.g. coyote time). A common complaint about difficult platforming is the brewing impatience from having to constantly restart, but Celeste’s reloads are so fast that this becomes a non-issue. Other than C-sides (and maybe some rooms in the hotel level), levels are small enough that you don’t have to slog through everything to get to the failure point.

Celeste is masterpiece tier for me, and I highly encourage anyone who remotely loves platforming to give it a try.

Ideally? Have public transport that runs to these national parks. Japan has train stations that bring you right up to the foot of a mountain – I’m almost very certain that one train station requires less space than a carpark (thinking in terms of capacity here). Of course this requires a massive revamp in infrastructure, but one can wish. There are also some buses that feed into these parks, which is fantastic, give me more! As a tourist, I’ll gladly give these buses more money than whatever car rental company I have to use.

P. S. I think the immediate short-circuiting to “guess we won’t have forests” is kinda worrying.

To be fair, the national parks are really beautiful. But you need a car to even reach these parks, then drive into a massive parking lot – really depressing.

Boggles my mind when people claim that using mechanic present in the game is not playing the game “as intended”.

Who do you think put the feature there? The pesky magical game dev that spawns at 2 am to code in a mimic tear?

I tried behind the bastards, and really liked the first few (older?) episodes. But it soon felt too shallow, especially when the main host isn’t speaking – imo the other guests were only there to provide quips. Personal opinion, of course. Maybe this got better?

I switched over to QAA to scratch this itch for laughing at conspiracy theorists.

Seconded! They often invite guests over as well, who are pretty well versed in their own field. Funny British humour with 4 facts in an hour? Sign me up

Is there some gambler challenge that you’re trying to clear? I gave up at the blackjack one and shot the dealer

Yeap fully agreed here as well. I do think the medium itself is shackled by its own chains, but my goodness when you find a game that does it well – the feeling is astounding.

I guess it depends on the player as well. I adored how TLOU2 handled its story but most people might disagree.

Anyway, I’ve come to the realisation that I’ve mostly been reading non fiction lately! Maybe that’s why I’m so fiction starved.

If you’ve any books to recommend I’d love to hear them!

I’d like to think I’m an avid reader (and gamer) as well. I view both highly and both have their strengths.

SPOILERS

Video games shine in terms of player interactivity. I genuinely felt visceral, strong emotions by simply having to press the square button 3 times in TLOU2. Bashing someone’s head in is the only way to proceed. The music gets more distorted, the screen itself becomes blurry – I felt as Ellie felt. Distraught, upset, angry, and everything else in between.

I felt the acceptance that I have been honing in my countless loops of Outer Wilds when I finally pulled the system’s “life support” out. Flying through space one last time while the music echoes this final journey really made me feel things.

I’d summarise the edge video games have as “This is what you (the player) have done. You have agency. Deal with the consequences of your own actions, or reap the benefits.”

A huge disclaimer, I know that the story is already established in the writers room. I’m not saying that games allow you to craft your own story. I’m saying that they allow you to craft your own experience.

Of course, great writers can accomplish the same. I love Atwood’s writing in particular, and she does conjure up wonderful emotions. But you always feel for someone or something. You don’t have any agency in what happens, so emotions tend to be dampened as well. That’s my personal opinion anyway, feel free to disregard it!