they all make you pay for online now

videogames as the youngest of all media is obviously going to get hit the hardest by capitalism draining it of its lifeblood for the last few percentages of profit. the only thing that has seen actual progress in videogame design is how "engaging" (or psychologically manipulative and addictive) they can make them and for that you don't need any technological prowess (although the idea of technological progress leading in any linear way to more innovation has always been suspect to me, gamers only being able to imagine "more destruction" and "better ai" as markers of progress seems emblematic of that fact)

if games like the newest god of war (ostensibly a serious story driven game) needs a seven people "player investment design team", celebrated games like "death stranding" are gamified like any mobile or clicker game and even indie devs make "pls lobotomize me for the next thirty minutes" stuff like vampire survivors you can basically give up on the medium. there's no ambition in any of these companies that goes above "we need to get those engagement numbers up". and if engagement is the goal, it's stupid to make more games than you need to. you can only play one game at a time.

the only devs i have any interest in nowadays are fromsoft and nintendo (and that's only the nintendo that makes mario and zelda games) and maybe the occasional indie game (although they mostly suck too)

exactly, like its cool that mgs has both whacky fourth-wall breaking conversations about how eating glowing mushrooms recharges your batteries, long discussions about old hollywood films and long philosophical musings, but maybe they shouldn't all be presented the same way

It's high time to stop thinking that any sort of change can be enacted in the terms of what is "officially" called "politics". Who is sitting in the white House is irrelevant to whatever we need to do

MGS2 and 3s plot getting told almost entirely within codex conversations does make following whatever political points they try to make pretty difficult

The US has always been a genocidal fascist apartheid state. You've never once been able to not vote for genocide

I'm watching Voyager and there's an episode where one of the characters goes to the brig for thirty days and when he complains to the ships doctor that he is going crazy the doctor just answers: "that's the idea."

Voyager really kinda sucks

I don't want 80s style music, I want 2024 music. And believe me it's not like I'm not looking

just be a sensible person and pirate everything that you can pirate

everything is fucking terrible and nothing is fun anymore

I've played through the game with a friend of mine a few months ago and had a great time. I've tried playing the RE4 remake but couldn't be bothered after realizing fifteen minutes in that it's just the same game over and over again. RE2 remake was fun, but I was already over that game the second I started one of the other campaigns.

i only wish the kids would start making good music