GGT 354 Is on a Different Timeline Where the Cubs Lose...?

I bought XIII-2 cuz it's the superior XIII game as it as the least Lightning and the most Serah.

I don't know what else I really want to look for.

I'm think I'm just too lazy to sift through everything.

 
happy thanksgiving y'all

picked up bloodborne, since i had a $15 reward thing to spend at best buy, so i ended up only paying a buck for the game (thanks gcu)

 
Okay, I officially have Thoughts on Fallout 4. Not on the synthetic stuff or anything, just, y'know... Thoughts.

I have no point and I must scream.

 
Sadly, I have passed on getting a PS4 this Black Friday. My car has blown a head gasket, so I'm gonna invest in a new ride instead.

However, I did finally buy P4 Golden on the PSN sale. So, there's a silver lining somewhere in there.

 
Indignate said:
Put alcohol into your gas.
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I think I'd rather put alcohol into me instead. I've called a few people about some cars they have on Craigslist and I'm astounded by the stupidity of some of these people...but eh, I guess that's what I should expect from Craigslist.

 
whoknows said:
Do you have to use duct tape to put trees back together after you cut them?
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Most of the duct tape goes into keeping our tents, clothes, and bodies together.

I tape up three fingers on my left hand every morning before work because it reduces the risk of losing your fingernails.

 
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Duct tape lumberjack porn NSFW

Picture-257_zpseb0ba517.jpg

 
The fourth one is my favourite. All the others are at least Thanksgiving themed but the person who drew the fourth one was just, "fuck it, I'm gonna draw a fucking rad-ass 'chog and write 'Happy Thanksgiving' beside it."

Also, Fallout 4's companion mechanics are real bad.

 
Okay so companions in Fallout 4.

I could get into the bizarre AI that never really knows what it's trying to do, but I won't. I could get into their inane semi-randomized comments but there's not a lot to be said there. I could get into the trash-ass interface for actually interacting with your companions, but UI talk is never interesting. I could get into the AI's trouble with elevators, but I think a few animated .gifs can cover that. This post is about the companion approval mechanic.
 

It's not a unique mechanic. "Do things a companion likes and they warm up to you, do things they dislike and they disapprove of you" shows up in a lot of games. The quality of the implementation of this sort of system varies from game to game, but Fallout 4 does it pretty poorly.

Let's use an example. Cait. I actually missed Cait when the main plot sent me to her doorstep, but I eventually doubled back and picked her up. Cait is a drug-addicted pit fighter with an out-of-place accent and some really dumb combat barks (no, Cait, I don't think the mutant crab is ashamed of "getting its arse kicked by a girl".). There are going to be some spoilers for Cait's story, such as it is, a few paragraphs down.
 

Companion-heavy WRPGs often present you with one "moral/innocent/idealistic" companion and one contrasting "cynical/unethical/ruthless" companion fairly early on. Baldur's Gate gave you a little-sister figure in Imoen and follows her up quickly with the evil Xan. Neverwinter Nights 2 had the honourable - if prideful and stubborn - Khelgar and the thieving, selfish Neeshka. Dragon Age gave you Morrigan as a chaser for Alistair. Mass Effect paired the boring Kaidan with the space-racist Ashley. The reason for this is pretty simple: give the player an angel and a devil to argue different sides during decision points from an early stage.

The good/bad pairing usually gets another split as you gather companions, this time with a gender component. Aerie and Viconia, Baldur's Gate. Fall from Grace and Annah-of-the-Shadows, Planescape Torment. Elanee and Neeshka, Neverwinter Nights 2. Lelianna and Morrigan, Dragon Age. Liara and Ashley, Mass Effect. Merril and Isabella, Dragon Age 2. Aside from gender, three things are common to all these pairings: all serve as foils for each-other, all compete for the player character's romantic attention, and all sit on opposite ends of the Madonna-whore spectrum (with a very strong correlation between morality and "purity").
 

Male equivalents to this are relatively rare but they do exist. Neverwinter Nights 2 had Casavir and Bishop, Dragon Age had Alistair and Zevran, and... I kinda draw a blank after that.

The romantic element of this is important, because you don't really see this character pairing in games that don't have "standard" PC:NPC "romances". Not the original Fallout games, not Mask of the Betrayer, not Pillars of Eternity, not any of the Shadowrun Returns games, not Fallout: New Vegas, and not any Bethesda game until Fallout 4 (unsurprising, given that companion characters were never very important prior to Fallout 4).

So that brings us back to Cait - the "whore" of the equation, to Piper's "Madonna". Cait doesn't trust the player character at first.
Once she warms up to you, she explains her misgivings, gives her tragic backstory. More trust gained and she starts to get into detail about her drug problem. Eventually she decides that she wants - needs - to get clean, and she wants you, her only friend, the only person she can trust, to help her. This part gets a lot of emphasis: how dependable you are, always there for her, how selfless you are, asking for nothing in return for helping her, etc.

But there's a bit of a problem there. This is supposed to be a post about companion approval mechanics, remember? See, Cait is the Morrigan, the Annah, the Ashley of the game, so she disapproves of "Paragon" actions and warms up to you when you do "Renegade" things. To convince her that you are charitable, responsible, reliable, and trustworthy, you should in fact avoid showing those characteristics at all times. Because she's the "Renegade girl", you build support with her by bullying and extorting others, fighting needlessly, stealing, and
even using chems, the very thing she's trying to get away from.

Her actual narrative arc runs 100% contrary to the mechanics that you use to explore that narrative arc: because she is the Renegade girl who approves of Renegade things first, and a character with a story second.

A separate issue with the approval mechanics is the matter of broadness. Cait, for example, disapproves of the player working with the Minutemen to expand their network of settlements - one of the main features of the game, arguably the single biggest thing 4 brings to the table set by 3 and New Vegas. Another companion disapproves of the player picking locks and hacking terminals, one of the most common actions in the game. Why the developers saw the need to introduce negative reinforcement for performing such basic and otherwise rewarded tasks is beyond me.

But in the end, none of that matters: because while the actions that companions may disapprove of can be absurdly broad, the actions that they approve of are generally so common and so easy to do incidentally that I've yet to meet anyone I couldn't become the best friend of just by existing. Even though I did plenty of things Cait disapproved of, for example, she became convinced that I was the greatest person in the world because I picked every lock I came across.
 

Thus, the most positive thing I can say about the whole mechanic is that it was implemented poorly enough that it fails even to get in the player's way.

I'm sorry for making this post.

 
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I finally popped in Darksiders for the PS3 and I like it so far. It's very colorful, which is more than I can say for the other old AAA games I'm slogging through.

Finished Back to the Future the Game. WOW. Too bad S2 isn't in development.

 
detectiveconan16 said:
I finally popped in Darksiders for the PS3 and I like it so far. It's very colorful, which is more than I can say for the other old AAA games I'm slogging through.

Finished Back to the Future the Game. WOW. Too bad S2 isn't in development.
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Darksiders 2 is amazing, too. Darksiders is probably my most favorite new franchise last gen. I couldn't have been more surprised by it. I love that they change the type of game that each of them are since the Horsemen have different strengths. I still wish the third game would come out starring Strife and be a cover based shooter or have a 2D sidescroller centered around Fury.

whoknows said:
Darksiders 2 is terrible in comparison.
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You are terrible in comparison.

Indignate said:
Darksiders is probably the number 1 most mentioned game in the GGT.
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This is true. Usually it's me, Frosty, and Action singing praise.

whoknows said:
I got Darksiders 2 and Sleeping Dogs on the same day and that just made Darksiders 2 look that much worse.

Because Sleeping Dogs is rad.
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Sleeping Dogs is good, but Darksiders 2 is still fucking fantastic, brah!

 
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Would you rather fuck a Q*Bert that could shapeshift into Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat or a Q*Bert that could shapeshift into the lady from Golden Axe (any version)?

 
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I played Rare Replay this weekend and it was good. I only played like 2 hours of Viva Pinata, but still, it was fantastic. Game still holds up really well. 

Also, I still suck as Battletoads.

 
whoknows said:
I got Darksiders 2 and Sleeping Dogs on the same day and that just made Darksiders 2 look that much worse.

Because Sleeping Dogs is rad.
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Sleeping Dogs is still one of my all time favorite 360/PS3 gen games, I absolutely love that game.

CaptainJoel said:
I played Rare Replay this weekend and it was good. I only played like 2 hours of Viva Pinata, but still, it was fantastic. Game still holds up really well.

Also, I still suck as Battletoads.
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Everyone sucks at Battletoads, it's effing Battletoads :p

 
Joel, how do I try to get at one of two sisters when I'm interested in both?

Like, there's one I'm more attracted to I think but the other one is more attracted to me I think and I don't want to try to get at one, get denied, and then try to get at the other cuz thats probably a lost cause at that point. Like I want to try to hang out with one but I feel like that might set off alarms for the other one immediately, closing that gate should I ever go back to try and knock on it yadadamean? The only thing I can think of is that I can try to play it off as "oh I only talked to your sister first to learn more about you" or some shit if it turns out I like the other more.

Should I just play it as low key as possible until I find out for sure if I do like one way more than the other? Or should I just be shallow as fuck and go for the one that I think is prettier (the problem here is that the other one has a more fit body though)?

joel pls

 
Dah bois are back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKysONrSmew

And dah gurlz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNnV2D7ME7A

Also Psy I guess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrG4TEcSuRg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF27TNC_4pc

 
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