Oh snap, thanks for catching that! I edited the title.

As a cleverly written and somewhat complex personal story, Infinite shines. It’s got compelling characters that make you care, and then it puts those characters through the wringer in their search for contentment.

That’s a great point I hadn’t considered, and can’t believe I hadn’t. Rapture felt like its own character to the story in a way that Colombia never really did, but it’s undeniable how well-done the characterization between them was.

Then why even comment? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Have a good day!

As McLuhan put it, “the medium is the message” and video games inherently work better through a synthesis of gameplay and story, without one dominating over the other. Games that lean too far in one direction or the other (Metal Gear Solid’s interminably long cut-scenes for instance) take you too far out of the gaming medium and too far into other, more detached mediums.

Absolutely banger take, I agree completely. Games have a difficult needle to thread, unlike a book or movie that can be strictly narrative-based, a video game has to somehow give the player enough agency while taking it away to allow the story to progress. And now I have DND on the mind again.

I’m reminded of a comment my older brother made about Final Fantasy X, all those years ago. He described it as basically playing a movie. Go figure, I liked the cutscenes!

<3 I appreciate you.

That’s great! I remember myself enjoying the gameplay a lot, and it ran surprisingly well on my PC at the time. Any thoughts beyond that, anything about the article specifically? The article isn’t over here saying, “This award-winning game was bad!” it’s more so trying to take a closer look at the story and themes of the game as a whole from a 2024 perspective and how our current world can reflect them. Though to be fair ™, it is definitely meant to be a click-bait article that’s part of a greater “Spicey Takes” section.

“They go low, we go high.”

😂 🔫

Faaaantastic! This actually could be pretty dope.

BRB, loading my shotgun with birdshot.

Hm I need a shotgun.

Thanks for the detailed explanation! That helps me understand it better myself. So basically, anything we put in orbit ourselves is always going to degrade, which requires routine positioning (i.e., expend some energy to keep the balloon in the air)?

From my understanding, it was in orbit for three years before reentering our the atmosphere in an uncontrolled descent, then it fell through dude’s roof.

Brian Jacques, of Redwall fame. I feel so lucky to have grown up on such a lovely collection of adventure stories. I have such fond memories of my mom surprising me with a new book. I picked one up the other day and read a snippet, and it was just as lovely as it ever was.

In the 1980s, Jacques worked as a milkman, on a round which included the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind.[1] He got to know the children there, and volunteered to read to them. However, he became dissatisfied with the state of children’s literature, with too much adolescent angst, and began to write stories for them. So that the visually impaired children would be able to picture the scenes he was writing for them, he developed a highly descriptive style, emphasizing sound, smell, taste, gravity, balance, temperature, touch, and kinesthetics.[6] From these short stories and reading sessions emerged Redwall, an 800-page handwritten manuscript.[7] -wikipedia

Guy was a saint, simple as.

Thank you so much!

I have no doubts about that either, myself. Though even if such an abomination of a doppelganger were to exist, and it seems that these companies are hellbent on making it so, it would be worse for the reasons you described previously: prolonging and molesting the grieving process that human beings have evolved to go through. All in the name of a dollar. I apologize for being so bitter about this (this bitterness is not directed at you, frog), but this entire "AI’ phenomenon fucking disgusts and repulses me so much I want to scream.

We have a box of old recipe cards from my grandmother that my wife cherishes. My parents gifted them to her because out of all their daughter-in-laws, she is the one that loves to cook and explore recipes the most. I just can’t imagine someone wanting something like that in a sterile technological aspect like an “AI-powered” app.

“But Trev, what if you used an LLM to generate summaries-” no, fuck off (he said to the hypothetical techbro in his ear).

The platformer was pretty decent. I remember the intro cutscene scaring me as a kid, lol.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this comment is. Sharks are insurmountably important for the oceanic ecosystem and the historic methods of research and development are really interesting. You have a greater chance of drowning at the beach, no question.

Hopefully it doesn’t impact them too much. So tired of this AI train man.

Welp, reckon it’s time I take my happy ass down to the local used game store and sell my Xbox. Thing’s collecting dust anyway. I think I’ll get a new camera lens instead.

Basically this, for me. I want my devices to be more dedicated to a singular purpose, so I’m not tethered to my phone all day. Having a camera, an MP3 player, and a handheld makes my actions feel more purposeful. Building off that, having a “one-stop-shop” type of device or service or anything really imo makes the overall experience worse. Think Wal-mart versus a dedicated electronics store or something.

What’s the use of autonomy when a button does it all?