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[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

Suddenly interested in this game I didn't care about

 

[DragoonKain]

Btw as more and more of this stuff happens, more and more people are growing tired of it. Even left leaning people are groaning over this nonsense.

There is a growing sense out there that no one can do any right no matter what they do, and people are really getting sick of it.

 

[Scopa]

Btw as more and more of this stuff happens, more and more people are growing tired of it. Even left leaning people are groaning over this nonsense.

There is a growing sense out there that no one can do any right no matter what they do, and people are really getting sick of it.

There is going to be a lot of angry, coloured hair bloggers out of work in the near future. It’s already started.

 

[TheGreatYosh]

I'm glad I can use video game sites to inform my game purchases again. Just not in the way they want.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

hopefully this game reviewer never plays any Assassin's Creed games. they take place in many "unpleasant settings". these being virtual points in IRL history. history provides a lot of source content; statuary, architecture, furniture, the stuff of game worlds, it is ripe for digital plunder. not all of us prefer fantasy worlds of rainbow shit. believe it or not it is possible you can learn something from reflecting on the past, rather than sticking your head in the sand.

a great deal of fantasy culture is based on historical architecture, social structures, and mythology. from the sound of things this game was too accurate and too realistic in it's depiction of historical content, which only makes it sound MORE appealing. besides, this is not nearly a 1:1 representation of the horror and violence of that time, it is a stylized, Hollywood style depiction.

 

[Teletraan1]

I find myself only playing RTS, Turn Based, city builders and other various strategy games. I usually can avoid this woke garbage. Why are these people wagging their finger at everything usually people who look like they make poor life choices?

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

she is bitching about colonialism throughout this review, yet she gave a favorable review to the new Monster Hunter World DLC, even stating that colonization is a theme in that game. she mentions it briefly in a single sentence and never talks about it again. so it isn't like she is an equal opportunity offender who devotes half the MHW review to talking about the politics of killing & capturing monsters, in colonizing their habitats, on the political ramifications of normalizing any of that behavior. no. it's ignored entirely. that game gets a pass.

yet here, it ruins the game. she doesn't even consider it in the other game, but for this one, it's the focus of the review. it RUINS THE GAME. i guess it's cool to use colonization as a theme in a game and entirely ignore it when you want, and then otherwise let it ruin your game when you don't. that's really the problem here, an inconsistency of thought. someone being that intellectually dishonest and showing that kind of bias is obviously full of shit.

I mean she also played Wow classic and from what I remember enjoyed it without realizing its dealing with very similar themes.
Out of a morbid curiosity I kind of want her to review EUIV .

 

[Platinumstorm]

I guess I will jump in on this, despite resisting.

I am a liberal-minded poster, and was a kotaku reader for years. At some point, when they went more into the game commentary and ridiculously ad and crossover heavy style, I did lose interest in their site. I might even say that Heather Alexander was one of the reasons I lost interest in the site, and there was one other gal who I wasn't a huge fan of either, sorry for forgetting your name.

So I've been able to move on, and exist without a gaming site that is right for me. But Heather absolutely can write the way she does for Kotaku. It isn't hurting you, you don't have to read it, and you don't have to agree with it, if you do. She gets to have that opinion on games without you trashing her. You get to have your opinion on whatever this game is, without having Heather trash you.

This is like every politically infused thread that "gaming culture" has become. You apply to you, and someone else applies to someone else.

I have reviewed every single game I have played since around 1996. I haven't shared them all with you, because it doesn't matter.

I'm not going to buy The Last of Us 2, no matter what any reviewer, nor gaming commentator says, because I'm just done with that, just like I was with RDR2. And it doesn't matter that I'm not buying them. The world will be ok. Rock* will be ok. Naughty Dog will be ok.

Gaming is supposed to make us happy, or at least enjoy it, but we're constantly clashing over nothing. So yes, I don't read much of anything Kotaku has anymore, and I haven't for a few years, and that doesn't matter. I'm happy they have a site that appeals to whoever their site likes now, and hopefully you guys have something like that to.

Please stop getting offended over everything and everyone.

 

[radewagon]

Players aren't necessary for games to exist? What kind of logic is that!

Playing devil's advocate...
If one were to make the argument that a game is "art," art can exist without people to appreciate it. It doesn't serve much of a purpose at that point, but that doesn't mean that an audience is necessary for art to exist.

More to the point of the hate towards the linked article, and many other articles like it receive, I think I'm starting to understand the disconnect that gamers are having with "journalists." I think the issue is that gamers want traditional reviews that only really touch on the quality of a game and its separate elements. I imagine they long for the days of reviews from the likes of EGM or Gamepro that judged games based on easily identifiable criteria. What we're starting to see, though, is that some journalists are choosing to do the same type of classic review (and there was a lot of that in the linked review) but then said journalists also choose to critique the game as more than just entertainment but also as art and how that art fits into the greater context of society's past and present.

I get that people don't like that and it's not their cup of tea, but, to put it quite bluntly, if such writing isn't to your liking, then by all means don't read it. Definitely don't post links to it and call attention to it. You aren't the market for their work. That said, to disparage it simply because you don't care to understand where it's coming from isn't doing anyone any favors. It's certainly not making it go away. As games become more and more popular, it's only natural that academia starts to take a closer look at them. And the way many academics write is very much at odds with what the gaming world is used to.

And that's okay. Critique doesn't always have to operate on your terms. You will find stuff that you find annoying and hopefully avoid it and find stuff you find engaging and hopefully support it. Movies, TV, Music, Paintings, Food... all of these hobbies have their critics and some of them are approachable and some are overly academic, stuffy, or verbose. Every other type of hobbiest has come to terms with this and it's probably about time that we do the same.

 

[sol_bad]

Wow
I didn't realise that she was really a he. I totally thought it was a she that just looked like a he.

 

[rickyEGM]

Wow
I didn't realise that she was really a he. I totally thought it was a she that just looked like a he.

It's a man in drag.

 

[Fbh]

Reading through it, her main issue seems to be that based on the setting, she expected/wanted the plot to center around fighting all the evil white men , and the game is focusing on other stuff instead.

Also, if I'm reading it correctly she seems to dislike the fact that the game makes it so staying on good terms with characters you might disagree with or even hate can be advantageous from a gameplay perspective. I actually think that sounds interesting and unique considering most games with some sort of decision making mechanic tend to always reward the player for doing the generic good guy stuff, or find some way to make your logically stupid but morally correct choice somehow work out in the end.

 

[Ivellios]

I honestly play games to have fun and relax, not to be educated by it on what is right or wrong.

This is why i dislike articles like these where the author want the game to be a political media to pass on their message.

UPDATE: Per everyone's request, put up an archive link.

And so it begins.

ARCHIVE LINK

Reminder that this woman gave us this gem of a tweet:

Reading through it, her main issue seems to be that based on the setting, she expected/wanted the plot to center around fighting all the evil white men , and the game is focusing on other stuff instead.

Also, if I'm reading it correctly she seems to dislike the fact that the game makes it so staying on good terms with characters you might disagree with or even hate can be advantageous from a gameplay perspective. I actually think that sounds interesting and unique considering most games with some sort of decision making mechanic tend to always reward the player for doing the generic good guy stuff, or find some way to make your logically stupid but morally correct choice somehow work out in the end.

Yeah i agree, in reality doing good deeds against the wishes of those in power should be disastrous to your character and make his life harder.

 

[Rest]

In the nearly 10 hours that I have played it so far, it fails to pull its disparate threads into a cohesive whole.

I don't read reviews by people who haven't consumed the thing they're reviewing. 10 hours into an RPG is nothing.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

History was bad for a lot of people, get over it site

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Maybe it's just this month's flavor of outrage, but I thought it was amusing that Vice also pushes the "colonialism" angle for the new Monster Hunter expansion:

'Iceborne' Review: Monster Hunter at its Peak, Colonialist Fantasy Included

Take Monster Hunter World, the good and the bad, and turn it up to 11.

www.vice.com

Two games pushing colonialism released in one month? This sounds like an epidemic. Please save us, journos. Please save us from these games "normalizing" and "providing a platform for" fantasy colonialism.

 

[NickFire]

Obviously I cannot see into their minds and I am purely guessing here, but at this point I just don't believe that even Kotaku's senior people consider themselves to be gaming journalists or critics any longer.

I also wouldn't believe that I was in a doctor's office if the receptionist was Daffy Duck.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Maybe it's just this month's flavor of outrage, but I thought it was amusing that Vice also pushes the "colonialism" angle for the new Monster Hunter expansion:

'Iceborne' Review: Monster Hunter at its Peak, Colonialist Fantasy Included

Take Monster Hunter World, the good and the bad, and turn it up to 11.

www.vice.com

Two games pushing colonialism released in one month? This sounds like an epidemic. Please save us, journos. Please save us from these games "normalizing" and "providing a platform for" fantasy colonialism.

While they all enjoy the fruits of colonialism, and are not going to give up their dwellings or jobs anytime soon, funny innit?

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

While they all enjoy the fruits of colonialism, and are not going to give up their dwellings or jobs anytime soon, funny innit?

Many of them do not plan to get married, have kids, or pass on anything of lasting value.

It's a weird kind of social nihilism masking insecure narcissism.

Well if I can't influence the future of society to my heart's desire... well... then those who already influenced society should crumble.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

I onestly stopped reading after i saw the ninja hairs on that chick...

That's because he's not a woman, just a man masquerading around as a woman.

 

[Ballthyrm]

Two games pushing colonialism released in one month? This sounds like an epidemic. Please save us, journos. Please save us from these games "normalizing" and "providing a platform for" fantasy colonialism.

I mean Anno 1800 wasn't bad. Still can't go full coton plantation in the Mississippi.
We should get a proper management game where you can choose the skin colors of each side.
So people can get it off their chest /s

 

[VertigoOA]

So this apparently Greedfall is great and doing well.

Kotaku fail.

don’t trust jabronies

Then again its success probably makes them scared of Trump’s re-election.

Buahahhahhahahahha.

 

[ThatGamingDude]

I jus...
A product made by a company doesn't exist for it to be consumed (In this case, played)?

I'm starting to think that these journalists need to get a little bit more in touch with the business side of software; the problem being they like to shit on the business aspects and so those doors are closing quickly

A video game isn't always meant to be played?
The fuck you mean?!
Is it a movie? A cardboard box?
WTF is a video game that's not meant to be played?
Define that for me, journalists.

These idiots have no sense of linear logic or thought progression
Fuck me -.-

 

[#Phonepunk#]

If one were to make the argument that a game is "art," art can exist without people to appreciate it. It doesn't serve much of a purpose at that point, but that doesn't mean that an audience is necessary for art to exist

i strongly disagree with the bolded. the definition of art has changed many times over the 20th century but at every point, whether it was Modernist Painting, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, or Performance Art, the audience is a requirement. there is no art without an art audience. it does not exist.

if there is an artwork that exists, it by definition is being framed as a work of art, by definition it is being presented to an audience. if there was ever a work that no one ever saw, then it just as well may not exist, let alone be considered art. if nobody has ever seen it, then it may as well be a fictional construct with no tangible reality. an artwork that has never been seen or experienced by a human audience is as real as a dragon or wizard.

 

[Larxia]

Of course she has short pink hair.

Of course.

"She"

" @transgamerthink"

 

[#Phonepunk#]

kind of ironic, white european man travelling all the way to the New World, engaging in hundreds of years of colonialism and genocide, then eventually dying their hair pink, calling themselves a woman, and then pitching a fit that they have to be confronted with a simulacra vaguely resembling the crimes of their ancestors, all in the course of mindless, guilt-free entertainment.

 

[Life]

Stop giving them attention and sending traffic their way. We can all smell bullshit without telling each other about it first.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

games need players. this is a fact and has been for thousands of years. look at a deck of cards with no one around. do you see a game being played? look at an inert baseball, bat, and glove sitting on the ground without any players. do you see a game going on there?

games require input, changed states, and desired outcomes. you must be able to succeed or fail at a given task. without a player playing, failure is impossible. the computer can be programmed to simulate a play session, but it is not an external player, and it cannot fail to do what it sets out to do. this eliminates improvisation from play, the risk of failing that provides the drama of play. i fundamentally disagree with her definition of what a game is, and intellectually I consider her on the level of gossip trade journalist at most.

"as long as something has formal qualities, it is art" is a dangerously lax definition IMO which flattens all value to meaninglessness. this is just postmodern bullshit, confusing superficial qualities for reality. a common problem for postmodernists, who largely don't believe in objective reality.

 

[Gargus]

I dont like kotaku anymore. They used to be a great site. Always with quirky and interesting things to read about, talked about games or game related things I'd not heard of, snataku was always interesting and so on. It used to be a cool site with something always interesting on it.

Now it's like everything is written by people in politically correct and progressive overdrive. Always demanding to find something racist, anti woman, anti gay, or whatever to the point where they just invent things to push their own personal agenda. They nit pick and pull things apart so much in attempts to take any enjoyment out of it and they border on being some kind of propaganda machine.

And so much of it is just outlandish and often hilarious because they will write up some 25,000 diatribe about how terribly Amazon is and right after is another Amazon ad. Or worse yet, one of their "articles" that's really just an advertisement being reposted the 14th time in a week for something on amazon.

They also write very little really. 40% of what you see on kotaku when clicked on just take you to one of their sister sites. 40% are ads made to look like it's a story or one of their kinja sister site deals, and the rest is split between bumping a story from a year ago, and of stories where it is no fun at all because its someone desperately trying to sound witty and savvy by calling out something stupid like how Mario is homophobic or that xcom is racist, or how barbies dream house maker needs to include trans girls.

I miss when kotaku was fun and interesting. Now it's just angsty and annoying kids trying to force their misguided, overly emotional and narrow minded views onto others. That's why I don't visit there site anymore really.

Of course she has short pink hair.

Of course.

He has short pink hair.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

So is this game fun?

 

[Dr. Claus]

So is this game fun?

Seems like it is a quality AA RPG akin to the bioware games of old. With all the ups and downs that it entails.

 

[Helios]

So is this game fun?

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Uh why can't I buy this from anywhere outside assmazon and gamestop physically?

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Video games are an art form so they can, and honestly should, contain more than just brainless entertainment. That is why games like Shadow of the Colossus and NieR are so great. Seriously just stop automatically condemning everything she says just because she has different colored hair, most of you sound like "Orange man bad" just on the opposite side.

Games already can be all this, I just don't think that injecting your own narrative and imagined sub text as a reviewer to "evaluate" the product's virtue, then giving a "virtue score" is doing any good to the medium. There are good reasons art house films do not get to big theater screens, hint: it's not because they are too good, and especially not too intelligent.

I mean, I love games like Doom 2016 - many older action titles that barely have any clear narrative - I also love The Last of Us, Uncharted 2 & 3, many JRPGs, especially the 16/32-bit kind, all the mainline God of War games, many strategy games (realtime or turn based), a good amount of old platformers, and a few racing games. Most of these games have little to no narrative. However if you decide to play the modern reviewer game you can decide to interpret them in one way or another as a modern reviewer (there are many takes on the Mario game's sub themes, all made up BS to get attention), they will accuse NPCs/main characters to be either un-representative of whatever group, or then too stereotypical - even if some supposed "sensitivity reader" was involved, when most groups are represented they will complain that group "X" was missed (everybody has to be there at all time, remember), or if all else fails some reviewer or person of influence on Twitter will call you a racist/bigot/homophobe/islamophobe/nazi/sexist/transphobe/queerphobe/whitely fragile because you question the narrative instead of following like a sheep.

TLDR; The way things are now, some people in corporate media act as if all games must carry some message, not just any message - it must be the message of the cause they personally want - it's just too random and makes no sense to any sane person, sorry to break this to you. So games can have a deeper message, but should they? well certainly not all the time, forcing a message on all games will essentially create some propaganda machine.

 

[prag16]

I can't fathom this, are these the words of someone trying to hard to sound deep and thoughtful?

It's pretentious, pseudointellectual drivel. Like almost everything this industry churns out nowadays.

 

[zcaa0g]

Cuntaku. I hope they're offended.

 

[mcz117chief]

TLDR; The way things are now, some people in corporate media act as if all games must carry some message, not just any message - it must be the message of the cause they personally want - it's just too random and makes no sense to any sane person, sorry to break this to you. So games can have a deeper message, but should they? well certainly not all the time, forcing a message on all games will essentially create some propaganda machine.

I never said it has to in all games, I was mostly reacting to people who said it is just a game and nothing more. The developers picked a very interesting time period involving lots of important issues. I think it is prudent to explore them if given the chance.

 

[Kelegacy]

I hope the game is a massive success.

 

[Catphish]

Why does anyone even bother reading, then complaining about, Kotaku anymore?

Isn't it given, common knowledge by now that they're a worthless den of clickbaity, uninspired shit-stirrers that live on your fucking outrage?

Starve the cunts.

FORGET THEY EXIST.

 

[nkarafo]

For some reason archive links never work for me. And i really don't want to give kotaku any clicks.

 

[Scopa]

For some reason archive links never work for me. And i really don't want to give kotaku any clicks.

Some countries block archive sites at the ISP level.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I hope the game is a massive success.

I don't think we will need to worry about that. Every game that these people try to cancel rides all the publicity to bigger sales.

 

[Virex]

Oh fuck off Kotaku,

 

[Virex]

UPDATE: Per everyone's request, put up an archive link.

And so it begins.

ARCHIVE LINK

Reminder that this woman gave us this gem of a tweet:

Is that real or edited?

 

[GreyHorace]

Is that real or edited?

It's real.

Twatter Post

 

[Woo-Fu]

The saddest bit is that if it had played more than 10 hours of the game it would have seen some of what it was looking for with respect to those "complex issues".

There is a naivety and excitement in the youthful leads about going to the new world that slowly and steadily erodes in the face of conflict between pretty much every nation/tribe involved. They even throw in a twist that rocks the foundation of the root question---trying to not spoil anything here.

 

[MilkLizard]

Maybe it's just this month's flavor of outrage, but I thought it was amusing that Vice also pushes the "colonialism" angle for the new Monster Hunter expansion:

'Iceborne' Review: Monster Hunter at its Peak, Colonialist Fantasy Included

Take Monster Hunter World, the good and the bad, and turn it up to 11.

www.vice.com

Two games pushing colonialism released in one month? This sounds like an epidemic. Please save us, journos. Please save us from these games "normalizing" and "providing a platform for" fantasy colonialism.

You might be onto something

 

[The_Mike]

There’s no polite way of saying it. Greedfall is kind of fucked up. Wrapping yourself in the pageantry of the 18th century means recreating the iconography of colonial expansion and native slaughter. It means emulating a time when supposedly great men failed to do what was morally right, opting instead to do what was politically expedient. To merely call this a tension of Greedfall does it a disservice. It’s not just a momentary tension. It’s the entire game.

Why does someone like her want to be a game journalist if you are not interested in gaming at all? Is it because a person like her is so shit that not even leftist propaganda crappages won't use her, she has to push her mentally ill agenda on innocent gamers?

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

It must be such a shock for the reviewer that a game is just a game. No social commentary, no appeal to leftist politics, only a game.

The company that made it needs to be publicly shamed into hiring danger hair to remedy the situation.

To the twitter my brothers/sisters/things!

 

[Teslerum]

The saddest bit is that if it had played more than 10 hours of the game it would have seen some of what it was looking for with respect to those "complex issues".

There is a naivety and excitement in the youthful leads about going to the new world that slowly and steadily erodes in the face of conflict between pretty much every nation/tribe involved. They even throw in a twist that rocks the foundation of the root question---trying to not spoil anything here.

That twist was predictable from miiiiiiiiiiles away though. I mean nearly every sidequest hints at it to a point where the main charachter should have AT LEAST asked some questions and not be so damned surprised.

Far from subtle, I do like the game though.