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Video Game Thread
I haven't had much time for playing games this week, but I put a couple more hours into Deus Ex.
In a dialogue in the Hell's Kitchen bar, you run into Jock the pilot, who 'flies your brother Paul to Hong Kong.' After being bribed with a cold(!) beer, Jock talks about how Area 51 was turned into a secret base for Echelon IV, the United States' massive AI + surveillance system, when 'the government promised to stop spying on people'.
That's an interesting notion vis-à-vis what's actually happened IRL. This game was developed in the late nineties and released in year 2000. Which means there were rumors about 'Echelon' and mass surveillance even before 9/11 made it more 'necessary' and palatable to even start building such a project. And the writer assumed that when such a program was discovered by the public, the government would be forced to shut it down, at least ostensibly.
IRL, after 2011's Snowden reveal, we've seen new, enormous data centers for complete electronic surveillance of every citizen (and non-citizen) being built to expand the program. And most other developed countries have followed suit in undermining their citizens privacy and liberty.
The real world's human species is more docile and sheep-like in their surrender to government overreach than what the Deus Ex dystopia writer envisioned.
Edit: typo.
Two years later Palworld has finally released from early access, once more busting top Steam player counts - with a less resounding fanfare this time around, but solidly beating out Counter-Strike, Dota and all the other big fish mainstays is IMO still an achievement in its own right. I've been playing it since the update dropped July 10, and well, this post was supposed to be written around the point of release; now I am here two weeks late with (according to Steam) ~90h sunk straight into the game over the past two weeks. My brief vacation was murdered and stuffed in a
palboxfridge with no trace of its passing.So, how does it hold up? Pretty good I would say, if the dozens of coldly murdered hours were not enough of a clue. The game is fantastic, easily worth the unchanged $30, god I wish my entire friend circle were not staunch purveyors of PVPslop. I highly recommend giving it a try. Having now beaten the game once and now on my second "challenge" run, I'd argue that the added """plot""" of gathering the 8
badgesKey Spheres and endgame locations/bosses are not actually that much of an improvement, and Palworld's strongest part remains the early-mid game and the core gameplay loop of base management, pokepal catching, and (optional) minmaxing autism, now further imbued by QoL updates out the wazoo that make the game much smoother to play and invalidate most of my initial complaints about the game.Funnily enough, much of the early jank still remains, albeit mitigated to what I imagine is the best extent the devs could muster:
pal pathfinding, while not as utterly atrocious as on release, is still pretty bad and base workers can still clip through or get stuck on random shit ("fixed" by pals just working on their stations telepathically over a distance if they can't reach their destination normally after a while - hey, as long as it works);
you still waste spheres on missed throws so git gud, I'm actually surprised there's no pal with Ball Fetch for a passive ("fixed" by a late-game homing module and a new type of collectible doodads that give your balls some % of homing strength);
serious investment into a pokepal requires catching a lot of dupes to fuse into it (fixed by reducing the required numbers and introducing expensive buyable Starfruits that immediately progress star ranks)
building is still mostly literally Fortnite for the most part (fixed by... nothing sadly, the limited pieces and overlap restrictions are still a major bitch)
Nintendo meddling has resulted in the unfortunate loss of the summon-from-pokeball throw, which in my opinion was crucial to the "feel" of being a pokepal trainer (fixed by mods thankfully, fuck Nintendo)
The new late/endgame is also... not incredibly good in my opinion, the only straightforwardly good things about it are the consistently good and evocative design of locations (the final area feels like something straight out of Elden Ring - maybe literally, since I haven't played Elden Ring and the devs are pretty shameless) and the unexpectedly cinematic penultimate boss fight withnot-Kyogre which actually fucking slaps (again, despite the copious jank) and makes me wonder why all the other bosses, including the final, are so lackluster in comparison. Especially baffling was the designers' decision to make ocean exploration/salvaging mandatory to progression at one point, while 99% of said ocean is a completely barren expanse of blue without any landmarks or even waterborne wild pals swimming around or harassing you like on land. Not sure if blatant padding or time constraints.
But even so all this failed to make a meaningful dent in my enjoyment of the game; the evergreen exploration/pokepal catching loop lasts you a very solid while, and eventually gets tangled with base management/automation which is also unexpectedly engaging. Longer crafting times creep upward throughout the game, and at some point a good lineup of workers is almost required to progress on a decent timescale, which conveniently also nudges you to explore and scout for better workers, resources to improve your existing ones, etc., and constant alternating between base management, pal catching, and exploration/farming keeps the activities from becoming boring (or at least becoming boring quickly). 1.0 also included a big pass over pokepal passives, which significantly expanded on player "builds" and base management since now every pal brings something to the team (or to the base) - while this quickly led to sovlless metafaggotry such as stocking your work camp with Shroomers so you can crank full slavedriver work mode with your pals too high to complain, overall the flavor and variety is very nice; my girl Lunaris is now a fantastic midgame crutch that gives homing pokeballs and a fat chunk of carry weight, for example.
Since Pocketpair knows their audience and there's no laws against the Pals, you'll be happy to know you can take your pick from a roster of new and exciting (mostly anthro/furry, natch) waifus with high uh, handiwork skills to put to work on your production lines.
SexcatSekhmet I believe has already achieved escape velocity into the normiesphere, but aside from returning favorites the assortment has expanded and now includes things such as an (adimttedly cute) octopussy, a snek,goth Gardevoiroh no wait that was already there lmao, a variation on Lopunny, several variations on Meowscarada, 2B-lite (with a passive called Untainted Maiden, natch), a fucking mushroom (whosePokedexPalpedia entry lampshades the obvious and effective disguise), big ass panda (not to be confused with a big-ass panda), surprisingly-no-longer-Cinderace, &c, &c.Overall the game is fantastic even with the jank and I thoroughly recommend it, especially if you like Pokemon or assorted survivalslop. I hope that the Terraria collab is a sign from the stars that this game will get the Terraria treatment and continue to receive updates years after the fact despite every assurance that this update is the last one we swear. There's definitely a lot of empty space to fill out, at least.
I've been playing this game with my wife. We're only 27 hours in, but it's pretty fun.
Honestly, I think the game (and a lot of open world games) would have a bit more longevity if they slowed the player's level speed. There's so much to do, so many places to explore, and so much tech that I barely have time to grind out enough resources or do some quests before I'm overleveled for the places I'm in and the tech I was working on and either have to skip content or just be overleveled and underequipped for a while. Rather than let the player blitz to the level cap and then keep wandering around afterwards with a reduced sense of progression, they could afford to extend the mid game to be longer (maybe they do this when you get closer to the level cap, I'm not sure, I'm still level 48, but the game feels a bit too fast for something people supposedly sink hundreds of hours into.
I think that's a problem with a lot of games, some people just want to grind through the levels to level up as fast as they can and get to the endgame, while others want to explore the world and take it slower. If the game is centred around "level up as fast as possible", the lore/explorer players complain about needing to grind or else they'll be swarmed and one-shotted by mobs and bosses, and the grinders just laugh at them and tell them to git gud. If the devs make it slower and hand out fewer xp so you can look around and go off on side tracks, then the grinders complain long and loud and badmouth the game, so there's no pleasing everyone.
And it seems like the grinders are the market being catered to at the moment (PoE, I'm looking at you, because they have been around so long they have dedicated players who've played the game for years as it developed and who can now whip through all the levels fast to get to endgame maps and are then bored if their maxxed out builds with the extra-special gear don't find it enough of a challenge).
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Yeah that's definitely something I've felt some hours in, it didn't use to be like this in earlier versions, they must've had fucked up somewhere when assigning and/or scaling experience rates. Many things in the game (exploring new areas, killing alphas for the first time, gathering effigies, catching
shiniesluckies, etc) liberally dispense fat chunks of exp, to the point that it feels there's one source too many and vanilla 1x exp rate feels excessive.I'm playing my second "challenge" run on 0.2x exp and so far around level 50 I can confirm the game is still eminently playable and the curve feels a lot smoother, I actually have to
colonizeexplore the desert and such while still a little ahead of most competition (and my own pals; if anything leveling pals is a problem on 0.2x, it's pretty slow) whereas in my first playthrough I plowed through desert and snow after taking my time a bit too much in the central areas. If you feel you level too fast you can safely crank it down to at least 0.4-0.5x without worrying about roadblocks.More options
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