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naraburns  nihil supernum  11mo ago (text post)   3994 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 30, 2023

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Are there are any recent good video games that are actually somewhat "based and truth-pilled"? It's rare that I find something I really enjoy, something that's actually clever and makes me laugh. Disco Elysium did that. But the AAA scene is pretty dire. I'm not looking for a game with right wing sentiments. Just something that is a little more intelligent and doesn't follow timepleasing liberal dogmas.

Bonus points if the game has pretty good production values.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a sci-fi masterpiece hiding inside Civilization 2.5 IN SPACE and some pretty clunky UI. But it is well worth the price of admission, especially now there are fan patches. When a 2000s video game can make a Christian fundamentalist into a sympathetic character, you know it's doing something right.

From the mouth of one of the game's seven leaders:

“As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth’s final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”

— Commissioner Pravin Lal, “U.N. Declaration of Rights”

"But it was never the streets that were evil."

“Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these . . . things . . . these inscrutable matrices we call language models. And now we propose to teach them true intelligence? What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need of us?”

— Sister Miriam Godwinson, “We Must Dissent”

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