A little LESS chaotically, you can use emojis to name objects in Blender now… Which, I dunno, could be kinda fun in the right doses.

This picture had me progressively laughing harder as it progressed though LOL.

Haven’t seen it here yet: Metro 2033 (sequels good too)

I’d also say S.T.A.L.K.E.R for the similar elements. But it’s pretty well known and if it interests you, you know why you should be playing it. :p

Metro 2033 wowed me, and I still think of it fondly. Y’see, at the time, everyone was loudly clamoring for “open world this” and “RPG progression system that” and “Every choice matters branching storylines!”. Everything had to be marketed as some huge pseudo-endless experience with limitless freedom. Sure, sure, there’s a place for that. BUT…

Metro 2033 is a fairly linear post apocalypse shooter based off of a novel of the same name that doesn’t overstay its welcome. And know what? It feels like playing through a good book.

You experience this twisted, scary, often beautiful world through Artyom’s eyes as he explores hostile tunnels and the inhospitable surface, and along the way you meet a cast of very interesting, very “alive” feeling characters. The various mutant creatures, too, have fascinating behaviors and personalities. Even though many parts are scripted, you still feel a sense of awe with seeing the consistency with how these things behave.

Subterranean tunnels and frozen post-nuke wastelands feel ALIVE when you’re checking your map with a lighter, or scrounging for a gas mask after yours cracked, and you cling to the numbered, desperate breaths through your last filter. (I’m being dramatic it rarely gets THAT desperate lol.)

The real beauty of the game, like humanity’s remnants, are under the surface. It’s subtle. There’s a hidden morality system keeping track of how Artyom reacts to the world, and the overall themes and sociology go much further than “war is bad mmkay?”. Do you meet brutality with brutality, or do you combat the darkness of this world with understanding and mercy?

Sadly, Metro Last Light carries on with 2033’s bad ending as canon. Which makes sense, but 2033’s good ending is so GOOD.

They’re regularly ridiculously cheap now, and I personally loved the experience.

Also: The best difficulty system I’ve ever seen in a shooter. It feels like playing on “Ranger Hardcore” is the intended experience. It doesn’t go the lazy route of making the player weak and the enemies strong. It goes for realism.

Enemies get smarter but will actually go down in a good hit or two…But careful!..So will you.

I only have three kitters, but I ngl I kinda dream of devising a fancy ventilation system that captures litter dust and smells without scaring them to death or sending all our hard-won climate controlled air outside. XD

Woo! ALWAYS a good day to see InkScape getting some updates! I suck at it but I sure do appreciate it. :D

YES!!! 1000x yes!!

It’s an “appeal to authority” argument that’s usually used to justify a cynical and brutal, often fatalistic worldview:

• “Mankind is doomed to destroy itself”,
• “Someone always needs to be in charge, because humans are wired to organize around strong influential figures.”
• “Humans need to always have an enemy to unite against or else they’ll turn on each other.”
• Social darwinism culls “the unfit” who can’t thrive in the “free market.”
• Homo-Economicus

If they’re not a deeply depressed edgy teenager who had a bad church experience once, I find that usually this perspective will be espoused by someone who will use it to justify why they, or people like them, should be in charge of “the masses.” (You get a Bingo if they start bringing up “wolf packs” lmao)

They just want to be able to claim they’re objectively correct. “My view is just science, you can’t argue with science!”

I think it does a lot of damage when people internalize the idea that we’re all just some kind of hungry animals in a zero-sum gladiatorial arena.

BTW love your username+domain :). It’s really refreshing hearing from other intelligent folks who see the good in what we are and what we can be, rather than try to justify the worst of humanity as a “natural constant.”

Thanks! I appreciate it. :)

And yeah same here. There very much was a point I just rolled my eyes and went “FINE. You got something to say, just say it already.” I think we’re just sensitive to being cheaply manipulated by media lol!

Actually one more game on my mind that did this well: Metro 2033. Incredible atmosphere, and the “moral” is very nuanced. It’s one of those things that feels profound when it hits you and most people weren’t even aware there was a “moral system.” (No shame in looking up which actions help get the good ending)

I highly recommend it.

I got one for ya! Check out:

Heat Signature

You dynamically board spaceships, sneak around them, complete objectives, and extract before you’re captured. There’s a really cool time stopping mechanic so you can do things like “Shoot at this guy but throw this object at that guy” without needing real-life impossible reflexes.

It’s got a ton of really cool ideas and I had to force myself to put it down and take care of Real Life Stuff. :p

I played that demo too! I just remember the quest where the cranky old dude was like “Ahh, I forgot THE WIFE! Go get me wife for me” and I cracked up at how nonsensical it all felt.

This feels like a unique one I should actually put the time into. It just felt so “weird” in a good way! I could never tell exactly what kinda game it was from the marketing.

Right there with you. (Uh oh, accidentally spawned a rant lol)

It’s definitely a game that put way more thought into clever artsy storytelling and “subversion” above most else. I didn’t enjoy the “forced” element either.

I liked that it tried something different. I like that it tried to be a bit meta, but it did so in a “high on their own farts” kind of way.

All the clever storytelling is really good though! The “You always seem to keep going down no matter how high you start from, past points of no return” aspect, lots of spirals (I think?), the voice lines becoming more unhinged. (He goes from “Target that tango!” to “KILL THAT SUNNOVABITCH!”), their gear gets gradually more destroyed. A lot of really deep thought put into those aspects!!

But yeah, the infamous “Whisky/(Willy?) Pete”

For the WP part, the creators themselves say something like “At that point, you could have just turned off the game, but you had to keep playing.”

Which I feel felt SO CLEVER in the writing room, but it is rather insulting. Like, man, how pretentious can you get?? Basically to them, it would have been some kinda moral achievement if their game product had a 95% refund rate and their studio got shut down because players refused to follow a forced narrative to hurt digital people in a video game they bought with very real money.

So, yeah, it felt clever, but also like some really dark prank that kinda just cheats the player and calls them a horrible person for having the good faith to expect a good time out of a videogame. If “There’s always a choice” and quitting is an ending, why wasn’t there a cutscene-credits ending there? THEN you have slightly more ground to berate your player’s choices.

HOWEVER, I also think there’s a valuable commentary here on how, unlike players, soldiers can’t just walk away. They’re oath-bound to be blunt instruments of their handlers, and, like the player, they might be compelled to keep making horrible decisions that help nobody, hoping some heroic good might come out of it.

So uh, the moral is “Don’t pay recruiters any mind if you value your personal autonomy, kids.”?

BioShock I felt did a much better job with making the player consider the “follow the objectives to progress” assumption, and Metal Gear Solid was a fantastic anti-war game without beating you over the head for it.

I’m as sick of US-Mil funded propaganda games as the next person, but I feel like a game designed to emotionally manipulate players and berate them for giving it a chance is ultimately…cheap.

Now THIS is the kinda stuff I was hoping would be pushed to the top! Nice recommend, it looks awesome!

Original Far Cry is pretty neat actually. It was an odd series where it went from “Large levels shooter” to “Flawed open world shooter with cool fire” to the modern “Go all over, climb towers for more map, and upgrade stuff” formula.

Like Crysis afterwards, it felt like a “tech demo game”.

The original Far Cry was fun even though it feels VERY dated these days. The AI can be challenging, the weapons are fun enough, and about 50-60% through the game you start fighting ridiculously unbalanced enemies that frustrated everyone! :D But it’s still good in the way a silly B-movie is good.

Better version of similar gameplay? Crysis. Crysis was so cool.

As long as you look her directly in the eyes and confidently state:

“We’ll bang, okay?”

I’m kinda glad this is so heavily contested, because I thought I was some kinda “science denier” for being annoyed that there was some “bEcAuSe OuR aNcEsToRs” explanation for everything.

• Altruism? “CaveBros died without bros.”
• Faith? “Simple explanation of complex universe make ape happy.”
• Complex reasoning? “CaveBros threw selves off cliff or poked predators otherwise.”
• Love? “CaveGals selected for strong sensitive CaveBros.”

(Disclaimer: I’m being intentionally facetious and making these up in an attempt to be funny. This is likely because my ancestors wouldn’t get beaten with sticks if they made funny joke, the funnier ones got to reproduce, but the trait may have diluted over eons, you tell me.)

I respect the desire to understand us, but I also think there’s a subset of people that want to reduce the complex beauty of humanity to cold, mechanical, precictable, reproducible determinism.

They’re easily spotted when they say things like “The concept of the soul is stupid, we’re just a bunch of furless lab accident monkeys that started using tools in an uncaring universe and love is just chemicals mixing because monke needed to maek moar monke.”

I feel like this stance is prized by the types that want to mind-control the world’s humans with ads, or State coercion, or corporate culture. The same types that enthusiastically rave about one day merging all human consciousness with some giant FacebAmazOogleFliX Ai or something. The same types that have no problem leveraging technology to reduce art, poetry, storytelling, relationships, down to algorithms and claim “There’s no difference.”

It disrespects the absolute mind-blowing wonder of humanity and our understanding of it, usually to appear smart or edgy for personal gain. And I’ve personally had enough of it.

Wowh woah you gotta start with the basics!

…OSI model.

“Hello, light!” https://youtu.be/nm1_bKFhYIY

Like Hitchhiker’s Guide’s sighing doors. :D

Beautifully (tragically?) put. Well done. It’s worth pondering…

I think maybe it’s because when something lacks human qualities, we’re more able to project our wishes onto it, whether that’s its “personality” or “story” or “feelings”, whatever. Maybe in a way it makes it feel predictable and “safer”, like we know it somehow. It will behave the way it behaves regardless of the little projections we put on it that can sometimes be a remnant of our own egos.

…People, on the other hand, are much less predictable, and tend to highly dislike being projected upon. Maybe removing relatable qualities and generalizing groups of them is a selfish way of turning them into an “object” that “feels more predictable” and the one projecting feels like it satisfies their need for control, even though it dehumanizes others who are, in actuality, just like themselves.

I feel like it’s a maladaptive way to simplify the complicated. The brain loves to simplify.

Empathy tends to be such a prevention AND a cure…

The only ways their dumb PR project intersects with anything NASA related…

I mean we’re all nail-bitingly hoping Musk-and-friends’ increasing amount of space trash doesn’t intersect with NASA equipment as much as it already intersects our line of sight to the cosmos. :( lol

I hear it’s prone to Rust.

You can just hear it as kitty wedges into that pipe.

(PHOOMPF) … “MEooow?” :|