Semjaza

The last three weeks or so of Chinese video game reporting has basically been:

"They'll never shortlist us for GotY. They'll never choose a Chinese game for GotY. It's all a Western ploy to denigrate and deny Chinese achievement because They are jealous that the first Chinese AAA game is so good."

It's been tiring.

Edit: just opened up my Chinese feeds, and I'm glad to report that the first one I found was criticising netizens for review bombing BG3 and defending the Larian speech, and giving it a more detailed translation.

I love it when a game is about exploring and half of the content is optional.

I recall from the interview when the UK blocked it the creator said "you do nothing in it you don't do it Black Ops. But only mine is terrorism, it's purely political." (paraphrased)

I'll confess that I've not played either of them, so I don't know how true that holds. But I do know that a lot of those console shooters are very political and the world seems fine with it when it's a US avatar shooting up Arabs.

Only lines with voice work for me, even though there are plenty of great unvoiced lines across games. Sorted by game... I think this post certainly puts me of a generation.

"My emperor! I've failed youuuu!"
"Fox, get this guy off me!"
"You're good, but I'm BETTER!"
"Never give up, trust your instincts!"
"IF THIS DOES NOT WORK!"

Honestly one of the most quoteable games ever made.

"Stay a while and listen."

"My hotel's as clean as an Elven arse!"
"Whaaaat?!"
"Tiax shall smite ye."
"Heya, it's me Imoen."

"MASSACRE!"
"Not yet!"
"hyut hyut hyut"

"My fists never betray me!"
"Don't stand behind me."
"I'm gonna sleep well tonight!"
"The feeling... It's... coming back!"
"Good vibrations!"

"Hello brother! [...] I live on in this arm!"
"Laugh, and grow fat!"
"What was that just now?"

Love a good ham. We need more of them in video games.

"I'mma Luigi, number 1."
"Falcon PUNCH!"

"You're going the wrong way!"
"Retired!"

"You require more vespene gas!"
"All crews operational." / "Battlecruiser operational." ?
"En'taro Adun executor."
"I do this for Auir, not you!"
"Your base in under attack."

"So what shall it be? Will you join the Unity or will you die here? Join... DIE! Join... DIE!"

"Doctor required in inflator room."

"[...] to the last place uncorrupted by Capitalism! SPACE!"

We acknowledge that the game is a work of fiction. Historical fiction, but fiction none-the-less.

If every fifth character is also black, I think there is a point that can be made about verisimilitude and taking liberties; but since we know he really existed and that there has been debate on what he did, having a work of fiction that portrays him as a samurai under Nobunga doesn't seem unreasonable.

To compare, we know that Leonardo Di Vinci didn't hand out guns to people or build functional flying machines - but we know he designed all sorts of stuff ahead of its time, so it kinda fits in a fictional story with him in.

But only one of those seems to draw huge amounts of complaints online... And it's actually the less historically accurate one.

That's a potentially interesting definition.

Dream Daddy, the daddy dating sim isn't a woke game in this context because the conceit of it being an LGBT friendly town with a bunch of single gay dads makes it all make sense.

But a game set in 1300s Japan with a lesbian white protagonist would be woke because that seems incongruous?

But Dragon Age was never good, either.

The first one was mediocre at best with some good ideas, and it was all downhill from there.

Fair enough.
Be the change you want to see and all that.

I personally love the mad spelling, but I can understand that other folks don't.

They're old English letters used for writing the two different "th" sounds English has, which are fairly rare phonemes.

It's certainly simpler, I'll give you that.
It takes too much mental energy to read that document.

May I ask why at all?

There is a baseline of quality that is hard for a plucky individual to match outside of mono-medium media.

While it is possible for good video games to be produced by a single indivudal or very small team, it is a lot of work on their part and hard to do if worried about paying for food, rent, etc.

Filmic media (is there a good noun that joins movies and fiction TV shows as a unified object?), a solid level of difficulty above that.

Or maybe in a post-modern world we use (mostly empty) signifiers to give ourselves meaning and show allegiance to a subculture.

Its why we pepper our speech with allusions and cultural in-jokes - but where in the past they were tied to more concrete ideology, now they are simply signs that one has consumed the same media as someone. And the existing signifiers have more cultural clout than new ones, except to signify an interest in non-mainstream cultural products.
For the self has become simply a vessel for consumption. There is nothing beyond the consumption of product.
Especially as public allegiance to a non-neoliberal ideology is seen as uncivil. Unsurprisingly more peaceful Left-wing ideologies less civil and more incorrect that violent far Right ones, because the Left will always be more critical of consumption as the purpose of life.

Despite being wrong, Fukuyama's inflammatory title has polluted the mind of the Anglophone and European cultural zone.