Just Saying -- the soapbox thread

[alanp]

All of my meaningless crappy rants got deleted in the rollback. So lucky you lot, you all get fresh rants (smelling faintly, nonetheless, of the old ones.)

Perhaps it's because my family never OWNED a console (whether of the Nintendo, Sony, or Sega variety) and I never gained any skills with using ONLY my thumbs (I grew up playing games first on a C64, then a 486-DLC33, so I'm used to all TEN fingers, tyvm)...

... but I've never felt any attachment at all to the various Nintendo games.

Whenever Yahtzee reviews one, my mental groan is normally something along the lines of, "Oh Ghod, not another bloody Zelda/Mario game."

It's getting to the point where I'm half expecting the next zombie-crowbar in a movie/game to be of old, seriously overworked Nintendo characters. (What's a zombie-crowbar? When you're playing a game or watching a movie that has no plot reason for zombies, or elegant thematic slide to zombies, but the developer/director crams them in anyway, because pop culture. Exhibit 1: Saints Row 3.)

I'd like to see another Impossible Mission game. Maybe they could trawl the retirement homes for old Epyx employees, those guys knew how to make a good game.

Or Apogee. What studios did they evaporate into? Secret Agent Man could do with a sequel, too.

Or that classic Amiga game, GODS. That was one of the best games, ever. And no, it was NOT some twitchy God Of War bloodfest, it was a fun platformer. (Handy tip -- always go up, or whatever way is the biggest pain in the ass -- that's where the level designer normally put the good stuff.)

My point being, I guess, with all this amazing history, can't Nintendo licence some of it (should be cheap, it's been out of circulation for decades) and stop flogging horses that are so dead, you'd think the corpse had been kept in a drum of acid.

[juansolo]

I started a Gamer Blog that I promptly didn't bother ever updating. But I suspect I'm the other side of the fence

http://juansolo.co.uk/geekery/games.html

On that I'd say that the repetition in gaming crosses all platforms. How many derivatives of COD are there now? It's like the film industry, nostalgia sells (looks at the new Star Wars film, which is just the first three condensed and made shiny and new).

With that, you understand I will be buying the new Zelda game when it comes out

[alanp]

This guy is utterly INSANE.

This was on the level of clocking the ORIGINAL Prince of Persia.

[juansolo]

My reflexes are long gone. Though my game was the Hard Driving arcade machine. I could stick 50p in that and just keep driving around and around.

My brother was more impressive, the local arcade had a clocked Defender (so it ran at nearly double speed), because he got sick of people sticking 10p in it and playing all day. Which still my brother could do.

But yeah, video games used to be rock hard. I like to think they've got easier to cope with the fact that we've all been getting older and kids are just wusses now.

[Willybomb]

But yeah, video games used to be rock hard. I like to think they've got easier to cope with the fact that we've all been getting older and kids are just wusses now.

There were more "games".  Now a lot of it just seems to be QTE cut scenes to advance a "story".

I understand the economic reasons for it.  Bigger, better, more = more units sold, but the days of hunting for a key in Doom while down to your last couple of shotgun shells and faced with a room full of Cacodaemons are gone.

I've probably put a couple of hundred hours into Fallout 4, but it isn't Fallout.  It's barely even Fallout 3.  I've finished every Fallout game thus far but F4 is basically a shooter.  I pickpocketed and sneak stole a few times in F3, but there's rarely/no any call for it now.  Actually, I stole owned items in F4 out of sight and hidden out of a box and had people in other rooms start on me.  Work that out.

Every now and again though, something comes out that gets everything in balance, like Braid...  Emotional content, gameplay, story..


Soapbox moment - Kardashian Worship.  WTF? Seriously, society has to stop making stupid people famous.

[lincolnic]

Sounds like you guys need to play Dark Souls.

Go play Dark Souls.

[alanp]

There are times I feel like something of a freak in this modern world. I don't really use my cellphone (it took a few months of being yelled at, before I remember to actually check the damn thing when leaving work), I don't go out and party and jump and scream, and I haven't lived in a house with a TV for at least half a decade. (These days, I only watch TV when I'm at Mum and Dad's and feeling utterly bored.)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/76917172/junk-mail-stuffed-letterboxes-are-here-to-stay

I can't stand advertising, either. Of any sort. If it's of the kind that seems to religiously believe, "if we bombard them with this shit often enough, they'll start to LIKE the smell!", then I will decide to boycott entirely the company or their product.

Advertising on the TV or radio really pisses me off. "F**K OFF AND LET ME WATCH THE BLOODY REST! I DO NOT BLOODY WANT TO BUY YOUR GARBAGE!"

Advertising on Youtube gets close-boxed, and re-opened in my other browser that has an ad-blocker.

Advertising on the web gets adblocked entirely.

My tolerance for advertising is swiftly approaching zero these days. And no, I don't really care if they try to make it funny.

[davent]

You're freak Alan but that's ok. I've never owned a cell phone or car for that matter. Never seen an episode of The Simpsons, Seinfield or pretty much anything else that was produced as a tv fictional story in the last 25-30 years.

We used to have a tv, i'd walk past the room it was in and if something someone was watching caught my eye i'd stop, stand and watch 'til a commercial came on then move on to far more interesting matters. Rare was a show that could get me to stick around for the commercial break to end.

You're fine!
dave

[peAk]

You're freak Alan but that's ok. I've never owned a cell phone or car for that matter. Never seen an episode of The Simpsons, Seinfield or pretty much anything else that was produced as a tv fictional story in the last 25-30 years.

We used to have a tv, i'd walk past the room it was in and if something someone was watching caught my eye i'd stop, stand and watch 'til a commercial came on then move on to far more interesting matters. Rare was a show that could get me to stick around for the commercial break to end.

You're fine!
dave

that sir, is very impressive!

[alanp]

Didn't want to start a thread for this, so I'm using my insa--er, inane rambling thread.

http://ontheroofs.com/

Lots of amazing, amazing photos.

Lots of photos that will make you feel ill, but amazing nonetheless.

[juansolo]

I do own a cell phone, but don't use it (it's in the car, switched off. Has been for years). I don't answer the house phone because it's been spammed to the point of 1 in 10 calls actually being someone who I'd want to talk to. Add to this that I'm a on the extreme end of introversion, the sound of a phone ringing I find annoying as it's almost always when I'm doing something else and I don't want to talk to someone right now.

I have a TV, but I don't watch TV on it. If they sold monitors in that size I'd happily swap it out. I've tried to watch the new X-Files on it in the last couple of weeks and it's only served to remind me why I don't. 10 mins in, ooh getting interesting... BAM adverts taking you right out of the programme... Rinse and repeat in 15 min blocks. I can't stand TV. I love film and good TV shows, but broadcast TV is bullshit and I can't deal with it.

I also cannot stand news in any medium. 24hr stations killed it on TV. They have to fill the time up and it's just become tabloid bullshit journalism. Newspapers are worse as they seem to only exist now to spread vileness like xenophobia, fear, scaremongering, and just plain sensationalist bullshit and lies. Then you have the downright creepy hypocrisy of them asking for peadophiles to be burned on one page, followed by some bikini pics of some very young thing on the next saying how 'grown up' she is... I find our newspapers abhorrent in every way.

Generally I think it's media on the whole. The world is a bit of a shithole to be fair, which we're responsible for. Greed and callousness is rampant. I know it, but I don't need it ramming down my throat all the fucking time. Because there's also good out there, which gets drowned in all this negativity, spite, hate and fear that you get bombarded with in the media.

[alanp]

http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/interview/caswell.htm

Yes, I have a massive soft spot for Impossible Mission.

That, and the original civ (where you needed a spare 3.5" disc if you wanted to save your game, none of this saving to hard drive newfangled crap!)

[nzCdog]

Didn't want to start a thread for this, so I'm using my insa--er, inane rambling thread.

http://ontheroofs.com/

Lots of amazing, amazing photos.

Lots of photos that will make you feel ill, but amazing nonetheless.

woah. 

[alanp]

I'm still horribly, horribly disappointed in Django Unchained.

Reinhardt was robbed.

It's hard to think of a musician who influenced other players more. And they made the movie about some no-name!

[alanp]

Yes, I still hold a special place of hatred in my heart for "Boring FM" type stations. Especially while the girls at work still love them.

One has a name of "Real World Radio" (I shit you not), voiced in an overly dramatic USAian voice (although somewhat higher pitched than the standard "This summer, terror has a new name!" movie Serious Man Voice.)

Because the Real World always has a soundtrack written by some pencilneck-psychologist no one outside the labels has heard of, performed by someone insulated from typical human biomass by several layers of servants and couriers, and recorded in some Los Angeles studio. The Real New Zealand World has a dramatic voiceover with a foreign accent. The Real World always has utterly banal, boring themes of either relationships, or I'm-So-Great!

Calling it Real World Radio is like saying that Pamela Anderson's chest in Baywatch is totes real.

Oh, and hiphop self-aggrandizing songs get up my nose, as well. I can't help but suspect that the same swaggering idiots singing "Ain't nobody gonna fuck with us!" would sooner eat broken glass than sing the exact same line outside the local Mongrel Mob or Black Power pad.

This may be something to do with the national tendency towards humility. A thread on a NZ guitar forum recently asked, "If you were a guitar, what would you be?"

The answers tended to be along the lines of "A superstrat, boring and ugly to look at, but it makes some nice sounds," and, "A new Gibson LP -- looks like some classic figures earlier in the bloodline, but doesn't sound anywhere as good, and nowhere near as desirable."

Someone commented that if they'd asked that on TGP or similar, responses would be more like, "I'm a '59 Sunburst! I look like God, and sound like Jehovah!"