General DeGroot

Damn, I played Way more new vidya than I remember. Perks of having an actually paying job, I guess.

 
 

yes, this is entirely just an excuse to spooge about one of the best games i've ever played, fight me
So recently, I finished Disco Elysium, and came to the conclusion that it's one of the best games i've ever played and likely ever will play. Which is quite frankly baffling, because I don't even really like CRPGs that much.
For those of you out of the loop, I'll get you up to speed real quick: Disco Elysium is an isometric top-down, cop-drama-thriller based in a fictitious world with DnD-esque skill checks that can go hilariously wrong. Recently, in the small coastal town of Martinaise, there's been a murder. Due to jurisdiction issues, this is a joint operation between two separate precincts. Precinct 57 sent Lt. Kim Kitsuragi, a straight-laced, by-the-numbers officer who despite being the voice of reason at all times, is 100% looking for any opportunity to break from that.
Precinct 41 sent...You. You're a good cop, but a bad person, and this is further proven within the first 10 minutes when you discover just a fraction of the damages you caused before you drank so much you completely forgot everything, including the concepts of money, capitalism, the antimatter fog surrounding the world, and your own name.
In terms of story, I think it provides quite well, taking elements from the murder mystery genre and retrofitting them into something unique, even if the finale 
That being said, it does come out of left field in a genre where you're trying to solve a case you don't have all the clues to yet. I know the consensus is that this was a poor move, but I think it plays well as a one-off rug pull, although I would certainly not be impressed if they did it again. For me, though, the place this game really shines in is...
The characters. God, the writing and thought put into each worldview that each character has is breathtaking and really sells you on the world that you live in, compounded by the use of politics without necessarily going overboard by forcing ideology much, even humanizing obvious racists like Measurehead, who despite retaining a racial superiority complex, is also a victim of domestic abuse. Learning all the stances that are carefully constructed and bounce off each other is fantastic, and I can only imagine the amount of time and effort that went into making this all happen.
I mentioned  before that DE is political, and while the devs are communist, they aren't afraid to launch a scathing critique on communism itself. The only two real supporters of communism are a pair of students who are so desperate for leftist book club members that they'll let you and Kim, two cops, into it. Lines like "but real communism has never been tried!" will come up in dialogue, and overall the idea of exploring an ideology rather than forcing it takes center stage, much like Bioshock before it. That being said, I personally didn't like the fact that the four political stances you can take are Communist, Left-of-Center, Anarcho-Capitalist, and Just Straight Fascism. It's not a big gripe because your political bearing in-game doesn't really do much to solve the case[if anything it puts you further away from it], but it certainly comes across as surprisingly close-minded for a development team that is fully willing to smack-talk their own ideology.
That being said though, I think that my personal favorite character actually has to be The Deserter. Although his inclusion breaks a lot of story issues, he makes sense from an ideological perspective. In a sense, Disco Elysium is about waking up to your past mistakes[Literally, in detective costeau's case] and deciding how to accept and move on from them. The Deserter represents the end of the road, both politically and mentally. A bitter, furious shell of a man held together by pure hatred and morphine. There is nothing you can tell him that won't make him hate you, no political alignment that will make him respect you, no dialogue options. To him, all you are is another fascist bourgeois stepping on his grave. This is who you were, still are, could be. It's like the story shows him to you and says, "is this who you want to be?". It's fantastic, and completely nullifies the issues with revealing him late into the story.

 Talk about DE and why it's a great game.

imagine being so hyped for a game you make a track from the game by assembling snippets from its trailer
JSR fans are wild

fucking sold

EDIT: Just gonna drop my thoughts from my first impressions as some chucklefuck with full-time employment as a sifu/whatever the hell my dojang's equivalent is
1: Good idea using Kung Fu, namely five animals as your martial arts base - There's a lot of diversity in those combined arts which allows for a lot of freedom of explanation - Although I personally found it difficult to read my way through the initial combat scene. Maybe run it through with a friend while trying to keep a straight face.
2: The concept of some esoteric psychonaut-fu that lacks the usage of Qi automatically puts you in my good graces and tactfully covers the Qi energy field bullshit side of martial arts rather well
3: I have taught six-year-olds. The fact they managed to sit entirely silent for what in writing sounds like several hours is what most would consider a miracle. I need to learn this style of disciplinary action that hopefully doesn't involve a bamboo stick.

so uh[snickers] d-do you guys have[nearly cracks up] battleto-[WHEEZE] BATTLETOADS???

so uh[snickers] d-do you guys have[nearly cracks up] battleto-[WHEEZE] BATTLETOADS???

you know what they say, all toasters toast toast

you know what they say, all toasters toast toast

Is the only reason we all stick around on this dying website because we have no one else to socialize with?

the power to have a flawless comeback every time someone disses me

good shit my dude
gets my seal of approval

For those of you interested, I spotted blk_mage_ctype not so long ago
slamming cuphead
in a donation message on twitch
during a DSP stream

proof:
 

For those of you interested, I spotted blk_mage_ctype not so long ago
slamming cuphead
in a donation message on twitch
during a DSP stream

proof:
 

ITT: People remember TF2, subsequently remember their bitter memories of TF2

(aka I broke things again while trying to fix them)
 
The forums have been updated to the latest version to apply security patches, among other things. Unfortunately, it seems like the update introduced a few new things that I wasn't expecting as part of a "minor" update.
 
If you notice any things which have changed and might need to be fixed, please post them here so I can address them.
 
Known changes:
chat removed by IPS. Should probably use Discord anyway. clubs added. Apparently a way to have private/public groups. Currently requires admin approval to make one. reputation replaced by "reactions". Apparently it enabled downvotes for all. We can discuss whether this is something we want. minor theme changes. Not sure what I can do about those.

how are you not blind by now

Still waiting on my F-zero reboot tho

yeah but consider this
 
moni
 
EDIT: These shirts
 


 
What the fuck microsoft, are you guys actually being run by ants

Oh goody, Life is Tumblr 2. Just what I've always wanted.
 
M'kay, let's talk about Anthem real quick, because apparently it was MS' big reveal.
 
Warning signals: Bioware, EA, multiplayer, massive open world, "dynamic events".
Does anyone else get a No-Man's-Sky vibe from it? Specifically, an intrinsically beautiful game with very little real substance. Even the demo itself looked boring, like some destiny clone with even less gameplay. The world itself looked empty, genuinely dead and uninspired.
My closing thoughts on it are as follows:

nice to see you got to this board damo

nice to see you got to this board damo

nice to see you got to this board damo

watching the american shitstorm from canada like