Razputin

holy shit guys I found subspuf: the gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cyx6nWdFas

Jesus Lord this thread is alread getting wordy I don't think games need to have a failure state. Or, well, a "classic" video game will have failure states, but it doesn't have to have those. A game that is made to be played, with possibly some message behind it, will have failures states otherwise it's boring to play it. However, I also think the interactivity of games can be used for more artsy stuff as well; most of the time this is done very simply in little flash games. You could probably argue that these aren't real games and I wouldn't be able to deny that, because it's simply true; these art-games like Stanley Parable are not classic games that use reward and punishment for enjoyment. So I'm not even gonna argue about that. What I do want to talk about however is how these art-games for lack of a better word use the properties of games to give their message. This is something both classic games and art-games very very often do wrong. The story is told through cutscenes or big chunks of text that are just completely cut off from the gameplay. Games that do do it right are for example Braid and Spec Ops: the Line; large parts of their story is told during the gameplay, and because you take the actions yourself this makes the message a thousand times stronger than if they were just read to you. This is also why Antichamber is my GOTY and will stay in my top five for a very long time as it is a pinnacle of storytelling through gameplay. Apart from the little cryptic hints they give you, nothing is ever explained or told through cutscenes or text. And although Antichamber has very little story, the little it has is told with so much power that it left a much, much larger expression on me than anything I've ever played: (this next bit has spoilers for Antichamber)

Lol, I knew someone was gonna call me out on that the moment I typed it With action sequences I mean "the kind of action sequences you see in films". You know, zip zappitee boop explosions swords fighting pew pew. Action sequences don't work that way in books. A very good example is the last Harry Potter film's fight versus Voldemort; in the book they basically just stare at eachother for half a day with a lot of inner monologue before finally firing a shot, in the film it's this long slowmotion shot with sparks flying everywhere. For dialogues, in books you can easily have two characters just talk to eachother for several pages, in a film you can't just do face shots of two people going back and forth talking to eachother for half an hour straight. I guess it boils down to that films can use a lot of visual action, but also HAVE TO use visual action or it becomes stale and weird, while books can focus more on inner monologue, which is often hard to visualize in films.

Games are a medium just like films and music and books are. If a game makes use of the elements that are presented by games, it has the right to be a game. The same goes for films and books: a book can't do action sequences well, a film can't do long dialogues well. The power of games as a medium is that it gives the player a(n illusion of) choice and can motivate it through gameplay -Stanley Parable is a piece about choice in games. It HAS to use choices the player makes or the message is lost. Therefore it has the right to be a game (even though I didn't like it) -Gone Home is a story about a lesbian woman running away from home. Everything it did could just as well been done in a film, at a better pace, at a more reasonable price (and it already has the length of a film as well). There is not a single moment the gameplay pushes you forward; you literally wheel from one wad of text to the other. The only reason Gone Home is a game is so that it can exploit the abysmally low standards games have for storytelling. If it was presented as a film, noone would have given a shit since the story has been done a a dozen times a dozen years ago and a dozen times better. And don't even get me started about how it would've been received as a book.

I just discovered my Strange Gunslinger is worth 25 keys, when I bought it it was like 5 keys holy cow Now I kinda wonder how rich I actually am with my stranges collection

I just made a SPUF thread about why the BFB is broken and I already regret it

I know you are smart enough to understand exactly why the arguments you make make no sense, so stop making them.

skye please refrain from going full retard I was enjoying this

Meta changes aren't necessarily bad, as I said with the Spycicle. Another really important and good meta change is the Crusader's Crossbow: in its current form it's a direct upgrade to the needleguns, serving the same self-defense PLUS long-range assisting PLUS long-range healing. But this is a very good change, since the needleguns are bland and boring and most of the time it's even better for the Medic to go melee to defend himself. So compared to the other medic primaries, the Corssbow is horridly overpowered, but that is not a bad thing. The weapons I mentioned however generally have a bad influence on the metagame; both engie unlocks and the pyro melees slow the game down, BFB and Danger Shield monoganise unlock use and the spy guns turn spy into some kind of disguise-using Scout instead of a disruptor EDIT: I do want to note that I've cooled down a bit on the Diamondback change since it came out; I don't think it's that overpowered now. Its main gripe is that it punishes good players for being on a team with bad players, and that you can store 3 or 4 of them for some ludicrous self-defense. I've seen people suggest letting it only store a single crit, which would turn it into the training wheels ambassador valve seemed to want to make of it

I must've really missed all the punchlines or something because I despised the Stanley Parable

Weapons that are blatantly overpowered: BFB: Scattergun upgrade without a real downside, forces enemy scouts to also use it or become incapable of chasing Homewrecker/Neon Annihilator: ruins the engie vs spy matchup, demands much more skill from the sentrybusting team over the defending team Pomson: still drains ubers and therefore forces medics to pop their ubers much earlier, before even coming into the engies fov. If only it couldn't drain fully charged ubers it'd be fine for pub. Short Circuit: completely nullifies explosive classes to the point where an engineer can easily defeat them 1 on 1. More importantly however it makes sentries virtually indestructible against the classes that used to counter them Darwin's Danger Shield: one sniper running this forces every single other sniper on the server to run it as well. Literally the worst thing valve could have done with the croc set Diamondback: being able to stab a bad player, then shoot a good player without any skill requirement makes this weapon incredibly frustrating to fight against Enforcer: still twoshots 125hp classes at close to midrange and drastically changes several matchups for the worse Weapons that have some big issues that don't threaten the metagame as much Sandman: is still a free midrange kill for any capable scout. Luckily people overestimating health loss makes it uncommonly used Sticky Launcher: The new possibility to just hold m2 down drastically decreased the required skill on this weapon and now newbies too have access to winbombs. However it seems like noone even knows about this change yet Wrangler: forces the sentrybusting team to kill the engie before going for the sentry. This is only a problem on a select few maps however Gunslinger: Can still utterly lock down Scouts and Pyros, but is only a real issue in koth Vaccinator: completely resisting crits, even outside of ubers, makes enemy snipers useless and forces enemy medics off kritzkrieg. It is however hardly ever used, probably because it has a high skill floor. Spycicle: a straight upgrade to the Knife in pub, and a bland one at that. It does not seem to damage the metagame as much however, possibly even improving it

ah yeah I forgot about the SC that's a very close call I'd say

Antichamber by a mile

BFB is probably the most broken weapon in tf2 right now

this sounds very interesting, I've never played 4v4 and I love koth

I think they stopped wind waker I sad

level 10 with a new move that's apparently a silly variant of false swipe yussss that's perfect I'm gonna do a new X run as soon as I can get that

the Funbringer

Pomson + SC + Gunslinger is the new Tommy Gruvich now it only needs a name

Do we know what the level of the pokebank Celebi yet? Do you play as a boy or a girl? One of the main reasons why I picked a girl was because I expected the boy to have much less diverse clothing options

oh btw on the Evangelion subject