He likens Arkane’s approach to studios like Larian and FromSoftware: “Those are people that have been doing, over and over, the thing they know exactly how to do, until it hits super hard. So to me, that’s what Arkane had to do.”

Damn, what a concept: doing the same kind of game multiple times, iterating on the design to perfect it. Obviously Bethesda gets releasing the same game over and over again, but this idea of “improving” the design is so alien to them. Wouldn’t adding thousands of microtransactions be an improvement?

I figured you might have read it, as your comment had evoked it for me.

I really like the reading of Waluigi as a kind of perfect symbol for our post-modern times. I don’t think the article goes quite far enough. Mario is already a simulacra: a stereotype that doesn’t really exist, certainly not anymore and never really did. So Waluigi is the reflection of an inverse of a simulation without a base reality.

It’s very relatable, as you say, an apt metaphor for how our cultures treat the common person. Maybe the right Waluigi game isn’t one that fleshes him out and brings him closer to the audience. Maybe something like Krusty’s Fun House or Lemmings: burning through legions of Waluigis (1up mushroom clones? robots? one person somehow split into a multitude?) to accomplish trivial goals for Wario, the stand-in for the corporate overlords?

The idea that a country needs (to exist) to be ruled by a single individual is completely unfounded, and perpetuated by people who are either fools or foolish enough to think they have a shot at the throne. Early on, there were proposals for the USA to have a king, a president, and many other ideas including no executive branch or having a tribunal. I could see a good case for splitting the executive across 3 persons with equal and asymmetrical powers.

Assuming you do a ranked choice vote for all 3 at once (or 1 at a time in rotation, like Senators) it should be extremely difficult to compromise the office by, say, buying one deeply indebted former TV host and running them for president.

https://theemptypage.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/critical-perspectives-on-waluigi/

I, We, Waluigi: a Post-Modern analysis of Waluigi by Franck Ribery

Waluigi is the ultimate example of the individual shaped by the signifier. Waluigi is a man seen only in mirror images; lost in a hall of mirrors he is a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. You start with Mario – the wholesome all Italian plumbing superman, you reflect him to create Luigi – the same thing but slightly less. You invert Mario to create Wario – Mario turned septic and libertarian – then you reflect the inversion in the reflection: you create a being who can only exist in reference to others. Waluigi is the true nowhere man, without the other characters he reflects, inverts and parodies he has no reason to exist. Waluigi’s identity only comes from what and who he isn’t – without a wider frame of reference he is nothing. He is not his own man. In a world where our identities are shaped by our warped relationships to brands and commerce we are all Waluigi.

There is apparently a sequel post now as well.

IBM provided business machines (internationally, even) to Nazi Germany, probably a big help in bureaucratically processing those millions of murders they were doing. I can’t (or perhaps, “won’t” is truer) imagine how much cloud compute a modern genocide requires.

Random eyes on things is just a Yooka-Laylee theme. One of the enemies in the first game is a pair of cartoon eyes that can take over inanimate objects. A lot of characters are just a random object with a pair of cartoon eyes.

¿Por que no los dos?

Truth be told, same! I didn’t notice when i downloaded it, then it caught me after i posted!

Oooh nooo! I think that Mace Windu might be a hate crime, haha

it’s giving

Stephanie Stirling has been beating the drum on fake “quality” modes that give you RT at the expense of everything else. Think it was this one but it might also have been this one.

I was trying to think on the history of this feature, since i wouldn’t necessarily count something like AvP’s heatvision mode. That’s meant to simulate a real thing, even if it works a bit gamey, by highlighting active objects.

Assassin’s Creed is the game that, for me, codified the mechanic into it’s current form. Hawk Vision or whatever they called it specifically highlighted game objects. I think they even mention that the animus machine is projecting that view to help Desmond see the world how his ancestors would have understood it.

But… I’m going to call the origin as being way farther back. In flight sims, your targeting hud can highlight enemies and targets by drawing little boxes around them. That is the very first instance I can think of where a game highlighted objects of interest for the player’s benefit. Most flight sims (or adjacent genres like mech sims) would also label the box with the name of the thing, sometimes with health, ammo, weapon, or weakpoint indicators as well.

Who’s that supposed to be? Must not get up to the Cloud District very often!

That’s a cool board. I’ve been thinking about something in similar form factor, kind of missing old slide phones with physical keyboards. The idea of building out little mesh devices for a local emergency network is quite interesting. Maybe with a few supernode base stations built around RasPis to act as data-storage/relays/service-providers…

Most people have the media literacy of cabbage and wouldn’t know a good story if it slapped them in the face with a huge pair of anime tits.

I’m light-years past caring what anons have to say about anything culture related.

I’ve absolutely driven past a cop who was playing WoW on his laptop while sitting in traffic.

This is why you should never allow your terminal to execute news headlines directly. You’re definitely going to want to sandbox your RSS autoexecutor.

I’d wait to see if fans are still trying to port Starfield to new engines in 20 years before I start talking about my company’s “best” work.

I don’t know who really got that trend going. I’ve enjoyed up to hour-ish long videos on more or less anything, but a few years back the first truly excessively long video I remember is Whitelight’s 7 hour long overview/miniseries on Death Stranding. And to be fair, I did find that faster and more enjoyable than playing Death Stranding.

(Also I get why folks make them: more ads plus having that much watch time heavily biases the algorithm towards you so it’s more money overall. And the kind of person that watches 7 hour long reviews in the background (or while sleeping), aka me, certainly help weigh the scales for super long videos.)

But also, I kind of like when shorts are like a minute long or less so I can watch one when I’m like, on the shitter and not accidentally end up with a video essay. I mean 10 minutes used to be the limit of every youtube video! Will they introduce a new, even shorter format? Bring vines or blips back?

Alright, I split the differance, I think that should make everyone happy.

Can’t wait for 10 hour long reviews of Elden Ring, BUT VERTICALE AND LOOPS NOW!?!