Mass Effect is actually one of the game series that convinced me that video game stories aren't really worth it. Taken as a series, Mass Effect is a pretty bad story with wildly inconsistent writing quality. Taken as individual games they are all pretty good for different reasons, but they don't really form a coherent whole trilogy. I didn't bother playing Andromeda
Mass Effect 1 had the worst gameplay, honestly. The shooting mechanics weren't good, the RPG mechanics felt tacked on. It did have the best story and most developed lore and characters though, but they aren't good enough for me to ever want to replay it
2 had the best gameplay imo, but ths story took a nosedive. Some of the characters are alright, but overall it's a really bad story here
3 was probably the middle ground between them. The story picked up a bunch of the hanging plot threads from 1 that 2 wound up ignoring. It also changed the gameplay a bit from 2 in ways that weren't good imo
I used to think this sort of thing was the pinnacle of video games. Now I prefer playing stuff like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls, where the story is not the focus, but the gameplay is very fun and dynamic
Witcher is the best AAA implementation of a great story driving an otherwise decent game. I actually think that cyberpunk was weak mostly because they focused on Star power and the story was meh.
Witcher 1 might have the best story ever written but I'll never know because the gameplay is tedious
Witcher 2 was a serviceable game with a serviceable story
Witcher 3 was a vast sprawling story with gameplay that got old fast and it made the story a slog to get through. I had to force myself to finish it
I played Cyberpunk four times in a row just because it is so damn fun to actually play and try out different builds and approaches to completing the missions
W1 had a tighter story. W2 expanded the world and w3 world is so huge it’s easy to lose the main story line. What I loved is that every individual sub story was well written and really made the world come to life.
Cyberpunks world is a mismash of different sci fi themes and not consistent, the gameplay is good but the story is a bit cringe.
I cannot imagine weighting story and writing higher than gameplay when judging the quality of a videogame
Every videogame journalist who writes about games from a "ludonarrative" perspective just comes across as someone who failed to get into writing about movies
I have one criteria: is the game fun to play
I can put up with a lot of cringe in a story if the game is fun
After all, cutscenes and dialog are almost always skippable. Gameplay isn't
I'll take Dark Souls minimalist storytelling or Cyberpunk's cringe storytelling but fun gameplay over any kind of game with mid gameplay and amazing writing
Edit:
I guess what I'm really saying is that for me, a good story and characters is icing, but games must be fun first. A bad game with good writing is still a bad game. A good game with bad writing is still a good game
I do not understand why people place so much emphasis on non-gameplay elements when judging a game. Watch a show or read a book instead if story is your main concern
A good story is relatively cheap and can make up for other issues in the game. If starfield had decent writing it could have been a b/c tier game dispite lackluster gameplay. The players imagination would have helped fill in the gaps
I have read lots of your comments over the years and you've had some great contributions, but I don't think this is one of them. What figure from the link supports your comment?
74% support deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes.
That's a bit different than what you initially said
That poll has 74% support for "Deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes".
It does not ask about "Trump's Deportations". I support deporting criminal immigrants. I even support deporting those with no criminal record who are here illegally (with some caveats). I don't support sending innocent people to brutal slave labor in a country not their own.
Supporting "Deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes" is not the same as supporting "Trump's Deportations".
Definitely should be dollar cost averaging. One just has to look at the s&p 500 chart[0] to see where it's going over time. Looking at the charts it's way more inclusive informative than articles like this.
The market is always up eventually and unless one is close to retirement, nothing to worry about.
We get a correction like this almost every year and it's nowhere close yet to the correction we had in 2022[0]
That post pax world isn't inbound anytime soon, despite the irrational hysteria going on right now. Trump has 3.x years remaining. People are acting like he's going to remain for decades. There is no next Trump, he has a unique hold over the MAGA base that was key to his election.
For now post Pax America is merely a fantasy that reveals a lot about the people that think it's happening now (they're showing their personal preference). The same things were said due to Trump's first term also. Instead the US got more powerful and far richer in the time since then.
Back in reality, the 1860s, 1930s and 1970s were worse for the US than anything going on now. The 1930s were drastically worse. The US as superpower has survived far worse than Trump and it'll do it again.
If I were to bet between Dems being able to return in 2028, or the entire MAGAified (and DOGEified) system being rigged to put Vance (or some other couchfucker) there, I'd bet the latter.
Is voter disfranchisement a thing? Will the US have more of it? Will the "activist judges" brought in by the MAGA party let it happen? All of the above?
Trump will go away at some point (hopefully he does not seek a 3rd term). However, i am concerned about the fact that the GOP has been mired in the MAGA culture for a decade now, and what that does to the people seeking membership and the people being promoted to leadership. When Trump leaves, the people which have been promoted and been successful in GOP under him still stays. For what virtues are you being promoted for in the GOP? The entire structure is corrupted.
There is no next Trump, there will be a next Putin. America will be poor.
You cannot rule out it will be in expansion wars.
It is not about MAGA, they were a tool, they are not critical anymore. You are looking at a new fascist rule, with complete state capture. It is not completely done yet, and there is still a change the coup will fail. But people are complying out of fear, the military leadership has been purged and cleansing is still going on everywhere. So the window of opportunity is closing.
Do not focus on Trump. He is a Chaos Actor and he will be disposed of when he can't deliver of is not needed anymore.
> post Pax America is merely a fantasy
I recommend reading the news, preferably outside of the USA.
He has already screamed bloody murder about an election not going his way, and recent Supreme Court decisions about basic stuff (i.e. the government must honor its contractual obligations) have been 5-4.
All it will take is one more SC justice and we'll be in a full blown crisis. Yes, Trump isn't the worst president we've ever had - but he's kind of unique in that he clearly doesn't give a damn about the rule of law or the Republic as a government.
They will sing at night if they're "frustrated" and haven't found a mate. I've seen song sparrows do this as well, but it was near a well lit area, so that may had some influence.
I didn't get the impression that the city was focused on creating housing for Toyota employees; rather, it seemed to be about understanding what will work and what won't. Toyota, like many Asian companies, has many different verticals, and I think whoever better understands the needs of the future will be able to stay relevant.
Having Toyota employees as residents just makes sense, since it will be much easier to set expectations.
Eg even the US has no laws against insider trading in commodities. Similarly, French insider trading laws work on rather different principles than US ones. So it's hard to attach much moral significance to the legal accident of insider trading laws in one place and one time.
(And arguably, laws banning insider trading are bad for the general public, because to the extent they are respected and enforced, they keep information out of market prices.)
This is exactly what the laws around fiduciary duty "really" cover. I say "really" because the term is often invoked to justify/excuse scummy behavior from executives, arguing that they're legally obligated to behave that way because of fiduciary duty. In reality it just means you must act in the interests of the company, largely to prevent this exact sort of scenario (or an exec just being butthurt or whatever).
