Kotaku, the Gamer’s Guide

@Sldr_CL prclms Stv Wb Th RL Kng f Kng!!!.: tht's nt hw y s th trm ndrgyns. vrytm y thnk m fr plyng, y snd lk tl.

Fck ktk. Wht wst f tm.

@Wtzbld: Wht th fck? r y rtrdd? D y nt ndrstnd th dffrnc btwn nmntn nd scrnng?

rn't y n f th stff fr tht mttr? Hw cn y b s gddmnd stpd nd thn bthr t chs dwn sm rndm sht n cmmnt thrd t gt pssy bt?

wldn't hv t gt ff my ss t d nythng, shthd. t's th ntrnt. Th ntr thng tks plc n yr ss.

Ths pst bt wht t tks, sn't wht t tks. Rd fr cntnt nd gt t f my fc.

@Soldier_CLE proclaims Steve Wiebe The REAL King of Kong!!!.: I'm not going to crap on your post for the sake of its not being some kind of perfect harmony of words. But it was what it was, an emotional response that wasn't put together to communicate much other than you want people to quit whining about things they don't understand and implying that you and the people you know and worked with are somehow wrong or dumb or whatever else. I get it, and I agree to the extent that I can understand it at all--but you didn't set out to offer insight. You were annoyed, and it was a showcase for an annoyed person who wasn't making an argument. You didn't half ass it, obviously, but you used a couple words in a way that I didn't get, meaning they were either used wrong or the sentence they were used in was hard to pick out in the structure of the rest of the post. It's not like you have to be 100% 'on' all the time when you're trying to say something, I sure as hell don't pitch everyone of my comments for popular consumption. Alot of them are cryptic crap on purpose. But I don't expect my cryptic nonsense to get the comment of the week.

As for the 'vote for it' thing. I can't vote against something someone else anonymously reported to an admin for nomination and then got selected for whatever reason. I think your post got picked because the message was that people are smart enough to make up their own minds (and therefore, liberals who want to control our media intake can fuck off), and that coincides with the gamer-as-victim-of-media routine. Don't like it tough is irrelevant to my point here; the comment of the week is not based on content. It's a popularity contest. Which means rules are out the window if someone likes you.

And just because I thought your post was bullshit doesn't mean I thought your sentiment was bullshit. So relax.

thanks for thanking me for playing. I enjoyed being here.

listen. Last week you posted a comment of the week from some ex army vet who, despite clearly being a native english speaker, couldn't speak english to save his life. His post was full of rigorous and strident utter bullshit that sounded like fact but was probably opinion, assuming you could parse it, which I certainly couldn't. The only reason it was showcased is because it was bizarre and not overtly insulting. Though it was aggravatingly pointless.

so lets not act like these tenets are somehow enforced or even the de jour, for that matter.

There's really only one criteria for whether a post is 'good' or not, and that is overt sexual content. I say enough of this high handed pretension about courtesy and sanguinity, and lets us bask in the titty.

xbox is reliable? Look, I love the console, but I had 3 of the fucking things drives sketch out to various degrees on me. 1 to the point of complete inoperability, 1 to the point of mere frustration--resetting games while attempting to load the next level one out of 3 times, and 1 just sporadically. I had at least 2 controllers (the original good ones that fit an adults hand, not the stupid uncomfortable 's' ones) flake out and act screwey--which I diagnosed as 'something rattles when I shake it' syndrome.

I don't get what makes it reliable. Is that some kind of perverse backhanded comment about the 360? Because the 360 has only ever failed entirely on me, and it was replaced under warranty. Whereas the original xbox would only fail in fits and starts so I couldn't prove it to anyone, and wouldn't get any support for it.

They need to gen that hardware like they did the ps1 before I would call it 'reliable'. And then I still wouldn't, because reliability in a console is like reliability in a loved one. What difference does it make when you can have sex with it?

Wait... what?

Nostalgia is charming, but I've lost interest in watching warner brothers cartoons on general principle. Part of the reason for it is that I'd like some emotional content underscoring the deep seated animosity between the cross-dressing rabbit dressed like brunhilde and the lisp-afflicted hunter who thinks he's percival or whatever trope has accidentally been put in *this* vignette.

The point I'm making is if they wanted to recapture the good old days, they can heave a sigh of relief and play some geometry wars or that music one who's name escapes me--secure in the knowledge that this important work is already being done.

Or castlevania SoTN, for that matter.

This seems particularly japanese--to distrust the unknown so much that, while Perry's black ships of the product cycle have forced you to produce the PS3, at the same time, you preserve rural villages in their pastoral states to raise up warriors in the traditions of bubble bobble and tron.

And the fact that these aren't actual japanese people, or gaijin trying to nativize, or japanese who think they're gaijin, or something, makes it all just confusing *enough* to draw in the 'omergz, Bleach is *on sale?!*' crowd.

@Elrinth: HE HEARS THE MUSIC ALL THE TIME

don't argue against DRM on the basis of futility. And don't argue against it entirely in any case. Argue based along an interpretation of the law which doesn't involve an unfair burden on the consumer. The more you people prattle on about what you 'want' and what's 'wrong', the less impact you'll have.

Bottom line: In the age of the internet, the standard in DRM is 3d max or Adobe photoshop. Activate over the internet, or failing that, activate for a limited time--long enough to recieve an activation via standard mail or via the phone. While it is annoying, it is not invasive, and the FTC is going to call it a reasonable attempt to manage the consumer's rights. The fact that these can be subverted is irrelevant, because it can all be subverted, and, given the ubiquity of internet connections, it's not an especially difficult proposition.

(unpronounceable JApanese characters) person above me has come as close as anyone to articulating something within striking range of relevancy.

As the reply to the '**** RIAA' guy says; don't ruin the efforts of people to get the FTC on our side by clogging the filter with irrelevant concepts. The fact taht DRM doesn't work is a value-proposition concept for the *company* that uses it, not the legal system or the trade commission.

SWEET! So now, you'll select the command stack for fire 3, select all targets, which takes 5 action slots, and then repeat until everything dies. And, if it's a boss, you can spend 3 rounds figuring out what their gimmick is, and then automating your response to *that*.

... final fantasy battle system? Really?

Come on. All I care about is what the espers are this time. TELL ME HOW THEY'RE EVOLVING THEIR CONCEPTS (the ones they distilled, purposely, from a panfantastic appreciation for rpgs way back in the distant mists of the late 80s).

What is Ifrit. Is he a sword? Is he a hairy guy who takes 3 minutes to do 2k damage? Is he a cute pet? Is he a collectable card?! THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS I HAVE.

Wow, man. If they want this thing to be star wars, they better come up with a story. Since the first game was about the manchurian candidate murdering captain Nemo.

@Witzbold: Now *THIS* is an observation.

Everyone else needs to be disemvoweled.

And as a followup; is he aiming with iron sites in the promotional still, and then firing akimbo, with one gun upside down in-game?

@Shinta: Well, what people are reacting to, and what irritates *me* is the notion that all artistic voices are essentially identical under a heading of 'arty' or some equally miseginating concept. Shadow of the colossus doesn't look real, but it looks good. It involves a guy. The guy kills big things. The only reason the game has any kind of weight or interest is because of the art direction. That colossus could have been a tomb you were raiding, and the weak spot could have been a polygonal gorilla attacking you at some key moment. There's nothing fundamentally different about anything that goes on in that game beyond the fact that someone made a presentation for this activity that transcends its nuts and bolts. Which is fine, but to then assume that you enjoyed it because it was a great game is wrong. It's an ok game. You enjoyed it because you enjoy art.

People then look at prince of persia, and think, because this is, basically, guitar hero, only with a game controller instead of the plastic guitar, but has a far more interesting presentation with movement and color, then, if we can reductively turn this into a paste, we assume that it is identical. Because in case A, a mediocre game is being saved by its art, and in case B, a mediocre game is being saved by its art therefore, the thinking goes, game b is imitating game a.

Thank goodness we have blogs to try to generate controversy to get comments and get paid.

@DreadPirateRobots: it's like 'automobile'. It's only in vogue because they're all over the place.

The only time you used to see a meme, it was teh bible, and people were trying to convince you it was somehow more important than 'all your base'.

But in the glorious future, we can see how these insidious things next in the mind and give birth to flash games.

I'm still irritated that this japanese monstrosity was telling physically fit young girls that they were fat. The children of europe and africa are not stick figures out of elfin forests of myth. We have bone upon which is built sinew and muscle with which to desecrate the earth in God's name, and we don't need these tricksters with their magic scales undermining our way of life even as we revel in it; perched atop the carcass of genetically reconstituted, formerly extinct, mammoth.

I've lost 156 lbs since may, and can lift 200 lbs above my head, and these demonic wicker people use this instrument to tell me that I am a) a whale and b) going to be harpooned regardless of international treaties regarding my protection.

Eff this noise.

@Ted: and kids! with their skateboards!

your avatar picture is awesome.

@Thassodar: tits like that are no lie. You're just lucky we have baggy clothing made from felt and whatever to keep us safe from those kinds of tits here in America.

The home of the whopper knows how to cope with sconetits.

@Darascon: I'm into that, I'm just saying, they're going to be hard pressed to keep coming up with imaginary diseases with dire implications.

I can't imagine how they're going to stay one step ahead of the player's desire for well-crafted 'facts' about the world to keep them interested. I mean... how often can you be involved in peace keeping or towing a distressed vessel without learning about obscure space-born-illness X and having some kind of strange tailored experience to fix it before it's not star trek anymore--it's just a bizarre vaguely humanitarian themed evealike?

@Gomerboy: beat me to it.

Dear Games Industry,

Value your talent less. These personalities complicate the comparitively simple process of taking genuine good gameplay and executing on it. The games that worked out of the gate, rather than by virtue of excellent art, or by accident, this year, came from studios where I can't think of a single person I know. The more people I knew from the studio, the more likely that the game was laboring under a vision that nobody shared.

Release everything around christmas. I can spend the rest of the year sorting through it. The only way to get ahead of these 'journalist' people or 'enthusiast' press is to choke them with their own bile. They'll mutilate everything good you do, and stampede to enshrine something terrible if you give them half a chance--it's part of their voracious urge to churn continually through news as if they, themselves, were entertainment organizations (because they are). The ideal scenario should be to overwhelm them, and then watch them do nothing but 'piles of shame' for 10 months thereafter. Synchronisity will lead to asynchronisity from a marketing standpoint. This is preferable to the big names dominating industries. Who knows, maybe you'll be able to flee from your brand-names and break the cycle of expectation coloring an otherwise good game.

More is more as long as it's not actually less. You know, if we're willing to shell out 60 bucks for a console game of undeterminable length, and 80 bucks for some collector's edition, who's to say we wouldn't buy in bigger chunks? Valve already pulls this stuff when they hand you some kind of 'deal' on steam to buy several of their products as a package. They have to develop in shoals to make that work so they can offer it in packages. Get those 3 or 4 teams, bundle their shit together and offer people a value propposition at 100 dollars instead of trying to hit a sweet spot at 60.

I vow, in the new year, to be contrarion.

Kotaku

fuck this noise