Extra Credits

A word from Tycho:

On the subject of the episode itself . . . Well, it's made me want to play the new Deus Ex, and I suppose that's a good thing.

It's one of my favorite games and scratches an itch that hasn't been attended to since the time I played Iji. I highly recommend it.

DXHR was a great game but I disagree on its approach with Transhumanism and wealth disparity and whatnot. Honestly, I thought that it was the weakest part of the game (boss battles aside) and it had a really shallow approach to the concept of augmentations. I've discussed this a lot in the actual DXHR thread in the Video games forum but basically I thought it was too busy discussing the concept in really abstract terms and there was a lot of inconsistencies in the setting.

E.g. in Hengsha it's treated as this really expensive necessity that everyone is getting into serious debts just to get an edge in their career as a kind of escalation and yet pimps are willing to spend money on getting their whores augmented just to get them addicted to the anti-rejection drug and control them. And meanwhile in Detroit even the lowlife street thugs are tricked out in this stuff somehow. In a lot of ways it feels like a "theme park" of random transhumanism concepts but they aren't actually that cohesive when you really think about it.

And while the setting occasionally looked at the actual practicality of the augmentations and the kind of social and ethical dilemmas it could lead to (mostly in a very poorly thought out way though, as I mentioned earlier) the main storyline instead only looks at it on a very shallow "It's science!" Vs "It's against nature, you're tampering in God's domanin" kinda way that really annoys me. Especially since all endings are really extremist and also very vague in that they never point out what exactly is going on in each ending.

The Singularity.

The pimps thing makes sense if the returns are high enough. The street thugs thing doesn't, although you could say they got them off a black market or something (Same with the pimps).

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who hasn't played Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Also, the new episode was pretty weird.

New episode.

I already uploaded it, man.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/technobabble

Techno Babble!

One thing really bugged me.

"Don't hamstring it by entangling it in a web of pseudojargon."

You mean like Star Trek? Because that pretty much describes the show's "scientific explanations". Subspace is just as bullshit scientifically as midichlorians; the only difference is that the prequels sucked, and Trek generally didn't until Voyager. But apparently, subspace isn't technobabble because... What? Because they're justifying what is essentially magic with an overly complicated explanation? Star Trek is probably the science fiction franchise most famous for its use of vague technobabble explanations (Although Doctor Who is pretty close); the show is a character piece, not an examination of technology on society.

Better works for the guys' definition of science fiction would be stuff like Jurassic Park, I Robot, or Enders Game. Those works focus on the impact of scientific ideas and technology, whether they be child soldiers, trying to revive unknown species for entertainment, or the myriad uses of robots and how society would react to them.

Note that this isn't a declaration of quality: Star Trek The Next Generation is a fantastic series, even though it's filled to the fucking brim with technobabble.

edited 9th Dec '11 9:19:34 PM by Scardoll

I thought the episode was boring, in addition to having little to do with games. I mean, yeah, the subject isn't game-specific, but couldn't they at least pick examples from video games to illustrate their points?

edited 10th Dec '11 3:35:11 AM by Kerrah

Playtesting

I wonder how many people actually use little kids to play test their games. That actually sounds like a wonderful idea (As long as the game isn't Rated M for Manly anyway.)

Depending on how far along it is, an M for Manly game might still be wel before the point of actually being objectionable - when the gameplay itself is all thats there.

You know what game they should have had little kids test?

Bullet Storm.

THAT WAS A JOKE!

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/puzzle-games

Puzzle games.

Pretty nondescript.

Wow. I... never thought of it like that.

Hats off to you, Pop Cap!

The EC crew posted this video on their youtube account.

Commenters are declaring Ruined FOREVER.

Considering she was prolly just given it by MAG Fest staff, it's not like Ellen Mclain is tainted by ponies or anything...

No, the commenters are saying Extra Credits is Ruined FOREVER for hosting pony-related material on their youtube channel.

How is it not videogames related stuff?

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/skyrims-opening

I never thought that I would say Modern Warfare does something better than Skyrim, but I have to admit, their right.

Don't forget, the reason they are talking about Skyrim like this is because they don't feel the opening measures up to the awesome game, not because they don't like Skyrim.

The only problem I had with the opening was the character creation popping up. I felt they could have done that after the tutorial. Like when you finally get out of the tutorial dungeon the NPC could have said "And who are you anyway?" or something to that effect.

Rather then that I think the big problem was they had to set-up the whole civil war before you were given any freedom and that constrained it a bit. They needed to show both sides right out of the gate and establish what each side was about (executions and racism, for reference.)

I agreed with them though, starting you in a cart, then a small camp, then a dungeon really just feels... contradictory to what skyrim is about.

What a coincidence. I got Skyrim was a birthday present today and played it for the first time right before watching that episode.

I apparently chose the imperials. I had no idea I'd even made a choice. I was too busy watching the spectacular dragon assault to notice that the mud-covered people were telling me different things. I mean, how can I tell whether they're talking to me or someone else, when I'm busy looking around to make sure I don't die, instead of looking at them to see whether they're talking to me or not. I just followed the one guy with an arrow atop his head. What's more, I only noticed the guys I was killing were the rebels after three rooms of them, because the term "stormcloak" had totally flown over my head in the beginning infodump.

My biggest problem with the opening is this, though: There's no kind of opening cinematic or anything, and the game starts off way too abruptly. You are in this world, and these Imperials apparently want to kill you for something. There's a rebellion between these guys and those guys, but hell if I can tell them apart when all I've seen is them sit on horses and carts.

Apparently I'm to make a decision whether I sympathise with these guys or those guys. Well, the imperials were going to chop off my head, and thus take away the only thing I have. However... I don't really have anything, because the game hasn't told me who I am. What worth do I have, if I don't know who I am? Was I wrongfully accused? Am I guilty? I have no motivation, other than people yelling at me to do this or do that.

It's a role-playing game, but I'm not playing a role. I'm just running around, admiring the dragon attack and following orders.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:52:07 AM by Kerrah

That might be a problem then since you'll never really flesh out your character's personality in game- they'll be a bland emotionless robot who just does whatever they're told for the whole game. TES hasn't really been about that.