Ross Scott

Yeah, finding a job that doesn't make you want to throw yourself off a bridge is important in the long term. Also speaking of welding "Metal Dave" from the Go To Hell episode used to work as one and for a while he was worried he was going bald prematurely. After he quit the job, his hair started to grow back, turns out he was just slowly singeing off at work.

I don't know, for me Adlib was always just short of the kind of definition I wanted. MIDI is either pathetic or glorious, depending on how it's being rendered. I'm not against synth music by any means, I just feel like Ad-Lib never really had great tunes that would sound better with better defined instruments. I actually feel like Super Nintendo music had a lot of really excellent tracks where the rendition was good enough it didn't feel like it obviously needed better technology to throw at it.

I'm not sure I ever said Serious mode, but since people seem to be saying that, I should try and gauge just how doable that might be. Either way, I would have something spookier for Halloween. I'd love to have more Zombie Panic Source (especially in zps harvest), if anyone wanted to help set up a server for that. I'm not saying that the puzzle/game was well designed, taking it from the RGD it really isn't. I'm just saying that it isn't total insanity - it just has you in the role of an 8 to 3 demux. That makes me wonder if this game was designed by programmers for aspiring programmers, like a more primitive and visual TIS-1000, as the logic seems like moon logic at first. I knew it was made for a specific group in mind, but these type of things often come off as kinda pretentious to me though. "You don't know how to solve this? You are stupid, ha ha." It reminded me of those impossibly difficult Portal 2 mods, which focus more on insane reaction times or hidden mechanics you are supposed to look up by yourself, instead of having some actually good puzzles. I almost left in a line where I said one thing I hate the most about a puzzle game is when you figure out how to solve it, but the mechanics are so frustrating that you can't pull it off.

But see, a good puzzle would have THREE switches that I figure out is using binary (Rama has something like this). In Zack, I'm trapped and the ONLY thing I can do is hit a switch repeatedly. I literally have no other option of anything I can do.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » New Game Dungeon, a week and a half late again! I'm honestly amazed with how long this one ended up being. I thought it would be about 10 minutes or less, but ended up a lot longer, though I think it was more tightly arranged than some other Game Dungeon episode. I'll have at least one more video for Halloween, hopefully more than one. I'm also considering doing something on twitch on the 30th if people are interested, though I'm still trying to figure out what (and only if I'll have free time). There definitely won't be as many Halloween videos as there were last year because I'll be busy with all kinds of things, but a lot more videos are coming in the future! COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Here's the latest videochat, I had a few more announcements this time: -More Game Dungeons coming, one in the next few days, at least one more for Halloween, hopefully more than that. -The game The Crew (an open world driving game) is free to download and own permanently until October 11th. I encourage anyone interested to grab it and hopefully crack it in the long term, as I think this game is going to be killed within 4 years. -If you're a graphic designer interested in submitting layout ideas for the website redesign, go ahead and email me ([email protected]). -Alternately, if you have a legal background on consumer law for any European countries (or any other country that has relatively strong consumer laws), go ahead and email me also, as I'm trying to determine if the current practice of killing games that people have paid money for technically violates some laws in some countries. -Assuming I get done with the Game Dungeon episodes early, I'm considering doing something on Twitch for Halloween if anyone has any ideas. I think my mind may have been a bit scrambled for the rest of the video, but maybe not, I'll let you be the judge. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Well I was hoping to have a new Game Dungeon out today, but since that's not going to happen (it'll be a few more days), here's a much-delayed Dead Game News episode. This is essentially 3 months' worth of news, so I ended up trimming it down a bit. In the future, I may try to get some editing assistance to improve the quality a bit without having it eat into my time. Hopefully it will be a while before the next episode for the right reasons. Also as a reminder, the next fan videochat is tomorrow on October 1st, 4pm EST on twitch.tv/rossbroadcast, you still have a chance to submit questions here, or email me. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Here's the latest Planetside 2 footage, for those that are interested. We ended up conquering a continent this time, though it probably wasn't because of us. I'm still brainstorming ways to try and spice up the game in the future. I'd like to try and set up a mobile base, but that may take more coordination than we currently have. More real videos coming in the near future, hopefully one this month. COMMENTS

One thing I want to emphasize is civilization running on CHEAP oil. We're not going to "run out" of oil in our lifetimes. But once demand outpaces supply, it causes a negative feedback loop. High prices of oil drag down the economy, which in turn makes it harder to transition to something else. So even if we have more electric cars on the road, if the economy has become so depressed people can't afford them, that doesn't solve the problem either. While alternatives are conceivable, everything I've read says that it's highly unlikely we'll be able to have a smooth transition in time. In the USA especially, we're decades behind where we should be ideally. If we wait until prices are high enough to warrant further investment, then that's too late, we're already entering a second great depression. In game turns, it's like discovering in an RTS that you should have been upgrading your buildings and conducting research 15 minutes ago. I feel like you would have some points if only some workers were dressed like that, but figures like Elisa Cassan and Zhao Yun Ru throw it out the window. Even as fashions wax and wane, they haven't DRASTICALLY changed for televised news reporting since its conception, and for business executives in what, since the 1800s? When you look at it in perspective of everything else, I think it's more obvious that the game just doesn't care about the believability that much and simply wants to have a more expressive look. Which don't get me wrong, I'm not against that whatsoever, I just think they picked the wrong game for it.

I'll just give some quick points to this: -I get into the atmosphere of a game I play. If something throws me off, that affects my enjoyment of the game. Tinting it all one color halfway ruins the game for me. Almost every game I've seen do this universally I think looks very bad. So you can reason with me all day, it doesn't matter if I immediately hate what I'm looking at when I play the game. -Besides detracting from my enjoyment, I see tinting largely as both ugly and lazy. I feel if you want to create a mood in the game, do it with the LIGHTING. HR did this also, but I suspect they modified the base textures themselves in addition to that, which is almost a roundabout way to achieve tinting (which they also did). For example, Silent Hill 2 uses fog and overcast lighting to achieve a dreary effect and it looks pretty good. Tinting the whole screen is just a sloppy way of achieving a certain mood unless the director really knows what they're doing. -Scale matters. This is a mainstream 30 hour game, I'm bombarded by yellow the entire time. If this was a short indie game with stylized graphics, I wouldn't be so hard on it. -Once again, this is a prequel to an established game. Deus Ex had no universal tinting. IW went kind of overboard with teal lighting and I though it looked a little ugly for it. This is turning that upside down, and it makes me increasingly critical of it. I feel like if you really want to do something original, it should be something original, not deforming established IP unless it was obviously broken in the first place. -We'll just have to agree to disagree that making your entire game tinted a specific color adheres to an artistic vision. I think it's the art director being full of themselves and trying to find a way to stand out, not because of some actual clever perception. Honestly, while I wasn't crazed about the green tinting either, I can respect The Matrix's use of is, because it's only done inside the matrix. So it's a clever way of communicating it's a separate reality, whereas outside things look normal. Sure, the art director SAYS yellow is meant to symbolize the golden age, but those are just words. I can say the polygon edges in DX symbolizes the rough nature of humanity; there's nothing inherently true about it. And this comes at the expense of having to stare at bombarded yellow for 30 hours. There's no contrast to this where HR is only yellow for SOME parts. There's no scene in this game that is not yellow. It's all yellow, just varying degrees. I honestly think this is garbage, but hey, art is subjective. Point is, I'm of course not against variation, but I hated how it was handled in this case. Pray tell, since you liked it, what would Human Revolution have to have done in order for the yellow effect to be OVERUSED? Well once you get past the 70s alarmism, the predictions for conventional oil have been pretty spot on for the past couple decades. Once you move to unconventional oils, the price rises substantially. As the price of oil rises, it starts to drag down the economy after a point. Now I've heard some optimistic views that electric cars will pick up the slack, but most projections I've seen show it not happening nearly fast enough to meet the demand for a drop in CHEAP oil. I would compare it to geologists getting earthquake prediction dates wrong 5 times in a row in one area, then getting one right (in the same area). Predicting exact dates is difficult, but looking at enormous trends can tell you a lot about where we might be headed. It's not that I DISLIKE it, I'm comparing it to Invisible War's, which I said was pleasant. HR feels like a pure halfway point between Invisible War and Tron Legacy. Tron Legacy has some obviously distinct themes. Human Revolution "fades" almost EVERYTHING. I don't know what the appropriate term is, but instead of the music sounding like you can hear every subtlely, something is done so that it sounds like it's in the next room and less defined (maybe a music major knows what I'm talking about). It's not BAD, but I don't find that especially memorable. I think part of the deal is I've seen people PRAISE the soundtrack up and down, and in my eyes, it's not THAT different than Invisible War's, except for a couple tracks. I feel like Tron Legacy's soundtrack was similar, but was much more distinctive and pronounced than this.

I fully understand this point, sorry if I haven't explained this clearly. My issue is assuming that is true, I still don't find it PORTRAYED in a believable way. You can absolutely have a minor issue get blown out of proportion, but it needs FUEL and would be done in certain ways. Transgender stuff has gotten disproportionate media attention because that riles people up to get views, but it doesn't persist. If you talk to 10 people on the street, none of them are going to be talking about transgender people. Terrorism has had way more fuel, but 9/11 killed about 3000 people in the most public and symbolic way possible in what was the largest foreign attack in the USA, bigger than Pearl Harbor. If you noticed, I didn't have an issue with the believability of the Templars in IW, because the whole game built up what a huge deal religious influence is in that culture, so it MAKES SENSE for that fictional world, if you suspend your disbelief about there being a one-world religion. HR wants suspended disbelief after disbelief. Disbelief #1: VERY few people would get augmentations because cutting off your arm, having brain surgery and becoming dependent on a monpolized drug is really scary and isn't worth it, even if you have a better chance at getting a job. It's a borderline horror story. Disbelief #2: I don't get anything concrete as to how much of an advantage this really is. If you're 10% better at your job, that's no guarantee of employment. Look at how many QUALIFIED college graduates have trouble getting work. Disbelief #3: The game doesn't make a case that augmentations would actually be hired en masse, because CHEAP "good enough" workers are what most businesses need for most of its workforce. I don't hear any economic argument for this. "It helps Malik fly better." Like we don't have an abundance of qualified pilots right now? A lot of pilots are underpaid as it is. How is an augmented person going to be able to afford to work at rock bottom wages? Disbelief #4: I don't understand how this is shaping human evolution anymore than having pro-athletes or astophysicists walking among us today does. Life is still extremely competitive even if you have talents. You can be an amazing athlete and still not make it into the NFL. If I'm going to cut off my arm, it needs to make the best artist on the PLANET. The game just likes to get really vague about all this and makes it seem like a minor advantage. Disbelief #5: (I'll make a one-world news network a freebie) It doesn't seem like there's any MOTIVE for the Illuminati to create artificial controversy on augmentations, it sounds like they want to control it, which means not letting it spill out too much. Disbelief #6: The game doesn't make much of a case as to why people would buy this reasoning. I don't hear any stories from people who thought it wasn't an issue, but then came around and realized it was. How is everyone being sold on this? Disbelief #7: If the wool is being pulled over people's eyes and blaming augmented people for something else, how come in this entire world I can't get the ACTUAL reasons for what's going on? So you're trying to convince me #6 can happen, and yes, I agree. It's absolutely possible under the right circumstances, but the game doesn't make a very compelling case for it. So if I accept 6, I need to accept 1-5 also, which the game also doesn't explain clearly. It's this chain of faith combined with unrealistic people sprinkled about that just suggest bad writing. Do you see what I'm getting at? Two things you're misunderstanding: 1. I don't hate the costume design and other over the top things they do. I think they have a lot of talent and it's interesting. I just think it's in the WRONG GAME. I don't want to see a bunch of Carribean pirates if I'm playing a game about ancient Rome. Same concept. This is a prequel to an established IP, so of course I have some expectations of the range of possibilities. It's irrelevant whether something in the game is truly an anime influence or not, that's just a guess on my part. The point is it's not Deus Ex. 2. The decadence is SO decadent it destroying the strength of the first of game of being grounded in reality. It's fantasy. It belongs in an over-the-top sci fi environment. The 80s were somewhat decadent for America and newscasters looked about the same, maybe they had a little more shoulderpads in their suit. Businessmen had more slicked back hair. Human Revolution gives us a Lady Gaga news anchor and Queen Elizabeth as a biotech corporation CEO.

See this is the problem. You're absolutely right, this is theater. The original game was a fun videogame story, with reality bleeding in through the cracks the way I really haven't seen done in other games. I never got the memo this was supposed to be a reboot, so I was judging it by normal prequel standards. Most of your points below are irrelevant because we're judging by completely different standards. I'm expecting a halfway point between reality and Deus Ex. You're essentially saying we can reimagine anything, so we're in a fundamental disagreement with what the game is supposed to be. You can't really communicate effectively under that scenario. If this was an original IP, I wouldn't have half the complaints I do. But it DOES use the Deus Ex name and seems to be trying to connect it to the original, so you have to expect people like myself will be comparing this to the original game. You say asking it to be halfway realistic is too much, but from perspective, that's what it was supposed to be, but they've changed the terms. Again, I'm willing to give them a free pass on augmentations and just assume those are a reality, same for mechs and other sci-fi elements already in the original. I wasn't expecting absolute realism, I was expecting a halfway point. By those standards, you can hopefully understand some of my criticisms. I have a degree in criminal justice, I'm well aware of many policing differences around the world. And I say that no cop worldwide, be it Canada, the UK, France, or Japan, would be shocked and scornful of another officer shooting a terrorist who had a gun to the head of an innocent woman, let alone the leader of an extremist group who had already been shooting at the police with submachine guns. The ONLY reason that would be considered completely unacceptable would be if it further endangered other lives. So if there were 3 hostages and 3 terrorists in the building, firing on only one of them would be a horrible decision, because then the other two might execute the others. The point I hope you get here is there's a WORLD of difference between questioning a suspicious person on the street v. resolving armed terrorist actively shooting at people and taking hostages. In the latter scenario, regardless of the culture, the police will respond in similar ways because their #1 focus is saving as many innocent lives as possible. In such extreme scenarios, the police will always gravitate towards whatever method has the highest possibility of saving laws. If lethal force against the perpetrators is the lowest risk option, you bet other police forces will take it. It all comes down to what has the highest probability of the victims (and officers) walking out alive. Pretty much this and every other point you're making here comes back to the same thing: we had completely different expectations from this game. I was expecting something more like Soylent Green, instead I'm getting Kabuki theater. You were expecting Kabuki theater, so by your evaluation, it's great. The symbolism is there obviously, but it's very nebulous, shies away from logical connections, and tends to shed the connections to reality. You mentioned all these advantages augmented people have, but do we get a single mention as to whether that's truly an advantage for EMPLOYERS in the job market? Hell, I hear stories all the time of talented and experienced programmers losing their jobs and getting replaced with fresh from college people who are half as good, but work for a third as much. While some fields always need specialists, for most employers maximum profit margin is what counts. So who cares if the augmented guy is twice as good if the job gets done 20% slower with the guy who costs half as much? I don't remember HR addressing that at all. Right now in the current world, it's an employer's market, there's already fierce competition for many jobs WITHOUT disruptions like augmentations, so I'm judging this by real world standards, the way I might for Deus Ex if I suspend my belief about the existence of some technologies. But if you're looking for dramatic symbolism, comparing this using the logic from the real world is unimportant, which is why you see this as a much better game than I do. I mean you mentioned that you can swap in migrants, perfect example: Human Revolution would show increased migrant presence, show the divide of different people over it, and show how society is changing because of increased migrant presence and express concern over the migrant future and where it might go. Deus Ex would show that also (though not as thoroughly), then it would go onto to look at WHY migrants are coming in, discover its due to political disruption in their native region, then discover that was partially due to actions a different government took that destabilized the region in order to achive more control over it. And in the process it would show that some of the things migrants are being blamed for ALSO have other causes that aren't getting mentioned publicly that you're able to uncover, and by the end of the game, you have a better understanding of all the factors in play. We're basically in agreement here. For me, that's a big downgrade, for you, it obviously worked.

Can you believe I was actually getting more reports about warning people about spoiling the games prior to this? Anyway, I wasn't terribly concerned with it for Deus Ex since they are well known games. I'm not sure what the best route is. I think maybe to just announce the endings are next so people have a chance to turn it off if they want. I don't always pay too much attention to the AI. I mean there's FEAR and then there's everything else.

I'd say it's more skewed than that. In order for most candidates to have a fighting chance, they need the most funding, so that means platforms that appeal to those with money to burn. I saw a video on this concept not too long ago: The summary is that candidates essentially need to appeal to wealthy interests to a degree before even entering a general election, otherwise they simply can't get the exposure. It's a conundrum in a way. The people absolutely have the POTENTIAL power to get anyone they want in or out of office, but I think the reality is that the majority of voters are drastically influenced by large media influences like TV, radio, etc. So if those have any sort of narrative or topics they avoid or promote, that's really what determines our range of possibilities. I really do think we have a detachment of our officials from what I consider our most important problems because we don't have very good representation. This is definitely a theme in Deus Ex (maybe even moreso in Invisible War). I mean in your example, 90,000 votes can absolutely swing some elections, but what if neither candidate is addressing the problems that will affect people the most? I'm not saying each candidate would be identical, but again, we have a lot of limits as to our range of possibilites under our existign system. So it's not that I'm trying to say your vote doesn't matter, it's more like I wanted to try to look more at how our current system is operating. Hell, the framers of the constitution thought a well informed electorate was necessary for democracy and I felt like Deus Ex was trying to give hints as to informing the masses. Well first off, those are just the primaries, so the voterbase is going to have a more uniform range of views than you would in a general election. Second, both the democrats and the republicans are currently undergoing some sort of transformation as there is a lot of dissent against traditional establishment. We're definitely in a transition, what I was talking about the video I think is much truer for the past few decades. Where we're going is anyone's game, though well funded interests certainly aren't going to take things lying down. Third, even for being lesser funded, Trump has had a significant amount of funds entering the race. In other words, if he didn't have the existing funds to begin with, he likely never would have been a nominee. So in this instance, it's more of a case of the underdog rich guy showing up the big rich guys. And hey 91% is not a guarantee, it's just a very clear trend. It absolutely is, I was just trying not to go on any longer than I had to with this episode. I would argue lobbying for a labor union is very different than lobbying for Monsanto or Shell. One thing I didn't really mention was revolving door politics. Currently 50% of senators and 42% of congressman go into lobbying after their career. In 1974, it was more like 3% of congress. There is much incentive to do so. Apparently the AVERAGE pay increase is approximately 1500% over being a politician: https://www.thenation.com/article/when-congressman-becomes-lobbyist-he-gets-1452-percent-raise-average/ The lines between wealthy or business interests and government is increasingly blurred. I think we're in a state of regulatory capture now in many ways. Now this doesn't mean every special interest group is a bad thing, however it does mean you need a certain amount of money to sit at the table in influencing policy, which has a large effect on how it's determined. This doesn't really run contrary to what I was trying to say, you're working in order to have a voice at the table, which takes money now. I would argue Congress is largely detached from the average voter and instead is only affected by groups like yours. Some of these DO represent the interests of common people, many of them do not.

Me too man. I think Europe is much better situated to handle a transition, but it's hard to tell how hard or fast the impact will go. I think the best plan would be to try and find some sort of community of people mentally prepared to be able to accept some sort of transition, but that's a lot easier said than done. Believe me, I hope I'm wrong on the oil issue, but like I said in the video, it was enough to alarm the US military. Unless Zuckerberg is so eccentric he expects that display of fealty to him, no, I don't. I imagine they would be very polite towards him and not bother him unless they had something they thought warranted his attention, but the body language was so over the top to me and just isn't what I would expect of a reputable scientist of his age. Again, it's what I would expect from a nervous intern. The point is, these are just small things that don't mean a lot by themselves, but add up to paint a larger picture. As for Taggart, it's all context. I just don't see this happening from the leader of a special interest group who is otherwise conducting himself like a lobbyist or person of influence among Congress. If you can find an example of a senator or congressman who is known for conducting himself professionally making a gesture like that while talking to someone, an example of that could change my mind. I think you'll have difficulty finding some C-SPAN footage showing that. The way you present yourself to a person is paramount to people like Taggart. Besides, let's not forget the knockout punch for showing the anime influences: Eliza Cassan. Can you explain a plausible scenario where a major news anchor is dressing like that in the future? Aside from some small variations, news anchors dress now largely the way they did 50 years ago. Their job is to present the news, which means being rather neutral. The news is the story, not them. This isn't MTV news, as a prequel, this looks very unrealistic and I think draws heavily from anime influences. Which again, calls into question, if the game isn't concerned with maintaining believable continuity between the first game, why make this a prequel at all and not an original IP? I'm not familiar with it. For what it's worth, I can get mildly frustrated with how many people don't realize just how many good games there are out there due to poor coverage. The top 25 video really summed up my thoughts on it. I really feel like the current industry is doing an inadequate job of helping with game discovery. And hey, as for more modern games, if it wasn't for the combat, The Secret World would easily one of my all time favorites.

Hey, this is not my attitude at all. I'm totally fine with civil discourse. As long as everyone can act like mature and reasonable people, I'm fine with whatever people want to say about my videos. I thought daisekihan maybe misinterpreted some of what I was getting at, but he's not trying to antagonize me, he's expressing legitimate disappointments he had. It's not quite that simple. I don't have a lot of faith in AAA titles producing much with great writing, but they can still make great games too. The bottom line is the simpler the concept (like a racing or fighting game), the more faith I have in the AAA industry having the potential being able to produce something good. The more complex it gets, the more my skepticism can rise, but I don't assume anything is going to be bad necessarily. The only thing I absolutely hate about some modern AAA games is the increased reliance on central servers. It's going to kill a lot of games, which I think is the worst thing I can imagine for the games industry. I could have missed it, but we should have gotten the augmented equivalent of a Rodney King beating video if that was the case, something that the average person could see and it's obvious to see how controversy could break out. If you've ever talked to homeless people in the park, I think you would find that there was nothing unrealistic about that snippet. One of my favorite conversations in DX is the veteran and the old bum just shooting the shit, talking about his past service and the military making dumb decisions that are biting them in the ass now, it felt so natural. That's one thing DX had is some more variety. Not everyone is going to be concerned about whatever the plot is. Some people are hungry, some people are just clowning around, some people are worried about their neighbors, etc. Stuff like that makes the world seem real.

Well for the record, I'd rather get back to lesser known games, but I'll try and cover some of your points. The thing is, making a character look cyberpunk v. making them look normal doesn't require more graphical power than another. Deus Ex has some cyberpunks, but they're a small number. Some are drug dealers, or more eclectic types hanging out in clubs, or part of a larger government organization. There's a difference between more fleshed out production v. LAVISH. I feel like you're implying every game would take things to ludicrous levels as opposed to exercising restraints that make sense for the setting. Deus Ex could have easily been more futuristic and less realistic if it wanted to, regardless of budget, but I think it's grounding had to be at least partially a conscience decision. It doesn't really take any more effort to make a sci-fi military base than it does to make a modern one. First off, I don't hate all non-Western stuff. I think highly of many Kurosawa movies, I've read about 500 pages of Musashi (haven't finished it, it's a long book). I've read The Art of War. Eventually I hope to learn more about the teachings of Confucius. Yes, it's true I'm not fond of most anime, but I see value in some of it too. I do appreciate the wanton imagination that comes from some of it. As someone who generally doesn't like anime, I can't deny that I think Akira is a work of art. It's really blow-your-mind material. While I don't put it on the same level, GITS portrays a very interesting world also and I think it has a great soundtrack as well. I attribute SOME of what I was seeing to the anime overtones (come on, they have a FF poster on the wall), because I seriously don't see this in any other sort of western media, like the overly humble researcher or some of the animation decisions. As for Taggart, here's the deal: At the time he was doing that gresture, he was CONFRONTING Jensen, trying to throw him off guard, projecting confidence. If he's trying to act nervous, his body language didn't match AT ALL. Furthermore, he's a public official for a serious organization, that gesturing throws everything out of sync. People at that level with connections to government have a lot of composure about them and are essentially part of a different class. Even if they're caught red-handed with something, people like Taggart didn't get to where they are without being smooth operators. In the same way you expect a professional poker player to keep his cool, his whole job is public relations and staying composed under pressure (that is, if he was on the defensive, which he wasn't at the time). I'm sorry, but the anime-like gestures for that character just ripped me right out of it. If it had been for Pritchard, I might not have thought of it the same. Ultimately, it's a culmination of many different things. Really it's the police response to the terrorists that sent me over the edge, and that's not anime-related at all, that's just purely writing about what the author clearly didn't understand. See this is where I think it really falls short of Deus Ex. Besides not making very compelling arguments for augmentations being a big deal, they don't try to show any REAL reasons that employment is being lost that you as the player could see even if the public is fixated on augmentations. The short version is the concerns of the citizenry seem very real in Deus Ex, whereas HR's narrative felt incredibly artificial to me and felt like it was entirely rhetoric. They needed better propaganda in other words. I found it easier to believe the cult of the Omar was trying to actively advance evolution because they explained what they were doing and why. HR really likes to dodge the "why" and keep things as vague as they can. That's not good for what's your central premise. You're right in that I may have been hasty about nurses and possible a couple other occupations, however we're ALREADY in an employer's market, people are going to be tripping over each other for jobs and HR could have tried to explain the dynamics of that more, but it really felt like it was all augs, all the time. Hey, I think the gameplay was great, I honestly can't decide which I like better, HR's or DX's. A lot of the combat was excellent. Coloring aside, I also thought it had great art design, IF it was a different game. The thing to understand is this is a PREQUEL. So when you make a prequel or sequel that clearly shows signs of not respecting the source material, how can you expect a fan of the original to be comfortable with that? It would be kind of like adding Roman Chariots and Naval Battles to Lord of The Rings or The Hobbit. Cool concepts on their own, but doesn't really belong in what's already an established universe. So try to appreciate this from my perspective, it's one of my favorite games being invaded by a different intellectual property. It doesn't mean that the new concept is bad, but it's not unreasonable to see how that can ruffle feathers. I'm sure there are games you appreciate that you would not want to see a sequel mixed with an IP you thought was a poor fit for it. Look, it's obvious there's talent behind DX:HR, but I honestly think the Deus Ex IP is holding them back and I'd rather play the game they would make without DX being an anchor around their neck. Something where realism isn't as much of an issue as it is for DX fans and they could go wild. I think they have the chops to pull off something truly imaginative that could be a modern classic if they were to launch a new IP. That wouldn't be my argument at all, in fact, quite the opposite, but let's not get into that, this is long enough. The larger point to take home is expectations for successors / sequels / prequels of existing IPs are different than fresh ones. Won't happen. I think we have more great games than ever, it's overwhelming. Hell, I made a list and had LOADS of runner-ups! Why would I do that if I thought modern games were garbage? Hell, I mentioned Party Hard in the last episode, that game was like crack for me. I literally have a list of hundreds of games (old and new) that grabbed me enough to warrant further research on because they looked like they could be pretty cool at first glance. I think you have me all wrong if you think what I'm writing is just pedantic bandwagon griping.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Deus Ex concludes! If I had known how much time these episodes would have ended up taking me, I think I would have poured it into something a little more worthwhile, but as always, my motto is it's better to regret things you have done than things you haven't. I originally thought this episode was going to be about the same length as Invisible War, but upon replaying parts of it, so much about it that formed my opinions of the game became really obvious, so I felt compelled to point it out. Anyway, I originally hoped to have this done about 2.5 weeks ago, so I've been working pretty much nonstop trying to catch up. For the near future, I'm going to try my best to respond to people who contacted me, get more work done on the movie, start the next Game Dungeon, the offshoot of it, and hopefully get more progress done on the website. Lots to do! EDIT: Because the episode ended up so long, I cut some things out. Some things I didn't mention: -All game footage from DX:HR is as-is. I didn't exaggerate the colors in any way in editing (I did brighten the CGI cutscenes a little bit because they were a tad dark, but that's it). -This game offers 3 different forms of antialiasing, all of which do about the same thing, none of which will process the scene completely. I was able to brute force SSAA, which looked pretty good, but caused smearing at the top of the screen. -If the HUD looks small it's because I was using downsampling to make the image look a little better. Despite being a modern game, the HUD does NOT scale with resolution! This means as resolutions get higher and higher, the HUD will become almost unreadable. -I was going to make an analogy of the story being like Lord of The Rings, except with no Sauron, no armies, no magic rings, and instead being about a cultural divide among Middle Earth about whether people should wear rings or not, because when you wear 4 on one hand, you can punch better. -The entire internet talked about the boss fight inflexibility, so I didn't feel a need to, plus it was never that big a deal for me since if you had been playing the game like a slasher movie villain, this wasn't a problem. I think the more interesting point of all this is that game development is on such a level now that they need to outsource to other areas in order to complete such a large project. -I was going to include more information for people who think peak oil isn't a problem anymore due to the surge in US reserves. This is a complex topic and take times to explain, but the short version is our proven reserves have been vastly overestimated and there are economic barriers to extracting that could bring the economy down even if there is still plenty of oil in the ground. CHEAP oil is a big part of the equation. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Here's the September chat with fans. This one was conducted under some levels of sleep deprivation, but I managed to make it through. There's nothing too critical discussed, mostly my plans for the next videos after Deus Ex and a bunch of fan questions this time. Next Game Dungeon coming in a few days, I hope! COMMENTS