daisekihan

I don’t know why he thinks he has to keep making FM if he doesn’t want to. From the donations list he’s making decent money and ad revenue is basically gone now so he doesn’t really need the views. And he’s only made 12 episodes in like nearly three years so it’s not like the channel depends on it. If any of you watch some other parody series on YT like the Abridged series, even when they are tearing those shows apart there is still a lot of affection. But especially with Half Life 2, I can tell that isn’t the case at all for Ross. He’s even said that doing the series has made him like the HL in general a lot less. So whereas old Freeman used to try to fill in the plot holes with something amusing, now he’s barely even trying. I mean his rant in this one might as well have been “I’m a character in a video game being tormented for the amusement of the player!”—which might be the case, but it does’t feel particularly original or amusing as a take. I just wish we had the Freeman who treated a tram like pirate ship back, instead of the current Freeman who’s treating a pirate ship like a tram. And if we can’t maybe Freeman should go on a long hiatus until Ross can feel less negativity about it.

I don’t know, it feels like all Freeman does in FM2 is scream and complain. Not that he doesn’t have reasons to scream and complain, but he used to dwell on cliff dwelling cultures, sing Gilbert and Sullivan, and pretend to be a pirate. I used to be looking forward to Freeman getting the gravity gun because of how much fun it was for me as a player and seeing how Ross’s Freeman might reflect that. But now I’m pretty sure he’s just going to call it lame and impractical or something and take no pleasure in it at all. I mean, I get it that FM is trying to be realistic and that Freeman was always meant to be an self centered asshole under a lot of stress, but it feels like he used to be almost enjoying himself on some level now it’s just a total chore. And I wonder if that isn’t because Ross doesn’t just dislike Half Life/Half Life 2 and making Freeman’s Mind 2 as a project, he practically hates it.

Well, it just “seems” like a technicality to me, but I’m not a a lawyer. Not to mention, given that there are still free online only games even in Canada, I would imagine their legal teams for these companies would fight you on them being dead to rights. Not that I agree with them, but laws are usually not black and white. As to the loopholes, I think my scenario might be more plausible than you think, but even if it isn’t, there are certainly other ways they could think of to get around a legal ruling that required them to fork over their part of the game when they shut down servers if they are so reluctant to now for whatever reason, if it really would be as cheap as you posit to not do so. One problem you are probably going to have is that there are so many political and legal issues people are worried about right now due to the rise of the far-right—just yesterday they got back into the Spanish parliament for the first time since Franco—that they would see this sort of thing as low priority. Like, the effects of the environmental deregulation by the current U.S. administration are already pretty scary at this precarious point, so it’s easy to completely focus on things like that if you’re trying to reign in corporations.

Well, in a sense I agree, but on the other hand it seems like you’re skating by on a technicality of the distinction between a good and a service. It seems more like these games are something in between a good and a service. Also, supposing you’re right and any online-only game is committing fraud if they don’t charge a fee and shut their game down. You say all these games couldn’t afford to go back to subscriptions—why couldn’t they just charge $0.01 for a yearly subscription? I mean, when you try to catch a company on a technicality like that, there’s always going to be loopholes. I think it would be hard to make this stick unless you could prove that when people buy an online only game with no subscription fee, they have the expectation that they will be able to play it indefinitely.

I feel like when you used to get questions like, “What’s a controversial opinion you hold?” or “What are your political views?”, you wouldn’t answer. I kind of wish you would’ve stuck to that practice. There are some views I want to know people whose content I like hold. It’s like JonTron all over again.

I was by no means trying to gaslight anyone. Alright, my apologies. I guess I'll just release the 10GB version, I can see the compression on parts in the 5GB copy. Even the 10GB probably has some minor loss, but I'm sure it's night and day compared to Youtube. I may host it elsewhere since things are going to be changing soon on the site. I'll release it and the green screen segment people wanted in a couple days and have a post here. I’m sorry for not being more careful in the wording of my critique. I think I will probably never agree with you about HR, but I respect you as a content creator and like your stuff a lot, so the last thing I would want is for you to think I was trying to troll you.

I was by no means trying to gaslight anyone.

Look, I don't know if you're doing it on purpose, but the reality is what you're doing is gaslighting. We're not going to have a productive conversation from that. You say "I felt little need to pick apart the conspiracy theories from the original." Is that what you call me quoting Eisenhower, giving figures on the military industrial complex, large media conglomerate merging, analyzing the shift in terrorism coverage, and how new institutions were formed and constitutional rights were altered after. If that's not picking things apart enough, I think you'll have to look elsewhere for more serious coverage of a videogame. The original had MANY themes, conspiracy theories being one of them. I outright dismissed some things as "fun game stuff" when talking about the stories, not meant to be taken very seriously and said as much in the video. Things like the greys, augmentation, giant mechs, exploding men in black, etc. For the most part, the game didn't take those elements very seriously either. I'd say the game took themes like terrorism, poverty, disease, role of government power, etc. more seriously and I tried to touch on some of those also. I WAS critical of things like the police tactics, as I was in Human Revolution also. In Human Revolution, it basically just had ONE theme, transhumanism, with discrimination being a part of that. I didn't think the premise was very believable, so I was critical of it because the game itself was treating it seriously. Even if I was suspending my disbelief however, I found the human behavior unbelievable also, so I found it failing on both levels. Hacking for example, was more of a fun game element, which neither the game nor I took very seriously, thus I wasn't critical of it. The clothing is an example where by itself, would simply be a fun game element, but in a prequel, it was a clear divergence from the source material thematically. I only took apart the theme of augmentation because the game itself took it so seriously. It's not the theme of discrimination I have a problem with, it's handling it poorly as a sole theme in an already established franchise that was known for a more multi-dimensional look at the world. The basis of your argument so far is attributing things to me that I didn't do when I did do them, or that I did do when I didn't do them. Again, I'm not saying you're doing this intentionally, but you're basically characterizing me as someone else in your mind, then arguing that. That's not an honest way of conducting a conversation, I don't really see the point of continuing this if that's your approach. And again, we have sort of a less direct form of gaslighting. First off, Euro Truck Simulator 2 sold 4.5 million copies. I would not call that "extremely niche", and it undermines your other points, but it's clear you thought I was talking about the original at 300k copies, so fine, let's go with that. Your original statements say: "Surely, you must realize that almost no one plays driving games to aimlessly drive through the environments, no matter how nice they are." "For most people (at least the ones this game was aimed at) if they wanted to go on a road trip they would just go on one." but then you go and say: "I didn’t say that that wasn’t the target demographic, just that you really shouldn’t be surprised it isn’t very big." You JUST SAID the people that this game was aimed at are people who don't care about driving around aimlessly in the environment, then you reply and say you DIDN'T say that people who care about the environment aren't the target demographic. Well logically, they CAN'T be the target demographic if they're not being aimed at, in your words. Except, now you're saying the exact opposite, and claiming you didn't say anything to the contrary, except you did. This is gaslighting. At best, you're being hypocritical and strawmanning me without meaning to. At worst, you're just trolling. Either way, this isn't how you conduct an honest conversation, so I'm not going further with it. I'll never convince you the sky is blue if you see it as green and are claiming I said it's red. I originally tried to address some of points you talked about on HR, but I realize this is just an endless spiral. You’re right about The Crew, that was my bad, What I should’ve said was “the demographic that most driving games are aimed at.” I suppose I was wrong about the extent of the demographic for this sort of driving game. I am not trolling and I was trying to have a discussion in good faith, but now you’ve accused me of deliberately trying to drive you insane. I don’t come here to be insulted, so I’m done with this conversation.

2016? man talk about a grudge i honestly barely remember what he even said in that episode to be honest, but I think a big point was, how HR to him felt less like a Deus Ex game, and more like an entirely different game, and how he would've been fine, as long as it had a different name, or something like that? i really don't remember, sorry i don't know, i feel like even though i disagree about some of the stuff he said , it feels like arguing about it won't lead to much, the whole show is pretty subjective, so i can't really say that ross is wrong, i mean, it is his opinion at the end of the day, that's just how he feels like about the game, but i'm the type to just kinda shrugh it off, and i just move on usually, i'm not sure how to explain myself even though i disagree with ross sometimes, i don't feel like it's that big of a deal, you can still like human revolutions for your own reasons in my mind i get that it might not seem fair, but you can't control someone's thoughts, and i wouldn't get too obsessed over trying to change them, it generally doesn't work from i've seen, at the end of the day ross is some stranger on the internet, not a family member who you sit down and talk to about, anything, i think just giving out your opinion once is good enough, people either accept it over time, and do consider it, or just never bother considering it at all, from my own experience at least, i'm pretty open to new ideas though, even if i look contrarian or reluctant, i always open up people on the internet just take to people not liking things they do like themselves, a bit too personally for my tastes, i think people need to chill out, at the end of the day, what matters the most is that we all enjoy ourselves, and i feel like people could be less mean overall, i wish people could just focus on the having fun part, instead of always focusing on the negative i just wish we could all get along, you know? i don't think it's a healty habit, to hold a grudge over a simple game for so long, it's a bit too much even for me but i don't know, this is just an internet forum about games, there's no need to be that pendatic all the time, i think you should just replay human revolutions, have a good time with it, and just move on I’m not holding (much of) a grudge; likewise, I agree that there isn’t much point arguing about endlessly when you have a difference in opinion on something subjective like a video game’s quality. But I’m not taking it personally—I just gave Ross money (not a lot but some) so obliviously I’m more satisfied with him than not. I actually enjoyed the video for the most part. In my experience with YouTubers that are worth a damn, they quite frequently build up a following that is completely uncritical, which I think does nothing for the quality of their content. Ross gets plenty of positive reinforcement here and elsewhere, so sometimes I take it upon myself to give him a little ribbing.

The original Deus Ex was all about conspiracy theories about the corporate elite controlling society from the shadows being true—i.e it flattered your politics. Human Revolution was about discrimination, and that was not to your taste, so you weren’t interested; you picked apart the idea of augmentation as a basis for discrimination, but you felt little need to pick apart the conspiracy theories in the original. So using the idea of augmented people being discriminated against as a signpost for discrimination in our society is no good because it’s not realistic; but using conspiracy theories as a signpost for the problematic concentration of power around the wealthy in our society is A-OK, even if those conspiracy theories are unrealistic. But I’ve already said everything I wanted to say about HR in that thread. We will never see eye to eye. 1. I was pointing out that you said you were shocked that the game received almost no coverage or hype— I simply explained why you really shouldn’t be surprised. 2. I never said there wasn’t a niche for this sort of game, just that you shouldn’t really be surprised it’s small. Euro Truck Simulator sold 300k; Need for Speed: Most Wanted sold 16 million. 3. I didn’t say that that wasn’t the target demographic, just that you really shouldn’t be surprised it isn’t very big.

So Ross, I just thought I’d put this out there. When you were trashing Human Revolution, I pointed out that most if not all of your criticism was based on extremely subjective criteria, like “I don’t like exaggerated clothing styles, so it’s bad” or “This reminds me of anime which I don’t like, so it’s bad” or “This game’s politics don’t sufficiently align with mine, so it’s bad.” And here, I think you’ve indulged in an even more subjective view. Surely, you must realize that almost no one plays driving games to aimlessly drive through the environments, no matter how nice they are. The environment in a racing game is like the condiments on food—if the only thing a restaurant has going for it is a huge selection of good condiments, but the food is just mediocre, of course the restaurant is only going to be perceived as a mediocre, because people go to restaurants for food not condiments. So you can’t really be surprised that this game was dismissed as mediocre—the only reason you have any interest in it it’s because of your extremely niche taste for going on Sunday drives in video game worlds. For most people (at least the ones this game was aimed at) if they wanted to go on a road trip they would just go on one.

Don’t worry bro, I’m sure most of us here believe your jingoism is 100% authentic and disinterested.

I imagine Ross is getting swept up in the anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping through Eastern Europe right now--not that they intend it to harm a white guy like Ross, but they have to at least appear fair--and basically he can't change his residence without the form he was talking about being approved, even if Magda can.

You must be confused. The occupation of Crimea ended in 2014. Yeah, and the occupation of the Sudetenland ended in 1938. You see Ross, this is the kind of person you invite in when you give uncritical air to quasi-conspiracy theories like in your Deus Ex review.

I ardently support this. Crimea is a corner of paradise with mild climate, lots of intact forests, lots of beautiful palaces, kind open people, and (after reunion with Russia) rather good infrastructure (you will have trouble finding a crumbling, mold-ridden residence building in Crimea). As a place to live, it is ridiculously undervalued and undersold. Yeah, his wife is afraid of moving to the U.S., but she’ll be totally fine with moving to a region that might turn into a war zone at any moment. Oh, and after all his troubles with the Polish bureaucracy, I’m sure living under a Russian occupation government will be way easier.

Ross, the 1 in 6 deaths stat is kind of misleading, which if you read the article you should know. The article says that one in six deaths can be linked to pollution. LINKED. NOT CAUSED BY. LINKED. Meaning there are other factors—since 92% of those deaths happen in poor countries, another factor leading to those deaths is probably poverty. And no, it’s not like Russian roulette, because even in places where those deaths are concentrated, it mainly effects small children and the elderly. Not to mention that the same pollution that is causing climate change is probably contributing to these deaths, so it really doesn’t make any sense to treat them as separate issues, they are more like the short term and long term effects of air pollution.

It’s kind of weak that Freeman complains about there not being any supplies, but he ignores the only boxes that actually have supplies in them.

For the dam jump, it really doesn’t look any worse than the elevator shaft jump in the first one. But if you need some ideas to justify it: -Freeman finds a medkit lying around and decides to “be a hero” again. -Debris from the helicopter crashing down knocks him in the head, and the concussion temporarily affects his judgment. -Assuming its the drop off from the dam that would make him not want to do it, have him not notice it because he’s preoccupied with one of his thoughts. -Have him refuse to do the jump and say there must be another way; cut to a “one day later” title card; Freeman still refuses to do the jump, but he starting to get hungry and delirious; another title card; he decides to do it lest he starve. -Mod the game somehow so the jump just becomes a ramp. -End the episode with him refusing to do the jump; begin the next episode with him already in the next level, complementing himself on his brilliance at getting the boat down from that dam without making the suicidal jump, not explaining how he did it. -In the warehouse by the dam, Freeman overhears familiar Combine officer (Mike) over the video phone thing saying there’s no need to worry about Freeman because even if he takes out the chopper, he is probably too much of a pussy to make that jump; so of course Freeman has to do it now,

1) It was Wing Commander, not Starship Troopers, and 2) Democracy doesn't always work in cases of emergency. Sometimes you just need someone to just take full command and get stuff done. It's more effective than arguing over what to do. Oh well, I guess you can make up your own mind, but still though, Ross has some good points on a few issues. I could have sworn it was Starship Troopers, but I could be wrong. As for emergencies, dictators are notorious for emerging from emergencies, no pun intended. Not to mention that in an emergency, the minority has a legitimate fear of being sacrificed by the majority, so it’s only natural they want their views to be heard, democratically.

I get a sinking feeling whenever I see that Ross is doing an episode on a contemporary game. This isn’t what I come to him for. I don’t believe Ross when he says this was a bait and switch; two minutes of research could’ve told him that he was guaranteed to hate it. I haven’t played the game, but I can tell that this is the sort of thing that simply wasn’t geared toward people like him and maybe me too. I think that Ross is hurting his case for being an ethics advisor to EA when he makes an argument in favor of sacrificing the blue haired girl to bring about social change in the school. More and more, I get the impression that Ross’s worldview is so utilitarian that I really wouldn’t want to be stuck on a desert island with him. I thought the same thing in the stream when he was talking about Starship Troopers, where he didn’t get white people in the book were so concerned about democracy when there was an emergency.

Yeah, I get all that. I did like Mankind Divided, though not as much (it cuts off at what feels like the 2/3 point and feels like sequel-bait). I was really pissed off, for example, with all the changes they made to Mass Effect 2. But I still think Ross is being a little too hard on Human Revolution, though it is understandable.

This whole thing is still stressing me out, but since you responded, I'll respond once more. The game explains that the main people getting augmented are involved in construction. Some of this is talked about more in the MD, but one example is the pilot in that game has a limp (I think he's Australian or South African) from being attacked during the aug incident, but he doesn't blame the guy because he knew him personally and knew he was pressured by the company he worked for into getting augs (indeed, the company paid for them). Just suppose they did a cost benefit analysis and found that they could have a single augmented worker do the job of ten men, and that the augmentations would pay for themselves in a year--then they give the guy the option of either getting augs, or he's fired (which they can do in most At-Will jobs)--is it really that hard to imagine someone desperate, maybe even someone in the country illegally, wouldn't agree? Also, more than one company makes anti-rejection drugs, I don't know where you're getting that. It only happens that there's only one producer in Mankind Divided. Jensen can lift a refrigerator without losing any energy and shove it across a room. That's not 10% added benefit in a job where strength is needed. You're still looking at this as though there needs to be some massive loss of jobs in all sorts of fields for this to happen, which it doesn't. And it's not as improbable as you think that a cost-benefit analysis could show that if one aug can do the job of several naturals, it's worth getting him augmented. I refer to the point above---all that it would have to take is a few, just enough to get people riled up. You keep on falling back on it not being reasonable for people to object, because the numbers would be small, but you're assuming people are always reasonable. I mentioned the transgender issue, which isn't as much of a passing thing as you think. PayPal left North Carolina and a lot of people lost their jobs because of that bathroom law--that's not something people effected (like they would be in Detroit, which is at the center of the aug issue in the game) have forgotten about. Also, it seems in most cases, it's company paying for the augmentation, not the individual. It's about the blending of the mind with the machine. If you can get rid of the arms and legs, next you can get rid of the torso, next the whole body except the brain, and the essence of what it means to be human changes. You get people with collective consciences or integrating their minds with AI. That's definitely something pretty drastic. From what I recall, the Illuminati doesn't think people are ready for augs yet, they need to grow more (or something). I'll agree it is a weakness, but it seems more like they think the risks of augmentation letting people wrest control from them are higher than the benefit of using them to control people Augs are different from people, that's all it takes. It's not even clear that the majority of people in the game's world, of which we only see a small portion, are anti-aug. Again, do you think most people who support Donald Trump have been directly affected by illegal immigration? All they need to see is Mexicans in the construction site across the street from where they work to get mad. I don't know what you mean here--what's going on is a conspiracy of elite powerbrokers has deemed augmentations to be dangerous, so they are manipulating events to prevent them from becoming more widespread. I suppose the "reason" is that Sarif was just about to introduce low cost augs that anyone could get. Even if it was just the retinal replacement, or the social enhancer (just suppose it works better than the game seems to show), some people would get them. So the Illuminati has to stop this by setting up a terrorist attack. On the costumes, if you feel that way, I guess that's your right. I didn't mind it, since as I've said I haven't played the original and I don't have any attachment to any particular aesthetic. I still don't think, though, that the HR is saddled with the IP, as I've said before, and more than Chrono Cross was saddled with Chrono Trigger.

Then why did you post here to begin with? You can just email Ross about your concerns if you don't want your opinion being called into question by anyone else besides him. Doesn't mean he'll agree with your opinion though. After all it is his opinion and only his opinion. You're really coming across as self-centered. Maybe. However, there are obvious points where people are not going to agree and further discussion won't solve it, so I don't feel the need to continue it when I'm not enjoying myself. I don't need to be that guy. I agree that on the whole, it's just a matter of taste or what the person in question was anticipating. But not all of Ross's criticisms are stated like this, they are stated in terms of "This isn't plausible" or "This is poor exposition", particularly in the way the game shifts the focus to augments as being such a big deal.

Don't you see how absurd and jarring a jump from Deus Ex 1's grounded reality to Fifth Element levels of weirdness is? I completely agree with Ross's assessment that this property should be it's own separate entity rather than be held back by using the Deus Ex title in it's name. Like he said it's anchor around Human Revolution's neck that will on serve to constrict it in terms of artistic freedom. People who have played the original Deus Ex GOTY which established what was so fundamental about Deus Ex as a franchise will come into Human Revolution expecting it to be just like Deus Ex GOTY. Also you seem really hung up over the anime comparison Ross made. He only said it a couple and even then they seemed more like backhand sort of comment rather than the meat of his argument. I have never watched anime in my entire life but I can still see all the problems Deus Ex: Human Revolution had. The animations seemed awkward and out of place IMO. The awkward animations were a part of a transition away from static character discussions during in-game cut-scenes using the real character models instead of a full cutscene (see Skyrim for example), so it's obvious they're going to be awkward. And like someone said, during the "boss" debates, like Taggart's, they aren't awkward at all, so I doubt that they were a deliberate choice elsewhere. Anyway, the costume design is supposed to indicate that this is a period of decadence--I think someone else pointed this out. But I'm bowing out of this discussion at this point. The whole reason I turn to Ross is to learn and think about games without the stress of an online forum and having to debate these things, so this is just defeating the purpose.

Ross, it seems like you're almost deliberately missing the point: AUGS DON'T ACTUALLY NEED TO BE TAKING MANY JOBS FOR THEM TO BE A BIG ISSUE OR PEOPLE TO BE SCARED OF THEM. Politicians always have political scapegoats from incredibly small minorities. How many people in the country to you think are actually transgender relative to the importance of transgender issues in the media? It's nowhere near proportionate. Didn't you say in your Deus Ex review (I could be mis-remembering) that way more people are killed by falling pianos than terrorists, and yet look at how important of an issue terrorism is? I mean, you're issue seems to be "I can't see that augs would be efficient enough to be better at enough jobs for anyone to care"--but even if its just restricted to construction (just like the issue with illegal immigrants), even if you could prove maybe 1,000 jobs went to augs that might have otherwise gone to naturals, that would be all a Hannity or Limbaugh would need to get people worked up. Do you really find it that improbable that even that any jobs would be lost. I really think your disappointment at Human Revolution not handling the same issues as the original did is clouding your judgment on this matter. If you were just saying, "This isn't what I was expecting, so I dislike it" I could accept that, but instead you're saying, "This isn't a credible plot development" when your evidence is weak. Also, Eliza Cassan's clothes have nothing to do with anime. See: So yeah, nothing to do with anime. It's part of an aesthetic--see The Fifth Element for something pretty similar. Now, it may be an aesthetic you may not like, but it seems to me you saw one FF reference poster and decided, Ah ha, everything I don't like about the aesthetic of this game is because of this. At the very least, I don't think anyone else has made a connection to anime.