I genuinely did not think “Shooting dogs in video games sucks” was going to be a controversial opinion, more fool me.
Animals are typically presented as a) innocent, and b) not on a level playing field with the humans in these video games, who are generally actively seeking you out to murder you. If not wanting to… Read more
William Hughes
plumberduck
Writer on The A.V. Club's Newswire desk since 2014, covering stories ranging from TV, to film, to games, to that time the Harry Potter lady said wizards used to poop on the floor, like dogs.
A.V. Club and Kotaku editorial run entirely independent from each other. We ran our review today because that’s when the game came out.
I get this as a critique, but a) Deathloop invites the comparisons aggressively, and b) I don’t think it’s wrong to evaluate design choices based on what was sacrificed to pursue them. If Deathloop’s time loop stuff worked perfectly, I’d be singing its praises. As is, those choices impact a bunch of different systems… Read more
You'd get CPU-Julianna, I think
I think the lack of enemy variety really hurts Deathloop’s rigor as a shooter, honestly. The base Eternalist you’ll be killing for the entire game isn’t especially smart or dangerous unless there’s like six of them aiming at you at once; Julianna helps balance those scales a bit, and the Visionaries have some… Read more
I’m probably going to have to do a separate year-end ranking of time loop games this year, just because there have been so many. (I like Returnal more than Deathloop, I think, but I’m more in the pocket for how nasty its themes get.)
Hades is an interesting touchpoint, in that Deathloop is definitely trying to… Read more
Yep, you can switch over to computer-Julianna, or set it so that only people on your friends list can invade.
I definitely recommend at least trying it; the penalties for losing are only sort of painful if you’re especially deep into a loop (you can spend your resources in between levels, so you probably won’t lose… Read more
At some point, I need to write a piece on Cyberpunk’s ending (specifically, Temperance, which is what I picked—sorry, Panam) and the sheer amount of emotion it pulled out of me. There are a LOT of things you can ding CDPR on, but they’re one of the best studios going when it comes to stillness and melancholy. (When… Read more
I love everything about Chongqing except the stuff in the base proper, especially on the first run through. The Mission Story for the “I can predict everybody” target is cool, but I don’t like the hassle of infiltrating the base.
The third biome was my hard wall on that game, and the range requirements on that boss are objectively a bad idea in a game where you can only carry one gun at a time. My advice is to run through every room of all three biomes to get your Augments and Proficiency up, find a Carbine with decent perks and good bonus… Read more
I tried making an FFXIV character last year, but my ability to get through MMO levels of on-screen tutorial text has really dipped in recent years. Get me in there and hitting stuff!
I’ve outed myself as a monster who thinks Dodgeball the movie is a real solid B-
For the record:
1) Taiwan is a country.
2) China did not give me money to write this piece, which is mostly about how China leverages and abuses its newfound power over the global box office to dictate PR messaging in line with its party line for Hollywood films and stars, and the strange new realities that this creates… Read more
As the site’s most stridently annoying Southland Tales fan/historian, I will say that when Justin Timberlake is doing Justin Timberlake things (starring in a music video as women fawn over him) he is very good, and when he is doing not-Justin Timberlake things (talking) he is less good.
The opening area of Bloodborne is one of my favorite areas From’s ever done. Yarnham has so many little shortcuts and connections and I can reconstruct almost all of them from memory at this point.
Miyamoto has said in multiple interviews that DK is Mario’s pet. https://www.nintendo.com/nes-classic/donkey-kong-developer-interview/
The idea of Shibuya Scramble as a speed-run game is very funny to me. Racing through the Text Adventure dungeon to get your 100% All Dialogue Seen run time down.
So grateful to everybody reading and engaging with this piece, there are some really strong points being made (both for and against its central thesis) down here. One thing I wish I’d made a little clearer in my text, though: I don’t object to V because they’re a blank player avatar—I like a blank player avatar just… Read more
You and I have similar taste in comics, friend
Are people still playing Friday The 13th? If I had a core of 8 people to play stuff like that, it’d probably be in the regular rotation; I just had a not-great time with randos online.