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I’m still not entirely clear on the exact lines as to which gambling content is or is not permitted. So I’m not yet sure I entirely agree with this action, or not. Regardless, the recognition that gambling is a problem is nice to see when surely it would benefit Twitch the most to go all in on the gambling like pro sports have.
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There was an organized boycott among some of the top streamers being planned before this announcement so a cynical read is that they were just trying to stem that from happening.
That said gambling content is bad for twitch like adult content because its low value/high risk that few brands want associated exposure to so it drives down ad rates across the board.
The new free to play Gundam Evolution came out.
It’s basically Overwatch of Gundam. A team FPS with objectives. Different Gundam models are different classes. It has the LoL style of debateable pay2win, where some of the Gundams have to be unlocked. Most of them don’t, though. Lots of cosmetics, obviously.
I played the tutorial and exactly one round of this game. That was enough for me to just uninstall it. It wasn’t awful, but life is too short to spend on this.
The good is that the game worked and controlled very nicely. It didn’t feel too slow, despite obviously being nowhere near my proffered Quake speed. The feeling really reminded me a lot of Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. The Gundam models look nice. There were a wide variety in attacks and special moves between the Gundams, like some being purely melee. Some having shields that worked.
The bad is that there is nothing special or interesting about this game. A complete snoozefest. The maps are extremely boring. No landmarks or interesting features. They look like an example map you would get with a game development tutorial. The game play is the same old loop of spawning, running to the front, fighting until you die, then repeating until the match ends.
The worst, and most disappointing, part of this game is that it doesn’t feel Gundamy at all. Yes, the character models are just Gundams. The attack animations align with some of the Gundam’s abilities. And that’s where it ends. Virtual On is more of a Gundam game than this is. Those mechs actually move and fight close to the way Gundams do in anime. Gundam Evolution they just move and act like people with guns.
The biggest disappointing was no outer space maps. The real Gundam battles are in outer space. I can play any old fps if I want to spend my time on the ground. Without freespace battles, why even bother?
Went under my radar but the 2022 class of video game hall of fame was announced. Dance Dance Revolution was added among Civ, Ms. Pac Man, and Zelda: OoT.
Expect them all to become editable fan wikis.
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Fandom is where content goes to die.
While this is neither a Steamdeck nor a Switch, I do like the look of this device.
If I was still an Xbox person, I’d be tempted.
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I’ve heard nothing good about it. It’s basically just a bad phone with a controller built in. Dig up a last-gen flagship and slap a Razer Kishi on it and you’re 99% of the way there.
EDIT: For perspective, a Pixel 3A, a 4 year old flagship phone, is $250 right now and has better stats than the G Cloud lists, with the benefit of being an actual phone, and a Razer Kishi is like $50 on Amazon right now.
Also, this is yet another one of those “What market is this aiming for?” devices; for $50 more you can just get an actual Steam Deck and play games locally, and still have access to the cloud gaming.
I decided to try out Vampire Survivors again now that it’s out of early access. I can’t tell if it’s actually a well designed game or just a slightly more designed game than an incremental game. It definitely gives me a jolt of dopamine, but I feel dirty after.
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People Make Games dives into Valve related Gambling
PMG’s Chris Bratt’s own Game Gambling story
Omg I can’t wait to try this. Between being colorblind and having a SPD the OG dwarf fortress was nigh-impossible for me to enjoy playing with. Super stoked for this!
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If you’re not playing Pentiment, you really should consider it:
Aside from the game being visually gorgeous (I mean, if you’re into Renaissance artwork anyhow), it’s presenting a really compelling and nuanced socio-political view of medieval Europe. Importantly, it’s showing a Europe that is not “homogenous” in the way that modern notions of white supremacy attempt to show; there are PoC characters, for example, who while subject to some amount of discrimination, do not appear to victims of systemic discrimination.
An Ethiopian priest (easily my favorite sequence of the game so far - if you play and have the opportunity to join him for dinner with the villagers, you absolutely should do it) is viewed with both warmth and suspicion by villagers, but is clearly able to be part of the society while also being clearly distinctly different. There’s no “I don’t see color” nonsense, but instead an embrace of diverse people.
A visiting Romani tinker lives on the outskirts of town, and is clearly suffering from the prejudices heaped on the Romani people - and yet we also see him being accepted by people from varied social strata.
And now, I have just run into a Jewish couple who are subject to anti-Semitism, but who also find aid and support in this little village.
It also shows the diversity of political entities and ideas at the time. The characters don’t really have any concept of “Europe” at all - just different countries and places that they have heard of. They owe no particular loyalty to any specific state, and we see characters with very different ideas of how the world should work taking direct action based on those principles. There is no widespread agreement that comes from adhering to a specific idea; even the deeply religious characters are also conflicted and inconsistent in their faith, and the game is set during the time of Martin Luther so we also get a great deal of discourse about religious ideas.
It’s really fascinating to work through a nuanced narrative that has clearly placed itself before the emergence of contemporary white supremacy; there is a major push among contemporary historians to show the complexity and diversity of medieval Europe, and doing so is crucial in combatting narratives being pushed by far-right ideologues.
Anyway, you should play this game.
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Just going to put this here since an intro to fighting game mechanics is nice to know CC: Montel Chilliam
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