I thought these stories were about a parent caring for their child. But now I see that the relationship wasn't the point, it was the gender. We should also be concerned about whether it's a son or a daughter in the mom-ified storyline otherwise moms with a son may say "I don't' have daughter, what about strong moms raising sons!?" or vice versa. And daughters well say, "But I had a mother too!" Then once we've covered those, then twins, one son one daughter. Then the struggles of an interracial upbringing. A game about all possible variations in the millions of possible forms of motherhood. "It was a good story but as a mom who had to have a c section, I just couldn't relate to the natural birth story."
Thinking back, I don't know how I made it through some of my favorite games. Playing them now I think "But it's a girl, how can I relate to any human emotion, character arc or connect with this personality when it's NOT ME :'( " For every "Other M" has to be a "Ather F" or we just can't connect. It's the only way.
And I'm glad to see age brought up. Because the current elderly aren't speaking out about the outrageous injustice and lack of representation. It's going to take some some time for this generation to become older and carry the "but what about me" torch all the way baby! Because I've been thinking, you know, in the gaming industry and in action movies, there are too many people 20-40 year old, we need some 70-80 to make it equal. Because Youngsters are dominating the industry. There's an Age Inequality there. Too many Brunettes. Fat vs Skinny. Left Handed and Right. Not enough paraplegics, 50/50 down the middle in all aspects of life. It's the only way to truly connect with anything, the only way to reach equality and the only way to finally find happiness within ourselves through external representation.
Seriously though, make whatever stories you want. When Claire in RE2 cared about Sherry's safety... a child who wasn't even hers but she expressed that level of care, I got it. When Jade in Beyond Good in Evil was there to protect the children, I got it. At no point did I think "What are they trying to say, that a MAN wouldn't care?!!" But it's really pathetic to suggest that "Because it's not my gender, I can't relate." You're trying so hard to say GIRLS TOO and I'm over here seeing people as PEOPLE in games. Enjoying games REGARDLESS of that aspect, but that's all you can ever focus on. I play male or female characters. YOU pick up Street Fighter II and pick Chun Li... BECAUSE she's a girl. Guys are supposed to accept everyone, girls only play the girls... and want more girls. I don't know, I see a different problem there.
We say gender, race and all that DOESN'T define us. That we're all equal and color blind. That it's what's on the inside that counts.......... BUT then we exclusively attach ourselves to characters based solely on those very things and say "I'M not like that!"
A guy plays a $60 game for 100 hours. A girl buys the same game and plays for 50 hours. According to STATS, she paid twice as much per hour-of-gameplay as he did to play the same game. :(
A company hires 1 male lead artist/art director. They also hire 3 artists who all make the same pay, 1 male, 2 female. Stats say that you combine the 2 male incomes and divide by 2. Then compare to the women. You will see that the MEN make more on average than the women even though they are all in the same position "ARTIST". That's all these stats are. Just there to run numbers in an misleading way to try to act like employers discriminate. "Hello world" and AAA games are both programmed, doesn't make them the same job.
If you want to make that a final Override Skill, that's cool... but I never felt it was missing anything. I like just letting them do their thing without micromanaging. A backup buddy. A distraction. And I feel like they need to be used in THAT situation, like it's part of the environment, not as a pet who follows you to do all your dirty work. So I think IF you could command them, they should still stay within a given radius of their origin so you can't show up to all your battles with the biggest baddest thing you can override. Sounds fun but would likely have unforeseen repercussions unless they implement things that prevent you from taking Overrides with you to Missions. Like something that gives out a signal that either shuts your override down OR reverts it back within that zone. There's potential there for Aloy to LEARN to control them in a sequel and all the elements that would be needed to keep it balanced. As far as this game, I'm enjoying all the mechanics as-is.
I've played probably 25-30 hours and haven't had any issues. I'm also playing completely unpatched. This is straight off the disc offline. Only seen a couple things that weren't perfect the entire time. Nothing game breaking, just a floating object or something minor like that. The scope and detail of the world is mindblowing to me. I think back to the days when I would have thought visuals like this impossible in general, and here we have games doing this level of detail in real-time with (in my experience) no frame drops. Insanity! Major props to the Guerilla Games. Controls, visuals, acting. It's all tops!
Well... you did just have a huge price drop on the old model, the new Slim was $299 and came with choice of free $60game and 2 of your half-dozen exclusives just launched. It's a spike. Even I bought an X1S, but that's all it's for, exclusives and to replace that OG clunker. For me it's like the GameCube or Wii. There for a few cool games.
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