What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
User avatar
Herr Schatten
Posts: 3259
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:14 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Herr Schatten »

Marc wrote:Apidya was good though. Or at least I remember it as being the only computer shmup that could hold a candle to the MD/SNES shooters I'd played.
True, but that's because it mimicked its japanese inspirations so closely, instead of misguidedly trying to 'improve' on them like most of its peers. The same applies to Z-Out, which is also very solidly designed, even if it's not quite as good as Apidya. I consider neither game as euroshmups, but rather as shmups made in europe.

So I guess what Sumez says still stands: (if it's good, it's probably not a euroshmup)
User avatar
BareKnuckleRoo
Posts: 6162
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:01 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

User avatar
vol.2
Posts: 2435
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: bmore

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by vol.2 »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Oh look, more Bayonetta. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqz46aLf4b0
lol. just picked it up on the steam sale and playing it today.
User avatar
chempop
Posts: 3461
Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:44 am
Location: Western-MA USA

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by chempop »

Contra Hard Corps (Genesis) - Owned this one for years but never gave it an honest go. I am having fun. Slowly getting the hang of it, but I'm not very good at run&gun games. Stuck on a pretty annoying boss fight in the Jungle where most of the fight is getting chased or chasing this mechanical thing. I think I'm on the final form where is shoots lighting that I can't seem to dodge. Not going to watch a vid cause that will spoil it, these roadblocks are puzzles.
"I've had quite a few pcbs of Fire Shark over time, and none of them cost me over £30 - so it won't break the bank by any standards." ~Malc
User avatar
Herr Schatten
Posts: 3259
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:14 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Herr Schatten »

That stretched out jungle boss fight is the single most annoying thing in Contra HC, and having to play it every time regardless of the path taken really hurts an otherwise excellent game. In fact, I gave up on my plan to finish it with all endings because at one point I just couldn't stand the thought of playing the jungle level one more time.

If you want to make it slightly less annoying:
Spoiler
You can cheese some scenes with him with the right weapons to make it go over a little more quickly. If you hang on the left side of the ceiling during the very first encounter and aim diagonally downwards, a strong weapon will end this sub-fight before the boss gets dangerous. During the helicopter-like ascend you can simply climb the right wall until you're not in the visible area of the screen anymore. Apparently, collision is only checked if objects are visible. The same works in the scene with the slope and the reflecting lasers. You can hang on the ceiling so your hitbox is not in the visible area, but your gun is. Aim diagonally downwards without worrying about the lasers.
As for the lightning attack during the boss's last form:
Spoiler
Only the boss's main body hurts you, his arms don't. You can simply dodge the lightning by moving in a circle around him.
User avatar
chempop
Posts: 3461
Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:44 am
Location: Western-MA USA

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by chempop »

Herr Schatten wrote:If you want to make it slightly less annoying:
:oops: Thanks, hints I don't mind, but I try to avoid copying videos. :mrgreen:
I had figured out the first form and trick on the helicopter part, the bouncing lasers were mostly RNG so sometimes got through them okay. In my last handful of tries I figured out the hitbox of the lightning phase, it is just a matter of time because I figure out the right execution.

Glad to know that's the worst part of the game, in some sorta way. I have credit fed Shattered Soldier on PS2 a couple times, but it had some similar annoying parts iirc. I have no idea what is the better game.
"I've had quite a few pcbs of Fire Shark over time, and none of them cost me over £30 - so it won't break the bank by any standards." ~Malc
User avatar
Marc
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:27 am
Location: Wigan, England.

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Marc »

picked up Super Arcade Racing on Switch over the weekend, not bad at all.
Top-down racing with nice slippery handling, does exactly what it says on the lid. Lacks the speed of a Thrash Rally or Neo Drift-Out at the min, but not bad at all for four quid.
XBL & Switch: mjparker77 / PSN: BellyFullOfHell
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

That talk about Indivisible's writing reminds me a lot of The Messenger in which every single piece of dialogue is "hurr durr video game tropes", and there's a lot of it.

While I do usually enjoy self referential humor in video games, trying that hard, and stopping in its tracks every other minute for another dialogue dump that serves little purpose other than more contrived comedy, gets real tiring real fast.

It also falls into the category as a type of game where you'd probably have expected the tone to be different.
User avatar
vol.2
Posts: 2435
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: bmore

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by vol.2 »

Been playing Alien Isolation.

Mixed reactions to it for sure. It's a good game, but it feels unfinished and what story their is isn't all great (acting, writing).

There's a lot of untapped potential, and it's kind of sad that it generally won't have a follow-up. It's sad that Sega decided to abandon the possibility of a sequel and that the dev team was dissolved.

There is the bones of a really fantastic game there.
User avatar
Squire Grooktook
Posts: 5969
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:39 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Squire Grooktook »

Sumez wrote:That talk about Indivisible's writing reminds me a lot of The Messenger in which every single piece of dialogue is "hurr durr video game tropes", and there's a lot of it.

While I do usually enjoy self referential humor in video games, trying that hard, and stopping in its tracks every other minute for another dialogue dump that serves little purpose other than more contrived comedy, gets real tiring real fast.

It also falls into the category as a type of game where you'd probably have expected the tone to be different.
Yeah it's not a good look (see also: Yiik). That being said what I've seen and heard and been told of Indivisible's writing is less "self aware" and more an attempt at MCU/Whedon-esque "qupping" every five seconds. That in itself wouldn't be the most offensive thing in the world (though I do find that style banal overall), but I know a little about the games attempts at drama and how offensive they are as they contradict its own heavy handed morals and attempt at a theme.

What makes it EVEN MORE infuriating is knowing the history of the project. It was artist Alex Ahad's brainchild, a deeply personal story about his culture and religion that he had rediscovered in adulthood. The original plot was - from the sound of it - tonally somewhere between Chrono Trigger and Xenogears. But then Alex got sacked (I personally by the same people who later went on to cancel Mike Z) and a host of 12 contractors (can you say too many cooks?) were brought in to rewrite the story into an incoherent farce.

It makes me mad.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
Aeon Zenith - My STG.
User avatar
BrianC
Posts: 8859
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:33 am
Location: MD

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BrianC »

Sumez wrote:That talk about Indivisible's writing reminds me a lot of The Messenger in which every single piece of dialogue is "hurr durr video game tropes", and there's a lot of it.
At least The Messenger used the silly dialog as a bullet point. I wasn't even aware of how silly the dialog in Indivisible was until I heard about it here.
User avatar
BulletMagnet
Posts: 13888
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:05 am
Location: Wherever.
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BulletMagnet »

Squire Grooktook wrote:What makes it EVEN MORE infuriating is knowing the history of the project.
I wasn't aware of that sequence of events, though it would certainly make sense in light of what I recalled earlier on about the game not initially being pitched as a comedy but eventually blindsiding (and in some cases repelling) players tonally once it actually came out. Do you happen to have a link to a source for that, I'd be interested in more details.

At any rate, right near the end of the game now...
User avatar
Squire Grooktook
Posts: 5969
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:39 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Squire Grooktook »

BulletMagnet wrote: Do you happen to have a link to a source for that, I'd be interested in more details.
It's all very scattered across the web at this point.

Alex was gushing about his plans for the game in early dev streams and interviews when it first went on kickstarter. They're probably still floating around somewhere that can be found by googling and watching/reading through old stream and press archives and shit. I talked to him briefly at a convention and shook hands and while we didn't talk about Indivisible thematically (as far as I remember), he definitely gave me a "living the dream" vibe.

The 12 contractors was something that came up in either a thread or a convo with friends (can't remember), but IIRC the source was the credits or something.

Alex getting let go pre-release was something the company was very quiet on. Most people learned through a screencap of his personal art discord where he mentioned that he was no longer working at Lab Zero in a somewhat brief and forlorn manner. Later on, one of the titty coomer artists who helped cancel Mike Z happened to let it slip in a tweet that Alex was "let go" by "other leaders" because he was being "hostile" a decision that said coomer artist "agreed with". He also let slip that Alex took his firing to court and even managed to force a settlement. I dunno if that unfortunate tweet slip of the tongue is still up, but my friends screencapped it just in case.

Beyond all that, there are a lot more rumors floating around, but I can't back up all of them so I didn't mention. For example I'm told that Kinuko, one of the artists who also helped cancel Mike and out him from the company (very funny coincidences, these) took over as story lead after Alex's sacking because "nobody else wanted to do it" (HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM). This is all part of why I really don't trust anything the poor souls who helped cancel Mike and ruin his career have to say.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
Aeon Zenith - My STG.
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

The thing about Lab Zero, and their new office they've formed or whatever.

Is even if MikeZ was the monster people say he is.. what is this new studio going to produce?
Skullgirls afaik was born of the creative partnership of Z and Ahad.

Absent those two i'm not holding my breath for anything worth a damn coming out of this new studio.
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Maybe nothing worth a damn was gonna come out of it either way.
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

Whaddayamean?
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

I just think it's weird to attribute the failings of a game to a single person being pushed out from a company.
If he was really as big of a POS as everything seems to point to, there might be a lot more problems here than just someone being prevented from realizing their vision.
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

Are you confusing mikeZ with Ahad here?

Either way I'm not speaking on Indivisible so much as just doubting anything good will come out of the reformed studio.

As for Indivisible, I actually crowdfunded the fucking thing and never got my backer reward - a copy of the game. Not sure how to chase it down or if i can even be bothered to play it now.
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Seems to almost be par for the course for Kickstarters :(
Same thing for me and Mighty no. 9. I never bothered claiming the reward I never got, because of the game's reception.
User avatar
Squire Grooktook
Posts: 5969
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:39 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Squire Grooktook »

Do not confuse Alex Ahad and Mike Z

Alex Ahad is an artist and still has his reputation intact. He'll probably work in the industry again (if he even wants to after this shit).
Mike Z is a programmer, game designer, director, etc. who's had his reputation and career ruined.

They were among the founders of the studio (co-founders? It's been awhile), but their partnership of "celebrated speedrunner and fighting game pro turned game programmer x fan-favorite cult artist" was what got the studio the hardcore niche fanbase that ultimately kept it alive for all these years.
Sumez wrote:I just think it's weird to attribute the failings of a game to a single person being pushed out from a company.
Z and Alex were the gameplay and artistic heart and soul of the company, there's no arguing otherwise.

Alex was responsible for the unique art style and character designs of Skullgirls and Indivisible and what gave it such a unique look, and it's incredible telling that after he was booted the character redesigns and writing both took enormous artistic dives into the trashbin. Mike Z was behind everything that made Skullgirls play the way it did. It absolutely sold itself on being a fighting game designed and balanced by an veteran and community favorite tournament pro and it was completely honest in that claim: he built the engine it ran in from scratch and spent almost 8 years feverishly patching game balance to perfection. He'd leave his own comments and dorky little puns on the patch notes. He was absolutely the gameplay soul of the company.

It's not an exaggeration to say there's almost nothing interesting interesting about the company without those two, which is being evidenced now by FutureClub having no idea what they're doing and trying to broach Virtual Youtubing / Streaming instead of making games.

That being said, I think Mike didn't know what he was doing with Indivisible's design and it still would have played poorly regardless. But if Alex had been on board it might've at least had a charming story and risen to the level of "flawed but likable".
Sumez wrote:If he was really as big of a POS as everything seems to point to,
I'm going to be honest: from all the snooping I've done and personal interactions, I don't think he was.

I think he's a pretentious, socially awkward weirdo with OCD who doesn't know how to interact with people, which made him prime target for defamation after putting his foot in his mouth one too many times. A friend of mine put it best in a convo we had about him:
Yiggles wrote: what I recall of your theory of how it all went down is likely quite near to the truth: years of working with an autist builds up a lot of awkward moments which, when given the "I can't breathe" joke and the right push from a few powerhungry people, starts to snowball

plus the high off of successfully booting ahad

people naturally try to get their Truth from those around them, and when those around them start saying more about how this guy's no good, people will, subconsciously and without realizing they ever truly felt another way, adjust their interpretation of reality to be more in line with their peers, and thus they start recontextualizing every interaction

was that awkward conversation the other day really just a socially awkward guy trying his best to socialize, or was it some unwanted advance? was that weird flirting something you were fine with but uninterested in, or was it totally uncomfortable and he should have known better?

and the human brain doesn't store memories as like recordings, it stores them as feelings and associations of ideas and abstract concepts, and when a few key elements enter the mind, it reconstructs the memory as best it can. And if your opinion of a person changes, how your brain reconstructs the memory changes. No longer do you remember the awkward guy you're friends with saying something weird and you shrug it off, now your brain thinks this guy is no good so it constructs the event as something more sinister and creepy

and the next thing you know, you have a studio full of friends who've elected one friend from within them to be a former friend, and eject him from the group
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
Aeon Zenith - My STG.
User avatar
Blinge
Posts: 5369
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Location: Villa Straylight

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

Been playing Hollow Knight - Steelsoul mode.

That's just a permadeath run of the game. No-miss or bust.
It's going aiit, just beat the Soul Master. he only hit me twice. Whole game feels like a really different experience. faster too.
Image
1cc List - Youtube - You emptylock my heart
User avatar
Mischief Maker
Posts: 4802
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 3:44 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mischief Maker »

Noita just hit 1.0 today.

Been getting blowed up good, but I'm figuring out how to customize new wands.

I like how enemies drop double gold if you kill them with emergent environmental hazards rather than just zapping them to death directly.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
User avatar
BulletMagnet
Posts: 13888
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:05 am
Location: Wherever.
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BulletMagnet »

The Indivisible discussion went a ways beyond what I expected after I started playing it, but anyways I just finished, and while I certainly wouldn't recommend it to everyone for me it was worth the playthrough. Methinks that most any game, including the ones each of us considers classics (and especially ones with as much hype behind them as this one had), will wind up diminished in our minds if we manage to catch wind of What Might Have Been if not for misfortune or malfeasance, but I imagine that if someone emerged from under a rock and played it completely blind they'd say "worth a try on sale, at least". It'll never shake the unmistakable, frustrating whiff of incompleteness about it, but IMO that isn't enough to completely debase it; if you can deal with the stuff mentioned earlier and approach with expectations held in check there's still a good amount to like.
User avatar
M.Knight
Posts: 1246
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 4:54 pm
Location: France

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by M.Knight »

Squire Grooktook wrote:It's not an exaggeration to say there's almost nothing interesting interesting about the company without those two, which is being evidenced now by FutureClub having no idea what they're doing and trying to broach Virtual Youtubing / Streaming instead of making games.
While I haven't followed the studio a lot before and don't know much about Mike Z as a person, this is what I instantly thought of when I heard about the new company some days ago. Mike Z was the one who made the Skullgirls engine on his own and the game's mechanical feel seemed fueled by his specific vision and fighting game experience.

It would be nice if the new studio can still make good games, because well, that would give us good games. But if they crash and burn dramatically because they can't do anything without this core duo they kicked out it'll be a good laugh too. I had no idea they went the Vtuber route, said crash might be faster than I thought. :lol:
RegalSin wrote: I think I have downloaded so much I am bored with downloading. No really I bored with downloading stuff I might consider moving to Canada or the pacific.
Remote Weapon GunFencer - My shmup project
User avatar
WelshMegalodon
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:09 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by WelshMegalodon »

Last Legion UX

I think this would be my favorite N64 game if I weren't so terrible at it.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
Finite Continues? Ain't that some shit.
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
User avatar
Squire Grooktook
Posts: 5969
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:39 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Squire Grooktook »

BulletMagnet wrote:Methinks that most any game, including the ones each of us considers classics (and especially ones with as much hype behind them as this one had), will wind up diminished in our minds if we manage to catch wind of What Might Have Been if not for misfortune or malfeasance
A lot of the things that I don't like about the game run deeper than that. In fact I'd dare say most of my core turn-off's with the gameplay were always going to be a part of the package no matter what.

As I said, I think Mike just didn't "get" rpg's, leaving a wonky euroshmup-esque project where the whole thing would've been more coherent if it'd just been a realtime brawler instead of a janky turn-based collision of rpg, brawler, and metroidvania by someone who only likes and respects only 2 of those 3 genres.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
Aeon Zenith - My STG.
User avatar
Mischief Maker
Posts: 4802
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 3:44 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mischief Maker »

Squire Grooktook wrote:As I said, I think Mike just didn't "get" rpg's, leaving a wonky euroshmup-esque project where the whole thing would've been more coherent if it'd just been a realtime brawler instead of a janky turn-based collision of rpg, brawler, and metroidvania by someone who only likes and respects only 2 of those 3 genres.
???

Seemed like a straightforward clone of Valkyrie Profile to me.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
User avatar
Squire Grooktook
Posts: 5969
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:39 am

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Squire Grooktook »

Mischief Maker wrote:
Squire Grooktook wrote:As I said, I think Mike just didn't "get" rpg's, leaving a wonky euroshmup-esque project where the whole thing would've been more coherent if it'd just been a realtime brawler instead of a janky turn-based collision of rpg, brawler, and metroidvania by someone who only likes and respects only 2 of those 3 genres.
???

Seemed like a straightforward clone of Valkyrie Profile to me.
That's what it wants to be and sold itself on, yes. But thanks to a lot of bizarre design decisions rooted in Mike's seeming disdain of the genre and obsession with making a turn-based game entirely "skill based" (which IIRC leads to the removal of almost all resource management and strategic planning, you know, the whole point of turn based combat), it's far less conceptually coherent then VP.

Disclaimer before I go on: I haven't played the finished game. I was too nauseated from my friends mocking it, various reactions floating around on the internet, what I already knew of it, etc. add to that the drama and bullshit with LZ and I don't want to give them one cent. Even if it's on sale, I don't want to give them any money. I have played the original ancient kickstarter demo (from what it seems most of the core mechanics are mostly unchanged, and they are horrible), and I've listened to a lot of rundowns of the mechanics as well as experiences from people who played. This is my impression of the finished project:

Basically imagine you take a turn based rpg with some action/skill elements in attacking and defending for fun. But still has all the resource management, strategy, and planning that you associate with the dungeon crawl experience. Alright, fun enough. That's VP, Mario RPG, whatever. Indivisible seems to be what happens when you take away all the items, resources, planning, strategy, everything but those ultra simplistic call and response action elements, leaving you with what is essentially a brawler with no spacing that moves at the speed of turn based combat. What fun.

Now imagine it's also horribly unbalanced with the difficulty breaking down midway through and becoming a cakewalk, the game giving you no reason to not just skip every normal fight (remember, the exp equivalent does barely anything, there's no resources to manage, and you can jump over encounters) and a lack of reason to experiment with the games combo system beyond whatever optimal setup you find yourself using.

Maybe someday I'll play it so that I can confirm my hatred, but as I said even the prospect of buying it on sale strictly repels me due to the games mediocrity and personal reasons surrounding the whole project and community.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
Aeon Zenith - My STG.
User avatar
Vanguard
Posts: 967
Joined: Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:32 pm

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Vanguard »

Valkyrie Profile with all of the RPG elements stripped out sounds like some incredibly wrongheaded design.
User avatar
BulletMagnet
Posts: 13888
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:05 am
Location: Wherever.
Contact:

Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BulletMagnet »

Squire Grooktook wrote:Maybe someday I'll play it so that I can confirm my hatred
Nah, as I said earlier there are things about the game that will undoubtedly and understandably turn people off, and if they aren't things you're willing/able to look past there's no reason to play something you're dreading for the sake of justifying the dread. In my own case the shortcomings of both the trimmings and the gameplay weren't enough to dissuade me since in my book they're not dealbreakers, but for others they will be, and off the cuff I doubt that some inscrutable je ne sais quois is likely to suddenly "click" with them when they try it for themselves; the game is what it is, and going forward it's unfortunately not going to become anything else.
Post Reply