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Posts posted by DanJ86

  1. Quote

    2019's Call of Duty will be called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. That news has been known for quite some time now, but it's been made official by Activision's somewhat surprising reveal of the game ahead of E3 2019. 

    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is being developed by Infinity Ward (the studio responsible for the Modern Warfare series) with help from Raven Software and Beenox. As previously suspected, this is not a direct sequel to Modern Warfare 3 nor is it a remake of the original game in the franchise (that already exists). Instead, it's described as a re-imagining of the franchise which sounds awfully similar to how God of War fits into that series. You'll even see some familiar faces from previous games in the series. 

    Part of the reason why Infinity War have chosen to go this route is that they felt there were no more stakes left at the end of Modern Warfare 3 due to how much chaos had transpired since the start of the series. This new Modern Warfare will take what the developers refer to as a "ripped from the headlines" approach that sounds like it will ground the series more than we've seen with some recent installments. 

    That approach includes the ability to play as both traditional (mostly Western) military forces as well as freedom fighters. PC Gamer got a look at one of these freedom fighter sections of the game and described it as being "bizarre." The sequence in question featured a young girl whose family had been murdered by a Russian soldier (it was a flashback) who decides to get revenge on the fleeing soldier. It's not quite clear at this time how much time will be spent between these two campaigns. 

    The good news is that both campaign sections seem to feature the kind of intense gameplay that the best Modern Warfare campaigns are known for. On top of that, you'll be able to play the campaign with a friend thanks to the return of a co-op mode named "Elite Operations." Sadly, we know much less about the game's other multiplayer options. Activision has said that all of the game's modes will offer an "immersive narrative experience," but it's not quite clear what that means at this time.

    It also doesn't sound like Modern Warfare will feature a version of Black Ops IV's battle royale mode, but nothing has been confirmed either way. With a new Black Ops reportedly coming in 2020, though, we'd guess Blackout might skip a year. The good news is that the game's multiplayer modes will support full cross-platform play with PC play being exclusive to Battle.net. 

    The above article quoted is from a different website and author to the one below.

    Strangely, I've already seen one article complaining about this game (From the "Journalist" who is well known for sucking at playing through the Cuphead tutorial.) and how it depicts woman being killed. A very sad but still very real part of war. The article seems to have made the interest for the game grow.


    Modern Warfare is bloody, but it’s not a sea of blood spraying everywhere. But sometimes the medium is the message. Sometimes the horror of a particular scene outweighs the point that you’re trying to make. There may be a message in what the developers intend, but it might be overshadowed.

    I think of the anti-war movie Apocalypse Now, which had the memorable Ride of the Valkyries scene, where a mad colonel orders an attack on a Vietnamese village so that his guys can surf. I was an excellent commentary on the insanity of war. But it was executed so well as a combat scene that, in my opinion, it probably inspired a lot of young people to enlist in the military. Art can often have unintentional effects. And that is why my favorite quote is from Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night, where an American spy does his cover job of being a Nazi propagandist too well. The line is, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

    This is supposed to be a video game. It will undoubtedly have a multiplayer element, where players shoot each other for fun and have a hell of a time doing it. That’s when we’ll see that “guns are the star of the show.” And the incongruity of it all will be clear.

    The overall dramatic effect of the intense scenes should be memorable and artistic. Not gratuitous or base. The developers can fall back on the argument that this is our world. Their game is “ripped from the headlines.” But this puts us on a slippery slope toward a lot of things. What about school shootings? What about Christchurch? Do we want to put those in video games because they exist in the real world?

    This preview requires us to trust the developer. But in this case, Infinity Ward has not delivered as well as its sister studios Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. The studio keeps skating closer to the edge in order to make us uncomfortable. We can view that cynically. As gamers, we don’t necessarily trust Infinity Ward to deliver an elevated experience, given the pressures it is under.

    Sometimes you have to judge something on just what your eyes tell you. And my vote is that this single-player campaign should not ship with these scenes.


  2. On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 11:38 AM, Shiroi said:

    Personally I just assumed they were given the nickname of "Trophy Girls" because they gave out the trophies or something. I didn't play the full game growing up so I don't know the full context.

    Probably too late to mention this but, yes. They are called Trophy Girls because they give out the trophies. They do have actual names and although I can't confirm it for myself, "Bandipedia" claims they were named after real people at Naughty Dog/Sony.

    latest?cb=20190103103133Megumi - Gives trophy to Neo Cortez, N. Gin & N. Tropy.

    latest?cb=20190103095402Liz - Gives trophy to Polar & Pura.

    latest?cb=20190102145547Ami - Gives trophy to Tiny, Dingodile, Ripper Roo, Pinstripe, Komodo Joe, Papu Papu, Fake Crash, Penta & N. Oxide.

    latest?cb=20110120164510Isabella - Gives trophy to Crash and Coco.

  3. C-Cor...that's some intense and high quality animation.

    Too graphic for my tastes but I hope it gets the success it deserves if Genndy is at the helm. Their is practically no modern western animations that interest me these days and his name represents a time when they did.

    Also, maybe all cavemen look the same but I can see a resemblance to the man that discovery fire in a classic Dexter's Laboratory episode.


  4. Oh dear...I never had this problem in LittleBigPlanet but having played through practically all of the tutorials in the game and trying to put that knowledge into practice. Something shocking happened...

    I suddenly noticed that I'd forgotten everything I learned. XO

    Their is certainly a steep learning curve and how you move and edit things takes some getting used to. Their was a PS2 game called Graffiti Kingdom in which you can create a character from scratch and that felt a lot easier to manage. But it's still early days and I don't intend to give up on trying yet. I have ideas, just can't put them into practice yet.

  5. I tried so hard to get a gif of Detective Pikachu dancing as a new avatar, but alas....the file size is just too big. Slightly above 1MB. An avatar can only be this or lower.


    If I make him any smaller, it might ruin the quality. Oh well...

    Got the stunning and very lovely Palutena instead. Still cute. Just not as much as a dancing live action Pikachu wearing a Sherlock Holms style hat.

  6. Um...for those that don't know who he is, perhaps somebody could explain what a "ProJared" is and why it has fans? (This might sound like a joke but I really don't know who he is.)

  7. 50 minutes ago, KHCast said:

    Oh yeah

    I'm a little scared to watch those. Especially the first one.

    I thought I saw an article claiming Steam was considering stamping out the more adult related content. I suppose that only includes intercourse and breasts because the insanely violent games tend to stick around.

    Um....by the way....does anyone think it's worth talking about the other controversies surrounding MK11? I got curious and ended up with more than I bargained for. I think 85% of it (Or maybe all of it.) is politically based and would be covered by this topic. I even had to look up the actual definition of the word "political" to check if it meant what I thought it did.

  8. 2 hours ago, KHCast said:

    I mean hell, just for example, look at steam and the shitty games that flood that store. Kill gay people sims, rape sims, blatantly racist, transphobic, or in general insensitive “games”.

    W-Wait! Seriously?? Stuff like that is real??? I have Steam installed on my computer, I've been lucky enough not to come across anything like that. Can they really get away with stupid crap like that? I mean...I know games aren't real but surely they are lines you don't cross!?

    *sigh* ….Stop the world. I'd like to get off.

  9. 42 minutes ago, KHCast said:

    I feel that then steeps into the issue of technicality. Cause then someone could argue for example “well the word “gay” is used in gay rights, so therefore using the term gay is political”

    If somebody did argue that the word "gay" is a political term on it's own, then I'd think you'd have the right to call them a raving imbecile.

    "Trans/Gay Rights" or "Trans/Gay Pride" are two words together that will limit what they could possibly be referring too. "Gay" is one word and has multiple meanings and as such, the word on it's own couldn't possibly have any political connections. At least, that's my stance on it.

    Hope I'm not coming across as aggressive. I'm just not sure if Nintendo deserve any hate over this particular custom stage issue. They aren't perfect, nobody is. ^^;

  10. 22 minutes ago, KHCast said:

    @DanJ86So if they said “trans pride” instead of “trans rights” would that be fair and not “political”?

    Is that a rhetorical question because I don't think I could possible know that?

    Although they are events and marches that have that name so it could be argued as potentially political, maybe. But that's me being hypothetical.

  11. 1 hour ago, KHCast said:

    I still question how equality for a person is considered even political. Never mind how I don’t see why it opens the gate for things like Nazi’s and KKK sharing hate on the platform.

    Just wanna check first. Are you responding to the video I linked or something I said?

    If you are, the point that TheQuartering was making is that equality in itself is not political, it's putting "[Insert] Rights" as the title which made it political.

    If you weren't replying to something I said, then ignore this.

  12. 14 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

    Nah. Nintendo is, in fact, allowed to make decisions on what is allowed in and what isn't.

    Yeah. That's what I meant. ^^;

    So if Nintendo allowed the Trans Rights stuff. For the purpose of equality, they should allow everything else.

    So in my opinion, it seemed like a wise choice to keep them out or politics would be everywhere in the built stages. Sure, they can pick and choose what stays and what doesn't, but it's better to treat everything the same.

    At least, that is what I think.

  13. About the Smash stages. Youtuber TheQuartering did a much better job at explaining why removing those stages was a wise move.

    It basically comes down to, if that can get in, so must everything else. Because the titles clearly stated Trans Rights, it was a political statement and Nintendo doesn't want any political statements in Smash.

    Perhaps everyone already knew this. I'm pretty slow on the uptake...

  14. Hope you don't mind and perhaps it's not a big deal, I just noticed something in your comic cover concept that used to be an unconscious act I would do in my art. It's not a big deal in drawing a character on their own, but in a comic setting, it has the risk of looking rather flat so I thought I'd share what I learned to fix it.

    So it's like this. You know how you've drawn the four characters? They appear to be standing on the same plain. As in, the same distance from the viewer. That's a very unnatural way for people to stand as it turns out. So one bit of advice I got was to never draw more than one character on the same plain. You can also add extra depth and meaning behind a pose by changing the perspective it is seen from. I made a very rough draft as an example.



    This draft is basically the same layout you have already drawn, but with the perspective shifted slightly higher and having the characters spaced out slightly more. This is the idea I'm suggesting.

    Also, in a comic setting, you are more likely to have alternate environments so it helps to consider stuff like wind. A gentle breeze will move anything light, having it wave like a flag. A more intense gust can be portrayed with only a slight adjustment.

    I'm not an expert on this stuff. It just so happened to be tips that I came across in my never ending pursuit for perfecting my art. I'm not criticizing your art in any way. They're always clean, colourful, expressive and unique characters. I hope you'll keep at it, drawing can be a nice stress escapism and a way to express ourselves creatively.

  15. 2 hours ago, Plasme said:

    Odd. Sex topics are banned here, presumably because it's unsuitable for anyone under 18. Gambling is something way more destructive and is illegal under the age of 18.

    I find the rules here inconsistent is all.

    To be fair, this is a UK based site and Gambling is legal here. I've been to beach resorts that have a wide range of slot machines and bingo that seem to let anyone of any age play.

    They do also have an area cordoned off which is restricted to 18 and over but the only difference seems to be the reward for winning. Truth is, the world is inconsistent. Cultural differences will dictate if something in inappropriate for youth or not. Some countries are more open about sex, death, gambling. You can't really measure the whole world with what you've personally grown up with and unconsciously view as the norm.

    I'd personally prefer that the vulnerable be protected from such temptation. Don't assume all gamblers are stupid, some act out of desperation, impulse or just plain boredom. A fact that I'm sure the gambling companies like to exploit.

  16. 2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

    What they choose to allow and what they choose to remove sends a message. There's all sorts of custom stages referencing things that have nothing to do with Smash that stay up without issue, so clearly the subject matter not having to do with Smash can't be the criteria they're using. What kind of stuff does get removed? Typically stuff that's inappropriate or offensive. By removing stages that show support for trans rights, they send the message that there's something inappropriate or offensive about that. And whether they intend to send that message or not, it's fair to criticize them for it.

    I shudder to say this.....I can certainly imagine that certain kinds of people would find it offensive. We have words for people like those, I think.

    It's just something I'm uncomfortable on commenting on when the decision to remove them might not have been Nintendo's idea. I'm referring to complaints. Now that I think about it, I haven't completed a custom level yet and I hadn't played any from other players either. I'd assume they'd be a report button or something?

    I'm not confident in much but I do believe that an anti-trans level would be both inappropriate and offensive. My scientific curiosity would like to confirm if one of those would be taken down too, but I could never make a symbol of hate even as an experiment.

    I'm getting side tracked. I guess I just want to believe the best in people, even though I have tones of experience dealing with unpleasant dicks in my life. Mostly bullies and thieves and a couple of others I can't quite remember...

  17. My mother has a slight gambling addiction so I'm practically pre-programmed to dislike it. Though I also find it very confusing and extremely boring.

    Even when video games include a form of gambling as a mini game, I still find them boring. But at least in video games, the only money you lose is the money you spent on the game.

    My mother likes those slot machines the most and I actually hate them the most. But they are easier to understand at least. Anyway, those with loud music and flashing lights really disrupt my focus and actually cause anxiety for me.

  18. Um...I wonder if it's right to feel bitter towards Nintendo for taking out those stages. Sometimes these serious issue are given one extreme or the other and rarely considered the middle ground. If Nintendo didn't want "Trans Rights" depicted in a game that has nothing to do with it, isn't that their right? It doesn't make them bad, does it?

    I'm reminded of a character that has earned the title of "First Trans Video Game Character" who also happens to be a Nintendo character.


    Based on what I've read, it seemed to originate in the manual of Super Mario Brothers 2. He was mistakenly given the name of a different enemy called Ostro. In Japan, her name is Catherine.

    Since then, his/her gender seemed to change depending on what game you're playing while various others directly point out the gender confusion, such as Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Captain Rainbow.

    If anyone is curious or doesn't know, the latter game I mentioned and Japan exclusive Captain Rainbow, did contain what an article described as "Potty Politics."


    In the game, Birdo is wrongly imprisoned for using the female bathroom, as the robot jailer did not believe her when she insists she is a girl. She gets quite upset about this, and asks Nick to go to her Cute Home and find something that will prove she is not lying. Nick finds a mysterious object under Birdo's pillow, and while it is never revealed exactly what the object is, it serves its purpose and Birdo is released. Birdo develops a crush on Nick, and calls him her "boyfriend". Nick accompanies her in her walks near her Cute Home, and she helps him carry a fallen Star to the altar on the top of Mimin Island. If Nick lets Birdo's wish be granted, she flies into the sky with the Star and disappears.

    I don't know what they're saying. ^^;

  19. I'm not good with politics in general. Left wing, right wing, liberal, conservative....I simply don't understand what these phrases imply.

    I do prefer my fiction to keep away from real life subject matter, due to my need to escape. But I wont shun anything for bringing in such topics in a story, especially if it's handled with the proper care and not totally in your face.

    I look at those Custom Stages and what bugs me the most about them is that they're all basically the same. Though with some of them, it's hard to tell what part of the stages are the bits the characters stand on. They look unique enough from a distance but most are just a horizontal platform. That's not very creative. The fact that such a minor thing would bother me is an unfortunate trait I have which is part of my personality disorder...

    I recently completed a game that had a Bi character in it's story. It was handled with the proper care in my opinion. She was a likable character in a game with a large amount of nasty characters in it. (Though you don't learn their true nature until much later in the game.)

    But I digress. I don't really want to say too much in a topic that has controversial elements because I have a tendency to accidentally offend people. I wish it wasn't true....

  20. Don't know if this is related to the strange quirk.

    I've gone back to Mania Plus to play though the game as Sonic just for fun. But had recently goofed up.

    I booted up Sonic Mania, forgetting that Sonic Mania Plus wasn't physically in the Switch. So to my confusion, the game loads up as Sonic Mania, though my Mania Plus save files were still their. (Completed playthroughs of Ray and Mighty.) I couldn't select the Plus exclusive characters. Of course, Encore mode wasn't their either and the option to purchase the DLC was.

    That was when it hit me that I forgot to put Mania Plus in the Switch. I quit the game and put MP in and loaded it like normal. It's strange because you use the same icon and the Mania Plus content was all their still so my mistake didn't cost me anything.

    I'm not sure if what I described could be considered strange but it certainly surprised me.

  21. Okay. As my avatar would suggest, I've been playing Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk.


    Another NISA game with one of my favourite character designers, Takehito Harada and favourite composers, Tenpei Sato.

    Perhaps because the same people are involved, I get the same vibe I got when I first played through The Witch and the Hundred Knight. They do share elements too, both being Roguelike JRPGs. But this one is first person view with turn based combat while tWatHK was real time hack and slash. Both also heavily story driven.

    We start by following a witch and her apprentice travelling to a mysterious town called Refrain. You as the player are "Tractie" or Tractatus De Monstrum, a book written by an unknown individual who was the only one to enter the Labyrinth of Refrain and come out alive. Strangely, you're technically not "Tractie" but the soul that possessed the book the very second the two characters arrived.

    The Labyrinth is rich in mana and Tractie has the power to animate puppets that will accompany it on it's journey through this mysterious place. All while learning of the town of Refrain and the characters you are working for.


    Dusk Witch Dronya

    Fun Fact: She has a prosthetic leg. Don't often see that in fictional characters.

    Your Master, (If you like it or not.) she comes across as harsh, uncaring and selfish very quickly. As you progress through the game, you'll grow to learn why. Something important is hidden within the Labyrinth and she's determined to get it.


    Luca (Holding Tractatus De Monstrum)

    Dronya's apprentice. She's a bright and cheerful little girl that Dronya does often treat rather harshly. The two are an odd pair and you have to wonder how they ended up working together. Though Luca is an orphan...

    I haven't fully completed the game yet, but it might be worth pointing out that their is at least one character that is openly a lesbian or bisexual. She doesn't come across as a negative stereotype though is rather eccentric but most of the characters have something unique going for them, it's also looking like she's a very important character to the story and not just being in the background. (Though I haven't reached any climatic scene yet, I have a strong suspicion of where the story will go with her.)

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