TheGamePhilosophe

I think both the conspiracy theories and the cancel culture are expressions of the same disfunction and are mutually related. And I think some of @holaareola's comments and the article about Smith College mentioned by @insertwackynamehere are pointing in the right direction. On the one hand, we have upper-class and upper-middle-class comprised of media figures and professionals who are fixated on gender, sexuality, and race, but are totally blind to or disinterested in class, and for the obvious reason that they'd rather not contemplate their own role in supporting a system that keeps poor people poor, including poor people of color. On the other hand, you have working-class and poor whites who are totally alienated by the demands of their wealthy, white superiors to declare their privilege. They wonder "what privilege?" They also become suspicious of a media that keeps telling them they're racist for doubting the general innocence of blacks and associating them with crime, when the same media provides them with an abundance of reports that would lead them to that very conclusion. And so convinced that this is insanity, they seek out conspiracy theories to make sense of it. The NYT article on Smith is an illuminating example of all this. People working in the cafeteria and custodial service followed the rules given to them by the administration and when it created an incident where racial discrimination was suspected, the same administration didn't take more than a second to throw those workers under the bus to save their own skins. If those people weren't already Trump voters, some of them probably will be soon. And the source of it is that a extremely wealthy private institution refuses to recognize that as such an institution it necessarily needs security and staff to protect its wealth, and that this need for enforcement is the actual source of the discrimination, not their "racist," underpaid employees.

@IrOn7HuB Another great find. The earlier model definitely hints at a grittier aesthetic.

The imp behavior in the sewer reminded me very much of the mutants in Rage, which were a joy to fight because of how they dynamically used the environment to avoid your fire and their acrobatic reactions to getting hit. A tiny bit of that dna made it into 2016 imp, but not nearly enough.

The positive reception of doom 2016 has more to do with its marketing campaign and the massive amount of pandering than anything else. The actual game was utterly boring imo. Just a litany of completely undifferentiated arena battles. The art direction was lame (Rage was vastly superior). The glory kill system was a travesty. And the combat itself is just flat out goofy, jumping around like Tarzan for crying out loud. Who knows how generic or not doom 4 would have been? Would it have been a return to roots? No, but neither was doom 2016 when you get down to it. At the very least doom 4 would have been gorgeous if they followed the path of Rage and had a least a few memorable battles and an appealing atmosphere. Which is more than I can say for the game we got.

I much prefer this semi-realistic style to what we got which is more fantasy. Love the smouldering hi-rises in the background too. Please, IrOn7HuB, keep this great stuff coming!

This is amazing! The more I see, the more I wish this was the game they made instead of what they did. It looks looks like it would have been the gameplay and artistry of rage which was really fun in terms of combat and visuals. I would have loved to see the depiction of hell on earth they could have achieved with idtech 5.

Rage did this really well.

Whether the markers can be turned on or off is irrelevant and makes no difference. The truth of the matter is that the levels are all designed so that the player is led to the right area, with or without a marker. The basic idea is that even a child will know where to go next. The option concerning markers is only there as a sop to so-called old-school players. It gives them the illusion of figuring out for themselves (as they actually once did) the path forward. In reality they have been directed by subliminal clues the entire time.

It's so obvious that they are regurgitating talking points given to them by the developers/publishers. "It actually has more lore...But it's entirely optional." That's got to be straight from the press packet, as they couldn't possibly know this from a demo.

This new series looks more and more like Metroid Prime with each iteration.

I brought this up concerning Sigil and its legality. He was inarguably selling a wad in addition to the other stuff as payment guaranteed "premium access" to the game as a "priority customer," like how people pay extra money to the airline for the privilege of getting to the seat that they would get to anyway, just a few minutes sooner. However, though everyone had a great time discussing it, the question of whether selling a wad or not was legal remained unresolved... Now @Linguica has just posted something very interesting and seemingly definitive in this regard above (and I wonder why he held it back at the time). It is now clear, from the ruling of the 9th Circuit, that it is not legal to sell wads under any conditions (unless one pays the licensing fee), as a wad is always a "sequel" to the game upon which it is based which is the sole privilege of the copyright holder. There can be no more doubt about it: Romero broke the law!

Looks like Romero had a stroke in the new one. The right side of his face is drooping.

Would have preferred it to be Romero's current head. Is it too late to ask for a refund?

I'm happy to see that they've kept (and even increased!) the green lights that tell you where to go next. I'd hate to have to think about that and, what's worse, explore the map.

I had no idea Romero was interested in poetry like this. Definitely a take on daikatana I haven't come across before.