Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Heavyarms55 I believe it's around 15k pesos. It's a basic savings account.

Going beyond that means the deposit would get taxed. Or something like that.

I'm honestly not sure how it all works, and should probably inform myself better. But it's just the shock of the moment.

@StableInvadeel Oh okay, I guess that makes sense.

I dropped a blurb in the Astral Chain review just to say that I approved and will get the game down the line, but the sheer volume of comments has kept me from properly reading them. I'm tempted to check but don't know if I wanna dig through what seems to be a toxic comment section that badly.

@StableInvadeel There's a theory that the source material of Them is based off of the Flatwoods Monster. You could probably spin something from that if you really wanted to, but it's a pretty obscure monster/alien concept. I like reading about weird lore like that, even if I don't find it very believable. It fuels an overactive imagination at any rate. XD

@RedderRugfish Yeah, that was pretty spectacular. Rather than just ignore it (and the obligatory “paid review” snipe), everyone went nuts. And I’m just sitting there trying to decide whether I’d like the game or not 😂

I just realized how to grind classes in battle without using my “weekend points” for Three Houses. Better saddle up, Ashe and Bernie, you’ve got some horseback training so you can be Bow Knights.

Yeah what happened with Astral Chain's comment section? I only watched the video review. Can someone give me the summary version? XD

Banking is something I find sort of strange about modern society, in that sense that we're all basically forced to participate in financial institutions who then use our money for things we may not agree with. Not to make it political. Just sayin', it's kinda weird.

@Heavyarms55 some guy said something along the lines of "idk maybe this review is fake".

Then every person retaliated, including the site admin and other members of staff.

@Tyranexx oh yes, they most definitely used the flatwoods monster as inspiration, there's no way they didn't imo. Personally it's probably one of my favorite monster designs, it's so retro. On the subject of Them, I like to believe they simply assume the carnival is somehow meant for them, like a big neon sign telling them the cows are ready.

@Tyranexx oh ya it's bad in that comment section. And to think...only because it reviewed well. Imagine if it bombed

@StableInvadeel I've disagreed, strongly, with some of NL's reviews before, but I've never had any reason to think they were fake. That just seems silly and sounds like that stupid political trend of calling everything you disagree with "fake news".

But I suppose it makes sense why everyone would be annoyed.

I think Dunkey's videos about reviewers is somewhat true, but I've been on this website for long enough to kind of know how things are written. Like @Heavyarms55 says I don't agree with every review, but some reviewers have different tastes in gaming. Apparently MHW was really good, but I just had a hard time playing it because of how complicated I think it is.

@Lucarianzx Yeah I really do think some of NL's reviews have been heavily slanted based on the reviewer's personal preferences. You can kinda tell with many of them that the person who wrote it likes or doesn't like a certain type of game and that clouds their judgement. But that's just human nature and everyone does it whether they admit it or not. I've never run into anything that suggests anyone from NintendoLife is lying which is what a "fake" review would imply.

Also I have no idea who Dunkey is.

@Heavyarms55, he's a "gaming youtuber" that made a video about how game critics are nitpicking and biased.

I definitely wouldn't call it a fake review. As with most news that isn't blatantly satirical (like The Onion), it does have a probability to be at least somewhat biased depending on the reviewer's tastes. I believe stuff should remain as unbiased as possible when it comes to reporting, fact gathering (ALL the facts, not just incomplete stories where everyone reacts with outrage before learning all sided), and commentary. If a reporter, reviewer, etc. can't handle a topic in a professional, unbiased manner, the piece should pass to someone who can. I wouldn't trust myself reviewing a shmup, for example; while I'd try to approach it from a fair angle, at the end of the day it's a genre that just doesn't appeal to me.

While I've disagreed with some of the reviews here, I wouldn't say any of them were false by any means. The Astral Chain review seems to have many parallels to other reviews I've ran across.

@StableInvadeel That's an interesting way to think about Them. XD Even though I hadn't played Majora's Mask until a few months ago, I was always fascinated by the design. The cow abductions are typical alien fare, but those appearances...awesome!

@NintendoByNature ...I think I'll steer clear of it then. Thanks.

@RedderRugfish I'm inclined to agree with the idea, but the problem is that is hard to talk about. Companies like Nintendo want to put that "9/10 from IGN" and "4.5/5 from Game Informer" and whatnot into their marketing. And I think most reviewers are more than happy to provide those numbers when the can because it generates more interest in them as well.

For us readers, the system you describe would be almost universally better than an abstract number. But it doesn't generate the attention that the abstract number does.

"HAPPY FACE from GameXplain"

I’ve always thought applying a number or score to something at the end of a review of any sort is silly. It’s ambiguous at best, and, in my opinion, undercuts all the work that went in to the review. It’s the sizzle that cooks the steak though, so it will probably always be around in some form or another.

My unfeasible dream scenario regarding game reviews would be to have a staff large enough that several writers could provide thoughts on any given game. It’s pretty easy to pick up a writer’s preferences (or areas of specialty) if you hang around a site for a while reading reviews, and I would find it interesting (even in blurbs at the end of a review) to find out what other people thought of a game. I do enjoy the pros and cons now.

I thought the Astral Chain review was excellent. I read it late in the day, saw the number of comments and didn’t even bother looking. Damo seems to get some heat around here from different sectors, but I’m always thrilled to open something on NL and see he wrote it. A review from him is sort of a rare treat these days. I think Mitch also does really thorough reviews, and it’s been cool to watch him grow over the years. Chris Scullion as well. Excellent work. I’d enjoy their thoughts in every review, but it’s just not possible. At any rate, if the majority cared more about the words than the number, we’d live in a better world, and we’d be served better journalism.

There's something to be said about playing a game or reading a book for the second time. The first time you don't know what's actually important, only what you think might be, based on the story you've seen so far. I've been re-reading The Expanse books by James S. A. Corey. Some of the best sci-fi I've ever read by a landslide and I'm dying to read the final book. But it's amazing how many details I brushed over the first time. Almost nothing this guy wrote, over the span of 8 books, was a throwaway line or irrelevant detail. There are things seemed like just minor character building or background details that ended up being majorly important several books later.

I'm a total sucker for stuff like this. I love big deep narratives and in-depth fictional universes. It's why I love JRPGs in gaming and why I love big "expanded universes" in books and movies.

@StableInvadeel Well, original or not, I honestly don't care what others think. Like I said: the previous name was born out of necessity, and the reason for that is that I didn't want to be known as Thanos52713 or whatever other freaky anomaly site registration forms suggested to me, because plain Thanos already existed...

And so, TheRealThanos was born. I used that name ever since the early 80's, in the arcades, on home computers and so on, so I predated any idiot that wanted to use the name online, so back then, emphasizing that with "TheReal" both seemed cool and appropriate, but over the years, you become a little wiser and more grounded, not too bothered anymore with what's cool or not, and it started to annoy me more and more, so ultimately,
I decided to combine the name Thanos with the Latin equivalent of the meaning of my first name, and the triple X at the end is rather self-explanatory. Although for me, it's also simply an emphasis on the Rex part: sort of like an XXL version...

On a side note: obviously, I'm just having a bit of fun with you changing your name all the time. If that's something you like or need to do, then by all means. I'm glad you're always keeping the "eel" at the end, though. Certainly helps with the identification process...

@Tyranexx Well, apparently we have another thing in common, then. I don't like (most of) today's nonsensical horror/slasher movies, but old skool horror, or legend and lore based movies are often interesting and entertaining to watch.

On a side note: I wanted to warn you about the comments section on that Astral Chain review, but I see that RedderRugfish and others already beat me to it. Knowing you (well, as far as one can know anyone online), you REALLY don't want to be part of that. It was almost as abstract as it was absurd and offensive. It took every bit of restraint I could muster not to dive in and verbally destroy the offender, because I knew that would only add oil to the fire, so I'm glad I ultimately managed to reign myself in...

@bimmy-lee I think most of us will probably have had a door accident or two in our lives, and I wouldn't be surprised if we've still got a few to come, before we step into eternity...

I can cross off the glass door bump, the "door came off the hinges" thing, the "door knob came off/broke off" thing, multiple instances of "I bumped my head on the top beam of the doorway because I didn't duck far enough" (a "nice" aluminum door rail in a caravan), the "I tripped over the threshold and into the screen door" thing and the "I slammed the door too hard and broke one of it's inlaid glass panes" thing.

And I probably forgot a rather large handful of other door-related mishaps...

@bimmy-lee Damo's problem is he created a lot of bad faith with a period of heavy clickbating, so a lot of people, myself included always see the cynical avenue with any of his content. Technically his content is very good...but it's one of those "once fooled, always suspicious" kind of reactions. It's been great seeing Ant get directly involved again...that's something I never thought I'd see.

@Heavyarms55 I'd add that Nintendo, more than most companies (Sony as well) tends to create an issue because they are very restrictive in who they even open dialogue with in their press contacts. Most publishers, as long as you're a legit outlet they talk to you. Nintendo (and Sony) you have to have the "right" outlet, with the right metrics, provide them proof of metrics, prove you're a dominant site, and then they generally have to like you specifically otherwise they grant you no access at all. So effectively, there's an unspoken handshake, with both of them, that "we'll only deal with press outlets that silently, tacitly agree to be part of our marketing efforts." Which may factor into why both of them have only games that score incredibly high, consistently.

@StableInvadeel I think it wasn't just some guy saying "this review might be fake", so much as the masterful troll baiting of the post, along with a series of follow-up posts indicating troll intent. The post was specifically designed to derail the review. Ant's response kind of said it all that the post went up 5 minutes after the massive review and is literally impossible to have read it, digested it, and have posted a reply based on that. (The response was "I'm a fast reader.") The point of the post was trolling and disrupting a review the site spent a lot of time on. I think I'd have gone for the insta-ban if I were Ant. But then like whack-a-mole they just come back (which I suspect is exactly what happened here anyway.)

@RedderRugfish I so agree. I remember a review in a Game Informer for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (this was years and years ago) where they gave it like a 6 or 7 on the basis that "it's great but some people won't like it." If that's the criteria, every game should get a 6 or 7! Reviews are supposed to be, as much as is possible, objective, to provide a reasonable barometer to an uninformed consumer. Anyway, it's truly baffling.

Movie reviews suffer similar problems, even though movies take far less time to consume. Reviewers are expected to review a lot of movies in a short window and their frustrations inevitably bleed over into their writing. Many classic films were hated when they were first released (The Shining), and many films that were beloved upon first release are now hated (most blockbusters). And some critics are just contrary for the sake of being contrary (coughPaulineKaelcough).

I think Dunkey's videos on game criticism were pretty damn spot on, personally.