MasterBlaster

joined 2 years ago
[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Just a bit of a ramble but when I switched high schools near the end of my education, my new principal looked at my unimpressive test scores and said something along the lines of, 'well, somebody needs to drive the trucks.' It was reflective of the attitudes drilled into me through my primary educations, that Blue Collar work represented the 'bad path' you'd fall onto if you failed your education.

So, even though I had no particular interest in academics at the time, and had no idea what fulfilling work felt like or what I wanted to do with my life, I had always told myself that I needed to end up in White Collar work. That I would have at least 'made it' then and not be cursed to labor, something I saw as a punishment for lack of performance. I went to uni and accomplished it, too, ending up in a comfortable but deeply unfulfilling bullshit job.

I'm the rube, of course. As I became more politically actualized I realized who actually held the value, it became clear that I had put myself in the ideal position for a worker under capitalism. Earning hardly enough in an insecure position - I'm not exactly a specialized professional. I could be laid off in one bad swing of the job market and since my skillset is built around a bullshit profession, I am vulnerable to having to accept any work should this happen.

My peers from school, the ones seen at the time as lacking promise and doomed to 'drive the trucks,' have of course built practical and valuable skill sets directly valuable to the economy and always relevant for society - concepts I had never been properly exposed to in my education. They're not on the greener side of the fence, of course, as they are dealing with their own material issues like health issues and longer work hours. It just amuses me sometimes how effectively me, a young directionless boy, was steered away from work that would have built character and purpose, in favor of chasing a deadend desk job that, at one point, made me feel superior.

I think this is actually a pretty common experience for not-dirt-poor white dudes in the western world, and is of/c reflective of that deep societal rot everyone is ignoring. There's a lot of complicated feelings causing that build up of resentment among the White Collar world to their Blue Collar comrades, and I find, more and more, that it doesn't go the other way.

Lots of anti-games work for this. DayZ, at least, the hook of it's original experiment, cannot work without the interactive layer and other players.

oh that really hurt my heart this morning. we're all struggling with something but I am so lucky, and there are some truly evil people out there.

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Lol what is the context of this? I don't know anything happening in Australia that could be construed as recent socialist development. Actually, we have low petrol prices compared to a lot of other countries, but they probably won't be mentioning that.

If you like the writing in Half Life I really recommend reading The 37th Mandala by Marc Laidlaw. The writer for much of Half Life's golden era is an actual author and so much of the body horror/sci fi dread that Half Life 2 captures so well is almost straight out of The 37th Mandala.

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

more people die during America's Halloween celebrations per year than have been killed by Chinese police, in the entire country, in the same time period

200k people were vaporized by atomic bombs in an utterly indiscriminate manner. This is inclusive of babies, little infants literally melted in a second. The radiation persisted decades after the blast.

We give it a special status despite conventional warfare still being capable of greater numbers, because of how exceedingly cruel and indiscriminate it is.

Historians described it as an 'ethical shock' and I agree with the term. If the yanks did not elect to exclusively melt civilians with their demonstration history might look at it differently.

chilling in the communism backrooms

20
Sourcevoid Online (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml to c/games@hexbear.net
 

Incredibly cool concept. Put in a seed (or roll randomly) and fall into an old sourcemod community map. You can come across other people on the same seed as yourself. High chance to spawn into the void, you have to keep rerolling.

Make sure HL2 and CS:S are installed. TF2 as well if you can help it

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

These movies also look like pure shit

No way. They're pushing CGI technology, bro.

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 33 points 1 month ago (17 children)

capitalist excess. the concept of a shared universe between massive Hollywood blockbusters is cool. Even better if you can spin it into different media types. A huge shared universe is cool!

Oh fucking woops you did it too much and now there's 300 hours of content to watch, and its all the same shit. mediocre movie with a post credits stinger. over and over again.

a restrained approach probably would have unironically stopped after the first avengers movie. they achieved their goal by then, everything after is just excess.

I know at least mine is

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

cats have zero organizational potential, they simply will scheme for a little treat. dogs are capable of a great deal for a little treat, giving them marginal organizational potential

 

my son

 

uh bros? on amazon prime no less?? tankees stay winning

 
 
 

Developer ZA/UM says it’s actually for TikTok users.

β€œWe intend to captivate the TikTok user with quick hits of compelling story, art, and audio, ultimately creating an all new, deeply engaging form of entertainment,” ZA/UM head Denis Havel said in a news release (via IGN).

let's gooooo I can't wait for the subway surfer in-app purchase DLC. no i'm not kidding, the store page marks it as having in-app purchases. something something capital subsuming something.

 

I love Telltale and Telltale-adjacent games. Those narrative games where you sit back and choose dialogue options and action choices instead of actively playing.

I think a lot of those types of games miss that you have to tell a really good story for any of that to work.

Star Trek: Resurgence looks pretty good, but did anyone here play it? Is it actually good? Or is it Star Trek-flavored slop?

 

I just finished the Jakarta Method and it left me genuinely dismayed. Not like, astounded with how horrible it all was (I knew it was going to be horrible), but more, it made me put the book down and sit with my feelings of dismay. A little bit nauseous, unsettled, feeling a loss of hope for a lot of ideals I hold.

What a horrible period of history, in a century absolutely full of horrible periods.

 
 

That's all. Played Civ since IV and the boardgame-like nature of it meant that I've gotten a lot of friends and family into it as a means to experience video games in general.

Civ VII looks really bad, even if I haven't played it myself. Systems upon systems that aren't properly explained, that somehow feel both cluttered and less in-depth than previous entries. Three truncated games making up the segments of one larger game is lame, too. A bad solution to the problem of people burning out in the later eras.

Most of all, though, is the business model of it all. Civ already leaned into 4X DLC conventions which meant getting the whole package was an expensive endeavor, but at least, for example, Civ VI had just two major expansion packs. Civ VII is already drowning into microtransaction leader purchases.

And then there's, just, the price. It's obscene. Denuvo is devastating to see as it creates a lot of barriers to giving the thing a try. I don't get excited for games any more, but Civ VII would have been one of them.

Anyone try it themselves? Anyone in love? Anyone feel like me?

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