The spongebob game wasnt so bad. It had like a login bonus but it didnt seem to be too bad But once we got into the lego star wars game the f2p bullshit started. And oh god. This game clearly designed for kids had all the f2p bullshit. Login bonuses. Gridnyness. Multiple in game currencies. The daily/weekly ect missions. The unlockables

But god the racing game was even worse. 100000 things to unlock and basically nothing is by default basically. Sooooooooooo absurdly grindy. And most harrowing of all… i swear to god… 5 seperate in game currencies.

I want to reach out and scream to him “games werent always like this maaaaan”

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I’ve always hated Overwatch, mostly because it was so cynically designed from the start to press every button in freeze-gamer possible about the le sexy waifu archetypes that would get sucked in and keep paying for it.

        • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          Some of them are so incredibly painfully Blizzard-generic from the start that they feel like parodies of previous Blizzard slop. “Widowmaker” comes to mind especially.

            • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              That’s fine. That was a personal taste rant there, entirely subjective.

              It doesn’t help that I found previous Blizzard waifu characters grating… especially what they did with Kerrigan over time.

                • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  3 months ago

                  She was always kind of a cliche, but a fun cliche, in the earlier Starcraft game/expansion. Blizzard really, really, likes its “corrupted waifu” cliches and has pushed that button many times since, especially in World of Warcraft.

                  Kerrigan was basically destroyed by waifuication in Starcraft II.

                  I could rant for hours about a similar waifuication of Cortana in the Halo series (yes, even when trying to kill Master Chef peppino-run in a horny way that counts as waifuication)

                  • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]@hexbear.net
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                    3 months ago

                    Halo CE original sassy tomboy Cortana is still the best Cortana. Halo 4 Cortana’s characterization and story was good but they awooga’d her too much and then completely shit the bed with the plot after that. Don’t even get me started on The Weapon or the creepy Oedipal subtext of Chief/Cortana/Weapon and Halsey/Keyes’s relationships too

                    avgn-horror morshupls

                  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    3 months ago

                    Kerrigan was basically destroyed by waifuication in Starcraft II.

                    I don’t think that’s the issue with Kerrigan in SC2. SC2 was ruined by Amon and Kerrigan’s character was collateral damage. Honestly, in Wings of Liberty she was more of an archetypal dommy mommy waifu than in Heart of the Swarm onwards where she just became a dull, incoherent mess of a character.

                • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  3 months ago

                  Agreed. But Blizzard was a cultural monolith that was almost impossible to directly criticize, even for storytelling cliches, until a relatively recent tidal shift where all the sex pestery and general assholery in those offices came to light.

            • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              I guess I have to give them credit for having non-white characters who mostly aren’t teenagers or early 20s, but most of the women still have the same awooga body type (and I definitely remember Mei being called fat for not fitting that mold exactly, just g*mer things).

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                and I definitely remember Mei being called fat for not fitting that mold exactly

                I’ll believe it, and that’s fucked up. It’s part of that “HIRE GAMERS” brainworms that was that mad that Aloy looked like an actual redheaded human being that lives in a post-apocalyptic society that doesn’t have easy access to Hollywood tier makeup.

                • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  3 months ago

                  I have a theory that a lot of the capital G gamer hate for the Horizon Zero Dawn game series and Aloy is a subconscious thing given the themes of the game, at least in the first game. Without spoiling anything, masculinity and femininity are some of the main themes present in the first game, often in opposition to each other, and more often than not the “masculine” side is in the wrong. This kind of thing probably annoyed a lot of gamers even if they didn’t pick up on it themselves.

                  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    3 months ago

                    I think so too. Faro was just my-hero with bazinga machines that actually did what they were promised to do, and having billionaires be directly responsible for destroying human civilization and life on the planet may have made them feel uncomfortable with the status quo that was otherwise selling them treats.

              • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOP
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                3 months ago

                Mei’s my favorite actually.

                Im less put off by body type’s fitting that certain mold than you are really. And the one that does the most to me, Mercy, is my least favorite design lol. And then you got charachter like the body builder one and uh… the tall and lanky one (forgot names) that arent even waifus in the traditional sense.