Lately I’ve seen a huge influx of good games that try to update the outdated capitalist realist Cyberpunk genre to the current political and economic landscape. Stuff like Disco Elysium is getting more and more recognition they rightfully deserve for depicting the hopeless and bleak death of modern revolution. However they’re still have some semblance of hope like with Ghostrunner having the corporation being destroyed by a revolution in contrast to the sad oppression of the system.
Another great but obscure example is whatever the fuck Cruelty Squad is. It’s fully embraced the boring drug fueled dystopia aesthetic while delivering basically Deus Ex but without the stealth. Compared to the faux shell of a Cyberpunk game 2077 was (full of cyber but nothing about the societal implications of such technologies other than some edgy infantile “message” about “soul”), this game have everything and everyone be miserable using the cyber-enhancements. Space colonization and AI being pipe dreams. Corporations are not knowingly malicious but only apart of the rot of capitalism.
>>10344I just beat the final secret level and was going to start a thread on it.
One of the best games I've played in a while. I know it looks like a meme streamer bait game because of its art design, but that couldn't be further from the truth; it's actually a really well designed immersive sim game best described as Deus Ex meets Hitman with boomer shooter elements. On top of all that it's also one of the very few biopunk games in existence.
>>10375It’s actually amazing how despite the sweet bro and hella jeff tier art it’s really is well designed. The guns are the most fun I’ve seen in years. Where else can you use your intestines as grappling hooks?
The fact that there’s so few biopunk games is a crime. Most are just using the aesthetics to either be gross or look weird but to question about the system. The only other game with the same themes is Vangers where it’s just NEO feudalism but with alien bug hybrids.
>>10957His IP got 13 million copies sold. Of course he’s happy, funnier is that the dude automatically block any comments talking about how those 13 million copies are from scamming people with fake advertising.
>>10344The devs definitely had the Forgotten Weapons playlist on when making this game.
>>11116I think it’s more about the fact that people get it but refuse to say what it is aloud. The game has huge anti-capitalist sentiments and mock late stage capitalism. It portrays corporation as arch demons but not evil in the moral sense but subsumed by the system into demonhood. You have to be incredibly ignorant or is to right wing to see the clear subtext. Mall Madness have you murder a politician for even suggesting the idea of corporate tax. Androgen Assaults makes fun of the private police force meme ancaps keep peddling. Or Bog Business have you kill a bunch of activists fighting fracking in their commune. How can you not see that except for willfully ignoring them because of their implications.
The same can be said for disco elysium, it’s openly communist doomerism yet no one dares talk about the theme because they fear the gaymers will cancel them by their age old argument: “games are apolitical hm kay?” It’s a kind of silent censorship.
>>11105The game is debatably even more radical than Deus Ex in some respects. Deus Ex was first a mashups of every conspiracy theory in the 90s which back then was way more leftist than today so some of its messages are radical. This game is purposefully doing this with the only irony being the eye-gougingly bad aesthetic.
Talking about anti-capitalist games. Is Earthbound one of the first game series to do it?
>>11145It’s basically pop contrarianism. They think they’re against the grain for being anti-communist and far right but in reality they’re just doing whatever /pol/ does.
What's really funny about this game is how you're a Chad, you're a big dicked kill 'em all expert. This game is the power fantasy simulator and you are the focus. You're the #1 shooter. You're every guy in a shooter ever. A real object of power fantasy. You're a special forces badass taking up mercenary work. Cue game start.
You're in the shower after an indeterminate amount of time, and stood staring at the wall as your ringtone goes off. It's an annoying ringtone. You stare at the wall a little longer not wanting to face the real world, then you go pick up your phone, while watching the carnage outside between "normal" people.
The call is presumably one of your few old friends, jokingly (but seriously) calling you a fucked up psycho who needs this handout from an equally fucked up hamplanet known as Handler and telling you that, yeah, you're the big boss player, but you're at the end of the line. You're both fuck ups, but this is your last chance, and welcome to the gig economy.
Empty Fuck is every FPS hero, but with a few years added on. He's fucking done. He can kill everyone, but he's already dead inside. He snapped before the plot even began, thus his discharge. I wouldn't even be surprised if after the end of Apartment Atrocity that CS just decided to fuck off trying to kill him for being a liability and sent him on more missions hoping he blew up in public instead, after offering him a pathetic excuse like fucking up the targets social security numbers for sending a hit squad after him. Eventually he blew up, killing off the global elites, gods and CS itself. He's Mr Power Fantasy, but is a totally insane spree killer equipped with all sorts of inhuman modifications. He is alone, empty, braindead, and sometime's faceless and lobotmized. The guy is fucked. Even Handler knows it.
If anyone played Brigador then he makes an appearance as MT Foxtrot and his lore text bemoans him as a man that is totally dead inside and will snap killing everyone within distance and that he should be sent somewhere else for everyone's safety, which actually happens in the story.
>>11184Yeah, it’s intentionally shitting on the grimacing hero trope that was so prominent in since the late 90s onward. The new Doom also attempts this but with much less overt in which the corporation is the literal devil cult and the Slyer is straight up a madman that can’t even talk anymore due to the PTSD.
>>11184Really? Sauce?
>>11282>We want good games regardless of politics!!!<Devs make amazing games with leftist themes>NO YOU CAN’T MAKE THAT! EVERY BOOMER SHOOTER MUST BE INTENTIONALLY RETARDED!!!I love how comically brainworm-infested /v/ is. More evidence to apoliticalism being the status quo of Reagan era liberalism. It’s only “apolitical” when it cater to the status quo.
>bad AIAs if most AAA games have better AI than just modified Quake enemies lel.
>>11285They’re not even hating on everything. The fags over there only hate shit that /pol/ tell them to hate. They have no agency of their own anymore.
>>10959Why aren’t flechette guns more popular irl? It’s basically miniature APFSDS with a high rate of fire.
>>11293/pol/'s influence on 4chan itself is massive (though recently I've seen more people pushback against their retardation), but beyond it not so much barring memes
>>11297He makes "reviews" people find funny. I personally can't stand him because he's one of those types who love to mix humor in with criticism and if people don't like something he said he'll just pull "I was just joking!" shit. Particularly bad with the Octopath review when he got called out on not understanding basic mechanics and outright making shit up.
>>11283Probably not because Crypt World devs are crowdfunding the sequel. Very similarly insane aesthetics though.
>>11303>who love to mix humor in with criticism and if people don't like something he said he'll just pull "I was just joking!" shitNow I realize what’s really put me off from this guy. Coincidentally the same thing that put me off from NostalgiaCritic who always cowardly hide their bad criticism and elitist attitude behind thin veil of “jokes”. At least people like Seeth gets serious when they talk about a game’s flaws and even have the guts to admit being wrong.
>>11293>>11297dunkie has stinky opinions so i can see why but any chan hates anything what reddit likes
I've seen /co/ going from hating rick and Mort to liking rick and Mort when Reddit started disliking it then hating it when reddit was liking the show again
>>10537Surprised to see this here!
Extremely excited to see where this is going. Don't think I've played a teaser this promising in a long, long time.
Also, damn, that soundtrack.
>>11933 (me)
Oh the kickstarter launched yesterday
>>16463True, but the game does end on a somewhat hopeful note
with the idea that another revolution is forming in the city.
>>18499Just played it, and did not dissapoint.
>>18538Those are the most interesting ugly shoes I have ever seen in my life. Seem like some mix of running shoes with elegant ones.
>>11922 (me)
Jesus, I can't believe I'm still hyped for this game. Unironically the only thing in videogames I care about.
>>20035High hopes, low expectations fam.
Also, the new composer is mid as fuck. So lower your expectations at that.
>>20086>>20094The old composer's input on the development of the game was near non-existent. The actual dev just asked the guy if he could use his songs that were released like a decade back.
And in terms of conspiracy theories, they're not really rightoid schizo shit like the earth is flat or muh jews. More stuff that everyone will silently acknowledge as being true like Epstein not killing himself. Picrel is a screenshot from the game that you can activate by playing after midnight.
>>21310>how come some level look relatively normalwhat? what kind of fucking question is this honestly?
what I mean by satirizing "interior design trends" is what we actually had in the early 2010s as well. it's called "seapunk". I've talked about it in a vaporwave thread somewhere iirc, but the whole shtick is satirizing souless capitalist design with surreal 90s cgi graphics and a collective nostalgia for a capitalist utopia that is not really relevant to this thread. I recommend you looking at some Seapunk design, since the design really is present in some levels like Archon Grid.
One other part of the design is the new trend of ps1 low-polygon aesthetics. Again, this deals with "nostalgia". There are a lot of games that are currently throwbacks to that era, like that cement mixer simulator, and they all deal with this "nostalgia" in a different way. Some critique Capitalism and today's hyperrealistic games, some not.
as to the question of "why do some levels look normal?" because they don't? do you think the dev's whole point was to make an ugly crayzy video game?
>it's a hallucination and not really satirizing anythingthat's not how satire works
>dev was just up his own ass about his fugly biopunk artstylelmao, you assume something incorrect, then use that as talking points to prove the dev was up his own ass? some capital G Gamer right here.
>>21311>game has simple mechanics that adapts to trends and is easy to figure out>gamers whine>game has mechanics that are slightly more difficult to use>gamers whinehow does this work exactly?
gamers don't really need a guide to play this game, if you have played games like Rainbow Six in the past, you clearly are familiar to most of how the game "functions". none of the secrets are required to find, and that's the point of fucking secrets to be hidden. i don't exactly know why you are mad at this game, but the anti-intellectualism between gamers is mind-blowing. go back to playing call of duty please.
>>21377From what I remember of the sequel that's been teased you're essentially terrorists bombing a Mar-A-Lago/Miami stand in where all the brigadors and SNC bureaucrats retired to, which is pretty funny and bound to make for some entertaining cognitive dissonance from the /v/ types who praise a game until the political content dawns on them (ie it's explained to them explicitly).
Brigador's premise is also much more interesting than say Jagged Alliance where you're the good guy mercenaries, which as a design choice is basically just to avoid making the player think too hard about anything.
>>21379The recent dev blogs revealed that the game basically became stuck in development he’ll for two years because they dev didn’t want to just make another arcade game like the first one. However the ebooks outlining the entire prelude to the sequel is already out.
They’re now trying to make something of a hybrid between GTA Chinatown war and the first Brigador with added armor penetration system. And from what the soundtrack is hinting at you’ll be hunting down all the loyalist traitors that got paid off by SNC.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/903930/announcements/detail/3415434387417122365 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/disco-elysium-studio-zaum-confirms-former-employees-were-fired-for-misconducthttps://medium.com/@artofrostov/to-fans-of-disco-elysium-concerning-the-situation-at-za-um-3e6bc46ea9cUpdates in the ZA/UM situation
The company is responding to previous allegations by claiming Kurvitz, Rostov, etc. were actually toxic to the company and employees, tried selling the IP, and did not fulfill their work obligations. GameIndBiz claims that they are "confirming" all this with this statement.
Kurvitz and Rostov meanwhile are alleging that the capitalists who took over may have done so with fraud and stealing from the company, which the company will of course deny.
I don't doubt that they were probably difficult to work with, a lot of creatives (especially those with substance abuse issues) probably struggle with working collaboratively, but this is a pretty clear attempt to muddy the waters in what is a brazen attempt but a bunch of money to men to steal someone else's work and pretend like it's yours.
The appeal to recognize this was a large team of people that made the game is particularly devious, trying to dilute the work of the creatives who also contributed a significant amount of work themselves. Nevermind that ZA/UM's statement doesn't actually discuss the treatment of the creatives during this time, being minority shareholders and being excluded from company information.
>>36314Pyro is a smart guy but he's not an analyst (culture theorist, whatever you wanna call it). Don't expect discourse/textual analysis on youtube. Most people wouldn't "get" it either.
>>29243Smart move
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