Lots of dumb stuff going on.
Rockstar Gets Hacked by a 16 year old Brit (wif bad teef, innit)
I don’t care about the leak, not really. And I don’t play Rockstar games, mostly because I’m not interested in staring at surging horse cocks or shooting hookers in the womb. The former is for game journos to focus on so they can present games as art, and the latter is for 19 year old losers.
Having said that, what really blew air up my skirt was something I already knew, but hadn’t really registered: at least one female protagonist. Hardly anyone (no one?) has commented on the ridiculousness of this but I guess we’ll see? Rockstar made their fortune leaning into explicit male power and crime fantasies, and it worked, for the same reason that Heat is a such a great movie — all of great crime stories are about dudes, because dudes commit crime and other dudes try to stop crime. Adding women into the mix is like putting salt in your dough: you need some, but placed at the right time and not too much, or you’ll kill the fucking yeast and your loaf won’t rise.
All yeast jokes aside, what does the great female crime caper look like? Oceans 8? Does anyone expect Akwafina (what a stupid name) to rock and roll in the middle of the street with an M-4? Could she even carry a duffel bag stuffed with thousands of dollars? Who the fuck are we kidding? When Val Kilmer empties his magazine into a squad car, ducks down, reloads like a machine (remember, this is all before John Wick and Keanu demonstrating what a true lunatic can do), and sends more shots down range, it is utterly believable because he looks like a dude who could do it.
But what did the Rockstar leaks treat us with, other than a woman in heels holding up a liquor store? Who is this game for? Do they expect this will absolve them of their (rightfully earned) reputation as misogynist bastards who make insane video games? “Well now we have a crazy woman protagonist, see?” Yes, I see, it sucks.
The issue for a guy like me is that this game will no doubt be successful. But in the same vein, The Last of Us II — with its roided out female antagonist — was also successful . . . kind of? And the latest Star Wars trilogy, with its magical space wizard girlboss, was also successful . . . kind of? And Captain Marvel, with its dead eyed, flat-assed, completely wooden protagonist and a phoning-it-in Jude Law was also successful . . . kind of?
Does anyone talk about these things anymore, except derisively? Like zombies, these things shambled around, imitating life. But once we had cleared the hurdle of being convinced they were Really Great Masterpieces That Clapped Back at Misogynist Dude Bros, they limped off to the corner to slowly rot. If I was a betting man, I’d say GTA VI will be the last one in the series.
Diablo IV Leaks
Now we’re talking! The only question is this: in 2022, can Blizzard still make a Diablo game that is closer to Diablo 2 than Diablo Immortal? Can they exhibit some self discipline and resist the urge to monetize the shit out of this game? I don’t know. I mean, I fucking hope so.
But I also realize that so much of the Blizzard magic has dissipated. Their last original IP was Overwatch, which was essentially cooked up in a boardroom to capitalize on the intersection of PvP, monetization, and esports. All three of those things have changed since 2016, but if the rumors about Overwatch 2 are to be believed, Blizzard hasn’t caught on.
Anyway, gameplay looks good although the person actually playing has a penchant for just running past enemies, which I find highly annoying in the observation, like watching someone who can’t do it try and back up a U-Haul trailer.
Cyberponked
It doesn’t happen often that a single player game gets a second chance at life, especially one so roundly criticized as Cyberpunk. But for whatever reason, a Netflix tie-in jolted this mauled monster back to life and CDPR are now enjoying over a million daily players.
The original launch of game was marred with technical glitches but the bigger issue was the content of the game itself. For such a soulful intellectual property, the game itself was, well, soulless. I enjoy open-world games as much as the next loser but this behemoth was an empty oil tanker — huge, but hollow and easily capsized.
They have since tightened things up and as a developer, I like CDPR. They gained an enormous amount of goodwill with the Witcher 3, but you’re only as good as your last fuck up. Here’s to hoping they can continue rebuilding the game. To their credit, a year ago the idea of a DLC seemed ludicrous when their base game was so utterly uninspiring, even broken. Now? I’d probably go for it.