#save states

It’s a case where I think there was always the implication that he was kind of a dope, but that was the first time where it actually seemed to be a little... annoying?

Like, yeah. People in AVGN’s circle are going to be “THE OLD WAYS ARE BETTER!” types. It sounds like James is surprisingly tech illiterate when it comes to newer stuff, which is why he stuck to retro games for so long.

That can be charming in a certain light, but what Mike said came off as weirdly aggressive and... like, so the definition of “toxic masculinity” is sort of this gate keeping where the only correct way to do things is by being MANLY and TOUGH and STRONG, right?

Well that’s the way it came off. The angry dad whipping you to “BE A MAN” where his definition of masculinity is this incredibly narrow point of view of human experience. Outdated, cruel, and on some level maybe even abusive.

It’s video games. It’s play. Play is meant to be fun. If you aren’t having fun, change how you play. Overcoming a challenge can be fun, but it’s not the only way to have fun. Look at games like Animal Crossing, or Minecraft, or Harvest Moon. There’s more to video games than proving how manly and tough and strong you are.

The argument could be made about “playing it the way its intended” but Mike’s comment was specifically about the Switch Online SNES app, which adds save states and rewinds. That means Nintendo is giving you permission to use those in Super Mario World, or Puyo Puyo 2, or whatever. And that’s not even touching on games with easy modes (or Celeste’s assist mode).

Or concepts like The Death of the Author, which says that authorial intent is meaningless and the only thing that matters is your personal interpretation of the content. Whatever you think it means, that’s what it means. If you think a game is too hard and you have to cheat in order to complete it, then that’s perfectly acceptable, because we’re humans, and all humans have different abilities, standards, and expectations.

(Epistemic Status: Speculative but testable, fun experiments to try at home, mind hacking, cw hypnosis) There is an experiment I wish to try in the future (and has been tried by a couple of my friends with positive results).  The point will be to facilitate access to past mental/emotional states at will through invoking flashbulb memory and tying to hypnotic recall. The concept is rather simple.…

Taken from the Reception section of the Pikmin 2 Wikipedia article, and is in fact the only negative comment I found about the game, besides camera complaints which exist for pretty much every 3-D game ever made.

The idea that the gamers would suddenly get "lazy" is reminiscent of a friend who refuses to use Save States in emulators because he thinks it encourages lazy gaming. I would argue against both comments saying that many who play Pikmin 2 will be obsessively trying to not lose Pikmin because resources saved is time not spent making more.

Likewise, save states can negate the stress of worrying about redoing a difficult section of a game. I use save states because it is convenient and some games do not actually have pausing sections at all, such as NES and SNES games that relied on passwords.