Just saw someone post "an article debunking all viv allegations" and it was shit hardly anyone is mad about anymore and they were like "oh it was a long time ago so it's fine."

Doing something for fun: RPGs about broken anuses.

As promised, after the abomination that was the Sam arc, I am now going to write random posts about more positive/fun things. However, I also decided to add a little twist to them and correlate them in some way thematically to Dobson. E.g. by reviewing a game/show that does all the things Dobson hates/obsesses about/or fails at right.

 And my first entry in that regard is related to a videogame that came out a couple of years ago, based on a tv show Dobson claims to hate. South Park: The fractured but whole.

 Seeing how the game is 3+ years old at this time and there have been tons of reviews & walkthroughs showing how good and fun the game is, I do not really want to cover the plot and all the things that make it great in detail. Lets just say you can really feel that Parker and Stone were heavily involved in the writing of the game, as it is filled to the brim with references to the show and the typical satirical humor of it, that in parts manages to cross the line even further for me than the show. Right from the start you get a very dark but smart social joke and commentary out of the way, when as you set up your characters looks and the difficulty of the game, it is the tone of your skin that decides how hard the game gets. Meaning if you play as a black person, you are having a very hard time. It is not too preachy, just an acknowledgment that yes, in American society, blacks can have it harder compared to white people. Especially when living in a town like South Park, where social standing is pretty low and the police force is inherently corrupt and racist, doing something so outrageously to black people, I do not want to spoil it. Let’s just say it ends in a better Lovecraft joke than any of the shit SJWs did in light of censoring Call of Cthulhu board rpgs.

The overall plot is simple: While last time the kids played fantasy and things escalated quickly as they do in South Park, this time they play superheroes, with two fractions having formed: Coon and Friends vs the Freedom Pals and things escalating just as quickly. What starts off as the hunt for a missing cat to earn a 100$ reward Cartman wants to use to start a multi billion dollar movie franchise just like Marvel, turns soon into the player and his friends having to fight a real crime conspiracy thought up by one of South Park’s most nefarious characters, which also involves genetic mutations, time travel and eldritch horrors. Thankfully you, the “New Kid” from the last game, even after losing all your previous powers thanks to no one playing fantasy anymore, gain new superhero powers, make friends with the South Park kids again and even learn new fart techniques by none other than Morgan Freeman, that help you out along the way. All while also slowly revealing more about your backstory hinted on in the previous game and the tragedy of your dad having had intercourse with your mother.

 Being a South Park and RPG fan for years, I wanted to play this game for quite some time, but only managed to do so recently. And even if I spoiled myself massively over time with cutscenes and major battles online, this game is still fun (thanks in part also to the fact I watched the cutscenes years ago and by now forgot a lot of them).  The turn based battle system is way more interesting than last time by also depending on you positioning the characters on the field in a strategy based RPG style, there are lots of classes to choose and powers to combine (I myself going for elementalist, assassin, plantmancer and blaster currently) and you have a ton of allies in the game. The original cast of the four main boys, Jimmy and Butters has expanded significantly in this game with characters such as SUPER CRAIG, Clyde as the blood sucking MOSQUITO, Token as TUPPERWARE and Wendy as the social media huntress CALL GIRL (yes, that is her name) and they all are fun to interact and play with, with each one having their own unique sets of moves and finishers once again. Even outside of the battle, thanks to the writing, there are always great lines from them to get when interacting or taking missions from them. I especially came to love Tweek and Craig, who are not just decent fighters (Tweek in particular is a great elementalist) , but in this game are also now a couple ever since that yaoi episode from South Park. Helping them reconcile after a bad break up over the course of the game just feels surprisingly nice, mostly because unlike other LGBT celebrating media out there (Korra and She Ra  e.g.) none of the characters crosses some sort of moral line where you question why they deserve to be together (Hello, Catra), it is not heavily handed garbage fishing for brownie points and it is obvious through dialogue and actions they care for each other, even if they are at first going through a bad break up as only South Park could ridiculously portray it.

 Overall, the game is also surprisingly “inclusive” and socially relevant without being preachy about it, if you ask me. From the aforementioned skin color thing, to LGBT representation via Tweek and Craig, the police being involved in a plot that especially nowadays is sadly more relevant than ever (mind you, I do not believe that in real life all cops are bad, but in my opinion bad eggs on both sides certainly led to the current situation in the US and that is all I say) to the fact you can over the course of the game decide not just if you are playing as a boy or a girl, but even something in-between, a cis-/transgendered person and decide your race, religion as well as to whom you are sexually attracted to. Granted, I barely see how it has any bearing on the game’s plot, but I appreciate the following things: a) the inclusion of the possibility to decide on those factors itself, making creating your character even more fun (a basic right others demand for certain games nowadays in all the wrong ways) and b) that the game does not make the biggest of deals about it. See, I am under the impression that often times the most progressive and inclusive thing is to just let the story and personality of a character speak for itself, instead of the fact that it also identifies by a specific gender, sexuality, race or other allignment. In fact focusing on those things on a character only is something I consider ”positive stereotyping”, which for me is just racism in the opposite direction. And if you no think I am going off track here and need to be beaten up by someone who genuinely has some grip on pc culture, don’t worry. This game features PC Principal actually doing an ok job teaching you about microaggressions in his typical PC Principal manner, which in itself becomes a relevant move in future battles and is hilarious to watch. Speaking of the new kid, putting things like your chance to gender identify yourself with it in more detail (which you can also adjust again later on in game if you feel like it) aside, for a silent protagonist he/she/it can have a nice level of debt to it, if you look too much into it.

 Not only does it have a funny backstory explaining its fart and social media powers, there are recurring scenes of the kid’s parents being on each others throat and the kid just silently eating dinner for the night that genuinely feel sad and create sympathy in our little FartLord to the point you just want the kid to go out there, have an adventure and hopefully find a way to change its parents for good, cause it is obvious they love the kiddo, but damn do they need to cut off the substance abuse.

 Storywise you get something out of this game that is way more entertaining and hilarious than the last two seasons of the show combined (FUCK the season of 2019) and game content wise you are also rewarded with a lot of shit, just for exploring the town. Be it you finding hidden yaoi fanart that earns you money, your allies helping you solve puzzles that reward you with exp and new costumes to further customize your outfit, making new friends on Coonstagram by taking selfies with all the major and minor characters of the town, helping Big Gay Al finding his missing cats, stumbling upon Memberberries, forging new artifacts to increase your strength, finding summons… all stuff that helps you not just gain exp and become stronger, but also makes you enjoy going through South Park outside of the main story content. In fact I spend a majority of my first twelve hours in this game only wrapping up the prologue missions and first two chapter of the game, while otherwise talking with as many people in town as possible, exploring the stores and houses, doing side missions etc. just for the fun of interacting with the characters and the world they are part of.

 Now, how does all of that relate to Dobson?

Well lets see…

 Game based on something he hates that has however rightfully more success than he ever deserves, with lots of political commentary and satire for years in its humor? Check.

 Game itself having more of that commentary done right then Dobson in his own comics and story attempts? Check

 LGBT representation via Tweek and Craig as well as Big Gay Al that does not feel too stereotypical despite Al himself being extremely stereotypical in design? Check

 Some pretty decent/hilarious female characters in the game once you know them? (again, Call Girl and Classi, who fucks the L out of the A-S-S) Check.

 Being a style of game he hates for no apparent reason, but executed well (RPGs)? Check

 Thematically focused on superheroes, a trend he is obsessed about, but here both appreciating while also poking good fun at common tropes of it and the marketing of the MCU, in doing so just highlighting how much of a mindless consumer Dobson is? Check

 Being a game where you can also play as any gender and race and its not turned into a “groundbreaking” industry changing feature pandering to minorities that in the eyes of corporations are just a market to exploit, not people? Check

 Heck, if Dobson was not a biased idiot, the game would be perfect for him. It even panders to his toilet fetish in videogames.

 Kid you not: a mini game in the game itself features the possibility to go to every toilet in town and shit in it. The process of defecation itself being a rhythm game and you earning exp from it once you took enough dumps. And considering Dobson once spend hours in Skyrim looking for outhouses, that sounds right up Dobson’s back alley.

 Bottom line, this game is fun. If you like South Park, superheroes and RPGs, this game is perfect for you. And seeing how it has been a few years since it came out, I think it should be possible to get a cheap copy of it somewhere. Go on, play it. But always remember: Never fart on another dude’s balls. It is just not the polite thing to do.

I don't understand the hate for Sly 4. Can you explain why you think the game sucked?

Alright. I’ll give you a summary of the major issues I have with Sly 4, and try to keep it brief. Here’s an itemized list of 30 years of disagreements (Sweet Jesus):

-First off, the first half of the game is fucking incredible. (If that sounds like a weird place to start, that’s only because it is.) The opening recaptures the spirit of the games wonderfully - and given I was a returning fan, fresh off an eight-year hiatus, that was amazing - Japan is beautiful and builds well, and Cotton Mouth Bluff is probably my favourite level in the entire damn franchise.Even leaving aside how I can’t pretend bad installments of my favourite things didn’t happen - that’s just not how my brain works - part of the reason Sly 4 irks me is because it had so much goddamn potential. It’s an updated Sly Cooper game where he and the Gang go on time-adventures. We were so close to something incredible. This should, by rights, be my favourite game in the series, and also of all time.I’m angry because I care.

-Carmelita’s redesign. She was already a very sexualized character, but she used to have sensible jeans and a sense of vaguely realistic athleticism. Sanzaru insisted on pushing the sexualization further, and since we started at a pretty advanced point, it got taken to frankly disgusting levels. Her waist terrifies me. You can see her ribs. The badass Interpol inspector is now worryingly underweight. It legitimately creeps me out.

-I don’t like the caveman level. This is the least analytical gripe, I admit that. I just… don’t like the caveman aesthetic. Never liked the Flintstones or anything similar. That’s just subjective.What’s not subjective is how the Gang ending up in just the right place and time to stumble across another of Le Paradox’s lieutenants is a strong contender for the least likely coincidence in all of fiction. But whatevs. Them improvising an escape while falling down a cliff was cool.

-Likewise, as Cooper ancestors go, Bob is very underwhelming. He’s a big ugly block who reuses the Guru’s joke. Instead of Henriette or Slaigh or anybody else in the Vault or Henriette, we got this guy. Great.

-The Grizz. Unfunny character with an awful boss fight. Complete bungling of what a graffiti is or does or sounds like. Unnervingly racist.

-The Penelope twist. Good god in heaven, what even was that? I mean, I was interested. I gave the game the benefit of the doubt, all ears for what the explanation was. Unfortunately, that explanation never came. We’re still not sure what the hell was going through Penelope’s head. She’s just evil now. A lovable character, funny and endearing and not overly sexualized (which in this series is rare), just… twisted. For no real reason.There’s zero textual information justifying her decisions. Especially because the focus is entirely on Bentley, giving her no room to explain herself. And sure! Bentley’s great, I love him, but I also love Penelope and I also love(d) their in-practice painfully brief relationship. I want Geeks in Love doing Crimes Together, not a half-assed betrayal twist.

-Ms Decibel. Irritating to watch. Retread of both Octavio and the Contessa. Has no reason for having mind control powers. The fact it’s just “ha ha there is a trumpet in her nose” genuinely irritates me. This isn’t hard sci-fi, but it ain’t Looney Tunes either. Try harder.The Joke Is That She Is Fat And Ugly. Ha Ha Ha.

-The Carmelita belly dance. Sweet CHRIST. If I keep coming back to this, it’s because it’s gotten me progressively angrier ever since the first time I played it and felt an uncomfortable churn in my gut.This shit is genuinely disturbing. She is coerced. Why did Sanzaru think this was a good idea? Everybody in the writer’s room signed off on this; anyone who may have wanted to stop it didn’t manage to. Then it got animated and designed and Grey DeLisle was called into the booth to voice how beloved strong-willed icon of my childhood Inspector Carmelita Fox was deeply uncomfortable with this sexual act three men she was close to were forcing her to perform. I don’t find this shit amusing. Kids play these fucking games, man.

-Carmelita’s (lack of) use in general. She gets some good moments when she’s first dragged along, again making Tennessee’s level the best. Then she storms off during Bob’s. Then, after wandering back and calming down? Next to nothing. She’s barely there.Bentley shutting down over Penelope’s betrayal was a perfect opportunity for her to take charge and show off her tactical prowess as an officer. What did we get? “Uh… let’s go with Galleth’s plan, then walk forward through Penelope’s front gate. idk guys” Outside of objectifying her, Sanzaru had no idea what to do with her, and it shows.

-The underwhelming climax. The finale of Sly 2 felt earned. The original three all had great final acts, but I bring up the second because it resembles the fourth. In both, there’s a last-minute upset where everything the Gang has accomplished so far is suddenly snatched away.But Sly 2 built that feeling. From the moment Jean Bison sees through the Gang’s disguises, things get worse and worse. The time they spend in stony silence, hiding in that battery, really creates a sense of encroaching dread. Things are going wrong, but they’re going wrong slowly. And that’s worse.Sly 4 - perhaps due to a dwindling budget - rockets through where that suspense should be. “Le Paradox showed up and stole Carmelita and then his plan worked and he was king of everything and we were sad but we went to fight him anyway.” wow. my emotions. i’m so invested.One of the lines I can particularly remember is “I don’t ever remember feeling so defeated.” Oh, you don’t, Sly? Not when you lost every Clockwerk Part at once? Not when Clockwerk was reassembled and Neyla merged with him? Not when you watched your parents be murdered in front of you?It’s 100% Tell, 0% Show. That’s not how you do a finale.

-Le Paradox. God. Just… god. Obnoxious in a way that isn’t entertaining. An awful, nasty character who does not receive an adequate level of comeuppance for his overblown, overwrought crimes. Rapey. He hates Sly for something Conner did; Sly has no agency here, he’s just a victim, pulled into the story because he’s directly threatened over something he had no part in. That’s bad writing. Bad writing which retreads other, more interesting antagonists.Doesn’t hold a candle to Clockwerk, Arpeggio, Neyla or Dr M. Unlike them, Le Paradox survives his game, which a) feels like too light a punishment if everybody else got a dramatic death and b) creates the worrying prospect they intend to bring him back. Ugh. Would work fine as an insignificant filler villain; instead, has means, power level, and (intended) gravitas outstripping Clockwerk. Total disconnect between his persona and his stupid, childishly powerful plan.Bigger =/= better.Skunks don’t come from France.

And, of course, the grand finale. The last thing to happen to Sly Prime. To this day, four and a half years later, the current state of the original series, and what may well be the overall ending at this point no matter what Sanzaru originally intended long-term. Everybody sing along at home~!

-A terrible cliffhanger ending with no sequel greenlit!

There. That about covers it. For me, anyway. Everybody has their own take.For the record, every box in that brain meme is a genuine opinion of mine. Sly 4 is most certainly a Sly game. It has amazing art and great moments. It brought in a ton of new fans, and kept the franchise going. That can’t be undervalued.But it’s the most flawed installment by a wide, wide margin. Sly 1 was rough, but a lot of that feels like beginner’s jitters. 4′s flaws feel more like huge, enthusiastic strides in the wrong goddamn direction, made by well-meaning people who are super excited to bring the franchise to places I do not want it to go. Like Sexual Objectification Town.

I don’t hate it blindly, but I can’t pretend I love it. I’m not gonna repress my negativity. This is my blog where I talk about Sly Cooper. And when I talk about Sly 4, I won’t skip over its flaws. In the vague hope that maybe, if I explain how and why these things don’t work, there’ll be less of these mistakes in the world. For my own writing, if nothing else. Straightening out my emotions into coherent, rational analysis. Looking toward the future.

…that and because it’s cathartic.