#Video Game Convention

[convergencecon]

We are mingling with Video Game Music fans at VGM Con this weekend! Stop by for a VGM Con exclusive discount code on your CONvergence 2025: That's How We Roll weekend badge, and grab a CONvergence bookmark while you're here!

[soulcialdent]

Every Anime Fan (Nerd Culture) should experience a Convention at least once in their lifetime. For a lot of people, that can be intimidating. As your favorite Anime Aunties, we got you covered. Introducing our Convention Survival Series.

[gamergirljournalist]

The Super Mario Bros. Wonder: FIRST IMPRESSIONS (PAX Aus Review)

Rating: 4/5 stars (so far) System: Nintendo Switch OLED + Pro Controllers

I got a chance to play Super Mario Bros. Wonder with some friends during PAX Aus and it's pretty good. This upcoming Mario installment had me and my companions talking about what this title has to offer, the news of Charles Martinet leaving his iconic voice acting role, and for some reason, "What if Kirby entered the Mushroom Kingdom."

While the game has yet to be released on Oct 20, we got to play the demo version for 15 minutes and here are our thoughts.

Players have the chance to play as Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Peach, Toad, and Toadette. It also has options for those who are inexperienced with platformers via the Yoshis as they don't get damaged by enemies. However, if you want to use the power-ups, you need to use the main characters.

I chose Toadette and my friends chose Daisy and Mario. We only had 15 minutes to try the demo before the "thank you for playing" message popped up. We dashed through the Flower Kingdom and it's pretty cool. For starters, each world tells you the difficulty level through the star ratings. Aside from the familiar characters, like the Goombas, there are new foes that add flavour and an interesting challenge to each level.

Now let's talk about the ELEPHANT in the room - the Elephant power-up. As expected it's super weird to see our favourite characters LITERALLY TRANSFORM TO ELEPHANTS. But it adds to the comedic and whacky elements to the game. It also has a unique ability as well, where you can use your trunk to get through the level, which I thought was pretty neat. It was like a stretchy long arm. However, due to your size, you can't crawl down to the secret levels if the path has a tight entrance. So you need a friend who's in their default form to access them.

There are also other cool power-ups as well that are exclusive to certain levels, like the drill power-up, which allows you to move on ceilings. However, you can only get it during underground levels or ones that require drilling obstacles. Wonder has a feature where you can save up to three power-ups that you've collected and it can be carried throughout each level. So if you want to use certain abilities in other areas, you can if you want.

Based on our gameplay experience, we only got the chance to use the new abilities and didn't get to see the classics like the Fire Flower in the game. The regular mushroom was there though, so that's good.

Another cool feature the Wonder has added is the "Badges" system. According to one of the staff (and the Overview trailer), Badges will be something you can collect in the final game, and each of them has abilities that can help you through the level. In the demo, we were offered at least 6-8 badges to choose from. Due to the limited time we had, I couldn't properly see if had any effect. I guess we'll find out once Wonder gets released.

We also got to experience "The Wonder Effect," which made our gameplay feel a bit trippy. It gave us a more entertaining experience to get through the Flower Kingdom. However, one of my friends thought this might be a reference to "illicit substances" based on how it's presented and how the kingdom goes haywire.

Due to this being the demo, some things weren't available during this showcase. One of them was the Online Multiplayer feature where you'd get to see "live shadows" of other players. Makes sense since the game isn't out yet. Also, we couldn't collect more badges and had to stick with what we were offered.

Of course, not all games are perfect and here are some of my gripes that I had during this demo session. First of all, you need to be way ahead if you want the screen's attention. So if you're way behind, you need to move as fast as you can so you can see your character.

My friend managed to find some sort of secret area but just like the original Super Mario Bros, the screen does not adjust so you're kinda blind until you move into an area where you can be seen. Lastly, warp pipes follow "majority rules." So if you have three people playing the game and two want to go to the next area and one has unfinished business, through luck. You're going up to the next world regardless.

Overall, one of my friends plans to get the game so looking forward to a game night at some point. There were moments in the game that felt trippy and you need to be a quick thinker during certain moments in the difficulty level. Super Mario Bros. Wonder left a good first impression during my time at PAX Aus and I'm keen to see what more this Flower Kingdom has to offer.

[a-dream-diary-in-the-void]

Last night I dreamt I was at a video game convention. Someone kept kicking an oversized pink inflatable football at me and every time I kicked it back (to avoid imminent death, not because I like or am good at football) it veered off and hit the same girl in the face. This happened around three times and I was very deeply apologetic.

[synelven]

I'M THREE MINUTES OLDER, UGH. I'M TELLING THE GHOST OF MOM.

[pink-linoleum]

dark soulsifys ur noctis

[shawnthewonder]

Me as Beat from Jet Set Radio with a Combo and Parappa cosplayer at Blerdcon.

[paulisweeabootrash]

[nobigneil]

Neil learning how to sign "don't be a dick"

[c4tsc4pe]

rambles on twotter about strife as an abstract concept as opposed to something literally literal

[bonehilda-deactivated]

One of the best things about Disco Elysium by far is that it does not fear ugly women. The world is full of ugly men, but ugly women are so hard to come by.

[soulcialdent]

Your favorite Anime Aunties, are back with another episode in our Convention Survival Series.

Episode Two: Ballin' on a Budget (Shopping Guide)

[fernsnailz]

I bought the Nice Cock shadow meme shirt and now I don't know where to wear it

you should wear it everywhere and see how many people point at you and go "WHOA!!!!!! NICE COCK!!!!!!!!"

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[webdiggerxxx]

*ೃ༄˚ੈ✩‧₊˚

[honeyhillsandfrostedsun]

Israeli propaganda in video games

In Israeli schools, they indoctrinate their youth from a young age. In a video filmed inside of a classroom, a group of male students aged about 10-12 are questioned by their teacher and 3 men, presumably IDF soldiers. When asked questions like “What do you feel when you meet an arab kid?” they respond with hostility. “I feel I want to kill him.” In return of these outright violent answers, they’re rewarded with positive feedback from their teacher. She smiles and nods, affirming these beliefs. The Teacher keeps asking questions, and the answers get more and more violent. The 3 men, on their way out, praise the teacher and students for “getting their information right.”

In Various western video games, the enemies are shown wearing keffiyehs, having long beards and a darker complexion. If they don’t take this approach, they shamelessly call them arabs and make them speak violently in their mother tongue. What these games have in common is the goal; to kill the arabs.

But how does this correlate?

Can you guess where the U.S military has started recruiting their soldiers from? Comiccons. They watch out cosplayers of these games, and give them recruitment letters, advertising it as nothing more than a “free skin”.

The game “Six days in Felluja” follows american troops as they fight against Iraq. In this game, they have you loot every single house, every room, every crevice. What do you think this is preparing their players for?

All of this is pulled from This Youtube video: Gamification of Warfare, which i found too important not to share.