When you can't support your own argument, try and smear your opposition.

Yeah, you're done and have been for some time now.

My "attack" (i.e. criticism) on games journalists that are criticizing a game for not shoehorning in their preferred form of politics (i.e. Social Justice) has everything to do with an ideology that advances the "no both sides" intolerance of the weak incapable of debate. Imagine my surprise that you also fall into those ranks.

Whether or not its proponents realize it, "Social justice" in its present form stems from an ideology of victimhood (i.e. oppressor vs. oppressed) intended to tear down all forms of establishment and tradition by sowing enough discord to ideally pave the way for the glorious cultural revolution and it goes back decades. Your ignorance surrounding such matters is hardly surprising as the only people generally exposed to it have a background in either English or Philosophy.

Across the U.S., Critical Theory (i.e. that cultural Marxist "conspiracy theory") is part of the curriculum for all English majors. I didn't even know what a "SJW" was a few years ago because I don't use social media or pay much attention to millenials in general, but as I began looking into their beliefs, I immediately recognized the ideas that they were espousing and from whom they originated. What I could not understand was why this otherwise obscure form of literary criticism had suddenly gained a foothold in mainstream society, but the death of Occupy Wall street in 2011, the acknowledgement that the government had been actively surveilling the movement through the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the existence of social media quickly clarified the how and why.

Apparently, the government failed to predict the viral social media spread by useful idiots once the Occupy threat had been neutralized through Balkanization. It was now cool to be "woke," to talk about the "politics of privilege," to invoke the progressive stack, to obsess over identity politics and view people as members of groups rather than as individuals, and to finger wag at elders' perceived somnambulance.

I know exactly what I'm saying.

Your rational-wiki "muh right wing conspiracy theory" response is hilariously predictable and you are the last person that should be making accusations about being unable to put "the pieces together in a coherent factual argument" given your inability to address: any of your contradictions, any of the questions I have asked you repeatedly, or even provide the most basic example(s) of anything that led you to believe that Ubi, by creating a prologue promotional video, was evidence that they intended to more deeply "explore" the socio-political subject matter of their latest release.

I'm neither of your ad-hom accusations, but since you can't support your own claims, it's clear that it's all you have left.

So we've now established: You don't own the game, you can't support your claims, and ultimately, you're simply parroting the opinions of your fellow "activist" journalist morons who are desperately trying to incorporate their politics into everything.

Get fucked and stay stupid, useful idiot.

Still no answers to any of my questions.

You're beyond pathetic, and your referring to me as a "pseudo-intellectual" is laughable projection.

Forbes is a financial magazine that hired an otherwise unemployable English major to write game reviews.

I know that I turn to Forbes or GQ for my gaming reviews.

Do you know what GQ is?

Cultural Marxism is not a "conspiracy theory." It's what its proponents referred to themselves as (i.e. "cultural marxists.") It was also a radical leftist movement, and it presently calls itself "social justice."

Who were: Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Theodor Adorno, Louis Althusser, Mikhail Bakhtin, or Jean Baudrillard? What was the significance of the Frankfurt school? What is Critical Theory? What is post-strucuralism? What is deconstructionism?

You have no goddamn idea because you've never studied ANY of these things/people or their ideas.

So, stfu and sit down because you can't even substantiate your arguments with actual examples because you don't even own the game being discussed.

You're absolutely spineless with your inability to support your argument regarding the promotional movie.

Answer my fucking questions and then maybe we can get to why age brings wisdom, drone.

Better yet, summon me some of your more articulate woke defense twitter.

Lol, who am I kidding, you have yet to address any of my questions.

Another virtue signaling moron bites the dust.

More non-specifics, "spouting conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory."

Provide requested substantiation or accept defeat.

Ignoring your previous dodges.

Legitimize your claims already.

Lol, are Polygon and Kotaku not capitalist publications?

Cultural Marxism has fuckall to do with the right wing and you'd know this if you followed the link I provided.

I've been alive longer than your stupid ass. I've also done my homework, and then some.

You're so pathetically ignorant. "Cultural Marxism" was the curriculum of the 90s. It's only recently been rebranded as "Social Justice," but it's the same ideology repackaged in the face of its abject failure.

Hey worm, answer my questions or STFU.

Cultural Marxism is a thing. I studied it and was immersed within it during my undergraduate studies. It's devoted to shifting the (failed) focus of Marxism from the economic to the social (i.e. it's no longer about the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat and all about the oppressor vs. the oppressed.)

Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain: History, the New Left, and the Orgins of Cultural Studies (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

Look at the copyright date you absolute pissant.

These same ideas were repackaged as "Social Justice" when its advocates realized that "Cultural Marxism" just wasn't selling.

Again, you're so far out of your depth.

Bring some Tumblr or ResetERA reinforcements.

I don't like feeling like I'm abusing a kid.

P.S. The critical theorists I previously mentioned were all unapolegetic traditional Marxists, but I suspect you know fuckall of what I speak.

Break it down for me fella ... oh wait, you can't.

Yes, you are because this never had anything to do with Far Cry 5 vs. its predecessors until you pathetically tried to divert attention from your unaddressed contradictions, or the fact that the prologue video was never intended to be anything more than hype.

You also never addressed my question as to whether or not you even own the game.

I'm so surprised.

81 is not a good score?

My, what standards your highness has.

Yes, because the prologue video clearly endorses people being captured and drugged into a cult as ok and that's exactly why they added the PC as opposition.

Seriously, when were you born? You have to be a child or teen.

Why?

You have not addressed this question, or whether you even own the game, with specifics once.

Substantiate your argument or sit down and STFU already.

Wrong, Richard Spencer and his tiki torch bearing simpletons are the alt-right. I don't even vote as I've already said, but I see that you've learned the art of smearing from your elder tards.

I never said I "hated" both sides.

What I was saying is that I will call either side out for their: hypocrisy, extremism, subterfuge, and lies.

I'm at a centrist edge where I lean left socially but right fiscally.

So saith the millenial.

No, I'm going to call Forbes a non-gaming magazine (like GQ) who decided they could milk gamers that subscribe to either publication with gaming reviews.

Unfortunately, they failed to realize that they were hiring otherwise unemployable English majors fed a steady diet of cultural marxism in the form of the Critical Theorists whose ultimate goal was to undermine the actual theme of their publications anyway.

You're certainly a glutton for punishment, so let's do this again.

Yes, and you still haven't answered any of the questions addressing your multiple contradictions.

I don't care about how it scores in comparison to its predecessors, that's a pathetic attempt to move the goalposts. The fact is that it's still sitting at an 81 from 69 critics on metacritic. Last I checked, that's supposed to indicate that it's a pretty good game. I've seen a total of 3 reviews that adopt your position that the story was lacking deep enough socio-political commentary: Polygon, Kotaku, and GQ (lol).

Most of the criticisms I've read from other reviewers focus on gameplay issues which I agree with: poor AI and bugs.

Do you even own the game?

I never said that the game had anything "real" to say about cults or militias beyond the series' typical Mr. Mackey, "Cults and militias are bad ... mmmkay." The entire series has always operated on a superficial surface level for reasons I have explained repeatedly. (i.e. it's about establishing a semi-believable contemporary setting in which to wreck shit.)

LiS having lesbians and a lecherous male pedophile teacher are a political statement in some circles and you're incredibly dishonest if you think otherwise.

I have no problems with gay people, but there are the ultra-conservative religious types who are opposed to such things, so it's immediately political in that context because they would claim it's trying to advance the "queer agenda."

Personally, I don't care who is doing whom as long as no one is being hurt. It's not my business, but to deny that there are people that center the hierarchy of their beliefs with their religion at the top is either dishonest or naïve.

There's also the depiction of the male teacher preying on female students which was a conscious decision by the developers; in spite of the fact that in the past 20+ years there have been more cases of female teachers preying on underage male students.

This was a decision made to once again shore up the "white CIS males are responsible for all of the evils in the world" narrative that has been so popular in certain segments of the media for the past 8 years. The fact that Ashly Burch was one of the voice actresses is further evidence of it's radical "woke/SJW" leanings. Try reading her twitter feed some time. Nevermind, you'd probably just agree with her moronic politics and see nothing of issue. She's also part of a clique of self-proclaimed "woke" developers, most of whom reside in the bubble of San Francisco.

There's a reason "hella" and "hyphy" never left that bubble and it's because they're moronic terms that no other region would want to adopt.

For hype. How hard is it to understand that?! TW: Rome 2 wasted a bunch of money to make videos with Brian Blessed talking about the weaponry of the era. Why did they do it?

HYPE. This is not that difficult to understand.

Why was it more than "just a promotional video?" I'm fucking sick of your vague generalizations and I suspect that you don't even own the game and are simply parroting the opinions of interloping morons who have 0 interest in games themselves and are much more focused on "messaging" and indoctrination.

That whole video was a prologue to the game's character's opposition to the cult.

Bullshit. Give specific examples, or GTFO. You are insufferable.

I don't give a shit what the interloping "activist" dumbfucks have to say about games because I see through them and I already know their game. I studied their Marxist/Postmodern heroes in my undergraduate career and I know exactly what they're trying to do. Unfortunately, the tools they are using are just that, "tools."

The theories of the Critical Theorists are not without merit, but like any other tool, in the wrong hands, they can be used as weapons. (i.e. "white privilege" vs. "majority privilege" Only one of these terms can be used to deliberately bludgeon people. "suicide bomber" vs. "homicide bomber" the quick, but temporary and less than subtle rhetorical change made by much of the media post 911 due to the sympathetic connotations associated with the term "suicide.")

Yes, the game takes a "pissing" shot at Trump and they also have a character say something about "Obamatards" which honestly seems to be the what stuck in their craws and resulted in the "No both sides" rhetoric of the waterheads.

Yes, yes, I'm clearly incredibly ignorant and you're my millenial superior. /s

I've tried to ignore your repeated ad-hom attacks, but I'm done trying to engage you respectfully since your quiver is empty and it's all you have left.

Seriously, know when to stay the **** down, you absolute moron.

I can see that.

If you want me to "quit posting" then maybe you should get some of your ResetEra comrades to flag me?

You reference these "hot button" elements and how they "fail to explore them" all while ignoring the fact that EVERY previous game dealt with similar elements in settings outside of the U.S. without "exploring" them either. They create semi-plausible settings largely inspired by real world events/people in the interest of making it plausible enough to be an action movie script.

Your claim that it's not one or two outlets making this criticism but "most of them," is completely contradicted by metacritic.

Shocking.

It's the usual suspects from Kotaku and Polygon once again collapsing onto their fainting couches in a fit of the vapors. Incidentally, I went with the PS4 version since it has the most critic reviews.

There is no "critical consensus" outside of the fact that the majority of critics seem to think it's a pretty good game; as demonstrated by its aggregate score.

The facts are: the game is set in Montana as an allusion to the militia movements of that state which were covered by the media in the early nineties, the Father character is basically an amalgum of Jim Jones, David Koresh with a splash of Heaven's Gate, and the symbology to which you refer could be interpreted as fascist inspired which would make sense given the cult's authoritarian nature.

All of this is nothing more than a backdrop for an action movie set and fans of the previous games knew what to expect.

The people complaining about it "not following through with its potential with its imagery and story elements" are the ones who are mad that it didn't send the "proper message" as it relates to the present day U.S. political landscape.

These are the same people who desperately want to portray the average Republican/Trump supporter as being as fanatical and fascistic as the members of the cult in the game; all while remaining oblivious to the strawman creation of their own hyperbolic thoughts.

Where you see their not "properly messaging" as a problem of the franchise is where the average fan of the games laughs in your face at the ludicrousness of your objection.

You claim that, "you can cover social issues and topics without making a political stand," while conveniently ignoring the fact that that is exactly what the series has always done.

The game covers social issues because the ENTIRE basis of the game's conflict centers around a social phenomenon (i.e. when attempted utopian communal living gives way to a cult led by a fanatic). This exact descent is recounted in the game's introduction.

The fact that you find LiS apolitical speaks volumes.

Why should they "take any moral stand on any issue," when they never have previously?

As crazy as it sounds, they seem to be focused more on gameplay than indoctrination and I can see why that pisses off a small but incredibly loud minority of morons to attack them for not "messaging on the right side of history" enough to their liking.

A promotional video is NOT an explicit example of the developers declaring that this time they were going to go deeper into socio-political nuances.

I asked for concrete evidence from the developers' mouths that they intended to do as such not your interpretation of a video promotion.

I'm not sparing you anything. You're out of your depth and you have been called out repeatedly by your own words and contradictions, which I noticed you conveniently avoid addressing, all while still insisting that you and a small number of "activist" games journalists' interpretation of a promotional video is a failure on the part of the developers to follow through with what you hoped would be the narrative.

"You lose, Carl Miller."

I am a fan of Diogenes the cynic, so I'm indiscriminate when calling out extremist stupidity on either side.

The idea that there are now hundreds of thousands of "nazi/fascist/racist" sleeper agents in the U.S. is the product of the fevered hyperbolic imagination of tribalistic morons hellbent on sowing discord and advancing their Balkanizing agenda. I already demonstrated how stupid the overly employed phrase of "right side of history" is and the reason why.

I mock people who refer to themselves as "woke" because they're clearly not students of actual history; as if their casual misapplication of the terms: "nazi," "fascist," and more recently "alt-right" when used against people that disagree with them were not already evidence of their lack of understanding of what those words actually mean.

I find it depressingly funny that so-called "anti-fascists" regularly employ fascist tactics while calling themselves "woke" with seemingly 0 knowledge of the translation of this standard:

I'm also not terribly concerned whether or not you believe me. We're two disembodied voices in a sea of electrons.

You claim that the developers could take any political position including being apolitical and yet you're apparently up in arms that they, as they have in previous versions of the game, adopted "no position" (i.e. remained largely apolitical).

How is that not a contradiction?

As for the quality of the writing, it's always been sensationalized shit, so how does it differ from the other games in the series? They've always been tongue in cheek glorified action movies.

Blood Dragon basically took that idea and then turned it up to 11.

No it's not. It's a promotion done in the style of a direct to T.V. movie.

It in no way explicitly suggests that, for the fifth game in an established series, they're suddenly going to break from convention and "meaningfully tackle social issues."

You and the handful of idiot games journalists that tried to push that belief were duped by your own interpretations and desires for that to be the case.

I want evidence of the developers themselves stating that they intended to make this version deeper by delving into political/social issues.

The fact is, you're wrong because that evidence does not exist.

Yes, so "alt-right" that I've voted once in my life and it was against W. I also happen to think Trump is a moron, but as usual, there were no appealing candidates and I have 0 faith in the American political system anyway, so I didn't vote, again.

It's amusing to be labeled "alt-right" by your ilk because I actually believe that people have the right to have despicable ideas that I disagree with and I will gladly challenge them over those ideas, but I will never demand that they submit to my perceptions. I think there's a word for people like that, but it seems to have been forgotten now that the sane voices of the left have been drowned out by radical, shrieking, "full communism now!" Orwellian morons. What was it again? Oh yeah, "liberal."

I'd like to see some evidence that it was marketed to be any deeper than any previous iteration of the series. All I recall is them announcing the game by saying, "Yeah, we're making a new Far Cry game set in the U.S. about a militia/cult group," and then a bunch of "woke" folks/journalists decided that this was going to be Ubi's attempt at a massive criticism of Trump, the U.S., and his supporters, but when that didn't happen the way that they hoped they started pissing and moaning.

I beg to differ on LiS, but that's like your opinion, man. I tried to watch a playthrough and I found the dialogue grating and the gameplay shallow. Many share my opinion and many share yours.

/shrug