AI Objections Dominate Games Commentary, From Big Walk to Sledgehammers

Polygon's Matt Patches argues that the debate over House House's Big Walk has buried how much human craft the game took. The studio said in the game's FAQ that a lighting physics problem in Unity had no workable answer, even after a Unity engineer told them what they wanted wasn't possible, so the five-person team used an LLM chatbot to solve it. A group of influential Indie Game Festival jurors then said they would not vote for any game that used gen-AI tools, which includes Big Walk.

Patches lands on the view that Big Walk is a great game made with a great deal of artistry, and that the chatbot only helped it over the last stretch. The piece pairs that argument with an interview, conducted before the controversy, in which co-founder Jake Strasser describes how proximity voice chat shaped the game.

CounterpointThe jurors who pledged not to vote for games using gen-AI tools treat any use as disqualifying, whatever its size. Critics of the technology's training data and labour effects would say the amount of human craft is beside the point.

Previously: Aftermath argued that opposing generative AI is worth it even if unwinnable, and Pearl Abyss said it will expand AI use across its pipeline. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio reviews Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour's Virtue and a Sledgehammer, a three-hour game in which Pratelle returns home after her mother's death to find the town's residents' consciousness moved into robots by her sister Nina. Smashing bots and buildings with a sledgehammer is the whole mechanic, and Colantonio concedes it is one-note but says it suits the length.

His argument is that the game's rejection of generative AI is deliberately unsubtle but is only part of the point. Bots that plead for their lives make the player doubt whether destroying them is right, and the story ends up treating grief and acceptance of death as inseparable from being human.

CounterpointNina's position, that a person's thoughts are the person and can live on in a machine, is one that mind-uploading and AI-companion advocates still hold. Players looking for a critique of labour, copyright or environmental harm may find the game's focus more philosophical than political.

Previously: Aftermath argued opposing generative AI is worth it even if unwinnable, and Pearl Abyss said it will expand AI use across its pipeline. — Saturday November 14 edition.

Eurogamer's Dom Peppiatt replays GTA: Vice City 24 years after its October 2002 release, a year after GTA 3, and argues it fixed what Rockstar would keep doing. He points to star power and Rockstar's self-confidence, noting a budget of roughly $5 million plus $13.2 million in marketing, and the first voiced protagonist in Ray Liotta's Tommy Vercetti. He also credits a cast of about 50 story characters.

Peppiatt says the formula is to take a trope and push it to its cartoon extreme, which he traces forward to Trevor in GTA 5. He reads Vercetti as a tragic figure and finds the game's slow, miserly first half making its later freedom feel earned. He calls it one of the best games ever made. He also says he can't verify the Burt Reynolds recording-session story he opens with.

CounterpointFans of San Andreas or later entries would pick a different game as the series high point. Critics of Rockstar's caricature and of the crunch behind its rapid schedules would dispute the idea that this is an unqualified model.

Since the Switch 2 remake arrived on Nov. 5, parents on Reddit have argued over whether it is too scary for kids, despite its E10+ rating. Polygon's Rebecca Corgan, who has played the three child-era dungeons with her 4-year-old, argues the first half works as a fairy tale, with a child-sized Link who has tools to fight back. She cites remake director comments from Eiji Aonuma and art director Aya Shida that the game is meant for all kinds of players, and says the darker adult half can wait until her daughter is ready.

CounterpointSome parents in Reddit threads recommend waiting until age 8 or 9, and others skip whole dungeons. Several say the remake's graphics make the spiders and ReDeads worse, and the E10+ rating is itself an argument against starting at 4.

Previously: A first-time player found the remake beautiful but simpler than modern Zelda. — Saturday November 14 edition.