blobby14

For me, the original Hollow Knight wasn't exceptionally innovative or original, but did set an extremely high bar for polish and refinement over similar indie games. I've played a lot of metroid-style games and Hollow Knight has super tight movement, and expansive and thoughtfully interconnected map, simple but addictive combat, great art and design, memorable music, etc. Plenty of other games have some or most of those things, Hollow Knight just executes them at such a consistent level of craftsmanship that it stands out.

American adventurism is usually a loss for the American state, not necessarily a loss for the multinational corporations who benefit from that Adventurism. It's a classic privatize profits, publicize losses scenario.

A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques.

"What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American.

"Exactly," the Russian replies.

One of the major contributors to this is the increasing number of VFX studios and artists that have never done physical effects or camera work on set. Early CGI was made, or at least supervised by crews with extensive experience on real props and costumes. Theres a lot more than detailed textures and "physically based rendering" that go into making an effect look real, such as framing the effects shot with recongnizable features for scale and "presence". A poor quality 3d model with bad textures can feel convincing if the director and VFX artists coordinate to fully integrate the effects. Likewise a super detailed and well animated CG character can be ruined by poor shot placement and floaty camera movement. Honestly, so many otherwise fantastically rendered CGI scenes have been destroyed by virtual cameras that accelerate and fly with zero regard for physics. Cutting edge hair physics and multimillion polygon models still need the cinema basics of good camerawork, blocking, and editing.