BabyChooChoo

Nope, in fact, I'm building a new PC because of the lackluster showings of both consoles. Well, moreso it's because I don't really fuck with Playstation's first-party exclusives much anymore and the third-party exclusives wind up on other platforms eventually. On top of that, all the Microsoft stuff is coming to PC day-and-date soooo that's cool. I've always been a big console person, but there's just fewer and fewer reasons for me personally to get one, especially one on release at full-price with no games out.

Once they become cheaper, I'll probably pick up and Xbox. I'm heavily invested in that ecosystem already and it'll be a good blu-ray player and/or system to throw on when guests come over.

@doctordonkey: Now I'm disappointed because I didn't realize how much I want that to be a thing. That would be incredible.

This is a big reason I fell off of FFXIV, still one of my favorite games of all time, and Warframe, a game I really really really like, so hard. I don't know if it's too much to say I was addicted at one point, but in both games at some point, I reached a point where I had kinda did what I wanted to do, but felt compelled to keep playing. Then I reached another point where I would just actively complain about the game while I was playing it which wasn't fun for me or the people I was playing with. Then one day it finally sunk in and I asked the question and that was that. FFXIV I still play a lot, but I'll play an hour here or an hour there and be perfectly content whereas I used to do all the content for every patch on release day then desperately try to gear up each and every job as quickly as humanly possible.

Warframe, I took such a long break from that when I finally came back, it was damn near unrecognizable. I'll still dip my toes back in every once in a blue moon though but now it's different. I kinda stop playing because I feel like I'm asking too many questions all the time haha.

Nah. $30 is too much for a movie rental at home regardless of almost any setup. If it was pay to own, then sure, whatever. Like, I would love to see TENET, for example. Easily my most anticipated movie off the top of my head. Friends wanna go have a night out and watch it in theaters when the T-virus outbreak subsides in 40 years? Sure, let's go. Pay $30 to see it on release at home and get to keep it forever (yeah yeah yeah, digital rights etc etc)? Sign me up.

$30...for a rental? Oh, fuck off movie industry. I'll fuckin wait.

Nothing blew me away to be honest. I absolutely loved the first Horizon - it's one of my favorite games of all time - and them making a second one was a no-brainer. I'm gonna play it and it'll probably be amazing, but it's not the type of announcement to make me jump out of my seat. Same with Demons Souls.

Ghostwire Tokyo, Kena, and Little Devil Inside were the standout titles for me personally because it's stuff I didn't expect and they all look fantastic.

Solid show all-around, but nothing to write home about for me.

Like with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. People who are saying Last of Us 2 will flop are idiots. However, I feel like anyone saying this won't affect sales aren't giving people enough credit for how "plugged in" they are. This shit was all over Youtube so that entire demographic, millions of people, is at least aware that the game might ruffle some feathers.

It's definitely a minority though. It's gonna affect first week/month sales probably, but not gonna cut sales in half in the long run or anything drastic like that. I think it ultimately depends on how the full game reviews. If it gets 9s and 10s across the board, the Internet has proven time and time again they can't boycott shit and the vast majority of people who say they're boycotting it, are gonna pick it up. 6s, 7s, though unlikely, will make people feel justified in skipping it.

I couldn't give a shit either way. I didn't love TLoU1, but I thought it still ended beautifully - as cold and bleak and unsure as it was - to the point there was no need for a sequel. Every single path they could have taken with the story was always going to be some version of fucked up, depressing bullshit. Even without an actual pandemic affecting our lives, I've had my fill of that genre. It's why I stopped watching The Walking Dead for example. Early on, it's clear every ray of sunshine is followed by a storm of shit. It's fucking emotionally draining. But I digress. The game will do fine. Life will go on. etc etc

The tech demo did nothing at all for me. That was just as boring as listening to Epic talk about it.

I think they should have just let other devs come on Keighley's show and talk about why they're excited about working with UE5 because seeing the industry reaction to it was way more exciting than anything said during that entire half hour. I saw a lot of smaller developers who seemed like they were genuinely floored, dreaming up new possibilities for their games. That's the shit I like.

• Unreal Tournament specifically UT2003 and 2004 - I miss arena shooters in general, but I miss UT more than any of them because it's just the one I played the most because of the weapons and art direction. I miss the sorta low stakes nature of the game. No character abilities, loadouts, team comps, or any of that. Just you and some guns on the map. Go.
• Tribes: Ascend - My first and only Tribes game. I probably sunk a couple hundred hours into it. Keeping up momentum while skiing, grabbing the flag, and dropping it off without ever slowing down is one of the best feelings in any video game I've ever played. hi-rez let it die.
• Speaking of Hi-Rez letting things die: Global Agenda. Another one of my most played games of all time. It was janky as fuck, but it had heart. Flying was really fun.
• City of Heroes/Champions Online - I don't think any human truly stops wanting to be a superhero (or villain). Timeless idea wrapped up in janky, but fun games. Heroes got screwed by NCSoft. I believe the story goes, the game was still making money but not "mid-2000s F2p Korean MMO money" like they wanted, so they shut it down. Champions on the other hand just suffered a slow death (still suffering by the looks of it) because of Cryptic's broken ass engine and the fact that Star Trek Online just stole all their focus.
• Guild Wars 1 - The PvP/character builds were and forever will be leagues above whatever they tried to do with GW2.
• Super Monday Night Combat - I remember the devs just going silent on this one for months, shortly after release to, then they announced a new game or something and that was that.

@calvinball: Yo, man, just wanna say thank you for all the work you do making this extension. You're an awesome duder!

SAC is my favorite anime ever. This isn't a criticism, but I feel like it's just a product of the era it was made in. Same goes for the movie too. There were a lot of similar anime in terms of pacing and tone around that time. It wasn't all that was being made, obviously, not be a long shot, but there were definitely more of that type of thing.

Similarly, while you get that type of anime made today, I feel like it's fewer and farther between than they used to be.

This is not me waving a cane and going like "the animes were better in the good old days!" I'm just saying that back then, you had the perfect conditions for something like the og movie/SAC to get made, but times have changed. Hell, they keep making the major look younger (I know at least in Arise's case, the time the story takes place justifies it...), but everyone else looks about the same as they always have. And I'm willing to be bet that's no accident because younger Major specifically is an easier sell to your bosses because it'll probably appeal more to what anime fans are into these days. And that decision probably leads to other decisions being made about these new shows as well.

Couple that with the actual people making it going through whatever changes they go through emotionally, creatively, etc. and suddenly recapturing that magic is a pretty hard ask.

Sadly, happens with a lot of shit. Some things can keep transitioning and stay relevant. Others had their time and made their impact, and their legacy will live on for however long it lives on. As much as I wish otherwise, GiTS is absolutely the latter.

This isn't a low-key review on that new Netflix joint btw. Haven't seen it yet, but heard it was a fun action thing with some GitS shit sprinkled in and thats good enough for me right now. I'll probably watch it today or tomorrow.