ltsquigs

@SpunkyHePanda: There is no concept of a "true timeline" in VLR though. That's the whole point of the epilogue with Tenmyojis Speech. You may have saved another timeline, but that doesn't magically fix the one that's fucked up, and in order to do so you have to basically destroy Clover's, Alice's, and Phi's lives (and of course most of the timelines lead to fates worth than death for most of the characters). To be honest, the whole 'saving the planet' thing is kind of the part that bums me out the most about VLRs ending, because it's not as interesting as a more personal story like 999.

Oh, and an actually serious question: How did you feel about the twists in VLR compared to 999. 999 had less twists, but most of them were directly relevant to the ultimate reveal/twist near the end (as far as I can remember), whereas VLR has a ton of twists but not all of them seem actually relevant to the story. The one that stuck out in my head the most was Luna being a robot which was a cool twist, but ultimately didn't have a ton of relevance to the overall story (other than to serve as a red herring for you being a robot)

Did you ever figure out what Virtues Last Reward actually means? Cause I sure as hell didn't (Great game though).

Biff is pretty great.

Throwing my list into the ring: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/ltsquigs/goty-2012/46-80652/

Yeah as others have pointed out its part of a more general story structure that a lot of stories use.

Particularly in stories where you have a hero one of the easiest ways to define that character as a hero is to give them a dark middle chapter. Overcoming great darkness is usually the mark of a great hero, whereas not having to overcome that darkness usually isn't.

Since many Games tend to focus on the kind of standard heroic journey story, you get a lot of games that have dark middle chapters.

Mass Effect 2 is kind of an interesting example because it is both a dark middle chapter (things are more serious, there are insurmountable odds, etc), while also having what some consider lighter elements than Mass Effect 1 (Theres a lot more jokes, leaning against the fourth wall, and moments of levity)

Wow thats awesome.

Great Job to everyone who lived streamed! The Giantbomb Team raised a lot of money!

I think I will vote for cool things on green light.

@loryuo: You should look up a little something called Victim Blaming. The truth is, she isn't in any way to blame, and screw you for implying that she is. The person who made those comments, the person who ultimately holds the responsibility, the person who could have made the decision to restrain himself and not say those comments was Aris: The buck stops at him. He is solely responsible for his actions. It is not Miranda's fault in any way shape or form for the comments he made, she is not somehow to blame for his comments because she didn't ask him to stop sooner. Seriously, that's just stupid.

Also we all know you say heated things when you get angry, but he's still responsible for what he said. It doesn't somehow excuse him from what he said. The problem that many people have (myself included) is that when called out on his offensive speech, instead of just admitting that he did something wrong, that he went to far, and that maybe, just maybe, he was sexually harassing this woman, he decided to entrench himself farther and defend himself instead of admitting that he did something wrong.

I understand getting angry when someone calls you out for being an asshole, no one likes being an asshole, but seriously own up to it instead of digging yourself farther in and being more of an asshole in the process.