VilgeDuin

I'm speechless... I've honestly been choking back tears. I've been entertained, enlightened and informed by Ryan about games, his life and general viewpoints for over 10 years. I've spent so much time listening to that man guffaw and watching him enjoy himself that... wow. I don't even know what to think, feel or say right now.

My deepest condolences go out to his wife, his family and his friends. He just got married and that is so heartbreaking, and he was too young.

Thank you Ryan and may you rest in peace.

For what it's worth, just to add to the discussion in regards to harming female enemies, the FROG soldiers in MGS 4 were all female. As well as every member of the Beauty and Beast Corps. Kojima generally tosses a variety into his games regarding women. Of course there's also the female raiders/bandits in Bethesda's games.

Aside from that I'm actually drawing a blank when it comes to killing women in games (as standard enemies at least). I've thought about it before and always considered it odd depending on the setting. Fantasy or sci-fi you can easily include female enemies. Obviously a modern military shooter may be odd in turn.

Even regarding Marlowe from Uncharted 3, despite being the main villain

A few years ago this happened to me. Every game I played I had to switch to inverted instantly, it just felt right, and "normal" felt so wrong. Then one day, I can't even remember what game, i played with normal controls. I didn't notice actually and just kept playing with normal controls from then on until my wife pointed out one day that I didn't switch anymore when I handed the controller to her to try something out (she being of the always normal camp). I've even tried inverted since and my brain doesn't make sense of it anymore.

This is an excellent start to what I'm expecting to be an excellent series, and I would most definitely like to see more of this sort of thing.

In regards to criticism versus reviewing I've personally given up on seeking out opinions on games. Broadband Internet and sites like Youtube have exponentially decreased the relevance of the written word for myself. Just watching some kid do a "Let's Play" series gives me a direct and visual understanding of how a game functions and if I may like it. Quick Looks as well, or even something like TNT, have provided a new and rawer outlet of information regarding games that purpose-made trailers, previews and even reviews can deliver. In fact, despite loving the Giant Bomb crew's opinions (even when I vehemently disagree) a 10-20 minute video of a game actually being played does far more for me than any review or written piece can. That's not even touching on point scales and ratings, which are wholly inaccurate when trying to encapsulate someone's opinion. Review scores are a necessary evil for the game enthusiast press and not particularly useful beyond a cursory glance.

That all said, game criticism should be embraced and nurtured. The video game industry, at least in its current form, is still a relatively young phenomena and subsequently still rough around the edges. Game's started as toys and diversions and have quickly over a few short decades come to become a true story telling medium and an outlet for ideas. With this comes critiquing, for how else do we improve on games (beyond the mechanical)? The issue is that criticism and reviewing should honestly be separate things despite kind of going hand-in-hand. Separating them is difficult though because of the personal and interactive nature of games compared to other mediums. Namely, games have "working parts" that can be openly judged in a substantive and direct manner. Anyone can tell if controls are off or if there are game breaking bugs. These things can be reviewed easily. It's the more esoteric and subjective game elements (just as with film, music and books) that can draw criticism that really doesn't hold up well to review. I thought the action set pieces of that game were over the top and preposterous, whereas you relished in their outrageous insanity. This is where critiquing becomes relevant and moves away from basic "reviewing."

It's the simple concept of objectiveness in light of subjectiveness. All in all, reviewing and criticism do tend to be similar but they serve different purposes. They're two sides of a dissimilar coin. Another issue that also makes reviewing/critiquing discussions difficult is that some people just want games to be fun. To be diversions and toys, whereas others want the medium to become more, and this is where criticism becomes mostly relevant.

Bastion, Orcs Must Die!, Magicka, Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, Dungeon Defenders, Sanctum, Terraria, Frozen Synapse, Portal + Portal 2 and the Awesome Indie Bundle (Blocks That Matter, Eufloria, Jamestown, Rock of Ages, Sideway New York, Swords and Soldiers HD, The Binding of Isaac, Tobe's Vertical Adventure, Waves and Xotic). Got everything's respective DLC and a few things for Shogun 2 as well. And even though it wasn't necessarily part of the Steam sale I got Humble Indie Bundle 4 (plus 3).

So 31 games for about $110. Some of the stuff in the bundles didn't interest me, but overall got a great amount of quality titles for a good price.

Yes and no. The only problem comes when you realize that these passes are tied to an account. It's not 20 bucks a console, it's 20 bucks a person who wants to use the game on a separate fucking account. That means If I want achievements, my brother wants an achievement, my dad wants an achievement, and to get it we need to play online, we each have to pay the price, or two of us will even with a brand new copy. [...] Consoles are also far more often a shared thing in a home. I don't know anyone who's 360 or PS3 has only one active online account. Those consoles are used by everyone, and forcing people to pay on a per-account basis is just gross. Even worse is when you have to get a new account for whatever reason and lose all of that shit. It's a bad solution to the problem, end of story.

Their retrospectives along with the Screw Attack content are quite nice. I also enjoy watching their video reviews, if only for the actual gameplay content and not for what's said.  It's also a nice repository of just about any other video related thing you may wish to look up. Bonus Round started out nicely but is pretty much worthless now.
 
The editorial staff at GT, and primarily Shane Satterfield, come off as arrogant egotistical assholes.  For the brief period I actual listened to the Invisible Walls stuff a year ago I couldn't help but cringe about most of the things they said. Especially Satterfield whose opinions are some of the most insipidly awful I've heard from someone.
 
The site has redeeming values but as someone said before it's prime goal is to pretty much be a PR hub for various companies.

Awesome gibberish Jeknod.
 
Good to see Torchlight coming to consoles. Will probably buy it on the PSN.

I watched my LOTR extended cut DVDs all at once a couple years ago, do believe it was a horrible idea, because I don't think I'll ever watch them again. I'm completely burnt out on the franchise as a whole. I loved them when they were coming out and still have fond memories of specific scenes, but I generally just can't bring myself to fathom ever revisiting them. 
 
I used to watch all of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies back-to-back at least once a year, but haven't done so in years. Also watched the Rocky movies all at once a few times. 
 
Last time I did a marathon of movies was last year watching Episodes 1-6 of Star Wars. Good times.