Daneian

"Now I'll never be an astronaut!," Dane said, stomping angrily on his oxygen tank and ripping off his helmet before suffocating on the harsh lunar surface.

Are we not counting Harrison Ford? Because Harrison Ford.

I can't tell you why i decided to initially play as FemShep, but i ended up loving her because she was a strong character both physically and mentally and was played exceptionally well by Jennifer Hale. I became invested in her because of her actions, not because of her gender.

It had nothing to do with staring at her butt or a deep-seated need to control or act upon her.

I like the feel of my leather chair on my nethers, but only in the hottest heat or the frigid frost.

My God, that post is disgusting.

Welcome fellas! Can't wait to see what you two produce!

I think your points about the controls being relative to the camera angles of course make sense. But more than for their scare factor, i would argue that those angles are there to accommodate the adventure game elements, which are equally as prominent in those games as the action. The devs needed to be able to count on you finding the items and the puzzles so direct your view directly towards them. As important as the tension is to the game, the fact that the decisions increased it was mostly as a side benefit.

@fredchuckdave said:

Well it sounds like you know more about all this than i do, but isn't a person that can get a job in a much better place to develop marketable skills than someone who cant get one? Couldn't those skills allow them to be promoted within that job and thus better able to take those new skills to get another, maybe better paying job?

Been interested in economic theory lately, and heard a compelling argument from Milton Friedman about the negative side effects of policies such as this (specifically referring to 'equal pay for equal work', but it seems to me to be applicable to minimum wage as well).

The theory goes that when you set a limit on wages, it incentivizes employers to be that much more choosy about their applicants. It makes it harder for someone without entry level work skills, without a high school diploma or with a rap sheet to get their foot in the door. It helps those people who already have jobs and hurts those looking for one. So you're automatically handicapping many of the very people these sorts of social programs are meant to help. If there was no minimum wage, a potential employee would have more bargaining power to negotiate lower pay in exchange for the chance to prove themselves in the work place. In a time when every job has dozens and dozens of applicants and a business still only has X amount with which to pay its total pool of employees, its problematic if policies are making for those desperate enough to do what it takes. That's 66% more true here, since the increase proposed could shrink the money available to support three new positions down to two.

As a side note, there was an interesting corollary effect proposed: it further allows prejudiced employers to discriminate at the hiring level. Sure, many racists/sexists/whathaveyou will continue to make decisions based on those biases regardless, but at least here they would be positively incentivized to put them aside and hire someone who was willing to be paid less and in order to keep more of the money that the business is already bringing in. Hell, they might even have their prejudices tested- or changed- in the meantime.

I'm sure I'm going to get all sorts of flak for this, but i found the logic compelling enough to stick with me.

@grantheaslip said:

To be fair, these concepts are introduced in the main narrative and concealed within the gameplay. In theory, the reason he's called 'Naked' Snake is because he's presented as a sort of blank slate on which his experiences are inscribed- explaining why he's more reserved than Solid and seems subservient in contrast to the much more assertive Boss. By fighting the Cobra Unit, he's in effect running through the progression of emotions that soldiers experience because of war: The Pain of bullets, The Fear of that pain, The End of life (and perhaps innocence), The Sorrow for the lost and The Fury of the helplessness to undo it. By 'defeating' these emotions, Naked Snake is able to prove himself and grow as a soldier and inherit the title of Big Boss. (and thus i remember that i drank the MGS Kool-Aid for far too long.)

Of course, those ideas are surrounded by a Russian triple agent gunslinger that meows for backup, an engineer designing a walking tank with a fly pair of shoes, a wheelchair-bound man in a coma with a pet parrot, a disfigured man that shoots bees, a psychotic cosmonaut, a billionaire general in an electric suit that says native american rain chants and... actually, i need to stop there for my own sanity.