The fact that it does not pause when you hit the home button is terrible!!!!
The game was designed to be played in an always online capacity. Freezing time / pausing wouldn't really be possible when connected with other people. Imagine if you invaded someone and they could freeze the entire simulation by hitting the home button. That would really suck. I can understand why it's frustrating when playing in offline mode, but I can understand why the devs would want to preserve consistency.
You can, however, quit out of the game. It autosaves incredibly frequently, and quitting out will always preserve your progress.
@dachopper: I am very secure in my tastes, and I think my post was a pretty reasonable explanation of a positive opinion. Aren't we all here to discuss video games?
@49th: Yeah, the game's healing system points to the fact that it wants you to explore. So long as you play methodically, you will always be able to replenish your health and continue on.
Ben's experience shouldn't be disheartening, it should teach him a valuable lesson: spend your money or put it in the bank. But money is an unlimited resource, and losing a good amount of it won't set you back as much as you think.
I think HK controls more tightly than Super Metroid. Air controls in SM are very clumsy, and horizontal hops are imprecise. SM is a great game, but I think the devs intended the movement to feel like you were in an unwieldy suit rather than hyper dextrous space ninja.
Also on movement, HK has the same cloud step as The Messanger that everyone enjoys so much. Once you unlock them, the dash and double jump recharge when you attack an enemy or hazard in mid air. This makes the combat much more bouncy and aeriel as you progress through the game. The optional combat arenas in particular become super kinetic as you fight waves of flying enemies without any ground to land on.
@depecheload: It's one of my favorite games of all time and I'm perplexed as to how it's reception on this site continues to be negative. Joseph Anderson's review on YouTube sums up my feelings on it if you're curious, but I disagree you with on feel and shitty mechanics. The game is super responsive (you immediately accelerate to full speed when you move) and you end up with a lot of movement options and meaningful choices as to how to approach certain encounters. The death mechanic adds stakes and tension, and the map mechanic forces you to actually pay attention to where you've been and rewards you for playing mindfully. It also makes the exploration aspect more rewarding; I loved the feeling of being off the map in a new, dangerous place. When you finally find the map maker, you get a nice jolt of relief.
Also, Ben: there is an NPC in the town that will retreive your shade and your money for a rancid egg if you find yourself in that situation again. You can open his door with a simple key.
Total Recall is 100% intentionally ambiguous. The movie goes out of its way to remind viewers that he might just be experiencing a simulation midway through it (a notion that Arnold rejects), and literally every single plot point that the Total Recall salesman tells him about the package ends up happening. Plus the fade to white at the end as they discuss the prospect that everything that happened might not be real.
On the other hand, implanting in someone's memory that they murdered hundreds of people (including their wife!) and successfully teraformed Mars probably isn't the most ethical business model and would cause significant cognitive dissonence in your daily life.. But then again, people in the movie do refer to the Total Recall Co. as a bunch of brain butchers, so who knows!
I appreciated Three Billboards, though it was a very strange movie to watch. It felt like an homage to Flannery O'Connor; it wears this fact on its sleeve when one of the characters is shown reading "A Good Man is Hard to Find." It explores many of the same themes that O'Connor's works do, including the casual hypocrisy that most of us are capable of, and it casts an unflattering light on those in power. The move works as a satire of the revenge flick, and illustrates the problematic conclusions that blood lust brings us to (rewatch the scene where Frances McDormand's character advocates stripping everyone of their basic rights in order to catch every criminal).
It's strange to watch because many of the plot points just don't make sense and feel unrealistic. Either you roll with these moments because the whole movie feels over the top and surreal, or you reject them and it ruins your suspension of disbelief.
Dan's assertion that he liked it because it was a bad ass revenge movie kind of misses it's entire point. All of the main characters are disgusting in their own ways, and when they hit the road at the end to commit an unjustified atrocity, their chance for redemption goes out the window.
I'm curious to hear why Abby hated it so thoroughly. I don't think it's fair to call a movie racist because it has shitty characters that do racist shit. In fact, the movie portrays minorities being fucked over by those in positions of power simply because they are minorities. I don't think it casts these motions in a positive light, nor does it cast the racist characters in a positive light.
The secret to this game is that it's actually a big ol' grind-fest. This becomes more and more apparent as you keep going through NG+ cycles. Locking the castle is really handy when you are trying to beat a specific boss. Teleporting there with full health is nice.
Hokage is a really good class early in the game (i.e. on your first playthrough), but as you progress through NG+ cycles you want to dump points into crit damage and crit chance and then play as Assassin. His DPS becomes insane.
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