LifeasClarity

@monkeyman04: very Nolan of them!

So I've made three so far. I'm embarrassed and/or kind of proud of them (the first two are phone pics because I was lazy and they're gone now):

As a trans* woman I usually prefer and feel most comfortable sitting down. But every once in a great while, when I feel like giving the middle finger to gender norms, I go wide open with a smile on my face.

@docporpoise: @fakekisser: Back in early May when GB announced they were hiring Cara tweeted this at Brad:

I think she's perfect for GB. She is comfortable on a camera, she's funny, and she's got a unique (gonzo-esque) writing style that would add to the diversity of text articles on GB without overlapping with anyone on the crew. Her awesome Just Dance article for Paste comes to mind, in particular.

Reality TV functions on the notion that everyone wants to be a star and that a room full of prospective stars inevitably breeds conflict as they vie for top billing.

But everyone doesn't want to be a star. And those that have little interest in stardom won't fight their colleagues for it or be subjected to degradation and insult for a chance to be seen.

Plenty of people just want to find or create something of meaning. Filling a room full of those kinds people (my favorite kind of people, incidentally) and trying to manufacture drama, it turns out, is a good way to lose $400,000.

@humanity:

I'd definitely challenge your statements about how often you see or hear from/about Ryan. Between audiologs, the intercom messages, and the occasional projector video you hear quite a lot from Ryan, and a lot from others about interacting with him. In this respect your degree of exposure to both Comstock and Ryan is about the same, and you are exposed to them in much the same way. But it's not a matter of quantity for me, it's a matter of whether or not it's compelling. Caricaturish and singularly racist individuals absolutely exist, but they rarely make compelling characters. And for me Comstock is just a boring character.

If you found Ryan similarly hollow, I guess I can see that. But for me I am far more fascinated by Ryan's character, the way his own impulses and emotions subtly undermined his objectivist utopia (his treatment of Cohen, his affair, etc.), the way he was too proud to save his dream, and the way he chose to die as an ultimate example of his philosophy before no audience but himself and his puppet. I should say I don't care for Bioshock's plot twist any more than I care for Infinite's (though as metacommentary I guess Bioshock's is nominally more interesting, if that's your kind of thing).

You kind of make the argument that Ryan isn't much of a villain in the classic sense--in particular he doesn't really aggressively oppose the protagonist. This is a good point, and perhaps that's part of why I like him. He's simply a character. He doesn't have to be the big bad, and he's defined predominately by who he is, rather than his opposition to you. Furthermore, his laissez faire approach to you and your toiling--and initially to Fontaine's uprising--is utterly in keeping with his objectivist principle, which again is his undoing. Ultimately, Ryan is done in by Ryan.

I like villains that I have a compelling ethos. I don't think Comstock really has one. He's got fundamentalism and racism, and a sad past that turned him down that path. But it's just hard to really be compelled by his character, at least not in the way I was by Ryan's. I mean either way Levine is not the greatest writer in the world, and your critiques of Ryan definitely have merit. I have a boatload of issues with Bioshock's narrative, too :P

It just seemed the most fair and interesting thing to do to compare Comstock to Ryan since Comstock and Ryan, by Infinite's logic, are quite literally reflections of one another.

@beaudacious, @aetheldod, @humanity:

What undermines the Comstock twist for me is not whether it's predictable, or even if it's justifiable that Booker could have become Comstock, but that Comstock is a boring and drearily flat character. Consider Andrew Ryan. Ryan was a man so dedicated to his ideology that it consumed him and his utopia. Comstock is a super racist zealot. Even as a pretty pulpy villain, Andrew Ryan had nuance and was a compelling character. Just think about that death scene!

On the other hand, Comstock exists mostly as a device to compel the plot forward, which is totally fine--plenty of stories use villains as plot devices to amazing effect--but it leaves the twist feeling flaccid to me because, well, Comstock is not a compelling character. He's barely a character at all. In an alternate universe, your character became an ill-defined plot device! I don't really care if it tricked me or not, but I do care if it felt hollow, which to me it utterly did. The Comstock twist was a witty idea without any soul, which is honestly how a lot of Bioshock: Infinite felt to me (with a few very worthwhile exceptions!).

@Luthorcrow: "(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." -George Orwell (Politics and the English Language, 1946)

By all means, troll as much as you want, but please leave Orwell out of it. He deserves far better than misrepresentation for the sake of bland, ineffectual snark.

A lot of videogame journalism is terrible. Really terrible. And the more I pay attention to the industry the more I find myself blaming video game fans more than anyone else. So many of us continue to treat games as nothing but consumer products. In a film review, cultural critique is expected. Reflection on the state of the industry, the trends, and consideration of the elements of design is what has kept Ebert and others like him employed and so well respected (despite his dismissive comments about games).

But with games culture these approaches seem like an aberration. Plenty of games journalists are out there, wanting to see game culture grow, using reviews as tools of analysis as well as guides for purchase. GB, RPS, and a few others really do try, but I don’t really see an opportunity for growth or change so long as the majority of fans treat games like expensive toys and not avenues of designer expression, so long as people rush to tear down an intelligent critique.

A rating will only be an objective measure of worth when you are looking at that product as a device/program you need to assess only for functionality (Quicken, cell phones, an electric saw). Maybe that’s fine, but it also means next time someone like Ebert discredits the potential of games we should maybe be a bit more ready to blame ourselves.