McDayman

If they told you midnight, it's likely that they're having a midnight launch, in which case they open their doors at 12am may 27th. You can also pick it up anytime after that during regular store hours on the 27th, but I'm sure they won't let you get it early on the 26th.

This. And also, while it's silly to imply that all of these crucial characters to the plot happened to record their thoughts in convenient 90 second blurps and scattered them about in places where the player character finds them most convenient, it at least tells the story inside the gameplay, without interruption to moving forward, which is what games like Bioshock and Dishonored put focus on. Movies have the luxury of cutting between scenes to show multiple characters and their interactions to pace the story telling. With games, your audience is generally stuck controlling one character in a linear fashion and you need a way to dole out information periodically in a way that makes "some" sense. Thinking about it, though, I wouldn't mind seeing more games try to use an outside narrator.

Also, cheaper than cutscenes.

I have long known that my creative abilities are limited to literary and digital spaces. However, I have been wishing lately that I had certain custom made pieces. Mainly I'd like a couch laptop stand, a desk that can be horizontal or slanted, an entertainment center build to house a desktop tower along with multiple consoles: wood-working things like that. Alas, unless I figure out a way to build these things out of words or code, I'm stuck buyin' stuff.

It's been a while since I've played the game, but watching the Quick Look where Vinny fought it reminded me of that fight.

A good strategy is to go into it with all your aeon's overdrive meters filled. At the start of the fight, summon an aeon and overdrive. This will kill off the arms, leaving the rest open for attack. Attack the head until Gui knocks out your aeon, then keep attacking the head with Wakka and Lulu until the arms respawn.

Summon your next aeon and repeat. Once the head is down, just keep killing the arms (if Auron is a decent level, he may be able to do it in one swipe (probably a good idea to Haste on him too), then unleash your most powerful attacks and character overdrives on the body. Keep everyone healed, kill the arms as quickly as possible whenever they respawn, and you should be able to whittle it down.

I would play a game as Kyle Katarn seeking intergalactic fortune and getting caught up in a compelling love triangle.

Your argument is severely lacking in substance, dude. Each point is basically of the form, "X is a thing and it's killing Y about video games." I'm going to agree with others that you've been reading too much sensational gaming press articles to the point that you're now composing your own. I would suggest stepping back and trying to write a compelling argument for one or more of these claims. You may just find that actually thinking about it proves the point to be a mere puff of hot air.

$81.45 million. It's getting nice out, people will go to the movies.

The Rift does seem cool, but honestly, my initial reaction to hearing the news was "2 billion dollars? Really? There's no way this thing, with no guaranteed content, is worth that much." Seeing that the majority of the payout is in "funny money" it makes a little more sense now.

Reading these comments:

I guess if we're looking to raise up auteurs within the gaming industry, we have to villainize them as well.

There seems to be a lot of "Blame Ken Levine" sentiment around this when we don't exactly know the whole circumstances (not that I'm surprised, per se). Was it really entirely up to him to shut down the studio? I would guess not.

It sounds like it's Ken's decision to leave, sure, but I expect either no one was willing to take control of the studio or 2K decided Irrational Games without Ken Levine was not something they're looking to maintain at the moment. I mean, 2K does own Irrational. It is ultimately their call whether to keep the doors open or not.

Either way, I doubt they're done making Bioshock games, so hopefully a large chunk of the Irrational team will be soaked up into another studio for the next one.