PraiseDaSun

Nice review! I wish you well on your journey through videogame history. DKC and their sequels are all great (and one of the best soundtracks of all time! It may not seem as evident as with the graphics, but the sound design was pushing the SNES capabilities big time as well!).

Hope you enjoy SMW too! I played it back in the 90s when I had my SNES and last year we played along with a friend though most of it and our impression was that it seemed like it didn't age a bit. The graphics are still nice to look at and the gameplay is just perfect.

I was always pretty bad at RTS games, but I used to love playing them. I guess I just liked building the base and getting the new units out. I really liked leveling the heroes in Warcraft III, but was never able to defeat anyone. I got a bit better in Starcraft II when someone told me I should try to build more than one barracks early on, but never good enough to be decent. I usually just played the campaigns.

This one is kind of an oldie, but in the original Fallout if you gave an automatic weapon to Ian (or any other companion iirc) he would more often than not shoot a spray of bullets in the general direction of the enemies with no regard if you or other companions where in front of him.

It was as infuriating as it was hilarious really. You just couldn't give him any weapon with a burst mode, he couldn't help going on a shooting spree whenever he had the chance. It was just poor AI design, but I liked to think of it as a personality trait of his. Good times.

Honestly, deciding against buying the game because of the (alleged?) poor working conditions won't really affect anything outside your own conscience. I consider it commendable to stick to your principles.

The sad truth is that these practices are not unheard of far and wide within the industry as a whole. Like other industries before this one, workers need to organize and stand up to demand better working conditions. It's hard and demands sacrifice, but it's really the only way.

I think it's still important to denounce these issues, but I doubt people in general will stop buying the game because of it. But we need to know the amount of work and sacrifice that goes into these games, so if in the future we get the news of the new Assassins's Creed being delayed because a whole studio went on strike over inhumanly long work hours, people will show support instead of sneering and keep scrolling down.

I would like to see more written content other than reviews. It would be cool if there were columns again, like Austin had his weekly thing and the guest columns.

Maybe some of the dudders would like to get back into working their writting chops, like Alex and Brad.