stubbleman

Well, for one there's the fact that Bayonetta and Jeanne are both so innately likeable and cool. They're badasses who actually do badass things that are worth getting excited about and they're both smart asses who love to talk shit. So they both end up feeling like female equivalents of, like, RE4 Leon or even Agent York or something. They are completely on top of any situation, to the point of utter nonchalance through any kind of predicament. And that's just good character writing when you do it right, which they did with Bayonetta. You end up with these two characters who you can't help but sort of look up to because they're just so cool.

I think what makes the fan service feel so not shitty is the fact that it feels natural. Like, the problem with most fan service is that it feels so naked and tacked on. For one, there's the fact that everything Bayonetta does feels very much in her personality to do. And secondly, the fan service doesn't really get at anything. There's some titillation there, but not much. To be honest, there's really more fan service in the sense of seeing the cool character do the badass shit than there is of hot character doing the sexy shit. And the two mostly both happen at the same time too. So you're usually too busy getting all hyped up for how bad you just beat that boss' ass with your perfect umbran witch time climax ultra shot bullshit and getting all excited about her her punching the fucker's shit in in the cutscene than you are about catching a little flash of under boob while she summons that giant hair owl that's going to fly down and rip his fucking head off if you mash on the X button hard enough. That's just my two cents on the subject.

@darji: Yakuza of the End was a rad game. I don't know what game you were playing...

I definitely wouldn't recommend the anime. Like the quality of the art seems really weak for Studio I.G and it just looks like trash compared to the games in my opinion. But that's just different strokes for different folks. I know there's plenty of places you can watch it like netflix and youtube and form your own opinion on it. So you've go that going for you.

And if you are interested in Way of the Samurai, then four is definitely cool and weird and dumb and I'd definitely recommend it if it wasn't as expensive as it is. Way of the Samurai 2 is still my personal favorite, though I know a lot of people default to 1. It's one of those series that doesn't necessarily have a best entry. Acquire is also known for making the Tenchu series on top of the Way of the Samurai series. And while that's more ninjas than samurais, they definitely evoke the setting and time period really well. Then there's the Shinobido series, which is also Acquire. It's more focused on the ninja stuff than the samurai stuff, but it's got some of the more open ended trappings of the Way of the Samurai games in there on top of the stealth Tenchu stuff.

Well, there is always Sengoku Basara and the Samurai Warriors games. Your mileage may vary I guess, but Sengoku Basara 3 is one of my favorite games of this generation. There is, of course, Total War: Shogun 2. Then there's the Genji games, which are basically like a poor man's Onimusha. And then let's not forget about Muramasa, which is probably the most obvious recommendation on this list. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I left out some since you seemed pretty luke-warm on the Way of the Samurai series.

This is blog of the year material right here.

RE6 has really great gameplay, especially once you start digging into the melee combat. You're best off just flipping a coin between Fallout 3 and New Vegas because they're both pretty great, but sort of in different ways. So either way you're kinda missing out. Ninja Blade is just kinda boring, so I can't really recommend that one in good conscious. And I would urge you to reconsider Raccoon City unless you've got a group of friends who are willing to buy it and play it with you online. I mean, the game has all the parts to make for a really decent game. But it's problems are so fundamental and endemic to the gameplay that it's really hard to enjoy it unless you've got a group of two to four people working together to overcome the gameplay shittiness. So definitely just skip that one unless you've got some friends to play it with you.

Rival Schools

I don't really have any theories. Though the trailer for episode 2 is really playing up the Ichabod being a giant shitbag angle pretty hard. So that's either going to prove your theory or be a really big red herring for episode 2. I can't say which is more likely though.

I will say that it really looks like Tell Tale took a lot of notes on Walking Dead though. One of the opinions I keep seeing about Walking Dead season 1 is that the first episode is just kinda there and gets everything situated but doesn't really offer a whole lot. Whereas with this episode, I feel like they really throw you right into it and don't mess around much with establishing things. That could just be them being more experienced going into this story though.

It makes sense for the same reason I never really want to play the RE1 remake, even though it looks amazing. If I'm going to play RE1, I want to hear Barry sound like the dumbest person ever to speak into a microphone. I want the version with the awesome live action intro with the sick assed bass guitar background music. In the same way, if I'm going to play Code Veronica, and honestly, I'd probably rather play the Darkside Chronicles version of Code Veronica because the original is pretty garbage. But if I'm going to play Code Veronica, I'm going to want the version with the dumb version of Steve in it.

It's wild how many people are just now finding out about this. It was actually in the original version too, and there's a bunch of places where you can see him, though I'm not sure if his showing up is randomized like the voiceover bits. For example, I'm pretty sure he shows up at the top of the stairs in the lighthouse at the beginning sometimes. But yeah. It's pretty cool. Like it really gives the game this super creepy vibe when you think about how there's this shadowy figure who might show up around every corner. Especially when you figure in that creepy music that starts playing from time to time. I don't actually know what it's supposed to symbolize, since the story sort of means different things depending on how the voiceover plays itself out and whatnot. I kinda got the vibe that it was the narrator himself. But like I say, it's kinda hard to say.