Argobot

Well now I have the theme song in my head, so here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZpiTjG1toY How about everyone just watch Pepper Ann instead of Game Shop?

I really hope it isn't. What I expected from the new episodes was a season 3 type of vibe: a sitcom that had clearly run its course with only a few stellar moments in an otherwise mediocre run. I never expected the new episodes to live up to the absolutely superb seasons 1 and 2 of the show, but I expected them to be decent. So far the first few episodes have been really difficult to watch and I haven't laughed at all.

Pepper Ann is a wise woman.

Yeah, I feel the same way. The first episode was just so off-putting; not just because it was focused on a single character, the entire tone felt wrong. Everything is meaner; the characters are meaner, the jokes are meaner. I managed to slog through the first two episodes, got through about half of the third one, and have no real motivation to continue. I keep hearing people say that it gets better around the fifth episode, but I'm not sure I'm willing to give this show the benefit of the doubt and keep watching. I'm sure eventually I'll watch all the episodes, but my enthusiasm was be extremely tempered by what I've seen so far.

Yeah, it'd be pretty cool if we could shut that kind of 'joke' into the sun and never hear it again.

I have this and absolutely love it. There are two versions of each movie: the theatrical release and the director's cut or special edition. The bonus features are also pretty great; some good interviews with Sigourney Weaver and Ridley Scott. You should get it if it's on sale.

Hmm, I see what you're saying, but do a significant number of people buy physical copies of games with the idea to eventually resell that same game? I certainly don't, but my perspective is completed skewed since I haven't bought a physical copy of a game in years.

This whole article is a direct response to the PAR post, but I wanted to specifically highlight this passage, since it points out why getting rid of used games won't lower the overall cost of new games: http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/14918/article/why-preventing-used-game-sales-is-bad-and-why-you-should-feel-bad/

Books are passive because all you do is sit, TV/movies are passive because all you do is sit, but games are active because you sit and occasionally push a button.

Yikes, those comments are really unfortunate. I think a convincing argument can be made for how gaming has become worse for low-income players, at least in the AAA-sphere.

Oh man, that would be the most depressing thread in the world.

I'll admit that the sight of Giancarlo Esposito made me super happy.

I've typed and deleted a response to this discussion so many times today, but I feel a really strong (selfish) need to add something, so apologies for coming in on the tail end of this. When discussions revolving around sexism/misogyny/whatever come up, the conversation gets to a personal place really quickly, because those issues are inherently personal. My definition of what offends me is different from someone else's, because those definitions are based off a set of unique lived experiences. When I say "this game makes me feel uncomfortable," I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect people to listen and understand where I'm coming from. I think there's a huge difference between someone not feeling the same kind of discomfort as me, and someone actively disagreeing with my right to feel uncomfortable or trying to diminish my discomfort with excuses or justifications, which is hard for me not to take personally. Because this topic is incredibly personal for me. We can argue to death what is sexist and what isn't, but at the end of the day, unless you experience this kind of stuff on a daily basis (just the other day when I was outside jogging, some dude mimed bouncing breasts at me from his car and then laughed, because haha, breasts are funny!) it's kind of hard to truly understand why people have such an emotional stake in these conversations. But in the future, I'm going to do my best to separate my personal investment from this types of conversations, because getting into roundabout forum discussions is probably never going to convince anyone of anything. Just like I'm asking for others to empathize with my circumstances in relation to these issues, I too should empathize with the fact that not everyone feels the same way as I do and that doesn't make them 'wrong' it just makes them human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. Anyway, that's all. See everyone again when the next FemFreq video gets released.

Hmm, fair enough. I'll be interested to see what my thoughts are when (if?) I eventually play this game. I would assume that the Nazis are elevated beyond their traditional role of "super evil dudes" in large part because the present day politics that Russia is dealing with. Neo-Nazism represents a strong political force in the country and Putin himself has been associated with groups that have ties to Russian supremacy movements, so it doesn't surprise me that this game would in some way reference these present day Russian issues. (I guess what I'm saying here is, more games that allow me to make use of my college degree, please.)

The Last Light discussion makes me really want to play the game, if just to see the concentration camp part that Jake is referring to. It's kind of incredible to think that a Russian game might handle the subject of Nazism and race with defter hands than an American game dealing with a similar subject, but maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. Russians are certainly in a unique place for knowing how to portray labor/prison camps in truly understated but brutal way. I'd also like to add my voice to the 'play this game in Russian' crowd, because that's how I played Metro 2033 and it really heightened my enjoyment of that game. I had the Russian VO with the English subtitles, and I really enjoyed seeing what the difference in translation was or just seeing which words they chose to not translate from Russian into English. Given that so many games in this genre are made with a specifically American or generically international audience in mind, it's fun that there's a game that is not afraid to stay so culturally focused in one specific region, even if the majority of the players might not recognize or understand any of those cultural touchstones.

http://geoguessr.com/ I saw Darius Kazemi describe this game as "what 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' must have been like before the Internet." It's such a simple idea (guess which part of the world the picture was taken) but it's completely captivating. See how good you are at guessing geographical locations based on very limited clues. Also, when in doubt, always pick Australia or Nova Scotia.

Yeah, this is what I find to be really frustrating. I get that Microsoft is trying to appeal to people outside of video game players, but they're doing it in a way that doesn't make any sense. Non-game players won't want the Xbox One for all the reasons you list (price probably being the biggest issue) and game players don't really care about all the entertainment features. I'm just confused who Microsoft thinks they're marketing this to. Also, I think it's pretty telling that there was zero mention of indie games during the Microsoft presser. That lack of indie inclusion, I find, is more damning of the next Xbox than the weird focus on live TV.

Xbox One Not Backwards Compatible with Xbox 360 Games

Serious question as I'm at work and can only glance at the Stream and Twitter: have they shown any games at all?

The metric system is so confusing.

I'd say that the laughter (whether it's with the boobs or against them) is what really bothers about this character design and others like it. It's like when an overweight person is portrayed in animation: their weight is usually meant to be comical, and the audience's reaction to the overweight person's body is generally 'haha, look at fatty.' Now most intelligent, compassionate people can separate the animated from reality and won't go around laughing at overweight people in the real world, but a lot of people can't do that. Overweight bodies have become a cultural shorthand for humor, and bigger breasts have been given the same meaning. And there are real women with larger cup sizes that are watching these animations and seeing everyone laughing at the 'balloon tits' and it's insulting. None of these body shapes exist in a vacuum; they exist in a culture where many, many people assume certain things about other people's bodies (fat = funny or lazy, large breasts = funny or slutty, etc.) and to ignore that when discussing things like Dragon's Crown is unfair. I wish that if a character is designed with big breasts that the breasts wouldn't become a joke; I wish they could just be present and not have any one comment or offer what their opinion of said breasts are. But that's not the society we live in, and until boobs can just be boobs, I'm always going to be bothered by things like Dragon's Crown.

I think all the suggestions you came up with are pretty good alternatives, if they whole point of the design is exaggeration of the human body. But, the idea that gender-specific characteristics for men is muscles and for women it's breasts is kind of the whole reason I'm bothered by this design. (Not trying to say that designing a character with big breasts automatically makes you wrong or a sexist. I just really feel uncomfortable with this specific design in this specific instance.)

Haha, that would be me.

That right there is why I'm bothered by this design. The fact that someone thought "how do I a draw a cartoonish woman? BOOBS." It's reductive and objectifying and gross. And the fact that this stuff is every where does not mean that we should just roll our eyes at how dumb it is and move on.

Follow up to the Merida from Brave redesign: Disney has apparently cancelled it http://www.avclub.com/articles/disney-quietly-nixes-its-gussied-up-version-of-mer,97793/