Architecture

But I need that buck to pay my rent. Can't live in squalor.

I think there's something to be said about the increasing verisimilitude of games and their potential residual effects on players at large. There's been a lot of pushback against Mortal Kombat X, and I agree--the increased fidelity has brought what was once a cartoony, obviously fantastical game too close to reality. As someone who readily plays competitive online shooters, I wholeheartedly believe that Call of Duty is probably detrimental to kids under a certain age. I recently finished Batman: Arkham Origins. The game tasks you with beating the snot out of dozens of police officers, and only vaguely hints at their corruptness as justification. But it's nearly impossible to understand why that bugs me more than murdering law enforcement in GTA.

I think I bought the first two issues of Suicide Squad...not so good. In fact, the moment where The Wall comes to recruit Deathstroke from Black Gate in Arkham Origins was way more exciting than any of those New 52 issues.

This was definitely my personal Game of Show. Like, not even close. Danny O'Dwyer over at Gamespot intimated that they'll have a sizable video feature up in a few weeks on this week's Bombcast.

I don't know why, but for some reason this game bugs me where something more insidious like Payday 2 does not. Maybe I'm giving Payday 2 a pass because I actually enjoyed playing it whereas Hardline is just a goddamn mess.

I remember buying this game the week it came out because Gamespot rated it a 9.2. I took it home, plunked it in my Xbox and proceeded to have my mind blown. If I could play this on a Duke controller, I would.

I think Wolfenstein demolished everyone's expectations. I have this sneaking feeling is going to be one of my favorite games of the year. The only game I bought during the whole GOG sale was Chronicles of Riddick. I'm so excited to play that game again. Michael Fucking Rooker is in that game.

Wolfenstein for like $40, pretty please? Unrealistic, I know. But a boy can dream.

There's a way to dark spawn which is great, because you're not at a disadvantage if you're the last to join a game. Honestly, I took a look at the RT map and said, "fuck this," because all the corners were taken. I realize that a corner is by no means an assurance of victory, but there's such an advantage of not being in the middle of the galaxy that it turned me off enough to not jump in. I get the same anxiety from this game that I get from board games and for some reason, it's so much worse than even the most competitive video games.

Sounds cool, I will definitely give the game a looksee when it becomes affordable.

It's really sad to see a great game die off like this, but I'm part of the problem (though I did play a handful of rounds over the weekend!). I gave the game a solid 50+ hours of my life, so I definitely got my money's worth.

No price drop? NFC figurines make sense, but doubling down on your quirkiness isn't likely to help you win back the portion of the audience that, you know, buys systems.

I don't know how many times I need to phrase this in this thread, so let me go ahead and make this about as clear as I possibly can: I fully expect for Ubisoft's attempt to explore deeper, more complex themes to fall flat on its face. The company has a history of unintentionally injecting its games with tone-deaf imagery and content.

Holy shit, why are you doing this? What do you get out of being a tremendous turd? Boycott the game, boycott Ubisoft, boycott video games. But for the love of God, stop making things up to support your fragile argument based on a postage stamp-sized frame pulled from a Youtube clip.

Like you're about to drag this thread into another unnecessary, argument based on erroneous speculation. Will you still shake your head and say, "nuh uh!" in five months when the game's release conclusively proves the player character is not, in fact, white?

Remember how well that played out five pages back? Everything so far has lined up with the leaked details. In the Sony briefing, it was confirmed that the player's name is Ajay Ghale. Here's the text that was pulled from Uplay:

Oh my god, he is not white. Just because he's American doesn't mean he's white.

It was buried at the end of the Ubisoft conference. That game must be at least a year out, maybe two. Nothing will ever be as good as Rainbow Six 3 was, however. Nothing.

A game doesn't have to play like HALO to separate body movement and head movement from one another. Gone Home, for instance, will almost certainly feature dual-stick controls when it lands on PS4, but I don't think any of us would accuse it of being a bombastic, HALO-like experience. They could have even preserved the lock-on mechanic and still enabled the C-stick to move Samus's head. Hell, Call of Duty's aiming down sights mechanic essentially works the same way, except that the lock-on is less perceptible.

"Remember Vib Ribbon? Well here's Mortal Kombat 10" will go down in history as one of the all-time classic E3 stage blunders.

I've only been through the Deathstroke fight in Origins, but I thought it was a nifty and cinematic way to have you fight a villain of equal skill. I also enjoyed the bosses in Arkham City, especially the halluncinatory R'as Al Ghoul and Clayface encounters.

I definitely have had to readjust my fingers coming back to this game. I think the biggest error is the inability to fine-aim and move at the same time. It makes acquiring certain lock-ons a tad more difficult and frustrating than is ideal. Still, the overall design of Metroid Prime jazzes me to the point that I overlook some of the cumbersome control choices Retro made.

JonCole: awful opinion or awfulest opinion?

Batman: Arkham Knight is the Citizen Bob Kane of video games.

Adam Boyes basically insinuated that Sony was responsible for getting Disney to sign off on the project. Perhaps we'll see more Lucasarts revivals.