Salacious Snake

My knee-jerk reaction to the one-upmanship, I-knew-about-it-before-it-was-cool, thing is that it's often just an accidental conversational habit born out of feeling the need to add something related to the topic at hand. Like saying, "Oh, you traveled to San Lorenzo? I go there every summer," can arise from groping around for a way to relate to the story, but then of course it comes out sounding like a shitty brag. I try not to do it; it's more interesting to draw out more about the other person's experience of it than to compare notes. As to hipsters, I don't fuckin' know. I live in a rapidly gentrifying area of Brooklyn, I have a beard, and I'm wearing KangaROOS because they're a kitschy reminder of my childhood in the 80s. I'm sorry? I'm not wearing a trucker hat or louvered sunglasses, so am I in the clear? My pants are slim fit with a fairly low waist, but not in legging territory. I do shop at an overpriced "organic" grocery because it's the one closest to my place. I plan on having a dog and a baby by this time next year, which I think are becoming pretty key hipster accessories in my neighborhood. I don't particularly enjoy being lumped into a group via a dismissive shorthand, but many groups of people have been called far worse things, so I guess I don't have too much to complain about. I don't call myself a gamer either, even though I'm way into games (and go to hipstery art game parties with indie bands in illegal speakeasies). I don't know, it all bothers me a bit but I'm not sure why. And now I've just talked about myself a whole bunch, so I'm definitely an asshole, whatever else you may want to call me.

This was going to be my tip. When talking about this series, people often seem to leave out the fact that they were largely horror games, especially the first. Creepy shit.So good.

Prior to this thread (and its counterpart on Something Awful), I wasn't aware of the crummy, dismissive shorthand 'social justice warrior.' The reactionary attitude behind that is disgusting.

That's a bit broad... Immoral acts are committed through communication all the time, such as coercing people into doing things against their own interest, or using deceit to gain an advantage over someone. Do you really believe what you just posted?

Yeah, I can't think of any spots where it breaks. Pretty nifty.

Nope! No pausing. The game doesn't even pause when you look over mission info files or your map or fuck with your inventory. You can trigger a conversation about a particular thing by looking at it with your binoculars and hitting the radio button, but you're always talking to your mission handler. You can also hit it whenever to get a reminder of what you're supposed to be doing.

My position is certainly not that you are a misogynist. I think the pervasiveness of such terms demonstrates an underlying (to borrow a term from Architecture) poisonous element deeply embedded in our culture and language. I believe it's a good thing to think about, and doing so has led to me reevaluating the way I speak.

Ground Zeroes is nothing like 4 in that regard, and I hope that is indicative of what The Phantom Pain will be like. Peace Walker was a major step in the direction of giving you more time playing with your Big Boss action figure and less jibber jabber. In Ground Zeroes, you're able to run around and actually play the game during radio conversations; that alone is a major change from the 'codec' sequences of past games.

Calling a man a bitch is misogyny, because the message is 'you are like a woman,' with the implication that being like a woman is a form of inferiority, because women are understood to be inferior. See also: use of the word gay as a derogatory term. Edit: I'm kinda squirming trying to figure out my feelings on Kaz... It's valid to use all sorts of egregious speech in fiction when you're writing a character who is a jerk, but MGS is so fundamentally stupid that I'm having a hard time defending it as fiction.

I find the city very nice to look at, but it doesn't feel alive at all. People just kinda mill around with no illusion of purpose, and they don't react much to things. The soundscape is also seriously lacking. If you're not being shot at or standing near the monorail, the world is jarringly silent. All the crazy stuff going on would seem so much crazier if it was unfolding in a more 'real' world.

You can skip the cutscenes. On ps4 it's the lower left corner of the touchpad.

Haha! That is a rotten clunker of an episode. Hold onto your butt, 'cause season 3 is one heck of a bumpy ride.

Yeah, I'm glad you at least got to see those. Far Beyond the Stars and In the Pale Moonlight are as good as Trek gets in my opinion.

That was my first instinct as well, just because my shootery play has drifted over to consoles in recent years, but I must say the mouse & keyboard controls feel really good. I've done some funky aerial moves that I don't think I would have pulled off on a pad.

The separation makes my hearing feel weird for hours after listening to an episode. Steve is using a stereo microphone positioned so that each participant is at the extreme of each channel, and the result is very strange, especially with headphones or in the car. It would definitely be worth fading each side aggressively toward the middle, or going mono like TokyoDan suggests. I'm usually a proponent of maintaining separation in order to prevent the destruction of detail, but it's not like people really talk over each other in these interviews, so mono is totally fine. I'm super stoked about Metal Gear all the time, so I'm digging this episode so far. It took a long time and many tries for the Metal Gear series to click with me, but once I developed a taste for it, it took over my brain.

Ha, I just became a Wizard Lord myself and came here to see if it had been mentioned. That RPS preview is what led me to pull the trigger.

Merch!

Our frothing demand for this game increases.

I use the pregame chat box to engage in nonsensical faction-based roleplay. People usually get into it a little. I don't know why, but I find it hilarious.

I wish I could make maps for this game, but I assume it's closed off to that kind of tinkering. The wall-runnin' and mantlin' and robottin' would all be interesting things to have to think about when designing an area. Whatever I made would look like a pile of hot poop, but I'd like to think I could make something fun to play. I'm pretty bummed that this is not a thing I can do.

I think the way they structured the story based 'campaign' is an interesting idea that could be used well, though they sure squandered it on a pile of baloney. I think I remember Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Brink similarly trying to infuse a bit of story (or at least a thin premise) into the action. It's probably an unnecessary gesture, but I'd like to see it done successfully.

I have yet to play the latest version (which added a ton of stuff), but even in its earliest form, it was a great game. If you liked the Maxis classic RoboSport, you'll like this. It's like a less fiddly Frozen Synapse. If anyone wants to friend me, the name is DiaperDawg.

I just played for about 3 hours straight. Yikes! So intense! The mobility of the player really churns my butter; I love how you can hop, skip and zip all over the place.

I like this game so far. It's totally in my face!