~Shockwave~

That simultaneous landing was one of the best things I've ever seen! And all the buzz surrounding it is great as it has me excited for what it could bring. But just an FYI, the car isn't going to mars, it's going into orbit, and if everything goes to plan it'll be there for a long, long time, which is kinda cool.

I just wanted to let you know that you misspelled Wind Waker. That is all.

This has been the trend for a while, and while it's a bit disheartening, smaller developers have been filling these gaps and I have no doubt that will continue. But AAA companies want money. Even single player games are getting loot boxes now, and that creates more than a bit of a problem. But there are other options, some games where mentioned above but they where all bigger titles, and they all look like or are very great games. But they aren't the only options. Heckblade looks really good and I've wanted to play it for a while now, but I've got a lot on my plate currently. Supergiant released Pyre a few months ago and it's an amazing game. Lots of smaller devs are getting a significant amount of attention when releasing games on the Switch, since the larger budget AAA publishers seem mostly indifferent to it. Yeah, the AAA market loves the uncapped revenue loot boxes paired with multiplayer games bring, and that's a shame, but if we want this to stop we need to support the ones that are doing things we like.

See, I thought the same thing...

So, I was going to be done here but I found an article talking about a Japanese FMA movie, with an all Japanese cast. One thing I had not considered is that it takes place in Germany. It's been a while since I've seen the Anime and I made the mistake of thinking that since it was Japanese in origin it had a Japanese setting/characters. So I think that's something to consider as well.

I wouldn't, no. But if it where an american made movie, that's probably what would happen. But I think that has to do with white being painted as the default, as if it's colorless. Similar to vanilla being a neutral flavor, or an original version of something, despite the fact that it really isn't. and due to that, it's nosedived as a much safer option, as the character tends to be put under less of a microscope. The problem is, from what I can tell, and I might be wrong, that Hollywood needs to make money. Since that's the case, risk taking can be a bad idea (in their view). GitS isn't amazingly popular here in the states, But ScarJo is. They where basically selling the public a ScarJo movie that happened to be Ghost in the Shell. But, unfortunately, since the movie bombed, it's probably going to be assumed that the general public has no interest in GitS. And I've had a few of my friends defend the movie, and they obviously only like it because it has ScarJo in it. Which is probably why this sort of thing happens, They also assume the Dubs of GitS are awful, despite not having seen them. Just so you know what I'm dealing with here.

Yeah, I'd have to say, if they had cast a white main actor in virtually any other anime movie (That i'm actually interested in enough to notice, as I don't follow the film industry) I'd probably have an issue with it. In their defense though, in the original movie, Major had black hair and blue eyes, which from what I could tell is pretty rare, but not unheard of, but I think that's where most of the debate over her ethnicity comes from. Though most other appearances give her purple hair and I want to say red eyes but that might not be correct. Last time I checked those where pretty uncommon so make of that what you will. I actually like discussing things like this, as most people I know either don't care or get *really* offended on subjects like these so I avoid them usually. But it's nice to get different perspectives on stuff like this.

I just think that it's not really made clear enough that she is Japanese, or rather is supposed to look Japanese. Ultimately, had a Japanese actor been cast, I would have no issue with it, as I feel it's not made clear and ultimately makes no difference to the story, due to it's nature and The Major's Character. Though, I would not have Picked ScarJo to play her, but that's probably personal preference. And I imagine she was picked to get the movie on your average persons radar, as I doubt the franchise is that popular in the states, Which I suppose is probably an issue in of itself. GitS is anything *but* cut and dry, and part of the reason why I like it.

I'm all for diversity and think it leads to more interesting characters and settings, but I take issue with most of the discussion surrounding the new GitS movie. Your argument is that because the story is Japanese, so is the Major, but that's never made clear in any of the previous shows or movies (to my knowledge, though I'm not as familiar with the Arise part of the franchise). The Major's body is almost completely artificial, and switched out several times(in SAC), her name was made up by her, so even if she is Japanese, that has no bearing on her in any part of the series or movies. Focusing on that is missing the point of character and the series at a whole. Now, I'll admit, I'm not a fan of the new movie, as it seems to completely ignore the point of Ghost in the Shell and Americanized the plot and themes beyond all recognition, it's like a generic action movie with pretty good visuals. Which is far more tragic in my opinion. Contrast that with A:tLA, in which the interactions of the cultures is the focus of the series. Changing that changes the entire tone of the series. That being said, had they gotten that right I doubt the movie would have improved in quality.

Was it? I couldn't find it...

Alright, it looks like I newed the 4 digit code too, or you can add me: Stardagger#11277.

I used to play her quite a bit, she was a ton of fun. She's also really fun to support as an Ana. You mind if I shoot you a friend request? I wouldn't mind another person to team up with. The solo q is trying to eat me alive.

I get the feeling you like D.Va a bit.

Grandma is best healer and anybody who says otherwise is probably a Genji main.

I still play if you want people to play with! The game is definitely better when you group up.

10/10, will be emotionally gutting myself again when work slows down.

I have a friend who's been going on and on about this on facebook, going as far as to say that he won't be bothered by missing the *last few* seasons of DW. which is a pretty bold (arrogant even) statement. And honestly, lets be realistic here, if the series has is still going, this probably isn't going to kill it. This is far from the worst thing that has happened to the series, if we assume it *is* a bad decision, which I don't agree with. I'll be completely honest, I don't know enough about the new actress to make an informed decision, but I've heard there are new writers, which i might actually tune in for, as the recent writing has turned me off.

So, does anybody play this game on PC? My origins friend list is completely empty, so someone else to play with would be nice. It might at least be better than getting ground to dust alone.

Just now actually, I've taken a look at it, lots to go over, as you probably know. Though I took a specific interest in this part: "When gamer magazines want to describe the experience of gameplay, they are more likely to reproduce maps of the game world than to recount their narratives.(9)" It's accompanied by what appeared to be a source but it was just an explanation. But that probably has do do with explaining how the game plays more than anything else, also, if a magazine goes a even a bit too far on describing a games story, people may not appreciate that. It's all very interesting though, and it's one of the reasons I like games more than I like more static forms of storytelling, there's a lot to analyze on how we interact with it, rather than just how we intemperate or perceive it. I'll take a closer look at the article soon and see what more I can get from it.

Ah, ok, may have just missed your point a bit. It happens.

But we have games that are open and give you tons of freedom, the trade-off is that the story has to suffer, because it's hard to tell a compelling story when the player can do whatever they want. Those games usually have their story in the form of lore and it's discoverable, but not interactive in any way. In order to tell a compelling story, it needs to have a logical progression via cause and effect. Without that, it becomes extremely hard to tell any form of story outside of lore based history lesson type of things. So, basically, the more drastically you can influence the world around you, the less you can interact directly with the story. But this isn't something that needs to be fixed, there's nothing wrong with using side missions to flesh out the world around you. Saying they're useless or broken because they can't influence the main story (in that game at least) is kind of short sighted, as there's much to gain from being able to interact with a somewhat interactive world, but being able to fully control it will makes a compelling story nearly impossible. You see what I'm trying to say? I guess it was my fault for using such a niche game as my main point, but it's the best argument for my point that I have.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree. admittedly, my experience with side quests come from different games than the ones mentioned here (Namely the NieR games and the Xeno series, as well as a few others.), which could be why. Side quests can be used for many things, some of them are extremely important. in Nier: Automata, after a certain point in the game, you can converse with a machine called Engels, while, no, he doesn't give you any story information, at least not directly, it was a character that was previously trying to kill you, so that's a pretty interesting conversation. You can also go and murder a bunch of pacifists if you so choose. No, they don't fight back, and yes, that's extremely important later. Not quite a side mission, but there is an achievement for it. There are some other brilliant side stuff that does many things in NieR: Automata, but it drifts heavily int spoiler territory, so I won't go any further. (Sorry, I've been playing this game a lot so it's very fresh and easy to pull stuff from.) I take issue with this mindset in particular. I know in the first 3 Mass Effect games you can create your own character, so maybe it's more of an issue there, but I think it's important to separate the character from yourself. If the character doesn't have agency of there own, there's not much productive they can do with a narrative game. It can't possibly account for everything, and that's okay. When I play Xenoblade Chronicles, I'm viewing the world through Shulks eyes, so Shulk is the main character, not me. He's the one who ends up putting the plot in motion, I'm simply along for the ride, same For NieR and it's androids, and Xenosaga and Shion and the gang. And that's okay. I would argue that this isn't a problem, but just how the stories we tell work. How are we supposed to tell a story when the main character can just suddenly behave in any random number of ways for no conceivable reason? Well, I suppose we can, but those stories look less like the thought provoking NieR games and more like Minecraft and Terraria. I would argue trying to force player agency where it has no place is worse.

I'm currently looking into buying/ helping buy a house, because that'll end up being cheaper. Somehow. You have my condolences.