Strider Hiryu

I haven't played it but you do get one more weapon in the game but I won't say what it is since I don't want to ruin it for DX if he hasn't gotten that far yet (I've seen the entirety of the game played through on Twitch). Gotta say I've never been interested in the GoW series but after seeing people play through it on Twitch I might just have to pick this up eventually, the story is extremely fucking good and the game play looks awesome.

Oh yeah, you better get hyped because this season looks like shit is going to ramp up exponentially (yea, since I watch subs I already got to watch the first ep on CR). All I have to say is I'm so fucking glad the wait is over (a friend of mine has read the novels and has been spoiling shit for me for years so I'm finally happy to get to watch it).

I finally saw it. I'm not going to go into specifics because there is so much fundamentally wrong with this movie it sickens me (and I finally understand why Mark Hamill had such a problem with how Rian Johnson wrote his character, that wasn't Luke. That was a washed up, pathetic excuse for a man). I can't believe we gave up the EU for this crap. I did, however, find the movie entertaining (an alright movie but abysmal Star Wars). Again Daisy Ridley was a joy to watch on screen and I thought she did a wonderful job as Rey in this film. As much as I hate his character I'm glad we finally got to see some actual development of Kylo's character (even though I will always refer to him as Emo Vader). Seeing Yoda again was a joy and brought a smile to my face. As much as I hate this movie it was wonderful and highly emotional to see Carrie in her last performance (which she killed by the way, one of the high points of the movie for me). Actually Sledge, Luke has one child in the novels (Ben Skywalker, powerful but not as powerful as his cousins Jacen and Jaina Solo) and he actually marries one of the Emporer's Hand (an elite cadre of force sensitive assassins loyal only to Palpatine, her name was Mara Jade). Palpatine actually inhabits six different clones of himself until he's finally killed off in the EU by Luke (after turning to the Dark Side for awhile). As for force ghosts in the old canon they never interacted with the living world except for training and mentoring those strong in the force so that's why we've never seen them exhibit power like Yoda did. Also Force Projection/Doggleganger was used in the old canon by people like Dooku and Luke (books/comics) but this is the first time we've seen it in the films and the new canon so who knows why they made it do this in the film. I could go on but I won't, this takes this topic off topic and I really only wanted to post my thoughts on this film.

You must of forgot about it, the 4th season was announced like 6 or 7 months ago. I definitely can't wait, since Funi has the Simuldub that means Crunchy should have the sub streaming rights.

Meh, flying in Battlefront is pretty much flying on rails. Once you learn that concept it's a breeze to get the hang of it (before I stopped playing Battlefront 1 I was pretty much an ace pilot with the X-Wing and A-Wing, Tie Fighters and Interceptors gave me more trouble due to how they were). While I'll admit the controls were a little different in Battlefront 2 (or the beta anyways, I still refuse to buy this shit show of game) the concept is still similar (believe me when I say it was easier to learn to fly in Battlefront for me, I still to this day cannot fly anything in BF4 or BF1. I so do not look forward to flight controls in BF5 (psst, take some design notes for Bandai Namco and the Ace Combat series. That's how true flight controls should be done)). Problem is the fix is a little to late. EA already lost a majority of the players who supported this game in the beginning and soured the rest of us on their shady ass design and practices (I really didn't have high hopes for Battlefront 2 after the first game failed to impress and I'm glad I didn't based off of beta gameplay). Yea, the fix is a step in the right direction but I still feel we'll get hosed in one way or another in BF5 when it finally releases. Glad you're enjoying it though.

Nice, I've been waiting for it to go on sale. Will definitely be picking it up this weekend.

I'm just going to point out that Battlefront 2 was a bad example, it's price drop was brought on entirely by the bad press it was getting for it's mishandling of loot boxes and EA's shady business practices. Steam always drops prices but those price drops are only for certain events (like the Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring sales. Generally most games stick to full price unless Valve decides to drop it (its generally not a publisher call when a business runs a sale)). Humble Bundle is a special case, almost all money for those sales goes towards charity if chosen to. Most publishers make very little to no money off of it (I know I place most of the money to charity when I buy a bundle, with very little going to the publishers and Humble Bundle itself) and this is by choice to try and improve their reputation to gamers. Waiting isn't a bad thing, it's what most of our generation does now when it comes to buying games. As I said above I've been doing it since the $60 hike back in 2005 and I buy a lot less games now. If you don't want to pay full price that's your choice as a consumer but honestly a raise in prices is not uncalled for. There are plenty of gamers out there that will pay $75+ for a game and they'll do it day 1, a price hike would not hurt the industry as much as everyone thinks it will (it'll be a blow that's for sure but it won't kill it). With the shift to multiplayer only games now you won't see many games that will retain their value longer then you deem it to. Single player games are becoming non-existent now unless you're in the market for indie games (which are always reasonably priced) because, like DX pointed out, companies can't currently make their money back on a game thats's one and done with no DLC or map packs to keep money rolling in. Sadly the value of a game is what you deem it to be and it always will.

I honestly think $75 is a good price, it's a $15 hike that honestly anyone in today's work climate can afford (and I say this barely making ends meat each month). However, it's a price hike not everyone will agree with (I mean look at the fallout that happened when games initially went to $60, it was mind blowing how many people lost their shit over it (I was initially one of them but in the end it wasn't that bad, it just meant I bought less games over the year and made more attempts to research the game before I purchased it)). I mean I'm that guy that's willing to drop $200 or more on a game (fuck I spent $230 on the Stormblood expansion for FFXIV and I even dropped the $100+ to get the Horizon: Zero Dawn Collector's edition, a brand new IP that I actually believed in and was honestly blown away but how great of a game it is (and I still need to beat it)) that I feel will do well but honestly I'm one of the few. Sadly a game price hike needs to be regulated and done without the consent of publishers but it will never happen because publishers want more money (as seen with EA's Battlefront bullshit) and this is why I sadly agree with your point that they won't rise because we all know what EA will price a game at (I could honestly see a new Battlefield being priced at $100+ without the Premium membership if they had their way). It's sad though because members of the actual development community are paid like shit if you're not an established name or studio (fuck most studios are lucky to get 5% royalty deal on sales (and this was back in 2010 when I was still in school, I'm sure shit isn't any better now) after their initial milestone payments). With the current infrastructure I wouldn't be surprised if the gaming industry ends up like our current movie and music industries (barely hanging on due to greed and archaic practices). Early access needs to go but it won't. It's the only way indie and non-AAA games are being funded these days outside of Kickstarter. It's a shit practice but considering how well PUBG did with EA and how good Fortnite is doing in EA I don't see it going anywhere and wouldn't be surprised if more little known developers go down this path in the future (and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if AAA titles started doing this as well). I know I harp about the old days but I really miss them. I hate being an old jaded gamer and consumer, it sucks that my favorite hobby/past time went from being passion projects to being nothing more then publishers fighting for more money and releasing shit. This is pretty much the reason why I stick solely to FFXIV these days, its a great game and I'm willing to pay $86 or so for 6 months of game time (please note that's with extra, optional account shit. It normally costs $78) plus extra for Mogstation shit (like mounts, outfits, minions (pets), etc). Purchasing games now-a-days is like going to a casino, you never know when you're going to hit the jackpot and end up losing more than you win.

I feel like I'm going the be the only one playing devil's advocate but I agree with the EC video, games shouldn't cost $60 anymore (and I wouldn't say they're playing Spin Doctor or that they're to calm, they're taking a rational approach to a subject that get gamers way to fucking angry every time it comes up (and no I don't agree with the inflation argument, I just generally think games should cost more based on what the employees in this industry make and what they have to go through to get said game out (they really need to be paid more but that's another subject for another time))). While I don't look forward to that time when games cost more than this it's a sad fact. Honestly I'm still surprised that they're still $60, I've been expecting a price hike for years. It's inevitable, it will happen once DLC/loot boxes stop paying the bills (and with the recent Battlefront 2 debacle it'll happen sooner than later). While Jim brings up a lot of great points sadly he seems to have no grasp about how things work in the industry. Sadly I'm not going any further with this argument. Honestly I now enough about the industry to agree with the video (I have a degree in this, I've had to take classes that explain the overhead costs a studio has and how much money they actually get compared to the publisher. I literally had to make a business plan for a final in my Game Management class with a budget, you'd be fucking surprised how much a AAA game actually takes to make (and how much having a person with a degree in Business Management would help most developers out)) and I'll leave it at that. Please note I'm not defending the industry for what it does I just agree that games should cost more, it's inevitable with everything else we buy so why shouldn't it hold true here.

Being a semi-MMO raids are probably going to exist in Anthem but I think BioWare knows how to handle it the right way as opposed to Bungie. They've had 4 years of watching Destiny fail and seeing just how much of a dud Destiny 2 was (especially raid wise). I have a feeling they'll do something similar but restrict just how much it means to the overall progression of your character. What that actually means is a mystery now but BioWare does have one MMO under their belt (TOR) and while it started out very badly they've had years to reflect and adapt to the market through it. Yes I know BioWare Austin is in charge of TOR but the development team has mostly shifted to other projects and you can no doubt most of them shifted to this (I believe the TOR team is only 5-6 members right now and they might not be doing it for much longer if the news that came along with this announcement is to be believed). I'll tell you this much if there is no LFG system in Anthem it will not be received well. Gamers asked for it for 3 years with Destiny and never got it and when D2 had a glimmer of having such a system we can Guided Games which is an atrocity. It's not that hard to program a system into a game to match people together to play, fuck Crucible does it so I can't understand why D1 or D2 never had it (outside of the devs developing it that way). Fuck WoW and FFXIV even have the ability to allow people on different servers to form raid groups and do content so I can't see why games similar to it can't get it done. Sadly no MMO or semi-MMO has horizontal scaling, it's always vertical (GW2 might be the exception, I lost interest fast in the game and haven't really progressed past where I last was). Without something to work towards nobody will play the game. It's a problem every MMO type game runs into and while it sucks it's just something to get used to. My mentality towards this will always be the same having been a hardcore raider in WoW for a year (before I got burned out), it's part of the package. I don't raid in FFXIV, no real interest as it has other ways to get gear equivalent to raid gear. Is it grindy as fuck? Yes (it takes roughly 6-9 weeks to grind the currency needed to buy the gear, which with the way FFXIV patches its roughly 3 months through a content patch cycle but that gear lasts for 6 months by upgrading it (which is usually when the new raid tier and gear comes out)) but it's something to work towards. Horizontal progression/scaling would stagnate a game for me and, much like you Sledge, I'm the definition of a casual player. I spent the last 5 months getting my character to item level 339 (current max is 340 with raid gear and weapons) and on Tuesday I need to start all over again grind to the next current ilvl cap (it sucks but hey I get new story content and something to work toward again, the last month has been boring with nothing to really do besides gear my Samurai). Sadly not every MMO has a similar line of progression and semi-MMOs probably never will. Catering to much too one side always pisses the other side off and no one is really happy. We've seen it with Destiny 1, we're currently seeing it with Destiny 2, The Division suffered from it in the beginning, and Blizzard learned the hard way with WoW years ago (the game is finally turning into something I could see myself getting back into but I can't afford another MMO subscription). No company has found the perfect balance yet. The other problem with raid content is that it will always be a time sink. When you first get into a raid it'll take more then 30 minutes to beat due to learning mechanics and gear. Once mechanics are learned and party gear gets better this becomes faster but you have to remember raids are designed to be hard, making them too fast and easy will just make the content boring. The best gear is always locked behind this content because it's your reward for successfully beating the content. Yea, it sucks for people like you and me but that's just how games like this work. I feel D2 dropped the ball there by making gear just cosmetic with little to no meaning for stats (yea they are there but honestly I don't give two shits as its effect on gameplay are minor at best (except for recovery)). I feel the whole raid is cheapened by that and it's no wonder why so many people were disappointed with the rewards considering a Crucible rewarded hand cannon is better then 90% of the weapons you get from the raid (which is supposed to be the hardest content with the best rewards). Meh, my opinions on Anthem still stand no matter how much info comes out (until I see new gameplay footage highlighting the major features of this game I will reserve my judgement but I'm not allowing another D1 disappointment by pre-ordering). I'm done getting hyped for these big, blockbuster games which always result in disappointment and I'm done pre-ordering unless I know exactly what I'm getting. The only game I'm hyped for is Ace Combat 7 (which I will pre-order) because I know exactly what I'm getting, a mechanically sound air combat simulator that will be fun regardless if the story sucks or not (as long as they don't bring mechanics from Assault Horizon over).

I still haven't beaten the story yet but I've not run into any of the catastrophic bugs that continually get mentioned. I've seen quite a few of the shitty animations that were placed in the game though (and believe me they are worse when you see them in person, video's don't do them justice). Honestly, there's a lot to like about the directions Andromeda was going in. The worlds were beautiful, combat was actually a joy (I really enjoyed the combat system though I wish they would of implemented the old cover system from 3, this new one sucked balls), while I initially hated the move from classes I actually liked how they implemented character progression (the ability to pick and choose you're powers/abilities at will was freaking amazing), while almost all of the NPC companions are pretty forgettable Drack is the one thing great that came of them (I don't care what anyone says, I love that old grumpy krogan to death. He's pretty much Wrex but 100's of years older and crankier), and while the story was fucking horrible (and it's the reason I still haven't beaten it yet) the ideas and direction were not horrible just poorly developed. I get why studios want to got to these big, open world games that allow us to explore but it's obvious that it'll never work the way they want (look at Destiny, not as open world as we were promised (in both games) due to engine limitations and tech limitations) and the fact they spent years trying to figure this out instead of delivering a great game is heart breaking. I honestly like how ME3 did it's exploration and I wish they'd of kept that for Andromeda, I could care less about having a huge planet to explore. Give me a contained area that has a set reason for me being there and I'll be happy (and it'll let me avoid driving these shitty vehicles BioWare keeps designing). It sucks that this game was pretty much a piecemeal of what the studio could throw together in 15 months. I blame EA for a lot of this and while the original trilogy will forever be a favorite series of mine its easy to tell just what EA made BioWare do between 1 and 2 (the major shift in the battle system, the implementation of the ammo mechanic (which is still retarded, the in game lore explained why this was not fucking necessary in 1 (and don't give me the bullshit that was retconned in when 2 came out)). BioWare's biggest problem was pulling the original ME team off of this to develop a new IP and handing it to a studio that only ever did background work. Had the original team been left on the game this would of never happened (sadly we wouldn't be getting Anthem if they did stay with it though). It's also a kick to the balls knowing that we'll probably not see another Mass Effect game for year or at all. Sadly the days of us getting well thought out, developed games from BioWare has come and gone. We'll never get another KoToR, Neverwinter Nights (this is still one of my favorite games to date), or Mass Effect again (while probably my least favorite of the original trilogy I still think 1 was better developed then 2 was). I never played the original Dragon Age so I can't add that in but I heard it was on par with KoToR (I've only played Inquisition which has gotten a lot of hate from fans but I actually like it). EA has watered the studio down and while it sounds like Anthem will be a return to form I can't help thinking that it'll be another Destiny (sorry I've grown extremely pessimistic with the industry as of late. Good games are few and far between in the AAA category and it saddens me considering what the old days were like. Yea, I'm old and nostalgic. This trend of catering to the ADHD generation of gamers urks me. I miss the days when games were made as passion projects, not just paychecks).

While I'm quite optimistic about the game after those videos I'm not going to get hyped considering BioWare's track record as of late (I mean come on, Andromeda did not deserve what happened to it). As more gameplay footage comes out I'll start making my judgement but I'm not falling for the hype like I did with Destiny and The Division (yes I know The Division is a much better game now but still, we both know how it was when it first came out). If everything that was covered in those videos is true, however, this will be the game I've been waiting for since Destiny was originally announced and this might just be what kills my addiction to FFXIV. That's a big if though.

Mayhem needs to be a permanent Crucible mode, I fucking adored it during the Dawning. It's the most fun I've had in D2 since playing through the vanilla story (I say vanilla because of Curse being out now). It's just absolute carnage and I fucking love it. They made plenty of money with their micro-transactions, just not enough to try and take the high road (I know plenty of people who sunk hundreds of dollars into Eververse just to get specific things, hell I threw in $10 just because I wanted a chance to get the whole Dawning armor set (which I only got the boots)). The only redeeming thing about Eververse is it's all cosmetic shit, at least they didn't lock powerful weapons or armor behind it like Battlefront did it's just sad that none of it was really desirable. Honestly all this is going to do is make companies rethink their micro-transaction system to try and find other ways they can cheat people out of their money, not entirely kill the system (which will never go away because of mobile gaming). If Bungie would of looked at Blizzard's model with Overwatch or hell even GW2's model I think this issue wouldn't of been so catastrophic for them (hell you can even look FFXIV's model, it's all cosmetic shit from outfits to mounts). Sadly they placed to much fucking faith in this system being accepted that it affected the development of the game. This is why publishers are the fucking bane of game development, they force this shit on developers and it ends up hurting a games development to this point (not that I had any real faith in D2 before it launched due to D1's failure in my eyes).

Pretty much everything I thought was going to happen with this game. It's sad really because there's the makings of a great game with D2 but sadly it's locked behind greed and incompetence. Plus, this is not the same studio that created Halo. The majority of that Bungie is gone now what with most of them walking away from the company due to creative differences or other shady shit we weren't able to see. This is why I still think the last great game Bungie created was Halo: Reach (while not the most popular Halo title from the Bungie days it's my favorite of the Halo titles with ODST bringing in a very close second). In retrospect maybe Bungie should have swallowed their pride and ego and stuck with Microsoft, fuck the Halo games may have been better if they had (I hear 5 is great but 4 was a huge letdown for me (almost Halo 2 level of letdown), I still don't think 343 Studios is a good replacement for Bungie (even if most of the Halo guys from Bungie stuck behind to help form the studio). Sadly Sledge what developer doesn't prefer micro-transactions? It's the one, sure fire way they'll make back the development costs and pad their greedy little wallets.

Meh, I've seen a lot of streamers went back to it over the last few weeks. It looks better then it was at launch but I don't think I'm sold on it yet (plus I just picked D2 up again after a few weeks of not playing it). I might reinstall it this weekend and give it a shot just to see if everything I've heard is there (maybe catch you for some shenanigans like the old days). The only real problems is remembering how to play it (god the last time I touched it was pretty much the day I posted the last post in here).

Problem is does Disney care enough about those properties to continue them (and chances are extremely high they don't, outside of Deadpool there really is no money to be had in any of the other R franchises they've acquired). Deadpool is one thing considering how much traction it has and how much notoriety it has. Predator hasn't had a good movie since the first one honestly (and to top it off not many people even know the Predator franchise) and not many people outside of die hard sci-fi fans even has a clue of what the Alien franchise is (and lets face it the last two so called Alien movies weren't exactly well loved). As far as Disney is concerned it has the rights, doesn't mean they have to use them (they could just license the rights out to other studios to make movies). Iger pretty much said he's open to Deadpool staying R because they could pretty much use it as a staging point to start an R-rated MCU that has nothing to do with the current kid friendly MCU. As far as I understand it the Marvel TV shows aren't overseen by Marvel Studios outside of their place in the MCU (which they are part of). Full creative control seems to be with whatever network/streaming service is releasing the shows. You also have to consider the shows aren't carrying the Disney name and while the Marvel tag is still there not many people associate the shows with the MCU or whats currently going on in the movies. I could be wrong considering I have no interest in any of them but that was my understanding of how things have been working. The Terminator rights fully revert back to Cameron in 2019 so I don't think Disney will take the risk of releasing a new one (and Cameron has plenty of ideas for the franchise and it sounds like it's going to either be a hard reboot or he's going to completely write out anything that happened after 2) and considering how universally panned every movie after 2 was I highly doubt Disney wants to touch this franchise with a 10ft pole. I don't doubt that they'll continue a lot of the franchises they have but I can about guarantee you they will not stay R. Considering what you can get away with now in the PG-13 category I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of said franchises will fall into that category (again the only exception being Deadpool). Honestly all Disney wants is the money these can bring in, I mean look at how quickly they jumped on the chance to buy Star Wars from Lucas. Guaranteed money maker and they knew it and now they're squeezing it for everything it can give (and more).

Pretty sure Disney will mothball Deadpool after this movie because Disney will never release a rated R film under it's name (and it doesn't matter if it has the Marvel name, everyone knows who owns it) it's the reason why the Marvel films, while still good and with great action scenes, are so tame compared to what they could be in the hands of a company not afraid to take chances or get the hard R. Kevin Feige (I think that's how its spelled) has wanted to do an R Marvel movie for a long time but Disney won't let him due to their family friendly stance. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but this is Disney and they are known for screwing things over massively (plus we'll never see him make a full transition over to the MCU. I can see him being mentioned in passing after the MCU is rebooted after Avengers 4 but never part of the actual MCU (unless the X-Men are brought into it, which is possible because I'm sure Marvel is revamping their plans post reboot now that they have the ability to pull from the X-Men and Fantastic 4 roster)).

Spawn Beacon for the new Elite Class (which also has a flare gun that calls in artillery strikes).

I liked Jurassic World, thought it was a nice homage to the first JP but also did enough to stand on its own (and it wasn't a huge fucking let down like JP2 and JP3 were). The only thing that killed it for me was the whole piecemeal dino, that was stretching it a little to far for my liking. I'll give it a shot but I'm not really sold on this one. The whole going back to the island to save the dinosaurs is just retarded, I was hoping they would follow the plot thread of the Asian scientist (I forget his name) making off with all that Dino DNA/embryos.

Hey now, Fuko is adorable. Don't be judging her because her eyes are huge (yes I know that character because she's from one of my favorite animes and visual novels). They did it, and I'm only saying this because it seems everyone thinks this, is because it's literally how she's drawn in the manga. She has those huge eyes in the manga and it's just her design aesthetic. Honestly not the way I would of went with her character in a live action but it's what they chose.

Those eyes X.X I hate to be the guy jumping on the hate train again but based on this trailer the movie is going to be horrible (and believe me I hate to say that, I've been waiting for some sort of adaptation for Gunm for years (besides the Anime OVA which wasn't all that bad, not great but not bad) but this is cringe worthy). Plus that body *shudder* it's just horrible. At least the Major's in GitS was more believable than this. When I watched this earlier I had to force back my gag reflex, that's just how disgustingly horrible I find this.