Huh, is Microsoft not selling the cheaper, Kinect-free SKU in Japan? That seems like a bizarre choice, for exactly the reasons you mention (lack of space for the Kinect to work properly, etc.)

Then again, given the state of the console market as a whole in Japan, I'm reasonably certain Microsoft could have made a…

His head only comes off if you bend his knee.

Sure. I'm not arguing that it's 100% an MMO. Clearly, though, it's borrowing a significant amount from MMO design.

(Then again, the whole "What is an MMO?" thing became a somewhat trickier topic than it first appeared once MMOs started making heavy use of instancing.)

It's not, but it clearly has a lot of MMO elements. I think of it as kind of a Halo-flavored Borderlands with some significant MMO aspects (faction grinding, lots of "Kill X number of enemy Y" or "Get X number of item Y" quests, etc.)

saying things like "Ms Pac-Man and Ms 'Splosion Man are just two of a host of characters named as derivatives of their male counterparts" or "Hitman: Absolution actively encourages players to kill innocent women and hide their bodies"

Corpse Party would definitely be an interesting case. My experience with dubs is that they usually struggle most with moments of high emotion.

Given that Corpse Party is basically 90% "moments of high emotion"...

Since I'm much more familiar with English-speaking VAs, I hadn't made some of the connections between characters before. I was familiar with a few high-profile VAs like Kana Hanazawa and Norio Wakamoto, but...damn. Realizing that Hanazawa did both Akane Tsunemori and Mayuri, or that Yu Kobayashi was both Sasha Brause…

That's simply not true. Because you know saying, "it's bad to portray black men as criminals" and "it's bad to portray black men as only criminals" is a different thing. Because by the first statement, the problem is the portrayal in itself, not the landscape. That would mean there'd be a problem with a black man…

I am an idiot and replied to my own post. Deleted.

Yeah, my impression was that it was about Anita. I mean, there's room for reasonable disagreement, I guess, but most of the "problems" with her arguments that I see people bring up rely on flawed readings of her videos.

First off, I apologize if I don't respond to every little bit. The quoting and length-creep is getting a bit out of control. I appreciate the civility and rationality, though, which is something often sorely lacking in this kind of discussion.

Did anita not say that players are meant to get a perverse pleasure of desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters?

Not everyone is obligated to agree with me.

Vulnerable was perhaps the wrong choice of words. I think everyone is exposed to this stuff pretty much constantly. Some people are likely more susceptible than others, for a variety of reasons, but I don't believe anyone is immune. It's like when people say, "Oh, I'm not…

We may do this lightly, talking about what we think the artists was trying to do, but I believe when talking about matters of racism, sexism, hatred, and bigotry in general, it's irresponsible to make certain claims about why an artist made a decision. What a viewer or player may feel was an unconscious decision,…

I would define "being vulnerable" as "being part of western culture".

Sure. There are also other factors at play for why they are who they are.

Well, if you're talking specifically about authorial intent, then yes, the author's statement on the matter is relevant. Of course, as I mentioned in my other post, there are still other factors to consider (such as cultural influence and context).

I would think the intentions of the artists are quite important when you're attempting to explain why something in their work exists in their work. You can say that something exists in a game for the sake of sick sexual pleasure and be ignorant of another reason it could exist.

Oh, sure, I know exactly what you mean.

I'm sure a lot of stuff has changed in the beta since I last played, and of course, that didn't include the second half of the game, but...from what I've seen, I think you'll be fine.

(I actually really like some of the balancing stuff they've done. I love sniper rifles, for…

Eh, by "poor design", they mean stuff like...giving people skill specializations that don't match their stats, or giving people skills that don't compliment each other well (like making your low strength, low speed guy focus on melee). As long as you can handle basic RPG stuff (specialize your characters with…