Games like Anthem and Fallout 76 feel like casualties of all the economic trends we like to complain about. The publishers are leaning on established brands and developers to generate interest around games-as-a-service, but this leaves the studios with huge ambitions, vague goals, and a release date.

This seems like accountability theater all around. Both Sony and CDPR have now taken visible steps to calm angry customers, and removing the game will keep less informed customers from stumbling into a pre-patched nightmare. But the publisher knew that the game was not finished on PS4, and Sony could always screen…

Of course it’s okay to love bad art. But, often enough, the people who remind us that “art is subjective” and “some things are just FUN” are not children with quirky homegrown taste; they are adults defending mega-popular franchises.

Oshii recalled something that Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki once said: A work can appeal to a million people, and anything above that is a social phenomenon.

I’m just hoping the success of Bumblebee doesn’t inspire Michael to get personally involved again and fuck up what finally became a good Transformers property. I’d been waiting since goddamn 1986 for that!

He’s a low budget Michael Bay.

See also: Snyder, Zack; Abrams, JJ.

“That hack’s been getting away with his low effort bullshit forever now cause his movies have always sold tickets. Hopefully next time Capcom picks someone who gives a shit, at least.”

Oh my god, making jokes about George R.R. Martin makes me pine for the before time. I’m not sure I even know how anymore.

I’m excited for this. It does look like Anderson will play loose with the series lore, in the same way he did for the Resident Evil movies, but who gives a shit? The decision to make Monster Hunter into a portal fantasy is a little cheesy, but it’s not a deal breaker. Who the fuck is watching this movie - or playing…

I’m so used to the original character model that any change was going to feel wrong, at least at first. I don’t hate the new design, which does seem more compatible with the voice actor’s boyish intonation, but I wish they had gone with an aged-up version of it. One of the things I liked about the game was playing as…

The interesting thing about Forrest Gump is that it plays in one moment as an ode to the Boomers and in the next as a scathing satire. Gump may be an angelic cipher, but he’s also blundering through history. More often than not, Hanks finds himself on the business end of the film’s nasty editing, which punctures the…

I want to give this game a shot, warts and all, but it does not seem to be appearing on the Playstation store despite web articles claiming it’s out. Anyone know what’s up?

That...does look at lot like an Alien game. Any word on the gameplay? Isolation was not my cup of tea.

We’re being asked to put public health above our personal needs. It sucks. But every time you make a choice that priorities your own needs, you’re increasing the risk not only for yourself but everyone you are still coming into contact with, including a lot of service employees at the grocery store and other essential…

Nope. I had just started dating someone new when social distancing went into effect. And we hadn’t gotten beyond meeting in public places, although I think (I hope) that things were about to escalate.

I took a sick-day for non-COVID reasons, and it was the best decision I’ve made since all of this started. No cough, but I am sleeping (or fantasizing about sleep) basically all of the time.

You are making me feel super fucking old, because I played FF6 in middle-school (and called it FF3), but that game has charm to burn. The amount of expression that they manage to squeeze out of those little sprites is still impressive, and the opening sequence has that wintery melancholy that lingers even when the…

They should release a game that is all crash mode and call it Burnout 2020. I would buy that shit at warp speed.

When it came out, the wilderness sequences felt like a breakthrough for the series, a preview of the wide open maps of the later games. And I also liked the miniature democracy that formed at your base of operations, a more inclusive version of the larger nation forming around you. It seemed like a way to comment on…