God that whole book made me so sad though (or is it the one that comes next?)

That too! Yennefer is awesome in The Wild Hunt, I *loved* her, but she is ten times awesomer in the books, if such a thing is possible, and I need her to be good. 

Yeah, I feel like it takes a lot of skill to make an untalkative, unemotive character also super expressive. So now I believe they’ll have Geralt’s physicality down pat (and that counts for something) but I’m crossing my fingers that Cavill is up to the challenge. (I haven’t seen him in much so I don’t know)

This was my thought, too--I haven’t seen Cavill in much but his name makes me believe this show is getting a real push, in terms of production and marketing, which makes me optimistic for the final product. And the chance of a season 2.

I think so too. Game of Thrones is good because the source material is really, truly good—and yeah, it’s possible to squander a great possibility but it’s a lot easier to polish a diamond than a piece of crap.

I replied to a comment of yours, where you use the footage to insist that the game would have non-violent options. Now you’re explaining that because of the context, the same footage doesn’t show non-violent options.

At least with this recent point, I agree. I think it’s likely they wanted to show the…

Well, they said they were taking the non-violent choices whenever possible, but they still ended up in combat. With that specific quest, it looked like things might have ended well if V paid for the bot using her own money, & then... counted the 50,000 as a loss?

Car accidents often remind people that life is precious and fleeting and lost in an instant, because someone was careless or reckless or inattentive, because someone made a bad decision when the stakes were high...

No, not one type of player. But you’re saying, “here are the four points I use to score; story gets one point and music gets one point and three out of four is great!”

Considering the way Xenoblade Chronicles 2 depicts women, liking it would be a pretty huge red flag. 

I’ve read a bunch of reviews now and think I’ll buy the game, but I have to say that I’ve found most of the reviews identify similar strengths and weaknesses. Most people are pretty positive about the combat. Hardly anyone, even in the really glowing reviews, is really enthusiastic about the stories.

You say ‘story’ but ought to break that down into: ‘characters are flat,’ ‘plot is not engaging,’ ‘relationships don’t build and grow between party members’, etc., etc. If you play RPGs for story and character, you play RPGs for story and character. 

“It’s a great roleplaying game because all the character interaction and also storytelling comes from YOUR imagination” is... definitely a take.

Personally, I loved Yennefer in the game—but Yennefer in the books blew me away. She doesn’t appear on page all that often, but she steals every scene she’s in. She’s funny and heroic, just as tough but she screws up in some serious ways and she’s as harsh with herself as anyone else.

In the books it’s pretty clear that Yennefer concocts all sorts of bizarre schemes (like secretly giving people money to hire Geralt to kill a monster) so that she can funnel cash to him.

Seconded. I am so glad I picked up the books. The games ARE fantastic and I am SO happy that there’s somewhere I can go to see Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri get a happy ending because the books are not so kind. They are, however, really good.

The writers bent over backwards to make Cora in Andromeda likable. They went too far with it, really—Cora starts out angry, yes, but she shifts gear to ‘loyal officer’ on a dime and her story derails into raptures about gardening. Like, it’s not enough that they remove her overt animosity; they have to render her…

I think Sera’s primary role in the game is to be the elf who hates elf stuff. Maybe as a counterweight to Solas, the elfiest elf who ever elfed, or maybe because Bioware’s character-creation formula is generally to take an archetype and flip a few traits upside down.***

Such an excellent review. I’d say I wish all reviews could be this good but I’m not sure how many provide enough material to unpack. I’ve followed the Kojima/Konami drama in the press & my first and only Metal Gear game was Phantom Pain, which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. Not really tempted by Survive, but…

Yeah, this review made me think about the extent to which this Czech viewpoint is an attempt at historical revisionism. Much of Eastern Europe was conquered by the Ottomans in an expansion that started in the 15th century. I don’t think they ever acquired modern-day Czechia but they DID beat the Austro-Hungarian…