I think you can make a solid compromise by having just the writers know what’s going to happen.

>Real quick, episode viewers: Anybody know what Renslayer is actually trying to accomplish here, at any given moment?

... except for the galactic bank, of course. That has a galaxy-spanning network that can be hacked from a pirate base so that your credits are nice and squeaky clean all the time, and accounted for in all the networks... that shouldn’t exist... because credits are treated more like bottle caps and gold pieces... which…

The cracks really start to show — not just in terms of bugs, but narratively — when you’ve played through a few different major branches of the game.

You say that, but it’s been decades since a computer program was able to spit out “new” Bach pieces that the serious musical world begrudgingly admitted were really, really good.

What is intent? What is a machine?

“Appropriated?” Calm down. It’s a mediocre cover, nothing more. Hell, I’d say that “aggressively unremarkable” is a better description, because it’s not like it’s performed poorly in any way.

It’s pretty crazy to believe that CP77's progression systems were “great” at launch. Everything from skill trees to itemization to crafting was a janky, boring, scattered mess, and that only scratches the surface. All the work they did between launch and Patch 2.0/PL significantly improved systems that desperately…

What exactly would it say that’s new? The setting’s themes are what they are. You’re criticizing a piece of dystopian fiction for failing to... what? “Get with the times?” That’d be nonsensical.

The review touched upon the episode feeling like two wildly different approaches crammed together. The smaller, human moments felt profoundly disconnected from the frantic plotification, and the latter somehow managed to combine wheel-spinning and table-setting into an unsatisfying platter. I think the writers are…

“Don Quixote knew the truth. There were real monsters, and they needed to be slain. He also knew there needed to be lies. In his darkest moments, he saw fire: True Inquisition, continent-spanning and continent-scorching, with mobs of men hunting monsters and thus becoming them. Lust for gold and earthly power —…

This particular ending for the DLC had major “you made the writing gods angry” energy, even though nobody really went after CP77's original slate of endings like they did, say, ME3's endings.

Star Wars is a property where warrior-monks dedicated to sobriety and peace inevitably pair up with mavericks who can’t play by the rules and are almost always right. They hug a little, learn a little, and never let the government stooges get them down. Those stooges, man. If they’re not busy failing to “get” the…

And the live-action adaptation decided not to have the pivotal character actually say the words, raising the question of how anybody else in-world knew them.

It’s about as difficult to outsmart Cyberpunk as it is to outsmart 1984. The shallowness is part of the point. I’m also offended once again that people are so adamant that every piece of art needs a Greek Chorus next to every uncomfortable thing, loudly singing and shouting that it’s very bad, and of course the…

The game reassures you that your choice of “primary” character actually changes nothing. I don’t yet know if that’s a trixy hobbitses lie, but, so far, nothing. The two starting characters are basically Siamese Twins as far as the plot goes, and it doesn’t strain credulity in the slightest. I’ve never even once…

Dude, keeping things clean is the ultimate endless war against entropy, and it’s one of the first things to falter when a society gets sick.

I’m not sure the parasocial angle is nearly as important as the political/cultural angle. It seems to me that this Minhaj guy was trading in the slightly-more-left-wing version of the borderline outrage/comedy pandering that those right-wing clowns do. He was making himself out to be the victim constantly in perfectly…

Immutable laws and economic laws eventually intersect. The heat death of the universe will not cause an irrational bubble in the local markets. You can go ahead and quote me on that.

Do you ever think that if a few of these pirates just got laid once in a while, the whole anime would completely fall apart? I know it’s part and parcel, but One Piece strikes me as a particularly egregious example of an anime that’s just one giant metaphor for how sublimated sexual urges are the engine of all male…