Okay, good. At least I'm not the only person who does this.

Hey mister, we don't take too kindly to people not takin' too kindly to 40-minute cutscenes 'round these parts.

In the video demos, it looked like the precision-aiming has changed from iron sights to an over-the-shoulder view with a reticle. Is that still in the gameplay in the release version?

Yup. And if you don't drag the fight out until the theme starts playing, you're doin' it wrong.

"Snake Eater" is by far the most purely enjoyable game in the series, and the ending is heartbreaking.

Oh, that sneaky Ocelot!

You'll probably be fine starting wherever, honestly. They're games that get better as you replay them anyway, so as long as you eventually play all of them, you should be good.

Oh god, I was only ever able to beat the torture scene once on "Extreme" difficulty, and I'm pretty sure I have tendon damage from it.

Oh, so did I. It's not like you'd be at any disadvantage plot-wise, but I think "Sons of Liberty" is a richer experience once you've played MGS1.

My enjoyment of "Sons of Liberty" increased ten-fold when I learned that Kojima claimed to have gotten a letter from a little girl, saying that she loved playing MGS but didn't like how manly Snake was, and used it as his rationale for making Raiden the playable character. Which is complete bullshit, but when you look…

I felt the same way.

Someone new to the series wouldn't get much, if anything, out of the Shadow Moses level either.

I'm one of those people who thinks the series peaked with "Sons of Liberty", so naturally I want as much wild-n'-wacky as I can get my hands on. I'm hoping "Ground Zeroes" is teasing gameplay more than it is tone. If that's the case, I can look past it given that GZ is basically funding "Phantom Pain".

Or, like, if in its 16th season, "The Simpsons" replaced Dan Castelleneta. Hayter has been the voice of both Snake and the series for nearly 15 years now. I'm not even sure I'm tuning in to GZ or MGS5, but if I did, there would be some serious mental gymnastics getting used to a new Snake.

Huh. The more you know!

It's been a few years since I've seen it, so I could be dead-wrong here.

I was struck mostly by how completely un-whimsical "Tideland" is, especially the parts where whimsy would have been a default, like the finger puppets. The old lady is almost a signature Gilliam creation, though.

They're neutral, but 100 percent supportive of my position in the matter and how I'm going about dealing with it so far. I lucked out in how understanding of mental illness they turned out to be, given how much mine fucked with their lives earlier on in mine.

Thanks. It's shit I've had to deal with so much that I just say, "fuck it," to anyone who pulls it on me, but it's never been a member of my immediate family doing the pulling.

The scores of hipster chicks I've met who've all said they've "been on page 50 of 'Infinite Jest' for, like, three years now" but "love that one thing he wrote about the cruise ship" and are "going to finish it one day," they swear, and "you know, maybe [they'll] start tonite …" beg to differ. I'd imagine there are…