The article isn’t about the games’ plots but about their design and gameplay sensibilities. At this point I generally prefer story-oriented games (mostly because of the time required to get into an RPG), but playing from one cutscene to the next is inherently dull, even if everything is polished and well written. 

Things were going well, and they thought it would be a great idea to give a zillion dollars to the guy who wrote The Beach.

It's true that binge drinking is bad for people, but it's also true that these are professional performers appearing on a TV show, so maybe - just maybe - it's a bit staged. 

Yeah, if they just stuck with the one Spider-Man and the one Dr Who, we wouldn’t have to worry about Trump getting reelected. Totally logical.

Yeah, the Spider-Man continuity was really tidy and easy to follow up until Miles Morales came along. There was just the one Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man. And the one in Spectacular Spider-Man. And the one in Peter Parker: Spider-Man. And also Newspaper Spider-Man (the worst of the lot). And those Spider-Man…

When I was 9, “The Night Santa Went Crazy” was actually the hardest I had ever laughed at anything. I actually remember thinking, “Why can’t I stop laughing? This seems dangerous!”

I think the cost of keeping a movie on a streaming service is higher than we think (at least relative to the return in subscription fees), based on how aggressively services cull their libraries. 

Different economies - Warner Bros could sell DVDs in bulk at a reasonable margin, and then retailers had the financial risk of selling them to consumers. Max has to market directly to consumers, while balancing subscriptions against the operating costs of the platform. 

Sadly, this is exactly the kind of thing that could’ve sold reasonably well on DVD a decade ago, but that market has disappeared. 

When notified of Treat Williams ‘ death, Ryan Murphy replied “eh, still easier than Emma Roberts.”

Also, now that I’ve had a moment to reflect, it’s occurring to me that for all their shortcomings GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas were raelly groundbreaking in using 3D open worlds, celebrity voices, and licensed soundtracks to build a specific sense of place. GTA 4 relied much more heavily on its graphics engine…

I think the absence of super fast cars fits with the limited setting and the overall change in aesthetic - Vice City had a small area, but the gameplay was deliberately outrageous (it was back when they stay had “kill frenzy” drops), and in San Andreas it made internal sense to drive a Ferrari into an airport and…

I stopped playing GTA 4 because it wasn’t fun. The graphics were incredibly lifelike for the era, but previous games’ slightly cartoonish jankiness made it more fun to run over pedestrians and tolerate the asshole characters. Also the cover based shooting mechanic was literally everywhere. 

I know Marvel/Disney is a different company, but they’ve recast Spider-Man and Batman twice in the past 20 years despite the Maguire and Bale movies being popular and beloved (well, 2/3 beloved). Once the current run of Marvel movies loses momentum, they’re more or less guaranteed to start rebooting their original…

“He always loved you more!”

Based on the fact that he didn’t, I guess not?

This might hurt his thriving film career. 

I love that bit. Where does Homer find nerd  glasses? In the toilet of course. Whose glasses are they? Henry Kissinger’s of course. Why is Henry Kissinger there? To meet with Mr Burns of course. Are they friends? No they seem to make each other very uncomfortable. Of course. 

It's kind of the opposite - sequels introduce new characters all the time, but this one tried to simultaneously introduce two new characters and also NOT introduce those characters since they were already in shows. That's a hard circle to square. 

“Probably?” Dude’s jerking it through 100% of these posts. And by “it,” I mean something between a breakfast link and a piece of overcooked penne.