In regards to that particular quibble.

Honestly? I’d almost rather a game *didn’t* raise intriguing questions if the gameplay can't accommodate it. It just feels so... Half-assed, maybe 

Same. The thing I loved about the early games is that you were in tombs trying to find artifacts to plunder, and you mainly fought off local wildlife or worked your way through traps. Humans are just too damned boring and predictable after fighting tigers, gorillas and a fucking T-Rex.

Sidestepped what though? The only relic-taking that actually happens in either of the first two games is mainly a gameplay mechanic, not a story element. And we don’t see her lugging them all around in a big bag or anything so if you’d rather assume all she did was find and then document them in her journal (which is…

Exactly the way Tomb Raider 2013 tried to reframe the portrayal of Lara Croft. “This is someone fresh from college who’s traumatized by her first kill. Look how she retched after that one.” Then proceed to MDK a whole village before morning comes.

Exactly, if a game is going to “Say Something” it had to commit, not just ask a question and wander away.

Another user (Jacob Danger Germain) hit the reason for that better than I could—once you get the player thinking too hard about their moral choices, it kind of takes all the fun out of doing those things in a game.

Which can certainly be done deliberately as a thematic choice (Spec Ops: The Line is a cult classic for a…

They wanted her to get dirty, but, like, sexy dirty.

She’s an Indiana Jones style archaeologist. You’re thinking of the real-life, boring, not-video-game-worthy archaeology. Please don’t act surprised that this isn’t a dig simulator. 

It’s often not so much the “raising questions” thing that’s the problem, it’s the fact that developers often have no idea what to do about the questions they raise. Far too often, developers will gesture vaguely at ideas but they never go beyond “this sure is a thing, isn’t it?” which is why most people criticize the…

Yeah, sounds like they should have held back on the moral quandaries when the subject in question is basically a central gameplay mechanic.

“Inexhaustible wealth” is, remember, both Tony Stark’s and Bruce Wayne’s only superpower. 

God I love how its well into 2018 and there are still desperate, sweaty people who yelp “Hillary Clinton!” any time they see the scumbag president disparaged.

To be fair, despite their cowardice I’m still looking forward to gunning me down some Y’all Qaeda thugs.

When I saw the cross design and the outfits for the cultists I was like “oooh, are they actually making a game where you fight one of the many white supremacist, fundamentalist militias that are a real and actual thing, actively recruiting and training across the US?”

Until very recently when I heard about the whole Bliss thing, I was praying that the Far Cry team would move away from that hallucinogenic bullshit as a mode of storytelling. It’s even worse when put into practice as actual gameplay. That shangri-la stuff sucked in 4 and whatever they called it in 3 wasn’t much better.

Trump is a monstrous piece of shit, no doubt, but I haven’t noticed any corpses hanging from telephone poles lately.

I agree with your larger point but for a different reason: reviewers (American, as that’s all I’ve read so far) holding this to a standard that they don’t hold other games. Where were the 5,000 word essays on east Asian history and politics in the wake of Far Cry 4? Or the extensive writings on the effects of…

Joseph Seed makes Trump feel like Mister Rogers by comparison.

“Why can’t I for once just enjoy shooting yahoo gunnut cultist Yanks for the sake of shooting yahoo gunnut cultist Yanks for once?”