Ugh, the creepiness thing. I've been told over and over that there's lots of good visual novels, but I just cannot get past the skeeviness of "dating games" with idealized/sexualized anime characters. I even had to get over that hurdle for the excellent Save the Date, but it was alright once I saw where that game was…

I picked up my Final Fantasy VII playthrough again, and I'm still enjoying the game much more than I expected. But I'm enjoying it much more for the character beats than the plot that I remember being so engrossing. Obviously spoilers from this point on.

Knowing that I was going to be safe? The car chase from The French Connection. It blows my mind and horrifies me to think that everything in that scene was completely real and filmed in actual New York traffic.

Well now I really just want to try Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

I bought B.U.T.T.O.N. a while ago but have been too terrified to actually play it.

Not sure I totally agree with that. Private servers are probably the best way to play something like this, but I find that games with public server browsers like Team Fortress 2 often end up with the same level of chaos and uncooperative play as matchmaking because people come and go as they please with no penalty.…

I was thinking like… this: http://starwars.wikia.com/w…

I'm holding out hope for the return of the interactive video board game. With the simultaneous rise of companion apps, local multiplayer, NFC figurines, and asymmetrical gameplay, there's gotta be room for crazy new board game experiences that capture the best parts of both physical and digital games.

So many high-concept multiplayer games seem to be designed in an idealized vacuum, in the sense that they work extremely well when everyone plays in the style (and in the numbers) that the developers are anticipating. For Evolve, there's an assumption that players will communicate and work together. That doesn't…

In fairness, some categories like makeup and hairstyling only have three nominees a year. But yeah, there is no guarantee that there will be at least three actor-associated motion capture performances per year.

Oh, not just a gimmick episode: a branded gimmick episode.

Damn, a trimmed-down and super-pretty Metroidvania game based on Greek mythology is pretty much exactly the sort of game I usually want to play too. I don't have a ton of patience for bad combat, so I guess that's a pass for now. :(

I'm constantly amazed by how much people are still wringing out of Doom, like Resident Evil mod from a while back. Selfie stick probably wins the elaborate joke mod contest (holy shit I love it), but there will always be a place in my hearts for mods that are basically just Simpsons WAVs.

Favorite comment of the week goes to Roswulf for:

It wasn't my relationship, but I had a friend's girlfriend cheat on him with his roommate because, as she explained, she wanted her life to be more like How I Met Your Mother. It's very hard for me to watch that show now and not see it as a codex for her horrible worldview.

Absolutely get that phenomenon. From my own experiences: there was a website back in the day where people could share "tricks" for Mario 64, whether that were just tricky platforming, unusual objectives (like Speedlunky), or bizarre physical limitations (beat Koopa the Quick while eating a ham sandwich or something).…

Yet Luigi jumps higher than him, and he's not even in the game. Except for his wish, where he says he wants to be as famous as Mario. Luigi is a walking reminder that life is not a meritocracy, that first-movers have an advantage, and that popularity and success are byproducts of a mob-like public enraptured in the…

On the topic of other romantic scenes from the game, I always enjoyed Laguna/Julia love story more than the main plot. Maybe it's just because that piano theme is so fantastic.

I completely forgot about the play! I was just thinking about the Ferris wheel ride. Gaaaah I need to keep playing through it.

I'm replaying Final Fantasy VII right now, and yeah, wow. There's a lot of really weird crap happening during that whole sequence, but the blistering homoeroticism of the gym sequence takes the cake.