I don't think the "son of a bitch" instances should count. Not quite the same thing.

Exactly. There are so many things in the game that are there specifically for people who want to wander around and be able to discover new things that they'd never see during missions. The prison is one place I plan on going to eventually. I walked around the horse track yesterday, too.

Yep, Bethesda are a semi-distant second when it comes to world design. And that's not faint praise, since I thought their design for Oblivion set a high bar on the current gen systems, and their subsequent designs for Fallout 3 and Skyrim were stunning, as well. Rockstar just take it to another level entirely. They're…

I think the water may be the unsung hero of this game. I was completely blown away the first time I dove in and saw—no, felt—how lifelike it was.

A big key is the lighting. But also, the design of the world, all by itself, is genius. Just how the land is shaped. How things are laid out in the city. The game world was built, from the ground up, to allow the player to stumble upon stunning views during ordinary play. They also took great care with the in-game…

Well, if the game is about the US military, then realistically there would be zero consequences for the war crime in question, unless it somehow became an embarassment to the political establishment.

Tune: You And The Music

Yeah, definitely not a fan of the HDR, either. It is the ruin of a great many otherwise nice photos.

He's trying to escape from certain harm (if somebody is yanking your car door open, chances are they aren't doing so to give you a hug) and those bikers he "ran over" put their bikes in front of him on purpose to stop his movement. I'm pretty sure the guy would have a solid case for self-defense here, if it came to…

What is 'dangerous' and 'justifiable' is not the same for everyone.

Well, the way a character like Walt gets written is purposely manipulative. An audience is going to stop watching a TV show if the main character becomes truly, 100% unsympathetic. There were always qualities to Walt which begged us to keep watching. To be interested in Walt, to feel true stakes in the situations he…

Exactly. I think the show posits a worldview which says that luck/fate/whatever you want to call it, doesn't give a shit about the morality of a person's actions. Walt's torment is aided by the fact that luck allows him to live for so long. His actions, which he believes advance his family's interests, actually drive…

I don't think that's what the finale did, though. The analysis I've been running with goes like this:

Yeah. Even more than that, though, was the bit with him watching Walt Jr from a distance. You knew that this was going to be the last glimpse he'd ever have of his son. Lots of really clever bits of drama in the final episode.

Yeah, I just feel like that scene in the snowed-in Volvo is terribly clever, and deserving of more analysis than it's been getting thus far. It's one of the only times we see Walt act truly humble in the entire series.

See, I thought that the "luck" angle of the show was pretty great, and enjoyed how it was echoed in the beginning of the finale, with Walt being cruised by a cop while trying to GTA the Volvo, only to find keys in the visor. I feel like Walt, throughout the entire series, was convinced that people made their own luck…

I'm actually happy that Rockstar didn't design the game to cater to this desire many players have for a fully-customizable experience. It's clear that they were trying to tell a specific story, with hard-coded characters. They were trying to make it believable and exciting. And they pretty much succeeded with flying…

Well, if a female character were placed in the current story, she would most likely take Franklin's place. Do we believe that Michael and Trevor would be partnering up with a woman for heists? Or is it at all plausible to imagine a woman as being part of the original crew from up in North Yankton?

But would that have been likely as far as the story's concerned? I kind of doubt it.

I just don't see GTA Online being a game that appeals to the super-competitive types, even if we're talking about deathmatches or whatever. It's mostly going to be for fucking around with friends. The game just isn't tuned for the twitch-level combat that competitive types gravitate towards.