What??? Who hates Mystery Men? Who is that terrible person? Point them out so I can type vehemently at them!

HOLY SHIT that is exactly what I came to these comments to type.

"Released in 209"

Ditto; I'm not necessarily terribly claustrophobic, but I am a giant: 6'6", give or take. I don't imagine they make these in my size, so I definitely get a "morgue drawers" vibe when I picture myself in one of these.

Do Americans not know about this? This has been on the edges of my radar for years; I remember reading about them a good 20 years ago when they had a big boom in the (I think) 90's. When I saw that that section in DE:HR I immediately thought "they're facing the wrong way." Lengthwise rather than deep is WAY less…

I don't buy for a second that "retailers asked for this," for all the reasons you just mentioned. It's more likely that either the game just isn't done yet, or that they think they will get more holiday sales out of a three-month-old game than one that's five months old.

Damn skippy. Mario has to actually stomp Goombas, but I'm pretty sure Weegee can simply cause them to drop dead over from terror at that stare; that horrible, horrible stare...

Or Pushing Daisies!

If fate exists, then this article was written explicitly as a set up for that joke. Bravo

"It's not for the Scrooges out there who may have actually read A Christmas Carol and noticed that accepting the joy of Christmas into your heart actually leads to becoming super liberal and giving a ton of shit to the poor."

Ehhh, not really. I've played all three, and there are very specific short stealth segments here and there, but mostly it's guns-blazing. Tomb Raider lets you take the stealth approach in almost every battle.

Ha, that's bizarre. The capacity to backtrack through earlier sections makes this pretty nonlinear; it's not quite a Metroid game where backtracking is mandatory, or an open-world game where just about anything goes, but the warp-anywhere-any-time mechanic makes it feel very open and free rather than forced on rails.

Nah, I've played and beaten all 8 Tomb Raider games (counting Anniversary, not counting Angel of Darkness because eww) and they're actually much more linear than this one, with no capacity to backtrack to completed levels. There's also no real reward for getting the collectibles in the prior games, whereas this one…

Good comparison, although I'll say that the ability to take the stealth approach in all but the biggest setpieces sets it apart from the Uncharted model.

I love love love exploring the old areas in this game. If the main narrative plays out like Uncharted, with its mix of shooting, platforming, and big setpieces; then revisiting old area plays out like Fez, with nothing but a serene playground to explore with no hostiles in sight, and a plunge off a cliff your only…

I'm being reductive; technically it would get an "AO," which isn't a rating you really ever see because it would mean the game doesn't see store shelves. Actual porn games don't bother submitting to the ESA for a rating. Just remember that GTA:SA's "Hot Coffee" was enough to get it reclassified to AO, just for showing…

So true. American content review boards are so bizarrely conservative; they're utterly desensitized to even the most brutal violence, but any amount of sexuality results in swift censorship. Por ejemplo:

I'm assuming the MPAA's ratings are proprietary. They aren't a government bureau, they're a trade association funded by (but independent from) the film industry. I'm pretty sure you can't use G, PG, PG-13, and R without their permission, and I doubt they'd give that out carte blanche for another industry to copy them…

It probably would have been fine if he had tempered a bit. "It seems like Japanese games are in a bit doldrums in the past few years" or "I haven't played a Japanese game that's excited me in (x) years." I might even agree to some degree; not that American big-name games are overwhelmingly awesome, I find myself…

Point! I'd say that a person's sexual preference shouldn't affect their desirability one way or the other as far as fantasy goes, but for some reason delusions appear to be very specific in this regard. I can't tell you how many times I've heard my midwestern female peers say of gay stars like Neil Patrick Harris "Too…