Yeah, that was why you always hit Toys R’ Us on the day after Christmas with your money from grandma. If I recall correctly, I once managed to get Mega Man X, Donkey Kong Country 2, and one other game for about $50. I recall that Earthworm Jim would have pushed by budget up to about $65, which was a bit beyond my…

he’s not “enacting” anything, nor is it his punishment ...

Yeah there’s . . . all kinds of issues regarding representation that ultimately circle right back to “well, this is supposed to be a power fantasy for guys”. I mean, just to use an even more basic visual cue for an example, how many times have you seen a guy on film come out of a fight with a broken nose? I couldn’t…

The strong and explicit roots back to Tolkien are a big part of what’s hitting a wrong note on this with me.

Trump is likely ignoring per-capita testing totals, a stat that the United States really doesn’t have much to call home about.

Yeah, this argument is . . . well, it’s several things, but if we’re going to be formal and use our Greek and Latin like Matt Schlapp would insist of us (but not himself), then this:

He literally had math working for him, and he still couldn’t make money.

Biden is not great, but Biden will not unleash still more of the Ten Plagues of Egypt on his own country out of his own foolish obstinacy. I’m only half-joking when I say it wouldn’t surprise me if water started turning into blood in the next week.

Well, that’s partly because for real rich people, the answer is always “compound interest”.

It’s weird how often phrases that criticize aspects of American society get turned right around and are used uncritically to uphold those very same aspects of society.

In fairness, no other movie has that Sexy Sax Man energy going for it:

So many possible stories. You know how after your dad dies, you start hearing stories about how he did this or that crazy thing in his youth? Well, with my dad, it’s sort of like that, only imagine that my dad was Batman, and you have the basic idea. His formal role was . . . ambiguous, but he was basically a “go get…

There was the animated short “Mr. Incredible and Pals” as a dvd feature, but it was more a parody of 60s superhero cartoons with commentary by the actual Mr. Incredible and Frozone.

It’s a classic example of truthiness, as run through the conservative belief filter. Truthiness, for those who were young enough to still be pre-political in 2005, is “the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to…

I’m reminded of a comedy bit SFDebris did when he reviewed Justice League Unlimited, where he noted that every superhero has their own way of opening a locked door that tells you about their personality. Superman will bust down the door to demonstrate his strength. Batman will cleverly pick the lock or deduce the key…

Eh, I think it’s actually confusion about the philosophical idea at play. The theme that Brad Bird recurrently comes back to is known as “alienation”.

I’d add John Ford and Sergio Leone to that list, but everyone on that list deserves to be there.

I agree that it isn’t particularly fair; Bob, being blessed with standard Brick superpowers (super strength, nigh-invulnerability, large size) typically handles things directly and straightforwardly. Helen, whose powers are literally in her flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances, is pretty inevitably…

Yeah, Syndrome is a fantastic villain, one of the best that Disney/Pixar has ever created. Dude combines both layers that you can empathize with, with being completely vile. It’s a rare villain that gets a full-on Indiana Jones death, and I’m like “Yep, got what he deserved”. But Syndrome makes that list handily.

I’ve actually asked that very question on the Kotaku boards. The uniform answer was to play RDR first, then RDR2 second. Everyone said (without spoiling anything, for which I am grateful) that part of the beauty of the story of the second game was the sense of inevitability.