Mr. GOH!

I agree with you, ThrusdayNext, especially on the Lebowski analogy. The Big Lebowski is my favorite movie, but the plot is bonkers nonsense and does not matter in the least except as an homage to classic noir films with similarly nonsense plots. For the record, I don't think less of anyone who enjoys the dumb MGS plots. Hell, I'm fond of the ridiculous backstories and zany cut scenes. But the MGS gameplay is so on point that I don't understand why folks get upset when the plot isn't as thick or is dead-ended.

I hope the grinding you refer to is not part of the main campaign and only involves the weirdly same-y side ops. I mean, Is wear I've cleared the same towns and checkpoints four or five times now in four or five different side ops.

What's the issue with Mother Base? I've heard mostly good things about the Mother Base system. It seems fun and interesting to me, but I'm still relatively early; I'm due to play Chapter 5 soon, I believe. I just unlocked development of Mother Base itself.

I only finished Snake Eater, but I played the one on Nintendo in the US, got about halfway through MGS, watched a buddy play MGS 2 a bunch, and I watched a Let's play of all of 4, to be specific. I have not played the other Raiden game, and I have zero idea of what Peacewalker was all about. But even if I only had extensive experience of MGS 3, I think my points stand. I do embrace the story for what it is; I just am not invested in taking it at all seriously, so it's relative weakness in TPP doesn't really affect my opinion of the game. I never expected the overarching plot to make sense or go anywhere, so the fact it doesn't in TPP doesn't bother me. It's par for the course.

I am 99.99% certain the reason Snake doesn't talk much is because Kiefer Sutherland is expensive, so they couldn't record as much as they could with Hayter.

Well, yes, the games all indulged Kojima's lunacy to an extent that I could hardly believe it, even as a teenager playing MGS for PS1. But the story has always been hot nonsensical bullshit. The presentation was at least hilarious because it was so self-important and baroque, yet stupid as all get-out, and TPP is very much in keeping with that tradition.

People other than Hideo Kojima cared about the Metal Gear Solid games' plots? I mean, c'mon; they've been dumb as hell since the 80's. It's all hamfisted bullshit. But the gameplay, at least in the Metal Gear games I've played, has always been solid and fun.

I've read that the main mission that actually ties up the main story was cut from the game and that the "real" ending in the game leaves a lot of plot threads hanging.

I love backstory and fluff as much as the next nerd, but going through all these tapes takes up so much goddamn time.

I'm about an hour twenty in. Middle of the intro cut scene to Chapter 1. Everything I've played so far indicates that this is indeed a Hideo Kojima joint. It is delightfully mad and fun.

The forum has been acting weird whenever I try to post or reply to or upvote anything; it just hangs there, the three dots pulsing forever and ever. When I reload the page after waiting ten or so seconds, though, my reply or post or upvote has gone through. It's annoying.

She doesn't need to be an AI to make those decisions. Although Gleeson is presented as the protagonist in the film, all of his actions and decisions are premised on the robot being an object that exists for his use/pleasure. Whereas she's just a piece of fuckable tech to Oscar Isaac, she's a piece of fuckable tech with feelings for Gleeson. She's still just an instrument to Gleeson, although he's more romantic about it. He's actually one of the two villains of the movie. Think of it this way; if she were human, Gleeson would still be complicit in her imprisonment, so of course she resents him.

Thanks for the advice! Also, since I'm a huge nerd; this Alien is female. I believe all the aliens are female, in fact.

The clerks would be authorized to use her stamp, or the equivalent, if she were unfit for service, or KY law empowers a different official to appoint a temporary clerk if the clerk is incapacitated, I am fairly certain. In the stamp scenario, I think they would be generally authorized to use the stamp after the applicants' application for a license was found to comport with KY law. Now, however, she has not authorized the use of her signature stamp so they cannot use it. it may not exactly be this scenario, but I'd wager it's something like this. Furthermore, IIRC, KY law makes it an obligation upon the clerks to certify all legal marriage applications, but here she has forbidden her clerks from processing any applications. Now that their boss is in jail, she can't immediately fire them for giving out marriage licenses. More importantly, the Court has essentially ordered them to process licenses or face contempt and end up in the clink with their boss. This is just an educated guess.

Her supporters would play the victim in any scenario in which the courts allow her to continue to violate the Establishment Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment. She can affect the operation of the office from jail as long as she doesn't resign; she's still the other clerks' boss and their issuance of licenses today goes against her directives and she may even be able to fire them from jail. But you're right; if she was no imprisoned, no licenses would have been issued today. But those licenses may not be valid under KY law since they lack her signature, anyway, so the jury is still out on whether imprisonment is truly more effective than fines.

The dumbest part of this is that she admits that she sees the job as an opportunity to be a voice for her faith and that resigning would mean gay folks get marriage licenses, so she believes resigning would go against her religion. That is exactly what the First Amendment prohibits a government employee from doing in his or her official capacity. I was somewhat surprised the judge ordered her jailed; federal judges have very broad powers to craft contempt orders tailored to elicit compliance on the part of the contemnor; if I were he, I'd order a flat fine of maybe $500 a day pl;us whatever monies are collected by her, her law firm, her family, or any other representative under the auspices of relieving the financial burden of the fines because allowing her raise or keep any monies based on her contempt would undercut the coercive purpose of a civil contempt order. On the other hand, ordering her jailed is simpler and would avoid the hassle of examining all of her financial records and would also avoid third=parties claiming the court is trying to order them around even though they were not in court to argue in their defense. Fred: civil contempt orders are supposed to be coercive. And this isn't the sort of case where an adverse inference on credibility or missing facts would be warranted since her contempt is not related to credibility or the concealment/destruction of evidence nor would her defense really hinge upon credibility since courts generally do not examine how sincerely a person's religious beliefs are in a First Amendment defense context. There's also the issue that the licenses issued today by Rowan County do not bear the clerk's signature, which makes them facially invalid under KY law. The KY legislature can, and I assume will, change the marriage licensing law to not require the country clerks to sign off on each license, but it won't convene again until January. I imagine once the law changes so Davis does not have to sign the licenses, she'll be let out of jail. Until then, she'll be the face of bigoted martyrdom on the homophobic right wing.

I can't tell if those videos mean that this is a good game or that it is a bad game.

Again, so what? It's four days. It's whether you have it the Friday before versus the Tuesday it's currently scheduled for release (at least in the US). since the vast majority of AAA games are released on Tuesdays in the US, it's not like you're hurt if the early release tier isn't unlocked. I also am skeptical every retailer will either have the copies ready for early release or not break street date anyway. I just think this whole thing is a tempest in a teacup. It feels gross and bad, but I don't think it has any real negative effects for the consumers.

Why does this affect anyone's decision to preorder? I mean, preorder bonus 'goods' are of almost universally shitty quality and are tacky, valueless nonsense, whether DLC or physical. I mean, who loses sleep over deciding between a dumb art book and a dumb soundtrack? Yeah, the preorder campaign is stupid, but that's of a piece with all preorder bonuses ever being stupid. If you care about the extra shwag, well, you might get it without paying more if enough people preorder. If people don't preorder, no skin off your back; you got the base game at the base game price, no harm, no foul.

Playing Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, Alien:Isolation, Card Hunter, Fallout: New Vegas (with a shitload of graphics mods), and finishing up Kotor 2. Been quite nice, chillaxing and gaming more because I have shorter work hours until after labor day.

That suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Just started playing in earnest, maybe 3 hours in? Lots of scripted stuff, too, I think. I mean, I've only encountered the alien twice, I think the game shows promise. I'm still being introduced regularly to new tools and systems, so I'm sure I'm in the extended 5-8 hours tutorial sequence. I love the atmosphere and the tension. That almost every in-game action taken by the main character, from saving, to removing industrial locks from doorways, to rerouting power, does not pause the game really heightens the tension. And everything you do in the game feels at home in the Alien film universe. It's pretty nifty.

Jupiter Ascending was brilliant schlock that knew exactly how batshit it is.