Dave

And if you buy the DLC, he'll poop on them too!

And thank you for your Social Insurance Number and Credit Card info!

Another good example is Bioshock, with how you can learn the story and listen in on what the characters have to say while still being able to move, play, and not have to stop the game for minutes at a time, all while still getting an immersive and engaging plot.

Does anyone else want fewer cutscenes in games? I can't help but feel that we occasionally teeter on the brink of having 35 hour movies with some playable bits in between rather than having a game. I get that the creators want to tell a story, but sometimes there are better ways to go about doing it than stopping the game entirely to show off the cutscenes.

Because he rules.

1. Gandalf. What's great about Gandalf is that he's one of the most powerful figures in Middle Earth, being a Maia spirit and essentially only being a few steps down from a demigod, but has willingly accepted his job as trying to help the people of the world help themselves. Unlike a lot of the other older characters, from the elves to the other wizards to Sauron to perhaps even the Valar, Gandalf seems to have an appreciation for all of the races he encounters, and learns their languages, their cultures, and learns to accept everyone as they are. Both of his incarnations have something special about them. As Gandalf the Grey, he comes not as a conqueror or as someone who would be necessarilly held in high esteem, but he comes as a wanderer in grey, who's humbleness makes him approachable to both kings and common folk. As Gandalf the White, he's the beacon of hope the world needs when everything seems dark, and his true power is simply making others believe that they can indeed stand against all the trouble that is coming. Gandalf is just a lot of things: he's hope, tolerance, wisdom, bravery, and, perhaps most important of all, he's a firework maker for the joy of silly hobbits, and that is no small thing. 2. Ebeneezer Scrooge There's something wonderfully endearing and truthful about Scrooge, and it's why he's lasted so long in popular culture. I think we can all see a bit of ourselves in him, in a way: sometimes we do shut our hearts to others, and we forget the things which might have mattered to us at one time, and replaced them with worries and fears of a more physical nature. The things about Scrooge is that he's not necessarilly a bad person: though some depictions have him care about money for the sake of money, he's more miserly because he's lost all of the things that made him happy in his childhood, and grew increasingly more and more insular, with his money giving him the power to be as such. But what matters most of all is the fact that he can change. Once he recognizes that his humanity never really left him entirely, and that there is still joy to be found in a world even as soulless as industrial London, he can still find that happiness which eluded him for years, and that is something that I think anyone can take away from the story. 3. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce This one way a bit tricky, because I love all of the characters of MASH in their own way, but I think Hawkeye has probably influenced me more than all the others. The biggest thing, I think, is how he's in the middle of a war, patching soldiers together, slowly losing his mind, but can find the time to make jokes and try and laugh his way through it, because "it's the only way I can open my mouth without screaming." I also love his attitude towards his patients, and how he is willing to treat any and all wounded, whether they are an enemy or an ally ("When they come in here, the uniforms come off.). And, of course, his solution for world peace is something that I still feel should be put into practice. "We throw away all the guns and invite everyone over for a cocktail party. Last man standing wins the war." He's cynical, self righteous, and possibly a nymphomaniac, but the grit that Hawkeye can show with a smile is something that I can relate to when I find myself in a lousy situation. 4. Charles Foster Kane What I love about Kane is that we see him from all of his angles. When he's funny, triumphant, golden, and on the rise, to when he's bitter, fallen, broken, and miserable. We love him as he's growing up, sticking it to the more conservative people he meets, ushering in energy and style and wit, and the fact that he's willing to call out people when they do wrong and stand up for the little guy. And then, as life goes on, he eventually becomes the very thing he hates, trying to use money to solve his problems, growing more and more reclusive, and beginning to take his friends for advantage as he expects unconditional love from them, but finds himself unable to give it in return. Most interesting of all, though, is that we never really see Kane from his own point of view: he is always presented as how other people see him, with his only real time alive being at the start of the movie, where he dies. But if you put the pieces together from the stories of everyone, you can begin to fill in the gaps and discover why Rosebud was so important to be his dying words. 5. Tevye Tevye is a fun character, because his needs and wishes are simple: he wants to provide a good life for his family, uphold the traditions of his beloved town of Anatevka, and, should God be willing, be granted a small fortune. But fate, of course, is not so kind: Tevye's world is changing around him, from his daughters refusing to marry those he approves of to the Russians in town becoming increasingly animate in deporting the Jewish community. And as Tevye watches all of this happen, he has to find new truths in this new world. He accepts that maybe his daughter's love matters more than his choices as the papa, that the love of his wife matters more to him than he thought, and that, sad as it might be, sometimes things will change, and there's nothing you can do about it. Tevye's acceptance of a world that is passing him by, and the need to grudgingly adapt to it, is a bittersweet story, like a fiddler on a roof trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking his neck.

I'm not sure what good the armor would do. I mean, it doesn't look like it offers any real extra protection.

He's the prettiest! He has a nice, warm smile, long blonde hair, and he's secure enough to wear makeup and own it!

Greeting, fellow unworthy disciples of Kefka! Once again, the time has come for a federal election, and although we ran short last time (see our past campaign here ), the Cult of Kefka Party feels that we once again should throw our feathered hats into the ring! If elected as President, Kefka's biggest promise to all is the promotion of equality. Worried about the capitalist bourgeoisie oppressing you? Fretting over the poor dipping their hands into your pockets? Fear no more, for Kefka will ensure that everyone is in their proper place. Rest assured, as his term continues, the disparity of monetary distribution will seem less and less important, and in fact, it's increasingly likely that all classes will increasingly rely on each other for commodity and mutual safety! So not only will Kefka be decreasing the gap between rich and poor, he will be helping you make more friends! What more could a person ask for? Of course, Kefka doesn't shy away from today's current hot-button issues, and will tackle all the country's controversial topics head on. Worried about guns? Don't worry: you can buy as many as you like, because they won't do you any good. Worried about immigration? Fear not! Guaranteed, you will soon not only see less and less people coming in, but fewer and fewer people from within the country as well! Don't want to see money put into welfare? Just as well, because you won't live long enough to use it! As you can see, Kefka has a permanent and practical solution for all of the issues facing the country today. But as we all know, what people REALLY want is to make sure that no hoity-toity career politician is getting into power, and that we all want to see one of us get into the Oval Office. And rest assured, Kefka is no ivy-league Shinra soldier. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps, working his way up through the ranks through heard work and determination. And since he has a humble background, the sheer number of inconviences, controversies, and dead bodies don't matter, because populism is the best part of modern politics, am I right? Of course I am! Kefka is one of you. So if you want to see Kefka work his magic and make your country a better place to live in, remember to vote for the Cult of Kefka Party in 2016. Remember: a vote for Kefka is a vote for living a marginally longer life if he permits it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzfh8SsLlz0&feature=youtu.be

I generally prefer a little longer. The shorter, stubbier ones tend to mess with my depth perception of how far away I am from the enemies.

Throughout the game, Riku intentionally and actively pursues the Darkness to get what he wants. He wants to see other worlds, and embraces the Dark specifically for that reason. He doesn't like that Sora is more powerful than him, so he gladly accepts multiple powerups from Maleficent, and eventually Ansem, to further use the Dark and assert himself. Even if he starts with relatively good intentions, as his arc progresses, he allows himself to entertain his thoughts of envy, power, and lust, and the more he becomes enamored with these thoughts, the more he turns to Dark to get what he wants. Whether the kickoff was a mistake or not, he actively makes more deliberate choices stemming from that mistake that reflect on him personally. Well, no, that would still be stealing. What matters is if they then learned they were wrong, returned what was stolen, and then actively pursued to never do it again. Riku gets a taste of the Dark, and does get several chances to not give into it, but ultimately disregards those chances and opts to keep right on trucking along the path he chose, until the end of Hollow Bastion. And Maleficent certainly is a cagey villain who knows her craft well. But she didn't force Riku's hand, just whispered in his ear and let his own thoughts guide his hand. Riku's willingness to tag along with Maleficent is a decision he makes himself, and even if he thought it was to help Kairi, do the means justify the ends to point of absolving him of all wrongdoing? Like an adolescent stealing a ball, perhaps?

Neither did Riku. Mickey helped bail him out during Chain of Memories, Sora helped him out in KH2, and Ansem the Wise helped get him out of his dark form with his machine. And Sora's power kept his heart from being devoured. And the fact that he did it without giving in shows a great level of personal strength and perseverence. I'm reasonably certain that his willingness to fight the Darkness isn't correlated with essentially getting kidnapped and drugged. Oh, no, I know that that's in the game and that's the direction the series is going. I just think it's a garbage plot point for rewarding Riku for abetting in destroying the world while punishing for Sora for daring to have a strong will and being a good guy. It's like saying if a person has stolen before, they're more immune to stealing that someone who has never done it. I don't think it was a "mistake" so much as it was a conscious and deliberate life decision that Riku made on multiple occasions. Fighting Ansem is the symbolic end piece to those choices, but that doesn't change the fact that he made them to begin with.

I might have laughed wryly at this.

Sora only fell into Darkness because he was essentially hijacked. Every other time, he has resisted its allure using nothing but strength of will. Not to mention that his Riku fell into Darkness willingly to gain power and work out his problems with not being the alpha male anymore, and again later to hide his shame because he wasn't heroic enough to actually apologize (which he still hasn't, incidentally). Even if Nomura wants to make-believe that Riku is somehow magically "immune" to Darkness, Sora has done a far better job of fighting it off than Riku.

I think we should do what TF2 did and start making custom hats.

Mad Max was far and away the best movie of the year.

But I like the original material much, much less than I do the Disney parts.

There's no such thing.

I think Pokemon Red.

Not only would I not be game, it would pretty much defeat the only motivation that still has me in the series.