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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • Super Nintendo:

    • Megaman X. I was never a fan of classic Megaman, but the faster, more action-oriented sequel/spinoff X series rates amongst my favorites. It has tight controls, good music, varied stages, and memorable bosses and combat encounters. I must have beaten the first game dozens of times over the years.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It and Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy were so close to perfect that decades later they’re still the basis of comparison for any new 2D Zelda-like.

    PC:

    • Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. it was the game that introduced Bioware’s trademark party banter and focus on interesting and likeable characters. The systems are a little rough but it still mostly holds up. Though it’s been a while since my last playthrough, and I usually stop once I hit the Underdark and the open world structure constricts for a few hours.





  • He wanted out for a long time, IIRC as early as MGS 2. 4 was originally planned to end with Snake and Otacon being captured and executed for terrorism to put the final nail in the franchise’s coffin, with Kojima only dropping the idea after his entire writing staff protested.

    I think you hit the nail on the head with his dissatisfaction being why 5 felt so different. It barely feels like a Metal Gear game even if the stealth is at its all-time best, but you can definitely see some proto-Death Stranding DNA in it in retrospect. He was clearly experimenting with new gameplay ideas, which might explain why the game went so far over budget and ended up unfinished.





  • Tap for spoiler

    And it would have worked perfectly with Hayter as both parts. He’s a voice actor; he can do a second voice of Ishmael pretending to be someone else. As for Venom sounding the same, well, hypnosis/mind control and plastic surgery are basically magic in this universe anyway (see Decoy Octopus, Liquid Ocelot, or hell just Ocelot in this same game).

    Though that’d be torpedoed by Kojima’s feud with Konami over crediting and its result of every scene in MGS5 listing (spoiling) its participants with a credit byline. In that case the intro could have used a different voice for Ishmael, and then the forced replay later that shows what actually happened could switch to Hayter.







  • Andor falls into the same category as Knights of the Old Republic 2: it’s amongst the best Star Wars despite (or rather because of) it not being very Star Wars-y.

    Much like KOTOR 2 deconstructed Jedi, the Force, and their roles in the universe, Andor deconstructs and elaborates on how the universe would work as shown: instead of waving everything away into the background to focus on a Chosen One with space magic, you get to see how normal people live in a messed up universe like that. It’s also depressingly relevant with its focus on the slide into an authoritarian regime and how people respond and adapt.

    If you go in expecting the normal black-and-white power fantasy you’ll probably be disappointed, but if you’re looking for a masterful character-driven drama with morally gray protagonists and antagonists then you’ll be riveted.

    (Another thing both have in common is the beginning can be a bit of a slog - try to make it past episode 3 before calling it quits.)