PixlBit

I love the new badass Liam Nieson. Go watch The Grey. Thank me later.

I was thinking about you as we were recording this episode. When Rob dropped his Half Life bomb, I almost laughed out loud because I knew you'd be foaming at the mouth.

My point is that I think the FPS can be an amazing place to tell stories about war and combat. I do play my share of shooters, and I enjoy them. I liked MW3. I think it could be so much more in terms of the single player campaign, but of course that's not the focus for Infinity Ward.

Why can't we have some more serious games about war? Imagine a game where you had a fully realized character that you take all the way from bootcamp to the frontlines. It's a video game, so of course we need some over the top hijinks to make it interesting, but what about the fear on the battlefield? What about something that deals with PTSD? The first person perspective can be amazing and powerful for storytelling. I know most shooters are summer blockbuster movies, and I'm fine with them. But for every ten Pearl Harbors can I just get one Saving Private Ryan?

Your Street Fighter comparison is a little off, because you're talking about a game that really doesn't have a single player mode to speak of. Oh, there's arcade mode with its silly character endings, but really, the single player mode of Street Fighter is just training for playing against real people. It doesn't ask any tough questions, nor does it have to.

I don't have a problem with multiplayer in shooters, besides the fact that I suck at it and won't get any enjoyment out of it unless all I do is play that and nothing else. But again, I think there's room in the single player campaign of a military shooter to do some bold, interesting things that could really make a person stop and think. But like I said in the show, I think you need to do those bold and interesting things in a fantastical setting, to get it away from the real headlines.

Starship Troopers (the book, not that atrocity that hit theaters) hit some heady themes, like having to earn your citizenship by serving in the military. It was a science fiction novel, but Robert Heinlein was also asking some real questions and calling into question the morality of people who would decry war and yet profit off of it at the same time.

Angelo, does that go for my Statham talk, too?

Hmm. So jump scares get you, and so does creepy atmosphere. I hate to say it, Esteban, but this may be a lost cause. You know what I'd do? Watch Evil Dead 1 and 2. Those are horror movies, but they have a lot of camp to them. Maybe when you see something that's scary but also kinda funny it will help you deal with more serious stuff.

I feel like I covered this in the Mass Effect edition of PixlTalk, but I'll bite.

I love games that excel at world building.That's why I enjoy Dead Space, the Legacy of Kain series, and even Primal on PS2. However, there are few universes in gaming that I want to spend a lot of time in. The Mass Effect universe is one of those. The lore of ME is so deep and detailed that I could spend years absorbing it all.

I want a Mass Effect movie. I want more Mass Effect novels and comics. I want games that explore different aspects of the universe, in all types of game genres. I want to see the home world of the volus. I want to see what female turians and krogans look like. I want to see a quarian's face, dammit.

Beyond that, as far as the emotional attachment goes, it's already been said. It's the characters. Not just the people in your party, but your crew and the people you meet along the way. But above all of that is Shepard. Never before have I felt so much ownership over a character. When I lost my Shepard and had to recreate him (not quite successfully) I was broken up about it. That may seem silly, but I've played with that character so much that I can't see him as anything else.

I play Final Fantasy XI. Our server merged with another, and I lost my character's name in the process, because there was another character with that name on our new server. I've felt disconnected from my avatar ever since. If somehow my save data had been completely lost before moving into ME 3, I would have felt the same way. I wouldn't be able to just roll a new Shepard. I'd have to play through the first two games to make sure that what made it into part 3 was MY Shepard, and not some impostor.

What scares you? Monsters, supernatural phenomenon, serial killers? It's different for everyone. Because of my religious upbringing, stuff involving demon possession is what terrifies me. The Exorcist and the Paranormal Activity movies mess me up. But monsters don't bother me. I can go through Dead Space with no problem.  As far as my suggestion, the Resident Evil remake for Gamecube. RE was my first exposure to horror, period. It's a good one to start with.

I have no idea why the bonuses are based on Metacritic and not sales. As the movie industry has shown, consumers like what they like, no matter what reviews say. 6 million copies is still a hit these days.

The weapons have mods now. Not as in depth as the first game, but they seem to actually make a difference. You can find and buy newer models of guns you already have, again more like the first game. But really, the things that matter are clip size (again, I hate that Mass Effect 2 and 3 seem to ignore the way the guns work in the lore) and accuracy. I got a sniper rifle for my infiltrator that can hold over a hundred rounds, with 15 in the clip. It fires fast, and since getting it, firefights have been a breeze. I don't feel like it's more powerful, but it's more useful as I don't have to reload as often.

The game does get better as it goes. I'm 15 hours in, but the first 5 were pretty meh for me. ME 3 is very much like FF XIII: small, super linear areas followed by long cutscenes. Normally I wouldn't mind that, but since I've come to expect more input in conversations it was a bit jarring to sit there for 10 minutes just watching my Shepard talk. So far, my issues are with the story and the missions. Many of the missions feel like multiplayer missions, i.e. "defend X against waves of enemies". That's not very fun to me, and I find myself pining for the exploration of the first game. Oh well. It's still good, but so far the first game is still my number one.

My girlfriend (well, ex now) worked at Blizzard when this went down. It was all across the customer service division. She was safe, but they cut at least three people per team. She said it made the lines for phone service way longer. She has since gotten a new job.

I love Rock 'n Roll Racing too. I think it would be harder to bring it into the modern age, as it was basically just an overhead car combat game with licensed rock music. Mind blowing at the time, but if you release that to a new generation, they will wonder what the big deal is.

I never played the pseudo sequel, Red Asphalt. I think it even took me a year or so to realize that it was related.