PixlBit

No Switch and now does not seem to be the time to buy one, unfortunately. 

I remember Nate and his wife basically almost divorcing a couple times in that game, but yeah. That's less ludonarrative dissonance and more just poor writing. I guess I just go along for the ride and miss these things. lol 

I can't imagine claymation being "easier" to do than any other medium, but they did use computers to help with certain animations like the morph head early on in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElHWGiSlUTU

You might be onto something about the limits of computers at the time though. These days you could probably just build believable claymation models as CG graphics, but I imagine you need some pretty talented artists to make that look believable still. I wonder if it was more about tech limits at the time or more because the 90s had a decent amount of "indie" minded creators who might have just liked doing claymation cause they did it in film school or something. Probably some mix of both. 

Other than that, I have ... no reference for any of these things, and 1998 was a big year for 8-year-old me cause I bought my first CDs this year (Hanson's first CD and Garbage version 2.0 cause "When I Grow Up" was in the Big Daddy soundtrack).

Man, 1998/1999 was when EVERYTHING started going pop. Boy bands were becoming big, Blink 182 was about to make punk even more pop-sounding than Green Day ever had, Semisonic's "Closing Time" was a big "alternative" hit that sounded very little like the harder rock sound of that genre from the early 90s, etc. 

Mafia! sounds up my alley though. I love Airplane! and Naked Gun. 

Wargames is not my thing, but add that Brian Seltzer song to the list of "things I thought were way older than they actually are." I heard that song on some ads in the 90s or maybe some movies/TV shows, I forget. But man, that is not a sound I associate with 90s. I do like it though. 

Funny you mention private school and Beowulf together cause I remember reading part of it in my 8th grade Catholic school English class and the teacher censoring bits and pieces (well, not really; just did not assign parts of it because of content; same thing happened when we read A Day No Pigs Would Die and there was a certain scene involving a bull we were told we shouldn't read). 

Yeah, you're probably right about when it started showing up. 

I guess I'm able to accept it more than others might be, but I'm sure there have been moments where I've had to laugh because the difference between gameplay and cutscenes is so jarring. 

I think I'm able to accept it in games like Uncharted and Yakuza because they take that dissonance to such an extreme I honestly wonder if it's not done for humorous effect (especially in Yakuza) on purpose, I accept it in most other games cause I just accept it as a limitation of the video games genre, and I accept it in The Last of Us Part II because its world is such a shit show that it's really not hard to believe any particular character racking up the body count in order to survive. 

But again, I TOTALLY see why it does bother you and others. Just like I totally see a lot of other points people have about TLOU 2, those things just don't bother (or actually really work for me) personally. 

I've never played one of these, but the concept sounds interesting. 

Ludonarrative dissonance, you mean? I wonder. I feel like that predates Uncharted, but maybe Uncharted popularized it? 

Ok, so Commodore 64 was an 80s thing ... man, it is hard for me to keep track of the timeline of consoles that aren't one of the current major three or Sega. 

Indeed. But most of this is aimed at the Twitter vitriol aimed at the developers. I LOVED the game, but most complaints about it I've seen are actually pretty fair and I can see where people are coming from even if the weird stuff they tried really worked for me, personally. 

Without spoiling anything, I don't NEED every piece of media I consume to have a totally clean, straight timeline in a three-act structure in order to enjoy it. But it helps for a lot of people, and I can't be mad at that.

Super Mario Odyssey does look good, but I heard the other day Switches are ridiculously expensive right now due to high demand and low supply. In fact, I just looked it up and Wal Mart has them for $499.99 without tax. Hell no!

STAGE SELECT: 

Most memorable gaming gifts: 

- N64 with Star Fox 64 for Christmas 1997. Saw the amazing-at-the-time graphics at some cousins' house on their then-giant TV and was so happy to see it come home to me. Literally thought SF 64 was a launch game and came out before Mario 64 because of the timeline in which *I* received things. 

- Gamecube was the first console I bought with mostly my own money, so that was special and kinda sad at the same time, because

- I had to buy it with my own money for family debt reasons, and this came up again when I wanted the Game Boy Player for one of my birthdays. I had never before seen my mom so hesitant to spend money on something and I don't think that peripheral retailed for more than $50 or so  at the time. Loved playing GBA games on that thing though. Made it feel like I was playing Zero Mission on a Super Nintendo, kinda-sorta. 

- More recently, one of my favorite birthday gifts was my best friend buying me Yakuza 6 well after my obsession with that series became a consistent punchline for me. Only regret: kinda wish he would have asked me which version, cause I still want those cocktail glasses in the deluxe edition. 

VIDEO GAME CAGE MATCH: 

Donkey Kong Country 2, hand down. Nothing against the newer titles, but it's one of those franchises where I feel the remakes focused a little too much on people's memory of these games being hard. And they do get there, but WAY later on in the game than I think the remakes seem to from what little I've played (at kiosks). 

Total nostalgia move, but I gotta go DKC 2.