Life has a funny way of laughing at you when you get small windfalls.

I finally was able to get a new laptop, a wireless extender, and a licensed Xsplit so I can do some LoL streaming...and it turns out the broken turn signal on the car is a result of the steering column being bad. >.<; Bleh.

I have a theory on Brony culture, one I will admit is likely quite defeat-able, but still potentially valid:

Even if there has never been a singular, specific admission by any significantly large number of people; the collective consciousness of these entertainment viewers has finally reached the critical point where it can no longer stand the drought of product catering to their specific tastes. This is akin to 'cultural starvation' for these individuals.

When you are literally starved, even a dry cracker tastes like the finest food ever consumed. Your body will devour it; in fact the impulse to swallow it whole may not be within the bounds of voluntary control to resist and eat it like a 'civilized' individual. You might've wanted (your specific tastes) something more fitting to eat than a cracker (something that grazes the edge of your peripheral interests despite not being the target audience), but at that point you cannot reject the survival impulse to eat when food is placed directly before you.

My Little Pony is this cracker.
The 'brony phenominon' is the involuntary disembowelment of the cracker; as observed from an un-starved individual.


I myself am not a 'brony'. (Ironically, despite being a writer, I have a deep-rooted hatred for fan communities* and what they represent these days.) But I think I can empathize with how 'wholeheartedly' they dive into the material when viewed from that perspective.

*Meaning more the mutation that 'fan' has come to represent rather than the traditional definition.

On ScrewAttack it's kind of hard to suggest things because a lot of their content can be hit or miss; that and their show archiving royally sucks.

I.E:
-Game Overthinker is one of 'MovieBob's' shows in a similar vein to Extra Credits, only focused more on hot-topic issues in the Gaming Industry rather than about the quirks and nuances of the industry itself. Enjoyment varies depending on interest in these issues, how much you like or dislike MB's style of critical approach, and if you can stomach or have the patience to fast-forward through the 'Story Segments' that seem to be a 'must have' of any online reviewer/journalist these days no thanks to That Guy With the Glasses. ~_~;

-Game Theory is a show with technically a nice bit of potential. It explores some of the more out there elements in gaming story/lore and approaches them from an angle most people might not have thought of before; typically with some excellent points. However...the way in which the material is presented is more than a little annoying, to say the least. It's like the creator is afraid he'll lose his audience unless he constantly (and I mean constantly) slaps around bad word plays, image transitions, and behaves like a 13-yeard old high on sugar discovering they can post videos on Youtube for the first time. Additionally some of the episode topics themselves are...IMO, pointlessly dull.

-Screwing Around may or may not be your thing depending on your taste for the current hot trend in internet show production; live streaming. It's pretty much an archive of various LS things they've done. Anything from intentionally playing the most horrible games you can imagine (such as the Teletubbies game); aka 'Terrible Thursdays', to in-house competitions for various things; aka 'Iron Man of Video Gaming', 'Mario Troll-Off', to unique gaming challenges 'Green Demon Challenge', to my personal favorite; 'Mario Party After Dark' (basically best friends having all out trash-talking wars utilizing Mario Party; in an awesome way usually). However additionally enjoyment depends on how much you like or dislike the personalities hosting/participating in these shows andf tolerance for their behaviors as a group dynamic.

-Death Battle, while not always gaming oriented, is what I consider probably one of the 'safer' suggestions. At least anything halfway through the show's lifespan after they more steadily forged their show's concept/identity and took more time in the pre-show prep. It's basically 'Deadliest Warrior' for video game, comic, anime, cartoon, ect. characters; done wonderfully light hearted with proper respect given to the presentation.

Ever wondered who'd win in a fight of Zelda vs Peach? Got it.
Pikachu vs Blanka? Got that too.
Oh, and there was that not really significant or polarizing episode at all they did just last month. I believe it was...Superman vs Goku. (Warning: Episode lasts in excess of 30 minutes; set time aside if you're honestly curious.)

-Anything else...is unfortunately a bit hard to pin down. They're constantly hosting videos for other shows to help them get exposure; some actually quite a bit more entertaining and informational than anything on the host site itself. Again, since they don't archive for squat it's pretty hard to pin these down. About all you can do is just check the home page every so often, scroll down, see if anything interests you. If so, click. If not, move on and check later.

I never bought any DLC. So for me the ending was

People are human. Humans do 'that' with regularity.

I believe I can think of a least two instances in my past where individuals sharing my school grounds found it to their amusement to torment a female over vaginal shedding.

So I believe that particular form of harassment to not be uncommon as far as 'gender-targeted bullying' goes. *shrugs* I could speculate for some time over the 'why' but I'm more content for just agreeing it's quite a pointless thing to do to another individual.

Wow; there were only traces of it before but with that CGI render and those barftastic outfits it's pretty much undeniable. Lightning is almost a pixel for pixel clone for T3BD's 'Aya'. You could joke about the similarities before with T3BD's 'Lightning Outfit' but that chuckle sure fermented into one bitter echo.

Damn their art department is getting pathetically lazy.

Wasn't interested in the game before; still am not interested. Between Youtube and Wikipedias the concept of 'needing to see how it ends' holds zero motivation to justify wasting $65~ this day and age. Honestly after playing X-2 I'm probably not even going to utilize either of those tools though. I'm quite content with my ending.

If anything I think you potentially have the progression of development backwards.

I'm quite willing to bet there has been a very clear plot line for the KH1-3 story as far back as when 2 began development. You don't write a trilogy story's middle without at least some idea of where you're going/what you're doing in the end. However SE, even at that time already beginning to see their old flagships' stability (Final Fantasy and the ever widening division each post VII title has been creating, Star Ocean and the disaster that is every game post II, ect.) crumbling away, immediately recognized the 'cash cow' potential of this franchise from day one.

Multiple ties ins, merchandising, there was no way they would allow the original creators to just 'get away' with a 1, 2, 3 operation. Everything outside of the main numbered stories has pretty much had 'executive meddling' written all over it. It's not that they, the creators, don't know what to do with KH. It's that they're not being allowed to do what they want.

Personally I think even the jingle of that one extra yen isn't even enough anymore for SE to ignore the creaking of KH's support strains giving way under the massive slough of side-content they've been piling on. I would say these re-releases are a build up to KH3's inevitable release. They're going to make a huge deal out of it, utilize these re-dos as a form of 'count down' and make a massive parade out of it, turn KH 3 into the 'new FF VII' in terms of fiscal and public receptions. (As SE has pretty much publicly admitted they use VII as the base line for 'How well are we doing?' for goodness knows what reason. ~_~ )

And then finally with KH 3 out expect years of DLC (Got a new Disney moving coming out that needs advertising? There's your new DLC summon.), post end-side stories ( maybe not even within the same genre, ala Dirge of Cerberus), trans-gaming content (animations, movies, ect.), and so on. They will do it; mark my words.

I'm going to assume you had the same problem everyone else did when they swapped their players out.

Hotfix:

-Right click within the video screen.
-Click 'Settings' from the drop down menu.
-Click on the farthest lower left icon that looks like a computer monitor.
-Uncheck 'Enable Hardware Acceleration'.
-Refresh the page and all videos on that site should work just fine now.

Pop Fiction Episode 31

Just in case...

Blarf. That's like the weakest point of these games. XP Not enough plot, too much padding. And in this case it sounds like too much 'dead space'.

You know, I can actually 'understand' gender bends. Sometimes a character really does look cute or otherwise fascinating if you suddenly flop the X and Ys around. Sometimes a character contains personality traits that would be either shocking or out of the ordinary if their gender were reserves; leading to a dialog regarding the perception of double standards and gender roles in society.

This...is kinda garbage on all fronts. Lazy design and it's pointless on this particular character. Overly aggressive tsunderes are already the default female personality type in lazy Japanese writing 101. Laharl's already over his 'issues' with buxom females anyway so it's not going to develop him either. Personally I'd say this is pretty much the red, flashing, neon lights lit up over the 'We're out of ideas!' sign.

It's probably less 'Hey, this is a good idea!' and more some jackwagon trying to hop on the fear mongering train in order to eek out extra taxes for their state budget. Doesn't help that recently some oversensitive parents in Mass. got the DoT to yank all shooter-type arcade cabinets out of rest stops; so Miss Diane likely thinks there's enough support to squeeze this thing through.

Ni no Kuni is actually a weird deal for me.

See I actually somewhat like Miyazaki films. The visuals provide a nice little bit of surrealism that holds a unique charm even amongst the weird, experimental stuff anime artists do sometimes...but personally I think it only works in bursts. Little 1-2 hour films? Perfect match. A 40+ hour RPG? That completely turns me off. The concept of looking at that art style for that long over a singular story pretty much ensures I'll likely never even try the game. It's a weird pet peeve that this particular work seems to have triggered.

Also I doubly don't understand the appeal it has around here simply because I can recall several times where we've griped about Japan's absolute obsession with shoehorning in 17-belows in as the protagonists with tag-along cutesy mascots into nearly all of their JRPG work. But they throw a game at us with an even younger cast list and a crapton of the mascot types littering the world and somehow that's palatable...the hell? XD

What, no PSP/Vita love with even an Honorable Mention to Corpse Party: Book of Shadows? Shame! Shame!

Hmm...honestly I think the only thing on both those lists even remotely interesting is Ayesha; but considering the Atelier games have been more like the Rorona series with each passing iteration and less like the Mana Khemia counterpart...meh. The whole OCD 'Must make every item!' isn't enough to make up for the less than stellar combat and sub-par story hooks (although I have yet to plug in Meruru...maybe they changed it up...ha).

The rest of it really falls outside of the spectrum of my interests. *sigh* This is going to be a very lean gaming year. :-\

Would've been funnier if Kamiya had responded in Japanese. Simply because you could then tell if he were saying that exact response in rage-mode casual or ironic polite form. The latter would be glorious.

As is...eh. It's not any different from the Diablo 3 poo-fling facebook incident; which is so internet common that I'm only mildly disappointed in those partaking in it. Seriously, do people just forget outright to keep their mouth shut to baited criticism? It's not a difficult thing to do.