>>719751335
Adi Shankar is the novelty cereal of directors. He takes a flavor you love, shows you the box, and then serves what is always a small, sugary mess that costs too much and does not offer any nourishment.

>>718546976
>>718546526
>All of the heroes are brown
>Every character in the "evil corporate test facility torturing people in experiments" video from Secret Level was white

>>718483980
>Sometimes it feels like all the better games were rushed to a level while no delayed game ever gets "eventually good".
Delayed games speak of an inability to replicate the success that prior games had. Whether this is due to a lack of talent or lack of interest can be discussed, but is ultimately irrelevant because it translates into the same thing; people turning something that is meant to be passion into a project, and whimsy into work. Lord of the Rings (all of them) was shot in a single year because the people making the series knew what they were doing and had passion for what they were making. Toy Story 2 was storyboarded, generated and produced less than a year after the release of Toy Story 1 because the team knew what they were doing, and had a passion for what they were making.

Anything that takes longer than 3 years to produce is not worth your time. It's either going to be somebody's weird obsession (Mad God, Thief and Cobbler), a soulless cash grab that chases trends which either no longer exist or are heavily saturated, or (worse) it's a heartbreaker designed to string people along on the hope of release with bi-annual teases and meaningless "updates" (most WEGs, Star Citizen, Silksong.)

How about we cut the crap and recognize this is the same sort of malicious derangement that turned people into mask-gestapo during Lockdown. It's about holding power over others with the authority of either law or society behind you.

It's a lynch mob. That's all this is. It's a lynch mob. Do you think niggers were strung up in trees because men felt like killing niggers that day? No, it's because a woman fucked the nigger and felt bad about it, so she accused them of raping her. That's always how lynch mobs work.
>This guy did something wrong but we don't want to go through the legal system to get our justice

>>718024254
You're right, the Japanese generally avoid making live-service games and instead make 20 iterations of the same game model. This is better because it places the game profits on game sales more than wealth extraction from in-game stores.

>Alyx Vance is the same thing as modern gaming women
First impressions are important. They decide the foundation your brain will build your judgement of the character. Assholes can redeem themselves, but they must be acknowledged as assholes. They can be cynical, but they need to be expressly treated as the "cynical" one whose standoffish ways are extrapolated. To put it simply, the first 30 seconds you spend with a new character determines the entirety of your experience with the character.

So what is our first impression of Alyx Vance?

She's smiling at you when you meet her. She's happy. Your first experience with her is amicable. Pleasant, even. She expresses rage and frustration, but never at you. She's strong and helpful, but does so a complement to your efforts. She's never presented as a bad woman, or a complicated woman. She's a resistance hero that grew up hearing stories about you and is enthusiastic to work with you. There's only a hint of romantic tension after you've spent 20+ hours with her, and in the "third" game.

So when you see Alyx in the game, you're thinking, "oh wow, it's Alyx! Yay!" Not, "Oh, it's my fucktoy" or "it's the bitch that yells at me" or even "it's the carpet." It's a friend. A companion. Snarky and independent, but cares about you and what you are doing for the resistance. You can get all of that in the first 30 seconds of meeting Alyx. The way she fights, the way she talks, and tries to break the ice, or cracks jokes. Alyx Vance is a good character. She's not a complicated character, but memorable characters rarely are.

>>717552040
>Are things just going to get more lame and gay or is there any hope?
Don't play Western trash. Don't play Western AAA trash.