Wiper

I mean...

Yeah, there were a few bits about it this year, IIRC starting with this Kotaku article: https://kotaku.com/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-t-1834611691 Of course, the game making me too uncomfortable to play it would be an issue with or without the above, but it did make me question the game beyond just discarding it as "not for me".

Persona 4 Golden. I played it shortly after I did the most selfish, regrettable thing of my life: short version - split up with my partner and flirted with another friend... Who was themselves in a relationship. Came to my senses in time to avoid ruining the latter, and got back together with my previous partner, but I was completely lost in self-loathing and, well, a sort of dysphoria over what I'd done; I just couldn't accept that I would behave like that, couldn't come to terms with my own actions. P4G, for all its simplistic approach to the topic (and deep flaws when dealing with issues of gender and sexuality), really helped me. Its recurrent theme of accepting the parts of us we dislike, learning to recognise and handle them rather than suppressing and rejecting them, was incredibly helpful. Plenty of games have helped serve as distraction, as a way to cheer me when I'm down (hell, the Squadrons alpha has been incredibly helpful in picking me up after a rejection; on the latter note, would strongly recommend not being demiromantic, it kind of sucks most of the time), but P4G stands out as having actually helped me to work through personal issues.

Yeah, modern Mortal Kombat is beyond my ability to stomach too, which is a shame as I actually enjoy the, well, combat. The bit where the development of it left some of the development team with PTSD from having to research and visualise properly grotesque stuff doesn't exactly disavow me of the notion that maybe things have gone a bit beyond the pale with that series.

They feel pretty sturdy; think they may have more hull points to balance out. Also, less energy system juggling is a plus. And the whole 'support ships firing out repairs' thing helps take the edge off, if you're in a supportive wing. I've only flown one online match so far, but I was impressed. And saw a wild Harsin.

Western release of SoR3 notwithstanding, there. Just in case anyone here reads that and, having played said game, reasonably thinks "fuck it, I'm out".

Mildly bemused by that wide selection of fantastic revenge stories... And John Wick and TLOU 2. I mean, I love JW, but it's very much an example of "vestigial narrative excuse for a great action movie". Deeply satisfying, but the emotional depth of a puddle.

Completely fair (though Hong Kong is, for me, its last truly great area). The game is overlong, and post-Hong Kong contains far too many weak areas. Given the community's penchant for remixing/expanding the game, I'd one day like to see a distilled version of the game, condensing it to a 10-15 hour experience. Full-fat Liberty Island/UNATCO/Hell's Kitchen/Hong Kong/Everett's house, and curtail/excise everything else. That'd be the good stuff.

You take that back Rez and/or Deus Ex are still masterpieces, dagnabbit.

I now have visions of you throwing your Switch through the television screen when you leave one of GoT's unskippable cutscenes only to find yourself in one of AC's unskippable dialogue loops

I mean, it's been out for one day.

To be fair, most of the people I've seen talk about this games writing are people who've also expressed criticism of e.g. Naughty Dog/Rockstar games' dissonance between action and narrative themes, so I'm not sure that's entirely true. People interested in talking about narrative themes and writing in games will, in my experience, tend to bring that sort of analysis to most games they play. I mean, I know I can't switch that part of my brain off. They may, however, not talk about it as much when discussing games where narrative/writing/characterisation aren't centred/pushed as much as important parts of the experience, largely as people are a bit less interested in hearing about that. To put it simply: fewer people are likely to be playing Ghost of Tsushima primarily for the story/dialogue/cut-scenes, than played Uncharted or TLOU for those reasons, so by default conversations on those qualities of the game have less of an audience. By contrast, I would expect a bit more discussion of Ghost of Tsushima to focus on its combat, which is clearly a strength, than e.g. Uncharted's combat gets.

I've not played the game and I'm not popping in to throw any opinions at it as I'm in no position to do so (I wandered in because I was curious to see the forum's thoughts on the game), but given the very specific question raised here I thought I'd mention the response I've seen to the game's themes of honour and bushido elsewhere, as I can at least give a little context to that. Interestingly, I've not really seen much talking about a disconnect between those themes and the gameplay; at a guess, either because people get sidetracked by the issue I'll mention in a second, and/or because we're desensitised to those very themes of 'honour' being used to excuse/fuel violent action, so it feels like a standard use of the trope. See e.g. every Western-made ninja/samurai/martial arts movie. The issue I have seen raised, repeatedly, from many angles, is that the focus on "honour" (and particularly bushido) is an extremely Western thing to do - it reflects a particular fetishisation of Japanese culture, in much the same way as fiction focussed on the "chivalry" of European knights can do to European history, and somewhat goes against the creators' stated aims to live up to e.g. Kurosawa's work; a filmmaker who made films about complex characters with a multitude of motivations, where "honour" was practically never a driving force. (also, some grumbling about centring honour and Bushido in a game set 400(?) years before the development of Bushido, rather like having a game all about chivalry set during the Norman invasion) But, yeah, as stated, I have seen a fair bit of discussion of the game's themes, but it's been focussed on their simplistic/exoticised use, rather than their potential dissonance with the gameplay.

I'm not going to judge a game based on a trailer alone, but I will say that one thing does seriously bother me about it, and it's that a game with that subject matter really needs to be developed by a team which, well, doesn't look like this: I'd be wary of the lack of diversity in any case, but when you're developing a game centred around a virtual female Twitch personality you really need to have some women in your team in creative/narrative design roles at least.

It depends on the monitor - in my case pillarbox is the only option (which is, frankly, all I'd want), but some also give you the option to stretch if preferred. I'd be very surprised if any force you to go with a stretched aspect ratio/completely fail to display, though. Not unless you try to force a super-low res on one, at least.