Eh, not interested.
The new Gotham looks atmospheric as all get out, and expanding the playable characters and allowing them full access to the city with civilians in the streets is a nice change of pace, but as soon as player and enemy levels in conjunction with the XP was introduced and co-op was clearly the focus of the game, all my interest died off. It's like the Division, but with Batman.
I saw the numbers flash on screen with every blow, how barely-effectual each strike seemed to be (TBF, this could be attributed to the game's pre-alpha state and rougher animations and the like) against the enemy, in tandem with the clearly-simplified Freeflow-inspired combat system, and I checked out.
I get it: the Arkham series is done, and you can always play those if you want to -- they're not going away.
However, it also feels like a huge betrayal of expectations to introduce the Court of Owls within a post-Batman continuity*, but remove it from the more mature and established Arkham universe in favor of an online co-op action-RPG with in-game resources that are most assuredly hinting towards MTX implementation. They could have gone post-Knight -- maybe even planned to until it was decided to remake the game into its own continuity -- and had the Bat Family keep the peace and combat the Court, until the new Knightmare Batman hinted at in the post-credits Knight scene made his formal appearance, or something.
*As if he's really dead, though. Batman actually being dead in this story is about as likely as it was that anyone other than Jason Todd was going to be the Arkham Knight.
Speaking of which, revealing the new Suicide Squad game by Rocksteady -- but it's still two years out from release, ugh -- and despite it reportedly taking place within the Arkham timeline, Deadshot is now black, despite being white in two games and an animated feature that takes place within the same universe.
I get it's for brand recognition due to the first SS movie with the fresh prince playing Deadshot, but Floyd Lawton's identity was already established multiple times, and now they're just shifting it for no good reason.
Ultimately, not a huge deal, but a bit jarring.
Ah, yes, the ever-proven Galbrush Paradox.
The only situation where I've found complaints against having a flawed female protag tend to be non-existent is when you're given the option to create-a-character and alter their sex and appearance to your liking, and the story is largely built around the protag being a 'they' rather than a he or her, with little deviation between the two paths.
Doomcock's video 'Star Wars Leak | Lucasfilm Upheaval | Is Lucas About to Return?' is a major "source" for this rumor.
Quotations on source because Doomcock always states to take what he says with a grain of salt, since he can't independently verify the info provided. All the same, he has a decent track record with his alleged sources being proven legit after the fact.
"Only one word for the Wonder Woman 1984 #1 @RoosterTeeth variant cover by Robin Eisenberg: rad."
More like bad. Or sad. Or crap. Crap's good. It's crap.
I read through the Twitter thread, because I'm masochistic.
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot detractors. You can't release 'this' and not expect a negative response. It's virtually anti-PC bait.
And for those who commend the art (likely not on this forum, but you never know): beauty's in the eye of the beholder, like what you like, yadda yadda yadda. But covers like these don't sell comics; I should say woke pandering doesn't sell comics. Clearly, because the comics industry is undergoing a total meltdown as the strenuous weight of all the hyper-left idealog "artists" and "writers" are causing it to collapse, because no one's buying their shit.
But what I find particularly amusing are those claiming this is a regular body type - how far we have regressed in our health and fitness, ladies and gentlemen. Maybe under the modern context of a 40% obesity rate in the US, but being realistic, this is fat; definitely overweight, I'd call this body type obese in a heartbeat, and I'm sure any healthcare professional or a BMI calculator would follow suite.
No one's thighs should be as thick as their torso. The upper-arm shouldn't be that wide without the benefit of muscularity. Jeans like that are only worn to hide a paunch, further supported by the tube top stuffed into them. And, just to be blunt, how can you be that large, and not have prominent breasts?
Anyway, cover's bad. Rooster Teeth should feel bad, but I also heard they're purging their back catalog of "problematic" materials, so they're probably patting themselves on the back for releasing such a brave cover. Eh. World still spinning. Comics industry still in freefall. Democrats still supporting marxist uprising that's burning down their cities.
My experience with this game is personally extremely limited. I was never going to play it, because I'm not buying another console, especially not from woke-ass Sony. The leaks only added hilarity to how badly the game's plot was going to be, and because I don't want to spend 20+ hours watching boring footage of another one of Naughty Dog's interactive movies, I've avoided any let's plays.
But, man, every time I do catch some footage or an analysis of the plot, it only further supports my decision to divorce myself from this game.
Druckmann has clearly forgotten that the setting takes place in a post-apocalypse, or rather conveniently ignored as such when it would interfere with injecting his left-leaning perspective into the story. Jackson is an amazingly diverse local, despite being in Wyoming, which according to census data is whiter than a WASPy Christmas in Aspen. Attitudes towards 'alternative sexuality' are pretty "woke" considering the game takes place 20 years after a societal collapse, where more traditional male and female roles would most assuredly become the norm again. Most laughably exemplified with Mel being cleared for field duty despite being heavily-pregnant, plus the whole 'ultra-religious murder cult is progressive enough to sacrifice healthy potential childbearers as foot soldiers, but regressive enough to want to murder a transgendered kid'; if you're going to feature religious nutjob cultists then just go full tilt, and show them practicing the 'evils' of having women fulfill traditionalist roles as wives, child rearers, and homemakers. Throw in Abby's PED-grade physique and every straight male getting fucked over in some fashion, and you have yet another woke circus of a narrative with an Anita stamp of approval.
Also, on a lighter note, I kinda felt the 4 rounds from a revolver sin was a bit of a reach; it's a resource-scarce post-apocalypse, and the gun in in the hands of a member of a militant Luddite cult. She probably was only to scavenge so many rounds, or even fired one or two off prior to the attempted ritualistic execution of Abby.
Anti-white rhetoric is the latest hypocritical fad of the woke left entertainment bloc.
It was easily the black israelite talk that got him shit canned, not calling whites sub-human.
Although, I am still eager to see how far this snowball rolls, since the general populace can only benefit from the continued destruction of the entertainment industry.
The demographics that they're trying so desperately to alienate to be on the "right" side of culture are the ones that kept them afloat. Turning every movie and tv show into Black Panther isn't going to save their limousine socialist asses from falling into bankruptcy, studio by studio.
It's misplaced desperation driven largely, but certainty not entirely, by an adherence to social media of all things, which has been proven time and time again to represent a very vocal, yet very minority opinion.
Plus, China isn't doing to hot economically either, so even if Hollywood decided to go full CCP pander mode, it wouldn't help them out of their current funk. Wu Flu did hit China hard - the damn thing did originate there - and they're continuing to feel the reverberations of their shutdown and the global economic downturn the same as most other places.
The long and short of it is: no one really has any fun money to spare, so Hollywood's pretty much fucked no matter what they do.
It's about damn time.
Between the economic downfall of the movie industry and the country-wide "protests", it looks like Hollywood's latest strategy to claim to relevance before their upcoming collapse is... cancelling all white men. Any and every one of them in the industry, if at all possible.
Ok, so take this with somewhat of a grain of salt, but given that all mainstream entertainment is infested with SJWs, cancel culture abounds on social media like a malignant cancer, and diversity in a modern context really means 'anti-white', this seems at least probable.
I'm hoping that regardless of how true this is, we start to see a lot more independent video entertainment that isn't beholden to a bunch of perverts, hypocrites, and commies centralized within a corrupt city in a corrupt state.
Full admission: I don't a PS4 - never will, especially since Sony has become so completely cucked - and I haven't played TLoU2.
The leaks were enough for me to dismiss it as woke garbage, and the general gaming populace has definitely echoed that sentiment, but watching this video and seeing a strong argument towards Druckmann's inherent biases poisoning the well, so to speak, well...
That Synagogue dialogue... oof.
The Seraphites... double oof.
Naughty Dog pretty much died with Uncharted 1, when they switched focus from making actual 'games' to making 'interactive movies', but it's especially easy to ignore anything post Amy Hennig, since Druckmann has far more interest in making woke media than enjoyable media.
I am far from eager to see whatever crud he cooks up next for the company, because as much as he deserves it, there's no way he's going to be ousted from the company.
In this era frequent sales that have even new games at half price within a few months of release, why even worry about whatever the new ceiling is for a new game's price? Publishers are making up the backend with continued monetization (season passes, DLC, MTX, ect.) anyway.
I don't want to see it, but I am curious how a massive global war with China as a primary military power would go.
I have a feeling that they'd get rocked early on by more battle-hardened nations, like the US and Russia, especially the former who has a military who has been in a constant state of conflict for about 20 years now.
I also don't think they'd be invadable (at least without power armor, 'natch), but they'd likely also have a hell of a time projecting any power out to their immediate neighbors without swift retaliation.
The US is even still the dominant naval power within their own oceanic reach, so there's no way they'd own the sea lanes either.
Like you said, their power lies more in subversion and spycraft than direct conflict.
Aside from a distinct lack of an equivalently comfy-looking chair, this is pretty much my setup.
And what's wrong with having minimal possessions?
I hear ya.
I had a 7-8 year old account on Reddit. About a week before the mass bannings (talk about impeccable timing) the weight of how shitty the site had become and how much time I'd wasted on it finally dawned on me, and I immediately deleted my account.
My only regret was not nuking my comments before my deletion.
Even so, I almost found myself instinctively typing that URL in at times, then having to stop myself; an almost decade long habit is hard to break.
And the sad part is, in theory it's a decent platform that allows for approachable integration of all manner of interests. It does suck not accessing some of the more neutral, enjoyable subreddits (most subs related to lifting and fitness, for example, since they weren't really touched by the ideologues, because leftism inherently doesn't support self-improvement and personal responsibility), but it's too cancerous to support even the otherwise passable elements any longer.
To start, I'm pretty convinced that, no, the Dems won't be able to call off the rioting hordes if they do manage to take the White House and/or the Senate -- not that many of them would want to in the first place. Should the riots spill out of their current containment, it will only be a matter of time before they start to clamor for the actual heads of the establishment executives that feel themselves protected from their wrath. Robespierres left and right, everyone.
However, I also don't appreciate the author's lack of tact in regarding the situation at hand. What's Trump supposed to do? Work outside of the confines of his power and bring the alleged protestors (read: rioters) to heel using Federal forces?
The media will tear him apart, and he'll only give his opponents exactly what they want: to portray him as a power mad dictator. Same goes for the Conservative opposition, who would be villainized by the media and quickly brought to heel by those in positions of authority should they even dare to strike against the Marxist masses currently at play.
Hindsight might end up not making it the most optimal strategy, nor is it anything close to satisfying, but letting the Dems stew in their own chaos and bringing it to the task of State level officials to either clean up the mess or break down and beg for Federal assistance in reestablishing the peace is the best option from a perspective of optics.
Besides, the rioting droves already have establishment support: the 4th estate, its elite handlers, and the corrupt politicians that all work in tandem to downplay if not outright ignore the actual injustices being enacted by belligerents under the guise of protest against perceived injustices.
Unfortunately, we're currently in a lose-lose situation as far as offering a notable response to the Marxists. Any lasting action will have to wait until after the election, where metrics and optics won't matter, regardless of who wins office.