Messages

1126

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Should/will Nintendo follow PS4 price cut

« on: November 25, 2015, 12:55:53 PM »

Well I bought a Wii U.  No formal price drop obviously but there was a sale at Shoppers Drug Mart on the weekend.  Because of the weak Canadian dollar the price actually went up at one point this year from $300 to $330.  They were selling it for $250!  $80 off?  Yeah that might as well be a price cut and with no indication that the Smash/Splat bundle is getting released in Canada and what price point it would even come at if it did ($270 at some American locations; in Canada that would probably be a mere return to the $300 price point) I figured I wasn't going to get a better deal unless I waited for the NX to come out.  The flyer advertised the Super Mario 3D World bundle but all they had left were the Mario Kart 8 one.  I literally got the last Wii U at the store.

My thoughts?  First of all Nintendo includes a pretty damn short HDMI cable.  Better than no cable at all but I had to really rethink where to put the thing in relation to my TV.  Set up took forever but that's not something only Nintendo is guilty of.  Remember when you just plugged the thing into the wall and TV and it was ready to go?  I imagine it must be brutal to get a game system for your kids for Christmas and have to **** around with updates and **** while they're impatiently waiting to play.

I was not thrilled at first about getting Mario Kart 8.  I've gotten pretty tired of Mario Kart and this wasn't a game I was planning on getting (Pikmin 3, Mario Maker and Xenoblade are my trio of killer apps).  It's actually totally great and I don't regret getting it!  Getting the DLC with the bundle so I can race around with Link was pretty nice as well since I normally wouldn't bother with DLC.  There is still the annoying part where I'm in first and get nothing but bananas and coins but I actually really like the anti-grav mechanic.  Maybe I'm just missing F-Zero but this concept has allowed for a lot of really cool track designs and a certain freshness the Wii game lacked (it's big hook seemed to be motion controls, which I hate).  Now I haven't played the 3DS Mario Kart so maybe some of the new ideas I'm seeing were introduced there (I know hang-gliding was).  It's a lot of fun anyway and one of the best Mario Karts I've seen in a while.

And yesterday I was at my local used game store and found Pikmin 3!  Haven't played it yet but I'm pretty happy to have found it so quickly.

1127

TalkBack / Re: New Green-Clad Character Linkle Coming to Hyrule Warriors Legends

« on: November 19, 2015, 02:32:31 PM »

The girl-Link concept always seemed odd to me.  The Zelda series already has a prominent female character in Zelda so if they wanted to make a game that stared a female wouldn't it make more sense to have Zelda in the starring role?  Why would you change the gender of an iconic male character when you have an iconic female character in the same series that fans have pretty much been begging to have her own game for decades?

Link isn't really a character though, he's supposed to be a self insert that represents the player. Or if you go by the official timeline Link is not the same person every time rather a reincarnation or descendant. I don't see why any particular Link couldn't have been born with an XX instead of an XY.

I think of Link as a character, just one with not much development or background story.  But I'm remembering when Zelda was an NES series.  Back then no kid talked about Link as a player avatar.  He was a character like Mega Man or Mario or Simon Belmont.  And that made sense then because a sprite with a name and a paragraph description in the manual was what 90% of videogame "characters" were.  I think this self insert stuff is more of a retcon to justify Nintendo's generally poor storytelling and inability to keep up with industry standards regarding plot.

When I think of a self insert I like of something like in most Western RPGs where you completely customize what your character looks like.  If they're going to really commit to Link being a representation of the player then they should go all out and allow that full character customization, of which gender would just be a part of it.

But I would rather play as Zelda herself.  How complicated of a plot does that even need?  Link is captured or busy with something else so Zelda has to be the hero.  Or even better they make two games simultaneously where there are separate quests for Link and Zelda and then they come together for the ending.

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TalkBack / Re: New Green-Clad Character Linkle Coming to Hyrule Warriors Legends

« on: November 19, 2015, 12:28:02 PM »

The girl-Link concept always seemed odd to me.  The Zelda series already has a prominent female character in Zelda so if they wanted to make a game that stared a female wouldn't it make more sense to have Zelda in the starring role?  Why would you change the gender of an iconic male character when you have an iconic female character in the same series that fans have pretty much been begging to have her own game for decades?

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TalkBack / Re: Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash (Wii U) Review

« on: November 18, 2015, 04:55:27 PM »

Players tend to like games a lot more than reviewers do, so I'd think the problem has more to do with the reviews. Plus, a score isn't really rating how fun is a game.

It's all opinion of course but Nintendo games usually get high review scores.  It's not often they get averages dipping under 70%, let alone multiple in one year.

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TalkBack / Re: Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash (Wii U) Review

« on: November 18, 2015, 02:32:07 PM »

There are games that try hard to be good but just fail.  Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. for example.  This just seems like no legitimate effort was made to make it worthwhile.  It's just product to get on the shelf for Christmas that hopes to grab suckers on the Mario Tennis name.  Frankly I find that dishonest and Nintendo should be ashamed.

In terms of review scores this has got to be one of Nintendo's worst years.  This, that Animal Crossing Amiibo nonsense, Mario Party 10, S.T.E.A.M., Fatal Frame, DEVIL'S THIRD - all raked over the coals by critics.  What the hell is going on at Nintendo?  At least games like Splatoon, Mario Maker and Xenoblade balance it out.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any Chance the NX will support 4K?

« on: November 18, 2015, 12:54:43 PM »

I don't like this smaller generations idea.  As the obvious jump with hardware becomes less noticeable our generations should get longer, not shorter.  There is a reason why the PS3 and Xbox 360 took so long to get replaced and Nintendo even stuck with the Wii for longer than a typical generation.  Unless Nintendo goes with really weak hardware yet again I don't see what improvement new hardware every 3 years is going to offer that is obvious to the general consumer.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any Chance the NX will support 4K?

« on: November 17, 2015, 06:43:24 PM »

I think the real selling point of the PS4 is that there is security in the purchase.  Games get made and unless they're made by Nintendo or Microsoft the assumption is that it will be on the PS4 and it usually is.

While that could be a factor, the XBONE gets pretty much any game the PS4 gets that isn't PS4-exclusive, so it doesn't explain why the PS4 is selling so much better. There must be much more to it than that, and one such reason is that the PS4 offers better graphics.

Graphics is a good tie breaker and the PS4 also didn't force you to pay $100 extra for Kinect which the target audience clearly did not want in the first place.  Once the trend of the PS4 being the de facto console of choice started I think it would take something major to turn the tides.  Because of online play people are more likely than ever to try to get the same console as their friends.  I figure that one aspect will have a major impact on console generations from here on out.

If the PS4 had the best graphics but didn't have the most games I don't think it would be selling the best.  The Wii U isn't NOT selling because of its weaker graphics but because aside from Nintendo's own titles it is not getting most games.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any Chance the NX will support 4K?

« on: November 17, 2015, 03:10:39 PM »

I think the real selling point of the PS4 is that there is security in the purchase.  Games get made and unless they're made by Nintendo or Microsoft the assumption is that it will be on the PS4 and it usually is.  I think more than anything that is what people look for in a console.  You look at media format wars like Beta/VHS and Blu Ray/HD-DVD and once one format gets the bulk of the titles things snowball in its favour because we really just want the content.  No one really wants three consoles.  We want one with every game on it.  So the more games a system gets the greater its appeal.

The second I found out the Wii U was going with outdated specs again I immediately assumed that the third party support would be completely screwed up so I didn't buy one.  It isn't really graphics as much as compatibility.  You can't include underpowered hardware in multiplatform development so it is excluded.  Nintendo could do the opposite and have really fancy specs and then find that hardly any games make use of it because it would be the oddball platform.  It would still get the games but everything would be made with the PS4/XB1 level in mind.  The PC gets ports that don't push the hardware because they don't want to squeeze out two platforms and make a PC exclusive.

Nintendo just has to make sure that they get the games and that all too common routine of something coming to everything BUT the Nintendo console no longer happens.  So whatever they have to do with the NX to address that needs to be done. 4K may not matter but it will matter if it deprives the NX of games.  If people don't assume that 90% of third party games will come to the NX in a uncompromised form then they won't buy it.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any Chance the NX will support 4K?

« on: November 17, 2015, 01:39:04 PM »

All this "what do we need this for?" stuff came up with the Wii as well.  "Do we really need that level of specs?"  In a vacuum, no, but Sony and MS were offering higher specs, games were being developed for those specs, the Wii couldn't handle ports so it didn't get the games.  The Wii was the BEST SELLING console of it's generation and got the WORST third party support because it's hardware was too damn underpowered to get the same games.  It is literally the only console in history to combine the best sales with the weakest support.

So if Sony and MS support 4K then Nintendo has to because games will be made that use it and if they can't be done on Nintendo's console they won't come to Nintendo's console.  Nintendo telling people what they should or shouldn't want and to "please understand" and trade off each first party game for like 30 third party games is ridiculous and is exactly why the Wii U has sold like ****.

I don't care if Sony and MS affix a giant nutsack to the side of their console.  If that is the industry expected feature then Nintendo should match it.  The only thing I would not suggest they match is anti-consumer practices.  If the other guys lock out used games Nintendo will gain an advantage in being more flexible.  But in hardware specs and features and anything that would be advertised as an enticing bullet point, skimping never works out for them.  You can't reasonably expect your customers to compromise.  Nintendo can not support 4K only if the PS4 and XB1 also cannot do it and it is not expected that successors to those consoles will come out that do support it that will co-exist for several years with the NX.

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TalkBack / Re: Dragon Quest VII and VIII Confirmed for the West

« on: November 17, 2015, 12:02:33 PM »

I think what makes this bigger news than Twilight Princess is that with DQ you don't know if it is going to be localized so any time something, even a remake, gets released here it's worth getting excited about.  It also means there is an increased chance that future DQ games will get localized as well.

But for Zelda a game NOT being localized is bigger news.  No one is worried that if they don't buy the TP remake that Nintendo won't localize the next Zelda.

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General Gaming / Re: What is the most obscure, retro console you own?

« on: November 16, 2015, 07:23:55 PM »

The local used game store once had a Vectrex but it was pretty expensive.  I hemmed and hawed about buying it but someone else did before I really made up mind.  A month or so later another Vectrex showed up only this one was broken.  So I wonder if the person who bought it accidently wrecked it and traded it back in (they had the first one's demo playing so clearly it worked to some extent) or it was broken to begin with and was returned.  Surely they must have been the same unit.  What are the odds that I've only seen two Vectrex's in my life and they both appeared at the same store within a month of each other?  That's my brush with an obscure console.

For anything I own the most obscure thing I have is the second version of the SNES.  My SNES from childhood is at my parents (my brothers and I own it together so it stays there) so I decided to buy one just for my place and the opportunity came up to get the second model and I figured that if there were going to be two Super Nintendos in my life I might as well have both models.  I regret getting it though as it's cartridge slot is not as snug as the original model.  So if you bump the thing the cartridge often loosens from the connector and the game freezes.  Switching a controller for example is not an option if the system is on.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X. Less than a month. Have you cleared your schedule yet?

« on: November 16, 2015, 06:45:03 PM »

If there is one sad consequence of the feature's removal, it is that those who were hoping to match their bust size between reality and the game will no longer have the option.

I don't think this is a case, as the slider wasn't available for male characters so people can't have the bust match their manboobs anyway.

You joke but when I played Mass Effect I was trying make my character look as much like me as possible and I was annoyed that I couldn't make him... less athletic looking.  I suppose most people would want their fictional avatar to be really attractive so they didn't think anyone would want to add a bit of a gut.  So for a female player that wants to make their character look like themselves, including an accurate bust, that's a bit of a bummer.  Now did they design that option for that purpose or was it intended for horny guys?  Somehow I'm guessing they had their heads in the gutter.

Thinking about how the game might seem too big I was thinking about the first game and I remember now what I found intimidating about it.  I would use the side quests as the way to level up.  If I have to kill a bunch of enemies anyway why not fulfill some quests doing it?  But once in a while you would get quests with an indicator that at some point in the story it would disappear forever.  That sucked because then I felt I had to do it or I would miss out.  For every other area I would just do them at my leisure until I leveled up enough to continue with the main story or if I got bored of doing them.  The idea was that I could come back later if I wanted to.  But in areas with the limited-time-only quests I felt this need to do all of them because otherwise I would miss them FOREVER.  Do away with the disappearing side-quests and that overwhelming feeling to do every quest goes away.

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TalkBack / Re: Rumor: Pokemon GB Virtual Console Games To Be $9.99

« on: November 16, 2015, 05:14:30 PM »

I'm sure they can get away with this price point and these games are actually a deal at this price.  Earlier this year I went to the Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo and the classic Pokémon games were in pretty high demand.  But not from geeky collector's like me.  There were kids at the expo attending with parents that were looking for the old games.  These would have come out before they were born but obviously they had gotten into the series and wanted to go back and play the old titles as well.  Those same kids are going to be begging their parents to buy these on the VC.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any Chance the NX will support 4K?

« on: November 16, 2015, 03:28:25 PM »

With all this "can't tell the difference" stuff you figure someone had resurrected a thread from 2006.  That same excuse was repeated ad nauseam to justify Nintendo's decision to not support HD on the Wii.  HD caught on and people noticed the difference.

If 4K seriously has no chance to get anywhere then Nintendo doesn't have to worry about it but I don't trust their instincts for these sorts of things.  I think the easiest way to determine what to do is to look at the other consoles.  Do the PS4 and XB1 support it or have the ability to support it later via a patch?  If so the NX has to do the same.  When has "everyone else has _______ except Nintendo" ever worked out in Nintendo's favour?  Colour screen handhelds is the only one I can think of.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any Chance the NX will support 4K?

« on: November 16, 2015, 02:54:22 PM »

Nintendo should have supported HD on the Wii.  They talked about how HDTVs were not yet common in homes when they launched but it was like everyone bought a HDTV about a year later.  It really shows how much mainstream appeal a game like Wii Sports had to overcome something like that.  It was like their vision of "futureproofing" only extended six months.

So if they didn't not have HD on the Wii they would have made the specs more comparable to the competition so they wouldn't have also skimped on the specs on the Wii U and then they wouldn't be in the huge mess they're in now.  Both console designs suggested no foresight on the part of Nintendo and they got around it once and it bit them in the ass the second time.

So should they support 4K?  If it's the way things are going then yes they should.  And I don't mean where things are going within a year I mean within five or six years so it actually matches the lifespan of the product.  This seems like a very simple and obvious way to go about things but Nintendo hasn't done it in, hell, almost 20 years.  They've been incredibly bad at predicting tech trends since the N64.  And usually the "predicting" means simply observing what your competition is doing.  None of this is hard.  Consoles are not really high tech by the standards of technology in general.  CDs, online, and HD were all obvious trends that had been anticipated for years before videogame consoles supported them.

So they should support 4K but I don't expect them to.

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TalkBack / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X Preload, Data Packs Now Live In West

« on: November 13, 2015, 06:34:54 PM »

Anyone know how much space Splatoon and SSB take up?  Because if you bought the Smash/Splat bundle with those games pre-installed you've already eaten up a chunk of space and then if you go and get this that's another 10 GB.  I'm asking because that could very well be my journey towards playing this game and it would be nice to know if I should budget a hard drive.

Just to beat a dead horse about price drops some more it is worth noting that while the Wii U is technically still cheaper than the PS4 the PS4 comes with a 500 GB hard drive while the Wii U comes with a dinky 32 GB of storage.  So what is the price difference really if you have to buy an external hard drive with your Wii U purchase to match?  The price difference is pretty much gone.

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TalkBack / Re: Newest Smash Brothers DLC Character Announced

« on: November 12, 2015, 07:23:42 PM »

Really dude? Really? Even with all that babble there is no way you're raining on this parade. The internet mob lost its mind when this was announced.

I'm merely making an observation of how odd it is.  This is the oddest SSB guest character by far.  It must be the only character to make their Nintendo system debut in an SSB game!  Even Sonic had appeared on Nintendo consoles years before Brawl came out.

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TalkBack / Re: Wii U Smash Splat Bundle, 3DSXL Deals Announced For North America

« on: November 12, 2015, 06:30:29 PM »

So effectively a price cut then or just a temporary deal?  I wonder how this will go in Canada if we get this at all.

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TalkBack / Re: Newest Smash Brothers DLC Character Announced

« on: November 12, 2015, 06:18:00 PM »

Final Fantasy VII is basically the personification of Nintendo's fall from grace.  They stuck with cartridges on the N64, lost this huge killer app to the PlayStation, and pretty much every third party followed Square's lead which handed the market to Sony on a silver platter.  It is very odd that Nintendo would want to put a character from this game, which has NEVER been available on any Nintendo platform ever, in SSB.  I suppose it is historically significant for Nintendo in a "look at how stupid decisions by this company have bit them in the ass" kind of way.

And presumably we're supposed to be excited about Cloud's inclusion.  But why would a Nintendo fan be excited about a character from a prominent exclusive on a competitor's platform?  Yes, we don't all live under a rock and have some familiarity with FFVII so this is actually quite cool but it's essentially Nintendo admitting that their competition has good games and that third party releases matter - which is completely contrary to what Nintendo actually does.  You figure for the purposes of training their fanbase that Nintendo would like to carry on the illusion that non-Nintendo games are not worth one's time, particularly if they're not on a Nintendo system.  The fact that this character even matters is a failure on Nintendo's part.  Back in 1997 they sure hoped and prayed that he wouldn't.

I wonder in a way if this is Sakurai sticking it to his superiors and they're too clueless to pick up on why they should be offended.  Or Nintendo is now suddenly very savvy and is fully aware of how letting Final Fantasy VII go is their most notable screw-up and this is their way of showing that things are going to change.  Like a game like Final Fantasy VII is not going to skip Nintendo consoles in the future.

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TalkBack / Re: Zelda Wii U Compatible With Twilight Princess' Wolf Link Amiibo

« on: November 12, 2015, 05:43:38 PM »

So both Twilight Princess HD and Zelda Wii U come out in the same year?  Eh, I'm skeptical.

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TalkBack / Re: Minecraft Rated For Wii U In Europe: Releasing Tomorrow?

« on: November 12, 2015, 01:36:37 PM »

Congratulations for Nintendo being a little bit closer to meeting bare minimum expectations.  Everyone has Minecraft.  You're SUPPOSED to have it.  The fact that it has taken this long is a huge embarrassing ****-up on Nintendo's part.

Hell if I could sum up the problem with Nintendo consoles with one point it would be the very common situation for major third party games coming to every platform EXCEPT Nintendo's.  That's like a reverse killer app.  It doesn't draw an audience to any specific competitor but just draws people away from you.  If I was in charge of Nintendo I would have a list on a bulletin board of every game released for the PC/PS4/XB1 but not the Wii U with "FIX THIS" as the title.  The goal for the NX would be to get the annual amount of such titles down to zero.

Yes, it should've happened a long time ago.  So why exactly wasn't it on a Nintendo system?
I mean, as soon as MS took over for Mojang, the development that was required happened and the game gets announced? That doesn't sound really odd to everyone else?

This is one of those rare cases that make me wonder if Nintendo is at fault, of if a particular developer actively didn't want the game on a Nintendo platform.  Surely Nintendo realized they were missing out on something huge here.

If one or two people don't like you, they might just be jerks.  If everyone doesn't like you, you're the jerk.  "Developer X doesn't like Nintendo" has been used so many times as an excuse for a lack of support that if it is actually true then Nintendo must be at fault.  You don't piss off so many other companies by just minding your own business.  If it took Microsoft to get it to work then I'm assuming Nintendo put up some sort of roadblocks that Mojang didn't want to work around.

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TalkBack / Re: Minecraft Rated For Wii U In Europe: Releasing Tomorrow?

« on: November 12, 2015, 12:04:09 PM »

Congratulations for Nintendo being a little bit closer to meeting bare minimum expectations.  Everyone has Minecraft.  You're SUPPOSED to have it.  The fact that it has taken this long is a huge embarrassing ****-up on Nintendo's part.

Hell if I could sum up the problem with Nintendo consoles with one point it would be the very common situation for major third party games coming to every platform EXCEPT Nintendo's.  That's like a reverse killer app.  It doesn't draw an audience to any specific competitor but just draws people away from you.  If I was in charge of Nintendo I would have a list on a bulletin board of every game released for the PC/PS4/XB1 but not the Wii U with "FIX THIS" as the title.  The goal for the NX would be to get the annual amount of such titles down to zero.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X. Less than a month. Have you cleared your schedule yet?

« on: November 10, 2015, 04:45:25 PM »

Personally, Xenoblade Chronicles played exactly how I wish a single-player version of an MMORPG would play, so I'm not expecting Xenoblade Chronicles X to drop the ball in this regard.

The problem with this is that it felt like the original game was designed for multiplayer, yet it had no such option. As such, I felt lonely when playing it, and really wanted another player(s) to be able to control the other character(s), especially since the AI was so terrible. When it was hinted that X would have an online mode, I was very excited at the possibilities. After learning about how limited the online stuff is, I'm once again disappointed, as it feels like such a huge wasted opportunity.

An even larger world will just make me feel even more lonely that I can't explore it with someone else.

That's an interesting take because for me the isolation of a single player game is the appeal.  I enjoy having some time to explore the game world at my own pace away from the numerous distractions in life.  It's like reading a book.  You don't usually books with someone else, it's the sort of thing you do when you have to time for yourself.  A good single player games is specifically for when I want some "me time".

I stopped playing the first game, not because I got bored, but just because life happened and I was unable to play it for a little while and the game is complex enough that I couldn't just pop back in as if nothing happened.  It took me a fair bit of time to wrap my head around how the game worked in the first place.  This will probably have the same problem where I'll have a good streak of free time going and then something will come up that just writes off videogames for like a month and then I never return because of the investment in re-learning what the hell I'm doing.  It's not the game's fault though that it doesn't fit my schedule.  If this existed when I was in high school it would have been perfect.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Direct Announced For Thursday

« on: November 10, 2015, 01:35:51 PM »

We've needed this post-Iwata direct for a while now.  Don't know what to expect but I'm glad that we're hearing from Nintendo at least one for time this year.

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TalkBack / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X Is Bigger Than Skyrim, Fallout 4, or Witcher 3

« on: November 09, 2015, 02:48:11 PM »

Describing the game like this makes it sound REALLY intimidating.  Like my first thoughts are "how am I going to have time for this?".  But then that also sounds pretty damn cool.  Like you could buy this game and play it for years.