It's so weird seeing Konami being this public-facing after all the stuff that went down with Kojima and them pulling out of the console game business. They go out of their way to mention that Kojima and the other original devs will still be credited- the fact that this needs to be clarified says a lot about how bad the situation was

I know it's just a cultural thing but there's something kind of funny to me about how rigidly formal all these Konami events are, though I guess do prefer it to the corporate vibe you get from a lot of American game marketing

They even show and read some pretty negative comments at one point

Everything's just so densely packed with detail, both large and small scale. These exterior city scenes are massively helped by them being set at night and being lit mainly by neon lights, but there's just so many lights and signs everywhere it really makes things pop. All the interiors are jam-packed with all kinds of little props and wall decorations, and I really like the cramped, dirty and run-down apartment complexes you visit in the game despite them not being all that much fun to play in. They just feel really immersively lived-in.

Here's a really cool location from Chris' campaign that you only visit for a brief boss fight and have no reason to linger in. I didn't even remember this place from my previous playthroughs and probably assumed it was a generic video game dungeon level, but it's really interesting:

https://streamable.com/4ghdg2

You have this dark, grimy and trash-filled inner courtyard in an apartment complex. It looks like it's underground, but it's actually an open-air space that's covered by a netting with sunlight being blocked by the massive amounts of garbage accumulated on said netting, and you also have a dense tangle of electric cables and wires crisscrossing from building to building. Most of the courtyard is taken up by an older brick building that looks like it predates the apartment complex.

It must've taken tons of artists tons of work to design this intricate space that the average player is going to spend less than ten minutes in, and who aren't going to notice the nice environment art anyway since they're too busy trying to electrocute a giant boa constrictor while they're there

His movements are so dainty

I also appreciate his incredibly period-accurate 1598 drip and pocket watch accessory (not pictured), but I guess he's a god so he can wear whatever he wants

Onimusha Dawn of Dreams ended up being a game about defeating god with the power of friendship, like they literally charge a McGuffin with friendship juice which allows the protagonist to go SSJ3

10/10

The character of the President is introduced and his deep friendship with Leon established in quick cut flashbacks in the same scene that begins as he is already shambling towards Leon moments before he's killed. Just amazing writing

How many first families is Leon personal acquaintances with? He's chummy with whomever Ashley's dad was who was POTUS in 2004 as well as the zombie president in office during 2013. I guess he works for the Secret Service so he gets invited to all their barbecues

But now that Summer Solstice is over it's gonna get darker again

I have a rechargeable handlebar-mounted LED headlight for my bike and one charge usually lasts me at least 4 months in the summer. Then in the winter I have to charge it every week

These guys should only show up at the end of summer

Normal weather stuff

Yahtzee talks about how writers for AAA games don't seem to know how to write complex and nuanced female characters and instead resort to brutalising and victimising their female protagonists to give them depth and how the violence they're subjected to is framed differently compared to violence that's done to male characters

I think American Protestants have entered some kind of terminal phase

I have no clue what this is referring to but I assume Sweet Baby Ray's did not in fact send baseball bat-wielding thugs to shake down this game's developers

Just this week in Vantaa, Finland three 12-year-old girls piled onto one of those electric scooters you subscribe to with an app and proceeded to get run over by a car at a crossing, killing one of them

The app is supposed to have an age restriction but it's easy to bypass and you're not supposed to have more than one person riding on one, which people routinely ignore

I hate seeing kids and teens speeding around dangerously on those fucking things and then just leaving them laying around on high-traffic bike routes because they don't give a shit since they treat the scooters as completely disposable

Fucking awful bazinga-brained Silicon Valley-ass idea and business model. Actually, there are also bikes you can use with an app but curiously you don't see kids doing reckless shit with those, almost as if electric scooters were uniquely terrible