20 games which throw out tonal consistency like Nathan Drake throws innocent Turks from rooftops.

[Thyunda]

Because you assholes don't use spoilers on some things that are

[spoiler='In Borderlands 2 when you meet Roland'
]he dies because Jack shoots him, yet he should be revived at a NewU station based on all given information[/spoiler]

Maybe only Vault Hunters are permitted the use of those, and the character in question no longer possesses the right - maybe people integral to Pandoran politics are forbidden the use of such machines.

A lot of the bosses use them (at least in the first game). If you go back to their haunts later, they've returned.

And they're not integral to Pandoran politics.

Do you get off on making me feel wrong? =(

 

[Quazimofo]

Because you assholes don't use spoilers on some things that are

[spoiler='In Borderlands 2 when you meet Roland'
]he dies because Jack shoots him, yet he should be revived at a NewU station based on all given information[/spoiler]

Maybe only Vault Hunters are permitted the use of those, and the character in question no longer possesses the right - maybe people integral to Pandoran politics are forbidden the use of such machines.

A lot of the bosses use them (at least in the first game). If you go back to their haunts later, they've returned.

And they're not integral to Pandoran politics.

Do you get off on making me feel wrong? =(

I remember hearing somewhere that the New-U stations are not cannon, and the devs regret putting dialogue in them since it causes a lot of confusion as to all of the plot holes that arise from the apparent lack of revival of key characters. (which is to say, bosses revive purely because it is a game and you may have fun killing them multiple times. The characters revive specifically at stations because they are effectively checkpoints that blend in slightly better with the universe visually, but don't actually exist)

 

[JagermanXcell]

Honestly, I think Bioshock Infinite should be on this list. The frantic combat it borrowed from it's predecessors felt somewhat out of place and jarring amidst the philosophies they were trying to expound upon in the game. Also, I was never sure why I couldn't NOT shoot a lot of these people who I had absolutely no problem with, and who had no problem with me. But no, I guess some shit for brains marketing exec was like NEED MOAR COMBAT, and now I have to fight random people because I needed to walk past them, and apparently that can't be accomplished unless it's on a red carpet of their blood. Seriously, of all the games coming out this year, I thought Infinite might be the one that realizes that violence is a lot more significant if it's rarer.

You know where all of that really hit me in Infinite: The "Will the Circle be Unbroken" easter egg.

Just before you go into a bar's basement that you find in the slums you are met with the choice to steal items from the bar. I didn't realize atm I stole some Salts then all of the sudden everyone in the bar wants to turn me into a Dewitt Sandwich. I then proceed to rack em up into a group where I would throw flesh eating crows at them whilst burning them alive with volts of electricity until their heads exploded, meanwhile the innocent survivors of such a painful death will meet their end by my upgraded shotgun. Thats what they get? For defending a bottle of Salts? But thats ok, cause this scene immediately follows:

Spoiler

Great pacing amiright? Dewitt may be a murderer for stealing Salts of all things, but has teh guitar hit your feels yet?!

Like the last boss of revengeance.

Spoiler: A quote from Yahtzee

["But imagine watching something like say, Ghost in the Shell. But right before the end, you sit on the remote and the TV switches over to an episode of Biker Mice from Mars, or Dragon Ball Z where the special guest villain turns out to be Hulk Hogan who goes on about how awesome right-wing policies are for 20 minutes before doing body-slams on anyone who disagrees." - Ben ?Yahtzee" Croshaw - Zero Punctuation

In Revengeance's (aka The Adventures of Jack teh Ripper and his bff mecha-Scooby Doo) defense the story felt like a jab at Kojima's... "consistent" writing in MGS4. I even heard somewhere he didn't write it, Platinum wrote the game's story knowing about everything the past games had.

Why? Because this line: "Nanomachines son."

I literally had to put my controller down to laugh.
Then had to immediately pick it up for the horrendous demolishment of all of Raiden's HP that followed...

 

[wolf thing]

1. snip

Most of this isn't a tonal inconsistency it is ludo-narrative-dissonance, where the gameplay is apposed to what the story or characters are. This happens because most AAA games are made to fit a popular genre no mater what the story is. It often involes shooting or violence because as we all know it is the most popular and currently easy game play mechanic to make. Developers focus on gameplay making story second and sadly reviews focus on this too, they either ignor narrative all together, or when the story is bad ignore it entirely, or ever worse say its good because it is a big title from a big publisher.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Kudos to TC for bashing FFXII with an actual understanding of the plot, characters and development.

 

[Jayemsal]

"17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl."

Did you even play this game?

 

[Robot Number V]

OK, before I start responding to each of the items in the list that I either agree/disagree with, I just want to say that this thread has pretty much the best title ever. Of all time.

Also, please stop trying to sound like Yahtzee. You're actually doing a pretty good job, but at the end of the day you're still cribbing someone else's notes.


*ahem* OK, let's get started.

1. Yeah, pretty much. Drake is quite is actually quite the psychopath. Which might actually be interesting, if it were intentional.

8. I think the better point to bring up about the GOW series would be Pandora. Just...Pandora.

13. Wait, how is the ME trilogy "stretched out"? And isn't this supposed to be about tonal inconsistency? (I'm not arguing your point about the ending, though. I just really don't want to talk about that bit ever again)

14. Well that's just cheating. You can either mention a ton of Bioware games OR you can reduce them to a single entry. You can't really do both.

16. Wait, what? How is that a tonal inconsistency? Also, (c) [ JOURNEY SPOILERS] Your figure returns to the beginning of the Journey to aid other people with it's knowledge and experience that it gained over the course it's own journey. Following Joseph Campbell's concept of the "Hero's Journey". Do you see what they did there?

17. Again, not a tonal inconsistency. You just summarized the game. I don't see the problem here. And I don't even LIKE SOTC all that much. (Frankly, I thought the ending was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen RAISE THE SHIELDS!!!)



Aaaand I guess I don't really care about the other ones. Although I see that while you apologized for spoiling "Journey" for someone else, but didn't actually CHANGE the spoiler. You might want to consider, you know, throwing up a warning or something.

PS: I would like to add Bioshock to the list, for its final boss. I don't think I need to elaborate.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

2. Far Cry 3 FOR weak-willed YOLO trust fund frat boy with Rambo-tier guerilla skills.

This isn't a problem with tone but rather the result of a disconnect between what is realistic and what is entertaining. Realistic is that he gets shot once and spends weeks or months recovering. Realistic is he has the marskmanship of a Crimean War conscript fighting for the Russians.

The game does, however, maintain the notion that he gets better at fighting an asymetric war as he gains experience though the tried and true system of a skill progression system. Thus, there is some level of symetry between mechanical concept and narative concepts.

3. Tomb Raider (reboot) FOR emotionally fragile wreck survivor with Rambo-tier guerilla skills.

There is some merit to citing Tomb Raider, but, again, the mechanical aspects aren't the problem.

4. Mortal Kombat FOR a story mode which asks us to believe an alleged good guy would stab the eye sockets out of a friend in a playful sparring match.

I don't think pointing to Mortal Kombat, a franchise largely known because of brutal violence, is the place to point out dissonant themes. The game is so full of such things that it is as meaningless as pointing out the various plot holes in Transformers.

6. Heavy Rain FOR a protagonist who wastes time getting his Nat King in a passionless sexual liaison while his son, who he had until this point been frantically searching for, slowly drowns in a cage.

That moment makes a great deal of sense for both characters. At that point, they are out of options and clues. Seeking comfort with a lover in a time of immense crisis is hardly a new thing - hell, it's so common that observations of the relationship with love (and sex) and death is as old as writing.

8. God of War FOR delivering the most unpleasant, one-note mass murderer of a protagonist since Civilization allowed players to pick Genghis Khan, then having the gall to expect us to sympathise with the death of his family.

The story and protagonist work perfectly fine for a single game. It fits well with the classic form of greek tragedy. The latter games undermine this greatly. But as a kernel of a story, Kratos in God of War really isn't all that different than Hercules.

9. Grand Theft Auto IV FOR a sympathetic Balkan veteran attempting to atone for his traumatic past by spending his spare time running over grannies, dealing hard drugs and beating hookers to death with baseball bats. Which is probably just PTSD, so that's ok.

There were relatively few moments where such things were forced on you by the game. If you chose to spend your time doing such things, then you as a player introduced the tonal conflict by chosing to act in a way that was contrary to the observed character traits.

12. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic FOR allowing your character to stringently follow a path of light or darkness throughout the 30 hour+ adventure, only to allow for a binary choice in the last 5 minutes of the game which not only makes the entire process redundant, but is also implemented so awkwardly you'd think George Lucas wrote it as a primer for Revenge of the Sith's awful Anakin switcheroo.

Following a path of light or dark does not inherently make one choose evil. Thus why we have the archetypal anti-hero.

16. Journey FOR the insinuation that your Arabesque Red Riding Hood figure either (a) dies at the end, ascending to Heaven via jellyfish made of carpets, or (b) goes back to the beginning as a starry reincarnate, which renders the entire venture a depressing and purgatorial Bernoulli loop.

This is not an example of thematic dissonance in the slightest.

17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl.

Yes, because people doing extreme things for love is an unheard of thing.

20. Pretty much any MMORPG ever made - to paraphrase The Incredibles' precociously prophetic Dash, if everyone in the world is special, that's just another way of saying 'no one is'.

Again, this is not an example of tonal dissonance.

 

[TheCommanders]

Honestly, I think Bioshock Infinite should be on this list. The frantic combat it borrowed from it's predecessors felt somewhat out of place and jarring amidst the philosophies they were trying to expound upon in the game. Also, I was never sure why I couldn't NOT shoot a lot of these people who I had absolutely no problem with, and who had no problem with me. But no, I guess some shit for brains marketing exec was like NEED MOAR COMBAT, and now I have to fight random people because I needed to walk past them, and apparently that can't be accomplished unless it's on a red carpet of their blood. Seriously, of all the games coming out this year, I thought Infinite might be the one that realizes that violence is a lot more significant if it's rarer.

You know where all of that really hit me in Infinite: The "Will the Circle be Unbroken" easter egg.

Just before you go into a bar's basement that you find in the slums you are met with the choice to steal items from the bar. I didn't realize atm I stole some Salts then all of the sudden everyone in the bar wants to turn me into a Dewitt Sandwich. I then proceed to rack em up into a group where I would throw flesh eating crows at them whilst burning them alive with volts of electricity until their heads exploded, meanwhile the innocent survivors of such a painful death will meet their end by my upgraded shotgun. Thats what they get? For defending a bottle of Salts? But thats ok, cause this scene immediately follows:

Spoiler

Great pacing amiright? Dewitt may be a murderer for stealing Salts of all things, but has teh guitar hit your feels yet?!

Right! I actually meant to mention the Vigors but forgot, so thanks for reminding me. They felt soooo out of place in this game. In the original Bioshock, they (Plasmids) were still a little flashy and silly, but they were shown to have clear negative side effects that destroyed the entire city, and that partially explained why everyone wasn't using them back at you: they were completely insane. In Infinite, the Plasmi- I mean Vigors are just there. There's a brief hand wave in there about them stealing the design from Rapture via a tear, but they are this uber powerful thing, with pretty much no side effects now, and yet you are the only one who is using them (aside from a tiny number of bosses whose sole purpose is pretty much to give you that vigor). Basically the game is saying that the powers of a wizard god wouldn't be considered extremely useful by the revolutionary group who is noted to be less well armed than the controlling factions. Seriously, you'd think the Vox would really capitalize on the whole "being able to throw fireballs" power at the very least to make up for their lack of guns. But nope. Completely ignored. Apparently everyone is a moron who would rather have just two guns. I mean, they even make a big deal of it in the beginning at the fair where these Vigors are being shown off, and a few bystanders are commenting on how they liked previous vigors, but are waiting for the current one being displayed to finish being tested. Meaning they have the current Vigors. But are never show to be using them. Even when a madman is running around beating people to death with a skyhook. So much for gameplay and story integration.

 

[Benpasko]

On topic: I'll add Metal Gear Solid 3: snake eater. A fairly serious bondesque survival stealth action game. And then there is the bosses... "A guy fueling a massive tank with his own body's electricity! isn't it awesome?!" Uhm... what?

You must have forgotten about the boss that does kung-fu poses and throws bees at you. MGS3 is a game full of goofy humor, it's not serious at all.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Is it just me, or are people really harsh and dismissive and downright hostile towards anyone who posts anything ever?

There are some mistakes on the list. I personally disagree with a few items. But I don't think the OP was putting forth some sort of textbook that required tearing down or strenuous peer review. The lack of tact or respect in this thread, and the forums in general, is really starting to grate. Maybe, just maybe, it's a silly off-the-cuff list submitted by someone looking to discuss the subject with other human beings?! Nah, fuck that, EVERYONE DOWN HIS THROAT, QUICK-LIKE!

I think tonal shifts can make sense if done correctly. SotC is an example of subverting player expectations in a very careful and well-executed fashion. That game also places a premium on exploration and negative space concepts, so it's somewhat immune to the dissonance that arises from the "needs more shooting guys" imperative that clearly drives AAA gaming. Ludonarrative dissonance and inconsistent tone aren't the same thing, but I think there is a strong correlation between the two; very often a character doing things outside the scope of his/her reasonably assumed ability can drastically alter "tone" at the same time.

 

[Mikeyfell]

As I've said above, Journey's themes are open to interpretation and not set in stone, regardless of the creators' intentions. Also, I didn't write anything about SOTC that wasn't technically true - I actually don't think there's anything wrong with its story, I just want to get people talking about Wander. I treat it as a tragedy to justify my guilt over the colossi.

If that's how you feel about Journey, okay, but I still don't see how that's inconsistent.
You take the journey, you make it to the end, and then you restart, so you can continue journeying wiser for the experience and more able to help out newcomers.
Even if the tone is the monotony of being in a perpetual loop I don't see where the inconsistency happens.

edit
I still don't think SOTC is inconsistent.
If you're going to pick on one story where the hero murders things for the true love there are a lot of better candidates out there.
Mario curb-stomped all the Kupas and Peach didn't even put out.

The fact that Heavy Rain includes the option to unspool Ethan's fleshy cutlery for a shameful motel fumble at all was to the detriment of the characterisation, and weakens David Cage's attempts at validation as a storyteller. On the bright side, there is a trophy unlock. (Art, people!).

Fair enough. I only slept with her for the trophies.... uh... the ones in the game, not the ones on her chest...

I'm not too familiar with the story of Gears of War but what I've seen of it suggests it is the ultimate parody of what people who do not like games think games are like - please feel free to tell me what you like or dislike about it in more detail.

That's the best description of Gears of War I've ever heard.
That's spot on. "the ultimate parody of what people who do not like games think games are like"

The things I don't like about it... it's pretty much the father of all bland generic brown cover based shooters on the market today...
The stuff I hate about Gears could fill a dissertation but there's one moment in Gears 2 that's truly despicable on every conceivable level and pretty much made me the jaded misanthrope that I am today.

Spoiler

A big subplot from Gears 2 is that you're trying to find Dom's wife (Dom is the second main-est character in the game) and he moans on and on about how much he loves his wife and how he needs to save her and yata yata yata.

You get to the part where you have to save her and she's been tortured. (I think the bad guys were using prisoners as human batteries, I don't remember the details very well) They open the pod she's being held in and she's all fucked up, but still alive, she even staggers towards him and falls into his arms.

Then he yells at her for about a minute trying to get her to say something. when that doesn't work he decides she's a lost cause and shoots her in the face.

It's like: Dude, seriously? You're not even going to try to help her? You risked everyone's life trying to save her and you shoot her in the face because she's going to have some PTSD if she gets better, real manly of you.
It's a miracle she's alive at all take her back to the doctors, at least try to get her some help!

It was the most sickening thing I've seen in a game.

Lots of people hate me for hating that scene. But the intention of the mission was to rescue her, not to find her and assess her status. If he went in expecting to find her traumatized he was just dumb

I should clarify that I'm really referring to GOWIII overall - I think the first one did a pretty good job.

Yeah, God of War 3 blew salty chunks. I thought you were talking about the first one

 

[Lilani]

20 games which throw out tonal consistency like Nathan Drake throws innocent Turks from rooftops.

"Tonal." I don't think that word means what you think it means. I will use these from your list as examples:

10. LA Noire FOR its vague interrogation options which often lead to wild and unexpected mood swings from one Cole Phelps. Which is probably just PTSD, so that's ok.

11. Dragon Age II FOR its similarly vague conversation options, leading to inadvertent porn plot flirtations and sarky sub-Whedon jib.

12. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic FOR allowing your character to stringently follow a path of light or darkness throughout the 30 hour+ adventure, only to allow for a binary choice in the last 5 minutes of the game which not only makes the entire process redundant, but is also implemented so awkwardly you'd think George Lucas wrote it as a primer for Revenge of the Sith's awful Anakin switcheroo.

13. Mass Effect 3 FOR similar offences to the above-mentioned Knights of the Old Republic, but over a trilogy as stretched out as Caligula's favourite slave.

14. Bioware in general FOR all these things and more.

16. Journey FOR the insinuation that your Arabesque Red Riding Hood figure either (a) dies at the end, ascending to Heaven via jellyfish made of carpets, or (b) goes back to the beginning as a starry reincarnate, which renders the entire venture a depressing and purgatorial Bernoulli loop.

17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl.

18. Modern Warfare/Black Ops/Battlefield 3/Medal of Honor (reboot) - For their tasteless glorification of imperialist butchery, and consistent stigmatisation of Asian, Russian, South American, African and Middle-Eastern peoples.

20. Pretty much any MMORPG ever made - to paraphrase The Incredibles' precociously prophetic Dash, if everyone in the world is special, that's just another way of saying 'no one is'.

In all of these I've trimmed out here, what you explain is not tonal inconsistency. They are plot and narrative issues, or plot or narrative conclusions or directions that you personally don't like. You had the idea of what tone is down at the beginning, and then it all just crumbled into a whiny, ranty mess. I'll actually just number them off for you:

10. Having mood swings does not mean the entirety of LA Noire is tonally inconsistent. A huge part of what makes crime drama and noire what they are is inner turmoil and personal problems that are exacerbated by the task at hand. Just because you don't think "PTSD" is a legitimate trait for a character to have doesn't mean it's inconsistent. You can call it lazy or cheap, but inconsistency is a totally different thing.

11. "Vague options" doesn't have much impact on the tone. See Skyrim for this. Your conversation options in Skyrim are really just surface level stuff and almost always irrelevant, but that doesn't change how epic and vast the world is and how you never seem to grow big enough to feel as though you've mastered it all.

12, 13, and 14. That doesn't really have much to do with tone, but rather the structure of the narrative as a whole. The tone is how the narrative in general feels, the structure is simply how the story is told. They do affect each other, however a bad plot structure does not necessarily mean the tone is inconsistent. And "being bioware" does not in itself cause tonal inconsistency, either.

16. Again, just because you don't like how the story ends doesn't mean it's tonally inconsistent.

17. See 16. Also, how many Koopas does Mario kill to get to Peach? How many enemies must Link kill to get to Zelda? Please, this trope has been in games and storytelling as a whole since the beginning of time.

18. You may not like the tone set by these games, but that doesn't mean they are inconsistent. They are consistent within the parameters they set for themselves. They set out to be gratuitous war wanking, and that is what they accomplish.

20. Does the fact that when watching a play on stage you are asked to forget the stage is there make the play tonally inconsistent? Then neither does an MMO asking you to forget that everybody else is the "true hero" of the world as well.

Again, you did really good until you just broke down into yet another "I hate mainstream games!" rant. It's okay, you don't have to hate all mainstream games. No matter how much everybody tells you "it's cool," it really isn't. Especially when it leads you to pick on a game like Journey just because a bunch of people know about it.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Maybe only Vault Hunters are permitted the use of those, and the character in question no longer possesses the right - maybe people integral to Pandoran politics are forbidden the use of such machines.

A lot of the bosses use them (at least in the first game). If you go back to their haunts later, they've returned.

And they're not integral to Pandoran politics.

Do you get off on making me feel wrong? =(

Yes. I am secret super-villian sating my lust for evil by starting petty arguments with people on the internet. But soon my doomsday device will be ready and I will DESTROY THE WORLD!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I remember hearing somewhere that the New-U stations are not cannon, and the devs regret putting dialogue in them since it causes a lot of confusion as to all of the plot holes that arise from the apparent lack of revival of key characters. (which is to say, bosses revive purely because it is a game and you may have fun killing them multiple times. The characters revive specifically at stations because they are effectively checkpoints that blend in slightly better with the universe visually, but don't actually exist)

Personally, I'd always just assumed they were a game mechanic rather than an "in-world" thing. But nothing in the first Borderlands seemed intended to be taken particularly seriously anyway.

 

[alphamalet]

15. Valkyria Chronicles FOR attempting to tell a dark story of opression, racial segregation and war, then failing to explain the presence of an incongruously chibi flying pig.

It amazes me how people fail to miss an obvious point. Valkyria Chronicles portrays dark concepts with a light-hearted tone. The tone is very consistent. The point of Hans the pig is to lightheartedly demonstrate that humans aren't the only creatures affected by selfish war; animals are harmed in war as well, just as Hans' mother was.

17. Shadow of the Colossus FOR Wander, a man willing to kill off the very last eagle, gorilla, leopard, rhino, elephant, lion, tiger, orangutan, chimpanzee, snake, crocodile, turtle, bison, whale, bear and dolphin left on the planet...for a girl.

Again, a fundamental misunderstanding of the game and the tone the game was trying to set. You are SUPPOSED to feel guilty for slaying innocent animals in the name of a goal that is selfish in the grand scheme of things. How in the hell is the tone inconsistent?

 

[Altorin]

Is it just me, or are people really harsh and dismissive and downright hostile towards anyone who posts anything ever?

There are some mistakes on the list. I personally disagree with a few items. But I don't think the OP was putting forth some sort of textbook that required tearing down or strenuous peer review. The lack of tact or respect in this thread, and the forums in general, is really starting to grate. Maybe, just maybe, it's a silly off-the-cuff list submitted by someone looking to discuss the subject with other human beings?! Nah, fuck that, EVERYONE DOWN HIS THROAT, QUICK-LIKE!

I think tonal shifts can make sense if done correctly. SotC is an example of subverting player expectations in a very careful and well-executed fashion. That game also places a premium on exploration and negative space concepts, so it's somewhat immune to the dissonance that arises from the "needs more shooting guys" imperative that clearly drives AAA gaming. Ludonarrative dissonance and inconsistent tone aren't the same thing, but I think there is a strong correlation between the two; very often a character doing things outside the scope of his/her reasonably assumed ability can drastically alter "tone" at the same time.

1. Man posts list with many questionable choices
2. audience points out questionable choices
3. ERMERGERD WONT SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN

I think I'm missing the part where the majority of people in this thread attacked him.. everyone had at least one or two issues with his list, and they picked it apart, but he put it there to be picked apart. and if he didn't, he probably should have just put it on his facebook page so his mom could like it. (as much as that sounds like an insult (and it kind of is, tongue in cheek) I personally have way too many posts on facebook that my mom likes.)

 

[Thyunda]

Maybe only Vault Hunters are permitted the use of those, and the character in question no longer possesses the right - maybe people integral to Pandoran politics are forbidden the use of such machines.

A lot of the bosses use them (at least in the first game). If you go back to their haunts later, they've returned.

And they're not integral to Pandoran politics.

Do you get off on making me feel wrong? =(

Yes. I am secret super-villian sating my lust for evil by starting petty arguments with people on the internet. But soon my doomsday device will be ready and I will DESTROY THE WORLD!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I remember hearing somewhere that the New-U stations are not cannon, and the devs regret putting dialogue in them since it causes a lot of confusion as to all of the plot holes that arise from the apparent lack of revival of key characters. (which is to say, bosses revive purely because it is a game and you may have fun killing them multiple times. The characters revive specifically at stations because they are effectively checkpoints that blend in slightly better with the universe visually, but don't actually exist)

Personally, I'd always just assumed they were a game mechanic rather than an "in-world" thing. But nothing in the first Borderlands seemed intended to be taken particularly seriously anyway.

So I just realised a minor detail that kind of settles this whole confusion.

Jack owns the New-U machines, and it takes a while to remove someone from the system, so the original vault hunters have been removed and the new vault hunters are in the process of being removed, so they'll be unable to respawn in the potential sequel, when they're replaced.

And of course Jack didn't believe anybody would ever get the chance to kill him and didn't sign himself up for it. I'm the type of person to rationalise something in-universe...even if it takes me all day.

 

[kyokoshouse]

Again, you did really good until you just broke down into yet another "I hate mainstream games!" rant. It's okay, you don't have to hate all mainstream games. No matter how much everybody tells you "it's cool," it really isn't. Especially when it leads you to pick on a game like Journey just because a bunch of people know about it.

Nice try, but I don't hate mainstream games and never said I did. Also, Journey is one of the best games on the PS3 and my favourite of 2012.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

1. Man posts list with many questionable choices
2. audience points out questionable choices
3. ERMERGERD WONT SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN

I think I'm missing the part where the majority of people in this thread attacked him.. everyone had at least one or two issues with his list, and they picked it apart, but he put it there to be picked apart. and if he didn't, he probably should have just put it on his facebook page so his mom could like it. (as much as that sounds like an insult (and it kind of is, tongue in cheek) I personally have way too many posts on facebook that my mom likes.)

I wasn't even the OP, and I felt like I was getting hit with stray rocks. Plenty of room for disagreement, and I think some good discussion value based on the list, but a lot of the responses didn't come off particularly constructive or friendly. Just hostile. I guess that's SOP here now. Didn't seem to be in years past.

Oh well, I'll just let myself out.

 

[MCHG]

MGR: Revengeance needs to be here. Even though I'm pretty sure Platinum was just dicking around, it's still really jarring when one minute Senator Armstrong is talking about the war economy and the next, some African kid with a robot arm starts making Vanilla Ice references in a bad accent.