@SuchAGoonie @grey_fox1984 Dude have you ever searched the word "fan film" on Youtube? If shitty fan films were capable of destroying franchises, there would no longer be any video games. Should Square Enix start stepping in when people cosplay as FF characters at Comic Con? A fan film is little more than a group of people cosplaying while making an indie short. I say let them have at it. If it sucks, people just won't watch it, it won't affect people's love of FFVII in the slightest. On the contrary, if it's GOOD, it may get old fans to download the PSN version and play through it again, or even give FFXIII a shot.

If they were making a sequel to FFVII in which Cloud goes on a rampage and starts raping 12 year olds, or something equally disturbing and going against the grain of the original property, I could see Square getting pissed, but a kickstarter being used for a non-profit fan series that wants to pay respectful homage to their property? Not exactly something worth playing the "get your hands off my intellectual property!" card on.

I also remember reading a Ninja Gaiden novel when I was in the third or fourth grade. It was based on the old NES game and I remember it being a pretty cool, Indiana Jones-style adventure, but with Ryu Hayabusa (and Irene, who hasn't made an appearance in the modern games at all, to my knowledge- though I never finished NG2 and didn't play 3 at all)

I think Square-Enix should've let this happen; it's essentially free advertising and if it is clearly marked as "unofficial fan film", then even if it sucks, it won't affect their brand image at all.

@tbodine $400k is a small budget for a series with computer animated effects dude. Consider that Game of Thrones cost about $6-8 million an episode and then imagine an entire series of FFVII episodes done for less than half a million.

@visionedorange Would you not agree that if a bunch of RE fans were able to get a decent budget together, they would be about to make an RE movie better than the Paul WS Anderson series?

@MasterOfMordor @grey_fox1984 You are certainly not in the same league as trolls who simply jump onto a message board and spew hateful comments for no reason; however I do think that your discomfort with the idea of transgender people is colouring your perspective a bit. I don't think that Caro talks about her identity in every episode, I think that when she does, it triggers something in you sparks a reaction- one that is at least strong enough for you to jump on the message board and ask her to stop. She never steers the conversations to centre around her identity and it never dominates the podcast. She just points out things quickly, like the fact that she should have played "Catherine" in order to get an opinion on the transgender character in that game. That is a relevant point, relates to her identity and relates to videogames- no reason at all to cause alarms.

@carolynmichelle @MasterOfMordor Caro, know that some of the people who listen are proud of your confidence in who you are and appreciate your perspective being rooted in your experience, when the topic comes up in the conversation. Just as Kevin will reference his sexual orientation in poignant moments like the recent confession about his crush on Ryan Davis (which was heartwarming, if you ask me)- and as Tom stands firm behind his controversial review of The Last of Us; you should stand firm behind your identity, and not let jerks in the comments section get to you (because let's face it, if they wouldn't be here if they weren't listening to you anyway!).

I've actually read all of the Halo books- they are arguably better than most of the series. In fact, the weakest book (by a wide degree, it's pretty bad) is the only one that is a novelization of a game. Do not read "The Flood". If you want a great military sci-fi one, read "Ghosts of Onyx", "Halo: Evolutions" is a great anthology to start with (short stories in a variety of genres that you can knock out in an hour or so) and the Greg Bear Forerunner Trilogy is actually a pretty solid series of hard sci-fi.

(I should point out, I was also skeptical of game-based novels, but read "Halsey's Journal" that came with the collector's edition of Reach...picked up "Fall of Reach" and before I knew it, I'd read like 9 Halo books)

Here's what happened- with the 3rd Person Call of Duty game:

COD4:MW had a great story with an amazing central character, Price. Price was so charismatic and awesome that he kind of out-shined Soap, the central player character. This gave activision the idea that the "universe" created in MW could support several good stories, with lots of compelling characters, spawning several spin-off series (a la the Tom Clancy games). Sledgehammer was working on what was likely Call of Duty's equivalent of the Splinter Cell series.

Then MW2 came out. It sold millions of copies to bros who never touched the campaign. It had a campaign that was lauded for being overly and artificially controversial, convoluted and generally not as good as the original MW. Price made a triumphant return halfway through, but his role didn't quite have the same impact as the original. The prospect of the narrative of MW being something Activision could bank on seemed less of a sure thing. The multiplayer mode really took over as the driving engine for sales, and finally....Infinity Ward crumbled. All of a sudden, the manpower required for spin offs seemed like it would be much better spent making MW3.

Activision is (not inaccurately) asserting that the second they try to take CoD in a crazy new direction and really push things forward, they are going to alienate their core audience. That core audience is NOT "core gamers" who enjoy innovation. I'm not saying that as a knock (to the series or the core audience of the series), but it is the truth. The bros who play Call of Duty (and ONLY Call of Duty) are numerous and buy the game every year without fail. If Activision wants to make a series that pushes the envelope, they'd be smart to call it ANYTHING but CoD, because the second they make a CoD game that doesn't have a bombastic campaign that is quick to play through for a casual gamer, and most importantly, an addictive multiplayer mode, is the second they alienate their target audience.

And if you live on a military base because you're a career combat medic, but sometimes sneak home to see your family on the weekend, but don't always want to disconnect everything and pack a bag, dealing with strip down, set up, strip down, set up every time? Are you still "dumb" in that case?