In my opinion, this game is perfect for players who want to explore gaming culture. New players may not love the gameplay itself, but they can still feel how meaningful this title is.

I love the metal gear series, and MGS4 is fantastic, but this is the worst possible one for someone to start with.

Not only does it take place last chronologically (with the exception of Raiden’s spinoff), it was also originally meant to be last game in the series, so a lot of the playtime is watching movies to fill plot holes. All the reveals will have 0 impact to someone not familiar with the series.

I’d say just about any other game in the series is better to start with (I started with MGS2). I’d recommend MGS3 because its a good blend of modern gameplay and requires very little prior knowledge of the series.

I’m questioning the near-religious devotion people have to a tool because it gives them a “hacker vibe”—which is basically the whole appeal for newcomers to vim or emacs.

You lost me here. SSH was the whole appeal when I first started using vim.

Also, nice emdash

I already had Syncthing set up on my PC, server, and phone, so adding another folder for game saves was a simple addition.

Definitely worth it to take an hour to set up and test everything so you never need to think about it again

Syncthing has all these features for free and works on mobile too. Just instruct your emulator to save to a Syncthing folder or create a new one. Has the added benefit of being able to sync any other type of file too, not just saves

Completely agree about the Strategy Guide nature of those crash games. Some of the levels you’d have to go all the way to the end, just to run all the way back to the beginning.

In a linear game like crash, often with one way ledges, I wouldn’t have even considered going backwards most times.

Nonetheless, Naughty Dog always puts out hits