Not FMA... WTF!
So .hack//G.U. -- despite having absolutely no experience whatsoever with anything in the franchise, the game is still a hell of a lot of fun to watch my hubby play, though the backstory is so damn thick, it took me a while to stop my head from spinning. It's not every game that needs a back up disk of just backstory to give you grounding in the world.
The game is hugely meta -- to the point where even when you log out of the game, you are still in the game. There doesn't appear to be a way to quit. And it even carries it's own version of fandom in it, which I find roll on the floor funny. This game literally fangirls itself.
I laughed my ass off when my husband scrolled through the "fan art" section which looked exactly like real fanart and its typical responses (the game designers had a feild day with this). Endrance (possibly the gayest character ever to be gay in a game) particularly has a lot of fanpoodles squeeing over some really halarously awful art and ff.net worthy fic. And of course there are flames and Mods stepping in. It's also fun to see Haseo (the character my Hubby is playing) being occasionally brought up in the third person -- sometimes in an embarassingly fangirly squee, sometimes in a "wtf -- oh you are talking about him" way. But the forums aren't all about Haseo, which is really nice.
As for the game itself -- it looks like Haseo is stuck with a girl called "Atoli" in his fighting group. Atoli is, as my husband put it, "Minmei annoying." Minmei (Robotech's femme fatale) has been the benchmark for teeth grinding, nails-on-the-blackboard, horrible "good girl" stereotype characters for 20 years, so this is saying a lot. Sadly I suspect she will not die tragically any time soon. At least Haseo can't stand her either.
The game is hugely meta -- to the point where even when you log out of the game, you are still in the game. There doesn't appear to be a way to quit. And it even carries it's own version of fandom in it, which I find roll on the floor funny. This game literally fangirls itself.
I laughed my ass off when my husband scrolled through the "fan art" section which looked exactly like real fanart and its typical responses (the game designers had a feild day with this). Endrance (possibly the gayest character ever to be gay in a game) particularly has a lot of fanpoodles squeeing over some really halarously awful art and ff.net worthy fic. And of course there are flames and Mods stepping in. It's also fun to see Haseo (the character my Hubby is playing) being occasionally brought up in the third person -- sometimes in an embarassingly fangirly squee, sometimes in a "wtf -- oh you are talking about him" way. But the forums aren't all about Haseo, which is really nice.
As for the game itself -- it looks like Haseo is stuck with a girl called "Atoli" in his fighting group. Atoli is, as my husband put it, "Minmei annoying." Minmei (Robotech's femme fatale) has been the benchmark for teeth grinding, nails-on-the-blackboard, horrible "good girl" stereotype characters for 20 years, so this is saying a lot. Sadly I suspect she will not die tragically any time soon. At least Haseo can't stand her either.