Ben X

Ha ha, good point. Okay, it feels weird to me to be doing this in a Wolfenstein game..! Well, I've just reached the internment camp, and I hope @miffy495 is right about this game hitting its stride soon because so far it's a real slog. It's either getting funnelled through scripted sequences, boring hub levels where you have to go pick up bits of paper and lumps of concrete, or war-of-attrition shooting sections . The latest one involved standing in a side-room and shooting all the guys as they ran towards me, then shooting three big robots with my laser gun that needs about five recharges at the power-point per robot, then shooting a slightly bigger robot. The game may gesture towards immersive sim mechanics but it doesn't offer any alternative playstyles - stealth goes out of the window very quickly and there aren't any interesting weapons to play with. I even completed an optional goal of finding four toys, and all I got was an unlocked model! Who gives a shit about unlocking models?! What's more, while the visual fidelity is pretty good, the art design and story are both rendered rather dull by the plot point that the Nazis are using super-concrete to build everything. This not only makes for a boring story, it also makes for a very very grey game.

Which previous vid, the steamed hams one? That was a section of an interview, wasn't it? Cooking With Jeff is an ongoing thing? Huh, that''s not something I'd expect from FOD, but then I guess I haven't been on the actual site in a long time.

I'm confused: this is branded Funny Or Die, yet it seems like one big commercial for that supermarket and it's not even a sketch or anything. Do FOD make product-placement-centred cooking shows now?

Oh yeah, same. I'll be a lot happier once Pixar films without Lasseter's name on them start appearing. Here's the longer essay that article was based on, which is even tougher to read (content warning for sexual abuse and harrassment): https://medium.com/@cassandraanns/pixars-sexist-boys-club-9d621567fdc9

Well, I can't really claim that my guess was wholly correct, though there was some heavier-handed stating of themes and some issues with structure - mainly that it's essentially a re-run of the first movie, beat for beat, and that it's not really much fun when . All the action sequences, acting and family dynamics are still great though. One final issue -

I've played a little more of this, and it all feels rather loose. The shooting's okay, but I've been given like fifteen weapons options with no real idea of the difference between them. There's the immersive sim stuff plus the action stuff, but both of them feel rather undercooked, and I'm constantly bombarded with messages about perks and achievements and what have you. I got through the CoD/RTCW section at the start, and through the insane asylum. It's interesting that they're going this hard with the story, but I feel like a lot of beats get fudged. I'm often thinking "ah, I see what you were trying to do there". I did really like the scene where BJ is told that it's 1960, the war's over and the US surrendered (even if they did give away the twist earlier, plus unceremoniously cut to it at the top of the scene) - it's a convincing portrayal of confusion and panic . I've just got to a bit where I have to stealth around and clear out a section. While it's weird to be doing this in a Wolfenstein game, I'm still trying to embrace it, even if the clunky weapons system doesn't help matters.

Just got onto the second season of Into The Badlands, and I'm really enjoying it. It's an AMC show, set in post-apocalyptic America where they've reverted to a variation on late 19th century society, but with more martial arts. It looks great, the acting's all strong and the fight scenes are absolutely fantastic, probably the best of their kind I've ever seen on a tv show. They must have had a pretty massive budget to manage all the choreography and rehearsal to get them to that standard, (not to mention all the costumes and what have you).

12 hours later is probably too late, but I'd go for the quiet hiker. Second place would be the warehouse workers (assuming you could get access to a warehouse, and also acknowledging that the second half of it feels a bit tacked on - unless the twist is that he is now possessed by Baphomet!)

What didn't you like about the format? Congrats on getting a game in there, Henke!

Thanks, edited

The whole movie, I meant. I'd be surprised if festivals would be so strict, but I don't really know the (festival) scene...

This all sounds great, well done! Seems like you're being a bit hard on yourself that everything hasn't gone absolutely perfectly at every stage and suggested pure gold from start to finish. Every film makes compromises and makes lemonade out of lemons, plus this is your first try! Sounds like it's going really well, and like it will work really well in tandem with the course to give you a ton of learning experience. I'd personally go for commissioned music over licensed, as it will likely be cheaper and more interesting, plus if it's giving an amateur or unsigned band some more experience, that feels more appropriate to the production. And definitely send it to festivals. A friend of mine made a short film with terrible production values, solely consisting of a man eating a fried breakfast then doing a poo in a sink, and got it into a festival or two; the first rough edit of your first scene that I saw deserves to be in a festival more than that film! Also please post it here!

Ah, yeah, I had noticed that there's a fair amount of map-checking, skill-upgrading, document-reading and the like. I very quickly assumed that it was all fluff grafted onto a regular shooter and got a bit of a "when do they get to the fireworks factory" feeling, but it sounds like I should try to embrace it. Wolfenstein is not a franchise I would have expected to go in that direction, but it does seem to be becoming a bit of a trend in shooters, along with the arcadey score-chasing.

Ah ha, you're right! Off the list it goes, thanks Tycho!

I've played through to the start of the second level and so far so Call Of Duty, give or take a couple of robots. I suspect they're slowly easing me into the more interesting stuff that I've heard about with some straightforward opening sections. And that'll have to do it for at least the next couple of weeks, see you for more FPS action soon!

@Jutranjo - I did see mention of the train level being hidden in there behind a destructible wall somewhere as well, actually. I guess I needed to speculatively blow more shit up. @TychoCelchuuu - ah, okay, not satire but commentary about how shooters distance you from the real horrors of war or something though, right?

Okay, finished. Frankly, I wish I'd stopped at the two-thirds mark, because from there it's just same fight, different room, over and over. No new moves, no new enemies, and even the mind-numbing boss fights get repeated over and over. Plus, the story sank into incomprehensible demon family back-stabbing and failed attempts at pathos. Probably the most frustrating thing of all was that when they finally gave me the new powerful sword that I've been chasing the whole game, I was allowed to run down a corridor for 30 seconds killing a handful of grunts before they took it off me again for the rest of the game! I couldn't believe it! The central dynamics are fun enough that it still came out as a positive experience overall, but it's really frustrating that such a strong first half got utterly fumbled. (There was one absolutely amazing bit that I have to mention, though, where you find a secret room that is a small grassy area from the original, pixel graphics and all. Pretty standard easter egg, I thought, as I walked over to pick up the collectible. As I did, suddenly a heavy metal track kicked in and a black bunny appeared, flying at my neck and ripping me to shreds. The combination of surprise and mixed pop culture references had me cackling even as I desperately hacked away at the little beast.) I couldn't find any interesting videos or what have you about this game. There is a forum thread, but unfortunately no one actually posted in it once they played the game - opinions are scattered through the 'completed games' thread and the like. Seems people had a similar reaction to mine, anyway. In my search through my various games libraries (oh for a free app that allows you to consolidate them all into one list) I've actually realised that I own Spec Ops The Line, but I think I'll play Wolfenstein New Order first before going back to that. I won't get far in, as I'm away for a week or so from tomorrow, so I'd rather just have a quick blast than get one step into what I understand is a cleverly satirical shooter with mediocre mechanics.

Also, I don't own it!

Yeah, I took a quick peek at the sequel, and while it seems like they have more interesting and varied enemies, and varied blade options with some cool dismemberment stuff, the partly proc-gen RPG stuff doesn't sound up my alley. Shadow Warrior 1 co-op seems like it would be fun, though, shame it isn't available.

At E3, a ton of the voice actors reunited for a live table read of some Grim Fandango scenes. Live music from Pete McConnell and hosting by Tim Schafer! (It's on Facebook video, not sure if one needs to be registered to watch it...) EDIT: youtube version found!

I'm over two thirds through now and mostly still enjoying this. Some issues are growing, however: the variety in demons and special moves is starting to slow; the boss fights range from dull (shoot the glowy bits!) to rather irritating (shoot the glowy bits on the back of something that charges at you really fast!); the environments have settled into typical FPS metal corridors; I'm getting pretty tired of scavenging for coins. Overall, it's that standard FPS problem where I'm in the end-game and I don't feel as powered up as I should. I'm still having enough minute to minute fun to keep slashing my way through, though.

To Shadow Warrior? Yeah, I really enjoyed it - I think it really worked well with his youthification and the pleasingly specific archetype of 'young, ambitious Westernised Japanese man who doesn't believe in all this stuffy tradition and supernatural nonsense', and it was also cool to see a lot of effort go into such a light-hearted scene - licensing the track, doing some really good 'singing along' lip syncing, a ton of custom backgrounds and props etc. The writing in general is really fun, if not super-sophisticated. There are clever nods to the Hero With A Thousand Faces and some cute lampshading as well as some well-acted banter.

I'm about halfway through this now and still enjoying it. It's progressing nicely, with better weapons to match the bigger demons that are coming in. It all feels very DOOM '16, actually - a lot of arena fights where you have to use certain moves to get health back, you use demon hearts as weapons and there are big plinths of gore and bones sticking out of the floor that you pull stuff from. There was even a Hell ("Shadow Realm") level where you had to run round a big circular arena and shoot the shiny bits off a massive lumbering demon, but that might be more DooM3 now I think about it. Anyway, you can really see the pattern of arcadey style-rewarding wave-shooting in this and Gunslinger, which I guess may have been started by Bulletstorm, and which DOOM got a lot of credit for adopting. Small complaints are that it's often too tricky to swap between guns and sword, and thereby fully strategise when dealing with a collection of big and small demons, and also that it's unclear how to get higher karma rewards for stylish or unusual kills. I might look that up before I get back to it, actually...

So we now have Bioshock Infinite, Doom Eternal and Halo Infinite. Is this the new "Origins"? Will all games with an ouroborosian moniker be bound to include a parallel universe plot? EDIT: oh wait, Duke Nukem Forever didn't, so I guess not.

More gameplay: Looks nice enough, seems like they're having fun with it, and the driving/shooting feel more coherently linked now. Does seem like they're going more for open spaces and DOOM '16 style fighting, rather than the dense art design and corridor-shooting of the first one; hopefully they'll keep some of that in here, but it seems like this is set later so all the buildings have collapsed and vegetation's grown back in.