Ben X
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Everything posted by Ben X
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I'm halfway through the second level of Condemned, and generally liking it. It's basically a serial killer/CSI type thing and boy does it lean into the tropes - Se7en-style opening titles (haven't seen those since SiN and Thief 1), mannequins in abandoned tenement buildings, scanning for clues with little gadgets (no semen yet though). They do lampshade this right at the start, though, with a fellow detective complaining that the serial killers never go to nice clean places for their killings. And tropey though it is, the atmosphere's pretty effective, as you slowly creep around some grotty location, hearing what might be footsteps above you, then seeing a paint can move out of the corner of your eye. Then suddenly a crazy guy's running at you and you're stoving his head in with a lead pipe you pulled off the wall. The serial killer stuff is mixed in with some hints of supernormal abilities too, which is pretty cool. It's not as brutal or as scary as I remember it being when I played the demo (which consisted of the first level) at the time, but I think that might be because I'm just coming off Bioshock which pulls a few of the same moves in its early stages when you're whacking away at splicers with your spanner. And to be fair, I have felt a little nervy walking around the flat on my own after playing it! Some things kill the atmosphere a little - a lot of bad line readings, and the 'find all the dead birds for achievements!' sub-quest which the game sometimes prioritises over the homicidal junkies swinging planks of wood at your head. It's got a pleasingly simple melee system - swing, block, kick, use the taser if possible; basically the Prince Of Persia system, which I see as the platonic ideal. The one thing letting it down is that it's so damn hard to time blocking correctly. I'm sure I had this problem with at least one other game, perhaps Jedi Knight 2? [EDIT: looking back, also TRON and Riddick] If I see a dude start to swing at me and I click block before he hits me, it shouldn't read as mistimed! Or if you're going to insist on there only being a brief window for success, give me a tutorial so I understand it, because it's too damn frustrating having to work it out during the real thing. It's generally doing well at making me feel like Will Graham, though, so I'll be eagerly getting back to it tomorrow (in daylight, phew!).
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Wow, your cinema still does breaks? Did that feel like a bit of respite in this film or did it come too early? The last film I remember seeing with a break was Back To The Future II in 1989 (it came when Marty gets knocked out outside the Biff Tannen museum and it fades to black).
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I don't know much about that area, I'm afraid. There's an old topic here which might have some suggestions, but it's a few years old now, so folks here might have more up to date suggestions... (For people like me who can never remember what grades mean, 7th grade = 12 -13 years old) Welcome to the forums, by the way, @Sia - sorry for the immediate interrogation!
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If it were meant that broadly, I'd expect it to be phrased that way. As it wasn't, I was wondering if a more narrow criteria was intended. And while we're here, what age range are we talking? Mathaly is apparently 1st grade, which apparently means 5-7; playing that "when she was young" suggests to me a current age of at least 10, but JKO's talking about his 5 year old kid. Nothing wrong with broad questions, but some specifics might improve the requested suggestions.
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Yeah, I agree with all of that. I was definitely leaning towards a patriarchy reading at one point.
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Yes, or 'applications, so these are pretty broad questions, no? "Are programs on mobile phones, Ipads, Windows good for kids?" "Should I replace my kids' really stupid programs on mobile phones, Ipads, Windows with educational ones?"
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What do you mean by "apps"? Games? You can't do much of anything on phones, tablets or Windows without applications...
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What do you think of the original movie, SAM? I get the impression that, as with Buffy, it's possibly and common to be a big fan of the franchise but not of the original movie.
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I just saw it an hour ago, and wow it's intense. I disagree with your assessment of J-Law's performance - I think it was pretty perfectly pitched for a character we had to believe would let most of this shit happen; she's played inner turmoil well in other roles, I don't think that's what she was going for here. I found her performance more engaging than Pfeiffer's. The symbolism was certainly very on the nose, I agree. It enhanced the medieval poetry feel, though, so I'll give it a break. I'd also recommend seeing it, ideally at the cinema, even if I can't promise you won't hate it. (For Aronofsky context, I loved Pi, Requiem For A Dream and The Wrestler; I liked The Fountain on first viewing then loved it on second viewing; I wasn't much for Black Swan.)
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Ah brilliant, thanks! I would have forgotten that existed, it's not on my Watch later list for some reason. EDIT: also they did the same for Bioshock 1 with JP LeBreton: https://youtu.be/-OeytdsTnLk and here's JP showing John Romero his demake of Arcadia in the DooMTM engine: https://youtu.be/tUbk98uZjso
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Wait! I've just realised that I missed Condemned: Criminal Origins (and that Stanley Parable shouldn't really be on here)! I'm going to jump back in time and slot that in here before Crysis 2. I bet once I've done this list I'll look through all my scattered game libraries and find a load more I missed.
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Finished. It didn't throw anything new at me, but I think my expectations were majorly off. I hadn't realised going in that this was essentially a three-level mission pack for BS2 with some new story. A 'Tale From Rapture'. I'd got the impression that it was going to do some really different stuff. So, for what it is, pretty cool. Well structured gameplay and levels, and a clearly told, interesting story that (I now realise) pre-dates Portal 2. It seems to me that there are a lot of people escaping Rapture over the course of these games, though! I wonder if Infinite or Burial At Sea (the latter of which I don't own, but which I'm tempted to break my rules to buy for lore-completionism's sake) address this at all - whether the real world becomes aware of or affected by the outflow of Rapture citizens at any point. Of course, with all the games having multiple endings, the lore is probably a bit of a mess either way. I'd be really interested to hear what people here particularly liked about Minerva's Den, though. Interview with Steve Gaynor Retrospective (also with snippets from Steve) Minerva's Den is the best Bioshock Reminder: Designer Notes eps 29 and 30 interview Steve about this and other games. I think I'll leave them 'til I've played Gone Home (which is not part of this list but will be high on my priority list once I'm done). Okay, onto Crysis 2. I really enjoyed my replay of the first game, and did not care much for Warhead. I hear this one is the worst of the franchise and the most linear, so I'm not expecting much. I'm also hoping to organise some TF2/L4D2 co-op gaming at some point soon...
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On the third and final level now. I've decided to only do Little Sister stuff that crosses my path, I'm not going to trek around looking for it. I've got myself to a point where the sieges are relatively easy - I've got enough money to buy trap rivets and turrets and I can summon bots. It's pretty fun when they give you a corpse in the middle of a ton of friendly turrets and cameras so you just find a good spot and watch the mayhem, picking off any stragglers and helping out with brutes or repairing downed bots. The story's the usual 'crazy antagonist must be defeated, you get told to run around the place pushing buttons', but I at least have a good handle on who everyone is this time. Quite a relief to know this is relatively short - no padding! Although I hope it throws some different stuff at me (without giving me an FPS crutch like an on-rails section or stealth section!) before the end. Latest best thing: the guy who has scrawled messages all over the levels is called Reed Wahl.
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I checked a walkthrough and also restarted the level, but could not get past it. The turret guy shoots through walls across the whole level, all your weapons are shit and all the enemies are crack-shots with magic vision and insanely high-powered guns. The walkthrough only suggests I let my friendlies take all the heat, but they just hang out near the start of the level doing fuck all.So I've uninstalled it. From what I played so far, I'm not missing out on anything. I can always play Far Cry again. Contemporary review (accurate though the scoring's too generous) Next up: Minerva's Den I've played through the first level, and so far so Bioshock 2. It's probably unfair to expect anything else from DLC other than 'more of the same', but I'd got the impression from around the internet that this is the best DLC ever and jostling for best Bioshock game too, so I thought there might be something more going on. That said, I've only done the first area and they've levelled me up pretty quickly already. There are some new weapons and enemy variants too, and the story has an intriguing Portal 2ish feel to it. I'm going to try to get by without doing any Little Sister harvest sieges or nook-and-crannying for a while, see how it goes. Best thing so far: having a sentry-bot buddy called Scoops.
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A Dedicated Thread For Talking About Star Trek Episodes
Ben X replied to BigJKO's topic in Movies & Television
OOOH, Netflix UK is getting Discovery on the 25th and just put up a new trailer. It's the one with a cover of I'd Love To Change The World, and it's actually pretty cool. Feels quite nuTrek but not in a bad way. I also got a bit of a BSG vibe. -
Idle Thumbs 311: Tactical Gamer Chair
Ben X replied to Jake's topic in Idle Thumbs Episodes & Streams
Oops, autocorrect! I will never directly get that wrong due to the argument 19 mins into this Red Dwarf ep: -
I saw a news article about the court verdict on that monkey who took a selfie and thought the same thing!
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Idle Thumbs 311: Tactical Gamer Chair
Ben X replied to Jake's topic in Idle Thumbs Episodes & Streams
I might be the only one whose heckles get raised by this (though surely not?), but Jake please please please stop yawning into the microphone! The normal once or twice per episode is aggravating enough, but you went into overdrive on this one! Anyway, great show as always. The monthly IT/weekly IIT schedule is working out really well. -
So far this game has given me: tutorial; bit like the flashback in CoD:MW where you follow a dude around for a bit; bit like the stealthy sections in a Crytek game; corridor FPS bit. The tutorial failed to convey a lot of the mechanics to me, so I had to learn those myself in the game proper with a lot of save-scumming. The CoD-style following simulator bit was what it was. The stealthy bit - what I'd expected the meat of this game to be - was quite fun but rather unpolished, with enemies spawning out of nowhere and no real clue as to whether corpses will be noticed, how well hidden I am, bullshit super-sighted enemies. The corridor FPS bit is terrible - the shooting mechanics are awful, to the point where every gun except the pistol is useless, and you're not allowed your sniper rifle despite there being a turret guy who's seemingly unkillable and impossible to bypass and despite this being a SNIPER GAME. It looks very nice, but it's pretty unpolished and the 'story' is dull as dishwater but waffles on at you every five minutes about which soldier is going where. I'm going to have to check a walkthrough to see if I'm missing something on this corridor FPS otherwise it's going to be a very early rage-quit! I think the issue is that they're trying to make an action sniper game, which isn't really plausible. From the sounds of it, the more realistic sim Sniper Elite games are the way to go
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Yeah, that's what I meant. Don't know how you'd do sniping in third person! Just get reeeeeeally close to their shoulder? Well, if GW turns out to be crappy I'll abandon it and return to Rapture. Either way, I'll put SEv2 on my list of good non-FPSes to play once I'm done with this damn list. (Although I may be so sick of first-person that I stringently avoid any games that include that mode in any way for a while!)
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No. I've got v2 but it seems to be third-person with sniping so I kept it off this list.
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Welp, the very next objective after I decided that was to harvest three Little Sisters in a row! More than a usual level and I was being forced to do it! Gah! So I pushed through that section and managed to complete the game without harvesting any more little sisters (except for a couple that I got by accidentally picking fights with Big Daddies - but I didn't bother with the Adam-harvesting sieges), despite the game warning me against it. There were a fair few weapons and plasmids that I never really bothered with either. I've finished now, and have very similar feelings to those I had at the end of the first game - that was all very cool, but I wish there'd been less of it. On the one hand, it was pretty sweet laying down a ton of sentry guns, then calling two sentry bots and my kickass Big Sister daughter into a massive fight, but on the other hand I've killed like a million of these guys already. And again, a lot of the plot passed me by. Overall a good game, though, but I think I'd have to rate the first one higher just for pure surprise value of the setting and a story that was tied in more closely. Even though the sequel does polish up a lot of the mechanics, it doesn't really introduce anything new or expand at all. I'm glad I've got at least one game to cleanse my palate before heading into Minerva's Den. Making Of RPS review Art Of... videos (this links to 1 of 5) Forum thread I already played Metro 2033. Here are my posts from the time: Oh well! Forum thread Onto Sniper: Ghost Warrior. I generally enjoy sniping in FPSes, so hopefully this'll be fun.
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Keep us updated! I'm definitely curious as to how good those Masterclass things are, as I've seen them advertised for a while now. I'm guessing those watch recommendations are because those early films are credited with being the first to use certain editing techniques etc..?
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I don't know if anyone will be able to teach you what kind of films you want to make... If you want to do a 'city symphony' film, I'd say the best thing to do is think of stuff you find interesting in the city, go out and film it, then try editing it to a piece of music. Do you have a message about the city or a particular element that you'd want to highlight? If so, use that to hone in on what would be good to shoot. Maybe spend a day walking round the city getting ideas. If you want to do narrative stuff, a good place to start is what resources you have - locations, actors, etc, then write something simple around that.
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I'm about two thirds of the way through now, I think, and am starting to get bored. I've got about 200 Adam and nothing I'm interested in spending it on enough to justify having to get more, so I'm going to try and speed through the plot now rather than attacking any more Big Daddies or searching through every little corner. Follow that arrow!