Ben X

Got the music working. This is really fun so far! I love the anime presentation, especially the cheesy Japanese synth pop title song and the bad-translation banter. It's also really cool running around as a mech squishing people and blowing cars up - reminds me of the old Amiga game Walker. I occasionally feel on the verge of being lost but I haven't come a cropper yet. All I need now are some kaiju and some laser-sword fights. I've got to a bit where I'm supposed to fall down a fan shaft and land on a platform, but the fans are still pushing me up so I'm stuck mid-air! I'll check a playthrough and then come back to it another day.

I took a look too, and it didn't look much different to what I've been playing already. I'd be interested to hear what you particularly like about that level, Inc. Watching the play-through did remind me that I probably should read the manuals for these older games to make sure I'm not missing secondary fire modes and stuff - I'm used to them popping up as text on-screen when I first get the weapon! Now I'm off to try and make sure the music works for Shogo, as apparently it takes some hex editing and stuff - that seems to be one of the recurrent issues with playing these older games. Everything else about it is running pretty smoothly, though - probably thanks to gog.

Unfortunately, your advice to skip the next few levels came a bit too late, Inc! I just played through that whole spaceship bit where you're trekking around pushing buttons for hours; it's like Dark Forces except with insanely tough enemies constantly being thrown at you. I cannot bear any more of this game, I'm afraid, it's a huge slog. It makes me appreciate Half-Life all the more seeing earlier or contemporary games do similar stuff but just not as entertaining or satisfying. Now onto Shogo: Mobile Armor Division! This had better be good, eot!

Both good points!

Well, as long as the ants only pick enough for themselves, they'll actually be picking half the amount they used to, just quicker... Anyway, I watched this again for the first time in about 15 years and it's as mediocre as I remember it. I understand the issues people had with Toy Story, but man does that film shine next to this one. Bland lead, unmotivated perfunctory romance, generic plucky kid and horny grandma, generally pretty ugly. As well as the plot stuff Patrick talked about, the design and facial animation of the ants make this feel so bargain basement. I agree with 93 about the narrative structure, and it also feels aimed a lot more at kids, especially around characters like the caterpillar and the (incredibly irritating) Richard Kind grasshopper. I'm trying to think of good stuff - it occasionally looks nice? The shots of the grasshoppers flying through the mist against the pink sky are pretty sweet. It's got a good cast even if they don't get to do much.

Oh man, me too. So, I played a little further in Unreal. The Tomb Raider-lite temple section got a bit wearing with all the underwater mazey bits, and I just got stuck again at a bit where the solution (I found out later) is to push one of a dozen wall decorations that usually aren't buttons. Ugh. It seems there's a village section coming up so I'll push on to that and see how it goes, but I feel like I might be giving up on this relatively early as well.

You did ask if this was the genesis of it!

I thought of that as well, but went for Dumbo as a children's film. Though I guess there's probably a Rankin Bass film or something of Rudolph that pre-dates Dumbo...

Off the top of my head, Dumbo fits that bill pretty well.

Well, I haven't got too far yet, but so far it's "alien pistol that shoots green bullets" or "alien chaingun that shoots blue bullets". Also, the Skarj AI is quite good at navigating, but all the flipping and rolling and stuff just mean that I stand there waiting for it to finish the gymnastics and run straight at me so I can pelt it with bullets. Plus they generally show up in corridors so I don't have much chance for tactical manoeuvring. It's all showy surface details, which seems to be a microcosm of the game itself. I prefer it to Quake II already, though, and hopefully I'll find more to like as it goes on.

To embed YouTube videos on these forums, simply paste in the youtube.com url, or paste the youtu.be url but remove the "s" from the "https" at the start. There is a limit of 2 videos per post (this apparently can be circumnavigated but I don't know if Doug would want the method to be used so I won't post it here).

Ah ha, have edited the OP, thanks.

It seems not to work for people quite regularly (see Mington's attempt above), which is why I started this thread. Am I missing something?

"Next level: Upper Mines". NO. That's Quake 2 done with, so it's on to Unreal. I'm generally not enjoying Unreal too much - lots of bland Quake 2-y spaceship corridors, and the shooting/movement is pretty floaty and unsatisfying. It does have some really nice moments, though, like when you exit your crashed prison ship and emerge onto this expansive alien planet, with turquoise waterfalls and little critters running about the place, then you look up and flying reptiles circling lazily above you and planets hanging in the sky, while the wondrous synth-y score comes in. It feels like it's drawing on similar influences as No Man's Sky. It's definitely the first natural outdoor environment I've seen that is easy on the eyes. The NPCs are cool as well. They're kind of primitive slaves; if you shoot them they start worshipping you and running away from you, but if you just walk up to them, they beckon you to follow and lead you to hidden weapon closets which they then open for you. It's quite affecting when one of them heads off to help you then gets caught by their Skarj master and is eviscerated. I'm in a temple section at the moment, which has some light puzzles - shoot the chains to free the raft, push the lever to fill the pool etc - and is quite relaxing, but I've just got stuck! So I'll check out a playthrough and then come back to this one in a few days, I think.

I don't know about iPhone but if I follow your link with Chrome for Android, it sends me to which I can then copy and paste then take that last bit off and change the m to www. Bit of a faff, but not too bad. Can you not do that on iPhone?

You just paste in the youtube.com (NOT youtu.be) url:

fhalflife3 ffrogfractions2

Then we would tell you this is the wrong thread for saying that.

Is there much fan coding going on? Someone at the DF forums linked to some, but it seemed like it had stalled. It would be pretty cool to see this turned into an amazing, deep game by ongoing fan efforts in a kind of Vampire Masquerade Redemption type way.

You did include the word oddity, though, so points for that.

Harsh.

A disflinction?

Please say "baboo" next time Chris walks past.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/14/alan-rickman-giant-of-british-film-and-theatre-dies-at-69 Damn.

A think piece (or whatever) on it, also by AVClub: http://www.avclub.com/article/controversial-steven-universe-edit-omits-more-same-230494