Noyb

Phaedrus' Street Crew
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    968

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Noyb

  4. Posted

    I think it has something to do with "what feet are doing", because Ron posted quite a bunch of pictures of what his feet were doing.

    What do feet do? They kick!

    What Tim Schafer character has kick as a primary verb? Ben!

    Full Throttle 2 confirmed.

  6. Posted · Edited by Noyb

    So, I finished it last night. Still trying to reconcile my thoughts about the game.

    I guess "appreciation" is what I feel towards Deadly Premonition. It did enough things right in terms of narrative and characters to leave me with a positive final impression. It also did its best to undercut these positive feelings with shameless combat padding.

    On one hand, I appreciate that it's an honest-to-goodness implementation of the mythical open world game that takes place entirely in a small town. Early on in the game, I found myself buying into that fiction, planning my virtual day around York's physical needs (food, sleep, gas), visiting the various witnesses and suspects around town, and making sure to meet all my plot-related appointments. And although the dialogue sometimes sounds like it was written (or at least translated) by someone observing humanity from a distance but not quite human themselves, it was often charming enough to make me care about some of these characters. The chapter where

    York finds himself confronting his feelings for Emily while he's in captivity

    was surprisingly effective emotionally.

    On the other hand, the gameplay was quite the chore. Driving around town was interesting at first, but the game didn't dole out enough amazing in-car conversations fast enough to break the monotony of driving from remote location to remote location. There is a teleport item, but it's hidden in such an obscure quest that I don't think I would have found it without GameFAQS. As for the combat, it was serviceable throughout, but horribly repetitive and monotonous. If I didn't do the side quests to get infinite ammo guns, I'm not sure how much more painful the combat would have been.

    The ceiling crawler enemies were some of the worst designed encounters I've played in games. They're punishing if you don't know their pattern, but monotonous if you do.

    Wait for them to crawl around to face you. Run past them. Do a quick 180. Shoot them when they're visible.

    Repeat 6-12 times depending on difficulty and the strength of your gun. Pray the level designers weren't lazy enough to throw two more of them in the same corridor, bringing all sense of progress to a screeching halt.

    Similarly annoying are the Chase Goose-style waggle-your-stick-to-run QTEs which repeat throughout the game (and are often interrupted by other QTEs), and the parts where you must

    hide from the Raincoat killer by holding your breath

    . The first is inherently annoying to perform mechanically. The second repeats so often that it lacks any sort of tension, which undercuts the intended feelings of dread and fear.

    And just a note about the sound. As everyone has said, the music is surprisingly good. The sound design, not so much. In a number of cutscenes, it's difficult to hear the characters over the music, and a number of lines sounded like they were recorded in rooms with completely different dynamics than the others. A little distracting, but nothing the subtitles didn't fix.

    The twins at the start of the game [...] are the only characters to share the same first letter in their names.

    To be pedantic, Brian the Insomniac and Becky Ames share the same first letter.

    I only noticed that when I say someone else's Let's Play, when I pointed out, very vaguely, without saying exactly what it was... People actively looked for it and then got angry at me for being spoiled.:erm:

    I can see why. It was irritating enough when I spoiled myself, I'd be very irritated if someone led me on the path to doing so. Like I wrote above, it's the kind of spoiler where you can't say "The

    license plates

    contain spoilers, don't look at them," since the mere fact of saying that that they do would likely bring attention to them, when they might have remained safely in the background. Also, don't think about pink elephants.

  8. Posted

    Goddamnit, I think Deadly Premonition spoiled one of its own major plot point again. Not quite as explicit as the last one, but it planted a major suspicion in my mind that, hours later, turned out to be correct. The game itself gave this spoiler outside of the actual narrative delivery methods, making me feel a bit cheated since it wasn't a conclusion it let me arrive at naturally.

    I'll refrain from naming names, but major spoilers if you're considering playing it:

    I received a certain character's car by completing a certain side mission. While driving around, it's hard not to notice that the car's license plate reads "HES THE 1," or "He's the one!" Hours later, when the identity of the serial killer is revealed, guess who it is?

    Damnit, Deadly Premonition, that's not how foreshadowing works!

    And in this case, I can't even warn people not to pay attention to this game element. Since it's not something you expect to contain spoilers, the mere fact of saying it contains spoilers gives credence to this clue, where most players might just happily overlook it. :frusty:

  10. Posted

    If anyone's planning on playing this game and not just watching the Endurance Runs, for the love of god don't read the trading card descriptions. (Or, erm, the last few pages of this thread... :shifty:)

    Light spoilers.

    I picked up a trading card corresponding to a certain character I just met. The card's description says that this character was the third victim. There hasn't even been a *second* victim at this point of the plot. I'm guessing that other cards might have even worse spoilers.

  11. Posted

    Riddle me this, if you can.

    This was an old BBC Acorn (I think) game. It was a platformer in the vein of Chuckie Egg (single screen per level). You were a guy who had to run around knocking the ingredients of a burger off the levels onto the bottom of the screen, creating an entire sandwich. You did this while avoiding baddies.

    Any ideas?

    Total guess based on a bit of random googling and assuming it isn't the popular Burger Time: Mr. Wimpy?

    Dy-wBVHFd_8

  12. Posted

    Mobigames responded. They're fighting fire with fire in an attempt to get EdgeBobby2 removed from the Apple Store through allegations of trademark infringement on their own trademark on the common English word "Edge." I do like their claim that Edge doesn't actually own the rights to the Bobby Bearing IP, but using Langdell's MO against him is more sickening than poetic.

    Also, Langdell continues to sink ever deeper into his own delusions:

    Edge has also filed a counter-claim against Future for "damage of reputation" caused by the Mobigame case, and for Future not promoting Edge's use of the trademark as was apparently the agreement. "Edge is extremely confident it will prevail on the counter-claim."

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-22-mobigame-slams-langdell-edge

  17. Posted · Edited by Noyb

    Kotaku somehow got the rights to Game Center CX, the Japanese reality show this game is based on. They're geo-blocking non-American IP addresses, unfortunately.

    http://kotaku.com/5814938/episode-1-ninja-gaiden

    The show itself is a good watch, essentially a series of Let's Plays with some tension as to whether the player will actually be able to beat the game, along with occasional segments (cut from Kotaku's version) focusing on Japanese gaming culture.

    That said, I couldn't make it five minutes into the dub before the generic Spike TV announcer and inconsistent subtitling irritated me. It just makes me wish someone who wouldn't half-ass the entire thing would pick up the rights.

    Edit: Okay, the announcer isn't too bad once you get used to it. :shifty:

  20. Posted

    I've got some shit to plug.

    I've got a game in the 2011 IntroComp, a text adventure competition where you write just the beginning of a game and people vote on how much they'd like to play more of it.

    My game is called Chunky Blues. You can get it as part of the IntroComp zip file and run it with your favorite interpreter, or download it and/or play it in your browser from its website (which I recommend as it's a newer version than what's in the IntroComp zip).

    I'm not allowed to discuss the entries in a public forum while voting is going on, so that's about all I can say about it for now, but I'd love to hear what you all think of it.

    Haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I just saw that Emily Short wrote up some thoughts on your game!

    https://emshort.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/introcomp-2011-chunky-blues/

  21. Posted

    What? I don't understand this! Write like normal folks, not like some fancy professor!

    Okay then.

    I find it quite absurd the lengths Langdell is willing to go to vindicate his belief that...

    Wait, no, shit. Let me start over.

    It's fucking insane how that dude keeps on truckin'. That's totally a lost cause there, buddy!

    Reminds me of this awesome GIF I found on Digg last week. Look at the little dude go!

    pTAMs.gif

    People still use the word "dude," right?

  23. Posted

    :edge: :edge: :edge: :edge: :edge: :edge:

    An innovative developer's game

    Cannot be sold

    Due to a trademark

    On a common English word?

    Where have I heard this before?

    :edge: :edge: :edge: :edge: :edge: :edge: