Chris

Idle Thumbs 179: Shadow of Something

Recommended Posts

Idle Thumbs 179:

590__header.jpg

Shadow of Something

We all live in the shadow of something. We all have our daemons. When Chris set foot in the world of Alien: Isolation, all he could think about was the time he killed a billion Orcs who never forgot him. When Danielle played Alien: Isolation, all she could think of was how the love affair would inevitably end, no matter how nicely designed the posters on the wall looked. Jake downloaded Alien: Isolation, but spent the weekend playing Smash Bros on his 3DS.

Games Discussed: Alien: Isolation, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Team Fortress 2: Shadow of the Machines, No One Lives Forever: Shadow of H.A.R.M., Super Smash Bros (3DS), Human Resources, Worms: Armageddon

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love that there's a five-minute discussion of the morality of orc genocide in the first part of the podcast. To clarify what Jake and Danielle were saying, Tolkien originally conceived of orcs as captured elves twisted and manipulated by Morgoth, the original dark lord of Middle Earth, so that they were incapable of good. Tolkien grew uncomfortable with this origin as time went on, especially the idea that a good creature could become innately and heritably evil, and spent the last years of his life rewriting the prehistory of Middle Earth over and over to try and find a way for orcs to have come into being without creating a situation in which an immortal soul cannot somehow be saved. Orcs couldn't just be the sole creation of Morgoth, because evil cannot create anything, so Tolkien seems to have been headed toward some sort of aggressive breeding program involving men, beasts, and maybe elves in order to bring out the worst in all, but he never finished revising his writings to account for the new origin. It's still kind of an odd thing, because it shows Tolkien's deep Catholicism forcing him unwittingly to reevaluate some of the racist imagery and stereotypes of his work, but his death prevents us from seeing where that would have ended up.

 

So yeah, as it stands, orcs are just fantasy Nazis and there's no moral issue with killing them, no matter how unjust it seems on the surface.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

biAx58w.jpg

QuickTime VR! Actually a separate product from the interactive encyclopedia (Omnipedia). This thing gave my CD-ROM drive a serious workout.

Edit: also the new smash bros. games are officially titled "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS" and "Super Smash Bros. for Wii U."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You beat me to it again Gormongous.  If these forums ran on the same nemesis system as Shadow of Mordor you'd be my rival.  Also you would have killed me like a dozen times more than I've killed you.

 

I totally agree with Chris and Danielle's impressions of Mordor.  The story is pretty much nonsense but its not really a factor in how much fun the game is.  The nemesis system really is the best part, without that it would be a competent but otherwise uninteresting game.  One of my favorite emergent moments was when I was planning on sneaking up to a captain inside a stronghold surrounded by his men.  As I approached I started to plan out how I wanted the encounter to go.  When I got to the wall and was about to climb it, the camera suddenly zoomed in and showed me that the captain had a fear of caragors (the huge dog like beasts that you can ride).  Apparently there was one in the area and the captain took off running.  Except he ran straight into me.  I quickly grabbed him and branded him so that he'd be under my control.  It was completely unexpected because he was a rather high level with a lot of immunity to most of my moves so I planned for a much tougher encounter but it ended up being the easiest thing I had done in the game.  Its the Far Cry 2 of fantasy games.

 

Because I'm a pedant I can't help but clarify a few details.  The wraith dude is Celebrimbor, the elf who was tricked by Sauron into forging the rings given to men, dwarves, and elves (Sauron himself forged the One Ring).  I don't know the game's exact association with the movie series, but there has to have been some kind of collaboration because the movie's incarnation of Gollum appears several times and has an amazingly good Andy Serkis sound alike. 

 

Finally a thing for Danielle: Queen Marwen was voiced by Claudia Black, aka Aeryn Sun from Farscape.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

FYI, if by "massively successful movies" you meant the original LOTR trilogy and not the Hobbit movies, the final one came out in 2003 and therefore not in the last decade. Now let's all take a moment to feel old.

 

EDIT: You should all feel ashamed at the number of Kangaroo Jack jokes left on the table. First of all, while you mentioned that he stole the money, you never said that he's not giving it back. People new to the podcast are now going to be so confused about the plot of that film! What's he going to do with the money? I have no idea! Then, seconds afterward, Chris brought up Contract J.A.C.K. and nobody made a Kangaroo Contract J.A.C.K. joke! For shame!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Now let's all take a moment to feel old.

 

I know I don't look it but I'm beginning to feel it in my heart.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All this talk of Aliens has me wanting to watch the movie for the first time.

 

Turns out there's Alien, then there's Aliens. Which should I start with? Quick google search..

 

6b250f8ca5fd1629e11b7f5bc3908ab1.png

 

I think I see where this is going...

 

b9eedc97d518ec55df31b3dd89502db9.png

 

 

 

Aaaaaand full circle. Works for me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

...You should probably start with the first one, which is Alien. Regardless of whether or not people agree on it being better. (It is.)

 

Alien is better

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You should start with Alien Resurrection. Then you have nowhere to go but up.

 

Full disclosure I kind of liked Resurrection when I saw it but in retrospect it was pretty dumb.

 

Something about episode 176 which I'll shove here because I only just caught up on the show again: it was so good to hear Anita in the midst of all the shit that was going down when I heard it. I went down the rabbit hole of the gamergate thing pretty hard because my curiosity is dumb like that, and it was such an embittering experience to see all that vitriol without a human face or voice to it (internet aristocrat doesn't count). Just hearing her talk about stuff like a person was exactly the tonic I needed to pull me back to reality where people exist as more than ugly caricatures.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wooorms. God I loved that game. Aside from what was said on the podcast, I think what was really great about the game was that after you'd taken your action, whether it was firing a rocket or whatever. The gameplay stopped, it turned into a tiny little play where you and your opponents were just watching and hoping for your scheme to play out without hiccups.

 

The other thing that worked really well for me in that game is that it really didn't explain any of the weapons, and there were so many. Each turn it would be easiest to just try firing rockets around, but with 30 other items that you don't fully understand. It'd only take one use for you to find out the sheep was an explosive jumping thing, but then later you find out that you can manually detonate it before the fuse runs out. And also you can set timers on grenades, and even bounciness (if I remember right). But there's so much to play around with it actually takes a while to really know what they all do, especially when some items are gated to only appear randomly out of crates. So I was always a bit mystified by the giant concrete donkey statue.

 

Man, if only one of the other versions of Worms was good, this is making me wish we could gather up some Thumbs for Wormy action.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gormongous, man that's fascinating, My knowledge of LOTR basically ends at reading the books in like fifth grade and being slightly confused by the mid-20th century writing and Tolkien's prose. Really interesting ideas, especially how Tolkien's own beliefs tied into what he wrote. 

 

I echo Danielle's reserved optimism for Isolation. I have enjoyed the four and a half odd hours I've played, but it's also  physically stressed me out. I love the Alien series, and I love the atmosphere and setting (god the game just looks beautiful on pc, so much work was obviously put into the lighting and whatnot). At the same time, I have problems with the overall feel of the game. It seems like they set out to make a prolonged slog, and in doing they set up these threats that would continually hold weight throughout the game. It seems like, no matter where you are, the Working Joes or the Alien will just fuck you, and there's almost nothing to be done. While that's a fair design decision to make, dealing with that threat for 16 hours just isn't appealing to me, and I'm having difficulty jumping back in, though I want to. Also, I've heard the game just feels nerfed on lower difficulty, which does seem like a design flaw. 

 

Also, you guys got deep into the weeds this week... wow... 

 

Watch Alien, then Aliens, then Alien 3 (but only the Assembly Cut because it's so much better than the theatrical release), then I guess Alien: Resurrection. You'd probably be fine if you didn't see the first one first, but sequentially they are much more interesting. And they are really interesting. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would love to play Team Fortress 2: Shadow of Mann Co. or whatever cool game title Valve would settle on. Rather than working to get your hats back from a series of robot captains, I was imagining a game that randomly generated robot characteristics from the different available hats, which you could earn by defeating them (which would destroy the finely tuned hat economy, I suppose).

 

This is never going to happen, so I should really stop thinking about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would love to play Team Fortress 2: Shadow of Mann Co. or whatever cool game title Valve would settle on. Rather than working to get your hats back from a series of robot captains, I was imagining a game that randomly generated robot characteristics from the different available hats, which you could earn by defeating them (which would destroy the finely tuned hat economy, I suppose).

 

This is never going to happen, so I should really stop thinking about it.

Oh man, that is good. Your hat library becomes the seeds to generate traits/personalities of your robot nemeses. Seems fine. I have a lot of Sam & Max attire in my TF2 library so I imagine that would bode well.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For anyone playing Alien: Isolation on PC, if you want to skip that hideously incongruous AMD video, roll over to:

\Steam\steamapps\common\Alien Isolation\DATA\UI\MOVIES

and change the extension on "AMD_IDENT.USM." And once you've seen that cool title sequence a few times, you can it turn off by renaming "CA_IDENT.USM" and "FOX_IDENT.USM" too.

There's another middleware intro which has the "Warning, auto-save, blah, blah, blah" but I don't think that's a movie file, so I don't think that can be excised.

As a bonus, you can do the same with Shadow of Mordor. Hit up:

Steam\steamapps\common\ShadowOfMordor\game\interface\videos

And give "intro.vib" and "nvidia_splash.vib" a new extension. If you're playing in another language, there are language-specific .vib intros as well.

 

 

Computer games are cool.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you Nels!

 

That's been my only complaint about the game so far, and I'm glad it was brought up on the cast. It hasn't felt like a slog at all, and I'm not too worried about the game overstaying its welcome since I only play in like hour long chunks at a time, but that incongruous AMD video was driving me nuts.

 

I do wish there had been more discussion about the systems in the game, since I think they are really interesting, rather than a lot of talk about how some reviews said the game was too long. I love that I picked up a revolver two hours into the game, and three hours later I still haven't fired a shot. Also how passing by smoke from a fire causes you to cough. Or how I want to keep tabs on any humans are on the map in case the alien happens to be nearby I can increase my chances of someone else getting eaten instead of me (which is how I've survived all my encounters so far).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like some of the systems, but a lot of it just feels overgrown. Potentially going into those little control panels to rewire stuff gives it an almost Gunpoint bend, which I appreciate. But it doesn't seem to go deep, at least from what I've played. Same thing with the crafting system, and that horrendously-complicated looking UI you can essentially ignore. I like some systems too, though, I enjoy how rough and cinematic the stealth is, where you don't snap into cover you just sort of shamble down. 

 

One other complaint, why does Amanda slam those locker doors so hard. Seems like a good way to get caught. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Glad to hear mention of the "power corrupts" theme in LOTR –

 

I'd been watching Shadow of Mordor streams and it felt like the only logical conclusion to the game would be if it turned out that you were building yourself up to be the Sauron we all know and love. Or that your ghost buddy was using you as a vessel to make himself Sauron, and the process of the game is you customizing your orc army for maximum Mordorification of Mordor. Would land especially well considering how the murdering is so, so brutal.

 

I guess that's not the case, which is a shame. As a LOTR fan-but-not-a-zealot, achieving that narrative end-game felt like it would be worth going against the canon. Ahhh, a game (a LICENSED game, no less) with thematic consistency between its gameplay and its story. *sigh*

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I said this in the Shadow of Mordor thread, but the story reminds me a lot of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.  Its a weird side story that maybe seems like its supposed to fit into the canon but has a lot of crazy events that feel like they're taken out of a fan fiction.

 

Ending spoilers for both games

The Force Unleashed 2 ends with you defeating and actually arresting Darth Vader.  The end of Shadow of Mordor has you defeat Sauron and seek to make a new ring.  Both of those things are ridiculous if they're supposed to fit in their respective stories without disturbing 'canon' events.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Computer games are cool.

 

One of the first things I do before starting up a new PC game is to check PCGamingWiki for how to skip intro stuff.

 

Also, FUCK YOUR WORMS ARMAGEDDON WORMS 2 IS THE BEST WORMS GAME

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I remember one of my favorite things from Worms 2/Worms Armageddon was creating your own sound banks. For a 14 yr. old kid that was basically the greatest feature in a computer game ever,

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I remember one of my favorite things from Worms 2/Worms Armageddon was creating your own sound banks. For a 14 yr. old kid that was basically the greatest feature in a computer game ever,

 

I can confirm that for a 20 year old, this was STILL the greatest feature in a game ever.  Hotseat Worms 2 was the best.  We'd spend whole evenings just drinking beer and playing W2 together. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I played a shit load of Worms 1 demo with my brother. And only after hours we found out there were other weapons besides the rocket launcher. Worms 2 I played a lot with a bunch of friends when we were in Belarus back in 1999. So much fun messing with a game with so simple mechanics.

 

Btw, there is an open source worms-like: http://www.openlierox.net/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now