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CJacobs posted:I plan on editing out my deaths to make the gameplay a bit smoother, but I'll probably still find a way to show them off somehow because they are pretty cool. Arguably the loading screens as the game progresses are a part of the entire experience. Just a thought to consider for your editing. Thanks for the LP!
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Jun 11, 2015 11:13
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The 33rd is a battalion I believe, and numbers range from 300-1500 if I remember correctly.
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Jun 16, 2015 21:22
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It'd be interesting to keep a kill count, because while there seems to be an infinite amount of dudes I remember that OatmealRaisin spent 8 hours doing the FUBAR mode and by the end had 170 kills or so, so I wonder if the number just seems inflated because of how fast the game moves into each new battle?
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Jun 16, 2015 21:42
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Save the civilians! Speedball posted:I believe there are occasionally contextual commands for everything in this game. At one point, I'm not sure if it's this chapter or not, you can have Walker say, "Take out the guys by the T-Rex!". I read somewhere that this kind of contextual dialogue was new and unique enough that there was a discussion about it at a game developer meeting. Unfortunately I can't search for the article now because I'm at work and anything even vaguely related to video game news is blocked, but it was a pretty cool thought.
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Jun 19, 2015 20:21
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CJacobs posted:I would like to pre-emptively say that I disagree with this. I can't explain why I disagree in great detail right now but in the coming videos I'll elaborate more on it. Basically, I don't think the game ever tells you, the player, to stop playing. It makes me a bit sad that the developers put their foot in their mouths in interviews by saying that it was a choice the game presents to you because it really isn't. I have noticed that in interviews with the writer Walt Williams, he tends to throw this out as an option, but in interviews with the technical game developers, they don't say this that I remember, particularly Jorg. They didn't want people to stop playing the game; that choice only exists as a sort of meta commentary presented by the writer. I'll post interviews and stuff later, since every one of them is insanely spoilery, but it's very interesting to see how the developers talk about choices in the game versus how the writer talks about it (specifically Walt). I do think that him throwing that out there added a level of "Aren't we clever???" that the game suffered for, only because that is a really annoying stance to take on your product. The movie Funny Games suffers from the same issue, although that movie is outright hateful of the audience so it's justified. I love this scene for so many reasons that I can't talk about yet. As the game progresses and the themes become more obvious, I'll talk about all of that. It's actually tied to part of your complaint about the scene Spudd, so if you're still around I'll enjoy chatting about it with you! For now, suffice to say that this scene absolutely worked for me, and even struck a few cords that I don't necessarily think was part of the original intention. I like that Lugo is the one who breaks down while Adams keeps it together. This was your fault Adams, it was your idea! 
Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 17:39
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Chard posted:The shot after they walk away from Gould's body, when the camera kind of moves closer and looks down (just like a person holding a camera would) is perfect. I love the camera work in this game. It's an extremely cinematic game. This scene really hammers on the subject of choice, and begins a particular line of thinking: whose choice was it to use the white phosphorous mortars? Certainly not the player's (although quite a few players gleefully used it). Stepping further back, who put the civilians there? Not Walker, for sure. One thing that's interesting about this scene is that you as the player recognize that knowing the civilians were present would've absolutely changed Walker's decision to use the mortars. It was a lack of information (and Adams, drat you Adams) that led to this. But then, why would it be more OK to use it on just soldiers? Why is that an OK rationalization, where adding civilians makes it terrible? For me, it does make sense in a horrible, bloodrage sort of way to use the WP here, because having seen the 33rd using it on civilians gives the entire thing a vengeance feel. And then walking through the aftermath just makes you feel like a jackass. At least, it did me!
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Jun 24, 2015 02:03
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Now that the game has revealed itself, check out one of the songs used in the original trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FAosDi4XA This game can only get more cheerful!!! I still can't believe they used this song of all things, but then it was 18 years old at the time the trailer was released so in fairness most of the audience probably wasn't familiar enough with it to see the giant glaring warning signs about how the game would go. (There's a YT playlist of all of the songs in the game's soundtrack, but we haven't seen all of them just yet). For those who've played other military shooters: I am not familiar with those tropes, and was in fact surprised when I learned that this game serves as a deconstruction, because I thought these sorts of themes would be present in all military shooters by virtue of being war shooters. As the game progresses, would you guys care to point out things that are different, or seem to be referencing/directly calling out other shooters? I know there's articles etc. going through that but I think it'd be interesting to hear from people who see them while it progresses.
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Jun 25, 2015 00:19
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Yager is totally OK with not doing a sequel or even revisiting this topic because of the research they had to do for it. I can't say I blame them.
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Jun 25, 2015 11:24
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Speedball posted:Wow. The game is really fully of hidden things like that. Yager seems to be filled to the brim with employees who are passionate about their work and love life. Listening to intervews with them about any of their projects is always great, and their FB page is absolutely adorable with how cheerful it is.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:34
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Evil Tim posted:Stuff about Walt Williams This explains why the interviews with other Yager employees are so dramatically different in tone from interviews with Walt. He always comes off aggressively, and definitely wants to "yell" at the player, while Jorg sounds like one of the nicest guys in the world and specifically says they did NOT want to condemn the player, but rather make them feel bad or question their actions. Jorg's attitude is very much so in the style of Heart of Darkness. The message isn't supposed to be YOU SUCK, it's supposed to be "Think about what you're doing and the outcome."
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Jun 26, 2015 21:40
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TomViolence posted:Personally I find either of the two intended messages work just as well for me. Then again, I also enjoyed Michael Haneke's Funny Games for pointing the finger at me, the viewer, and telling me what a bastard I am. With a game like this it works on multiple levels too, I think. Firstly, you're entertaining yourself with the spectacle of violence and inhumanity, even taking part in some of the worst atrocities. Secondly, your taxes are spent on doing things very much like this to other people in various parts of the world due to the policies of your government (if you live in a belligerent western state). Which, if you're anything like me, you then spend five minutes impotently watching unfold on the news before saying something cynical and moving on with your life without a second thought. It may have been a bit clumsy and heavy-handed in this instance, but I think slapping the player/viewer/reader and telling them "NO! BAD!" is a worthwhile artistic statement, however unfair it may feel on the face of it. I actually agree. I think both statements are worthy, and I also feel that the game is able to work on both levels effectively, which is impressive. I personally didn't get much of the finger-wagging sense, but mostly because I don't play shooters regularly (for I am terrible at them). And there's a whole other explored theme that will become more obvious with more updates, which is what I'll start throwing all my words out about as it becomes clearer. As for WP realism: I can comfortably say that is a topic I am happy to be ignorant about. Chemical weapons of any kind rightfully creep me out. Ugh.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:21
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Evil Tim posted:It's not a chemical weapon unless you deliberately set out to use it to poison people. Fair enough. Doesn't make it any less gross, though. Evil Tim posted:That's Walt Williams' rewrite. The original plot was that they were an extraction team sent to retrieve Konrad so he could be debriefed, per Apocalypse Now. It seems what was supposed to have happened at the start was the helicopter was attempting a landing on the Burj Khalifa to grab him and leave, but they couldn't land because of the attacking helicopters and were either shot down or bought down by a storm as happens in the final game. Honestly I prefer the rewritten version, because it makes the dissociation stronger as the game progresses. I'd rather be asking "why are we even still here?" than be stuck with "gotta find that dude, that dude y'all." It makes the story more interesting, to me. Blind Sally posted:Yeah, for a shooty-man, this game is less about tactical realism and more about story-telling. There's an inconsistent realism to the game. I love magical realism so I'm fine with it (how did three dudes walk through a sandstorm that took out enough people to cause an entire battalion to give up?), but I can see why people might struggle to justify it. The game is certainly trying to tread that boundary and it just won't work for everyone.
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Jun 27, 2015 02:51
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Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but war isn't generally nice to look at, and the game certainly doesn't bother to make anything of how horrific, say, grenade injuries are, they're still little poot-they're-dead game grenades rather than an expanding wall of boiling hot metal shards that can tear through interior walls like they aren't there and set entire buildings on fire. I'm not saying grenades aren't also gross, but we weren't talking about grenades, and the effects of grenades is not what the game wanted to focus on, so they didn't. Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W75JH1x5BI Video posted:The M67 can be thrown 40 meters by most soldiers. It has a slow fuse M213 for a period of 3 to 5 seconds. The Shrapnel is produced by the segmentation of the inner shell. However, this segmentation is not effective enough, and sometimes the hull is torn instead of going into small pieces. It has an operating range of 15 meters, and its lethal radius is 5 meters, although some fragments can be sent to more than 230 meters. Yowtch. quote:But, um...It's still about finding him, you just have an extremely implausible setup added to the front which only works if you don't think much about what Walker is being asked to do or who he's supposed to be. The reason changes entirely, which changes the context of the entire game. In the original they're doing it because of someone else's orders. Now, they're doing it because of Walker's. I find that more compelling, and a more interesting character study. Obviously, you don't, but that is what this game is about. Blind Sally posted:No, man, not fair enough. You're fine calling it a weapon. No worries, it's hardly something to start an argument over.
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Jun 27, 2015 04:14
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Evil Tim posted:What killed it for me was right at the start, actually; I've played enough cover shooters that when the militiaman asked what Adams and Walker were doing I assumed I was going to be taught the switch cover command (there isn't one, holdover stealth mechanics mean you instead have a command to crouch independently of cover) since there's obvious cover on the left to go to. But you can't even move out of the cover, and then a big red marker appears to show you which one of the many buses full of sand in your field of view you're supposed to be shooting at. I've not played other shooters, I would actually really like to hear about the mechanics that are being directly referenced, subverted or just plain old ignored and how it compares to other shooters where the mechanics are more important to the game. Evil Tim posted:(There's some other boneheaded decisions there like Lugo saying he speaks Farsi even though the militiaman speaks English, which would just put him on edge more since he thought he was speaking privately) I don't have any kind of military training, but I can say from living in a country where a different language was spoken that it did help to switch to someone's native language when a conversation got tense. Lugo is trying to show them that he's friendly and wants to understand them. It's Walker and Adams muttering to the side that breaks the illusion. Evil Tim posted:Why were all those civilians specifically there? Why were they locked in, and why did nobody let them out when it became clear there was a creeping artillery barrage heading towards them? Why didn't anyone try to radio Walker or signal him? If they actually cared about the civilians, why didn't they try to retreat or surrender to spare them? Why are the civilians extra burned, is it so it's extra sad? I would say that all of these questions are entirely valid, and a big part of why this scene worked for me, especially when taken with the rest of the game, but I can't go into why without being unbelievably spoilery. Happy to chat through PMs if you're interested in my thoughts, or we can wait until the game progresses to talk in more detail! Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 05:05
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We did see and hear them before. These are the same people we heard and saw the 33rd rounding up from the Nest, whose loved ones were screaming at us as we left them to deal with a giant pile of sand we spilled into their now-destroyed home. Who we assumed, from the screaming and other sounds, that the 33rd were rounding up to kill, and so committed at that point, as a unit, to go all-out on fighting against the 33rd. These civilians, specifically, are the reason for that commitment. Who ended up killing them in the end is pretty hard to accept, for me. Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but what strikes me as boneheaded is that the guy just spoke to his men thinking he was speaking confidentially because the Delta team didn't understand him; saying you do understand him is going to make him feel stupid for treating a commonly spoken language like it's a secret code, which isn't going to make your situation any better. Ehhh, I guess I just disagree, based on personal experience. To me, Lugo was letting them know, as an act of good faith, that their conversation wasn't confidential, which gives them the opportunity to decide what they want these people to hear and know. Actually, there's another aspect of that scene that we can touch on later too: Lugo sounds outright surprised to hear them speaking Farsi, which makes sense because Farsi is not the common language in Dubai. Evil Tim posted:Don't have PMs, sadly. Aw  Well I will definitely get more specific as we go, and would love to see what you think of my rationales because the answer for "why is this actually happening?" is entirely answered for me and it isn't for you, so I'm curious about how we see the game, from totally separate angles. Evil Tim posted:I might post some more about that, it does have some interesting mechanics like that you can get suppressed by enemy fire which don't turn up often. Please do! Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 09:54
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Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but that's bald exposition from Walker to cover for the fact that you can't recognise any of them and none of them did anything that gave them any kind of personality. If they hadn't thrown that line in there you wouldn't have known who they were at all. Worked fine for me! Strangely, the earlier example you used, the red coat girl from Schindler's List, didn't. I feel exactly the way about that as you do about this. Which is strange because I'll be the first to admit that I'm over-sensitive in regards to media of all kinds, "sad thing is sad" generally works just fine on my emotions. Evil Tim posted:There's actually a reason for that, plot the first was that the 33rd had deserted from a war against Iran to loot Dubai. Hence their interpreter speaking Farsi (and having an Iranian-American voice actor) rather than something that would actually be useful in Dubai like Arabic or one of the Indian languages. No disrespect, but I'm honestly uninterested in the original script versus what was actually published, mostly because all of the changes you've pointed out don't seem "better" or like they would've improved the story (the people in question aren't the 33rd so it still doesn't explain why the insurgents we meet speak Farsi, specifically). I understand that they do for you, but "in the original script" isn't a satisfying conclusion for me. Also, if I'm not mistaken Lugo actually speaks several languages. Farsi and English are the ones we've heard. Evil Tim posted:There's some really puzzling mechanics like the slowdown for a headshot that seem to have been thrown on when the game was yanked back into development for eighteen months (!) after its first previews when journalists criticised the shooting mechanics, that's something BLOODGORE games like Dead to Rights: Retribution usually do. I've heard more than one player comment that this slowdown made them start considering their actions more as the game progressed. A sort of "think about what you just did to this person for a second" call-out from the game. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's an interesting take. Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the "engaging but not fun" critique that a few prominent reviewers pointed out about this game?
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Jun 27, 2015 11:09
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Evil Tim posted:I find that just throwing bodies on the screen doesn't really work for me, it's too unsubtle and just cheap. Really they might as well have just had Walker confronted with the goatse man. It's a shocking image, but at the end of the day since it was never introduced to us as a person that's all it is. I mean everyone always identifies it as a mother and daughter, but we don't even know that. And yet there's plenty of time to dump into pointlessly telling the player what to think like having Lugo repeatedly tell us white phosphorous is a bad Christmas present. While we differ on how this impacts us and whether it works or not, I'm glad we can both agree that Walker being confronted with that would be loving hilarious. Evil Tim posted:I'd assume the looters were themselves refugees from Iran in that scenario (since they do seem to settle on calling them that). To be honest the new one is just such a mess that it doesn't say anything but you can read anything into it; it's like a cloud, it has complexity and form but no meaning, but you can pick and choose elements of it to match what you want to see. This is actually what I like about it. I'm more satisfied by finding my own meaning based on observations than knowing exactly what happened and what the exact intentions were. It makes for more interesting discussion when two people can look at the same thing and see completely different things. Evil Tim posted:Well...rubbish, basically, and an insult to the devs who worked on it to pat the (not the) writer on the back at their expense. Its main problems come from being in development for 5-7 years (really) and switching genres at the last minute, but it doesn't play that badly outside the extremely sloppy last-minute additions like Chapter 6 and the final area of 14. I'm not an advocate or dissenter for this point of view, although your outright loathing for Walt Williams seems to be coloring a lot of your opinions. I agree that the man comes off like a jackass in any interview I've seen/heard/read, but I don't think he ruined the story either. I quite like the story as-is. I believe development was 5 years, I'm pretty sure Yager's original pitch to 2K was in 2007 but I'd need to re-check sources. Either way, it was in development for a while. On a total side note, I mentioned this before but I'd like to reiterate: everyone should like Yager's FB page. Their updates are adorably chipper. We're far enough from Spec Ops now that they don't post anything spoilery about it. It's all Dreadnought and Dead Island 2 these days.
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Jun 27, 2015 13:03
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Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but as with the example of clouds, that doesn't mean the game is clever, it means you're clever, and it doesn't require the game not have a coherent narrative of its own to come up with additional ones. I could write about how my bedside table is a metaphor for social injustice (notice how the top completely covers the much larger sides, keeping them down!), all that means is I have enough imagination to tie ideas to cherry-picked items of random data. I am coming from the point of view that I like the story; you are coming from the point of view that you did not like the story. I'm really interested in hearing your point of view. I am also trying really hard not to make general statements to discredit your opinions since this is, after all, opinions, but you're not giving me or anyone else the same courtesy. Disagreeing with how others view the game, how others are affected by things or what works and what doesn't work for you doesn't mean others are wrong for seeing it a certain way or differently than you, and pulling in examples like clouds or lamps as a metaphor for a game with a team of people who poured their hearts into it and are still proud of the product devalues their efforts. Please stop making blanket statements about how people other than you should see things. It's not helping the discussion and it's off-putting. Evil Tim posted:It's more that he threw out some legitimately clever stuff and what he added wasn't that great and uses a very generic postmodernist idea that's been done to death and much better, that he was willing to damage the real writer's career while taking credit for his work (Pearsey was initially looking for advice because people were taking Walt's "lead writer" claim to mean he was only a staff writer) and that he's obnoxious and a habitual liar. That's fine, but I disagree with how you view the story. I think it's a really good story. I don't think it's perfect, but neither are its inspirations. And Pearsey is still listed as a writer, so he's getting credit for his work.
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Jun 27, 2015 14:08
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Nebiros posted:The story only works if you're not paying attention is really the most apt way to explain this game's plot. If you're the sort of person that pays attention, pokes into things and asks questions of media you're consuming? The game is far, far below par. This isn't calling anyone an idiot either, being unable to stop asking, "Why the gently caress is that happening/won't this game let me do the logical thing." means I get pulled out of stories a lot more often and tend to be a lot more critical of those stories. It is a symptom of lovely writing if it can't pass the acid test though. The lack of research in numerous areas just exacerbates it. It kind of is though. Why are you assuming people who this worked for didn't ask those questions, or dive deeper into the message? I asked exactly those questions, and I found answers that satisfied me within the story, so I enjoyed the story. It doesn't mean everyone has to, or people who didn't are wrong, the same as people not gaining that same experience are not wrong for not having gained it. That is a lot of nots, I hope it made sense! When you say "The story only works if you're not paying attention," you're neglecting the for me. There are plenty of other movies/games/books/etc. that didn't work for me for exactly the reason you're describing, but I wouldn't tell the people who like those things that they're wrong for liking it because it didn't work for me, personally, or that it's lovely. Again, it's off-putting and not helpful for a discussion.
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Jun 27, 2015 16:06
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Neruz posted:Yeah you don't need to not be paying attention for the story to work best; you just need to be in the CoD style shootmans FPS mood. This game was absolutely targeted at the young male console FPS gamer demographic and if you are not part of that demographic at least peripherally the story will not work as well for you. I'm the exact opposite of all of these things and I still liked it! As a Heart of Darkness adaptation, plus a study of something else that hasn't explicitly come up just yet, I super "enjoyed" it. I'm curious to hear from the target demographic about their experience.
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Jun 27, 2015 21:34
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I'm excusing myself from the MW discussion because I haven't played nor watched an LP of it so I have no idea if that story would work for me. Evil Tim posted:No, that's a serious oversimplification of what I'm saying. Whether or not you like something is not the ultimate yardstick of whether it is praiseworthy as a work. Why not? Why can't I praise something that other people don't like? Is it really critical that a ton of other people agree with me in order for me to find value in something for myself? I would say no. As an older gamer, I would also say that the overall discussion regarding whether the game is praiseworthy as a work is a nice change from the discussions that used to happen. To see it considered as a work at all is pretty rad, since the underlying assumption is that there are games which are taken for granted to be praiseworthy works. Hooray encouraging progress! Evil Tim posted:You know, I've spoken with a guy who made props for the movie Battlefield Earth. He's a nice guy and he actually did some really good and clever work, but that doesn't mean the movie taken as a whole doesn't utterly blow. I am critical of the writing in this game, and specifically that it doesn't say anything and only invites you to edit it yourself to say what you want. That doesn't devalue the efforts of anyone but one of the writers. I inherited my father's love of schlocky movies, so I actually enjoy this movie. That's pretty cool. I disagree with you about the writing versus the whole work though in this case, because the entire product is built around the writing. Once the story was decided, most of the choices made (such as how to handle the WP scene) were to enhance, reference or otherwise solidify the story. I also have no issue with a work inviting me to interpret it, which you're framing as "letting me edit it." Yes, and? It makes me feel more invested because I'm gaining my own meaning. It's not like the game is lacking in the "what are the physical events of this story?" aspect, it's only in the "what are the intentions/motivations/message?" that the questions start. People can discuss whether the WP scene was fair, or worked for them, etc., but there's nothing changing the fact that it happens as part of the game. Although it does cut to white fades. I imagine we'll get into why that's weird later. Evil Tim posted:That's not what deconstruction is. Deconstruction is studying choices and why they were made to gain a deeper understanding of a work; it's something a critic does to a work, not something a work can do to another work. What TVtropes calls "deconstruction" has a few names, the one I like most of which is "defamiliarisation;" it's like turning a piece of art you're working on upside-down to spot hidden mistakes, you present a set of conventions in a scenario that removes their usual supporting structures and lets you re-evaluate them. Deconstruction is generally applied to literary works. If anyone wants the direct definition, here's Merriam's: 1. a philosophical or critical method which asserts that meanings, metaphysical constructs, and hierarchical oppositions (as between key terms in a philosophical or literary work) are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers; also : an instance of the use of this method <a deconstruction of the nature–culture opposition in Rousseau's work> 2. the analytic examination of something (as a theory) often in order to reveal its inadequacy I am not 100% certain I agree with this being a deconstruction of shooters, as I'm woefully unfamiliar with shooters and therefore unqualified to say. I took it as a simple Heart of Darkness adaptation with Apocalypse Now as its mother. It's just that the thing they're asking you to think about is shooters because it's a shooter. One thing I find interesting is that while Apocalypse Now is a great movie to tear apart and find meaning in, it didn't do the one main thing that Heart of Darkness was intended to do: it didn't challenge an entrenched belief. The Vietnam War was over by the time it was released, and public opinion had already swayed against the decisions made. Releasing a movie about how the Vietnam War was awful wasn't exactly challenging the public's perceptions. In contrast, Heart of Darkness was released while colonialism and hardcore racism were still simply part of the landscape. Hell, this poo poo was ongoing a few years after the book's release: The man who was caged in a zoo It burns my microbiologist heart to see science abused so horribly. Evil Tim posted:In six months some of them would have the initiative to either learn English from books or the occupying soldiers; there's one, but he was just thrown in because they wanted to be obnoxious at you. They would be more organised than they are and would probably be trying to repair and rebuild rather than just pushing wreckage into piles and lighting acres of Sad Candles for no real reason. Well there's several later, but we're not there yet and they don't have many lines. And also, and brace yourself here: I agree overall. I actually took this as a symptom of the source, where the African natives are still basically landscape to show you how awful the white dudes about are being to them. While I enjoy the overall story of the game a lot, and I was certainly affected by what we do to the civilians, they are most definitely part of the landscape for the majority of the game. The disagreement is not that you find issues with the story. It's insisting it shouldn't work for anyone because it didn't work for you and arguing about why it shouldn't work for anyone rather than just illustrating why it didn't for you while allowing it to work for other people. On that note, there's a major scene later on that I still don't get and I will be asking people to explain wtf to me because nothing that happens in that scene makes a lick of sense to me. But I'm not going to tell the people who it did work for/make sense to that they're wrong for "getting it," I'm going to ask them why it worked for them. Evil Tim posted:Yeah, but that's not what I'm addressing, I'm talking about the claim that making it look like a generic shooter was a good idea to get at the demographic that buys shooters, even though there isn't really any evidence it achieved anything by doing that. Since the game was pitched as a shooter in its earliest form, before it had anything to do with Spec Ops, even (but they had already decided on Dubai), I don't think it's right to assume it was made as a shooter to "trick" people and I think this viewpoint is a symptom of how it made players feel. Possibly adding the multiplayer can be argued this way, but eh. It was a shooter because Yager intended to make a shooter, and they loved Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now and thought it would be awesome to make a game adaptation of that story. The Apocalypse Now association is undeniable, but it's important to also remember that Heart of Darkness is not about war, it's about colonialism. Apocalypse Now used the same core ideas to discuss, among other things, military occupation, and this game uses it to discuss, among other things, shooters.
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Jun 28, 2015 13:17
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Evil Tim posted:A lot of my favourite games, by any attempt at an objective standard, are not that good. I like Dark Sector, Black, Shinobi, hell, let's go the whole hog and say I actually like Castlevania 64 and think it's the best 3D Castlevania game (this is probably going to surprise several people). No shame. Evil Tim posted:With interpretation what you're really supposed to do is challenge your interpretation; go back through and see if it holds up. The same goes for twist endings. And with Spec Ops, no interpretation is really more compelling than any other (they all require you pick and choose things in a very arbitrary way to get what you're looking for), and it doesn't follow its own rules. I personally found what I got from this story compelling, and I didn't find the reasons for doing so arbitrary. I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it and researching development choices, and I just find more to think about. It's incredibly satisfying, from an English major teehee symbolism standpoint. Agree to disagree? Evil Tim posted:The actual reason for that is it turns out the Psychlo guns are built around blank-firing Beretta pistols set at about 45 degrees that make the muzzle flash and the movement of the lethal barrel when it fires. It's really cleverly done and he gave me some shots of the unpainted props where you can clearly see how they were made. This is beautifully clever! Any other examples? I adore special effects/make up work details because I can't do it myself and I'm insanely jealous of the talent those people have. Evil Tim posted:Eh, I can't really agree, especially since the first three and a half years of the project were about a different story, and many of the assets simply switched over. Chances are a lot of the people on the project never even read the script, someone like a texture artist doesn't need that. Even the voice actors probably only saw their own lines. Actually, the three main voice actors recorded all of their dialogue together. I would love to get copies of those recordings. As for the rest, I'm basing my thoughts of development on particular interviews/presentations done by the lead designer Jorg and another assets designer whose name I shamefully can't remember. I can't share them yet because they're super spoilery, but I do have a basis for why I see development of the game the way I do. Evil Tim posted:Far Cry 2 (which is also a Heart of Darkness adaptation) actually tried to do something with that by suggesting that going into the darkness had allowed the Kurtz character to overcome his madness rather than being consumed by it. It still has a lot of issues in how it deals with the locals, but they are at least actually important to the story. Added to my list of games to check out. Evil Tim posted:The trouble is I find the reasoning that's offered rather flawed, and often based on very vague knowledge of what's being addressed. A lot of people who say this game is a criticism of shooters don't really know shooters and talk about them in a fashion that's insulting to people who do. That's very, very subjective though. There's nothing wrong with finding the reasons flawed until you decide those subjective flaws are all that matters and therefore the person can only be wrong. It changes the discussion from opposing opinions to "you're wrong, no YOU'RE wrong!!!" and that's a fast way to shut down a conversation that could've been interesting. As for shooters, I can accept that being told YOU DON'T KNOW by someone who doesn't know would be frustrating or insulting because I work in the sciences and holy crap, people can be jackasses with their assumptions of how things work. I hope I haven't given that impression because I am coming from the total outskirts of that discussion, seeing as I have no experience with shooters because I am terrible at them. Like really, really bad guys. I actually completely missed the shooter commentary in this game because I wasn't familiar with it at all, so I took the story as-is without worrying about shooter deconstruction or commentary or whatever. I was honestly, truly surprised when I found out that most shooter stories were not similar to this type of story or theme. That's not to say I don't understand why others see it, but I can't really speak on that topic personally, and it's not at all what I got from the game. It's why I'd love to see people pointing out the references without also arguing over whether those references should even be in the game/add value/whatever. Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 14:49
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Kill the soldier. We've killed a whole bunch of others for less reason, anyway! Although...pkfan2004 posted:Really? Huh! Didn't know that. Fire your gun in the air a bunch and go aaaaaaaargh, ideally aiming in the direction of the snipers then. ...is also a great choice. Make sure to scream aaaaaaargh! CJacobs posted:If you do nothing you get instantly headshotted and die after walking a short distance. You have to make a decision. This is one of the situations where I wish another choice had been available. It made sense why not later, but it was still frustrating at the time. Evil Tim posted:Actually I had a different reaction to that story; it's not really fair to make someone who makes their living with their voice shout into a microphone for hours on end, and it's not really trusting them to just act, either. That's interesting. Would it help if you knew that North said he specifically prefers recording voice with other actors present? I'd say voice actors recording together makes a huge difference, and any time I've read an interview with a voice actor where they got to record with the other actors they were pretty happy about it. For example, The Last of Us, for all its issues (talk about being in the minority on an opinion of a game), has some freaking amazing acting/voice acting and it's because the actors recorded together and could play off of each other. Evil Tim posted:This is a better choice in its original context, which might be a spoiler I guess: under the original script the civilian who stole water for his family (unit) is Konrad, while the soldier who killed his family trying to apprehend him is Walker. This scene is supposed to be about judging yourself for what you just did. This is exactly what I got from this scene, without it being so explicit. It's arguably still an obvious reference.
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Jun 29, 2015 11:29
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Evil Tim posted:Naw, I mean the fact that they made him do all of it in one session, thought that's what you were talking about. I gotcha. I thought the same thing the first time I heard they did it all at once, but North, at least, apparently loved that poo poo. Evil Tim posted:Spoilered stuff We'll talk later because spoilers. For those who haven't experienced the game yet, I'm curious: where do you stand on Walker as a character right now?
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Jun 29, 2015 12:30
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I still slip and call him Chris every now and then. Such a strong association.
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Jun 29, 2015 18:53
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Chard posted:...having a gun descend into your hands from the heavens "deal with it" style. Why couldn't it have been this. This would be the best.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:44
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Evil Tim posted:It doesn't help that while people dig into Spec Ops to find any molecule of hidden meaning (witness Brendan Keogh's awful book where at one point he clearly couldn't be bothered to look at a photograph of the Statue of Liberty) I have a question about this thing that has nothing to do with my opinion of it: was this really the first published critical reading of a game? There's a lot of noise made about that every time it's talked about, and it surprised me that in the swaths of Silent Hill 2 words, not one person ever published something. It doesn't bother me if it is, everything's got to start somewhere, but that rather surprised me. Evil Tim posted:If you have a steam ID, post it and I'll buy you a copy of Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. You will see why. Ha! I've only just recently succumbed to Steam's siren call, and it keeps recommending this game to me. I'll have to pick it up next sale. Still working on a PC that's worth anything to play ANY game on. Captain Bravo posted:It's a community Deagle. It goes where it's needed most. The Animated Adventures of Dudley Deagle. Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 11:27
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frozentreasure posted:Shoot Evil Tim. Aw c'mon, be nice. Evil Tim posted:Stolen Projects seems to essentially be a vanity press so the answer is automatically no, because it wasn't "published" in any sense more meaningful than putting an article up on the Internet. I actually had to look up what a vanity press is. So out of touch with the times. Monocled Falcon posted:Bill O'Reilly did something similar to what I was thinking of when he suggested his 25,000 mercenary army solution to ISIS. This made me bust out laughing. What a grand idea!!! Someone with actual skill should start working on the deagle's adventures in the Deagle Dimension.
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Jul 2, 2015 23:56
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Can you go back and kill someone else? Anyway, walk away. You might need that bullet.
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Jul 4, 2015 23:49
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Evil Tim posted:And I have to seriously wonder if Walt Williams is actually pyrophobic, the obsession with fire as the ultimate evil is...abnormal. Like, they bring up being stoned to death later and make basically nothing of it. But unless you're "lucky" enough to get an early catastrophic head injury that's got to be just as bad. Do you just not like the fire theme? Because this is a way weird complaint. They're in the desert, water is a precious resource, and white phosphorous burns things. It's not really a stretch to use fire as a theme. I'm not sure how they could've made a bigger deal out of the stoning thing either other than it being deadly (which it is), so I don't really have a comment on that. Evil Tim posted:No. There's three things you can do here that the game will acknowledge, and they drop a fiery tree behind you to stop you going back. Cool, thanks! Evil Tim posted:Multiple changes Eh, again I can't say any of this bothers me. Angry Dude is Angry is a weird one to get critical about, seeing as what just happened is a fine justification and Walker can barely walk. He's not the most threatening at that moment in time. I didn't like Riggs from the moment he appeared, so his plan being idiotic (which Gould also believed, meaning that the CIA was not on the same page either if he's not lying) didn't surprise me. It doesn't make sense from the get-go. No, what bothers me is that Angry Dude's fists are apparently made of cyanide or something, because one good shove takes off like half of your health. That's a game decision, not a story decision. Rawr civilian smash! I will say the desalinization bit legitimately makes more sense though. I'm glad there's still remnants of it around but I understand why, game-wise, they didn't dive into it. For the record, these are Walt's writing credits: Evolve (2015) (Additional Writing Support) Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! (2014) (Senior Writer) Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth (2014) (Writers) The Darkness II (2012) (Writers) Spec Ops: The Line (2012) (Narrative Design) BioShock 2 (2010) (Story Editor) Mafia II (2010) (Additional Writing) Family Guy Video Game! (2006) (Additional Script Design) And a special thanks for Gone Home, which is interesting. Copy/pasted from here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,196608/ Here's Richard Pearsey's too because the more you know: Spec Ops: The Line (2012) (Narrative Design) F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate (2007) (Writer, Voice Direction) F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point (2006) (Writer) Evil Tim posted:Killing is Harmless is the best book ever written Solely out of respect for those who might enjoy this book I won't get into it, but I do suggest reading it if you have a few spare bucks because it's a great meter for your own opinions of the game and how strongly you believe in them. One way or the other, you will have strong opinions coming out of the book! Speaking of fire, fire everywhere and game development, here's a talk that Yager's lead FX artist Florian Zender gave at GDC in 2012 about their assets creation process, which they call Thin Slices. Anyone interested in game development from the technical side will probably enjoy: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016447/Bringing-Home-the-Bacon-Developing I rewatched it and I'm pretty sure he doesn't use any examples we haven't gotten to in the game yet, but if I missed a spoiler let me know and I'll edit the link out. Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 12:50
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Evil Tim posted:They're not in the desert, they're in a major coastal port on the shore of the Persian Gulf which exists primarily because it's a stopover point for container ships. And the fire theme is weird in how often it shows up: as well as WP being Satan Powder there's now a man who would have training in resisting interrogation getting all whimpery about it and earlier there was the Pretentious Torturer Intel where THE FIRE was what made him crack. They're not smack dab in the middle of a desert but Dubai is a tropical desert climate within the Arabian desert. Salt could've been an interesting metaphor to tackle, because that poo poo is certainly everywhere in the region because of the ocean and you don't see salt as often as fire, but the visuals you can do with fire are probably more fun to animate. Evil Tim posted:It's nice that you go on about subjectivity and then label other people's concerns as "weird" when it suits you to. That's fair. My apologies. Evil Tim posted:The guy was just standing there waiting. He exists to suffer at you, his own continued existence apparently being more or less an afterthought. It's about as ham-handed as a Chick Tract. Him and his steel fists. His existence doesn't bother me because to me it would be stranger and take me out more if not a single one of them reacted to you as you walk past. Evil Tim posted:And it doesn't therefore strike you as odd that the rebels never questioned how they were going to defend the water after they secured it? Foreign people can in fact think just like Americans can, last I checked. It does, but not enough for me to declare the entire thing worthless. The locals seem to be an afterthought in most sections of this game. I didn't say I have no problems with the entire scene, but it doesn't irk me as much so I'm not inclined to pick at its bones. Riggs' telepathic ability to crash multiple trucks is definitely a character trait I'd have liked to see them explore further! I'm more interested in the implication that the CIA was not all on the same page about what to do, and the implication that Konrad bothers to come out of hiding just to wag a finger at Walker and blame him for all of this. With a literal finger wag! I laughed the first time. Evil Tim posted:In other words he did a minor writing job, an editing job, and the Family Guy game before this. And then did Darkness 2, another game with a weird obsession with torture and the protagonist failing at things. The list is just an easy reference so people can see what he and Pearsey have worked on since other stuff he's done is coming up too, not me saying anything about his abilities. I mean Bioshock 2? Yeah. This needs to be in all games! Is the sound effect part and parcel? Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 15:56
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Neruz posted:Yeah the sound effect is part of the reload. These are the greatest thing.
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Jul 5, 2015 17:53
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Man, these video lengths really emphasize how quick this game moves. What's the fastest you think you could finish a full playthrough in one sitting? Was that a Sega Dreamcast in that tower? I also like the detail that the tower has a few water guns lying around. Because that's the kind of guy he is. Anyway, the cutscene with Robert the Radioman has always bothered me, not because of Lugo or Walker, but because of Radioman himself. I guess he's supposed to be a casual hippie type of dude a la Vietnam era, but he comes off as too cavalier for me to believe it. Three giant dudes with giant guns who have killed everyone you've sent after them are there, dude. Be a little worried about it. MY IMMERSION. I do really love seeing how different players feel about him though. Some super duper love the character, some crazily relate to the character, and some are meh about him. I enjoy his dialogue because I really like the voice actor, but I'm not sure he works for me. Love his music taste though. If I had to have him in order to have the music he brings, well that's just fine with me. Detail I like: they open the airwaves and then live murder, argument, and THEN Walker talks into the mic. Yes I'm sure they believe you sir. Sidenote about the mega dune: the game was going to have that, specifically an uphill battle to make it up to the tower, but they couldn't finish the level in time and so they had to cut it. Source on that is the lead level designer Jorg. It's a cool interview full of spoilers so I'll be posting it later. I wanted to see if your write-up would address this Evil Tim but I didn't see it (or missed it), and maybe I've missed this in the game itself, but where is all of the electricity coming from for the radio rigs, TV monitors, cameras, etc.? I know this section explicitly has a generator, but unless it's powered by sand that can only last so long. Is there a cut oil refinery still running that they just don't mention? How do they convert the oil to gas?! That or they really did figure out how to convert sand to gas. I should let my bosses know, the DOE would love that poo poo. I never could figure out who that first limping guy was supposed to be in the final scene. I just assumed it was some random soldier. I love that scene though, mostly because I love the visuals and Konrad's final line. Finally: the track during that final scene is a pretty unedited clip from Storm, by Björk. It is a very Björk track. Enjoy! (Cut to 4:07 if you want to have some crazy deja vu). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gZj_MJJ4s8 Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 10:42
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Ah yeah, good point about the supplies. I hadn't even thought of that. Love the unspoken implication that the 33rd has taken over all of these (presumably for rationing purposes), and then left the civilians with candles. Puts a fun spin on their occupation, and perhaps some context for why some civilians would want to rise against them. Makes sense about the line read for Radioman. I will say it doesn't strike me as out of character for him to act the way he does, based on the poo poo he's already said and done, so maybe that's why the voice actor went that route. Maybe I just hate hippies. Another detail I like in that cut scene: when Konrad asks Walker, "and now you want to finish off the rest?" Walker nods a bit. Evil Tim posted:Yeah, I think that's Castavin. Who is named after Greg Kasavin, who I think worked on Bastion, who was on this project for a while. I'm not sure if that's just a little nod or killing him is some mean-spirited thing about him not sticking around. Ha! How deliciously petty if it's the second one. I had a theory that it also might be a soldier we never directly encounter, but only hear through an intel where Robert is interviewing him and asking him why he stayed. The voice actor for that soldier sounds an awful lot like the guy here. It'd be a neat little call-out if so, but it's exclusively based on them sounding really similar to me. Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 12:16
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Punch the nearest one in their stupid face. I like how even though his face is a huge mess, you can see Walker's on the verge of tears when he pulls the rope off.
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Jul 11, 2015 00:18
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Don't worry ET, you're still a good person. Rather than going point by point (I can if you're interested, but I'm not sure how interesting wordy versions of "I disagree" can be after the 30th time you hear it), I'm gonna focus on one opinion: Evil Tim posted:Killing is Harmless is the Citizen Kane of ebooks I enjoyed the read myself, because it's adorable how he totally misremembers things like who delivers which line and how the game mechanics work. But I also enjoyed seeing what I noticed and he didn't or vice-versa, or things I noticed and took a totally different way. Like I said before, you will certainly realize where your opinions of the game stand while reading it. For example, the part you mentioned earlier where he mistakes a particular graffiti drawing for a Statue of Liberty interpretation:  I thought that was interesting because he, a non-American, took it as a reference to a well-known symbol of the U.S., while I, an American, took it as a reference to Abu Ghraib. I found that difference in association pretty stark. Sidenote: I freaking love the graffiti in this game. Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 15:37
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I was just making a joke. I thought it was funny, anyway. Different strokes! Hey CJacobs, I only just noticed the animation you're doing on the title cards in the OP. Wanted to say I thought it was a neat touch 
Wiggy Marie fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 16:27
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Blind Sally posted:A white bird is a white bird is a white bird is a white bird is a white bird. SO CLEVER. He sure loved some birds. Birds. BIRDS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xUuNB0Bz8 The birds don't like you, leave them alone.
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Jul 11, 2015 22:40
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Thanks for the LP, CJacobs! Couple of things people might be interested in: Making the Player Feel Bad, a presentation by Jörg Friedrich at 2012's GDC. It's pretty short and full of opinions for you to agree or disagree with. Point of interest: he considers it a failure that they had achievements at all in Spec Ops, and per play testing they found that the interactivity of certain choices made them way more impactful than the WP scene (shockingly enough, I know). Also, there's a pretty good interview with him at the start of this podcast. Stay for the remainder at your own risk, though - they all loved the game so it's not the most balanced view, and also it's full of terrible puns and jokes. Interview starts at 2:55 and ends around the 37:30 mark. This is incredible, I laughed so hard! The newscaster's face at the end! Blind Sally posted:In Spec Ops: The Line 2, Walker finds himself in a small town called Silent Hill. People have said they wanted Homecoming to be something like this. But it has the cursed unreliable narrator, so I'm sure fans would've hated it anyway.
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Jul 13, 2015 01:32
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Some more notes: - If you want to see Walt in all of his glory, enjoy: Spec Ops: The Line contextualizes violence through story - A few of the score tracks can be downloaded from the composer’s site. There is also a Youtube playlist, which includes the fabulous [Deleted movie] track. (I think the one that’s missing is the Bjork song) - Loading screen tips, as copy/pasted by I believe Kaboom Dragoon. Personal favorite: If Lugo were still alive, he would likely suffer from PTSD. So, really, he's the lucky one. gently caress you too, game. -I’ve already said I have no personal experience with modern military shooters, so take this with a massive grain of salt, but in regards to whether I think this game works as a satire or deconstruction of the modern shooter, I would say a hearty, 100% and fully formed no. I’d be super interested to hear from someone who does think it works and why. To me, it simply doesn’t go far enough to work. If that was the intention, they could’ve done things like have more exaggerated achievements that are totally at odds with the story you’re seeing, or an accuracy counter that flashes repeatedly, or something else more blatant. (Imagine if after the WP scene a counter flashed up – Accuracy: 100%!) It doesn’t seem to be an exaggerated or deconstructed view of a shooter, so I can’t really get behind that view. Any proponents out there? Any specific examples? It could just be my inexperience talking, but for example, when I watch Starship Troopers I see the satire even though I’m not in the military. Here I just don’t see it. On to: How can anyone like this game?!, or: the part where it gets real personal and the plot don’t matter. This is where I start directly addressing my own experience with the game via Livejournal entry, so enter at your own risk. Evil Tim, this part is for you, as promised. I’d like to thank you for making me think enough about it to be able to truly put into words why I like this game’s story so much. Not being sarcastic, either – your posts helped me to really think it out and realize why so much of the silly plot elements simply don’t matter to me. Related to what’s coming: A study about the effects of PTSD on how a person views the world. I’ve noticed in podcasts and articles that people who have some sort of mental health issue are the ones who tend to be the most adamant about the game being art, or the most willing to read insanely deep into the mental health themes of the game. It’s an extremely small sample size so I can’t say it’s a trend, but I can say I totally understand where they’re coming from. For me, this game was intensely personal, likely due to the timing. Spoiler alert: it’s the PTSD angle that got me, hook line and sinker. I discovered this game shortly after my family went through some terrible poo poo. As a result, I was and still am in a particular state of mind. I checked Spec Ops out because I was depressed, and the way I cheer myself up is through horror – movies, games, whatever. It’s always been my go-to cheer up genre. I’d heard this was more of a psychological horror type of game, and I eat that poo poo up. (Sidenote: Oculus, We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Babadook are all great and if you like horror you might enjoy these) I really, really empathized with Walker’s character. It’s pretty safe to say that the game had me from the first monologue. I immediately related to the loss of an idolized mentor figure, and the subsequent mourning of that loss as you discover that they weren’t who you thought they were. The story progression of that grief hit me hard because I found it entirely recognizable, up to and including that mentor’s voice being the one that Walker hears throughout the majority of the game calling his actions into question, the person he hears or sees when his own mind is the most against him. Granted, Walker doesn’t know that Konrad is dead, but he’s still seeing the results of someone he respected making questionable decisions, and that loss affects his mental state. Perhaps more importantly, I knew Konrad was dead going into the game. I completely understood Walker’s motivations, lack of logic and all, because while experiencing the game I completely agreed with him. It actually took two or three repeats for me to be able to fully step back and start seeing how completely, utterly batshit he (or depending on your reading, the plot itself) is earlier in the game before Konrad’s voice starts haunting him, and how his decisions make no goddamned sense at all. But in the mindset I was in, dealing with the emotions I was, I didn’t see the forest for the trees. I’ll go through a couple of major keystones as examples of where my head was: In the beginning of the game, it’s entirely reasonable to me that he disregards orders. He’s trying to emulate his hero. That’s his goal, so it totally makes sense. I wasn’t even fazed by the flip to killing Americans. We see them rounding up civilians! Totally reasonable, and not at all insane. There’s no reason to turn back, we can keep going without questioning it. Later, we see them use WP on people, so why not use it back? That’s straight-up vengeance for what they did. What does it really matter? They’re bastards anyway. I had to step away from the game after the reveal of the civilians. I was 100% invested in shared apathy with Walker. I honestly didn’t care. Walking through the field after, eh. You shouldn’t have used the WP earlier. And then I realized how far it’d gone and I had to step away. But it wasn’t enough to separate me from the game or Walker as a character, as it was with a lot of players. I didn’t back off. I just dug in deeper. Because gently caress these guys. It’s at this point that irrational anger takes over completely. I discovered in the months following the family trauma that there’s a type of anger that you can’t let go of, no matter how much you vent. You can try to talk it out with friends, family, a counselor. You can try to write journal entries to get it out. You can yell and punch walls. But there’s no direction to this anger, there’s no natural course. It’s just anger, and it wells up until you literally cannot form rational thoughts. And because of the overwhelming apathy that accompanies grief, you don’t care that you can’t form rational thoughts. Lacking any real control or motivation, you make terrible decisions, even major life decisions, based on nothing at all, and your anger fuels your momentum so that when people question your decisions you either blow up or blow them off. Sometimes a horrible combination of the two. It’s a surreal moment when you can actually see yourself doing or saying something truly despicable, and are totally unable to stop yourself. Why am I even here? Why am I doing this? Why am I still speaking? That person is crying. Why can’t I stop myself? It’s saying something that the moment I most relate to isn’t a line of dialogue or choice, but Walker, stressed and defeated toward the end, vomiting over the edge of a bridge while the voice in his head calls him a failure. Even now, I can’t handle in the final choice seeing Walker pointing the gun at himself, because I feel too much surrounding the inherent decision. This is all my fault, but I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. All of those terrible things you’ve done and said and experienced, the stupid decisions, the times you’ve treated people badly, you are to blame for those and there is no one else to cast that blame on. So now that you know that, what are you going to do with that knowledge? Do you let it take you over or do you try to move on and get better? (Who’s actually responsible, and your ability to separate your own fault from someone else’s, is another concept that I enjoy to explore in the game, but I won’t talk about it here because that’s not why I initially connected with the game. That thought only came later.) I’m not going to argue that this is a perfect game, and I won’t step into the quality of the writing. What I will say is that, for me, this was an intensely personal story that I found entirely too relatable, because there’s a psychological downward spiral represented that I cannot easily separate from the rest of the story. The irrational aspects of the plot make no difference to me because I didn't approach it as a rational plot. I get that plot elements are weird, silly or downright idiotic. I get that some script changes probably make no sense in the grand scheme. I’m not insisting that other people like it. For me, this was a cathartic experience, and one that highlighted some personal demons that I couldn’t otherwise articulate. In conclusion: I swear I am not a murderous psychopath and have never touched a gun.
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Jul 13, 2015 12:42
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