|
 I have a riddle for you. James Cameron's Avatar, when it came out, was the highest grossing movie ever. It still is. Do you remember even one line from the entire film? Me neither.  Released about a month ahead of the movie, James Cameron's Avatar: The Game is actually four games depending on what console you play on. This version is the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC version. The Wii/PSP, iOS, and DS versions all have wildly different plots and characters. Despite being a video game based on a movie that apparently made no ripples whatsoever in wider pop culture, this game is...surprisingly decent. It's no Escape from Butcher Bay and a lot of the dumbness of Avatar's plot manages to seep into this game, but for what it's worth, it's better than most movie tie-ins. Naturally, I'll be mocking the dumb parts relentlessly. Set two years before the events of the movie, you play as Able Ryder, a human Signals Specialist brought to Pandora to help the RDA with their war against the Na'vi. Pretty soon, Ryder has to make a choice whether to fight for the natives, or side with obviously villainous megacorp. We'll be siding with the Na'vi first, and if this LP still has enough momentum by the end, we can always go down the human route afterwards. Of note, it's now almost impossible to get your hands on a legitimate PC version of the game, due to it getting taken down almost everywhere. Luckily, that'll be the version I'll be playing on, due to fellow goon and good friend Geomancing sharing his steam library with me!   [VIDEO] [JOURNAL ENTRY 1]  [VIDEO] [JOURNAL ENTRY 2]  [VIDEO] [JOURNAL ENTRY 3]  This will be something of a hybrid LP. The story and general structure will be told in screenshot format, but I will also post corresponding gameplay videos just to give context for the images. Don't expect masterful gameplay; the controls are a lot more awkward than they seem.  The sooner you accept this is an LP about a game based on JC's Avatar, the sooner you'll stop asking these questions. Blarghalt fucked around with this message at 02:52 on May 3, 2018 |
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 04:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 23:17 |
|
|
This space reserved for probably evil purposes
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 04:51
|
|
|
I remember playing this game on PS3, it's surprisingly decent and the choice of sides feels meaningful without actually damaging your enjoyment particularly much.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 05:11
|
|
|
Nobody actually remembers anything about Avatar outside of the fact that it's Dancing With Wolves in space, as well as the belief that it had the best 3D effects in a movie. The latter is a complete lie, by the way- Coraline's 3D blew it out of the water.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 05:58
|
|
|
Cool videos OP
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 05:59
|
|
|
Blarghalt posted:James Cameron's Avatar ... Do you remember even one line from the entire film? "You are not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second of every day. If there is a Hell... you might want to go there for some R&R, after a tour on Pandora. Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes." - Stephen Lang, thinking he's in a much better movie than he real was. Checkmate, OP. Also where da vids at?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 06:30
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:"You are not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second of every day. If there is a Hell... you might want to go there for some R&R, after a tour on Pandora. Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes." I've been had.  First video's alongside the first thumbnail, which will link to the first screenshot piece in a bit. Reminder the videos don't have commentary, only the screenshot portions will.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:12
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:"You are not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second of every day. If there is a Hell... you might want to go there for some R&R, after a tour on Pandora. Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes."
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:17
|
|
|
VolticSurge posted:God, he made the movie for me. If it weren't for him I probably would've left the theater. Stephen Lang was the sole reason I stuck Terra Nova out right to its finale. He was playing pretty much the same character from Avatar only not a comically insane parody caricature this time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:35
|
|
|
So what are the copyright disputes?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:51
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:Stephen Lang was the sole reason I stuck Terra Nova out right to its finale. He was playing pretty much the same character from Avatar only not a comically insane parody caricature this time. That was easily the best part of the film though. His robot had a god damned knife, glorious.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:52
|
|
|
Mostly I remember that cool older scientist lady dies as does the cool pilot lady and that sucked, because both of them were way more fun and cool than Jake Bloody Sully. Honestly everything about Avatar outside of the main male lead is pretty great, it's just the main male lead is the most boring thing in the world even with the whole wheelchair bound man getting to walk again thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 09:11
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Mostly I remember that cool older scientist lady dies as does the cool pilot lady and that sucked, because both of them were way more fun and cool than Jake Bloody Sully. Honestly everything about Avatar outside of the main male lead is pretty great, it's just the main male lead is the most boring thing in the world even with the whole wheelchair bound man getting to walk again thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 09:39
|
|
|
CHAPTER 1: PROBABLY KANSAS Welcome to Pandora. Reminder that all personnel, without exception, will be pistol-whipped if they refer to this place as a planet instead of a moon.  Secondary reminder that yes, those are trees. No, they are not holographic. Yes, they're like the ones that used to be on Earth. No, they're not edible. Personnel caught eating trees will be pistol-whipped.  Tertiary reminder that all personnel found dead from the Pandoran atmosphere will be posthumously pistol-whipped.  I don't want to tell the RDA how to do their jobs, but I don't think they've could've picked a worse name for a forward base if you tried.   Meet Able Ryder, our main character. She can be either male or female, but I chose female because there's something funny to me about a professional PMC soldier having dyed hair. That lifeless mannequin she's chatting with is supposed to be Grace Augustine from the movie, but this is pretty much the last you're going to hear from her until the end of the game.    Maybe I can ask for the reward where you're less vague. < > "And we mean never. We don't care how delicious the fruit looks."   "I give them all a month, at max. That guy? Dead. That girl? Dead. The scrawny one? Oh man, how won't he die?" "Oh poo poo, is this still on?"   Ryder's not just your average grunt. According to her backstory, she helped cracked terrorist codes back on Earth, which was apparently valuable enough to not only get her sent to Pandora, but also score her her own avatar, which we'll see in a second.  Does no one find it weird that they sent down a whole Valkyrie to deliver five soldiers? The last shuttle they sent had four guys and they were already dead. If this game is canon, Commander Falco was the guy in charge of the RDA's entire military on Pandora before Quaritch (main bad guy of the movie) was. The longer we go into this game, the weirder it will seem that all the events of this entire story aren't brought up even once in the movie.   Sorry, Ryder, we're on the company's time now. Ugh. And I liked sleeping in, too. Shouldn't you be used to people telling you what to do? You were in the military for years. AND LOOK WHAT IT DID TO ME! <>  If you want to know something funnier than a guy called Dr. Monroe being put in charge of a biology department, it's literally canon that the guy who invented the technology avatars use to link with the human operators has the last name of Lovecraft.   Right, right. Check my avatar for mysterious surgical scars and everything. We have our first mission: walk to the thing.  Luckily, the toxins in the atmosphere are potent enough for Ryder to hallucinate quest markers to the thing.  Once Ryder's inside the base, she takes off her exopack. It was always weird to me that a planet with air that can drop a human in seconds is somehow completely circumvented just by a breathing mask, and not even one that has to completely cover the face. Nobody ever seems to be tearing up or complaining that their eyes are itchy and swollen from being exposed to the atmosphere, for example.  Hey, is this where you grow the twisted abominations against God wrought of unholy union between man and Na'vi DNA? No, that's in Lab Fourte-oh, you meant avatars. Yeah, that's here. Whose avatar is this? Nobody's. Crash test dummy. Eventually kicked out of the lab, Ryder makes her way to the AVTR (yes, that's the actual name of the project) central hub.  This scientist is either going to start a tutorial level or give us a quest.   Considering the movie says avatars cost billions of dollars to make, maybe more than a small fortune.   One thing that was always funny to me in the movie is how much work was put into all the human technology but the actual link beds, on the inside, look like something from the 60s complete with little lights around the head.  Like, ha-ha strange? Because I- I CAN TASTE MICROWAVES  Considering the probable cocktail of god knows what they have to inject into these avatars just to get them to not melt into goo, Ryder's lucky she isn't spontaneously writing psychedelic music right about now.  By the way, there's never really a *good* reason as to why Ryder needs an avatar. They're cool to have for a soldier and essentially gives them two lives, but also horrendously expensive and completely unrelated to the abilities the RDA hired Ryder for in the first place.   Ryder didn't immediately wake up shrieking and tearing her hair out. That's rare for a first linking.  (Wow. They even got my chin right.)  Ryder's avatar immediately falls forward and hits the lab floor face-first.   Nothing better to make an operator feel more secure and more calm for linking than sealing them inside what can only be described as a very expensive coffin.   You heard the HUD, mission accomplished. Back to Earth it is!  But before we go, let's at least humor the base commander.  Why does a high-tech military base a hundred years in the future still use fluorescent bulbs? Surely something better's come along by now?  Quaternary reminder that any personnel found turning the unguarded, tempting, pleading valve for the mysterious yellow tube of secrets will be pistol-whipped.  Welcome to OPS. It's less a commander center and more a tech support farm but somehow even more miserable.  Let's go see Commander Falco and demand to know why he has such a hilarious name.   So unobtanium is supposed to be worth millions of dollars a kilogram, and this guy just has a hunk of it sitting in his office? Seems like something that wouldn't be that hard to put on the back of a truck, and then make it fall off said truck.  So? What are they gonna do with the information? Buy us out? Uh. Any reason what you're planning would cause a native uprising, sir?  (Unless the Na'vi have recently invented encryption, I still don't know what I'm here for. Oh well. Seven-figure paycheck when I get back.)   Do you know how many dead soldiers have said those exact words to me?  Now get out. I gotta write a sarcastic reply to this summons I got from The Hague. (Jesus, Ryder. First day on the job and you're already looking for spies.)  I can still smell the atmosphere in this mask. It's like the Grim Reaper farting on your face, forever. Ey! Pilot! Tip priority mission from Falco! Move it!  Funnily enough, I think this game is the best course a person has to mapping out what Pandora's surface actually looks like. Compared to Earth, it seems much more like a loose confederation of archipelagos and a few large continents rather than just two huge ones dominating everything.    (I've heard stories of what happens to soldiers that get caught by critters. There's never even enough left to send home.)  The messed up thing is that probably doesn't even really narrow down the list of plants on Pandora that could do that.   First, gross. Second, thanks? oh god this climate is like miami and Rio had a mutant moist bastard child  Ryder takes the time to explore the area.  Meet the locals.  And cross off items on the to-do list.   That sounds made up, but so does everything else on this planet. I mean, we all did in basic but what you're using looks like a completely different weapons sys- Okay, guess I'm mowing down wildlife now.  [exited tail wagging] [urge to lick human's face] [realization that they're not dogs and in fact find human faces delicious]  TELL MY MOTHER SHE WAS RIGHT ABOUT HOW I'D DIE [adorable sounds of bone being crushed between jaws like a toothpick] Combat Pay! COMBAT PAY! I hope these things can't climb and/or eat ladders. JESUS CHRIST. Are they fending off animals or goddamn tanks?  What did the soldiers do to make these mutts this angry?  After spewing out enough brass to make elephants extinct all over again, the soldiers get back in the fence.  And the question mark must be obeyed.   Nothing on this planet really strikes me as spooky. Gut-wrenchingly pants-shittingly terrifying, asbolutely, but not spooky.  Can I please just do the job I was hired to do? Your job right now is de-spooking. At least I get a car out of the deal. A one-man buggy. With no armor. And no guns. On a planet filled with killer fauna. I'm starting to understand the reasons for this moon's turnover rates. Off Ryder goes in a car that'd probably be faster if she got out and pushed.  Hey Kendra, radio check. I get the feeling I'm being watched. A Na'vi's probably watching everything you're doing. Speaking of, what ARE you doing? Dalton's not that far out. DEAR GOD LOOK AT THE TEETH ON THAT THING yeah Kendra I got a little lost, be there in a bit. HOW IS ANY LIVING THING ABLE TO TAKE THIS MANY BULLETS RYDER WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SIGN UP FOR Is that Dalton? Did he get cornered? You understand the flaw in any plan without an escape route, right?  First off, it's not even on yet.  (Why did they send you to do this in the first place?) (Is this what you've been reduced to, Ryder? IT with a gun?) With Dalton heading back to base, Ryder forges on ahead. I should mention one of the weapons humans get is a hilarious dual set of revolvers that your character literally wields akimbo.  That said, nothing beat a good ol' longarm.  Then again, tooth beats bullet on this planet.   Holy crap. Does every type of that plant explode if I shoot it? Heheheheh. This is my kind of gardening. Ran out of plants. Back to the grind.  If my SigSpec senses haven't decayed from cyrosleep, I think I should put the signal right about here. Oh geez. What's the local word for roadkill? Always good to see some secure gates. That are left open half the time anyway. I don't think it's a good sign when my commanding officer is actively running away from me. Whatever. This river looks shallow enough to not have anything nasty in it. Though I question the design descision of putting wings on a boat. I'm questioning a lot of how this whole operation's run lately.   Whoever the boot around here is, push this boat back into the water!  I'm impressed by that phone. Nice color. Special radios to deal with the Pandoran magnetosphere. They're like twenty thousand a pop. ...No, they're like two hundred each, and you can buy them at the hardware store. I used them all the time for signals stuff in the military. Has the RDA seriously been buying this crap at ten thousand percent markup? (How does this place turn a profit?)  (What a surprise.) God, the eco-terrorists I used to listen in on had their poo poo together better than this. (Push through it, Ryder. You've dealt with worse rodeos even if you can't remember when.)  It's funny how you can tell what animals were named by soldiers and which ones were named by scientists. Viperwolf's obviously a grunt name, where something like the thanator only could come from a biologist trying to think of something cool.   What were these fences made of? Wishes?  I feel like even the wildlife is judging my driving. Oh good, and no backup!  I don't care that you're red, only that you're dead. (Signal at 10.4...finagle the OS...little black magic...done.) I'm not even going to dignify calling this a band-aid for a gaping hole in the fence.  The LZ is hot and bitey! Well, I got my own teeth! This one just had the wires crossed.  I am never talking poo poo about general infantry ever again.  But I think you guys should be worried more about the giant holes in the fence. And what caused them, maybe?  First thing that's gone right since I got here. Wait, a Dragon? A C-21? Aren't those banned? Ryder levels up in the meantime, giving her access to a long and hilariously unwieldy rifle known as the Nail Gun HAMMER I.  An exclamation mark, and not a question mark? Things are looking up!   They did a really crappy job, though. If I had rewired it, you wouldn't have been able to turn off the signal without running the thing over with a truck.  For example: your repulsors have no way of tracking who accesses them, or who even is allowed access to them. I've seen better security at a circus, and I'm literally not exaggerating.  Just gonna go up these stairs... Get in this trailer... Find the link bed... And treat every security breach and bad management I've seen like a bad dream. (Just maybe, I'll have better luck in this body.)
Blarghalt fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Mar 17, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 10:10
|
|
|
gently caress it's all coming back to me. Sticking with the humans, the weirdly cool strategy mode, and just so much collectathon garbage.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 10:41
|
|
|
Cassa posted:gently caress it's all coming back to me. Sticking with the humans, the weirdly cool strategy mode, and just so much collectathon garbage. I have this weird suspicion that this game was originally meant to be the groundwork for an Avatar MMO, but it fell through kind of early on and was retooled into what it is now.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 10:45
|
|
|
I would suspect the reason Ryder has an Avatar is that they've been specially brought in by the guy in charge of Security. Off the top of my head it might be useful to not have to wear a helmet and all the associated body armor of a human whilst doing signal specialist things out in the jungle.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 11:26
|
|
|
Despite Blarghalt playing my copy of the game that I played through to completion, I remember almost nothing of this entire thing. Kind of a theme with Avatar, isn't it? I do remember that the game is fairly nice looking at night. And thanators, hard to forget eight-foot-tall panthers with six legs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 14:31
|
|
|
get that OUT of my face posted:Nobody actually remembers anything about Avatar outside of the fact that it's Dancing With Wolves in space, as well as the belief that it had the best 3D effects in a movie. The latter is a complete lie, by the way- Coraline's 3D blew it out of the water. Of the ones I've seen, Doctor Strange is the only one I've felt was worth the extra money for 3d.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 15:18
|
|
|
Blarghalt posted:James Cameron's Avatar, when it came out, was the highest grossing movie ever. It still is. Do you remember even one line from the entire film? I certainly do. "The aliens went back to their dying planet". Said by the protagonist. I was so pissed off I actively wished for the humans to return and nuke that planet to oblivion.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 15:18
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:Stephen Lang was the sole reason I stuck Terra Nova out right to its finale. He was playing pretty much the same character from Avatar only not a comically insane parody caricature this time. I don't think anyone would have complained to see a version of Avatar where Stephen Lang just yells/shoots at alien animals for two hours.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 20:44
|
|
|
Yeah, it feels like we just hit a bunch of "introduction to mechanics" quests that you'd use to ease people into a new MMO zone. I wonder how many times we'll be finding signal spots, jumping into turrets, and repairing fences for the rest of the game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 22:40
|
|
|
So far this seems like a generic third-person shooter.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2018 00:05
|
|
|
rudecyrus posted:So far this seems like a generic third-person shooter. You're not wrong.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2018 01:07
|
|
|
Sylphosaurus posted:Man, is it just me or is Michelle Rodriguez the female equivalent of Sean Bean in the movie world by now? She always seems to be up on the chopping block when itīs time for a heroic sacrifice. she is, she basically refuses to play the love interest or a damsel in distress characters, meaning she always plays the rough and tumble character who gets killed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2018 05:37
|
|
|
Chapter 2: The New Guy  My back feels like someone drove on it. Wait. Did they put a backpack on my avatar, and then laid it down on a flat metal slab? And who the hell chambered this M30? ROF doesn't matter if the rounds we're using only tickle the critters around here.  At least the air doesn't taste like mega-metro smog anymore.  You're blue. <> Smart how? You're some kind of nerd, right? Only the science types get avatars. Closest I've done to anything scientific is knocking out hijacked spysats and some occasional hacking. ...What? The recruiter says SigSpec, but they don't tell you how broad that profession is. Let's go meet Harper and ignore how 'Avatar Compound' 100% sounds like the name of a cult's bunker.  We also run into this thing: the Tree of Vision. It's pretty much just a fast travel system around the map you're currently on.  The game says says the flora and fauna are less aggressive, but this is a drat lie. From what I can tell, there's now just one plant that doesn't attack you but viperwolves and whatever else will still try and nibble your butt off. Also, you don't get experience points from killing the wildlife as an avatar, so Ryder can no longer blow up explosive pineapples to farm XP.  Was kind of beating off the dogs with a stick before to notice before, but drat. This is what a forest is actually like, huh?  So the 'compound' for these billion-dollar blue clones of ours is a wooden shack out in the woods? Are we studying the planet or hiding from the government? Looks harmless, but I'm not taking chances. If you're wondering why Ryder looks like she's fallen out of the sky here, Avatar Ryder has a move where she does a kind of forward-flip that's slightly faster than running. Game developers, as usual, fail to understand that if there's a method for going faster, no matter how stupid it looks, the player will always choose to only do that.  Ryder's been saving that one up since she left Earth.   (Man, they really winged it with those earlier model avatars.) (I just got here, doc, and you're already threatening me? Couldn't even wait until I do something wrong first?)  Just FYI, I'm not a biology major or anything. It's not particularly hard. Worst case is that you just have to isolate some unsaturated carbons from local Scorpioflora and do a little bit of Warbonnet genome sequencing. Just nod and pretend you understand, Ryder. You said that out loud. Again, give a player a stupid but fast method of getting around and they player will choose it every single time.  That's like half the plants on this moon.  (What the hell is wrong with everyone on Pandora?)  Just a reminder, I'm the one with the machine gun that's taller than a person.  And now I'm running errands for the white coats. Great. No, Ryder, we don't in fact need you to optimize the quantum-bit communication system or anything, we just need you to poke some trees. Okay, I'm warming up to this avatar body. I'm like a blue, violent, intelligent cheetah. I'm guessing this is one of the plants he was talking about. It looks important. AND I GUESS IT IS, BECAUSE NOW I GOTTA DEAL WITH THE GUARD DOGS. <>  Did they really need more for this?  So, the thing I did five minutes ago?  Well, they aren't here. So either they moved or gotten eaten really really fast.  Looks like the tracker has Harper over here. What the hell are they doing?  Doc, not really in the mood for sarcasm.  HOLY HELL Run sideways! Slanted angles confuse and frustrate it!  Wait, an arrow? Unless we brought longbows to Pandora, that means-   Holy crap, a Na'vi. Nice shot, by the way. What kind of muzzle energy is in those arrows? I don't think so. If anything here actually caught an Earth disease, you'd all be dead.  So, what do you think about our language? Whoever your first speaker was, he was a madman. Your language has rules it does not follow, and too many words for the same thing. That's English for you!  You want me to fight Pandoran wildlife, on foot, with no backup? You mean the thing you've done since you landed here? I will beat you both with whatever I find in this backpack of mine.  That looks as diseased as anything. Light 'em up!  The most dangerous fauna in the galaxy laid low by circle-strafing. Meanwhile, Manifest Destiny is happening.  You'd be tempted to think the Dragon was compensating for something, and that something is it not having enough guns.  It's a shame it'll take everyone about a hundred years to feel guilty about this.  Back to Ryder, she gets a call that she needs to go see Falco, who's landed at Blue Lagoon.  I'm still not entirely certain what the point of the fence was if the fence basically covers nothing and lets all kinds of critters in.   How do you know he isn't the mole himself? Because I don't remember ever giving any of the locals Level 5 Clearance.  Uh, how am I going to follow a Na'vi tracker and hunter without him knowing? He seems to trust you. Just don't shoot him while you're on his tail and he shouldn't care. If Ryder finds the mole, this is going to be just about the shortest corporate espionage investigation of all time.   I feel like these thatch arches the Na'vi make on these roads are mocking me, specifically.  So if I find the mole, then what? Do I get shunted into a desk job until my rotation's over?  Oh, crap. There's Tan Jala. I can't get over how he's literally wearing one of his kills as a hat. TAN JALA! HOLD UP! I HAVE SOME VERY NON-SUSPICIOUS QUESTIONS FOR YOU! Wait a minute, who's that he's talking to? Is that...?  What am I going to do? Arrest him?  I mean, Falco's office does look nice.   A lot of smoke.   I mean, I literally didn't do this. Were they targeting a village? I had the signal locked five kilometers north. All they did was bomb a bunch of dirt and some decorations on the road. How did they miss? That's what you have a problem with? Yes! They put me on a trillion-dollar spaceship, grow me a billion dollar puppet, give me million-dollar guns to lock in basic signals, and they can't even get the goddamn target right?! This whole operation is a shitshow! I'm amazed I didn't touch down in a crater when I arrived! And they can't even use me well! I might as well have drawn a dick for the target coordinates!  Oh, great. The clown car is here. Speaking of, who the hell uses a whole Valkyrie to shuttle down five soldiers? I've seen the casualty rate around here, and it's way more than five soldiers every few months.  You understand that even though we have carbon-fiber reinforced bones, our meat parts are still very squishy and don't react to bullets very well? Wait, why do I have to shoot Harper? Because this would give me a good excuse to shut down the AVTR program. Now get capping. (Oh god, it's an old-fashioned moral choice.) [Examples of corporate greed and the need to protect the natives] [Humanity's need for unobtanium and the energy crisis back on Earth] [Something about Christopher Columbus] [Something something 'savages'] (Only one way to make sure.) Falco, before I shoot Harper: why was piloting the dragon that did this? Me, and some of my best men. They never miss. Scew this. I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS DECISION   I'M SURPRISED YOU KNOW WHAT ANY OF THOSE WORDS MEAN, YOU IDIOT!  Sure, let me just go run one down and take over its mind with my brain tentacles.  Haper, the whole reason I just shot my CO is that I couldn't stand the incompetence of the RDA anymore. They'll pour more resources into fighting us, sure, but like everything else they'll do it half-assed and the other half of the rear end gets embezzled.   Hahahahaha. We are so hosed.
Blarghalt fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Mar 22, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2018 23:40
|
|
|
So, uh... what's in that backpack? Just enough ammo for the light machine gun that we just ran out and can never get more?
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2018 02:26
|
|
|
Glazius posted:So, uh... what's in that backpack? Just enough ammo for the light machine gun that we just ran out and can never get more? That'll forever remain a mystery, because Ryder inexplicably starts wearing Na'vi armor from here on out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2018 02:32
|
|
|
Now I'm reminded of an MMO.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2018 02:35
|
|
|
rudecyrus posted:Now I'm reminded of an MMO. It's not just that, but I also think this game was rushed to meet the deadline of the movie. It's still okay, but you get the sense the maps were meant to be a lot bigger and the strategic map being oddly in-depth for a game where the bonuses it provides barely matter.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2018 05:54
|
|
|
I remember a line from the Rifftrax of this movie better than I remember anything from this movie. Now, that's not an entirely fair comparison, because only one of those features Kevin Murphy singing. But I think it gets the point across.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2018 18:35
|
|
|
I saw my younger brother playing the end of the 360 version, and said 2 words in jest. Then the game actually did the thing I joked about. I laughed so hard. If that's too nudge-wink let me know, I just found it funny.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2018 19:28
|
|
|
BioEnchanted posted:I saw my younger brother playing the end of the 360 version, and said 2 words in jest. Then the game actually did the thing I joked about. I laughed so hard. If that's too nudge-wink let me know, I just found it funny. I give up.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2018 19:36
|
|
|
If you want me to edit that out I will. Sorry.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2018 20:00
|
|
|
I'm intrigued. Edit: At least the writing in the movie (and this game) can't be as bad a Major/Minor!
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2018 20:02
|
|
|
Chapter 3: War Corps You might be wondering why Ryder is suddenly wearing Na'vi armor with no explanation.  Anyway, Harper lets us know they're going to raid the link chambers because otherwise him and Ryder are screwed. I don't know about Harper, but Ryder's link bed was literally in the middle of an RDA camp. Why haven't they cracked it open and given Ryder early termination from the RDA payroll, I have no idea.    Okay, how will that help you secure the link chamber? Are you going to tie it to the banshees and airlift it away?  Speaking of, I'd probably start making plans about your stay on Pandora being permanent. If I know the RDA, they've probably got you as a wanted terrorist and cult leader in at least thirty countries back on Earth. What? Hit him with a rolling pin?  How? I've been here literally a few minutes, and I'm pretty drat sure Harper didn't radio ahead.  How is a weed 'rare'?  I wonder if Harper literally had Na'vi clothes pre-made for Ryder under the assumption that she'd join them, and I don't know if that's smart or insane. Both? Harper seems more like your angry uncle than an mad blue scientist, though.    This is about as complicated as puzzles get in this game, not counting the banshee controls. More on that later.  In the meantime, the RDA has decided to manifest some destiny nearby, and won't stop until dissuaded by six-foot arrows in the gut.  I should mention the aiming in this game is a lot more awkward than it looks like in screenshots. You'll see in the video I have some trouble getting consistent hits because you just straight-up miss if you're too close, and sometimes you can't hit the enemies anyway unless you aim slightly off-center for some reason.  Wait a minute. I went to school with that guy. JEFF! YOU STILL OWE ME THAT PENCIL, YOU rear end!  The green stuff Ryder's picking up are Cell samples, which is a fancy way of saying they're units for building a get-out-of-death free card. Get ten of them, and you can automatically restore all your health once it reaches zero in a firefight. Once you have enough revives, you can basically just throw yourself at the enemy until you win. Falling still kills you outright, though.  With the soldiers all riddled with shafts of wood, Ryder takes to her greatest challenge yet: climbing vines.  I'm not kidding. Climbing vines is seriously one of the trickier parts of the game, between the camera sometimes making you let go and it being an instant game over if you lose all your health while climbing, since you can't use revives on it.   (This plant looks, and feels, like a prop the 1950s.)  When Ryder grabs the plant, we're taken to a cutscenes where it zooms all the way back to Beyda'amo. He's kind of a jerk.   It's more of a bribe your wife suggested.  Who the hell else could I side with?! The plants? Bah! You already make your plans known! This bodes poorly. Wait, they're wasting missiles on you? Those things are like a hundred thou a pop! They are thrown like a blind hunter's rock. Few hit. And they don't even bother calibrating them. Great. Now I'm remembering why I quit the RDA.  You're really lucky I went through an anarchist phase as a kid, is all I'm saying. Now, where's detcord?  If I had a computer, I could probably get those missiles to head toward Falco's office. Don't got that, so we're doing the next best thing.  Wait a minute. You guys have a word for high-grade explosives?  Even when I'm part of some remote tribe somewhere, I'm stuck doing boot work. The RDA continued to innovate new tactics against the Na'vi, such as firing their guns, while running, while running behind their comrades in closely-knit formations.  You know how in XCOM you kind of suspect that all the recruits you're getting aren't even soldiers and are more likely bargain bin boot camp washouts the drill instructors couldn't wait to get rid of? I think RDA soldiers are, on average, a few steps below that.  These look like dreamcatchers my aunt would hang in her pickup truck. The bad aunt.  There's going to be a recurring theme in this game where a lot of the locals get glassed with human hardware in cutscenes but outside of that, you're never dealing with choppers or Dragons unless it's a boss fight.  Speaking of, here's a friendly neighborhood Dragon now! Use of which automatically warrants a summons by The Hague, but who cares what they think anymore?  THESE ARE VERY DURABLE STRUCTURES FOR BEING MADE OUT OF THATCH! Another reason I suspect this game was meant as an MMO at some point is the Na'vi allies that fight for you in these big arena areas, but they're about as helpful as they were in the movie.   By the way, this is what happens when you use one of those revives that costs 10 cell samples. Ryder apparently just takes a swig of something and she forgets all those new holes in her torso.  It's also kind of funny how Ryder is instantly wearing Na'vi clothes as soon as you enter the area, and she runs around with the knife weapon like she's LARPing some warrior she saw in a movie once. Let's be honest, she probably is.  I'm 80 percent sure this bomb collection sidequest is mostly meant to give you a grand tour of the map, because you pretty much hoof it everywhere.  [Inarticulate Tusken Raider noises] Oh. Hello. How'd you end up here? Was bored. No more plants on Earth to set on fire. Dif'rent strokes! I'm taking your bombs! Fine. I was brewing molotovs anyway. As we enter another area, a cutscene of the Na'vi demands our attention.  You get one guess to what happens.  As we start climbing up the mountain, we run into one of the more irritating enemies in the Na'vi campaign: suicide drones. They're adorable little gunships who crash into you and knock off a good chunk of your health.  So why are you engaging me, by yourself, out of cover, with no backup? Yeah, I don't get it either. Ryder finds the last box of explosives, which means it's time to smash the system. And what's the symbol for the system? Big radio towers, apparently.  Also, being a 2009 game, there's motion blur out the wazoo. To be fair, this game actually still looks pretty nice all these years later, especially in the few sections where it takes place at night.  I can't tell you how many times in this game you run into a gunship and it seems like you're meant to fight it until a banshee comes out of nowhere attacking it and the problem solves itself.  You call this a C&C Missile Direction Center? Bhutan has better equipment. Bhutan! As you can see on the left, there's also automated turrets, but they're even less of a threat than the soldiers.  Roomba has gone too far. Ryder clears out the problems at the tour, which means it's time for some cheap explosion effects.   That is, explosions that are big, fiery, and don't seem to do any kind of structural damage whatsoever.   You could probably re-create this with a moderately big firecracker.  Hey, Beyda'amo! I did your vandalism errand! I just pulled off poo poo that would've gotten me the Medal of Honor, and that's your response?I don't care for you.   (Resorting to taking public transportation. God, this place really is like home.) Not to rules lawyer you, but considering the RDA's currently Wounded Kneeing our asses, MAYBE THE RULES CAN BE BENT. More of your riddles! Climb, or I will take you up and then throw you off the side! Cloud Walk sounds like something the Na'vi do on the ground, while blaring Hendrix music.  Oh god, the test of manhood is gym class. Maybe at least this will come without awkward explanations of sex. I'm actually kind of impressed the Na'vi came up with an anchor and bridge system to keep these rocks in place.  At the top of the mountain, we're treated to a trimphant sweep of the banshee nest, which all kind of look like giant roosting hens that want to kill you, and also they don't look like hens.  "Rawr! James Cameron wanted dragons in a sci-fi setting so he invented us! Screeeeee!"   You may think to yourself this looks easy. You're probably right.  However, I'm an idiot and it takes me about five times to actually properly climb up the vine. Here Ryder is taking both our frustations out on the long plant of lies.  Even with the true villain of this game out of the way though, Ryder still has to contend with the local air force.  My eyebrows! My glorious eyebrows!   There's also soldiers up here, who are presumably here to secure the vital strategic asset of banshee poo poo.  We also have friends up here, again up here for the same reason. Look, fertilizer ain't cheap.  It's also really weird to me, especially in the movie, how these avatars are taken out of their jars and are almost instantly able to move around with the best of the Na'vi. Do they just treat the avatars like cattle and inject them with enough hormones to drown a rat?  WHY ARE THEY ATTACKING HERE?!Earlier  Sir, we have reports that there's a mountain somewhere. PUNISH ITS HUBRIS! Despite surviving encounters with gunships meant to level entire cities, Ryder makes it up to the very important looking area.  These are banshees.  Majestic, bulletproof creatures.  And now, we have the privilege of watching the sacred ceremony of when a banshee chooses a rider.  If you think Ryder's pose here looks bad, you should really see it in video. She flexes at the drat thing like she's a circus strongman.  Seduction! My one strategy! Useless! And Ryder falls to her death.  The banshee assists.  Ha! Deus Ex Gaia! So now I guess Ryder is officially a woman, where in the movie took Jake at least a good few months to actually become trusted enough to even attempt getting a banshee.   Remember what I said in the OP about the controls being way more awkward than they seem? That's at its worst here. I haven't played the game in a very long time, which I know is contributing, but even way back when I remember not having total agency over where your flew even after you'd gotten used to it.  HOW DO YOU FLY THIS THING If this game was meant to be an MMO, banshees were 100% meant to be the mounts that would ferry you around. As I understand it, there's another Avatar game in the works by Ubisoft, so maybe this'll work better in your bog standard Ubisoft liberate-all-the-zones Ubisoft-style Ubisoft game.  What kind of fuel are they using to keep these lit? After enough showcasing of why I my teammates always yelled at me when I used the jet in Battlefield 2, we land near the guy who probably knew he was sending Ryder to her death.   A satellite have worked better, for either of those things.  Ryder's relationship with Beyda'amo is a comedy of errors, in that every conversation she has with him is a mistake and it's hilarious.  Ryder also levels up, and gets access to what's arguably the best weapon in the game.   A CROSSBOW! I'm not even kidding, this thing is able to instakill pretty much anything that isn't a gunship. Only downside is that ammo is kind of rare.  We also have to go flying again, which is more opportunities for Ryder to humiliate herself.  Our quest is to ̶l̶i̶b̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ destroy three towers, again getting the grand tour of the map by way of air.   Unfortunately, the LZ's always pretty hot.  Fatally so, sometimes.  Ryder's got a boomstick of her own, though.  Your cheap crap is no match for my adequate medieval bow!  Getting shot up again, Ryderlet? That's so you.   In a lot of ways, Na'vi mounts in this game function just like human vehicles in that they cease functioning the second you get off them. If the game didn't fade to black if Ryder dies while on her banshee, I'm pretty sure we'd get the treat of seeing it crash into the ground and explode.  Ryder apparently has some explosives leftover, and plants a charge which starts a timer at the top of the screen. We don't get a cutscene for the explosion, so she's free to move onto the next one.  The approach was solid,  and in no way was Ryder killed as she got close and the reload warped us to here.  I am a cool blue cat grim reaper from on high! And now just kind of a reaper from a little off the ground. I could just carve up this fusebox and do the same thing, but it's about sending a message, you know? And so with one crappy tower blown up, the RDA was defeated, and Ryder and Ryderlet flew off into the sunset, never to be seen again.  At least, that would be the story if there wasn't one more tower to topple.  It's gonna be rough! Ryderlet, I'll provide covering fire! You give moral support! Couldn't do it without you, Ryderlet.    With the way cleared, Ryder plants the charges and then saddles up.  Still not totally sure how you're actually airlifting them here. Mystical Na'vi secrets and pulleys. Look, get back here before the RDA does.  And so Ryder complies, landing back at HQ while only crushing one villager when she landed.   Well maybe I'm done with you first. Huh? Ever thought of that?  For the record, I'm leaving because you're a jerk, not because you told me to.  "See what you can do" about the flying multi-million-dollar death machine? I see myself dying. Kind of horribly.  The way these Dragons shoot, I'm not even sure if they're aiming anything and it was instead hijacked by some drunken pilots who are basically doing the RDA merc equivalent of smashing mailboxes.  Again, not a helpful hint against something that can fly. "Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!" "Hey, what's that button that says SYS1 do?" "Iunno! Press it!"  Time to literally slay a dragon.  I'd call this a boss fight, but more a platforming challenge. You climb to the top of the Na'vi towers, then stab it its roof.  There's also these guys, and they're adorable trying to stop Ryder.  Once we get to the top, Ryder prepares to strike righteous fury down upon the machine. This consists of her driving her knives through the roof, once.  "What was that?" "I think the FR1 rotor just crapped itself." "Nerd! Someone get the Nerd Paddle!" "Did someone say paddle?" "Guys, we are SERIOUSLY under attack by-" "Pad-dle! Pad-dle! Pad-dle!"  Game's being super passive-agressive here. "UGH. Get BACK on the dragon and destroy it, since your clumsy rear end fell off the first time."   It's not much of a challenge to get up anyway, and Ryder repeats keying their fancy Rolls-Royce of a gunship.   "The other forward rotor just went!" "Hey guys, get the The-Forward-Rotor-Just-Went Paddle!" "The-Forward-Rotor-Just-Went Paddle! The-Forward-Rotor-Just-Went Paddle! The-Forward-Rotor-Just-Went Paddle!" "WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE THAT?!"   With the glowing vines and the Na'vi towers being just the right length to enable an attack from above, maybe the locals just built these things on the assumptions that the Dragons would at least give them a fiar chance of beating them.  Slaying giants has nothing on this.   "Dude, they're gonna see the dents! We are gonna get in so much trouble!" "My dad's gonna kill me!"  A little over an hour into the game and Ryder's already done more than Jake Sully did.  Unfortunately, the cavalry arrives, piloted by sober people.   The gunners, though, still very much plastered.   Still, it's enough to knock Ryder out of her link bed.  Why does everything...  Taste like comaaaaaaaaa Ryder slowly wakes up to the sensation of not being dead.  This lady's either doing magic or using Ryder's soul as a lamp, and it's either/or at this point.   wait what  I mean, he'd never died before. Also, why do I feel like I just took a poo poo and died? Ha ha, very funny. Who put you up to this? Harper, where are you? You can come out now.  Beyda'amo, I appreciate your dedication to the gag but you can stop now.  Look, you can stop the prank. I get it. Pretend I died and you somehow stuffed my mind in my avatar, permanently. Everyone has a laugh at the stupid Sky Person. Har har har. Wait a minute, what's that on the table with me? Oh very funny guys, you made a fake corpse of my human body. With realistic bullet wounds. And rigor mortis. And that one tattoo you would have no way of knowing about. ... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
Blarghalt fucked around with this message at 03:33 on May 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
May 3, 2018 02:52
|
|
|
And thus the 'kinda paraphrase the plot of the movie' parade continues. Is the bow and arrow the only one you have with unlimited ammo? Like, why would you use that when you have a heavy machine gun sized for an eight-foot giant, but I didn't remember there were ammo limitations for some weapons.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2018 14:31
|
|
|
Geomancing posted:And thus the 'kinda paraphrase the plot of the movie' parade continues. You also get unlimited ammo for your machine gun when you first use your avatar, but then I guess Ryder stops wearing the bandana for it after she defects.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2018 16:26
|
|
|
I really appreciate your One Sane Woman Ryder, I just want you to know that. This Na'vi dialogue is painful as hell. When are we gonna get past the Mystical Native archetype as a people?
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2018 08:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 23:17 |
|
|
Samovar posted:Edit: At least the writing in the movie (and this game) can't be as bad a Major/Minor!
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2018 10:50
|
|
