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N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Prologue

Welcome to the future, everything is hosed

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N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Iron Chitlin posted:

I've always meant to check out the Metro games but never got around to it. This does look really neat though, and I think I remember reading that these games share a number of devs from the STALKER series, though it certainly looks better programmed.

One thing to note is that you kind of got drowned out during the gunfights; yes I know it's the casual thread, but you may want to adjust the audio settings in future videos.

Either way this is probably the closest I will come to actually checking the game out myself so thanks for showing it off!

Thanks! It does have a similar feel to STALKER, though some of the mechanics are better. I do miss the more advanced questing and upgrade systems, but the game more than makes up for it.

Yeah, I've had trouble getting my mix right between combat and walking around sections. I guess I'll put some more gain on the mic for the next vid or turn game audio down a smidge.

gregory posted:

The fact that you said "Cyrillic" and not just "Russian" is a very much appreciated thing. (Source: Bulgarians get super upset by people saying "the Russian alphabet" because it was created in Bulgaria and Russia just decided to use it, too)

Thank you!

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Prologue

Update
Chapter 1

Future Status: Still Totally hosed

(also played with the audio, not too much shooting in this here chapter, but let me know if it sounds better)

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009
You ain't LP married, just get someone else if it's not working. It's a bit strange that you're saying he's the busy one when you're holding onto the video for weeks though.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 2a

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1

Future Status: Eh, could be worse

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 2b

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a

Future Status: Humans are the Smurfs and there are millions of less bumbling Gargamels

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 3a


Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b

Future Status: More deadly, but also more dead.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009



Update
Chapter 3b


Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a

Future Status: Explosive and Exposition trading high

Also, that bingo bash doesn't denote any ties to Wheel in that, that seems like they made some hella weird choices.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Major_JF posted:

I a liking the inside look into the game. Watching someone just take apart a game is fun in of itself.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoy it. Next section (frontline) is kinda nuts for how much there is to pick apart, that I'm leaning towards doing a full kill and a no kill run of the level.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 4a

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a
Chapter 3b

Future Status: No more monsters, they have all been destroyed. The end

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 4b

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a
Chapter 3b
Chapter 4a

Future Status: Full of roller-coasters and mine-carts

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Major_JF posted:

In the previous video that you did, you accidentally showed a slight reality to game logic bug. You were able to put on and take off your gas mask though the night vision.
And YAY rollercoasters!

Man I completely forget about that! Yeah the game does not care for order of operations re: gasmask and nightvision. That really should have been a game mechanic is harder difficulties atleast.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 4c

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a
Chapter 3b
Chapter 4a
Chapter 4b

Future Status: In which 2 stations are destroyed and nearly no one is saved.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Major_JF posted:

:woop: Yay I got a mention.

How did that guy at 31:17 survive the thrown knife?

:)

I checked the video, and replayed it about a dozen times from the original recording to get the conclusive answer- What happened is as below:

1. I throw the knife at his chest
2. He sees me and gets alerted. He then raises his arms and gun into firing position for a brief second.
3. His raised arm gets in the path of the knife, turning a lethal throw into an arm shot (that animation itself is generally used when limbs are hit by knives, but not always hence the reviews)
4. He recoils and things get a little silly.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 5

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a
Chapter 3b
Chapter 4a
Chapter 4b
Chapter 4c

Future Status: It is unclear how literate the population are. Though, it doesn't look good for those born after the bombs.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Iron Chitlin posted:

I really feel for the devs who work on projects like this.

This is the stuff that really gets to me, because you know anyone who was not management did not want to associate with this product at all. I think finding out how many managers and executives got shitcanned for this game would make my day though, as the quality of Sonic games have really turned around. But god, being in the meeting of "hey we are going to cut your time in half for the remainder of this project" would be insane. This is something that deserved some sort of treatment, possibly a book.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Shoeless posted:

I'm struggling to see how humanity really has a chance here. And, why exactly are we getting missiles in the first place? Did I miss a bit where they said the monsters are held together by a command and control center, a concrete position that can be destroyed? Cause I don't remember that, I'm not sure how missiles are going to do much against the dispersed but numerous mutant hordes.

Oh, right, and this is what I intended to start with but got carried away- I'm really enjoying the LP so far, I think you're doing a good job at the commentary and keeping it interesting. I can't wait to see the conclusion!

Edit: Oh, okay, can take 40+ bullets and keep going but being hit by an armored car just instantly kill a Librarian. Well that just raises a whole 'nother sticking point about gameplay/story segregation, oy vey...

Metro 2033 is pretty fatalist, humans are now basically powerless and completely subject to the destroyed future and its inhabitants and the game does a really good job at conveying that. So the missiles aren't even going to do anything about the mutant problems, all of our actions, even if successful, will do nothing to help that existential threat. We are getting the missiles to launch at the Dark Ones, which are a sentient race that have shown up and are only attacking one remote station (Exhibition) from one direction. The game hasn't gone into it yet, and really they should have, but the Dark Ones are centralized in one location and the Rangers have scouted the surface enough to know it's location. You may be thinking, 'but the Dark Ones haves been helping us through out the game and the dream sequences show they are non-hostile so why would Artyom nuke them?' And that's definitely something I'm gonna try to go into more detail in the final chapter.

Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoy it !

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Update
Chapter 6

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a
Chapter 3b
Chapter 4a
Chapter 4b
Chapter 4c
Chapter 5

Future Status: Discovering new species! They are not exactly friendly!

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009


Final Update
Chapter 7

Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2a
Chapter 2b
Chapter 3a
Chapter 3b
Chapter 4a
Chapter 4b
Chapter 4c
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Future Status: An endless metro tunnel

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009
This is exactly why I like this game. There are actual points that require interpretation and it's reasonable to come to either conclusion.

You have a lot of good points, let me try to go through what you're saying.

So firstly, to our knowledge the Dark Ones were intermittently attacking Exhibition. We don't know why they know it was Dark Ones, and we don't get any information about the 'attacks' beyond the bodies left behind. We don't know the intent or purpose. Here is what we do know:
1 These attacks have been going for a period of time.
2 They've never gone further than forward guard positions.
3 They've never taken casualties and our loses have always been catastrophic.
With that, we can see that taking Exhibition and killing everyone there probably isn't there goal, as they apparently have power to dwarf our own and they would have had no trouble doing so.

As far as them trying to communicate, it's pretty unreasonable to put the onus of clear communication on them. Any attempt to communicate shows they are a highly intelligent species and possibly seeking a diplomatic solution. I think that's a reasonable enough premise not to kill their race.

Where you see a hamfisted way to force this plot point through the story, I see a game that in it's design is trying to actively obscure relevant information and to put more inertia towards nuking the Dark Ones, in service of making the ending action less cut/dry and more meaningful. To go back my previous point, we don't know why they are attacking Exhibition now, and after establishing 100% Artyom can understand them, it's unfair to say a diplomatic solution wouldn't be able to be manifest.

So as far as this being a game where the core mechanics are violence. I'd say above most game FPS games, this game has more stages where pacifism is an option. Just about every section where you face humans (minus the first encounter with bandits) can be done without interacting with any enemy humans. I chose not to LP the game that way because it wouldn't show off the levels and videos super short with no action. A fair bit of the achievements for this game are for pacifist running the levels.

As far as Librarians go, you have 3, really 4 options:
1. Kill them. This is what I did, but this is 100% unnecessary. If you look at Pannycakes LP of this game, she did not kill a single librarian because Miller says they are unkillable. I wanted to show it was something that could be done and done effectively, contrary to what the game informs you.
2. Slowly back away while maintaining eye contact. This is how Pannycakes did it and how I normally do it. This way you don't have to kill any of them, minus the cutscene one.
3. Maintain eye contact until they walk away, then move. Through most of my runs I always try to stare down one, and this is the first time it ever actually worked and I have no idea why.
In Last Light this is how to most effectively deal with them so that's why I sometimes try it on 2033
4. Run and pray.

That Dark One is notable as it's the only hostile Dark One the player can and must fight. It's also probably the same Dark one the player is running from in the last level. It's the only hostile Dark One, so we killed that one. Also without killing that one, we'd get a game over so I was indeed forced. The ranger was a hallucination of Hunter and disappears immediately after throwing us the gun.

Beyond a few small points of fact, which really comes down to me not doing the best job LPing this game, your interpretation is valid. We don't have proof that they want peace beyond their word. And some of their actions disagree with that statement. I definitely agree they could have tried to give the player more information, more characters that would disagree with the consesus, however I wonder how much more than could put in before making it to obvious? The fact that it is nuanced is what drives me to this game.

All your questions about what happens now is, well, for another story. As far as I know, the books don't cover it. Infact, Last Light starts with Artyom having destroyed the Dark Ones so Artyom can find redemption from killing all the Dark Ones.

Thanks for watching and thanks for giving me a chance to expand on it in the thread!

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

Keeshhound posted:

As I understand it, this is the narrative the books themselves followed, so the morality system/end choice was probably an attempt to make it more palatable to gamers.

After reading an interview from the author, it looks like the multi-ending came from the game dev side, so they could have easily been just following that morale choice craze that was popping up in games at the time. Also just read the a synopsis of the event in the novel - basically as soon as the missiles are the in air Artyom is like 'oh poo poo I hosed up' and kills them all. They could have just cut that realization if they wanted to be more palatable. I wish there was a specific interview to find out about this, but that does sound pretty plausible.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009

That all sounds good, are there any games that go that try to go that far into those options? I think Fallout/Shadowrun returns do that, though I'm hard pressed to think of any others.

I'm looking to do last light, however it would be in March at the earliest.

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009
Sonic 06 confirmed spiritual successor to Earthbound

N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009
Step 1: get obs
Step 2: turn on obs and game
Step 3: walk away when you get bored, but stop recording first

Shits easy now

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N.N. Ashe
Dec 29, 2009
Editing is the dark path of effort

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