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OutOfPrint posted:Ultimately, what dragged down MP3's plot for me is that Max doesn't have a motivating reason to care. In MP1, Max had a vengeance quest against the people responsible for his wife and daughter's murders. In MP2, he had Mona making him feel something like love. In MP3, he has a paycheck. He has no personal stake in the matter. He hates the people he's paid to protect. There's nothing keeping him in Brazil other than maybe not having enough money for a plane ticket once things start going pear shaped. If the character has no motivation to continue on, why should the player? I’d disagree with him having no motivation. Yes, it’s a paycheck at first, but after the deaths of his wife in the first game and Mona in the second, it strikes me as totally in-character for him to try to rescue the woman he’s supposed to be body guarding after she’s kidnapped while he’s drinking on the job. The Hoboken bar scene totally sets up the fact that he can’t even take someone being a handsy douchebag to a woman without dropping bodies. And after she’s murdered, he has every reason to realize he’s a complete disaster of a human being, he’s out for revenge and to stop the organ trafficking ring. Also to give his employers exactly what they paid for, someone whose only real use is to kill a lot of people.
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Jul 25, 2018 20:52
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He stays in Brazil because at first hes trying to do his job and then its out of by his own admittance a hosed up desire to repay the people who gave him a second chance and he failed because he has literally nothing else in his life. I actually thought it was the best of the MP plots, and it doesnt hurt that the big plot twist about whats really going on has literally no interest to max nor was he even trying to investigate it.
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Jul 25, 2018 20:53
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Sunswipe posted:Only ever played the demo. Remember thinking "These interactive cutscenes are cool, I hope the gameplay matches up." Then I found out that was the gameplay. Heavy Juice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9bFb3kpKeM
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Jul 25, 2018 20:56
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I played the mission three hours ago and I can't remember seeing Max gently caress up in any way when the woman is taken. Is it all in his head? Maybe the family should have hired more than two dudes for security.
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Jul 25, 2018 21:04
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Icochet posted:I played the mission three hours ago and I can't remember seeing Max gently caress up in any way when the woman is taken. Is it all in his head? He points out hes boozy, not paying attention, didnt investigate, wasnt near her. Max isnt just pissed that his heroics didnt work out, hes pissed at himself he even had to at all. Theres more security then the two of them, theyre just personal body guards.
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Jul 25, 2018 21:06
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Barudak posted:He points out hes boozy, not paying attention, didnt investigate, wasnt near her. Max isnt just pissed that his heroics didnt work out, hes pissed at himself he even had to at all. Fine. Though they could have made it clearer, like have him poo poo his pants and be cleaning himself up in the bathroom when poo poo hits the fan. Simply not anticipating a surprise attack is still pretty weak guiltwise.
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Jul 25, 2018 21:15
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Icochet posted:Fine. Though they could have made it clearer, like have him poo poo his pants and be cleaning himself up in the bathroom when poo poo hits the fan. Simply not anticipating a surprise attack is still pretty weak guiltwise. He had a drink in his hand and was nowhere near the principal. There’s “not expecting a surprise attack” and then there’s “not doing your job”.
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Jul 25, 2018 21:16
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Ugly In The Morning posted:He had a drink in his hand and was nowhere near the principal. There’s “not expecting a surprise attack” and then there’s “not doing your job”. Was he not at all responsible for the cokehead brother?
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Jul 25, 2018 21:19
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Brazilianpeanutwar posted:I've been playing Stalker : shadow of Chernobyl and i'm loving it so far but I've been trying to do this mission where you find a guys gun that he lost and it's been driving me crazy. I had a quest to get a gun from some guy that was supposed to be in Dark Valley but my marker was in the Agroprom sewers, and when I got there I found a generic spawn of bandits and something like half a dozen guns, including the quest gun, sitting in the MIDDLE of the electric anomaly right at the beginning. So the quest boss and his posse just wandered into the murder hallway and died ages before I even got there apparently. Had to spend something like 20 minutes trying to get the loving thing out without getting fried, that's the true Stalker experience right there. quote:The actual twist is that Alice isn't a deviant. She's still 100% running her original programming. Wow I can't believe Cyberlife programmed in murdering Todd with a handgun into their child product line, that's some attention to detail and definitely not a deviant child bot.
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Jul 25, 2018 23:36
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Perfect Potato posted:Wow I can't believe Cyberlife programmed in murdering Todd with a handgun into their child product line, that's some attention to detail and definitely not a deviant child bot. Ok, mostly not a deviant. Kara starts self-deluding (possibly because of imperfectly wiped memory and other malfunctions) even before you do the "BECOME DEVIANT" bit for her so I assume Alice might be a little off too. Kamski is totally the kind of guy who'd do that though since it's heavily implied he planned the roborevolution and wants to watch it happen from the safety of his bunker surrounded by his sexbots (who are intentionally an older shittier model that won't rebel).
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Jul 26, 2018 01:01
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Detroit is absolutely lying to the player about (kara plot spoilers) the kid being a robot. Once we accept 'the child has to eat and can get sick' we also have to accept that if the game goes 'TRICKED YA she's actually just PRETENDING that she has to eat and can get sick' we are calling that a lie. I literally don't trust David Cage's god-awful, 7th grade creative-writing class tier writing skills enough to accept that any 'foreshadowing' to this bad, nonsensical twist were intentional. David Cage does not do 'world building,' he just slaps characters down and has them do stereotypical or archetypal things because he only writes characters that are stereotypes or archetypes. David probably just watched that creepy AI movie about the android kid getting frozen in ice and staring at a wooden statute for all eternity and decided "My game needs a robot kid!" And didn't care it made Kara look like a complete dumbass for not being able to tell when she's talking to a robot. Combine that with poo poo like the magazine with her on it being blurred out so you can't tell, and it's blatant that it's just Cage doin' that thing where he goes "Oh I know you're playing as this guy but he snuck off and murdered somebody, then reacted like he didn't even though he's totally alone, meaning he's literally -lying to the player- in a situation that should not have been included because it forces him to lie to the player" or "Girl who only exists to be put in sexually aggressive peril finds out who the killer is, and even though we hear literally everything else our avatar hears, the camera zooms out and looks at something else and we don't hear who it is to increase the dramatic tension, even though it breaks all the internal rules the game had already set up, purely to gently caress with the player and not let them find out a twist." I've been following David Cage's work since Omikron and it gets worse every loving game; his best work was the Kara short film that was a 'prequel' to Detroit and completely non-interactive. He needs to just make a loving movie already; he literally doesn't write video game stories. And that loving movie should be "Connor N' His Buddy Hank: Cop Buddies"
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Jul 26, 2018 02:33
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I'm convinced Hank and Connor's segments were written by someone else. They're not good exactly, but they approach genuine attempts at science fiction with something resembling someone who knew what they were doing. Even if these tropes are well worn in this sub genre of science fiction (e.g. can robots feel empathy) it feels like it's at least trying, and has characters I give a poo poo about.
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Jul 26, 2018 02:53
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The fact Connor has to be kind of a prick but still have a good heart to make Hank like him is absolutely excellent and makes it so Connor's run is the most emotionally involving because Hank isn't GENERIC ROBOT REVOLUTIONARIES or I AM A HUMAN CHILD I PROMISE YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT ME, he's this grumpy old rear end in a top hat who hates yes-men and won't befriend you until you've shown him that you have at least a mild capacity to think for yourself, which manages to be several magnitudes deeper than anything else in the game. Why, yes, I do think Detroit should have been Connor And Hank's Wacky Adventures In Robot Detective-ing instead of David Cage writing I, Robot fanfiction
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Jul 26, 2018 03:07
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Not to mention all these androids are able to easily remove their head LED and that it leaves no discernible mark whatsoever. Also there being like, 2 android children in the entire game, despite having entire marketing campaigns for them and multiple visits to android stores.
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Jul 26, 2018 04:00
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Oh god I didn't even remember that stupid chip. They make it like one whole hour before somebody just pops that loving thing out. And it's not even connected to anything, it's like a sticker or something. I thought it was the power button originally, so like, taking it off would kill the robot but nope, it's just a magically powered light up sticker. Speaking of killing robots, why do they feel pain? There's several scenes where robots very clearly experience pain, even though there's also several moments that clearly indicate that they don't, but the plot seems to literally be "somebody engineered a race of living, sentient, feeling machines explicitly for slavery." Nobody would make them look human if that was the case, they'd have roombas for heads or something, or at least be mannequins like in I, Robot. David Cage please start writing movies, you are extremely bad at games writing, holy poo poo. I feel like a lot of the problem is that Cage absolutely cannot get outside his own head. He thinks the audience will experience his stories the same way he experiences them, which is a hugely rookie mistake, but, hey, Cage is a loving hack so that's expected.
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Jul 26, 2018 04:20
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Jukebox Hero posted:Oh god I didn't even remember that stupid chip. They make it like one whole hour before somebody just pops that loving thing out. And it's not even connected to anything, it's like a sticker or something. I thought it was the power button originally, so like, taking it off would kill the robot but nope, it's just a magically powered light up sticker. Oh dang this. I watched an LP of it and one of the bigger questions I had was that why didn't no-one else besides two main characters remove it?? Also why did only main characters decide to wear proper clothes and think for themselves? The other robots still acted like mindless robots most of the time after joining the uh, Jericho.
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Jul 26, 2018 06:24
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Sininu posted:Oh dang this. I watched an LP of it and one of the bigger questions I had was that why didn't no-one else besides two main characters remove it?? Also why did only main characters decide to wear proper clothes and think for themselves? The other robots still acted like mindless robots most of the time after joining the uh, Jericho. This is kinda dumb but for both Connor and Markus you can justify it in that they're both special prototypes (they're both RK models) and are better than average. But yeah no reason that Markus couldn't say "yo everyone else, remove your LED it's pretty easy".
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Jul 26, 2018 07:40
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Jukebox Hero posted:Detroit is absolutely lying to the player about (kara plot spoilers) Kara is lying to herself about Alice being an android. She's a deviant because she's developed maternal feelings, while Alice is still 100% obeying her programming (simulates being hungry, cold, tired, sick etc.). Kara knows deep down that Alice is an android - this is made abundantly clear the amount of times someone tries to tell her but she cuts them off because she doesn't want to hear it. It's only when she sees the other android child that she is forced to acknowledge it. Detroit has plenty of completely stupid bits but that isn't one of them, it totally makes sense. bewilderment posted:This is kinda dumb but for both Connor and Markus you can justify it in that they're both special prototypes (they're both RK models) and are better than average. Yeah, the LED thing is very much one of the aforementioned completely stupid bits.
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Jul 26, 2018 09:20
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Yep and I don’t get why all the other androids can’t just pop em out and look like “normal” people and just pretend to fit in. They can obviously change their hair and skin so they can easily fit in; and, why do they still wear their stupid android outfits? Even in that major event I’m too lazy to write about. Why? Just change your drat clothes!
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Jul 26, 2018 12:10
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Anyone ever play The Thing way back on PS2? It was a really cool game for the most part but it had a mechanic where you could collect test kits and use them on NPC's to see who was an alien. Except the game had lots of scripted sequences that required certain character to "thing out " at given moments in the story. So you could have a dude strapped to a chair or standing right in front of you in a small shed or something, you'd test him, he'd be negative but then he'd transform and attack you anyway. Seems like a wasted opportunity for a cool game mechanic and something the developers could have found a clever work around for. The testing kits were rare anyway, as I recall, so all they had to was switch the infected character around. As it was the kits were useless.
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Jul 26, 2018 13:14
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Lead programmer Diarmid Campbell explains "the infection system was conceived as a simulation that had the capacity to play out differently each time you played the game, leading to potential replayability. However, the game was also very story-led with set-pieces that required specific characters getting infected at certain times. These two aspects were constantly pulling in different directions. I think we ended up with a slightly messy compromise with good story elements and a genuinely new mechanic but also some logical inconsistencies which, ironically, became glaringly obvious if you played the game more than once." Having played the game as well I can vouch that you didn't need to replay sections for it to become painfully obvious. It's a big part of the second level that you need obtain blood-tests to convince a paranoid soldier and then people already in your squad earlier test positive. I think the only NPC left in your crew also vanishes at the start of the third level, making it really obvious that they are supposed to be replaceable.
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Jul 26, 2018 13:29
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I remember reading old game mags and in the previews for the game, as said above, it was less story driven and more about exploration and there was a timed element due to the threat of exposure. So IDEALLY you'd want to keep all your dudes together, but realistically they'd have to split off to accomplish objectives such as repairing fuse boxes and collecting supplies. So when a dude comes back from picking up milk from the corner shop you'd have to keep a close eye on him. gently caress, a game like "State of Decay" but your in a Thing-Infected town(like the tv show that never got made) would be great. Bob comes back from a supply run but you've ran low on testing kits. Do you lock him in the fruit cellar and ruin everyone's morale or run the risk of him assimilating someone the next time they go for a dump?
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Jul 26, 2018 14:53
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BiggerBoat posted:Anyone ever play The Thing way back on PS2? yes and it was a disappointment in so many ways... mostly for what you said though.
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Jul 26, 2018 15:24
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There was a game based on Alien for the ZX Spectrum and C64 where the aim was to either kill the Alien or get to the escape pod with Jones the cat. One of the other characters was an android, but it was chosen randomly rather than always being Ash, and the android was attempting to stop your escape. A The Thing game could work similarly, with it starting after the movie's intro (chopper chasing dog, chopper blows up, dog brought into the compound) and one character is infected, but you don't know who. Change the way characters behave each time (maybe Childs will be a jumpy, easily-panicked guy this time round, while Windows is a stoic badass distrusting everything you say) and you've either got to find and destroy all the Things or destroy the whole camp so nothing escapes. I think it would work, but it's just an idea and I have absolutely none of the skills needed to make it into a game.
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Jul 26, 2018 15:56
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Drunken Baker posted:I remember reading old game mags and in the previews for the game, as said above, it was less story driven and more about exploration and there was a timed element due to the threat of exposure. So IDEALLY you'd want to keep all your dudes together, but realistically they'd have to split off to accomplish objectives such as repairing fuse boxes and collecting supplies. So when a dude comes back from picking up milk from the corner shop you'd have to keep a close eye on him. Right except dudes got infected without ever being out of your sight. I remember one scene where the guy was either tied up or sitting in room with you, he gets tested negative and then things out 30 seconds later. It happened a few times.
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Jul 26, 2018 16:01
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I think I might play FC5 today... I think I've forgotten how much I hate those capture bullshit things. But I am preparing for extreme anger. By the way, do they ever stop, or do you get them until the end of the game? And do they get progressively worse/longer? e: and if they do get longer, is there any suggestions to make me not want to throw my controller at the TV? On that note, that bullshit fight in Metal Gear Solid 3 (?) the one with Raiden That bullshit last fight with all those metal gears, I could NOT figure it out and the internet didn't help so I got so mad I threw my controller at the TV and broke it... luckily it was a small TV and afterwards I got a bigger one but regardless... gently caress that fight. I brought in my ps3 into work and had a coworker finish the game so I could see the ending... I was a loser 
Thin Privilege has a new favorite as of 16:04 on Jul 26, 2018 |
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Jul 26, 2018 16:02
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BiggerBoat posted:Right except dudes got infected without ever being out of your sight. I remember one scene where the guy was either tied up or sitting in room with you, he gets tested negative and then things out 30 seconds later. It happened a few times. Oh yeah, totally. The game that came out just didn't work at all. All that stuff was pre-game hype talk where they said they had an engine that was being built that would track all your dudes and all the "things" on a map. It SOUNDED so cool and what we got was... a bit pants..
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Jul 26, 2018 16:11
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I've always said that game was a victim of era, they could 100% do a crazy The Thing game now, but back when it had to fit on the PS2 and Xbax not so much.
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Jul 26, 2018 17:53
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Thin Privilege posted:I think I might play FC5 today... I think I've forgotten how much I hate those capture bullshit things. But I am preparing for extreme anger. There’s 3 areas to liberate in the game, and each area has 3 capture things for when you get to a certain % liberated. So it’s steady throughout the game but you always know when it’s going to happen and there’s only a set number.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:17
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Yardbomb posted:I've always said that game was a victim of era, they could 100% do a crazy The Thing game now, but back when it had to fit on the PS2 and Xbax not so much. that Distrust game on PC looks hella The Thing. i downloaded it but i havent played it yet... maybe i should bump that up my to play list.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:23
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Drunken Baker posted:Oh yeah, totally. The game that came out just didn't work at all. All that stuff was pre-game hype talk where they said they had an engine that was being built that would track all your dudes and all the "things" on a map. It SOUNDED so cool and what we got was... a bit pants.. I don't even see why it was that hard to pull off. Like...if you NEEDED a Thing to show up to advance the story, just have one show up in another room, bust through the door or make it "the cat" or some poo poo. Or change it to another untested NPC, which would have made it even better because then you could know who to watch, keep an eye on and have a gun ready for, etc. The way they did it rendered the testing kits 100% useless, loving up a pretty damned cool game and wasting a suspenseful element of the game play. I wound up really enjoying it in spite of this broken mechanic and wish they'd make another but...I mean...if they KNEW it was broken then just have the testing kits be used in specific scenes like in the movie; 2 or 3 set pieces. Give us 3 kits and maybe 10 guys and let us decide based on facial tics, cues and who has been out of our sight for a while. Make us think and remember who was where. Perhaps even reward the player with more kits for these scenes based on our game play to that point so if we did well and found secrets we get more kits. The tech available at the time wouldn't limit this approach in any way. And , I mean, of ALL the things (heh) to break in the game, how'd they gently caress up something so vital to the experience and that was so easily workable? Especially when the devs seemed to want to emphasize it?
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Jul 26, 2018 19:29
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Didn't you have people in The Thing game randomly do dances for some reason? I remember watching a video of someone reviewing the game and there was a guy just dancing, he tested the guy and it came up negative... then the dude turned into a Thing anyways.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:41
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A good way to express reactivity in a game is to break up into discrete missions and limit the player's movements. Alpha Protocol has no kind of free-roam but you tackle most of the missions in any order and get to witness the many outcomes from your decisions. Witcher 3 doesn't let you kill civilians or put buckets on peoples' heads but gives you agency in every side-quest. If the designers puts down some kind of restriction on what chaos the player can cause it makes production of the game easier but also opens up more interesting avenues. You can play all of Watch Dogs 2 without a gun and some critics think the next sequel could benefit no guns whatsoever, and focus more on the stealth and hacking.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:46
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Leal posted:Didn't you have people in The Thing game randomly do dances for some reason? I remember watching a video of someone reviewing the game and there was a guy just dancing, he tested the guy and it came up negative... then the dude turned into a Thing anyways.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:51
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Leal posted:Didn't you have people in The Thing game randomly do dances for some reason? I remember watching a video of someone reviewing the game and there was a guy just dancing, he tested the guy and it came up negative... then the dude turned into a Thing anyways. That was in Spoony's oooold video about the game. One of the worst instances of the game lying to you about tests was right near the end, you have one guy with you and you're about to enter some deep part of the facility, this guy is one of the scripted Things set to turn as soon as you hit the icy doorway leading in, he tests him, it's clean, he then backpedals to the door, guy literally never leaves his sight and the moment he hits that threshold WAAUAUUUGHHH and the guy starts rupturing every which way. I wanna say he then reloads, tests the guy, clean again, shoots him to death and the guy actually dies human too! The guy dancing all the while was just a humorous bug that he also had. 
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Jul 26, 2018 19:56
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Strudel Man posted:Maybe the thing is in the kits. hmmm... I like this explanation. Dude was negative till I hosed him up with my unsanitary blood kit. Knew I should have sterilized that loving wire hanger.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:57
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Yardbomb posted:That was in Spoony's oooold video about the game. One of the worst instances of the game lying to you about tests was right near the end, you have one guy with you and you're about to enter some deep part of the facility, this guy is one of the scripted Things set to turn as soon as you hit the icy doorway leading in, he tests him, it's clean, he then backpedals to the door, guy literally never leaves his sight and the moment he hits that threshold WAAUAUUUGHHH and the guy starts rupturing every which way. I wanna say he then reloads, tests the guy, clean again, shoots him to death and the guy actually dies human too! The guy dancing all the while was just a humorous bug that he also had. I miss old Spoony. 
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Jul 26, 2018 20:22
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There is one cool moment in The Thing that I still remember: At one point you enter a cramped office and the only thing inside you can interact with is a note. I don't quite remember the details about it but it's the last writings from one scientist, talking about how he was chased and wouldn't make it and if anyone was around they should watch out for this beast that's roaming around. But the moment you stop reading and get ready to leave this huge monster burst through the door, destroying the wall around it and everything in its way to get you. It's not a cutscene and, as far as I remember, they never pull this again, it's just this one single moment where you get ambushed inside a "safe" room but it keeps you in your wits for the rest of your playthrough.
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Jul 26, 2018 21:29
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^^^^to be fair, that game did have some real neat moments. it made a solid horror game just not a solid the thing game.Yardbomb posted:That was in Spoony's oooold video about the game. One of the worst instances of the game lying to you about tests was right near the end, you have one guy with you and you're about to enter some deep part of the facility, this guy is one of the scripted Things set to turn as soon as you hit the icy doorway leading in, he tests him, it's clean, he then backpedals to the door, guy literally never leaves his sight and the moment he hits that threshold WAAUAUUUGHHH and the guy starts rupturing every which way. I wanna say he then reloads, tests the guy, clean again, shoots him to death and the guy actually dies human too! The guy dancing all the while was just a humorous bug that he also had. i remember that NPC vividly because i spent a tonne of my items trying to keep them alive so i'd have a buddy for that ice trench marine gauntlet run. they were a medic and their name was cohen. gently caress you, cohen.
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Jul 26, 2018 22:10
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Blind Sally posted:^^^^to be fair, that game did have some real neat moments. it made a solid horror game just not a solid the thing game. Agreed. I enjoyed the hell out of that game in spite of its flaws. I mentioned it before but I'd like to see them spin off the Alien: Isolation into a franchise of sorts and The Thing would be a good one to build around. You'd have to change a few mechanics, obviously, but even in spite of the broken test kit part of a, what...15 year old game? I still dug most of it. If they re-did it, along with improving that broken blood test element, I'd like to see them make it a real survival horror experience. Scarce ammo, limited resources, freezing cold and poo poo like that. Online multiplayer might even work where you co-op but no one knows who's infected.
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Jul 26, 2018 23:22
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