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Accordion Man posted:Man, and I was just finishing up making my OP. Oh well. You and me both goon buddy. Have to say that my only complaint is they really could do a lot more with the main mechanic than they have. One thing they really ought to do is have a couple of the 'choice' options have a more or less optimal solution if the player is clever enough to figure it out. The mutually exclusive option setup works for walking dead, but it works a hell of a lot less good here when you consider the fact that you really should be able to hunt down a better solution to some of these problems given enough time. But that is just my two cents. Caros fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 05:16
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quadrophrenic posted:Sorry guys! I feel bad Nah, yours was better than mine anyways! You snooze you lose.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:20
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Maleficent posted:tell me about your thoughts on the current state of ethics in games journalism  Seriously, if you aren't just joking, then gently caress right off with that poo poo in this thread about a fun game.
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Feb 1, 2015 09:22
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Roman Reigns posted:A lot of that has to do with whatever it is that's making Kate so withdrawn. I got the impression that its something of a new and recent development with her. Well there is a bunch of references to her having a sex tape despite being Queen abstinence. I imagine having that made public would make someone withdrawn
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Feb 1, 2015 21:35
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precision posted:Either you're being sarcastic or dense because that's obviously a joke. I dunno the voice over when you find the first note and the overall ubiquitous nature of the references to it made it seem to me like it probably wasn't a joke, but maybe I am just dense. Who knows!
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Feb 1, 2015 22:08
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precision posted:I thought the same thing! You do realize that this pretty much spoils the spoiler by virtue of making it pretty obvious what is under it right?
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Feb 2, 2015 06:50
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Rosalind posted:I get the impression you're not American judging by your word choices ("uni" and "mate" standing out). I mean yes the characters are a bit exaggerated at times, but honestly this really isn't that different from the high school I attended. It's just very American teen. Honestly I only think its 'different' insofar as most media tends to exaggerate certain qualities simply because they need to get character traits across in a more speedy fashion. I'm sure if they had sixty hours of gameplay they'd probably tone down some of the character traits, but in an episodic game like this it makes sense to emphasize certain character traits to get them across in a more efficient manner. I'm a decade and some removed from high school and it sure as gently caress felt pretty accurate to me.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:29
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Paladinus posted:Because before attending university, I attended school and can judge from my personal experience? Like where do you think French developers got their ideas of what an American High School should be like? Popular culture and personal experiences with French education. I too think that a game depicting american teenagers in an american high school should not have them acting like american teenagers but instead like some weird hybrid of international cultures.
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Feb 5, 2015 18:09
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FrumpleOrz posted:poo poo, are you sure? I could've sworn an option popped up and I chose something right before Chloe said "I KNEW IT." Was that not between telling her or not telling her? Yeah it is absolutely a choice, though I suppose she might see through you if you chose not to say.
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Feb 6, 2015 21:01
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RagnarokAngel posted:Eh, she doesn't know what Kate's going through. I don't know why Max doesn't stand up for her on that, definitely, a quick "She's going through a lot like right now and I wanna support her" mighta helped but I feel like the entire point is Max has no spine. Chalk it up to the same reason why you can't keep rewinding time to convince Chloe to get the gently caress out of dodge when knifeguy shows up. Or do anything differently than chose from one of two binary choices. Its an issue of game mechanics intruding into immersion out of necessity.
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Mar 26, 2015 02:30
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Nckdictator posted:Minimal proof? Did you talk to Kate about what happened at the party and how she remembers Nathan promising to take her to the ER and instead bringing her somewhere else? That isn't really proof tho. It is her word against his which is with nothing to back it up. I mean, I did point the finger at him but I get why a person might think that is a bad idea.
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Mar 26, 2015 23:38
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So there is a fun bit of graffiti in the last area of the episode that might have gone unnoticed by people who didn't wander off to take a look. Endgame spoilers obvs http://imgur.com/rC6zRW5 Caros fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 29, 2015 07:36
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Anyone else notice the bottle gag in the party? There are three bottles you can look at that prompt max to say "Ugh, no more bottles." Nice to see they have a sense of humour about the fit that people hate the bottle finding section.
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Jul 30, 2015 01:12
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Torgo2727 posted:Someone else made this point earlier in the thread and I agree. "It doesn't matter if choices I make in this game significantly change things. I just want an engaging story." And Life is Strange absolutely nailed it. It has a believable, lived in world with a captivating story. One of the sections of heavy rain had you driving the wrong way down a busy highway trying not to crash via QuickTime events. The thing was, there was no fail state for the event, if you failed or even just set the controller down your character still dodged all the cars and got to the end. The trick was that you as the player didn't know what mattered and what didn't. I think this will be very similar. Not a great replay value, but when you make your choices the choices feel important to you even if they ultimately don't change the plot of the game. Props for dontnod for managing that.
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Jul 30, 2015 23:48
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Rincewind posted:The final choice is how you get out of going to the movies with Warren. I don't see what the problem is. He just wants to get involved in the Go APE abstinence only program.
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Oct 7, 2015 02:22
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SexyBlindfold posted:I haven't kept up with game stuff, was the general reaction to Heavy Rain on the negative side because of the Telltale Syndrome ("Your choices matter!!! well, no, actually they don't matter. Please pretend they do matter"), because of all the quicktime events, because the plot was bad, or something else? What little I saw of it seemed intriguing, but it seems a lot of story-focused games end up catching flak for basically being old-timey point-and-click adventure games poorly disguised as something else. Honestly Heavy Rain is one of the best adventure games I've ever played provided you go into it either not knowing what does and doesn't matter, or willingly going in with the blinders. I played the whole thing start to finish in a single sitting and still have fond memories of it, but I can definitely see how the game can be viewed as utter trash if you catch sight of the man behind the curtain and realize that 90% of what you do doesn't matter.
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Oct 8, 2015 03:16
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Parkingtigers posted:I'm baffled about the need for choices to be meaningful. Sure, I adore branching narratives, but there's also something unique and satisying in gaming where you can alter the tone of a scene through gameplay. Some Telltale games are awful for presenting this/that choices that look significant but which later on end up being meaningless. I'll take some of the things Heavy Rain did over that any time. Heavy rain also did a fantastic job with making gameplay mesh with the scene at hand. The best example of this is the scene where you have to cut off your finger in the mid game. The game requires you to seriously contort your hand to manage it and the difficulty of entering the commands reflects a lot on the sort of paniced "Oh gently caress am I really going to do this" reality of the moment Also gently caress yeah to Her Story. If people in this thread haven't played it I highly recommend it. Only runs about 4-5 hours but it's a mystery plot that makes you feel like a badass as you piece it together.
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Oct 9, 2015 03:39
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DivisionPost posted:Is that on PS4? Or is that another one you PC Master Race bastards get to lord over me? I'm sorry. 
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Oct 9, 2015 04:47
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Viva Miriya posted:MEGASPOILERS APPARENTLY SOMEONE BEAT THIS ALREADY He isn't kidding by the way, it isn't actually a rickroll or something lovely like that.
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Oct 19, 2015 21:21
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Dexo posted:How so? he's a teenager who really likes this girl who he constantly hangs out with who is completely oblivious to another girl who likes him and at least before we get control of Max they seem to be friendly and on pretty good terms It's his creepy stalking and 'nice guy' behaviour. Oh I took a punch for you max, I guess that means you owe me. Heh heh. Women aren't something you put attention coins into for sex/relationships and warren seems like he is really, really close to thinking they are judging by his behaviour.
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Oct 19, 2015 22:18
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Paul Zuvella posted:
 Creepily staring up at a girl's window at 7:00 in the morning from behind a corner and hiding when spotted. Nothing wrong with that.  Responds to being called sensitive with: "Sensitive usually means: won't be having sex with you." Talks about how he'll have to cancel with Brooke if you decide to Go Ape with him Attempts to guilt Max into going to the drive in with him because he already has two tickets. Fun fact, there is a flyer in the game that mentions the tickets are sold by the car. The frankly disturbing number of texts he sends despite getting few if any replies. To be fair its probably just an eye of the beholder thing. I've met a bunch of MRA's in my life and was dangerously close to being the 'nice guy' type during a troubled part of my youth so I'm less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt than someone who sees it as just (hopefully) unrequited puppy love. quote:Warren became a fine and good dude in my book the moment his fists began to collide with Nathan's ratfink fuckin face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQAFvbtMHuI I'll give he won a lot of points doing that.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:05
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GreenBuckanneer posted:The other ending is clearly the "good" ending because it has a lot more closure and had more care done with it. It really isn't. The bae over bay (love this) ending might be shorter but that doesn't mean it had more care applied to it. I'd actually argue that thematically the 'good' ending of the game is the ending where you save Chloe and leave the town to it's fate. The very first time Max uses her powers it is instinctual. Unlike pretty much every other use of her power in the game (First photo and weird timestop thing) Max isn't doing this intentionally, it's just something that happens. From a certain point of view it is arguable that this is actually fate. Max was always supposed to save Chloe, so much so in fact that she breaks the drat laws of physics to do it without even realizing who it was she was saving. From Max's perspective the first time round is the way things were supposed to happen. That very first time she rewound history was something just as out of her control as the death of Chloe's father, it was the way things were meant to happen. Yes she changed things after that, but the tipping point as the game presents itself to us is the very first time around the circle, that it is using her power at all that fucks things up. By choosing to go back and do nothing Max is actually altering history and fate the same as William's death. Ultimately the tornado is just the death of William writ large. It is an awful thing that happens to Max and Chloe, a giant world shattering event that comes into their lives and makes a mess of everything from completely beyond your control. Just like with William max has the power to go back and change things if she wants to, she can save William's life and she can stop the tornado but in both instances it comes at a heavy price. (Ha... get it?) The game presents you with the alternate timeline as a way to reinforce this. People are spending a lot of time talking about how this is a game where the moral is "Don't time travel it fucks everything up" but I actually feel the moral could also be argued to be more along the lines of "If you could change things, would you really want to?" Its why I think the Save Chloe ending is the stronger of the two going along the game's themes. The Save Arcadia Bay ending is a grim and depressing ending that works within the game's view on trying to gently caress with fate. You can change things, but are they really better? You can save William but Chloe has to beg to be put out of her misery. You can save the town but you have to listen to your best-friend/lover bleed out on the floor of a public washroom. Max clearly didn't think saving William was worth Chloe and I'd argue that even going into the supposed 'good' ending she still is clearly miserable about the choice with the only thing that lightens her spirit being the memory of Chloe in the form of the blue butterfly. Meanwhile the Save Chloe ending expands on themes from throughout the game. The Save Chloe ending is all about dealing with reality how it is as opposed to how we'd like it to be. The tornado was always going to happen (it's the first thing we see in the game!), and all the time travel fuckery in the world isn't going to fix it without an unacceptable tradeoff. Max makes her choice and she lives with it. Things don't get better at once, but despite driving out of a wreckage laded down filled with the bodies of their loved ones the tone of the ending is overwhelmingly optimistic. Chloe and Max are moving on, accepting the world as it is and trying to find the happiness within that rather than warp it to suit a yearning for what should be better but never really is. Even the music choices say a lot. The 'good' ending is Spanish Sahara which is a song about an awful nightmarish hellhole that serves as a metaphor for trying to get over trauma that ultimately will never, ever leave you. The Save Chloe ending gets Obstacles which is a profoundly optimistic piece about moving forward in spite of, well, obstacles. It is also notable as being the song chosen for the original release trailer and the end of episode one, meaning that it bookends the series quite nicely. Of the two endings I'll agree that the Save the bay ending had more closure, but only in the realm of "Life is poo poo". The actual good ending for the series is open ended, and like the series it is about making the best of the hand the universe deals you instead of giving into the belief that you can make it better. ThisIsACoolGuy posted:I wanted to see what kind of justification people could possibly have to kill arcadia bay so glanced at youtube for kicks. Hmmm town of poo poo heads or a hot girl tough choice =)... is about the only thing I saw. It is the trolley problem on a grand scale. Kill Chloe to save all of them or kill all of them to save her. It's a moral question without answer because you are killing someone. I'm of the opinion (as above) that they were basically fated to be murdered by the storm, and that just about every single other time travel attempt from Max has resulted in things being worse than the time before. Plus the game gave me no reason to actually believe that letting Chloe die would fix it even if I'm told that, plus NO gently caress YOU DAD! Caros fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 07:13
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Empress Theonora posted:This is a really good post that is making me rethink my decision to save the Bay a bit tbh. Aww, thanks. <3 For what it's worth while I think the Sacrifice the bay ending is the 'good' ending, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the alternative is the 'bad' one. If anything I'd say it'd be better to call them something like the 'optimistic' and 'bittersweet' endings. In the optimistic ending things suck right now, but they're going to get better in the future. Max and Chloe literally drive off together into the sunset while trying to recover from the lovely hand that they were dealt. In the bittersweet ending Max stops the tornado, stops the killer and saves the entire rest of the game's cast. That scene in the diner is there as a strong reminder that like them or not the people just you by yourself interacted with over the course of the game can fill the place to the brim. Neither ending is perfect, if anything I say that the optimistic ending is the 'good' one in my books solely because I think the music choice and overall feel of it is more life affirming. The death of Chloe hits harder to home for Max and even if it doesn't ruin her, her life is darker for the lack of her friend than the death of every other person in town. You're also spot on about the doomed timeline. Another good way to look at the ending isn't that you're choosing who to kill. Multiverse theory seems to be in full on effect at this point so you're really just choosing which reality you want to live in. Caros fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 08:24
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wyoming posted:Yeah, sitting in silence while your love is murdered in the same room as you seems far worse than letting a town get killed by a natural disaster at a distance. One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. I guarantee you that people who watched both endings who don't actively dislike Chloe find it emotionally harder to watch that scene than to watch as the city is obliterated at a distance, even though you know the number of deaths is way more significant. Chexoid posted:It's like, hey universe, if you don't want me to gently caress with time, don't give me total time control powers, bitch. While I get the complaints about people wanting to know the origin of the powers, I fully understand why Dontnod decided to go with the hammy "I guess we'll never know" lines in the script. Frankly I don't think they needed the lines at all (since they were awful) but I get that they were worried people would call it out as a plot hole if they didn't try to address it. The thing about it is that Life is Strange is entirely about that final choice. Everything over the course of five episodes exists in part to drive towards the choice you're given at the very end of the game. Things like the investigation into Rachel Amber's death and Kate Marsh's suicide/survival are designed to get you to feel empathy for one of two groups, the townsfolk or Chloe. At the same time however its worth noting that in both endings all of those choices are wiped off the map. Did you let Kate die? She's alive now. The same with Frank and his dog, Victoria etc. Nothing you do in Life is Strange actually matters except that final choice and that is by design, the main thrust of the gameplay isn't the focus itself, its the crucible that forges the player's narrative and feelings to put them in the right frame of mind for the finale. The thing about the powers is that they're extraneous to that dynamic. The origin of her powers either doesn't affect the outcome of the final choice, or it massively fucks it up. For example, lets say her powers are because she happened to be bathed in chronitons from the terror zone... or whatever. Neat fact, but irrelevant. It doesn't add anything to the content of the main story or change any of the actions of anyone involved. By contrast let's say Max's time powers are granted to her by satan in a weird Faustian Gambit. The prince of darkness knows that the tornado will result and eventually Max will be forced to choose between Chloe and the town, and that if she chooses Chloe that she is forever damned (or something). That is going to massively swing the delicate balance of the finale away from the 'bad' ending and towards the 'not satan' ending. At best the reason doesn't matter, and at worst it influences the crowning achievement of the game in a way that ruins what they were going for by making an obvious 'right' choice.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:08
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Portland Sucks posted:Well that was a 5/5 for me. I'm really really confused about one plot point though. Have you seen the newest X-men movie? It's basically that. While Max inhabits the past version of herself she retains all her memories etc and can change things as she wants. As soon as she leaves the past version of herself the Max of that period reasserts itself and goes on as if nothing ever happened. This is why you get things like Max jumping back in time to tear up the Every day heroes photo only to end up back in the dark room because of an unintended consequence. Past Max doesn't remember what she did when she was inhabited, and present Max doesn't remember anything that happened in the 'new' timeline she's created/jumped to.
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Oct 22, 2015 07:28
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Pimpmust posted:Yeah it's way too neat and makes the whole game plot pointless, especially as Max forgets everything in that ending (no future knowledge to trigger Time Tornadoes!). So she doesn't even remember the "lesson" of not loving with time. Which either makes it inevitable that she uses those powers again because they never really explain when or why she got them or why she'd lose them. She's trapped in a loop, forever rediscovering "don't gently caress with time!" thing, repeating the loop until she "learns" not to gently caress with time only to forget it once she pops back into proper time space an- Max does remember everything once Friday rolls around. Basically she goes back, 'fixes' things an then goes into autopilot until Friday at which point the real max reasserts herself with no memory of the previous week but all her memories from before. It's why she reacts to seeing the butterfly. The clock never stops in San dimas, every time max goes back and fucks with things in an alternate timeline time continues to progress as normal, which is why it takes until Friday for max to be become max again.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:47
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Radish posted:As far as Max and Chloe were concerned the ending choice given to the player was exactly the terrible choice Max had to make and they were pretty convinced of it. If she stopped loving with time from the very beginning then the time tornado, the animals killing themselves, crazy weather, etc would not happen. Jefferson gets caught because his protege guns down a girl in a school bathroom and undoubtedly flips on him to get a better deal the moment he realizes he is otherwise hosed for life. No omniscient time knowledge needed. As for your alternate ending? No. A big theme of the game is max and Chloe being stronger together and the relationship they have with one another. An ending where one of them always dies is a bad ending because both endings are grim as hell. The save Chloe ending has a lot of death in it but it's actually the positive and uplifting ending. Everything is wiped out but life moves on, the animals come back the sun is shining and so on. The choice at the end of the game is entirely between whether they get to stay together or not, and changing it the way you suggest makes it sort of pointless. They will never be happy no matter the cost, so what does it matter?
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Oct 22, 2015 19:10
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Radish posted:Seriously the universe really wants her dead. Maybe the storm is just trying to make sure Chloe dies before she is 21 in every reality and you are standing in the way of that. I just assumed that Chloe's death is unrelated. Killing Chloe later on doesn't stop or even reduce the storm so it doesn't make a lot of sense for the storm to be after chloe, in particularly in light of the fact that she can simply walk out of the range of it. For me it is far more likely that the storm is localized to 'attack' the place where the time travel manifested. So the second Max starts using her time travel powers that somehow prompts the storm through chaos theory/natural defense/whatever to bear down on Arcadia bay, which means the only way to avoid the storm is to do what Max did, to go back to the very first instance where she time traveled and to simply not do that thing. It's still possible that the universe is pissed off at Chloe for being alive, but the lack of appreciable difference if she's dead makes that seem a little less likely to me than the storm as a way of saying "gently caress YOU DON'T TIME TRAVEL BITCHES"
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Oct 24, 2015 03:32
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Incidentally, I hope whoever found their true love in Mexico is happy with what they've wrought.
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Oct 25, 2015 00:37
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TerminalSaint posted:I think you mean failure state spoilers. This guy knows what the gently caress is up. That little girl is wiping up tears because her parents failed her.
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Jan 7, 2016 23:10
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Plom Bar posted:I personally am fond of the "no one knows how to write a loving ending and the writers at DONTNOD are no exception" theory. Life is Strange has an excellent ending, it just isn't the one people want. A lot of people wanted a 'good' ending where everything is sunshine and roses but that was never in the cards. Absent that the game does has an absolutely perfect ending as I detailed a little after release: quote:The bae over bay (love this) ending might be shorter but that doesn't mean it had more care applied to it. I'd actually argue that thematically the 'good' ending of the game is the ending where you save Chloe and leave the town to it's fate. Having played through the game again recently I stand by pretty much everything I wrote back then. Episode five could have used a tighter narrative focus and better gameplay (what the gently caress with the stupid part in the town and weird nightmare bullshit) but as far as sticking the landing you can tell that the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay was an ending that was decided in the very earliest drafts and carries along beautifully with the lessons the game tries to teach the player. I have my complaints with the fifth episode but for me it knocks the last few minutes out of the park.
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Jan 20, 2016 05:05
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BobTheJanitor posted:Yeah, but no. It has the building blocks of a good ending, which a thoughtful person can expand upon to make something, as you've helpfully illustrated. But what the game gives us to work with is literally just 'nah' *rips photo* *ollies out*. I'm a little curious, what would you change? They have a moment of despair watching the town get obliterated, it cuts to nature retaking the area as they drive through wreckage where everyone is clearly supposed to be dead and then literally go off into the sunset as the background music croons about making your way through hard times. I'll agree that the last episode really needed to be reworked to fix things up, but once you get to the choice I have to say that the intended 'good' ending is really loving solid, at least imho. Also yay! Developer commentary!
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Jan 20, 2016 07:54
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