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Telling a story through subtle(!) visual cues is a lost art in games nowadays. Sure, there's some indies that all do it, but mainstream games need everything to be explained because they are afraid the general gaming populous will be unable to tell what is going on without big neon signs pointing everything out. Everything needs to be explained, even if the explanation is hamfisted and skewed. Making the player think for themselves must be avoided at all costs, especially if the one in charge is a Prima Donna whose "vision" leaves no room for interpretation. Even the Metroid Prime series shoves the story more into the player's face as the series progresses.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:16
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| # ? May 15, 2024 15:19 |
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I love Metroid: Other M. It's so easy to hate. You could be throttling another guy's neck because he stole your money or something, and he could say "but hey! Metroid: Other M is a piece of poo poo game!" and you'd spend an hour talking with your new best friend about why Metroid: Other M is so irredeemably bad. Metroid: Other M is the greatest social networking game ever created.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:51
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I've never played Other M and I don't know anything about it, except that apparently everyone despises it. Where can I go to get the blow-by-blow beatdown? I'll get around to watching the LP on the archive at some point, too.
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Dec 9, 2015 01:09
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There's also a retsupurae of Other M's theater mode.
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Dec 9, 2015 01:44
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EggsAisle posted:I've never played Other M and I don't know anything about it, except that apparently everyone despises it. Where can I go to get the blow-by-blow beatdown? I'll get around to watching the LP on the archive at some point, too. Okay, here's a brief synopsis of the major flaws off the top of my head: * Gameplay is incredibly linear and very simplistic * Almost none of the suit upgrades have any purpose beyond letting you proceed past specific checkpoints * Every once in awhile the game locks you in place in first person until you figure out which part of the (typically black-on-black) scene to look at * There's Metal Gear Solid levels of awful, yammering plot that doesn't ever go anywhere * Samus has a massive Electra / daddy's-little-girl complex with Adam, her surrogate father figure ** There's a scene that solely exists to show Samus weakly staggering about in the skintight Zero Suit (with appropriately titillating camera angles, naturally) while Adam lectures at her * Samus has all of her suit upgrades from Super Metroid, but Adam won't let her use them until he authorizes them ** Leading her to nearly die of heat exposure in a lava zone before he lets her use the Varia suit * Samus has a massive "I want to be a mommy" complex that the game unsubtly bashes you with at every turn * Samus suffers a post-traumatic breakdown ** Which in itself wouldn't be so bad if any other part of the game related to it in any way ** But instead it just gives a chance for another character to save her Okay, what did I miss? 
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Dec 9, 2015 03:31
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The game is Metroid: Other Adam (featuring Samus in a minor cameo role) but told from Samus' point of view because that's sort of a requirement for it to be a Metroid game. The entire game and its story exist to glorify Adam, at the expense of Samus gaining a rather demeaning backstory that makes Adam look all heroic and noble by comparison, culminating in Adam completing the final area of the game while Samus escapes. As for the Samus portion that they obviously shoehorned in, it's full of minor upgrades that are almost utterly meaningless (Hey, you can carry more missiles! And you can still refill all of them by standing still for two seconds! And they're a pain to use! And you know what's cooler than energy tanks? The energy tank equivalent of heart pieces! And reserve tanks that don't store energy, but instead let you recover a bit more energy when you stand still for two seconds after being near death, at the point in the game where that's still within one-hit kill range from most of the enemies you'll be fighting!) and where most Metroid games let you explore and find all the neat stuff, this one marks your radar with the only place you can go, locks doors behind you, and when you get there, you find yourself staring at an obstacle that requires an upgrade you don't have yet, and Adam just says "Okay, that's enough exploring. We clearly aren't ready for this area I made you go to, so go back to this other place instead. I'll let you have the powerup when you get there so you can backtrack." And let's not forget that because they decided to use only the Wii Remote and its NES-level complement of buttons, you don't get to switch between missiles and the beam. If you're locked on to an enemy in first-person mode, you shoot missiles. Also you can't move unless something attacks you and you have good reflexes, and the Wii decides to have good reflexes as well. Most of the time, the only combat technique worth using is charging your beam and jumping on enemies. It used to be pretty satisfying, and now it's a full animation every time.
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Dec 9, 2015 03:58
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So you know how even though she was mostly used as a peep show to reward boys for finishing the game quickly, Samus managed to be the glimmer of representation in the NES age that broke down some walls? Sakamoto wants you to understand that that was all a mistake, and the only things about Samus that matter are A: her amazing boss man, and B: her desire to procreate. There is a scene where she's freaking out at the sight of Ridley, so paralyzed with fear that she doesn't even heed Adam's too-late orders to activate her plasma beam. Even though every time she's ever seen Ridley she hosed up his poo poo but good. Like, Ridley should be the one freaking out in the corner.
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Dec 9, 2015 04:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:* Every once in awhile the game locks you in place in first person until you figure out which part of the (typically black-on-black) scene to look at Personally that's a pretty irritating one to me. Probably not as bad as the "Can't use Varia or Gravity suit because?" If the game was framed a bit better, maybe you could deny the space jump/screw attack or plasma because of very delicate endangered species early on... maybe. But can't stop from melting or being buried under 100 feet of water isn't excusable. Maybe railroad the player for the first quarter of the game before poo poo goes really down hill, then let release stuff in chunks. (Varia, wave beam, speed booster, ice beam, high jump boots) (Gravity, Space Jump, Screw Attack, Plasma Beam) Anyway, back to the Where's Waldo sequel you never wanted. This happens like 3 or 4 times, one is incredibly dickish to me, since it seems it needed to be pixel perfect. Find a rustle in a bush. Not that one. No, not that one. Oh yeah, and unlike all the other First party games at the time, no easy block or magic pig or anything to give a hint. Unless you call youtube an easy block. At least one or two times they lock you in first person were for QTE mini fights, but most were stare at the screen and pray you understand the insane minds who thought it was a good idea.
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Dec 9, 2015 04:20
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The first one is the worst IMO, because it happens as soon as you get off the ship. Blink to first person, no way to move, no clue what you're doing, it's very easy to assume something broke or you're using the wrong controller...
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Dec 9, 2015 04:58
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George posted:There is a scene where she's freaking out at the sight of Ridley, so paralyzed with fear that she doesn't even heed Adam's too-late orders to activate her plasma beam. Even though every time she's ever seen Ridley she hosed up his poo poo but good. Like, Ridley should be the one freaking out in the corner. There's lots of good, valid explanations for this, and many of the game's weirder plot points - Samus has PTSD from watching THE BABY die in front of her, she thought she had killed Ridley for good, she has to wait for authorization because she doesn't want to provoke the military in an area she has no jurisdiction in, etc. etc. There's just one problem. The game, uh, doesn't attempt to explain any of this. Which is why it ends up coming across as badly as it does. I remember hearing somewhere that the plot actually assumes you are familiar with the Metroid manga, of all things.
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Dec 9, 2015 06:50
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Yeah, the Manga is where the "Ridley killed the colony that left Samus to be raised by birds" plot exists. But she also confronts and overcomes that event IN the manga. And by this time she's been through Metroid and Super which had her kicking his rear end, not to mention the Prime games.
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Dec 9, 2015 07:01
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please stop talking about other m
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Dec 9, 2015 07:02
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Other M is a lovely game because people wont stop talking about how terrible it is.
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Dec 9, 2015 07:07
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Okay, what did I miss?
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Dec 9, 2015 13:13
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George posted:There is a scene where she's freaking out at the sight of Ridley, so paralyzed with fear that she doesn't even heed Adam's too-late orders to activate her plasma beam. Even though every time she's ever seen Ridley she hosed up his poo poo but good. Like, Ridley should be the one freaking out in the corner. Keep in mind that by this point in the timeline, Samus has killed Ridley at LEAST six times. She's having a freak-out breakdown over an opponent she's soundly beaten over and over again.
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Dec 9, 2015 14:58
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Tempest_56 posted:Keep in mind that by this point in the timeline, Samus has killed Ridley at LEAST six times. She's having a freak-out breakdown over an opponent she's soundly beaten over and over again. Actually, from what I've heard, Other M takes place after Super Metroid. So, she's encountered Ridley... Three times? Still too many to have PTSD by that point.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:36
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DetectiveDorian posted:Actually, from what I've heard, Other M takes place after Super Metroid. So, she's encountered Ridley... Three times? He attacked her colony when she was a kid. She killed him in Metroid 1, and then destroyed his mechanical alter-ego at the end of Zero Mission. She killed his cyberneticized version in Prime 1, and then his revived version in Prime 3. They had an inconclusive fight at the Ceres Space Colony, then she killed him in Super Metroid. Then MOM happens. So depending on if you count out-of-game events and robot duplicates, they've had 5-7 encounters before MOM.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:52
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All of them done by shoving very heavy ordinance down his throat.
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Dec 10, 2015 00:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:He attacked her colony when she was a kid. She killed him in Metroid 1, and then destroyed his mechanical alter-ego at the end of Zero Mission. She killed his cyberneticized version in Prime 1, and then his revived version in Prime 3. They had an inconclusive fight at the Ceres Space Colony, then she killed him in Super Metroid. Then MOM happens. Prime isn't canon according to Sakamoto iirc.
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Dec 10, 2015 01:31
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Maple Leaf posted:Prime isn't canon according to Sakamoto iirc. Funny, Metroid Other M isn't canon according to everyone else.
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Dec 10, 2015 02:16
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Funny, Metroid Other M isn't canon according to everyone else. 
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Dec 10, 2015 05:31
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The next Metroid game should fake out the player by showing Ridley at the beginning, and then he sees Samus and just NOPEs out of there.
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Dec 10, 2015 06:51
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George posted:The next Metroid game should fake out the player by showing Ridley at the beginning, and then he sees Samus and just NOPEs out of there. Didn't they do that in this game? Ridley sees Samus in the space station, roars at her, then fucks off to Tallon IV.
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Dec 11, 2015 00:21
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Other M is a bad Metroid game because it is, fundamentally, not a Metroid game whatsoever.DetectiveDorian posted:Didn't they do that in this game? Ridley sees Samus in the space station, roars at her, then fucks off to Tallon IV. He also does that in Super Metroid. The one time he did try to fight her at the start of a game he got kicked all the way to the third-last boss of Corruption. Anyway, here's a new Metroid Prime update. In this Metroid Prime update of Metroid Prime, we're going to play Metroid Prime and continue exploring the Metroid Prime world Tallon IV, in Metroid Prime. I'm really liking this game Metroid Prime. Part 07: Like Looking Into A Mira
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Dec 13, 2015 23:21
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Thanks to Slowbeef and Betus, I can no longer take Ridley seriously. And I am okay with that.
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Dec 14, 2015 00:05
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Did you up the video quality or something? I can't put my finger on it, but the game looks different somehow from the previous videos. Maybe it's just my imagination.
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Dec 14, 2015 01:28
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This is my favorite Metroid Prime update of Metroid Prime.
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Dec 14, 2015 01:43
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Blind Sally posted:Other M is a lovely game and people wont stop talking about how terrible it is. I fixed that for you (still technically true)
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Dec 14, 2015 03:37
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The Space Jump and the Morph Ball really cut short the trudge back to the Drifts.
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Dec 14, 2015 07:46
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Wait a second! I mistakenly posted the wrong video! Guys, why didn't anyone tell me? I'm so embarrassed, I can't believe I would do something like that. Here's the real video. Part 07: The Rave Beam Also, for people who have signed up: even if you haven't yet gotten a line, I do still have all of your sign-ups, and you don't need to sign up a second time. I'll be assigning another batch of lines for the next handful of videos soon, so hang tight. I hope people like being space pirates.
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Dec 14, 2015 08:02
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:He attacked her colony when she was a kid. She killed him in Metroid 1, and then destroyed his mechanical alter-ego at the end of Zero Mission. She killed his cyberneticized version in Prime 1, and then his revived version in Prime 3. They had an inconclusive fight at the Ceres Space Colony, then she killed him in Super Metroid. Then MOM happens. The frozen remains of Ridley are shattered and consumed in Fusion by X-parasites and become "Ridley-X". I think that's definitely the last time Ridley ever shows up. Fusion is where they got the idea for Adam from and I didn't mind that game's Adam, but then again, Fusion was a proper Metroid game and let you actually explore a bunch, and Adam shut up after each major briefing. One neat thing about it was that the environments shifted a bit as time passed and story events changed, especially in the jungle biome. And all of the various environments being next to each other because it's a space station full of artificial environments was a great idea, too.
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Dec 14, 2015 08:27
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Huh, I didn't know you could missile Sheegoth's face. Guess I am bad at reading. I used to hate her, too, because doing her only with Ballbombs means you're going to eat a lot of nearly unavoidable damage. It's always close and down to the wire, then, especially if you're still kinda fumbling with the controls. And after a death it means redoing some annoying jumps (especially the one between the floating platforms at the very beginning which were even pointed out) and that terrible morph ball puzzle with the colums. It's immediately obvious what you have to do, but it takes soo many bombs, and it's easy to slip off the ramps, have the metal crate respawn and ugh. Then you die to the boss again. The water puzzle can also be a bitch to get right if you haven't mastered jumping yet, so overall this part of the game just reminds me of tedium more than anything. It's a prime (  ) example of why I consider Echoes the better game overall, it has less "ah gently caress not this poo poo again" rooms.
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Dec 14, 2015 10:40
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There's so many neat touches in these games. One thing you can see that I'm not sure if frozentreasure pointed out yet is that when you fire a charged shot, the flare of light actually lets you briefly see Samus' face reflected in her own visor. It's pretty noticable in this latest video at 12:38.
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Dec 14, 2015 17:45
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What game is this?
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Dec 14, 2015 19:03
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Mraagvpeine posted:What game is this? Xenoblade Chronicles X
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Dec 14, 2015 19:07
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Geemer posted:Telling a story through subtle(!) visual cues is a lost art in games nowadays. Sure, there's some indies that all do it, but mainstream games need everything to be explained because they are afraid the general gaming populous will be unable to tell what is going on without big neon signs pointing everything out. Funnily enough, some Bethesda games are really good at environmental storytelling as much as the more explicit journals you find. Like, in Fallout 4, there's both the clunky exposition stuff in areas but also more subtle stuff, like a bunch of visual arrow pointers someone left to help a runaway synth, or a droid you find killed in a corner with a rail spike in its inventory, indicating it got shot with the Railway Rifle. My favorite easter egg in Fallout 4 is a skeleton of a guy with a hat, sunglasses, sitting in a comfy chair he put in the middle of the subway, with a teddy bear, a cigar in his mouth (another cigar in the teddy's mouth), and heaping helpings of Sugar Bombs and milk nearby with piles of money at his feet. This was clearly a guy who said, "gently caress it, if the world's ending, I'm going to go out eating sugary cereal and smoking premium cigars while the rest of you fools run for the shelters."
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Dec 15, 2015 06:43
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I never checked: are the ice shriekbats still a one-time appearance in the Wii version?
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Dec 15, 2015 06:59
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George posted:I never checked: are the ice shriekbats still a one-time appearance in the Wii version?
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Dec 15, 2015 09:24
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I... Didn't know you could Morph Ball Bomb the Sheegoth's belly. Somehow that detail eluded me. Huh.frozentreasure posted:Also, for people who have signed up: even if you haven't yet gotten a line, I do still have all of your sign-ups, and you don't need to sign up a second time. I'll be assigning another batch of lines for the next handful of videos soon, so hang tight. I hope people like being space pirates. Hell yeah, I'd be down with being a Space Pirate.
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Dec 19, 2015 22:34
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| # ? May 15, 2024 15:19 |
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So why didn't the Chozo... leave? The planet is beyond hosed post-meteor and they had space travel, time to bug out.
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Dec 19, 2015 23:46
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