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         A long time ago, a group of French guys decided that they wanted to make a game. Drawing inspiration from a number of cosmic horror stories, along with parts of voodoo and a plethora of other sources they made what would become considered by most to be the start of mainstream success for a horror game. And that game was called 'Alone in the Dark'....but while the gif above says that, we aren't going to be playing the original installment in the franchise. After three sequels of slowly decreasing quality and a relatively well received reboot, the franchise had lost most of it's sheen as a number of other horror titles had come to outshine 'Alone in the Dark' over the years. Which brings up to the real subject of our let's play this time around, Alone in the Dark (2008). Developed by Eden Games (a company mostly known for making massively lackluster driving games) and published by Atari (who had recently been bought out by Alone in the Dark's previous publisher Infogrames and who would go bankrupt completely in 2013), AiTD 2008 is considered by most people to be a fairly poo poo game. The devs tried to make a cinematic and expansive open world horror experience and sadly they just weren't able to deliver. Features feel poorly implemented, unnecessarily complicated, or just downright not user friendly. And to top it all off, it was also meant originally to be a tie-in for the abysmal Uwe Boll feature film for the series. This was inevitably partially scrapped leaving the game's lore and backstory a jumbled mess that touches on some parts of the movie while also trying to tie into the previous game. Needless to say, the story is a mess and the writing/dialogue doesn't help things much. And that's just all the tip of the iceberg, but the question remains. Is it really that bad? Well, there's only one way to find out and that's what we're going to get to with these videos. discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Nov 8, 2017 |
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Sep 30, 2017 07:30
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 100% positive throughout this entire affair. That's my plan.
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Sep 30, 2017 07:31
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Mr. Fortitude posted:Oh nice. I was wondering when you'd get to the Alone in the Dark games but didn't expect you to jump into this one. I'm also a little surprised you aren't doing the PS3 version subtitled Inferno, which changes the controls and rebalances the game and fixes the most egregious bugs, which help make the game more playable than the PC and 360 releases. Drakenel posted:I remember this... way back when it came out, I was getting another game at gamestop (Yeah I know) and I basically had a large t-shirt thrown at me. I was like 'eh free clothes', so I still have an Alone in the Dark t-shirt somewhere. Crane Fist posted:This game has one of the biggest gaps between ambition and execution I've ever seen
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Sep 30, 2017 18:25
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Aye, he also did the soundtrack to Obscure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU21vutCTUc where he brought in the same Bulgarian choir. It all comes together really with former French LP man Coulis; who did Obscure and Alone in the Dark: A New Nightmare....who had co-commentary done by Psycho Serum who later did co-commentary work done on Hbomberguy's LP of this very same game! It all fits together perfectly...we all have poo poo taste! But I still have been meaning to get around to Get Even; I mean it's a narrative horror game with Condemned-esque forensic stuff by the studio that made loving Necrovision. It sounds like my dream game.
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Oct 1, 2017 03:32
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 So we continue on through some more tutorials, we meet some supporting characters, I light some demons on fire, and perhaps there might be an earthquake in there too. Ya just never know what this game will decide to chuck at you. Also I was thinking of some ideas for bonus videos and I thought it might be fun to try out a few of the 360 achievements (since the PC version doesn't have any). In this case, it's going to be doing the driving section from the driver section and believe it or not I got it on the first try: Bonus 1: Cockpit Addict Crane Fist posted:I actually completely forgot about doing this one with Hbomb, holy poo poo discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Oct 10, 2017 |
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Oct 4, 2017 05:55
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CommissarMega posted:Say, Niggurath, would it be possible for you to turn up the brightness just a tad? I was literally seeing nothing but a black screen at certain parts in your video. edit: I don't know if it helps at all, but I tried to futz around with the brightness in avisynth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pcjbGoYUe8. If that looks any better then I can probably try to up the brightness overall in this video to maybe help it out. discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Oct 4, 2017 |
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Oct 4, 2017 16:36
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Yeah, it's a situation where rose-tinted hyperbole has probably made the game out to be something a lot worse than it was. Like there's so much venom spit regarding the driving and I expected the worst ever, and really...it's not that bad. It's not amazingly precise or amazing, but it's serviceable. Overall I'd just say the game is overly complicated; there's no reason for the inventory to be the way it is, there's no reason to have to blink, there shouldn't be this odd system when trying to wield a gun and a flashlight. I poo poo you not, you can choose to hold a flashlight and the gun, or you can hook the flashlight into your jacket to wield a two handed weapon. But when it's on your jacket, you can't easily turn it off and on; so you have to keep that in mind. And I'm sure it's 'realistic' but it's also cumbersome as gently caress. And you have to keep the button combinations to do these things in your mind while in combat and it can be overly cumbersome. Not awful, mind you; just unnecessary. And then you have to deal with an equal amount of nonsense when operating the car, but I'll leave that for later when we have to drive more. But yeah, my basic point is that this is a fairly ambitious game by every definition and it's not really that bad. get that OUT of my face posted:Came for what I thought was a ban me, stayed for an LP of a terrible game. But yeah, were there any feelings on this? Does it seem worth doing? discworld is all I read posted:edit: I don't know if it helps at all, but I tried to futz around with the brightness in avisynth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pcjbGoYUe8. If that looks any better then I can probably try to up the brightness overall in this video to maybe help it out.
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Oct 4, 2017 23:48
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Drakenel posted:For all the things it flops on, the game does some noteworthy things. For one, the whole 'building is collapsing' is done well and seems legit tense. The idea of using fire to finish off enemies for good, even if you have to make your own fire to make it happen, is a good one. And really, the inventory system wouldn't be so bad if it was more easily controlled. Hotkeys to pull out certain things would be of immense use since the game expects you to gently caress with it during combat too. Samizdata posted:That seems a good bit better to me, so, cheers! OutofSight posted:The avisynth fix seems to make things better than the original state. coleman francis posted:The potty mouths on these people, my word. I'd heard stories about New York but I never thought it'd be like this. And anytime I can foist my out of date hipster music tastes on people, then I'm more than happy to.
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Oct 5, 2017 02:59
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Aight, hopefully clearer and brighter version of part 2 is up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL4rLRfh4dU. Also the OP link should be pointing to it as well.
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Oct 5, 2017 05:34
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Mr. Highway posted:The quality in this games shoots off in different directions. The action set pieces and the music so far have been good. The game really captures that "cinematic" feel games were trying to emulate at the time. But, man, that dialogue and story are whole gradations of terrible. Actually, this game is reminding me so much of a movie, I wouldn't be surprised if the writers made judicious use of a how-to-write-a-blockbuster-movie book. So far, the plot is contrite enough and the dialogue is enough of a mixture of poor exposition and awkward wittiness ("The only son of a bitch I see is..." our female protagonist says, with little provocation) to be another summer movie. HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Blame Uwe Boll. Also...how did they make a sequel to the Alone in the Dark movie? I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I saw Bloodrayne 2 the movie where she has to fight vampire Billy the Kid played by the guy who played the Postal dude in the Postal movie.
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Oct 6, 2017 22:08
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 The heat is on as Edward has to take a slightly slimy detour into darkness. But what's the real terror that is lying in what for him down in the sewer...the answer is sassy cult leader phone calls. And for our bonus this time around, we get a very slightly upgraded gun and we do a lil gardening: Bonus 2- Getting to the root of the issue Mraagvpeine posted:It's funny, I remember downloading the videos of a previous AitD LP from these forums and never got around to watching them. I guess I'll watch this LP first.
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Oct 10, 2017 07:31
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Aye, I definitely like the ability to use healing items in a pinch (or if you just have a surplus of stuff) and especially with the limited inventory space it becomes necessary to figure out what works best for a person's play style. But it's a bit weird how the game decides to introduce the player to all the crafting system can offer. I mean, right off the bat there are a bunch of recipes in the phone and if you were curious you could find them there, but then there's also forced tutorials in the next couple of chapters that seem to force the player into using the more in-depth crafting. It's like they realized they needed people to see more of their cool crafting system, so they had to shoe horn in reasons to use it outside of the player's own creativity. I am hoping though that with the next chapter, and a specific encounter therein, that we can do something extra fun with crafting.
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Oct 10, 2017 16:39
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 Alright, so we've regrouped with Sarah and we can finally go the museum and meet the ghost of Theo...or whatever is supposed to be waiting for us there. It's all still a bit of a mystery but it might involve Lucifer now, so there is that. More importantly things are starting to get a bit buggy and that's a good thing for us as long as I can keep progressing. Thankfully we can start to harness favorites now and get easier use of our armaments, which does work out since combat encounters are going to be getting more difficult. I assume that's because there's only 8 total chapters in the game and we just managed to finish the 4th...so we're technically half way through the game but rest assured there's going to be some reasons why our journey might extend. Also I was thinking of making a bonus video to show off some odds and ends in the park (such as a very random usage of the outdated anti-car theft device known as The Club) but after taking a look at the map I realized I had something more important to do....Bonus 3: The gardening continues. It may seem a bit pointless right now but it'll pay off in the long run, trust me. discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 19, 2017 |
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Oct 18, 2017 04:37
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marshmallow creep posted:I am unsure why Sarah really decided to stick with Carnby aside from narrative conceit. They don't really get along and what on earth makes her think he can protect her better than literally anyone else? But she wants to help and the story needs her around so here we go.
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Oct 18, 2017 05:50
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Yeah, apparently the short music clip I used not only hit me with dumb ads on the video but it also limited what devices could play the video. So to support the lovely folks that probably watch these on mobile devices or what have you then I decided to use youtube's editing tool to eliminate the offending song. Apparently though it didn't just delete the audio but instead decided to splice in other audio. Needless to say I'm debating on whether or not to re-upload a version of the video with that audio cut out. I'm honestly leaning towards no because it's such a relatively small part of the video, but if it annoys enough people then I can upload a fixed version when I get home from work. The thing is though that the audio will fix itself once you get past that last bit of the driving section, so it does not affect the rest of the video.
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Oct 18, 2017 22:29
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marshmallow creep posted:Weird. Did I watch the video before that took effect or something? edit: alright, updated version up on youtube and OP has been updated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1xsbpcbhKU discworld is all I read fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 19, 2017 |
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Oct 19, 2017 03:04
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Kibayasu posted:I don't remember too much of what 2008 gaming trends were like but its still a bit interesting to see so many of the things that every other action-y game has now (basic crafting, open world which adds nothing, side quests) and can do at least somewhat competently show up here and be so low rate. Now I'm wondering if we have Alone in the Dark to blame for every single overly simple crafting system and terrible over world. If anything it was a bit surprising that they dumped this game's formula entirely in the next installment, Illumination, where they decided to make a Left 4 Dead clone. Cause I mean, granted this game has some jank and problems, but it wasn't that poorly received. Illumination on the other hand....well it did terribly and was received terribly to say the least. Keldulas posted:That is so adorably janky with the car just materializing below you and the atrocious dialogue and story. Honestly I'd like the story a great deal better if it was just an unrelated story to Alone in the Dark, the tie-in really isn't doing them any favours.
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Oct 20, 2017 21:08
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 So, feeling pretty good. I don't think I'll have to re-upload this video and did pretty well in getting through a massive difficulty spike in the game. Also I managed to swallow bits of vomit as Sarah's Stockholm Syndrome kicked in and she made out with Edward "I'm not the public and I will shoot you" Carnby. Outside of that though, my greater question is mostly...why the sudden change in difficulty? Up to the point the player is maybe dealing with one or two 'humanz' (and yeah, that is apparently the humanoid enemy's name if the achievements are to be believed) and suddenly we're being hit up by six or seven of them at once with next to no items in the general area. And that's after probably burning through a lot of bullets shooting endless swarms of ratz and vampirz...gently caress those names are terrible. Either way, while I do make it look comparatively easy, it's a massive spike that could be a bit of a hurdle to get over. But at least the boss was cool and called Carnby names.
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Oct 24, 2017 05:44
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Trust me when I say that she does become super useful to the plot but it's a bit hamfisted...along with the entire next chapter. It's one of the shorter ones in the game but it's so bizarre after this chapter. I guess it does make sense if you consider each episode kind of a self contained gimmick. Action set pieces and parkour leading into driving set pieces and chases, then suddenly you're puzzle platforming in a sewer and now you're in an open world exploration setting, and leading into a punishing series of arenas and puzzles testing the player's limits. Oh yeah, there's also romance, CPR mini-games, and quite possibly Satan. It's honestly a bit surprising for the bizarre mixture of good and poo poo that this game presents that there aren't more LP's of it. It seems like perfect fodder for a snarky adventure. Also if you're looking for more moxie driven female characters, I just finished an LP of Koudelka and that stars a gypsy prostitute who doesn't take poo poo from anyone (whether they be the clergy, roguish thieves, or even Shub Niggurath).
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Oct 25, 2017 07:04
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Samizdata posted:Cheers on the new installment. Turns out I was your first thumbs up. And here's the Koudelka link since it's already in the archive: https://lparchive.org/Koudelka/. I had sworn there was one done before, then I checked the master list and realized why it was gone (cause of that ol' rapist Azure Horizon).
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Oct 25, 2017 08:41
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marshmallow creep posted:Resources and technicalities probably meant they planned the level with the dialogue recorded and everything and then realized it couldn't be done on time or on budget or without obnoxiously padding an already dense and challenging level. Or maybe it is a joke about the other version. Were they released simultaneously?
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Oct 26, 2017 00:07
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Hel posted:Wait, that's the intended way to beat the boss? no wonder it always felt weird and anticlimactic to me and had me wondering why there where far to many pillars for it to knock down. Apparently I was skipping the first half of the boss fight by going straight for the moltovs. For the boss, I don't know; I was worried about running out of molotovs or general supplies, so I tried to be conservative with it. I get the impression though, if you duct taped him with three molotovs and blew them up all at once he'd just insta-die. Skrewtape posted:I'm really enjoying this LP. Your deadpan commentary over the garbage fire that is this game cracks me up on a regular basis.
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Oct 26, 2017 07:34
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 To tide everyone over for the weekend (and because the next chapter is a bit on the lean side), I decided to go ahead and do the next update. And it certainly is a strange way to further the plot... But yeah, it's nice to hear people enjoyed Koudelka; I was sincerely worried that doing a solo LP of a turn based RPG wouldn't go well but it worked out. Now the question is if I want to do something dumb and spooky for a Halloween special; not to say that Alone in the Dark isn't scary but it's a special time of year. Samizdata posted:I will have to check it out. Baldurk is doing God's work, BTW. And ummmm long story short regarding Azure Horizon. He did quite a few RPG lp's and then I guess he decided to brag about getting his male friends drunk and seeing if he could get straight drunk guys to have sex with him? I guess he justified it as being alright cause they were his friends and not rando's...but yeah, it was skeezy all around. Trainwrecks like that get my attention and it's good to remember the good and bad that comes with the forums.
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Oct 27, 2017 06:49
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Hel posted:I just figured out how to do this and it makes the puzzle make so much more sense than the timing solution I've seen in every FAQ/walkthrough. It also makes me wish more than ever that you didn't have to share inventory slots between normal & key items. Skrewtape posted:The cinematic at the end of this video kicks a lot of rear end. They really tried their best to make Crowley as non-threatening as possible. And then they build up that huge flying enemy as this visible threat and it just dies. Kinda makes me think they had to scrape a boss fight during production or something.
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Oct 30, 2017 21:02
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 Hooray for learning with Hel and things go...ummm differently this time around: Bonus 6- Multiple ways to skin all your flesh off. Also we get to see the many But the footage for the next bit is recorded, and I was able to get it in under 35 minutes...and there's a bonus video that was about 20 minutes of additional content. Those that have played the game can probably guess what the bonus footage is of.
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Oct 31, 2017 06:46
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 So here we are at the second to last chapter of the game and the developers decide to throw us a massive curve ball. Thankfully, I'm a benevolent person and cut out the tedium for you the viewer (though if you really want to see what I cut out, there is a video covering that: Bonus 6- Forced extreme gardening! But since we are near the end, let's cover the plot so far. Edward Carnby wakes from a 70 year stupor where he was a vaguely evil jerk carrying around the Philosopher Stone which houses Lucifer's soul and he now has to do a test to see if he's actually a cool dude or just a jerk. Meanwhile a guy who's possibly a Templar is also trying to get the stone for reasons as yet undisclosed and there's a art dealer/love interest who coincidentally is also necessary in this fated path towards Lucifer. Seems about par for the course for the Alone in the Dark franchise honestly. p.s. this is my attempt at a Halloween treat. I was thinking of making a Remothered video but I figured it'd be better to finish this up before doing something else. marshmallow creep posted:I loved how you exploded so suddenly and violently the explosion didn't have time to render; unless I blinked it was just light the bug, turn into a ragdoll glitch with no inbetween.  I assume this leaves more questions than answers though.
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Nov 1, 2017 07:42
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Speaking of awkward poo poo, my evening was spent trying to figure out exactly what the game expects for the final chapter (which involves being told to get 50 spectral vision to see something....but then needing to actual get 70 spectral vision to reach the final, final bit) and that took roughly an hour. Then spending the next hour getting the next part down...only to have the game hard lock and crash during a cutscene. So the question is now whether I can bypass the cutscene, if the cutscene fails every time (in which case finishing the LP might not be possible), or what I can do. Sigh, hopefully I can try more tomorrow and do a recording, but it's nice to give you lovely people a glimpse into the tedium that went into making this roughly 4 hour LP. Here's a hint:
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Nov 3, 2017 09:21
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Hel posted:Sounds like an excellent opportunity to show off the chapter skipping stuff :P , No but seriously I hope it works out for you, It'd be sad to have the LP fail at the last moment. Samizdata posted:As always, we appreciate the love, time, and effort that go into a quality LP.
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Nov 3, 2017 21:02
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Samizdata posted:I gotta say, I find it ironic that our host decided to LP a game about what is functionally Hell. But good news is that avoiding that one cutscene allowed me to not crash and the footage for the final AiTD update is recorded and edited down, so hopefully that'll get up in the next couple of days. Also was trying to find some way to play the Wii version of the game but am coming up short, though it looks like the PS2 version is the same as the Wii. So maybe I can show that off. Scaramouche posted:Every time you hold the flash light up Edward's weirdly large rubbery hands make me think that he's actually a Spitting Image puppet from the 80s.
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Nov 6, 2017 19:59
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 Well there you have it; the ending. We spent a third of the game in a hotel, a third of the game escorting and saving Sarah, and the final third of the game doing random bits of gardening in a mostly empty, open-world environment with all that leading up to a cliffhanger ending with a follow-up game that never existed. So looking back in retrospect, I still stand by the fact that this is at least a somewhat competent game with interesting (albeit shallow) game mechanics that just never really gets past the tutorial stage to get to an actual story. Instead we get constant text messages near the end of the game trying to fill us in on Templars and all sorts of other stuff that culminates in a rather awe-inspiring, but ultimately lackluster, 'Path of Light'....which is just a series of short puzzle rooms and suddenly a new character who's never mentioned anywhere else in the game. I don't know, I hate to paint it this way but a lot of my good will towards the game was squandered with the final chapter. I should let you guys watch it before you take in the full girth of my input though. But yeah, the bonus videos this time around are: Bonus 7- The Good Ending and while I was loving around to see if Crowley had more to say near the end: Bonus 8- The True Ending.
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Nov 8, 2017 10:16
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I get the feeling that the 'good' ending would be canon and the next game would have you fighting Luci-Sarah and her hordes as they take over the world. Or as she slowly takes over some neighboring borough of New York. Or maybe they'd do half the game focusing on that and spend the other half interspersing parts of Edward's past 70 years to show what he's been up to to show his real fall from grace or what not. I don't know really...the endings were just odd as you say.
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Nov 8, 2017 16:57
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Fiendly posted:I always wanted to see an LP of this game, and the one on the archives by Hbomberguy taught me a valuable lesson for my own LPs: Don't overly praise a flawed game just because you like it and want others to like it as well. If not for the part where it makes you trudge through the "open" world and do three quarters of the sidequests to progress, this game would've had more good ideas and charm than sloppy design and atrocious dialogue. I love that they let you kill the love interest, it's such a terrible idea that undercuts all the annoying interactions with her throughout the game and leads to nothing. They really burned everything to the ground with that ending, as though they didn't even want a sequel and just wanted to make everyone unhappy. But yeah, I was a bit torn during the credits if I really wanted to push the idea that people should play the game themselves. I can't say it's something truly unbearable to play like 'Escape from Bug Island' or the bizarre and boring FPS 'Legendary' but it's hard for me to say that people would actually get anything more out of playing this themselves that I didn't show off. I guess if they wanted to see some of the weird landmarks in the park? Or question why they didn't actually want to model anything in the park after things in Central Park itself? I just mostly bring up the option since it is fairly cheap if people are curious; I mean it's not like Splatterhouse which will run you like $15 used. coleman francis posted:So wait, what would have happened if Edward said 'nah' and never brought his half of the stone to the gate or even had the 'key' not opened it, would lucifer just not have showed up? Does beating the game mean you lost the game?? And I think I always meant to play New Nightmare, but watching videos of it makes it seem like all the enemies are just massive bullet sponges. Samizdata posted:Well, that was...a game. Cheers for the LP. I look forward to the next, as I have previously enjoyed all your LPs I was aware of. What was the "gardening" music? Whatever it was was a hoot. And I don't really ever have qualms about calling something bad, I just find it's too easy sometimes to jump to negativity. This game is actually pretty straight forward and it's difficult to get lost or not know what to do; it's just janky and weird sometimes with design choices. So I tried my best to stay positive and show that this supposedly difficult game wasn't really that bad...but yeah, fully had no issues saying that the last bit of the game was really dumb, and somehow felt overly padded and rushed at the same time. Hel posted:Also Clock Tower 2? Which one? The one that's actually a sequel or the one that's really dumb? Still, someone in the comments did mention the old Elvira adventure game and that made me curious about doing an LP of Waxworks instead (just because that's more straight horror) but that overall just seems like a frustrating mess. And my girlfriend is still in my ear about doing Shadow Hearts but I just don't think that'd work.
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Nov 8, 2017 21:19
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