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Angry_Ed posted:And Quantum Leap. And Stargate Universe oh poo poo the loop is complete!
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Apr 24, 2018 21:17
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I remember not liking Stargate Infinity as a kid and watching it anyway.
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Apr 25, 2018 01:27
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I forgot just how terrible the "as you know" exposition when the game starts is. ... I was always under the impression that Star Gate is the second tierest of second tier sci-fi shows, never rising to the heights of DS9, Babylon 5, Farscape, or even Battlestar Galactica.
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Apr 25, 2018 01:31
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Xander77 posted:I forgot just how terrible the "as you know" exposition when the game starts is. It was a quieter success but a success nonetheless. And while it is definitely sci-fi it always felt more contemporary, even with the wormholes and aliens and laser guns, which might contribute to it simply blending in with the background. As unnatural as the direction the dialogue in TLJ takes the way its written and acted within itself is at least very natural. Fiona's just a grand old gal.
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Apr 25, 2018 01:39
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I don't think I can ever watch Stargate without feeling sad about Farscape all over again.
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Apr 25, 2018 03:09
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The sum total of my experience with this franchise is Giant Beast's experience with Dreamfall Chapters. That made it seem preeeettty good.
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Apr 25, 2018 05:40
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Vadoc posted:And Stargate Universe oh poo poo the loop is complete! The single best thing in SGU is when they find where the gates are built and two characters freak out about it like fanboys and then the show's resident science guy rolls his eyes and goes "I thought you said you found something important?" *** I've also always loved how casually TLJ just drops in Fiona being a lesbian. Granted, she's not a major character, but it's nice that it's just included and not much is made of it. Gaz-L fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Apr 25, 2018 |
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Apr 25, 2018 15:30
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Xander77 posted:I was always under the impression that Star Gate is the second tierest of second tier sci-fi shows, never rising to the heights of DS9, Babylon 5, Farscape, or even Battlestar Galactica. depends on which Stargate, and even which season because the quality varied a lot. I'd say it definitely had its moments which were just as good as any of the above, but it wasn't consistent. For example, SG-1 season 1 was really bad because they were still learning WTF to do and then they got good and then they let it run for too many seasons as the vancouver TV sci-fi actors employment center (notably, with half of Farscape's cast). Atlantis started stronger than SG-1 did but had the worst possible 'whoops we're cancelled' ending. That kind of thing.
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Apr 25, 2018 18:10
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one of the endearing elements about stargate sg-1 is that the writing was better than usual at remembering previously encountered alien tech, and there usually was a handwave why this time they couldn't use the anti-invisibility watchamacallit from last season because [reason]. And quite a few times they did reuse the alien as a solution to the problem of the week. In addition, through the season earth does in fact become bigger, stronger faster. The first season starts with 10 teams of 4 going on exploration in a universe they know nothing about, with kind of the knowledge that there are body-controlling snakes. The show ends with earther colonies in at least two galaxies, a decent collection of alliances and a small but powerful fleet of baller spaceships. and they blew up a solar system. several times. double nine fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Apr 25, 2018 |
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Apr 25, 2018 19:27
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double nine posted:one of the endearing elements about stargate sg-1 is that the writing was better than usual at remembering previously encountered alien tech, and there usually was a handwave why this time they couldn't use the anti-invisibility watchamacallit from last season because [reason]. And quite a few times they did reuse the alien as a solution to the problem of the week. No, one of those times they only blew up five-sixths of a solar system.
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Apr 25, 2018 19:55
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They also genocided an entire race of gods, though it took two tries and two different superweapons to do it.
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Apr 25, 2018 20:15
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Kurieg posted:They also genocided an entire race of gods, though it took two tries and two different superweapons to do it. Are you counting one of those as the time they locked Alien Jesus in an eternal stalemate, or does she count separate?
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Apr 25, 2018 21:06
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Yeah, they had to use the Ark of Truth to bring her down to a level where the eternal stalemate could take place. And the Ark of Truth is basically a warcrime in a box.
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Apr 26, 2018 15:03
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Apr 30, 2018 17:08
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Never knew a lot of the great Asimov facts in the review, thx Bobbin.
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Apr 30, 2018 20:43
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Is it just me or is this game really overwritten? Every conversation this episode seemed to take twice as long as it needed to.
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Apr 30, 2018 23:27
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I don't mind the verbosity of the game, helps give the world and characters a lot of background, also doesn't seem unnatural as if people just chirped each other with short quips. They actually hold a conversation. It can take a while when going through everything but I remember the game really sucking me in when I last played through it.
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May 1, 2018 02:10
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Dabir posted:Is it just me or is this game really overwritten? Every conversation this episode seemed to take twice as long as it needed to. Bobbin's exhausting the conversation as he goes; thus we are in fact getting twice what is 'needed' in most cases. Generally you'd probably end up going back and forth at times and maybe you wouldn't listen to everybody's backstory all at once. That does make these first few scenes exposition-heavy, but in truth, it's not like it really speeds along at any point. Getting all those details in is where the game shines, and I think the 'novel' label is accurate.
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May 1, 2018 06:31
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Dabir posted:Is it just me or is this game really overwritten? Every conversation this episode seemed to take twice as long as it needed to. quote:The Best Novel I Ever Played: The Longest Journey (and company) You're either here for the dialogue or you're going to think this the whole game.
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May 1, 2018 08:08
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You make it sound as though Asimov was literally the model for Vonnegut's take on sci-fi writers. There are The rarely mentioned secret of SF is that novel premises are a dime a dozen. It's what you do with them that counts. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 12:10 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 09:23
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Xander77 posted:The rarely mentioned secret of SF is that novel premises are a dime a dozen. It's what you do with them that counts. Talk to me about the 500000 sci-fi novels I have read because the summary on the back sounded cool, only to find out that the author couldn't write if they had a gun held to their head.  Engines of God by Jack McDevitt, anything by Peter F Hamilton... guaranteed you can think up examples. Guaranteed we can argue over who I think can write well or not. But drat, it hurts that such cool ideas get held back by people who have no ear for dialogue or anything! And on the other side of the coin - we've definitely got good writers in the genre. I'm reading Leigh Brackett now, and she's excellent. (Helps that she wrote the screenplay for the Big Sleep!) I'm also reading Randall Garrett and it out and out reads like someone mashed up a sci-fi/fantasy idea with the dialogue and snappy pace of a noir film. There's a mystery, there's a cop, there's also giant telepathic cats and sword-fights, because why not.
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May 1, 2018 10:42
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The Strugatski brothers are my go-to example, but their writing didn't get the careful translation it deserves, so can't exactly recommend them to an English speaking audience. Bujold, Zealazny, Heinlein (samey when you read too much in one istting, but at least unique) are some other examples.
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May 1, 2018 12:12
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Xander77 posted:You make it sound as though Asimov was literally the model for Vonnegut's take on sci-fi writers. There are I think what sets Asimov apart is that he doesn't really try to write what he can't. As a result, his dialog might be dry but it's rarely dull, especially since his characters always get straight to the point. That and he always goes somewhere interesting with his premise. The evolution of the Foundation over the Foundation Trilogy is a good example: the idea is that a scientist has predicted galactic history with such accuracy that not only does he know the Galactic Empire is about to fall, but by creating a seed at the galaxy's edge (the Foundation), the galaxy will be reunited in a relatively short time and under a stronger government. Everything goes smoothly at first, but then the galaxy jumps the rails in the second book, and when it comes back to those rails in the third it becomes obvious that the scientist also created a shadowy Second Foundation with psychic powers to safeguard his plan.
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May 1, 2018 15:49
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Dabir posted:Is it just me or is this game really overwritten? Every conversation this episode seemed to take twice as long as it needed to. Ragnar is very verbose in general, and the Buffy-banter is one of the biggest dealbreakers on whether you like this or not. The other one Bobbin may reach within couple videos, and everyone who has played this will curse those two words. GuyUpNorth fucked around with this message at 17:29 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 16:31
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So far it feels like, yeah, the conversations are abnormally wordy. Usually this would be fine in books or whatever but having voice acting really underlines it. I’ve started to just skip forward ten seconds in the video whenever a big block of text shows up in the subtitles, it’s working well so far. We can read faster than you can talk, non-playable character
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May 1, 2018 18:43
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Jay Rust posted:So far it feels like, yeah, the conversations are abnormally wordy. Usually this would be fine in books or whatever but having voice acting really underlines it. I’ve started to just skip forward ten seconds in the video whenever a big block of text shows up in the subtitles, it’s working well so far. Dialog - obviously. Running animations - Bobbin already mentioned those. All other animations? Sure. Cutscenes? Absolutely. It's a shame that never caught up. Ragnar might be pretty far up his own rear end, but not nearly as far up his rear end as the average game studio "creative professional" who has to make damned sure the players don't skip a single lovingly rendered bit of recycled plot and spectacle.
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May 1, 2018 19:22
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May 7, 2018 18:14
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So what combination of button presses do you need to do on the date to hold Zack's neck inside of a dream portal while it closes?
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May 7, 2018 19:14
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They predicted NFC payments, but not the demise of boom boxes. I never saw the jukebox scene before -- that's pretty neat. I also never noticed just how much of what Cortez said is predicting what will literally be happening soon in the story. I hope next week is going to be the book and not just the movie(s!?), or failing that, is 100% focused on the music video for that song.
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May 7, 2018 21:30
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I did the night job when I played, since April sounded like she needed the money after buying the train pass. I didn't even know there was another option until later, possibly after talking to Fiona and then looking up FMVs. One thing that bugged me about the jukebox scene, that the forest scene deals with, is things going back to normal. The flute player stops, looks around in its own amazement and realization, and then bam, loading screen. When I played, I was expecting a follow up game scene dealing with the creature now potentially stuck in our world and the big shakeup that would cause, not April getting out of bed. Agree wholly on Firebird. One of the books I have that has been read multiple times. Do you also like Lackey's Black Swan, since it does similar bending of old tales and tropes?
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May 8, 2018 02:03
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Zagglezig posted:Agree wholly on Firebird. One of the books I have that has been read multiple times. Do you also like Lackey's Black Swan, since it does similar bending of old tales and tropes? Haven't read Black Swan, actually. I'd consider doing so now, but I've kind of got a big reading list I need to finish first.
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May 8, 2018 03:08
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Oh my god I'd forgotten just how much if a perfect embodiment of rear end in a top hat Zack is.
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May 8, 2018 07:24
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 If you have trouble figuring out the pronunciation of a foreign mythological figure, the internet is at your service.
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May 8, 2018 13:15
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Maybe you are the right person to ask.. What is up with the intricate scheme to hide the heart in a diamond in a duck in a rabbit on a tree? Some foreign allegory or wordplay i am missing or just someone's fetish?
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May 8, 2018 13:53
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OutofSight posted:What is up with the intricate scheme to hide the heart in a diamond in a duck in a rabbit on a tree? Some foreign allegory or wordplay i am missing or just someone's fetish?
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May 8, 2018 13:59
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What always confused me is how old some characters in this game are. I guess the low resolution 3D models don't really manage to deliver facial details for the characters. I never knew you can choose to work the night and not see the film scene.
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May 10, 2018 11:48
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OutofSight posted:What is up with the intricate scheme to hide the heart in a diamond in a duck in a rabbit on a tree? Some foreign allegory or wordplay i am missing or just someone's fetish? Xander77 posted:AFAIK, it's just a way to justify the hero journeying through Yeah, it's pretty much the fairytale version of redundant security. Sure, you could just magically pop your heart in an egg and hide it, cause who would look for a heart in an egg, plus eggs are small. Or you get the full package: they gotta get past the dragon, they gotta not die climbing up and down a giant tree, they gotta open a locked chest, they gotta catch and kill a rabbit before it runs off and hides, they gotta catch and kill a duck before it flies out of reach, and then they gotta break a Mohs 10 diamond. All before you, a super powerful bad person, notice what's going on and hunt them down.
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May 10, 2018 18:13
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Speaking from a writer's perspective, one of the easiest ways to ratchet up the difficulty of a challenge is to add extra hurdles. So you've got the diamond-egg-duck-hare thing, and then to win a princess's hand in marriage you've got to complete three impossible tasks, or maybe you have to complete
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May 11, 2018 02:02
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Heist movies are kind of a descendant of this kind of story since they also set up a series of challenges the protagonists have to overcome to reach their goal. Yeah, "defeat this very difficult safe combo" is not nearly as exciting as "crack the safe AND bypass the guards AND avoid the pressure plates AND swap in a forgery". And it lets the heist play to a team with various skills rather than one person who does something really well (though now that I say that, "get this one guy to the place they can do something" can be an interesting goal).
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May 11, 2018 03:04
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"The boundary between worlds is gone -- oh wait, no, there it is." What a scene. I was hoping we'd jump worlds or something but I guess Cortez has to be a bit more cryptic at us first.
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May 11, 2018 03:28
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