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By popular demand posted:The character animations have not aged well. I bought the game on the recommendation of I think the only Dutch gaming magazine at the time, and while they were pretty kind about it, they did describe being shown this concert scene at some game expo and everyone laughing at Bowie's convulsions.
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Jun 15, 2021 20:20
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You know, James Sutherland at least was properly disgusted when he fished something out of a toilet with his bare hands.
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Jun 16, 2021 10:58
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Kay'l contends in the ultimate underground kumite, gets Den's busted Sneak fixed, and has it out with the wife. See if you can spot which of David Cage's favorite tropes comes up in this video! Hint: it's racist stereotypes!
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Jun 18, 2021 17:39
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Watch the video before reading. Kayl was working in security center when Wife was calling on the sneak "You must come home kayl" said Wife "I'm all covered in blood and poo poo!" Keyl got in his slider and slid to home where Wife left a note "Com to roof Kayl dear, it's totally not a trap" So kayl got to roof and find Wife, and wife asks for hug but keyl said "No way you are a goatdeamon!"
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Jun 18, 2021 19:04
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I have to say, your vignettes at the beginning of each video are pretty good. Last one especially cracked me up real nice. Anyway, I'm in for this ride. This game does look like it has its charm, and maybe it also kinda wants to say something. I'm just not sure of what, and if it's using the right tools, it's bound to at least be interesting somehow. This last round of tropes seen in the video, eg racist caricatures, killing off a woman to spur the main character into action made it start to get uncomfortable though
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Jun 18, 2021 23:19
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The intros are absolutely amazing, and the racism-o-meter is glorious. Between the racist caricature and the fridgeing I think we're heading into excellent storytelling territory, the sort that is unique, ascended and esoteric, the sort that can only be held back by critics, the unprepared and the weak might even be offended by some elements, the plot being infodumped right into our faces by an enigmatic figure is just confirmation of this fact. SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jun 18, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 23:23
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So assuming you don't lose any fights or have any bug-related deaths, how far into the game can you play without leaving Kay'l's body? I'm also getting the impression that there's a lot less to the reincarnation mechanic than meets the eye. From what you said about this new thief lady being able to access the police station, it sounds like the game doesn't put many roadblocks up that require certain bodies. It also seems like a missed opportunity that you can't jump back into previously occupied bodies; if you lean into that you could have a nice little disquieting mechanic where the player becomes something of a ghoul who stockpiles comatose soulless bodies in their apartment and swaps between them as needed.
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Jun 18, 2021 23:33
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Oh man, Omikron. I've actually still got my boxed copy of the PC version sitting on the shelf behind me. A friend got it for me for my birthday (or Christmas - can't remember) when it was pretty new. Wow... those heady days before we knew that David Cage was David Cage. I did finish Omikron back then, but only once. Once was enough. Even at the time, reviews (in actual physical magazines, because that's how long ago it was) described it as being pretty clunky. It was ambitious and doing some interesting things technically (for the time)... but the results speak for themselves. I enjoyed the Bowie music from it at the time (love the bootleg Bowie, by the way), but it's definitely not an album I've gone back to. Marshal Radisic posted:I just wanted to thank you for that little discussion on the voice actors in the second episode. I'm a huge fan of the obscure alternate-history FPS Iron Storm, the only game French developer 4X Studios ever made back in 2002, and as it turns out Gay Marshall and David Gasman were on the voice cast as well. For another Quantic Dream connection, Paul Bandey was the only other English speaker on IS's cast, and he's been in a few Quantic Dreams games as well, including Omikron. Oof, I remember Iron Storm. Speaking of physical magazines, I remember a review of Iron Storm in PC Powerplay that was absolutely glowing, going so far as to say it was better than Half-Life (as far as I remember it). So I was super-hyped, but then the game turned out to be awful. It was so different to the impression I got from the review that at the time I genuinely wondered if the reviewer had taken some kind of dodgy deal to be positive about it.
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Jun 19, 2021 08:02
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mortons stork posted:I have to say, your vignettes at the beginning of each video are pretty good. Last one especially cracked me up real nice. I've been trying to figure out what rubs me, and so many other people, the wrong way about David Cage's games. I mean, obviously there's the little touches of classical European racism and overt sexism, but aside from that. I think the thing is that he just has nothing to say. He gets great artists, designers, actors, musicians, and then he just squanders all of it on his nothing stories. Everything's really superficial, just moving from setpiece to setpiece without any depth. Even Detroit, which looks gorgeous, has good acting, and an excellently fleshed out world, has immense potential for a thought provoking twist on androids achieving sapience, and then Cage just mashes his French rear end on the keyboard to churn out "what if black people but androids, lol not political tho" However! That doesn't mean Omikron doesn't have some twists that'll make your head spin. Also, glad you like the vignettes, because they're going to escalate a little. Marshal Radisic posted:So assuming you don't lose any fights or have any bug-related deaths, how far into the game can you play without leaving Kay'l's body? In another video or two, there'll be the cutoff point where you can't bring Kay'l along anymore. Barring cheats, it's not possible to bring him to the end of the game. You make some other good points that I'll get into later in the videos. There was a game released around the same time as Omikron called Messiah, where you play a little cherub angel who can temporarily possess enemies, and while I didn't play it myself, I think it did more with the concept than Omikron did.
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Jun 19, 2021 21:22
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On to the business of investigating Den's place, more reincarnating, and pursuing the attainment of a certain powerful rod. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1407014502772662279?s=20
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Jun 21, 2021 17:39
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That 18 item limit is really amazing. I doubt it's a technical one either.
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Jun 22, 2021 00:02
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The weirdly sampled Bowie voice in the fight music is kind of what I imagine David Bowie doing Simlish vocals to sound like. It's kind of amazing to think about : I haven't heard that fight music in twenty years, but it plays so often in Omikron that the instant it started up in the videos, the whole thing was dredged up out of my memory. Where in my brain was that hiding for two decades? Like, physically; which particular neurons were secretively holding on to that for all this time? I only remember bits and pieces of the game, but with the reincarnation mechanic, I do vaguely remember a general loop that I'd go through if my current character died. I seem to recall you'd typically reincarnate in a weak character with bad stats, so then I'd go find a big burly guy, possess him, then grind up some skills/money via fighting in the arena. Then I'd continue the story until my character died again - and repeat.
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Jun 23, 2021 01:11
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Turn back the dial, deplug your vinyl?
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Jun 23, 2021 02:35
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We return to Security HQ as Plume to infiltrate Commandant Gandhar's secret lair and face off with the first of the game's... two bosses. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1408106431979692039?s=20
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Jun 24, 2021 17:59
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davidspackage posted:I've been trying to figure out what rubs me, and so many other people, the wrong way about David Cage's games. I mean, obviously there's the little touches of classical European racism and overt sexism, but aside from that. I think the thing is that he just has nothing to say. He gets great artists, designers, actors, musicians, and then he just squanders all of it on his nothing stories. Everything's really superficial, just moving from setpiece to setpiece without any depth. Even Detroit, which looks gorgeous, has good acting, and an excellently fleshed out world, has immense potential for a thought provoking twist on androids achieving sapience, and then Cage just mashes his French rear end on the keyboard to churn out "what if black people but androids, lol not political tho" Starting to see what you mean there. Like, it seems like it's already kind of unraveling, and just kind of flailing around. Kay'l ends abruptly and he's the only main character who got any characterization so now the game has to account for you inhabiting the body of any number of otherwise unremarkable npcs. Already it squandered its narrative capital of its first main character (and most fleshed out) for what seems to me no real benefit. And now these weirdly disjointed setpieces. I honestly hoped it could hold on a bit longer  I legit liked the noir-esque drama with the murder investigations
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Jun 24, 2021 20:28
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Thanks for the silly shorts OP, the game can get tedious to watch.
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Jun 24, 2021 21:35
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mortons stork posted:Starting to see what you mean there. Like, it seems like it's already kind of unraveling, and just kind of flailing around. Kay'l ends abruptly and he's the only main character who got any characterization so now the game has to account for you inhabiting the body of any number of otherwise unremarkable npcs. Already it squandered its narrative capital of its first main character (and most fleshed out) for what seems to me no real benefit. And now these weirdly disjointed setpieces. I honestly hoped it could hold on a bit longer Same here! I might've loved a murder mystery in a weird sci-fi world where you have to hop bodies to gather clues and unmask a killer. It doesn't help that the characterization for your videogame player alter ego, going by the dialogue options, is a pervy creep.
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Jun 24, 2021 22:29
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By popular demand posted:Thanks for the silly shorts OP, the game can get tedious to watch. They really are just the best.
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Jun 25, 2021 00:50
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The shorts are great. The game not so much, but it's hard for me to really dislike David Cage's games or find them really boring even though they are bad just because they manage to throw a lot of ridiculous poo poo at the wall; it's kind of entertaining all by itself to see that even though it really never goes anywhere.
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Jun 25, 2021 01:20
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The weird thing about this (at least as an LP) is that there's some definite dissonance when the character keeps changing, but there's no actual character shift. There's hardly any motivation to actually do what should be a core part of the game. I feel a bit lost, like each character really should have their own set of goals (as in later DC games) and forget that no, it's still just kind of the same as before, just a new skin. I am liking everything else you're doing with it though, I thing this is bringing out the 'best' and treating it fairly for what it is, which isn't that great.
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Jun 25, 2021 04:55
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The potential of a game where you switch bodies after death is about completely wasted, yeah. All it adds up to is a more convoluted and silly extra lives system, which is kinda funny given there's already a way to save your game and retry sections anyway. It got bolted on like the fighting and shooting minigames and you know, Frankengames aren't for everyone and sometimes even beg for death, but drat if they aren't wild to see.
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Jun 25, 2021 09:15
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the start-of-episode shorts are hilarious. Also, man, this game is so much wasted potential. It could easily have been like Hitman or Deus Ex, but with conventional stealth mechanics replaced with acquiring "disguises" by stealing/borrowing bodies, with demons as a sometimes food that could sense your "soul" through the body you were possessing, perhaps summoned by the Evil Regime(tm) when they start realizing some supernatural terror is on the loose, ruining their plans. But then again, "wasted potential" is David Cage's middle name at this point.
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Jun 25, 2021 22:34
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Video Games often have incredibly bad writing and even more often when they have an Auteur type who feels incredibly good about their writing, so despite some genuinely excellent stuff by other people (I'm going to think about Nier Automata, FFT and so on) we have David Cages and Neil Drukmans, turning an enormous amount of work in these things that have basically nothing to say.
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Jun 25, 2021 23:53
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MY SOUL (Part 7, 17:10) posted:I always wanted to be a nurse... I own and tried playing Omikron on the Dreamcast. There's this timed FPS minigame, and I cleared it right after time ran out. When I ran out of time, it was supposed to fade to black, then fade back in. But killing the last enemy interrupted that, so it faded to black and never faded back in. You could still walk around (and hear your footsteps) and do things like open the menu, but the screen was black the entire time. Since I had been playing for over an hour without saving, I didn't want to reset the game. So I stumbled around like a Roomba, hoping I could trigger something to reset the display. It took five to ten minutes, but I managed to trigger another fade-in-out sequence, which allowed me to see again. I saved, then never touched the game again. davidspackage, any chance of finishing your Anachronox LP? I had problems when I tried to play it, too (somehow getting stuck outside the bounds of the map, twice), so I don't really feel like playing it myself, but I'd still like to see the game.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:35
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Omikron has some serious bugs. I'm slighty surprised that, for the whole tenure of recording for this LP, I never encountered the one where the Sneak menu and save points stop working.TapamN posted:davidspackage, any chance of finishing your Anachronox LP? I had problems when I tried to play it, too (somehow getting stuck outside the bounds of the map, twice), so I don't really feel like playing it myself, but I'd still like to see the game. I'm considering it. I gave up on that LP because I wasn't liking how the videos turned out, but funny enough this LP made me realize I should've probably edited a lot more aggressively, thrown out more walking from point A to B. I'll see when this LP draws to a close.
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Jun 27, 2021 06:34
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 https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1409192323657912324?s=20 We get a new face (metal) and meet with the wild and colorful cast of characters that make up the secret rebel group, the Awakened, essentially this game's version of David Cage's noble hobbos.
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Jun 27, 2021 17:53
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So since Yob is a unique character does it mean everyone else is a wanker? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiHdpAVIHgo
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Jun 27, 2021 20:17
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Soks is absolutely the best NPC so far, that robot is great.
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Jun 28, 2021 10:01
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 After the last update was mostly talking, this one shows where Omikron really shines - gunplay. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1410281426201812992?s=20
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Jun 30, 2021 18:00
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So one thing that has been striking me about the body change mechanic is how the PC is forcing themselves onto others, erasing their psyche and taking over their lives entirely, which has to me some uhhhhhhhh uncomfortable undertones, to say the least. Does this ever get addressed or is it glossed over?
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Jun 30, 2021 18:41
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mortons stork posted:So one thing that has been striking me about the body change mechanic is how the PC is forcing themselves onto others, erasing their psyche and taking over their lives entirely, which has to me some uhhhhhhhh uncomfortable undertones, to say the least. Does this ever get addressed or is it glossed over? Ha! No it does not, which is part of the reason why this game is bad (and leaves you feeling bad). Though, there is some unused dialogue that implies the game originally had a mechanic where you could release the body you inhabited, as opposed to what happens in the game now and appears to be you destroying the body you leave behind. Speaking of which, the character Kumar (the very pale dude w/robot leg) appears in earlier promo stuff and screenshots with a more detailed face and different hairstyle (seen here). It may be nothing, a lot got changed over development (Kay'l was originally blonde and supposedly called Uzal), but I wonder if he was originally a more significant character instead of just someone to possess and throw away. Like other characters that show up to touch your dead body, if you don't die in the bridge mission, Kumar later appears in one of Jaunpur's two gunshops.
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Jun 30, 2021 19:17
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I honestly thought the 5 sec. timer was so the game could force you to swap bodies, because everything about this game told me that the devs were that petty. Also, the mechaguards being programmed to respond to explosions, but not the incessant gunfire and screams of their comrades is just so ... so ...stupid. You could have easily kited the robots around the yard and then run for the exit! Ugh.
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Jun 30, 2021 21:42
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davidspackage posted:Ha! No it does not, which is part of the reason why this game is bad (and leaves you feeling bad). Though, there is some unused dialogue that implies the game originally had a mechanic where you could release the body you inhabited, as opposed to what happens in the game now and appears to be you destroying the body you leave behind. That cut mechanic sounds like it was for the best to be honest. Like, already it's pretty uncomfortable what you do, but leaving behind a trail of probably horribly traumatized and scarred coils you successively shed once they outlive their usefulness, while prolly not even examining what those people went through? Ugh. Though to be fair even under the slightest scrutiny this whole thing is kind of a moral black hole and I'm stunned that they just casually dropped it in this supposedly deep game without further thought. mortons stork fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jun 30, 2021 |
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Jun 30, 2021 22:04
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It could have worked if the game doubled down on "this is all a ploy to trap your soul", because then it could explore the artificiality of the setting: are these characters or setting props to keep you playing? But instead they went with "it's a parallel world with real people", meaning you're bodyjacking real people. Speaking of which, does the game ever try to say something more interesting than "badguys are bad"? All signs point to no, but who knows, it could surprise us all.
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Jul 1, 2021 00:47
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Thoughtlessness is not an uncommon thing in video games, or in fiction in general, but overwhelming thoughtlessness in something that someone named David Cage pretends really hard is actually extremely serious is a defining characteristic of a David Cage game. I've played some hack and slash RPGs that had more depth than this.
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Jul 1, 2021 03:54
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I subconsciously substitute every instance of Namtar with Ratman, and now I constantly expect him to double-cross us.
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Jul 1, 2021 07:13
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drat, did you make that Street Fighter style intro? That... seems like a lot more effort than this game deserves. (But it was great.) As short as it is, I really like the music loop that plays in the Awakened base. (Heard at the start of the video.) For some reason it made me think of Queen of the Damned; incredibly average movie with a fantastic soundtrack. I guess it's as simple as that; another thing from vaguely the same period where the music is about the only good thing about it. Not sure why my brain went to that rather than Spawn - a much worse movie with an even better soundtrack that (I think?) came out even closer to Omikron - but there you go. Ugh, hard to believe they got David Bowie to lend his likeness and voice to a character, and then wasted him on lines like "they have transformed you into puppets that are manipulated by Ix and the demons".  inscrutable horse posted:I subconsciously substitute every instance of Namtar with Ratman, and now I constantly expect him to double-cross us. 
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Jul 1, 2021 10:51
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That rooftop section along with the optional mechaguard shooting section when getting into the archives are two of the shooter levels I remember the most. And not in a good way :vv: They just keep going and going and are just not well designed, even when compared to the rest of the shooting in the game. I will say that I would have preferred if taking over a person didn't just completely erase their everything, but SIGSEGV posted:overwhelming thoughtlessness in something that someone named David Cage pretends really hard is actually extremely serious is a defining characteristic of a David Cage game. On a positive note, I not only love all your video intros, but the two bits with that guy's "prophecies" made me laugh.
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Jul 1, 2021 12:22
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"I see that you will pay me so that I can tell you that I see you will pay me" -A helpful prophecy guy, probably
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Jul 1, 2021 14:45
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Antistar01 posted:drat, did you make that Street Fighter style intro? That... seems like a lot more effort than this game deserves. (But it was great.) I did, thanks! Most of the work was getting a clean version of the Sonic ring explosion. Antistar01 posted:Ugh, hard to believe they got David Bowie to lend his likeness and voice to a character, and then wasted him on lines like "they have transformed you into puppets that are manipulated by Ix and the demons". I know. Bowie had a great voice for dramatic delivery and he just sounds totally bored. "Together, we can win." radintorov posted:On a positive note, I not only love all your video intros, but the two bits with that guy's "prophecies" made me laugh. Good! There was one I threw out so they wouldn't wear out their welcome, but I don't want to sleep on "Find the way to that which must be destroyed." which could be interpreted either as "go to the spot on your map" or "do the mission." I don't know what happened with that clue for the rooftop mission. The bit about the water would've made a little sense had it come up before the bridge mission. Did they cut the conclusion from the rooftop mission and replace it with the cutscene? Who knows.
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Jul 1, 2021 19:50
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