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 The Nomad Soul (PC 1999, Dreamcast 2000) was the first game released by Quantic Dream, studio of lauded haute couture videogame creep David Cage. The game was an unfocused mess, but received much attention for the involvement of musicians David Bowie and Reeves Gabrels from the Cure. The Nomad Soul served as a cross-promotion platform for their collaborative album Hours, and aside from licensing their music for it, Bowie also voiced a character based on his likeness. Aside from the music, the game was noted for its grandiose promises of a reincarnation mechanic; if you were to die in the world of Omikron, someone would walk by, touch your body, and you'd jump into theirs. In practice, this promise proved to be... rather overblown.  A guy called Kay'l pleads with you to take possession of his body and save his world. You find yourself in the city of Omikron, an oppressive world of sci-fi, magic, and demons. You can transfer your soul into other bodies, but unless you stop the demons, you will never truly leave Omikron... oh no! Hey, here's a quick trailer I made:  The game combines open world adventuring with abrupt sections of hand-to-hand fighting and first person shooter segments. Instead of integrating these different genres together, it feels more like they tried to make them as distinct as possible. None of them are very good.  I bought the PC version on release, enticed by a review. The game came on a whopping three CDs, one of which also served as an audio CD with the Hours tracks on it. I weathered the terrible controls and awful puzzles until I encountered a game-stopping bug and gave up. Years later, with the aid of the experiences of others so unfortunate, I finally got through the rest of the game. I've developed kind of a weird, Stockholm-syndromy liking towards it, unearthing more details about its development and many failures. Think of me as that weird friend who tells you "hey look, this cut on my arm got totally infected" and you turn your head to look before the words make you realize you shouldn't have. By now, David Cage is known more for his later, more narrative games (and for allegedly promoting an abusive work environment at his studio). However, this is the only one of Quantic Dreams' games I've played myself, and the more I've found out about it, the more I want to share my strange experience with it. Let's go! Twitter: @davidspackage                    
davidspackage fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jul 27, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 17:32
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ivantod posted:And somehow, we've already had a scene where a female character walks around in nothing but white underwear. Yup, this is defiitely a David Cage game. For some reason, I didn't notice until I did this LP that Telis changes her outfit for the bedroom. Creepy fact: Telis's underwear model is called "TELIS NUE" (Telis nude) in the game files. Make of that what you will. I think all of the voice actors are from a small pool of Americans living in France and who've voiced every English language game made in France in the 90s and early 00s.
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Jun 6, 2021 19:30
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^^ remember, it's Elliot now. e: thanks! Solumin posted:I only heard about Omikron because I'm a fan of Bowie. Hours... is generally considered to be one of his worst albums, released at the end of his worst decade. We've already heard the only song I really like from that album, "New Angels of Promise." I was curious how Hours is regarded, as I'm not much of a Bowie fan myself. I know the collaboration with Gabrels didn't last and will get into some of that in later videos. I've grown fond of some of the game's tracks, though I wouldn't listen to them outside of this game. davidspackage fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jun 6, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 20:08
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By popular demand posted:I hate to tell you OP but your silly voice is not in fact silly enough Can I just say: gently caress, because I already have most of the videos done. Luckily, there will be other characters, and thus other voices.
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Jun 6, 2021 22:35
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So, I wasn't entirely sure how Youtube would handle the Bowie songs in the videos; I mean, other people had clearly gotten away with it, but I had no idea what to expect. Turns out it's alright. Maybe it drops an ad or two on that (I generally browse with adblock, so I can't tell), but apparently it only blocks the video for Syria, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Anyway, I had a contingency plan.
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Jun 7, 2021 17:50
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That's funny and fascinating, like a tug of war in perfect balance. I did run tests uploading private videos with the other licensed songs and the content ID system mainly told me I couldn't monetize the videos, which I don't generate enough traffic for anyway, so I won't need to do more covers.
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Jun 7, 2021 21:13
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Glad to see I'm not alone in my weird enjoyment of this game. Sorry for blowing out the mic a bit in the conversation with Captain Lea, I think I got a little too excited.
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Jun 9, 2021 17:46
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I can believe he was very impressed initially, they probably brought him into a studio plastered with concept art and ambitious ideas, maybe showed him some early game footage. For someone who wasn't very familiar with videogames it probably looked quite grand. No one told him 95% of that wasn't going to make it into the game.
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Jun 10, 2021 05:47
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Time for some action. I've scheduled an update every third day for now, we'll see how it goes.
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Jun 12, 2021 17:39
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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. Thanks! My videogaming peak was in the late 90s and I've gradually come to learn just how many of my favorite games from that era were French-produced, but it's remarkable how incestuous the English voice actor pool for those games is. Voice actor credits for videogames were (until recent years) just lumped together as "voice talent: (names)", but for this LP specifically I started making kind of a game out of taking a voice I recognized from multiple games, cross-reference the actor names and see if I could puzzle out which one it is. I'm unsure of the voice actor who does the irate cop who accuses Kay'l of being on the take, I think it might be Allan Wenger? He's also the opening narrator for Hopkins FBI and while I didn't play much of it, the general(?) from Outcast. Marshal Radisic posted:I also wanted to ask if you might have any ideas why the Super Best Friends playthrough of Omikron turned into such a clusterfuck? Their LP seemed to be plagued with technical problems that were only partially self-inflicted, and they always had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do and how to use the game's systems. You seem to be pretty comfortable working with Omikron, so I was wondering if you might have any particular insights on what they did wrong. Their Omikron sufferthrough is still one of my favorite things they've ever done, even though at the time I sometimes thought "maybe they should stop, they seem to be getting seriously burned out over this." I think the biggest problem was that none of them had played much of the game, and they were using a guide that logically assumes you have and are only using the guide to get past a hurdle. It's hard to follow advice that tells you "go talk to Namtar" when you haven't engaged with the game enough to remember where Namtar is or even who he is again. Though, at times it was just stuff that was their own fault, like when Woolie refused to read far enough ahead in the guide to tell Matt he had to go find Meshkan's door (I presume because Woolie wanted to not spoil his own reaction at whatever the game might throw at them), or when they ignored objectives that came up in dialogue because they didn't want to pay attention. davidspackage fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Jun 13, 2021 |
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Jun 13, 2021 08:56
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https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1404841594164060166?s=20 We stop by the morgue, then head to Omikron's red light district, Qalisar, to question a murder witness, and one of the game's more benevolent glitches makes an appearance. This episode has the first of the three secret concerts of the Dreamers: a subversive rock group inside Omikron, portrayed by Bowie, Reeves Gabrels, and Gail Ann Dorsey. They're basically full length music videos for a few songs from Hours. I considered just making separate videos of the concerts so whoever wants to can check them out, but ended up choosing to just stick them at the end of existing videos and not doing any commentary over the performance; if you enjoy the song, you can stick around, if not, you can stop watching and not miss anything.
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Jun 15, 2021 17:48
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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We take a break from fighting for freedom wherever there's trouble in order to dive slightly deeper into the game's mediocre and probably-better-left-out magic element. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1411370922754424834?s=20 edit: there's no reward for 'beating' the shooting gallery, by the way. Your completion times simply get recorded with the name of the character you're currently occupying. davidspackage fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jul 3, 2021 |
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Jul 3, 2021 17:52
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PurpleXVI posted:I did not expect Dead Man Walking scenarios. I should try if it's possible, actually. Most of the time, if you threaten to get too non-linear, the game doesn't let you leave the area and gives you an uninspired reason why. For instance, I fired up the game today to see if I could get the map and pass from Den's apartment and simply leave without playing Den's transcan tape, which triggers the fight with Tarek. Turns out if you try to go out the door and leave, the game just tells you "I have to do something first." edit: well, turns out they did think of that. If you leave the jewel lying on the mummy's table and try to leave the temple, the door stays shut and your character goes "I think I've forgotten something." Incidentally, I'm watching supergreatfriend's LP of this on Youtube and I'm seeing him trigger a lot of dialogue I wasn't even aware of, such as dudes hinting where you might find Anissa or get Den's Sneak repaired. There's also this rather badass line from Dakobah: 
davidspackage fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jul 4, 2021 |
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Jul 4, 2021 20:19
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This update's the shortest one I think, and has another secret Dreamers concert at the end. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1412453332006887424?s=20
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Jul 6, 2021 17:50
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PurpleXVI posted:Wait, so the shops have like... useless ingredients that you can buy, for spells you can't mix, because the other half of the ingredients don't exist in the game? That's comical. The magic system, such as it was, appears to have been really gutted, or never got off the ground in the first place. Only one spell that you use repeatedly (reincarnation) and the handful of other spells don't seem to use mana, despite the multitude of mana potions in the game. I show it really briefly in this video, but the model for the Viscous Slime from the magic store is just kind of a disc with a red plus on it, clearly some placeholder from the development stage.
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Jul 8, 2021 19:05
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Well. It's time for the Tetra factory. The longer you play Omikron, the more it becomes clear they shored up the early content and rushed it out the door. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1413537533011628033?s=20
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Jul 9, 2021 17:40
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There's a lot of clumsy elements to the FPS sections that suggest it was Quantic's designers first time working on one. Like the way the hud elements clip into the environment if you walk into a wall or door, or the fact that your shots hurt you if you're too close to an object.
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Jul 10, 2021 17:42
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Next, the nomad soul must mastermind an escape from prison and unmask a traitor! https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1414625396323139588?s=20
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Jul 12, 2021 17:41
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inscrutable horse posted:I gotta know, though: What is Bowie singing in that intro snippet? Sounds like "that guy, Ray" :/ It's from the song "the Dreamers": black-eyed ravens they spiral down
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Jul 12, 2021 18:34
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If you tell the guard who asks for your orders "yeah, I have them." he just goes "oh ok" and lets you through, but it lacks the excellent ball kick.
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Jul 13, 2021 12:45
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inscrutable horse posted:So... not instructions for part of the game, where you have to possess "that guy, Ray" to advance? Ray 512 is Dav'idkaaj's poetry publisher, you must possess his body and then throw it down a mineshaft to win the game.
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Jul 13, 2021 13:56
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We've finally earned the audience with Boz that Dakobah used like a carrot on a stick to usher us into becoming a terrorist, and gain access to the last of Omikron's districts we'll see, Lahoreh. Also, one last Dreamers concert. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1415710939144462342?s=20
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Jul 15, 2021 17:35
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As I mentioned, Lahoreh is pretty much all puzzles. Horrible puzzles that no-one should have to figure out for themselves. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1416800716425998337?s=20
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Jul 18, 2021 17:44
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The hunt for the third jewel is o- oh, it's just lying on a windowsill like a fragrant apple pie. (this one has my personal favorite opening skit) https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1417887230526464001?s=20
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Jul 21, 2021 17:42
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We're close to the end. Just gotta traverse a boring underground city, commit an unspeakably vile act and then disturb the peace of the dead. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1418972453758455811?s=20
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Jul 24, 2021 17:35
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Bible Ian Black posted:Man, learning about all the cut content makes me wonder what could have been, and I honestly think I prefer it this way. It really doesn't seem like the cut content would've made the game more interesting, just more boring and generic, really. Oh no, Reshev kidnapped Dakobah. The computer Ix is evil. Going over the gameplay one more time would've helped more. Integrate the three gameplay modes together more, have the reincarnation mechanic actually matter. On that, I'll concede that the game was too ambitious for 1999 and being a studio's first game, but Quantic has yet to show that they could realize that potential with their current team and tech. Antistar01 posted:Traditionally I finish the games I start, though - especially back then. When you're young and don't get many games, you finish what you get. So maybe it's just because the latter two-thirds of this game (at least) is just a mush of bad, generic late-nineties game design. It all blends together with other crappy, forgettable games I played back then. I know exactly what you mean. There are some games really not worth playing that I stuck with, just because they're from a time when you were stuck with the games you had. I first left Omikron unfinished when I couldn't figure out how to get past the Tetra factory bug, then I finished nearly the whole rest of the game with a walkthrough. I got stuck on the incredibly tedious final boss, managed to beat him once without use of items, and then figured out that actually using the game's items makes him manageable. davidspackage fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Jul 26, 2021 |
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Jul 26, 2021 09:30
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Yeah, good points. It probably just comes down to lack of experience. Though, while Quantic Dreams games have been getting prettier and prettier, I think the gameplay remains disappointing and poorly thought out. For how sloppy the game is, I'm still surprised that there's so little in unused assets in the game, despite dialogue being present for the scrapped district. It could be that they had to clean up the game to fit it onto the 3 CDs, but when I think about it, maybe it's more likely someone (Cage?) just wrote things out, but they never even got started on some assets.
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Jul 26, 2021 12:23
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I never really took to first person combat. Maybe in VR it would work for me. Hey, guess what? It's time for the finale. Thank you very much for you attention. It's been a heckuva ride. https://twitter.com/davidspackage/status/1420060022948745217?s=20
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Jul 27, 2021 17:37
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Thanks you guys! LPs always feel like a way to put a game that's stuck with me for some reason, on the shelf for good.
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Jul 28, 2021 06:32
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