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I played through this for the first time about a year ago and I didn't really think of the goat puzzle as being that bad. I'm surprised that it was so infamous. It's an obvious barrier to passage, so you know you have to do something there. What you do is extremely dumb, but at least you can notice that there's something up with the rope, and that there is a bit of time when you could act. Random clicking to try and get up faster is what did it for me, although I can easily see thinking that you need some item to advance there causing trouble. I actually found getting the wire to be a much worse puzzle. It's the first timed puzzle that's available, and no indication even by hint that timing is important. Taking it requires you to go at a precise moment (like the goat) but also to presume that a human adult lacks object permanence, basic reasoning skills, or human memory. Not to mention that it's difficult to determine that you actually need that piece of wire in the first place. What is said about it has nothing to do with how it's used, so no guidance there. Finally, it requires you to be a brazen thief. Lochmarne is where I really turned on the main character. George is the most self-centered, solipsistic, hypocritical jerk protagonist this side of a Tim Schafer game. I think they were going for 'ugly American' and went too far so he often comes off as racist as well. I could not stand playing him after what happens in Lochmarne. Nico at least seems to know she's a hateful person and revels in it, but that does not really make her likable, either. I played the original with the intention of returning to the Director's Cut after, but I absolutely loathed the characters by the end. I'm kind of glad to see this LP with the DC, since there's a lot of good writing on display. I just would never want to be in these terrible peoples' shoes to see it.
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Apr 6, 2022 13:19
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 12:25 |
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I think the wire could possibly have been an emulation issue. I played the GoG version on the Mac, which probably uses Boxer. It seemed to be tough to take even after I looked up the solution for it. Stobbard sticks out even more since many of the people he screws over are relatively innocent and trusting, and he often seems to claim the moral high ground. As for Lochmarne, there's the theft of the wire, but also the impersonation of an electrician who then makes a 'fix' that is likely to start a fire, only for personal benefit. He then gains access to the basement by implying he'll fix the pumps, which he never is shown to do — his statements about what happened there are vague, and since George is constantly lying I doubt he can be believed. He weasels his way on that by technically 'not promising anything' even though he was the one who broke them in the first place. He is human garbage, and what bothers me most is he never admits to it.
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Apr 6, 2022 17:56
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That's a lovely little fox there. I did think George got slightly better but then dipped a little back to being unlikable towards the end, as did Nico. Marib, 1990s racism aside, was kind of a high point. George actually is quite decent to Nejo and is less self-serving there. I also like how they casually drop that Duane probably actually was military intelligence or [ex?]-CIA. There's a kind of fun thing about the Bible verses from the puzzle that is probably more worth mentioning in a future video, but as with 90% of any story dealing with medieval history steeped in religious tradition, they got something wrong. Not on the level of, 'Jehovah starts with an I in Latin!' but in that direction.
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May 20, 2022 23:09
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The use of the Bible verses has been shown now, so here's the interesting note about them. The Psalms have two different numberings that have been in use. Most probably the Templars would have used the Vulgate, the Latin translation which was the dominant European version for about a thousand years, and even other versions at the time used by Christians would have followed the same numbering. But the game uses the numbering more familiar to modern players (the game quotes the King James Version), since almost all Protestant, Jewish, and relatively recent Roman Catholic versions use it as well. Now the game glosses over all this historical detail to get to the puzzle (it also picks out phrases in a way to make the puzzle make more sense to the player). I'm not really knocking it for getting this wrong; the interesting bit is what those verses actually match with using the 'right' reference. For the two Psalms in the game, the numbering is one lower in the Vulgate. Thus "Psalms 22:21" doesn't exist in the Vulgate — it's too short (that Psalm is the well-known "The Lord is my Shepherd" one). But the other funny thing is that the verse numbering also varies in the Vulgate, which means that the verse about the "lion's mouth" is just Psalms 21:22, simply swapped numbers! The other verse that's different is from Psalms is 32:7. In the Vulgate, the 'hiding place' verse is Psalms 31:7. But Psalms 32:7 exists, and is almost fitting: "congregans sicut in utre aquas maris ponens in thesauris abyssos" To use the KJV as the game did: "He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses." Even if the game never intended it to be read this way, I thought it was kind of neat that it almost works.
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May 29, 2022 00:45
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I have no idea what is going on in York. I get that they put a fictional airport and an inner city train network to make things more convenient for gameplay purposes. But I don't get why they didnt just set things in Manchester, which actually has an airport and an inner city train network. Revolution is in York, that's why. Though it could have been done by maybe having it just be a little cameo (like still be set in Manchester but has a quick visit, or a mention from some character that they went to the release party). This has all the hallmarks of being made by fans who take the thing they like way too seriously. Every character and little detail has to show up so it can receive recognition and an expanded back story, and the events of the game were the most important things in the life of any of these characters (even George seems to over-emphasize the details of what he did). You can also see it when they poke fun at Broken Sword by severely insulting it, because it's such an obvious joke to them that nobody would possibly think the game would be ignored and forgotten. Then on top of that you get what the really intense fans do -- insist that they can 'improve' the original, that it would be so much better if only there had been these changes that make little or no narrative sense but fit the fan's definition of what is best. Of course, it's only those sort of fans who would actually go to the effort of making an amateur game in the first place. What's sorely missing is the light tone of the original games, which was its saving grace for me. Another five or ten years of work and they'd likely have made it a gritty re-imagining.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:44
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I'd love to know Mr. Alfonso's background and how he has that accent but he still uses words like 'tannoy'. It does seem like as he's gotten older, George is more cognizant of his own moral failings at least a tiny bit. Not sure if that affected his decision to get out of patent law and into a more honest profession like running a bail bond service (though possibly he's become a criminal defense attorney who offers bail; it's hard to tell).
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Oct 7, 2022 23:51
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The Monoatomic Gold stuff may have also hit well in the time , since when zero-point energy was a bit of a fad thing, somehow monatomic elements were mixed up in some of the bogus claims about it. Although maybe not. Monoatomic Gold itself is an actual quack supplement (probably just some salt, and hopefully people are not ingesting actual gold or other metals that this stuff pretends to be) that came about in the 1970s, promoted by one guy with basically the crazy theories we see here (including the 'historical evidence'). I don't think the game is taking it seriously, but some of what it's doing kind of leans in the 'how crazy would it be if this were true?' direction. It does kind of seem like the series has shifted a bit in its regard of conspiracy theories. The first BS 1 (even though the macguffin had genuine powers) was a little more on the side of Foucault's Pendulum, while now it is closer to The Da Vinci Code. I wouldn't say it's fully one way or the other, but it does kind of seem to be caught up in the excitement of it as the series has gone on. Or maybe it's just the people who worked on this one are very different than those who did the first game.
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Nov 24, 2022 07:04
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 12:25 |
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He mentions 'running dogs', 'spring', 'barricades', 'tear gas', etc. He's pretty obviously talking about May '68. Though if he was actually around to do protesting of any sort in 1968, I'll eat my bonnet rouge.
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Dec 9, 2022 06:42
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