Garibaldi

The writing in TWD improved in general once they prised Gimple’s inept hands from the reigns, but throughout its entire run there’s always been a problem with plot manipulating characters rather than vice versa; specifically, characters behaving stupidly because the plot requires it. There’s been so many examples of this by now I’d be hard pressed to list them all.

Well, that’s me told. Thank you for taking the time to explain it all. I should’ve expected interference from those who don’t understand narrative was a key factor.

With how much games cost to create now, they simply don’t want to go the expense of hiring a proper writer. I remember Dreamweb, waaaay back when, actually came with a mini novella which was written as if it was your character’s journal. That was a great touch and really helped immerse me in the game. Thing is, writing for games is a very niche skill set. As in, to do it properly you’d need to have someone who was closer to a screenwriter. I remember Crytek hired a sci-fi novelist to write Crysis 2, but the result was still a nonsensical hodgepodge of narrative. I think for most developers it’s not worth stressing over for something that, unless they’re a high-tier ‘story’ studio like Naughty Dog, they believe most people just pay cursory attention to.

Apparently quite a few teams are working on upgrades of their PSVR titles. After The Fall has been announced as one of the free upgrades, but that could be to try and generate some good press following that game’s wobbly launch. Even 50% of them offered for free would be a good result.

The decidedly odd own goal of not offering BC makes me suspect it really wasn’t possible. It makes no sense to do so otherwise, as why would you deny a peripheral access to a huge, already existing library of games that could help it over the usual launch drought? Of course, we’ll have to wait until some dedicated nerd gets hold of a PSVR2 and analyses the tech, in comparison to its predecessor, to have a better idea.

It feels like a filler season which they had sitting around, waiting to go, and could be slotted in anywhere.

I used to invariably spend ages trying to make a character that resembled myself, only for them to end up ‘sort-of’ doing so. These days I still put a bit of effort in but nothing anywhere near as exhaustive. I could probably see myself creating a fit female character for an action game or suchlike, but never for an RPG. There just wouldn’t be any sense of attachment.

True. I think it’s the first film where Patrick Stewart really became emboldened by writers and directors acquiescing to his requirements as well. It was just pure luck that, in this instance, they made First Contact a better film (it was originally supposed to be Riker fighting the Borg on the Enterprise. Which would’ve been less interesting conflict wise.)

Yes, I know. I meant quite a trick as in his current status in universe. Facetiousness aside, I was pretty half and half on this. I don’t like the air of it being a new Nemesis, because Christ knows we don’t need that, but there are some intriguing threads. Mainly, the appearance of Moriarty. In universe books have no doubt touched on what happened to the Federation when Starfleet reverse engineered the Doctor’s mobile emitter, but there hasn’t been a show recent enough, in the right time period, to address it yet. The appearance of Lore just made me sigh, though. If he has a good reason for being there, then fine, but it felt very much like ‘throw everything we’ve got left at the wall.’ Sorry, I meant ‘fire everything we’ve got!’

Ah yes, seems you’re right. It was left open ended. Though arguably he was still on the Enterprise D when that was largely destroyed.

Lore returning would be quite a trick, as he was destroyed entirely in TNG. They’ll probably monkey up some cloned from a positron bollocks.

I wish you could skip the entire heist early in the game tbh. It puts me off doing a replay.

It’s like my perfect storm of awfulness. Goldsman and Keanu Reeves.

They’ve tacitly acknowledged it by changing the default new games filter from ‘release date’ to ‘best selling’ but that’s a band-aid at best. Feels like the worst company this could’ve happened to as Sony are so bloody sluggish when it comes to implementing software/UI solutions.

Wtf is immortality?

It’s a very uneven game for sure. At its core it’s very simple, probably too simple, and it almost feels like the impressive graphics are an attempt to distract you from that. I was intending to go back to it when they finally fixed the issues, but am finding it difficult to do so.

I’m hopeful you’re referring to the one I haven’t properly seen yet, and not the set that has a daft grappling hook stuck to the chest and a malformed helmet with hoop earring and underbite.

This reminds me a bit of when George Lucas re-released the Star Wars films. I say a bit because obviously this is nowhere near that level of misjudgement, but watching the clips I do find myself saying ‘yep. Yep, that looks good. That looks better. What? Why change that?’ Mostly it comes down to the new facial animation. It’s like Naughty Dog have gone a bit giddy with it and wiped out some of the grim stoicism of characters in the original. For example, the scene with Joel and Tess when they get to the capital building. In the original she was taut and aggressive about the way things went, but also perilously close to breaking down. Now it’s more ‘sad face.’

Gaiman’s stuff is very hit and miss for me as well but, so far at least, Sandman feels nowhere near as insufferably self satisfied as American Gods did.

Someone on Reddit made the excellent point that they can no longer treat a new player as though this is the start of the war. There needs to be a briefing that brings you up to speed on what the current situation is and why. Adequately explaining game mechanics is only part of the problem.

Obviously I can’t speak with great confidence after seeing such a short clip, but Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey still feel like the wrong actors for these roles. I appreciate they’re not just trying to remake the game scene by scene, but if that’s the case then it was a bad decision to promote the show with a small re-enactment that had none of the emotional weight of the original.

Well, that’s all the goodwill Rocksteady generated for Batman games about to be wiped out in one fell swoop.

I thought it was decent for years, until I rewatched it and realised I’d been so distracted by how beautiful Natasha Henstridge was that I pretty much gave everything else a pass.

As a new player, I can entirely relate. The game does everything it can to drive you away. In the end, you either persevere and power through, or throw up your hands and go looking for a smoother experience. It’s apparently on their roadmap to rework the new light campaign, but not until next year. I mostly have a handle on what I’m doing now but, as I’m unwilling to watch two hour long YouTube summations, only understand bits and pieces of the story.

Episode 6 was excellent. Touching, uplifting, and most importantly no Patton Oswalt!