I like the later games (Spirit of Justice is my second favorite game in the series), but there's definitely contentions about the second trilogy because the fourth game, Apollo Justice takes some radical swings... and depending on who you ask it's a great game or it misses its swings by a mile. For my money, I'm not a big fan of AJ, but I do like the character of Apollo Justice (who gets more to do in the next two games), but that's also where the crux of the issue comes in as the main leader in charge of the 5th and 6th game is not Shu Takumi but instead Takeshi Yamazaki, so the style of writing and direction changes and they also make major adjustments from AJ's already major changes, so again, there's another divide based on whether or not people like that direction more. I'd personally recommend going to do Investigations 1 and 2 before the Apollo Justice Trilogy, as that'll ease you into Takeshi Yamazaki's style before DD/SOJ, and also you get to play Investigations 2, my favorite in the series.
Now Shu Takumi still works on Ace Attorney, but after AJ (as the game was intended to train up the rest of the staff to handle AA without him), he worked on Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (which I highly recommend, very tightly written 12-15 hour narrative puzzle game) and then did the Professor Layton and Ace Attorney crossover, so while he was doing that they had to get Yamazaki to work on the 5th mainline game. Shu Takumi then got to do the spin off duology The Great Ace Attorney.
I heard not so great things about the later Ace Attorney games. Like Apollo Justice which doesn't do any justice (No pun intended) to Phoenix's character.
FBC: Firebreak, a multiplayer PvE spin off of Control has been revealed.
Looks like the environments are reused locations from Control. It looks fairly solid, though maybe a touch more goofy than I was expecting. Hopefully it's good lol.
The American Association of Retired Professionals (AARP) now has video games on their website.
https://games.aarp.org/games/atari-missile… more-command
That makes me realize that some of Generation X are now at retirement age. As that's the generation before Millennials, that's kind of depressing.
Happy 9 year anniversary Tales finale
Oh boy, that's a momentous occasion huh?
I guess I should start up a New Tales/OG Tales playthrough once I'm back from my trip this week! 🥳
There's a large plot thread in the new Alan Wake expansion that's basically a massive critique on AI art and generative algorithms and I think it's hilarious and very cool of Remedy.
I’m remodeling my bedroom, horror theme, I received a Terrifier 2 blanket for my bed , I might get a arctic clown, action, figure model for display or the Arctic clown mask, ideas still pending .
Ooh - I just got an e-mail from Fangamer that the Lili plushie from the Psychonauts 2 crowdfunding campaign is finally being shipped.
I was sorting through my mountain of plushies last week, saw my Raz plushie, and got to wondering about the Lili plushie. I was wondering if I really did check it off on the extras for the campaign like I thought I did and thought that it was possible that not all of the Fig rewards were shipped out yet.
Ooh - I just got an e-mail from Fangamer that the Lili plushie from the Psychonauts 2 crowdfunding campaign is finally being shipped.
I w… moreas sorting through my mountain of plushies last week, saw my Raz plushie, and got to wondering about the Lili plushie. I was wondering if I really did check it off on the extras for the campaign like I thought I did and thought that it was possible that not all of the Fig rewards were shipped out yet.
I guess I was being kind of prescient there.
I think my main take away from Life is Strange DE is that you can only do the “Max is back” story once and can’t exactly have any do-overs. I think the easiest thing to say about this game is that it never once justifies its existence for a second. It’s a sequel to LIS but it also very clearly has no interest in being one, and in Deck Nine fashion, also has no interest in being a compelling story on its own either.
First, the game is buggy and unpolished. Lots of sound bugs and plenty of graphical issues. Also lots of annoying technical bugs.
Max just does not work. She doesn’t even have the same powers anymore, she doesn’t feel like she needs to be here for this game, and she just doesn’t feel like Max. Obviously a lot of time has passed, she is going to be different. But I think a big problem is Max was always going to work best as a character as a young adult, not a 28 year old.
Max feels pretty bland in this game. I feel like the coming of age stuff was pretty important to Life is Strange and her character, and this game is pretty far past that. She also clearly learns nothing from the first game, regardless of if you save Chloe or not, Max will say she would undo Safi’s death without a second thought. She never reflects on this that much once she gets her powers, nor does she even really act all that surprised she has powers again. She also has only known Safi for like 5 weeks. Max is also just weirdly inconsistent, I don’t know why she loves horror films so much when in the first game cult classic seems like her actual favorite genre. She even said a few times how she didn’t really like horror movies. She has a guitar but you can’t even look at it and hear Max talk about music. But whatever. Generally I don’t think Max as a character is terribly butchered, but they didn’t do a good job with it either, and this story doesn’t convince me she should be here in the first place.
The game world feels very tiny. You are pretty much only going to be in the Admin/Fab building, outside the Admin/Fab building, and the bar for the vast majority of the game. Then sometimes Max’s house or a one and done area. And then you’re stuck with the same boring characters. In the original game you actually had to go places by bus or car, it made the place feel bigger. You also talked to people outside of Blackwell at the diner for example. It really helped the world feel larger. Everything here feels so small. Explore the same 3 areas. Talk to the same few people. There were also a lot more students and staff at Blackwell you could talk to. They frankly weren’t that important, but they added a lot into making the world feel bigger. Characters like that are sorely missing here.
The characters are also just bad. No one actually acts human. Again, very ironic considering the first game that has some very, very weird lines, but still comes off far more authentic than anything here. The game is also weirdly sexual. Way too much of it seems too concerned with who is fucking who. A lot of unwanted flirting all around and it won’t let up even if you actively go against it.
Safi is terrible and annoying, quirky quirky, and surprisingly kind of forgotten about in the middle chunk of the game despite this whole thing being about her. Amanda is boring and has no chemistry with Max. Vinh is weird and has negative chemistry with Max. Gwen just goes “GRRRRRRR!!! I'M SO ANGRY!” I was honestly surprised how unlikeable they made her imo. Just always very passive aggressive and her first interaction is her yelling to herself in a library about a book being locked behind a cabinet. A professor in front of students. lol?
Lucas is the only character who I think fits his role correctly as you aren’t really meant to like him. Moses is okay. Generally liked him but he is still very bland. Then there's Reggie and Diamond and reporter girl who are incredibly uninteresting. There is also a secret society thing that is so unimportant that I honestly forgot about it until just now.
The power is fine, but kind of convoluted. It does at least offer some interesting gameplay compared to TC.
The music isn’t great though. I think Deck Nine thinks LIS music is just a guitar and a woman whisper singing. Even the main theme is this. It isn’t really the music is bad, it's just that almost every licensed song sounds the same. The original game’s licensed music is similar in genre but far more varied.
Finally, this game has bad pacing. I took my time and I found myself very bored a lot of the time. Worst part was I honestly thought this was the longest LIS game. But then I realized it's only a little longer than TC. So it is actually kind of short. But man does it feel long.
Anyway, actual story spoiler stuff.
I ended up going with the Max romanced and saved Chloe route which was my original playthrough. I personally think saving the Bay which I did most recently is the ending I prefer. However, from what I could tell, it seemed like if you went with Bay you actually don’t really get much at all. I still need to look up if there is any interesting Bay stuff, but from what I can tell, it doesn’t seem so.
I do not like Max and Chloe breaking up at all. However, I do think the whole break up thing is a bit overblown by the fandom but for different reasons. A lot of people do seem to think Max and Chloe's relationship was the only thing that mattered which I feel kind of undermines the rest of the original game, and I disagree with that. That said, I think breaking them up if you decided to romance and save Chloe was handled very, very poorly. I think that does completely undermine that ending, and it does not fit the characters at all.
Some people talk about it being realistic, but I think that is a bit of a pointless argument. It's fiction. It's a story. There obviously comes a certain extension of disbelief, but changing relationships like this is just poor. I also think it is crazy to break up Max and Chloe, for what is one of the first and may be the most popular gay relationship in gaming.
But they also really don’t do shit with the break up. As I said earlier, Max shouldn’t be the playable character at all. They break up because it's easier if Max just never interacts with her. I also can’t stand how poorly they give the reasonings. Max is stuck in the past but Chloe wants to move forward. Anyway, enjoy every last one of the few posts Chloe makes are all about the past and talking to Victoria from Blackwell, don’t forget that Max is stuck in the past though.
One of the first things you do in the game is after you say what happened to Chloe, you then need to flirt with Amanda. You can’t decline or anything. Then you also need to clarify to her if you are romantically interested or not. We don’t even know who this character is but it wants to present you with choices like this right away.
In episode 3 Max is all sad in the bar and it's the obligatory choose your romance scene! Worst part is the objectives are to talk to Amanda or Vinh or leave the bar. I thought “Dude awesome, I can actually just leave!” SORRY PAL! YOU'RE GOING ON THE DATE NO MATTER WHAT! Max refuses to leave until you’ve done at least one date.
The mystery is obviously about what happened to Safi. But Safi is just an annoying “quirky” character who you know is going to die. It takes too long for her to die and it takes too long for us to get powers. Like we know. Get on with it. I wonder why the first game immediately starts with us getting powers and Chloe being shot… Then in episode 2 you get a scene meeting up with her again, and she then just kind of disappears. We need to find out how to save Safi but we then hardly interact with her until we find out what's going on with Safi at the end of episode 3. Even though we are investigating her death.
There is a whole thing going on campus with people seeing themselves as doubles. It is an interesting idea, but it didn’t really feel “life is strange” to me, but I was interested in seeing where it went. It did have me interested in what was going on. Turns out that Safi has powers and can shape shift (and kind of mind read) and has been getting revenge on people who wronged her. Gwen got her book canceled, so Safi gets her fired. Lucas turns out to have stolen her old friends Maya’s book and became famous from it, which caused her to commit suicide. So she goes after his son to yell at him and make him dislike his father.
After we know all this about Safi, the game suddenly becomes about revealing Lucas is a fraud so Maya gets justice, and episode 4 is pretty much set entirely inside the bar as we get ready to reveal this during his speech. The thing is, this Maya stuff honestly comes out of nowhere. It only really starts to get focused on in episode 3, but by the end of episode 3 we know the whole Maya story, so it feels like an information drop rather than a mystery like Rachel’s.
It feels really disconnected and it's just a strange hard shift. We don't even know what Maya looks like until her face appears on the projector during that scene. She’s really missing that overarching feeling Rachel had, and she’s very connected to Safi, who is hardly in episodes 2 and 3. Compared to Chloe who is obviously very present throughout the game along with the mystery of Rachel and her connection to her.
Also during this scene, it did not stop playing the ambient bar chatter. It is supposed to be quiet as this dude is being outed as a fraud but the ambient noise sounds like literally no one fucking cares, it honestly ruins the scene. I’m guessing they’ll fix this and they really should because it really, really comes off like no one cares lmao.
Anyway Lucas then asks to speak with Safi privately. (Also before all this Lucas had a gun in his jacket that Max finds and kind of just waves it around in the open as she talks to Safi who then takes it) And then offscreen he tells her that I guess her mom was actually the one who got her book canceled? It's all over the place and I honestly don't feel like explaining the whole the book is about Maya or whatever the fuck. Anyway, everyone on the campus is getting their brains scrambled from Safi freaking out as she confronts her mom as another storm like the first game is happening. Then Max finds Safi and her Mom where Safi was shot, Safi shoots her mom. And then we are in episode 5, baby. And you'll never guess what it is? Are you ready?
EPISODE 5 IS A NIGHTMARE EPISODE!!! How unpredictable. How… daring.
Basically everyone is stuck with Safi in their head so Max needs to help get them out of it. We go back to the Blackwell Bathroom where Chloe was shot for no real reason other than nostalgia. Kate and Warren appear in text messages here, although they are just from the first game. Max says something about Kate when you view her messages but just says nothing about Warrens.
Blah blah blah, we make it back to the real world Max has combined the timelines, stops the storm and now everyone has 2 memories! Safi then talks about how they are gods and are special and shit. Final choice is to not be cool with this or say you are with Safi. Neither matter because if you agree with Safi you just hug and she goes “Well anyway I'm gonna run away now”.
Go back to the bar, meet up with everyone, they all have double memories and know Safi and Max have super powers. But Max ain’t running away no more and is happy with her found family of fucking nobodies.
Post credit scene we find out forgettable side character Diamond also has powers although we don’t know what they are and neither does Deck Nine. Safi shows up and goes “I’m… putting together a team…” and then fucking “MAX WILL RETURN” to top it off. Very bold of them to pretend Deck Nine isn’t on death’s door and this theoretical game will even come out, but whatever. I’m so glad LIS is just marvel now, these fellas really know what this series is all about!
I also don’t even know what they even do go forward. Max doesn’t have her powers, again. Both the timelines are merged which sounds like a mess to continue from and this game clearly didn’t care about choices mattering anyway. Like what do you even do?
The storm stuff is also stupid. The first game had actual build up to the storm. Each day something strange would happen leading up to the storm. This game is just “uhh idk there’s a storm or something and uhhh the two moons too Idk dude, that was in the first game or whatever.”
One other thing I wasn’t even sure where to bring up was the cop character. I have no fucking idea what they were doing with this dude. He shows up, sees Max do supernatural shit and it freaks him out. He confronts us, but for the only time in this game he, as well as Moses, can see an alternate universe version of the cop like Max can. The cop touches it and he gets black holed and is gone for the rest of the game, and then Moses finds info that he never existed or he was wiped from existence. This shit is so out of place it honestly feels like it was an unfinished storyline that was supposed to be removed. It goes nowhere, I have no idea what it was about, it is never addressed, and Max and Moses kind of just shrug it off.
I feel like this game doesn’t even remotely understand Life is Strange. Especially the ending.
And your stalwart and loyal companion for the entirety of the trilogy, brilliant engineer, and objectively speaking best girl...Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.
I've been waiting almost a full year for these statues to come in. Finally, Dark Horse delivers. The two very best characters in all of Mass… more Effect.
Bounty hunter turned beloved leader and champion, everyone's favorite krogan...Urdnot Wrex.
And your stalwart and loyal companion for the entirety of the trilogy, brilliant engineer, and objectively speaking best girl...Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.
I just found out that the original Telltale Sam and Max games (that have been removed from sale on Steam since the remaster releases), are "back" as Free DLC included for the remastered games! That's a pretty damn cool compromise!
They're overall really good and damn close to the games' look. Couple very small issues, like the swirls on Tali's suit weren't fully painted, but I'd say they're definitely worth the money
They're overall really good and damn close to the games' look. Couple very small issues, like the swirls on Tali's suit weren't fully painted, but I'd say they're definitely worth the money
For no reason at all completely unrelated to any world changing events, I just wanna say good luck to the Americans on this forum, cause it's looking like you might need it. I hope you stay safe.
I also hope things turn out okay for America. Really crossing my fingers super hard these next few days. It's really surprising it's come to this. Again.
Today I'm just mad. Really mad. And shocked. And I just live in Canada (but I know I have internet friends in the USA and I feel for you guys)
Please send hugs. 🫂
So I forgot to mention it because of a few things, but Thursday was the 10th anniversary of my account creation of these forums.
And do I love these forums! 10 years has seen Telltale die and rise again, a ton of games, and a lot of friendships. To all my homies out there, keep it cool.
Since Tales turns 10 in a few weeks, here's a funny clip, one of my favorite moments that I got in my original playthrough (I love how there was no negative consequences for my Rhys not ever revealing Handsome Jack to anyone) in celebration:
So I forgot to mention it because of a few things, but Thursday was the 10th anniversary of my account creation of these forums.
And do I… more love these forums! 10 years has seen Telltale die and rise again, a ton of games, and a lot of friendships. To all my homies out there, keep it cool.
Since Tales turns 10 in a few weeks, here's a funny clip, one of my favorite moments that I got in my original playthrough (I love how there was no negative consequences for my Rhys not ever revealing Handsome Jack to anyone) in celebration:
I know not many care too much about the new lis game but after some more time with the game I wanted to share some last thoughts.
First I just wanted to mention that I remembered how the game leaked a while ago but all I really remembered about it was it said Max would return. I went back to read them, and they were indeed 100% real, but damn. The fact some QA dude 2 years ago said "Yeah so the second half of this game sucks" is crazy to me. Knowing the ending was bad for 2 years. Makes me wonder if that means 2 years ago there was somehow a worst ending.
Deck Nine also did an interview recently and they confirmed they wanted to do Max, not Square. I feel like Square is getting a lot of blame for the direction this game went, but honestly I kind of doubt it. I feel like Square doesn't really care in that way, Dontnod even said they were very hands off. Square seems to be the most responsible for the awful pricing of the game is. Case in point, DE and Expanse have very similar problems yet Square obviously had no involvement with Expanse. DE also has a lot of the same problems TC has. I am a bit confused how people let it slide in TC but not here, but I guess bringing back a legacy character probably makes people more critical, and truthfully this game's ending is bad for the entire series than just the game, so that is probably part of it too. (And DE is a lot more nonsensical than TC just being boring)
Anyway, I want to comment on the romance again now that I've seen the paths that happen if you actually do it. I'm just gonna straight up say Deck Nine has the worst writers when it comes to romance.
Amanda is a plank of wood. She's just is so into Max and Max so into her. But you know like... Why tho? Deck Nine really likes to skip any actual bonding with their romance options, Maya in Expanse has a similar problem. TC does it a bit better but not really. It kind of just goes "Anyway, romance time I guess. Choose your wooden plank." Here though I think Amanda is pretty bad considering the second you meet her the game is all about romancing her, while you as the player don't know anything about her and don't learn much about her later either. Not that great of a character/romance option if all you can really say is "She's nice."
Then there's Vinh who is a very strange choice. The flirting just feels unnatural. Max gets a choice to randomly flirt by joking about being friends with benefits to someone we as the player and Max herself, hardly know. Then jokes about his "package." Then Vinh randomly says Max and him have sexual tension. A lot of this just goes on and on and it never feels endearing or most importantly, human. It also feels like getting flashbanged because it never comes off as not shoehorned. This goes for both Vinh and Amanda, it never comes off as natural or bonding.
It also doesn't help that there are so few characters but almost none of them interact. Like Vinh and Safi I think only share 1 line of dialogue to each other. Gwen is largely isolated as well. But the weirdest thing is even though half these characters never interact, their all connected like this. AHEM. Amanda likes Max and Max likes Amanda but also likes Vinh, but Amanda also has a crush on Gwen, and Vinh had a thing with Safi that he isn't totally over, but Vinh and Reggie also have a thing going on, but Loretta also likes Reggie, and Vinh also would get with Moses if he could, but it turns out Diamond is secretly in love with Moses. Pretty much every character has a thing for each other. But at the same time most of them never even talk to each other. I also wonder why they decided that every character just wants to fuck each other.
But really, the amount of times Max goes "omgz that is like... so... hawwwt." is also so, so weird. Its like she's become more immature lmao. The fact that Max's journal if you kiss both Amanda and Vinh is Max talking about how hot it was is so weird. The funniest thing, in the original game, Max can write in her journal if she kisses Chloe and Warren, but she isn't going "wow.. that was... so... HOT." (When she writes it, a much different situation is going down, but the point being is if you read both these journals back to back, they do not come off as the same character at all)
Max as a teacher and the rest of the university is very under utilized. We never see Max do any kind of teaching. We don't really see anyone do any teaching. We never see classrooms or lecture halls. Deck Nine seemingly forgot Diamond and Reggie are students trying to get with people who work for the university, which you'd think would have some kind of push back, but it doesn't because this game treats the place like its a small town, not a college campus with staff members.
I also think they made it too obvious it was going to be Max who killed Safi. Now, I'm glad they kind of get to that right away instead of stretching it out, but again, there was so few characters, and we know the death must have been somewhat supernatural, it feels too obvious. Plus the random photos of another timeline Max finds (for some reason) also kind of immediately tip you off to start thinking "Oh yeah, its probably Max" even though the photos ironically have nothing to do with that, they do immediately make you think "So there's another Max." All I'm saying is, probably don't add some random collectable that's an "alternate universe Max" and have Max say "Oh shit, these must be mine from another universe" if you don't want people to immediately start guessing the killer twist.
Lastly, there is just no choice in this game. Everything becomes more and more straight forward. Looking back at the choices, I actually don't think a single thing really changes longer than 30 seconds. Even the final choice doesn't give you ending a or b, it just doesn't do anything
I do wonder what is next for lis. I guess there will either be DLC or Deck Nine is hoping they get approval for a sequel. No idea what you even do though. Considering they did so much to make sure choices did not matter its kind of crazy how bad of a hole they wrote themselves into.
Well here's something pretty neat. Some (I guess?) test footage from the cancelled In the Valley of the Gods by Campo Santo. Specifically, the water shading tech that would make its way to Valve's Counter Strike 2.
Turns out I still have a few months until my decade anniversary.
My profile says March 24th 2015, and I could swear I had joined a month or two earlier, and was here for all the speculation on TFTB Episode 2 before that took way too long to come out, but... I guess not?
On Page 312 of my profile's comment history: My very first comment in this site. On March 24th. A attempt at a joke that no longer makes sense because the two users involved don't have the same profile pictures... At least I think that's what that was about...
So I forgot to mention it because of a few things, but Thursday was the 10th anniversary of my account creation of these forums.
And do I… more love these forums! 10 years has seen Telltale die and rise again, a ton of games, and a lot of friendships. To all my homies out there, keep it cool.
Since Tales turns 10 in a few weeks, here's a funny clip, one of my favorite moments that I got in my original playthrough (I love how there was no negative consequences for my Rhys not ever revealing Handsome Jack to anyone) in celebration:
So I forgot to mention it because of a few things, but Thursday was the 10th anniversary of my account creation of these forums.
And do I… more love these forums! 10 years has seen Telltale die and rise again, a ton of games, and a lot of friendships. To all my homies out there, keep it cool.
Since Tales turns 10 in a few weeks, here's a funny clip, one of my favorite moments that I got in my original playthrough (I love how there was no negative consequences for my Rhys not ever revealing Handsome Jack to anyone) in celebration:
I think it's really weird how excited Camp Santo was to become a support studio for Valve. Also that sucks that they apparently cancelled it soon after joining Valve, cause I remember them assuring people even like a year later that it was still being worked on.
Well here's something pretty neat. Some (I guess?) test footage from the cancelled In the Valley of the Gods by Campo Santo. Specifically, t… morehe water shading tech that would make its way to Valve's Counter Strike 2.
https://twitter.com/gabefollower/status/1855941378301141312
Turns out I still have a few months until my decade anniversary.
My profile says March 24th 2015, and I could swear I had joined a month … moreor two earlier, and was here for all the speculation on TFTB Episode 2 before that took way too long to come out, but... I guess not?
On Page 312 of my profile's comment history: My very first comment in this site. On March 24th. A attempt at a joke that no longer makes sense because the two users involved don't have the same profile pictures... At least I think that's what that was about...
So last night our family dog passed away. Ponyo. She was 13, so was basically near the end of her life, but still, it was all so sudden... We expected more of a sign, or gradual decline, but... that was not to be.
It's... gonna be weird, and sad for a while I'm sure. I'm mostly afraid of how this might affect me today, this week, next month, etc. Not sure if I should inform my manager at work about this just in case, but that probably seems wise?
I think it still hasn't fully hit me yet because I'm still in shock about the whole thing. It all just unfolded so fast.
She was perfectly fine yesterday morning. By sheer coincidence, my sister is back in town this week to visit a friend/loiter around the Taylor Swift venue if she can get a ticket. So she was happy to see her, and the whole family was here to comfort her in her final moments...
After her walk yesterday before dinner, she stayed outside as usual. But when it came time to bring her back in, she had trouble standing up, refused to walk on her own, and when we did get her inside, she sat down, and collapsed into a lying down position. Lots of heavy breathing, and occasional grunt or moan, and this "heaving" motion in her belly.
We finally decided after an hour of just waiting to see if this 'weak/sickness' got any better "okay, we need to know if we can make her more comfortable, and what this is" and took her to the vet...
They informed us that she had significant internal bleeding in her abdomen! Probably from some sort of rupture or lesion, maybe from some cancerous growth somewhere, that just decided to rip open? (she's had some weird lumps and bumps pop up in the last 2 years, but we've never noticed her seem to complain or be irritated by it)
ugh... why did it have to go this way...
So we, uh had to all make the call that yes, she should be euthanised, since any work that could be done for her, probably wouldn't make the rest of her life any easier...
We gave her so many cuddles. She was so soft... She was such a nice dog. Loved any stranger she could meet (would be a terrible guard dog) -- and she even met my D&D group on Monday when I hosted, which was nice!
This is just... such a weird feeling in my body right now. I woke up 30 mins ago, haven't gone downstairs to have breakfast yet. But that'll be weird. And when I return from work, she's always happy to see who's at the door... not anymore...
Thankfully today is a day off for me, so I can rest and sit with this... Still, she was the best dog, she always deserved the best...
Comments
I like the later games (Spirit of Justice is my second favorite game in the series), but there's definitely contentions about the second trilogy because the fourth game, Apollo Justice takes some radical swings... and depending on who you ask it's a great game or it misses its swings by a mile. For my money, I'm not a big fan of AJ, but I do like the character of Apollo Justice (who gets more to do in the next two games), but that's also where the crux of the issue comes in as the main leader in charge of the 5th and 6th game is not Shu Takumi but instead Takeshi Yamazaki, so the style of writing and direction changes and they also make major adjustments from AJ's already major changes, so again, there's another divide based on whether or not people like that direction more. I'd personally recommend going to do Investigations 1 and 2 before the Apollo Justice Trilogy, as that'll ease you into Takeshi Yamazaki's style before DD/SOJ, and also you get to play Investigations 2, my favorite in the series.
Now Shu Takumi still works on Ace Attorney, but after AJ (as the game was intended to train up the rest of the staff to handle AA without him), he worked on Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (which I highly recommend, very tightly written 12-15 hour narrative puzzle game) and then did the Professor Layton and Ace Attorney crossover, so while he was doing that they had to get Yamazaki to work on the 5th mainline game. Shu Takumi then got to do the spin off duology The Great Ace Attorney.
FBC: Firebreak, a multiplayer PvE spin off of Control has been revealed.
Looks like the environments are reused locations from Control. It looks fairly solid, though maybe a touch more goofy than I was expecting. Hopefully it's good lol.
Telltale fans trying to convince themselves Telltale never "actually" said Wolf 2 was releasing this year (They did)
Happy 9 year anniversary Tales finale
The American Association of Retired Professionals (AARP) now has video games on their website.
https://games.aarp.org/games/atari-missile-command
That makes me realize that some of Generation X are now at retirement age. As that's the generation before Millennials, that's kind of depressing.
We used to have a tabletop Missile Command at the Pizza Hut while we waited for them to cook our order. Those were the days?
(Not retired just yet.)
My Pizza Hut had a cocktail Centipede right at the entranceway.
One of the restaurants of a local pizza chain had a Pole Position II cabinet alongside Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong Junior cabinets.
Though, I preferred to go to the local theatre and play sit down Hang-On, OutRun, and After Burner II machines when I had the chance.
All three of those places are long gone now though.
Oh boy, that's a momentous occasion huh?
I guess I should start up a New Tales/OG Tales playthrough once I'm back from my trip this week! 🥳
I might be inclined to start a OG Tales playthrough...it has been a while. Mhm. I'll have to remember that.
There's a large plot thread in the new Alan Wake expansion that's basically a massive critique on AI art and generative algorithms and I think it's hilarious and very cool of Remedy.
I’m remodeling my bedroom, horror theme, I received a Terrifier 2 blanket for my bed , I might get a arctic clown, action, figure model for display or the Arctic clown mask, ideas still pending .
Now that's a good deal.
Ooh - I just got an e-mail from Fangamer that the Lili plushie from the Psychonauts 2 crowdfunding campaign is finally being shipped.
I was sorting through my mountain of plushies last week, saw my Raz plushie, and got to wondering about the Lili plushie. I was wondering if I really did check it off on the extras for the campaign like I thought I did and thought that it was possible that not all of the Fig rewards were shipped out yet.
I guess I was being kind of prescient there.
Hot damn it took 8 years for them to ship a plush?
Man, LIS DE isn't very good. Like it's actually pretty bad. Hopefully it doesn't get worse!
Episodes 4 and 5:
lis de
Game literally ends with "Max will return" and a post credit tease and Nick Fury Safi recruiting super power people scene
I think my main take away from Life is Strange DE is that you can only do the “Max is back” story once and can’t exactly have any do-overs. I think the easiest thing to say about this game is that it never once justifies its existence for a second. It’s a sequel to LIS but it also very clearly has no interest in being one, and in Deck Nine fashion, also has no interest in being a compelling story on its own either.
First, the game is buggy and unpolished. Lots of sound bugs and plenty of graphical issues. Also lots of annoying technical bugs.
Max just does not work. She doesn’t even have the same powers anymore, she doesn’t feel like she needs to be here for this game, and she just doesn’t feel like Max. Obviously a lot of time has passed, she is going to be different. But I think a big problem is Max was always going to work best as a character as a young adult, not a 28 year old.
Max feels pretty bland in this game. I feel like the coming of age stuff was pretty important to Life is Strange and her character, and this game is pretty far past that. She also clearly learns nothing from the first game, regardless of if you save Chloe or not, Max will say she would undo Safi’s death without a second thought. She never reflects on this that much once she gets her powers, nor does she even really act all that surprised she has powers again. She also has only known Safi for like 5 weeks. Max is also just weirdly inconsistent, I don’t know why she loves horror films so much when in the first game cult classic seems like her actual favorite genre. She even said a few times how she didn’t really like horror movies. She has a guitar but you can’t even look at it and hear Max talk about music. But whatever. Generally I don’t think Max as a character is terribly butchered, but they didn’t do a good job with it either, and this story doesn’t convince me she should be here in the first place.
The game world feels very tiny. You are pretty much only going to be in the Admin/Fab building, outside the Admin/Fab building, and the bar for the vast majority of the game. Then sometimes Max’s house or a one and done area. And then you’re stuck with the same boring characters. In the original game you actually had to go places by bus or car, it made the place feel bigger. You also talked to people outside of Blackwell at the diner for example. It really helped the world feel larger. Everything here feels so small. Explore the same 3 areas. Talk to the same few people. There were also a lot more students and staff at Blackwell you could talk to. They frankly weren’t that important, but they added a lot into making the world feel bigger. Characters like that are sorely missing here.
The characters are also just bad. No one actually acts human. Again, very ironic considering the first game that has some very, very weird lines, but still comes off far more authentic than anything here. The game is also weirdly sexual. Way too much of it seems too concerned with who is fucking who. A lot of unwanted flirting all around and it won’t let up even if you actively go against it.
Safi is terrible and annoying, quirky quirky, and surprisingly kind of forgotten about in the middle chunk of the game despite this whole thing being about her. Amanda is boring and has no chemistry with Max. Vinh is weird and has negative chemistry with Max. Gwen just goes “GRRRRRRR!!! I'M SO ANGRY!” I was honestly surprised how unlikeable they made her imo. Just always very passive aggressive and her first interaction is her yelling to herself in a library about a book being locked behind a cabinet. A professor in front of students. lol?
Lucas is the only character who I think fits his role correctly as you aren’t really meant to like him. Moses is okay. Generally liked him but he is still very bland. Then there's Reggie and Diamond and reporter girl who are incredibly uninteresting. There is also a secret society thing that is so unimportant that I honestly forgot about it until just now.
The power is fine, but kind of convoluted. It does at least offer some interesting gameplay compared to TC.
The music isn’t great though. I think Deck Nine thinks LIS music is just a guitar and a woman whisper singing. Even the main theme is this. It isn’t really the music is bad, it's just that almost every licensed song sounds the same. The original game’s licensed music is similar in genre but far more varied.
Finally, this game has bad pacing. I took my time and I found myself very bored a lot of the time. Worst part was I honestly thought this was the longest LIS game. But then I realized it's only a little longer than TC. So it is actually kind of short. But man does it feel long.
Anyway, actual story spoiler stuff.
I ended up going with the Max romanced and saved Chloe route which was my original playthrough. I personally think saving the Bay which I did most recently is the ending I prefer. However, from what I could tell, it seemed like if you went with Bay you actually don’t really get much at all. I still need to look up if there is any interesting Bay stuff, but from what I can tell, it doesn’t seem so.
I do not like Max and Chloe breaking up at all. However, I do think the whole break up thing is a bit overblown by the fandom but for different reasons. A lot of people do seem to think Max and Chloe's relationship was the only thing that mattered which I feel kind of undermines the rest of the original game, and I disagree with that. That said, I think breaking them up if you decided to romance and save Chloe was handled very, very poorly. I think that does completely undermine that ending, and it does not fit the characters at all.
Some people talk about it being realistic, but I think that is a bit of a pointless argument. It's fiction. It's a story. There obviously comes a certain extension of disbelief, but changing relationships like this is just poor. I also think it is crazy to break up Max and Chloe, for what is one of the first and may be the most popular gay relationship in gaming.
But they also really don’t do shit with the break up. As I said earlier, Max shouldn’t be the playable character at all. They break up because it's easier if Max just never interacts with her. I also can’t stand how poorly they give the reasonings. Max is stuck in the past but Chloe wants to move forward. Anyway, enjoy every last one of the few posts Chloe makes are all about the past and talking to Victoria from Blackwell, don’t forget that Max is stuck in the past though.
One of the first things you do in the game is after you say what happened to Chloe, you then need to flirt with Amanda. You can’t decline or anything. Then you also need to clarify to her if you are romantically interested or not. We don’t even know who this character is but it wants to present you with choices like this right away.
In episode 3 Max is all sad in the bar and it's the obligatory choose your romance scene! Worst part is the objectives are to talk to Amanda or Vinh or leave the bar. I thought “Dude awesome, I can actually just leave!” SORRY PAL! YOU'RE GOING ON THE DATE NO MATTER WHAT! Max refuses to leave until you’ve done at least one date.
The mystery is obviously about what happened to Safi. But Safi is just an annoying “quirky” character who you know is going to die. It takes too long for her to die and it takes too long for us to get powers. Like we know. Get on with it. I wonder why the first game immediately starts with us getting powers and Chloe being shot… Then in episode 2 you get a scene meeting up with her again, and she then just kind of disappears. We need to find out how to save Safi but we then hardly interact with her until we find out what's going on with Safi at the end of episode 3. Even though we are investigating her death.
There is a whole thing going on campus with people seeing themselves as doubles. It is an interesting idea, but it didn’t really feel “life is strange” to me, but I was interested in seeing where it went. It did have me interested in what was going on. Turns out that Safi has powers and can shape shift (and kind of mind read) and has been getting revenge on people who wronged her. Gwen got her book canceled, so Safi gets her fired. Lucas turns out to have stolen her old friends Maya’s book and became famous from it, which caused her to commit suicide. So she goes after his son to yell at him and make him dislike his father.
After we know all this about Safi, the game suddenly becomes about revealing Lucas is a fraud so Maya gets justice, and episode 4 is pretty much set entirely inside the bar as we get ready to reveal this during his speech. The thing is, this Maya stuff honestly comes out of nowhere. It only really starts to get focused on in episode 3, but by the end of episode 3 we know the whole Maya story, so it feels like an information drop rather than a mystery like Rachel’s.
It feels really disconnected and it's just a strange hard shift. We don't even know what Maya looks like until her face appears on the projector during that scene. She’s really missing that overarching feeling Rachel had, and she’s very connected to Safi, who is hardly in episodes 2 and 3. Compared to Chloe who is obviously very present throughout the game along with the mystery of Rachel and her connection to her.
Also during this scene, it did not stop playing the ambient bar chatter. It is supposed to be quiet as this dude is being outed as a fraud but the ambient noise sounds like literally no one fucking cares, it honestly ruins the scene. I’m guessing they’ll fix this and they really should because it really, really comes off like no one cares lmao.
Anyway Lucas then asks to speak with Safi privately. (Also before all this Lucas had a gun in his jacket that Max finds and kind of just waves it around in the open as she talks to Safi who then takes it) And then offscreen he tells her that I guess her mom was actually the one who got her book canceled? It's all over the place and I honestly don't feel like explaining the whole the book is about Maya or whatever the fuck. Anyway, everyone on the campus is getting their brains scrambled from Safi freaking out as she confronts her mom as another storm like the first game is happening. Then Max finds Safi and her Mom where Safi was shot, Safi shoots her mom. And then we are in episode 5, baby. And you'll never guess what it is? Are you ready?
EPISODE 5 IS A NIGHTMARE EPISODE!!! How unpredictable. How… daring.
Basically everyone is stuck with Safi in their head so Max needs to help get them out of it. We go back to the Blackwell Bathroom where Chloe was shot for no real reason other than nostalgia. Kate and Warren appear in text messages here, although they are just from the first game. Max says something about Kate when you view her messages but just says nothing about Warrens.
Blah blah blah, we make it back to the real world Max has combined the timelines, stops the storm and now everyone has 2 memories! Safi then talks about how they are gods and are special and shit. Final choice is to not be cool with this or say you are with Safi. Neither matter because if you agree with Safi you just hug and she goes “Well anyway I'm gonna run away now”.
Go back to the bar, meet up with everyone, they all have double memories and know Safi and Max have super powers. But Max ain’t running away no more and is happy with her found family of fucking nobodies.
Post credit scene we find out forgettable side character Diamond also has powers although we don’t know what they are and neither does Deck Nine. Safi shows up and goes “I’m… putting together a team…” and then fucking “MAX WILL RETURN” to top it off. Very bold of them to pretend Deck Nine isn’t on death’s door and this theoretical game will even come out, but whatever. I’m so glad LIS is just marvel now, these fellas really know what this series is all about!
I also don’t even know what they even do go forward. Max doesn’t have her powers, again. Both the timelines are merged which sounds like a mess to continue from and this game clearly didn’t care about choices mattering anyway. Like what do you even do?
The storm stuff is also stupid. The first game had actual build up to the storm. Each day something strange would happen leading up to the storm. This game is just “uhh idk there’s a storm or something and uhhh the two moons too Idk dude, that was in the first game or whatever.”
One other thing I wasn’t even sure where to bring up was the cop character. I have no fucking idea what they were doing with this dude. He shows up, sees Max do supernatural shit and it freaks him out. He confronts us, but for the only time in this game he, as well as Moses, can see an alternate universe version of the cop like Max can. The cop touches it and he gets black holed and is gone for the rest of the game, and then Moses finds info that he never existed or he was wiped from existence. This shit is so out of place it honestly feels like it was an unfinished storyline that was supposed to be removed. It goes nowhere, I have no idea what it was about, it is never addressed, and Max and Moses kind of just shrug it off.
I feel like this game doesn’t even remotely understand Life is Strange. Especially the ending.
I've been waiting almost a full year for these statues to come in. Finally, Dark Horse delivers. The two very best characters in all of Mass Effect.
Bounty hunter turned beloved leader and champion, everyone's favorite krogan...Urdnot Wrex.
And your stalwart and loyal companion for the entirety of the trilogy, brilliant engineer, and objectively speaking best girl...Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.
Clock Tower Rewind was like the shortest game I played this year.
Granted, it has multiple endings so gonna do all of them to have the entire context.
Happy Halloween!
Ooo they look really good!
How's the build quality?
I just found out that the original Telltale Sam and Max games (that have been removed from sale on Steam since the remaster releases), are "back" as Free DLC included for the remastered games! That's a pretty damn cool compromise!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1488600/Sam__Max_Season_One_2007_Original_Version/
Also including a bunch of special features that were on the special DVD physical releases of SM back in the day .
They're overall really good and damn close to the games' look. Couple very small issues, like the swirls on Tali's suit weren't fully painted, but I'd say they're definitely worth the money
How much they cost? I'm curious.
Tali was about $50, Wrex $60
For no reason at all completely unrelated to any world changing events, I just wanna say good luck to the Americans on this forum, cause it's looking like you might need it. I hope you stay safe.
I also hope things turn out okay for America. Really crossing my fingers super hard these next few days. It's really surprising it's come to this. Again.
Today I'm just mad. Really mad. And shocked. And I just live in Canada (but I know I have internet friends in the USA and I feel for you guys)
Please send hugs. 🫂
So I forgot to mention it because of a few things, but Thursday was the 10th anniversary of my account creation of these forums.
And do I love these forums! 10 years has seen Telltale die and rise again, a ton of games, and a lot of friendships. To all my homies out there, keep it cool.
Since Tales turns 10 in a few weeks, here's a funny clip, one of my favorite moments that I got in my original playthrough (I love how there was no negative consequences for my Rhys not ever revealing Handsome Jack to anyone) in celebration:
Man, it has been 10 years for me too. Crazy to think the majority of it has now been without Telltale as we knew it. Where has time gone.
I know not many care too much about the new lis game but after some more time with the game I wanted to share some last thoughts.
First I just wanted to mention that I remembered how the game leaked a while ago but all I really remembered about it was it said Max would return. I went back to read them, and they were indeed 100% real, but damn. The fact some QA dude 2 years ago said "Yeah so the second half of this game sucks" is crazy to me. Knowing the ending was bad for 2 years. Makes me wonder if that means 2 years ago there was somehow a worst ending.
Deck Nine also did an interview recently and they confirmed they wanted to do Max, not Square. I feel like Square is getting a lot of blame for the direction this game went, but honestly I kind of doubt it. I feel like Square doesn't really care in that way, Dontnod even said they were very hands off. Square seems to be the most responsible for the awful pricing of the game is. Case in point, DE and Expanse have very similar problems yet Square obviously had no involvement with Expanse. DE also has a lot of the same problems TC has. I am a bit confused how people let it slide in TC but not here, but I guess bringing back a legacy character probably makes people more critical, and truthfully this game's ending is bad for the entire series than just the game, so that is probably part of it too. (And DE is a lot more nonsensical than TC just being boring)
Anyway, I want to comment on the romance again now that I've seen the paths that happen if you actually do it. I'm just gonna straight up say Deck Nine has the worst writers when it comes to romance.
Amanda is a plank of wood. She's just is so into Max and Max so into her. But you know like... Why tho? Deck Nine really likes to skip any actual bonding with their romance options, Maya in Expanse has a similar problem. TC does it a bit better but not really. It kind of just goes "Anyway, romance time I guess. Choose your wooden plank." Here though I think Amanda is pretty bad considering the second you meet her the game is all about romancing her, while you as the player don't know anything about her and don't learn much about her later either. Not that great of a character/romance option if all you can really say is "She's nice."
Then there's Vinh who is a very strange choice. The flirting just feels unnatural. Max gets a choice to randomly flirt by joking about being friends with benefits to someone we as the player and Max herself, hardly know. Then jokes about his "package." Then Vinh randomly says Max and him have sexual tension. A lot of this just goes on and on and it never feels endearing or most importantly, human. It also feels like getting flashbanged because it never comes off as not shoehorned. This goes for both Vinh and Amanda, it never comes off as natural or bonding.
It also doesn't help that there are so few characters but almost none of them interact. Like Vinh and Safi I think only share 1 line of dialogue to each other. Gwen is largely isolated as well. But the weirdest thing is even though half these characters never interact, their all connected like this. AHEM. Amanda likes Max and Max likes Amanda but also likes Vinh, but Amanda also has a crush on Gwen, and Vinh had a thing with Safi that he isn't totally over, but Vinh and Reggie also have a thing going on, but Loretta also likes Reggie, and Vinh also would get with Moses if he could, but it turns out Diamond is secretly in love with Moses. Pretty much every character has a thing for each other. But at the same time most of them never even talk to each other. I also wonder why they decided that every character just wants to fuck each other.
But really, the amount of times Max goes "omgz that is like... so... hawwwt." is also so, so weird. Its like she's become more immature lmao. The fact that Max's journal if you kiss both Amanda and Vinh is Max talking about how hot it was is so weird. The funniest thing, in the original game, Max can write in her journal if she kisses Chloe and Warren, but she isn't going "wow.. that was... so... HOT." (When she writes it, a much different situation is going down, but the point being is if you read both these journals back to back, they do not come off as the same character at all)
Max as a teacher and the rest of the university is very under utilized. We never see Max do any kind of teaching. We don't really see anyone do any teaching. We never see classrooms or lecture halls. Deck Nine seemingly forgot Diamond and Reggie are students trying to get with people who work for the university, which you'd think would have some kind of push back, but it doesn't because this game treats the place like its a small town, not a college campus with staff members.
I also think they made it too obvious it was going to be Max who killed Safi. Now, I'm glad they kind of get to that right away instead of stretching it out, but again, there was so few characters, and we know the death must have been somewhat supernatural, it feels too obvious. Plus the random photos of another timeline Max finds (for some reason) also kind of immediately tip you off to start thinking "Oh yeah, its probably Max" even though the photos ironically have nothing to do with that, they do immediately make you think "So there's another Max." All I'm saying is, probably don't add some random collectable that's an "alternate universe Max" and have Max say "Oh shit, these must be mine from another universe" if you don't want people to immediately start guessing the killer twist.
Lastly, there is just no choice in this game. Everything becomes more and more straight forward. Looking back at the choices, I actually don't think a single thing really changes longer than 30 seconds. Even the final choice doesn't give you ending a or b, it just doesn't do anything
I do wonder what is next for lis. I guess there will either be DLC or Deck Nine is hoping they get approval for a sequel. No idea what you even do though. Considering they did so much to make sure choices did not matter its kind of crazy how bad of a hole they wrote themselves into.
Well here's something pretty neat. Some (I guess?) test footage from the cancelled In the Valley of the Gods by Campo Santo. Specifically, the water shading tech that would make its way to Valve's Counter Strike 2.
Turns out I still have a few months until my decade anniversary.
My profile says March 24th 2015, and I could swear I had joined a month or two earlier, and was here for all the speculation on TFTB Episode 2 before that took way too long to come out, but... I guess not?
On Page 312 of my profile's comment history: My very first comment in this site. On March 24th. A attempt at a joke that no longer makes sense because the two users involved don't have the same profile pictures... At least I think that's what that was about...
Oh dip, just realised I already hit 10 years in september!
I think it's really weird how excited Camp Santo was to become a support studio for Valve. Also that sucks that they apparently cancelled it soon after joining Valve, cause I remember them assuring people even like a year later that it was still being worked on.
I’ve got a few more months before my original accounts 10 years too. I didn’t start posting here until 2017 though iirc.
Time flies for sure.
But we're still here and we're definitely not crazy or anything.
Wolf 2 accepting its fate after seeing TWD comic, New Tales, and LIS all get terrible legacy sequels
A new trailer for the animated anthology series, Secret Level is out.
I can't wait for the Concord episode.
So last night our family dog passed away. Ponyo. She was 13, so was basically near the end of her life, but still, it was all so sudden... We expected more of a sign, or gradual decline, but... that was not to be.
It's... gonna be weird, and sad for a while I'm sure. I'm mostly afraid of how this might affect me today, this week, next month, etc. Not sure if I should inform my manager at work about this just in case, but that probably seems wise?
I think it still hasn't fully hit me yet because I'm still in shock about the whole thing. It all just unfolded so fast.
She was perfectly fine yesterday morning. By sheer coincidence, my sister is back in town this week to visit a friend/loiter around the Taylor Swift venue if she can get a ticket. So she was happy to see her, and the whole family was here to comfort her in her final moments...
After her walk yesterday before dinner, she stayed outside as usual. But when it came time to bring her back in, she had trouble standing up, refused to walk on her own, and when we did get her inside, she sat down, and collapsed into a lying down position. Lots of heavy breathing, and occasional grunt or moan, and this "heaving" motion in her belly.
We finally decided after an hour of just waiting to see if this 'weak/sickness' got any better "okay, we need to know if we can make her more comfortable, and what this is" and took her to the vet...
They informed us that she had significant internal bleeding in her abdomen! Probably from some sort of rupture or lesion, maybe from some cancerous growth somewhere, that just decided to rip open? (she's had some weird lumps and bumps pop up in the last 2 years, but we've never noticed her seem to complain or be irritated by it)
ugh... why did it have to go this way...
So we, uh had to all make the call that yes, she should be euthanised, since any work that could be done for her, probably wouldn't make the rest of her life any easier...
We gave her so many cuddles. She was so soft... She was such a nice dog. Loved any stranger she could meet (would be a terrible guard dog) -- and she even met my D&D group on Monday when I hosted, which was nice!
This is just... such a weird feeling in my body right now. I woke up 30 mins ago, haven't gone downstairs to have breakfast yet. But that'll be weird. And when I return from work, she's always happy to see who's at the door... not anymore...
Thankfully today is a day off for me, so I can rest and sit with this... Still, she was the best dog, she always deserved the best...