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preemshots · 3 years

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johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction!

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis.

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself:

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos.

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs!

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that.

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi.

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it.

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v.

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that??

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again.

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence.

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something.

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into.

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.

#lore post #johnny silverhand #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk2077 #cp2077 #cyberpunk lore

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gar-trek · 3 years

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no i care about ur tng s1 opinions !!

Well anon since you asked..... (imagine we are hiking together, lol :)

Alright... season one of TNG... well... it wasn’t great. In fact, if it was not a Star Trek show, I’m not sure I would have gotten through it at all. Now I'm not saying that I hated it, in fact there was plenty that i did actually like. But overall it just kinda boring and it was hard to really get into it. Sometimes mediocracy is a worse then just being flat out bad, ya know? To keep things comprehensive, since half of this was written in an RV and the other half is written whilst im on 3 hours of sleep, lets put my review into a nice list of things i did not like, and things i did about season one of TNG

The bad:

-I have talked about this before, but I think my main issue with TNG so far is the extremely awkward vibe it has. Shots linger way too long after characters are done talking. the jokes do not hit most the time. the dialogue is often stilted and awkward. The characters just do not feel real to me at all. It's just very very strange. I don't know if its a problem with the writing, the directing or the producing, or maybe just all three, but overall shit is just awkward all the time. I wish the charecters felt more real. Like yeah, maybe we didn't see much of Sulu in TOS, but they still managed to make him a guy you could imagine yourself meeting at a bar or whatever. what am i gonna go have some drinks with fuckin season 1 William Riker?? Nah, wtf is that bitches motivations and aspirations ?? that he wants to be captain and has blue eyes ?? what i am trying to say is that nothing feels real and no smart ass not because its a fictional sci-fi show, but because the characters all act super weird or literally just do nothing.

-Picard. I’m kind of turning the corner here but like... he just doesn’t do it for me as captain. I feel like since he’s the captain that makes him the “””””main character”””” and yet... what does Picard do? He’s just kinda boring. Like the man doesn’t even always bean down to the planet or whatever. And you guys already know my thoughts on his relationship with Wes... yeah :/ so no, I don’t hate Picard, I just kinda hate that he’s the captain.

-Where is the action ? Am I an old white male boomer for wishing TNG had a little more tits out violence like TOS did. I mean where is the punching? Where is the redshirt deaths and photon torpedos and shit. I need more violence, and I know that’s like, opposite of the message of Star Trek but dammit... more violence!

-Every single thing that happened to Tasha Yar in Skin of evil. I know you know :/ we all know. :/ and mini rant but in the beginning of that episode Worf and Tasha had a cute little moment and I actually thought “wow they would make a good couple actually or at least best buds” but.. well you know :/ too bad. Also I feel like they spent a lot of time trying to set up Tashas backstory and she actually had something interesting going on so like.... again too bad I guess :/

*cough cough*

anyway, here is what i did like:

-despite their awkwardness i do think some of the characters are neat. Geordi has to be my favorite, he just brings such a good vibe to the crew and I think the whole concept of his character is really interesting. I like Worf but I still feel like we don’t get enough Worf time and of course I like Data, tbh I never disliked him but he definitely grew on me more as I watched. Data does have the tendency to make me cringe... but like in the way your weird lovable friends do. And of course Wes, who deserves so much better then all the dumb ass situations they write for him.

-I think they do a good job of making it feel like the Star Trek universe without just copying everything they did in TOS. like its super different from TOS in a lot of ways, but still it feels like the same universe, and maybe even a little more true to the universe. like the prime directive thing is taken a lot more seriously, same with the federation not wanting to resort to violence right away, all that star trek jazz. its still there, its still trek.

-they don't do a bunch of annoying pandering. i feel like nowadays when they come out with remakes or spin-offs or whatever they always have to have a million callbacks like "hey remember this thing you loved?? here it is again exactly the same" because like yeah that is easy and it more fail-proof. like they could have just stuck a vulcan in the main cast, don't tell me you wouldn't have gotten Spock brain and just ate that shit up, but they were like nah and tried new stuff instead. and i respect that. because the callback episode they did do (naked now) kinda fuckin sucked. so good for them for trying to forge their own path.

okay anyway those are my general thoughts. More specifically, here are the epsidoes i think were the very worst

- Encounter at Fairpoint (literally the first episode and i kept checking my watch wondering when it would be over. it should not have been a 2 parter that was way too long. Q was annoying as hell. the main plot was not that interesting. )

- Where No One Has Gone Before (very tedious and hard to sit through. "oh we traveled too far into space.... oh we did it again! haha lol!" boring. did not like that Traveler guy sus as hell.... hated that Picard only made Wes and Ensign after the Traveler said Wes was important.)

-Skin of Evil (dumb stupid dumb)

-The Nuteral Zone ( i dont even want to get into this. i actually think this one stunk the worst and it was the last episode. so many things wrong)

annnnddd the episodes i liked!

- The Last Outpost (Ferengi Ferengi Ferengi Ferengi )

-Haven (how can you not love Lwaxana Troi this episode made me genuinely laugh so many times. lots of very good character moments here)

-Angle One (i really liked the concept of male wife girl boss society i thought it was funny and interesting)

-Conspiracy (i felt like this one actually kept me on my toes. also liked when that dude's head exploded)

annndddd that about sums it up people! was that a comprehensible review? no. was it long? yes. feel free to disagree with me or fight it out in the comments. what are your least favorite episodes from season one? do you agree with my takes here? let me know

#okay time to be a person now #so tired #so so tired #stick around for soon when i review killing time #yeah thats right bitch i read a book!#star trek #tng #the next generation #tng season 1 #review #my takes #data #william riker #whatever whatever

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st-just · 3 years

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Semi-coherent thoughts on Oathbringer

So, overall probably the most even of the series so far, I’d say? Not to say I didn’t like it – I really, really loved the finale, and there were plenty of great lines, but my god were there a lot of pages spent on nothing happening (honestly it kind of reminded me of the latter volumes of ASOIF, in that sense) – then again, I suppose that is kind of just the nature of these 1000+ page fantasy epics. There were some setting reveals that really were fascinating, and legitimately a bit surprising. Going to have to take a break from the series until the friend I got Rhythm of War for is done so I can borrow it, though I suppose that’s no huge loss compared to the however many years everyone else had to wait in between them.

So in terms of pacing it’s...bad. Or, well, that’s probably a bit unfair. There’s absolutely plenty of fat to cute, but again I do think that might just come with the territory of committing to like a dozen POVs across a tree’s worth of paper (though there were absolutely like 100+ page stretches where I’m not actually sure the plot meaningfully progressed). That said, honestly the main pacing issue isn’t so much the bloat as, like – okay, Dalinar’s arc was a pretty consistent throughline, but for Kalidan and Shallan it kind of felt like there was one whole story in Urithiru, and then from the mission to Kholinar and the journey through the Cognitive Realm felt like its own separate novel? I mean, not sure if that makes any sense, but it really did kind of feel like there was a whole additional first act of table and stakes setting once they arrived in the city.

Though, to argue in favor of bloat for a moment – I was chatting with @lifeattomsdiner bit back about The City We Became, and they mentioned that the size of the cast meant that you don’t actually really get to know any of the protagonists that well on their own. And I suppose that is the advantage of the 1200-page-per-volume epic cycle – even with characters you only really meet in interludes like Szeth, Vargo and Venli (incidentally three of my favorites), you spend enough pages inside of their head that you do really get to see what makes them tick and learn to love/hate them. Speaking of – props to Sanderson as an author, really – it’s vaguely astounding that he manages to keep track of that many internal monologues and actually make them seem distinct from each other.

Breaking things down by character a bit more – this book really did actually enjoy/get invested in Dalinar way more than either of the previous two, which again I’m told is more or less the expected reaction. Given the amount of tumblr brain poison I’m voluntarily exposed myself to, it’s honestly more than a bit of a nice change to see a character on a redemption arc who is actually unambiguously in need of redemption. Because holy shit, pulled, like, exactly two punches in terms of making the guy as genuinely loathsome as possible before he starts breaking. And, well, obviously he was on a redemption arc, but there was a bit near the end there where I really did think that the book was going to cut to black on an ‘end of Act 2, maximum darkness before dawn’ moment with, like, all the Skybreakers and him kneeling before Odium as the city fell. But I suppose that would be a bit much of a cliffhanger for a series with installments this weighty.

This was pretty clearly Shallan’s ‘getting over my personal bullshit’ book, like WoR was for Kaladin and WoK was for Dalinar, though spicing things up with increasingly severe DID as the book went on did make things more interesting at least. Also, I have no idea if this is actually true, but according to the friend who pestered me into reading these when someone asked Sanderson if he’d intentionally written her as bi he just kind of shrugged and said ‘sure, why not,’ which is fun. It was more than a bit, I don’t know, forced?, to have Wit just wander in from stage left and give her a desperately needed therapy session while she was in the middle of a breakdown and propel her development for most of the rest of the book, but on the other hand she’s pretty easily the main POV I’m most invested in by now, and the live triangle the text repeatedly threatened me with never actually became a thing, so I can’t really complain too much. Honestly super curious about the Ghostbloods and what they want out of her given, well, for a shadowy murderous conspiracy, everything they’ve wanted out of her so far has been pretty much entirely benign. Like, of the three major shadowy murderous conspiracies they’re easily the least problematic for the future of humanity at the moment. She should just commit and join for real imo.

As always, Kaladin’s POV is mostly good because it means we get more Syl, who is the single best character in the entire story I’ve decided. But also, I really quite liked his whole sojourn with the newly freed Parshmen and dawning realization that ‘wait these people are basically entirely right’. Also, the delicious delicious angst of spending however many dozens of pages getting to know them and then the wall guard and then the two groups killing each other in a confused melee while he has a mental breakdown. Easily best moment in the book (but then I’m a miserable person).

Adolin is honestly significantly more entertaining to follow than I really expected, though I’m still not like especially invested in him as a character. His relationship with his tailor was quite charming, though, as was the fact that he cares enough about fashion that he learned to sew. Honestly I was rather expecting/slightly dreading his main arc this book to be, like, inadequacy or insecurity over being almost literally the only member of his family that’s not a Radiant, so it’s kind of a pleasant surprise that he seems to have just accepted that (too well-adjust, I guess?). It is however extremely funny that the fact he just straight-up murdered one of the kingdom’s most important aristocrats and the major antagonist of the first two books seems to have resulted in absolutely zero consequences of any kind for him.

In terms of minor characters, the one I’m most invested in by a pretty substantial margin at this point is Venli, as she’s getting a front row seat to all the most interesting bits of the setting, ‘cultist growing increasingly disillusioned about return of ancient and terrible eldritch god’ is a really entertaining character arc just in principle, and because as of the end of the book she represents the morally objectively correct perspective and political line I’ve decided and will fight people about. Curious what sort of superpowers she’ll get. (Vargo and Szeth are still both great though, too).

The Unmade are really fun as a worldbuilding conceit/excuse for weird fucked up monsters. And it really is kind of funny that at least a third of the God of Evil’s nine generals/children/favoured beasts are, like, at conflicted or ambivalent about the whole ‘exterminate humanity and remake the world as a monument to my glory’ thing.

Really, on an extremely shallow and entirely aesthetic level, between the evil red crystal/lightning aesthetic, the remote mountain fortress as a stronghold of the heroes in the face of the coming apocalypse, tears into the realm of spirits, the quirky evil minibosses each handling corrupting/conquering a given center of civilization, etc, the whole thing kind of reminded me of Dragon Age Inquisition. Which reminded me of how disappointing the story to that game was, which made me like the book more by comparison, but anyway. Yeah, good book.

#books #oathbringer #stormlight archive #cosmere #brandon sanderson #in this essay I will #book review

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justmysicklypride · 6 years

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P-P-P-Play that shit: ptv analysis - Part 2

Hi what’s up everyone and welcome to this week’s pew news. This is a continuation of my last post where I pretty much summed up Pierce The Veil’s career from the beginning to present and gave an overview of their rise and downfall. You can check it out here, but if you already know about everything or have read it already then feel free to ignore it. In any case, I was originally gonna make these two posts as one but ran out of room bc who the hell would read that much text in a blog post (me) so here you go - part two of this fucking conspiracy theory because I didn’t even get to share any of my thoughts in the last one. (I also forgot to put headers with each new topic smh apologies to the English language)

Edit: it’s been fucking eons since I wrote the last one/started writing this one like legit I even changed my user. The reason why this has been put off for so long will be explained later but yh smh

Gigantic obligatory disclaimer: Everything that I will discuss whether it be in this post or my last, or any future posts that relate to this subject IS NOT going to touch on the subject of the “sexual relations with a minor” incident in itself. I will not go into detail about my own views on this specific matter as there is literally no way to win because whatever I say could be taken out of context by literally anyone. That being said, I do not condone pedophilia, I do not condone sexual harassment or rape, and I do not undermine the importance of consent. I respect the laws of different states, as I know they vary with time and place, and I understand that everyone has their own opinions and I do not wish to impose my own onto others.

In regards to this, however, I do have to acknowledge that I, first and foremost, do not think that Mike Fuentes is innocent, and I strongly believe that how the band handled this situation was just plain terrible, but I do also have to acknowledge the fact that this situation is to stay between the accuser and the victim, as well as their respective legal teams and that I should not go nosedive headfirst into anything like this when it does not directly affect or require my judgement as a necessity, lest I face any legalities or blacklash as a result. Furthermore, everything that I will be talking about are conspiracies only and I do not in any way assume or imply that any of this is true.

In other words, I don’t mean to offend anyone but if you end up getting offended then that’s on you, not me. Let’s begin.

Introduction

The points that I am trying to highlight in this essay post is, in simple words, that Pierce The Veil’s... well, everything, comes off as kind of a conspiracy, almost, to me. I have had these thoughts for a long-ish time, and so this post is basically me finally making a post that covers all things that I have been thinking of in the past. Unlike my previous post, this one is a lot less fact-based and a lot more opinionated, so if you’re not into that, then that’s fair. Otherwise, I will be discussing the following things (in this order): the topic of kellic, Misadventures, and the accusation + response.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Ship Them Together And Call It Lemonade

I refer to my last post and assume that everyone understands how “kellic” came to be and what it means. To summarise to the bare minimum best of my abilities, it’s the ship name of Vic Fuentes and Kellin Quinn, aka what people call it when someone wants or is keen on the idea of these two frontmen having an affair with each other in a (typically) fictional setting. It happens all the time, especially in this day and age where you can easily just find someone with the same obsession as you with a click of a button. That’s why King For A Day, and inadvertently Collide With The Sky, became such a huge success. It appealed to the right demographic of teenagers and tweens who were ecstatic at the prospect of shipping, and went on to achieve even more impressive feats following that. How you ask? Well, by going on a tour around the world of course. Together. Playing shows every night that ends with one of them literally carrying the other off the stage. Gotta give the people what they want, hey?

I have a strong belief that the key to success is through beating the system at its own game. In this case, the game is simple - get fans, get money. Unfortunately, as we all know, getting fame isn’t as easy as simply earning it through grit and determination. To achieve fame, one must find a way to do something at the right time in the right way so that people will notice. If one person does, and your fire doesn’t die out right away, then you’ve got yourself a forest fire. Then later on, all you gotta do is keep this forrest fire going, but assuming that there isn’t someone standing on the other side with the whole fire department’s resources in tow, then the only thing stopping this fire is itself, because with all things in life, fire dies out, and fame stops accumulating after a while if nothing is done about it. Humans need entertainment. If something starts to fail to pique their interests, then they move on. That’s why YouTubers are required to change up their content every now and again in order to try and relight that spark they once had, and even then there’s a good chance that they won’t.

I was originally going to write another blog essay about this whole YouTube analogy thing but quickly realised that for one, I don’t have time bc I’m getting my ass fucked by university on a daily basis; and that for another, there’s most likely a billion other videos or essays about this topic as is, so I’ll just link one or two of them here. I haven’t watched them all yet or I don’t remember much of them, but all they do is pretty much summarise up stuff like how YouTubers become successful and their downfalls and all that, and even though they kinda focus on a specific person or group of people, I feel like it could be generalised.

Even without the YouTube metaphor, we know shipping works. It is evident in multiple works across various media that giving the fans what they want is often what gives these people their continued success, such as Dan Howell and Phil Lester, who have all but stopped trying to create their own individual branding (save for their separate merch stores that are probably there just to get more people to buy their overpriced clothing), and who at this point have become such an overused example that I actually hesitated writing that. Why do you think movies and shows and cartoons mostly have a romantic subplot? Romance is an essential trope in literature and easily one of the most popular genre out there for various reasons. According to a Bustle article written in 2016, romance often gives the readers a sense of hope or gives them a way to live out their fantasies in the easiest way possible, and while this may not apply to everyone, (personally I’m not a romance fan much at all but I can appreciate good literature), it’s hard to deny the phrase “sex sells”.

Given that, you’d think that any company with half a brain would learn to exploit it, but for some reason this wasn’t the case in Pierce The Veil’s management, and no matter how I look at it, I can’t really see the reason why. It’s not like the band members are uncomfortable with the ship - Jaime Preciado has been seen kissing Vic Fuentes on stage (not on the lips guys chill) (I had forgotten how fucking difficult it takes to find this one specific clip so here’s a couple different fuenciado pictures instead to make up for it smfh), and Vic Fuentes has mentioned kellic in a live stream once jokingly - and Kellin Quinn is notoriously known for being completely okay with it (so long as he doesn’t have to look at it), so just what is the reason?

This Ain’t A Hiatus, It’s A Goddamned Arms Race

I’d be lying if I didn’t miss all the memes that all stemmed from the Pierce The Veil boys not being able to release an album when they’d promised, before postponing said album yet again and disappearing off of the face of the earth digitally for another year or two, giving them a total of four years as their unofficial, unannounced hiatus. For this, I have several questions.

We all know Vic Fuentes loves taking his sweet ass time releasing music - he’s admitted to remaking his first album a second time before releasing it, as stated an interview a couple years back - but you can’t honestly tell me their management just let them get away with it. Sure, through this time they’ve been pushing out new merch to no end, but something tells me that this giant gap they’ve wedged between the new album and Collide With The Sky isn’t gonna be good publicity, despite all the memes that’ve sprouted from it. There’s been fans who stopped taking interest in this band because of it, as well as fans who have just gotten fed up with having to wait so long. They scrapped a whole completed album in the process of creating Misadventures too, and while it’s not uncommon for bands to throw away near-completed ideas at whim, it’s also not unlikely for there to be some external factors or reasoning behind why they did it. Could it be that the album they threw away stayed too close to their roots and management or some other person told the band to start again, so that they can create something more appealing to this day and age? Or could it be something else that is hard to see at face-value?

You’ll Never Get Ahold Of Me Now

Finally, I’m gonna address the overdue elephant in the room. If you want to read the full thing, here it is because I’m tired of having to reiterate what happened. Mike Fuentes received a sexual allegation by some girl(s) and the band released a shitty statement that has since gotten deleted - that’s the general gist of it.

Like I said, it’s been literal months (or weeks idk my perception of time is severely fucked) since I actually started making this post so literally no one cares anymore, but regardless of what past me has promised or written down, I’m not going to be discussing the allegation in itself, but rather what and/or how the band and their subsequent management has handled it, in that they handled it so bad that I honestly can’t believe they did it like that.

Edit: I wasn’t gonna bother finding another copy of the statement bc no one’s gonna give a shit but then I’d be doing some baseless shit and I honestly can’t stand people who half ass these things, despite my growing urge to do the same thing, so here’s the statement.

For starters, who the hell waits one whole month before releasing a statement? From what I can remember, their excuse was allegedly that pretty much management forbade them to talk or make a statement about it earlier for... reasons? (Just realised I don’t actually have the source for this so idk take it with a grain of salt I guess because I was sure I had read this somewhere but I can’t back it up.)

That’s not even the worst part, either. The statement itself gave zero closure to literally everything. Yes, they acknowledged the allegation, but that’s just about as far as they went. The whole point of a statement is to clear things up, whether the accuser was right or wrong, and what steps will be taken from there, whether an apology is to be issued or not. No shit you know about the incident, who in the fandom wouldn’t? Instead pointing out the straight up obvious, what they should’ve done was 1) not waited an entire fucking month before talking about it, most likely hoping the whole thing to blow over by then and 2) actually talked about the incident in their statement instead of tiptoeing around the subject like some sort of time bomb ready to go off. There is no right or wrong answer, because literally all they had to do was tell the truth - as in write down a statement from Mike (not the whole fucking band mind you) about his take on the whole thing or get him to say what had happened from his point of view. Then resolve it privately with your legal team and whatnot if they really feel the need. Hell, all he needed to do was apologise. Whether something like that classifies as assault or rape or whatever is up to you but the fact of the matter is that she’s underaged at that point in time. Even if she was fully aware of the risks and whatnot and gave legitimate consent, under the eyes of the law and pretty much 80% of the people reacting to this incident, it will be deemed illegal and inappropriate behaviour. All these people had to do was literally just be open and honest about it regardless of whatever the hell happened, because this is all happening on a public platform where everyone can see/read it to their hearts’ content. Viewers can’t judge or make a decision to support or not support you if you don’t tell them your side of the story, so for the love of god, why the hell didn’t they?

The statement was filled with bullshit about how they love the fans and all that shit, and honestly my thoughts can be accurately summed up in this video right here. So much backlash could have potentially been avoided had they just told it as it is, because now all we have is a vague ass response that gives no closure and tell us nothing as to whether Mike actually did it or not, because in the statement he manage to spout some bullshit about how he’s “never intentionally manipulated or abused anyone in [his] life” and that he’s just a ball of empathy which at first glance could suggest he at least thinks he’s innocent, but then they go on to say how Mike’s taking a temporary leave from the band for, you guessed it, absolutely no reason. At least, no reason that they’ve given us (what else is new) (I’m becoming more petty as the night drags on it’s literally 1am). Honestly, .@piercetheveil, please tell me why the honest to god fuck did you have him leave just after suggesting that he might be innocent? I know the world isn’t black and white but when you’re making a stance and defending yourself or admitting to something, it really is - black and white that is. Either you’re innocent or believe that you’re innocent and stand your ground by not leaving the band, or you admit that you are guilty, in which case your leaving of the band would actually feel justified, because now it’s like you’re gonna come back as well, so what does that even mean? Mike isn’t gone indefinitely, he hasn’t pleaded guilty or innocent, and now the band is telling us they love us? Fuck out of here with that bullshit.

Yes, I support the band’s decision to pull out of the All Time Low tour and to not have Mike out there in case fans feel threatened or unsafe or whatnot, but if you’re pleading innocent, then honestly the whole band should’ve just said “hey we’re gonna go on hiatus for a while until our legal team’s finished with taking care of everything”, and not just said hey guys we’re gonna kick him out because he may or may not have done something that we’re not gonna tell you because we’re shady fuckers like that. I know they are on hiatus right now, but at the “start”, they only said that Mike would be withdrawing temporarily or whatever so it’s kind of like, okay? Sure? It’s a right mess I assure you. Honestly, throughout this whole incident, it was this statement part that made me really fed up with this band. My interest in them had died down significantly from since I hit fifteen all those three years ago, and right now when I dug up an old iPod shuffle to bring with me to university to save my phone battery throughout the day, I can honestly say that I won’t be adding any Pierce The Veil songs onto it anytime soon unless I get peer pressured to. Personally, I feel like that’s kind of the mentality of a lot of had-been Pierce The Veil fans, too.

That’s Great And All But What’s Your Point?

Pierce The Veil’s management sucks ass.

There’s no easy, lawsuit-prone way for me to say it but, and this is just a conspiracy theory I swear to god if I get the fucking ASIS kicking down my door in the middle of the night you better read the fucking disclaimer, there’s obviously some shady shit going on in there no matter what way you slice it. Either they’re sabotaging Pierce The Veil’s success or whether it’s all some big confusion or misunderstanding, or if they’re just plain dumb, we can all agree that this whole thing - the kellic fan service, album making, allegations and subsequent statements - should’ve and could’ve been handled a hell of a lot more gracefully and professionally. Believe it or not, waiting until things blow over is frankly just childish and solves literally nothing, so either they can pull their act together quickly with this next “special secret” album to redeem what little quality/dignity they have left, or they can just fade away into irrelevancy and become a band that no one cares about anymore.

History repeats itself. This band is quickly becoming just another Leafyishere, and as ominous as that sounds, it’s honestly not unlikely at this point. I am intrigued as to where they go from here, because if they manage to breakthrough again, then I would be very surprised given their current situation. I want to know how they choose to handle this - whether it’ll be the same or not, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much if you read through this honestly like I am beyond happy that this is fucking over because I have a bunch of non-band related post essays I’ve been meaning to post but this one’s been nagging at the back of my mind for the past few months or however long it’s been. I’ve clocked in at around past 3k words for this one, and none of this is edited because I’m honestly so done with this you don’t understand. Like I said before, this took ages because I was gonna make another post talking about other shit that relates to this before realising that there’s way too many people that’ve addressed the whole YouTube thing so me doing it would literally be pointless, and even though no one really reads this shit, as big of a nerd as I am, I do enjoy writing bullshit because maybe then I’ll stop ranting to my friends and family about topics they don’t care about.

Regardless, that’s it for this two parter thing, and until next time or whatever.

Catch’ya x

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Resident Evil 3 Review — A Jill Royale With Cheese

March 30, 2020 11:00 AM EST

Resident Evil 3 is an excellent remake of a fan favorite game that features great action gameplay, jaw-dropping visuals, and not enough Carlos.

The Resident Evil franchise has long been one of my favorite series in gaming. I vividly remember staying up late into the night, devouring the Resident Evil remake on GameCube. More than anything, the original game’s lore stuck with me, so I quickly went out and bought all of the S.D. Perry novels based on the games. I was so into the story of Resident Evil that when the first movie came out, I begged my mom to rent it. She finally relented, on the condition that I didn’t let my brother watch. So, he sat in the other room and I just described the movie to him. The obsession was real.

Anyways, because I came to the series relatively late and never owned a PlayStation One, the two series entries that always evaded me were Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Granted, I knew the basic story from the novelizations, but never got the chance to play them myself. So, when Capcom announced the Resident Evil 2 remake a few years ago, I was ecstatic to finally play the games that had evaded me for so long. Fortunately, Resident Evil 2’s remake was a masterclass in how to update an old classic for modern audiences and would have been my Game of the Year in 2019 if not for the sublime Judgment.

With the success of RE2, it was a surprise to literally no one when Capcom revealed they would remake Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Both games are fan-favorites that deserved the update and, after seeing what the team did with Mr. X, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we needed to witness how the stalking mechanics would evolve with Nemesis. But, given the totality with which the RE team knocked RE2’s remake out of the park, how could they possibly hope to top it with RE3?

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“[Resident Evil 3] is an absolute must-play.”

Well, the short answer is that they didn’t. Now, don’t take that to mean Resident Evil 3 is a bad remake. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. However, while many of the designer’s decisions help to make the game better, there were enough niggles that kept the RE3 from completely surpassing its predecessor. That said, this game is an absolute must-play whether you’re a fan of the series or not.

The first thing that really stands out to me is the visuals. It’s not just that RE3 looks beautiful (and it does), it’s the detail Capcom has put into everything. I mean sure, Jill’s model is absolutely stunning, but what I really want to talk about is a blink-and-miss-it moment at the very start of the game.

After the opening cutscene, you wake up inside Jill Valentine’s apartment. On one wall of her apartment, she’s filled this massive board with clippings, notes, and connections about Umbrella Corp. Imagine the conspiracy board from the Pepe Silvia scene from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but with zombies and secret buildings owned by a pharmaceutical company. Next to the board, there’s an oscillating fan that’s been left on, presumably to beat that late September heat. As the fan moves back and forth, you notice that when it points toward the board, all the notes and string sway in the breeze. I’m not an expert on oscillating fans in video games, so, while I’m sure others have done it before, this was the first time I’ve seen it.

Either way, the point is that Capcom’s attention to detail is incredible. Here, they’ve taken a minuscule detail that most people likely won’t notice and made sure that it feels as lifelike as possible. That focus on detail in the graphics and animation is apparent throughout the entire game. From the viscera you see on each and every zombie to how they’ve altered Nemesis’ design to make him look like even more of a barely contained monstrosity, RE3 nails just about everything it goes for visually. And you cannot convince me that they didn’t give Carlos Oliveria that doofy haircut for any other reason than to show off their top-notch hairtech. The RE engine is a powerhouse and Resident Evil 3 is my favorite example of it so far.

But this beauty pageant winner doesn’t lack substance. In fact, in a few ways, the gameplay actually feels better than the RE2 Remake, depending on what you’re looking for. For the most part, if you’ve played RE2, you know what you’re getting. RE3 is, at its core, a survival horror game with a heavy emphasis on mitigating danger over mowing down zombies. Instead of clearing a room by killing everything, it’s much more effective to pick and choose who and where you shoot. If you can blow off a zombie’s leg, you force them to crawl. These even slower moving zombies are much easier to deal with and avoid than their still walking brethren. Even some of the larger, more deadly monsters you face are often easier to avoid than kill outright.

However, Capcom has given you a new move in your arsenal that makes avoiding enemies much easier. Like the original Resident Evil 3 game, the remake lets you execute a perfect dodge as enemies close in. Compared to the original though, this version’s dodge is much more cinematic. As far as I could tell, the game doesn’t really tell you how to do it, so the first time I pulled one off, my jaw hit the floor. It’s such an action movie-esque move that completely changes the game. Instead of feeling constrained by both the enemies and the environment, you feel like you can make it past anything. Of course, the move does take some practice to truly master, but once you have it down, you’ll be dodging Nemesis and all his undead friends on your way to victory.

For some people, this is going to be a net positive. You absolutely feel like the baddest chick in town every time you perfect dodge past a string of enemies while Nemesis is breathing down your neck. That said, for me, it takes away a lot of what made the RE2 remake so scary. Sure, you can dodge enemies in that game once you get the controls down, but it never felt as easy as it does in RE3. And, unfortunately, I think the improved dodging takes away from the game’s main antagonist.

“I never really felt in true danger when facing (Nemesis).”

In RE2, Mr. X felt menacing. His constant presence in the police station filled me with dread. Nemesis, on the other hand, feels more like a nuisance. I never really felt in true danger when facing him. So, while his presence in the game is absolutely more explosive, and his threat isn’t simply contained to one area, I didn’t think he was as effective an enemy as Mr. X. His design is phenomenal and the way he can arrive nearly anywhere is incredible, but your increased moveset makes him feel like a lesser version of what he could be.

One big thing RE3 does better than RE2 is how tight the campaign is. Playing through two separate campaigns for Claire and Leon always felt a little weird. Their playthroughs are supposed to be happening at the same time, but it never really feels like that’s the case. RE3 ditches the multiple playthroughs and gives you one streamlined campaign. Given the way it’s structured, Capcom could have easily made a campaign centered around Carlos and filled the game out with filler missions. Instead, they’ve built a cohesive, action-packed journey that incorporates both characters flawlessly. Obviously, the focus is mainly on Jill, but Carlos’ sections feel absolutely vital to the story.

And, if you want to play through the game multiple times, Capcom gives you plenty of reasons to do so. Not only are there unlockable difficulties, but you earn points through completing challenges. You can use the points to buy new equipment and costumes to use in your next playthrough. It’s a fun system with some cool rewards that led to me jumping back into the campaign right after finishing to see how fast I could blow through the whole game again.

Speaking of Carlos, what a joy his sections are. While Jill feels incredibly powerful with her new perfect dodge skill, Carlos is an absolute war machine. He starts the game with an assault rifle (Jill also starts with this on Assisted difficulty), which literally cuts zombies down to size in seconds. Remember earlier where we talked about how effective shooting off a zombie’s legs is? Well, Carlos can do that to a room of zombies like it’s nothing. He also has his own version of the perfect dodge where he literally punches a zombie in the face to knock it away.

If you thought Jill’s move was cool, you haven’t seen anything yet. Plus, Carlos’ mission takes you to a fun area that is full of callbacks to past Resident Evil games. To say more, would be spoiler-y and I don’t want to ruin the moment for you. I would’ve liked to play with Carlos for another section or two, but what we do have is a treat.

That all being said, by making the game a tighter narrative, you lose a little bit of what made RE2 special to me. There was something my brain loved about being stuck inside a building and having to carefully plan my route through the police station to make sure I was getting everything I needed in the most efficient manner. That’s not really necessary in Resident Evil 3. It very much feels like a linear carnival ride with much less backtracking. For some, that’s going to be a big positive. Personally, I think you lose a little bit of the Metroidvania-esque fun that was present in RE2.

“Capcom’s attention to detail is incredible.”

I also felt like there were several holes in the plot that just don’t make sense. Some of them are super minor but still took me out of the experience. For instance, in multiple encounters with Nemesis, he’s shown how easily he can just bust through a brick wall. Like, it’s nothing for him to just ram his way through solid concrete. But then there’s a section where you’re running away from him and narrowly dart through a giant metal door.

As you lock it behind you, Jill breathes a sigh of relief because he can’t get you. However, the wall surrounding the heavy-duty door is made of brick. And it’s not like this is a safe room. That I understand. This is just another room that Nemesis could easily chase you into, but he doesn’t. Obviously, it doesn’t really matter, but it completely took me out of the game. Why would something that he’d already shown would never stop him, randomly stop him now?

Some of the holes are much weirder to me. There’s a second U.B.C.S. operative working with Carlos named Tyrell Patrick. Every time you go to a new infested zone with Tyrell, he refuses to tackle the mission with you. He’s always sitting back and claiming he needs to do computer stuff. In RE2, when you meet Marvin, it makes sense that he can’t go with you. He can barely move due to a zombie bite.

As far as I can tell, Tyrell is completely able-bodied. There are zero reasons that he wouldn’t just go with you and lower the zombie threat for both of you. You could even explain it away by having him go search another wing of the building you’re in. Instead, he’s just playing Ski Free or something while you’re risking your life fighting zombies. Again, do things like this really matter? Not really, but they’re totally immersion breaking and I don’t remember them happening nearly as much in RE2.

So, usually, this is the point where I would wrap everything up and give you my final thoughts. I’ll do that shortly, but I think it’s important to talk about one more thing. It was oddly surreal to play this game while we’re living in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing cutscenes of people rioting in the streets and watching a city deal with a large-scale outbreak felt a little too real at times. Obviously, we aren’t in those stages yet (and hopefully never will be); however, I still needed to take a few breaks during my playthrough just to ease my mind.

If you’re someone who is struggling with your mental health during the ongoing pandemic, I would just caution you to know going in that RE3 can hit a little too close to the real world at times. I still think the game is worth your time. I just wouldn’t fault you for waiting a few months before you try it out.

It’s also important to quickly talk about Resident Evil Resistance, the free multiplayer mode included with Resident Evil 3. Basically, this is an asymmetrical mode. One player takes on the role of the “Mastermind” while the four other players are various survivors. The Mastermind’s goal is to stop the survivors from progressing through all three stages of the game within the time limit. They move through the environment by switching between different security cameras and can use different abilities to slow down the survivors. Masterminds have access to everything from normal zombies to several traps to super-powered bioweapons. They can also jump into their minions, taking control of the fight against the survivors.

The survivors, on the other hand, are trying to solve puzzles and shoot through the hordes on their way to victory. As mentioned, the whole thing is timed, so you need to move quickly to win. You lose and gain time in numerous ways though, so, while speed is key, you also have to play smart. Currently, there are six different survivors, though Capcom has already confirmed that Jill is coming to the mode later. Personally, I’ve played most of my games as either Valerie or my boy Martin Sandwich. Each character has their own set of skills. For instance, Valerie has a ping that lets her mark items and threats and a free health spray. Martin, on the other hand, uses his engineering skills to build mines and flashbangs.

Because the mode relies on players working with strangers, it can be a bit frustrating at times. It’s also currently very difficult to get into games; however, that problem will hopefully iron itself out when the game launches. That said, I do not come to Resident Evil games for this kind of thing. It was a fun distraction for a few hours, but probably not something I’ll be jumping back into. That isn’t to say the mode isn’t worth your time. There’s plenty to do, and it would not surprise me if Resistance built up a solid community in the coming months.

And Capcom has earned a bit of leeway given their recent track record. Even if Resistance isn’t a complete hit out of the box, the game definitely feels like something they could continue building out over the summer. I’m certainly willing to give Capcom some time to see how they support Resistance going forward.

“I would absolutely recommend Resident Evil 3 and would not be surprised if a sizable portion of the fandom ends up preferring this remake.”

With that out of the way, I found Resident Evil 3 to be a bit of a tough nut to properly rate in a review sense. The game is an absolute treat to play with action-packed sequences, tense exploration, and a few genuine scares. As mentioned above, I was having so much fun playing it, I immediately jumped back in and started again. However, from a survival horror standpoint, the game takes a significant step back from Resident Evil 2. But really, when you think about it from a thematic standpoint, that totally makes sense. In RE2 you’re playing as either a rookie cop or a civilian. Jill Valentine is the Master of Lockpicking and a battle-hardened member of S.T.A.R.S. It makes complete sense for her to have a few extra zombie fighting tricks up her sleeve.

So, while I probably prefer RE2 ever so slightly, most of that just comes from Mr. X and the police station just being one of my favorite sections of video gaming in years. I would absolutely recommend Resident Evil 3 and would not be surprised if a sizable portion of the fandom ends up preferring this remake. After all, it’s hard to top the excitement that comes with jumping back into the shoes of Jill. Regardless of which you may like more, it is so refreshing to see the Resident Evil franchise come back in such a big way. Here’s hoping Capcom can continue the momentum with whatever comes next.

March 30, 2020 11:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/resident-evil-3-review-a-jill-royale-with-cheese/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resident-evil-3-review-a-jill-royale-with-cheese

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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The Year That Was… 1992

By The TAG Team

Luckily they didn’t convert this movie into an adventure game

Licensed adventure games have appeared from time to time, but this year their number was considerable. We had games based on books (Gateway and Dune, which might also be based on a movie), games based on TV series (Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Inspector Gadget and L.A. Law Game), games based on contemporary movies (Hook and Batman Returns) and games with main characters lifted from other media (Fate of Atlantis, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes and Consulting Detective II, which is also an adaptation of a board game). The usual story is that licensed games are just a way to sell garbage to suckers, but despite the few stinkers in the mix, some of these licensed games were quite good in their own right.

Let’s talk about numbers then. I think for the first time, most of the games we played scored around forties, where you’d pretty much expect most of them to be – vast majority of the games were not awesome, but not that bad either, having some good qualities and some things that needed fixing. The score given to largest number of games this year was 45 (with four games scoring that exact number), which was pretty close to mean (48.79) and median scores (47).

While most of the games in 1992 were pretty average, plenty of the games certainly weren’t typical adventures. We had several games with CRPG elements (Koshan Conspiracy, Quest for Glory remake and Quest for Glory 3), games where combat was at least as important as clever inventory management (Inca, Waxworks and Alone in the Dark), puzzle games (Island of Dr. Brain, and to some extent, Gobliiins) and even adventure-strategy hybrids (Dune and Rome). The results of combining extraneous elements to an adventurish core were somewhat mixed, Quest for Glory 3 being most successful of the lot, while in worst cases hybrids meant just combining two inadequate games into a monster that almost no one would like to play.

The appearance of so many hybrids is just one example of diversification of adventure game business. Not anymore can we speak of Sierra as a synonym for adventure gaming, as their products form a minority of all the games we played this year. An interesting trend is the proliferation of European adventure game designers. Coktel Vision is responsible for a bulk, but they are certainly not the only French adventure game designers anymore. Indeed, we’ve also met our first Italian adventure game (Nippon Safes). Notably we also have our first European adventure game in the Top 10 list (KGB).

Since it’s the end of the year, we will pick some examples of games we’ve played for special awards. But first, let’s cash out the prizes for the Full House Awards.

Full House

The last Straight of the year was won with a perfect guess by Laukku, which means he will get the full 10 CAPs reward. No one figured out the exact order of Top 5 games of 1992, so half the prize (5 CAPs) will go also to Laukku, who was clever enough to have the closest guess. And to top it all, Laukku was even the closest guesser in Bottom 5 of 1992, receiving again half the prize (5 CAPs).

Laukku’s othewise perfect winning streak breaks with Full House. No one managed to guess the exact order of all the games of 1992, but the closest guess for Full House came from Charles, who ironically thought at first he had no idea what the correct order would be. Charles receives half the prize of Full House award (39 CAPs).

Now, it’s again time to award the games with the best and the worst qualities. Majority of the awards have been decided by our group of reviewers, but readers have also had a chance of voting for their favourite.

Reader’s Choices

Let’s start with the best Missed Classic this time. Anyone who has played the game probably won’t be surprised. Yes, the winner is Infocom’s innovative text adventure, A Mind Forever Voyaging, with 20 % of all the votes!

Serious game of serious issues

The best game of 1992, as chosen by our readers was, with 50 % of all votes… well, you all guessed it, Fate of Atlantis.

The reward ceremony is just beginning

Let’s move on to the awards chosen by our regular reviewers!

Charles Darwin Award

For the Most Evolutionary Game of 1992

5th place – Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: This is a more than competently-produced game by a first time developer. While they didn’t innovate much, they took what LucasArts and others were doing and proved that they could do it just as well. The journal is an excellent addition to the genre. The game also had a great mix of in-engine work with cutscenes.

4th place – Putt-Putt Joins the Parade: It was the beginning of one of the first successful children’s adventure game series, spawning a number of sequels and making children all around the world learn the wonders of adventuring. It’s still a rough beginning, but rumor says the series will get better.

3rd place – Fate of Atlantis: Multiple paths that we raved about were a great development and would have been excellent if other games followed suit, though we know why they didn’t – a lot of cost for the benefit of a few customers .

2nd place – Lure of Temptress: Both the Virtual Theater mechanic, and the ability to give commands to AI-controlled NPCs were embryonic ideas that would soon become standard in adventure and RPGs. Interesting, even if half-baked, but there was something even more revolutionary around the corner.

Winner – Alone in the Dark: What other choice we could have for the title of the most evolutionary game? Alone in the Dark pioneered the use of 3D models for characters, items and monsters, and spawned a genre of its own.

No it isn’t! We still have awards to go

Lament Configuration Award

For the Most Ridiculous Puzzle of 1992

6th place – Chain of keys (Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes): Some of the puzzle chains in the game were a bit contrived. We had to find a claim ticket, to get a box out of a pawn shop, which contained a key to a desk, which contained a key to a lockbox. That just feels excessive, especially as it seems dangerous to hide a key in a pawn shop item and, if you were to do that, why wouldn’t you hide the key to the lockbox instead of the desk? And if it was a mistake that the key was in the box of tarot cards, then we only solved the game because of an excessively contrived coincidence. (Not the only one by far. Remember the key to the room you were in locked in a safe that was mistakenly left unlocked? That was fun…)

5th place – Winning wet T-shirt contest (Spellcasting 301): In order to win a wet t-shirt contest, you have to get some suction cup-covered gloves from Batman and give them to a wrestler so she can win a mud pool fight, which convinces her to participate in the contest in spite of her being flat as a table. Then you have to give some dehydrated falsies to another girl and UPPSSY the wrestler… It is the gloves part the one that we find more infuriating.

4th place – Getting rid of liquour (Lure of Temptress): Having to give the flask of liquor to Luthern in order to empty the flask so Diermot could get the wizard’s transformation potion instead of just . . . .dumping it out was stupid.

3rd place – Getting on boat (Amazon): We are trying to pay for a trip on The Amazon Queen:

The captain asks what we’ll give him.

He never tells us what he wants

There’s no indication we need two things until we offer him one of the things he wants

Both things we need are easily missed (and we indeed missed both of them)

Even if we knew we needed cigarettes, opening a random truck door is nowhere near the first place we’d look for them

Most vehicles are a single clickable item, but that specific truck contains the second hotspot of the truck door

If we knew we’d also need a nugget of gold the presumably lowly-paid serving boy is the last place we’d expect to get it from.

We should have still had a few thousand dollars in US currency anyway, but it wasn’t in our inventory any more, just because.

The captain is planning to sell Maya as a slave anyway so why’s he so damn keen not to let us on the boat – he’d lose her as a slave if we weren’t stuck in an adventure game dead-end. If we offered him everything we had and it wasn’t enough he should have told us he’d let us on for the price of a used jerrycan anyway just so he has a slave to sell

A gold nugget AND a packet of cigarettes – is that the standard price for a trip partway up the river? – how does he get any business at all?

2nd place – Recovering second leaflet (Bargon Attack): As it was noted on the first post, the bar riddle to recover the second leaflet is incredible (play the pool three times so one of the balls is sent flying in the bull head on the wall, so it drops a key on the ground. Use the key to open the trophy cabinet, then search every cup for ANOTHER key then use this one to open the office, where you find a switch that turns on the electric fan, which blows one of the papers on top of the cabinet to the ground…) It’s not particularly hard considering most of the answer consists in randomly clicking on stuff until something happens, but it’s aggravating in the sense that all of this leads to recover a leaflet from above a furniture and there is no less than three chairs around it… At least it’s way more entertaining than the rest of the game, and still not the most ridiculous puzzle.

Winner – Blutack puzzle (Curse of Enchantia): And the award for the most ridiculous puzzle in 1992 goes to … wearing blutack on your head to capture a rock… enough said.

If only they had told us it’s blutack

Captain Marvel is a Woman Award

For the Most Memorable Moment of 1992

6th place – Virtual reality (Gateway): Our favorite moment is at the end when the message from the AI reveals that the PC hasn’t returned to Gateway after all. You break the VR again and think you’ve won, and then the rug gets pulled out from under you. It’s a great twist.

5th place – Simbani initiation rite (QFG 3): With multiple ways to complete the tasks, and some portions which rely on the player’s skill, it’s a memorable culmination of several things the Hero has done before, thrown in with some drama in that he’s competing against one of his friends, Yesufu.

4th and 3rd places (tied):

Alien in head (Dark Seed): The first nightmare with the alien embryo being placed in Mike’s head is pretty memorable indeed. It’s a pretty well-known image and quite traumatic. The music adds only to the uneasiness of the scene.

Beginning of Alone in the Dark: The most memorable moment is right at the start, the attic room. It is well-lit, but immediately surrounds you with danger and there’s plenty of things to find. The initial feeling of being able to block out those monsters makes you wonder how much more interacting with 3D objects you’ll get to do, but unfortunately it is few and far between after that point.

2nd place – Laughing gas (Star Trek): Kirk and McCoy are trying to create a vaccine for the Romulan plague and accidentally gasses themselves with laughing gas. (And later, you can douse Spock with a Vulcan equivalent.) They proceed to spend the remainder of the episode laughing their heads off, telling jokes, singing songs, and behaving completely out of character in ways that are hilarious. Fantastic writing in this section, especially as you don’t even need to ever see this segment if you never release the gasses into the air by mistake. But this is still not the most memorable moment.

Winner – Meeting Malcolm (Kyrandia): The greatest moment of the year 1992 was the first encounter with Malcolm: the dialogue between him and Brandon is great and there is even a bit of interaction (throwing the knife back at him) in what is otherwise a cutscene.

The award is handed out by King Brandon himself!

Needle’s Eye Award

For the Most Unsolvable Puzzle of 1992

7th and 6th place (tied):

Ending combat (Star Trek): We remain unable to win. It’s an arcade sequence where you face off against three ships (a replica Federation starship with incredible firepower plus two Elasi pirate ships that move fast but have weaker weapons) at once and we die very very quickly. Over and over again, we played this mission. That it was the last segment of the game, in the weakest episode, just makes the unsolvability of this puzzle even worse.

Needing a hat to beg for money (Nippon Safes Inc.): We need to get money for a metro ride. The solution is to present a hat a to a passerby that so far in the game has given no indication of being anything more than background scenery. There’s no mouseover text unless you have the exact right item.

5th place – Banishing ghost (Hugo 3): We find banishing the ghost quite troublesome, as the book needed to perform the exorcism is hidden, and nothing in the game tells you that it can be used for that purpose, or that you need a bell and a candle in addition.

4th place – Opening a vault (B.A.T. 2): The final puzzle of the game required the player to solve some sort of logic puzzle to open up a vault. There are no clues what the player should achieve, and due to an invisible timer, every move might end with a game over, which makes even brute forcing the solution an impossibility. Solving the puzzle required a help from a commenter.

3rd place – Cleaning the wall with the cloth to make a button appear (Curse of Enchantia): Nothing makes sense in this puzzle because the items are nondescript.

2nd place – Blutack puzzle (Curse of Enchantia): The most ridiculous puzzle is also quite unsolvable, when you can’t even tell it’s blutack you should be using. But this wasn’t still the most unsolvable puzzle.

Winner – The final chapter of Rome: The game goes out of its way to make the final chapter unsolvable.

It’s possible to totally miss the dagger vendor in Chapter 1, and even if you notice him it’s easy to dismiss him as the flavour detail of a vendor at the docks while we try to find a way to safety.

Taking the dagger costs all our money and we need money to buy our passage off the doomed city making buying the dagger a clearly stupid decision

If we escaped the city but wanted to replay the first chapter to try different things like buying a dagger, we’d lose our saved game because there’s only one.

In the last two chapters the previous three ways of making money are gone. We can’t loot Egyptian villages, we are not allowed to gamble because it’s beneath our station and we are not allowed to win a gladiator contest because the Emperor competes at every single contest and can’t lose.

The game has made finishing Chapter 4 without 100 extra gold to spare or a dagger a dead-end with no indication it’s a dead-end.

The idea of a military commander needing to have bought a cheap dagger back when he was a slave in order to have a murder weapon is absolutely absurd – we even have a slave with a sword in our inventory but can’t use his sword!

What Rome needs is a dagger – cutting the game disks in half!

Magic Square Award

For the Best Puzzle of 1992

7th place – Elephant puzzle (Hugo 3): We are very fond of the elephant puzzle. It it is a long chain that involves giving some condiment to the natives to get a blowpipe, escaping the witch doctor hut, making a voodoo doll of him with some clay, capturing a mouse in that same hut and shooting the elephant with the blowpipe at the appropriate time after freeing the mouse in front of him so that the elephant can fall asleep in the middle of the nearby river, blocking the water source and allowing Hugo to cross a waterfall below to the magic garden.

6th place – Mathematical puzzles (Star Trek): We enjoyed the number-based puzzles from the second to last section. Having to convert numbers between bases to better relate to an alien culture was a nice use of a science fiction trope in puzzle form. There are so few good math puzzles in adventure games.

5th place – Tape recorder (KGB): Some of the puzzles pertaining to the tape recorder were pretty good. The one where we are interrogating Chapkin and have to trigger the voice-activated playback to distract him comes to mind. To achieve this, you have to first switch the tape recorder to voice-activated playback, but shortly before this scene, when you’re at the hotel, interrogating a prostitute, you’ll accidentally trigger the playback, making Rukov switch it to manual playback. This serves to both set up the puzzle and remind you of the voice activation function

4th place – Finding Atlantis with Plato’s dialogue (Fate of Atlantis): This set of puzzles required us to read Plato’s Lost Dialogue – like telling the boat captain where to go by:

working out/remembering that Thera was the lesser colony

take into account the tenfold error mentioned in a different part of the dialogue

reversing direction because the dialogue is talking about directions from, rather than to, Atlantis.

3rd place – Sense gnomes (KQ6): It was good largely because it had a simple predictable premise which you could link specific inventory items to, even if you found them after finding the gnomes themselves. The only thing keeping it from being amazing is that it’s quite easy if you have the right items – their use is really obvious.

2nd place – Virtual reality (Gateway): The whole ending scene in the VR hell was tightly plotted and finely tuned to be just tricky enough without getting too frustrating. Getting the hydra to multiply and explode the scene without killing you is arguably the best puzzle in the game – but not the best puzzle of the year.

Winner – Trottier ghost puzzle (Fate of Atlantis): We had to use the sheet and flashlight from the hotel room and also the mask from Algiers. But the best part of this puzzle was that we can use either the sheet or flashlight or both of them without the mask to get Trottier amusingly telling us to stop being annoying. But despite the best part being the funny comments, each comment gives us a clue that our disguise needs more to make it convincing.

The audience is gasping

Golden Mop Award

For the Most Memorable Character of 1992

4th place – Kirk, Spock and McCoy (Star Trek): The banter between Kirk, McCoy, and Spock was excellent and was true to the tone of the original show.

3rd place – Rolf (Gateway): That crazy old man managed to survive for years by himself on an uninhabited planet and made the best of it by cataloguing the wildlife. Then when the PC shows up, he holds to his ideals even if it means he’ll stay stranded on his planet longer. He’s a little loopy from all the solitude, but he’s got a good attitude and some wonderful one-liners. For instance, after you destroy his raft and nearly go over a waterfall in order to retrieve his cane: “I’ll make me another raft in no time. Then we’ll do it again.”

2nd place – Cast of QFG 3: The writing is great, and even the merchants at the bazaar and the various liontaur guards are unique and well-drawn. Some favorites among the main cast:

Rakeesh: The grizzled vet who acts like the hero’s mentor

Kreesha: The only liontaur magician (save for her and Rakeesh’s son Shakra, who lives in Silmaria).

Johari: Mercurial leopwardwoman who helps the hero achieve peace

Yesufu: Son of the Simbani leader. The hero’s friend and rival.

Harami: Thief and honorless one turned hero. Saves the hero’s bacon at the end.

Winner – Malcolm (Kyrandia): Even the whole cast of QFG 3 cannot beat with this guy! Malcolm is a crazy, mean, devious peace of **** that’s only here to kill, laugh and destroy. He’s very close to Final Fantasy‘s Kefka and just as memorable. Both are obviously heavily inspired by Batman’s Joker anyway. The first time we see the jester, he blows an innocent squirrel to smithereens and laughs about it. He’s really just a psychotic bastard as we love them. Forget the third episode retcon (he was tricked all along and is mainly innocent), the Malcolm in this game is every inch evil and loves it.

Hey, stop the insults, Brandon!

Boars, Anyone Award

For the Most Memorable Sidekick of 1992

-And Not Necessarily in a Good Sense

5th place – Manu (QFG 3): He’s a talking monkey who helps the hero reach the demon-infested Lost City, even though he doesn’t want to go. AND he helps at the very end, filling the part of the prophecy when Harami wimps out. Also: he’s a talking monkey!

4th place – Brain (Inspector Gadget): He is up there for sidekick of the year: you can play and solve puzzles as him, he rescued Penny from kidnappers like seven times, he is a master of disguise, and best of all has a collar with a built-in cellphone. Also pay attention to how he’s usually walking on all-fours when Gadget is around but on two feet when he’s not. He’s subtle! This is even more impressive if you think that Penny is Gadget’s sidekick: that makes Brain a sidekick’s sidekick!

3rd place – Ratpouch (Lure of Temptress): The only useful NPC in the game, and the only one who doesn’t give Diermot any grief.

2nd place – Watson (Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes): Watson was our sidekick through the adventure, although he had much less to do than you would hope. His crowning moment of awesome at the end isn’t even that awesome when you think about it: he stayed behind to try to defuse a bomb and FAILED, only surviving the explosion because he somehow hid in a trapdoor that no one ever saw. Perhaps Watson is an immortal? Even so, there’s an even better sidekick to choose.

Winner – Sophia (Fate of Atlantis): She doesn’t do a lot when it comes to puzzle solving, but having conversations with a sidekick is fun, even if all she does is comment sarcastically on our not knowing what to do next. We liked the back-and-forth banter of Sophia and Indy making fun of each other and enjoyed having her along for the ride and liked it when we met up with her again after her numerous kidnappings. We also enjoyed noticing that the closer we got to Atlantis the more possessed she appeared to be. In New York she wasn’t concerned, but when we were in Crete, Thera or the submarine she was very protective of Nur-Ab-Sal and then got fully possessed in Atlantis’ middle ring.

Maybe, but you still deserved the victory

Severed Head Award

For the Worst Game of 1992

6th place – B.A.T. 2: The game’s not a complete disaster, and especially the game world is intriguing, as attested by many commenters who remember just moving around the planet, admiring the surroundings. Still, Koshan Conspiracy really fails as a satisfying adventure game, being more of a conglamaration of very non-adventurish minigames.

5th place – Inca: Adventure game parts are OK, but these are so few and short. Instead, majority of the game is spent with repetetive and aggravating simulator and action sequences. To top it all, the progress is made almost impossible, because there is no saving, but only codes used for checkpoints that are too rare.

4th, 3rd and 2nd places (tied):

Hugo 3: We think it is an improvement for the series, but the graphics, the parser and the simplistic puzzles will put it at the bottom compared to other games in the same year. It is simply too old for 1992.

L.A. Law: It barely qualifies as an adventure game, for starters. But its biggest sin is not being fun. The time limit mechanic was poorly implemented, and success at trial boils down to doing myriad things in the exact right sequence. There is an unforgivably slim margin of error, and the only way to figure things out is to replay the cases multiple times until you figure out the sequence. This is not fun, nor is there anything humorous, interesting, optional, or remotely entertaining to keep you playing.

Rome: It’s not even primarily an adventure game and is much more frustrating and repetitive than fun.

Winner – Curse of Enchantia: We think there should be a special place in hell reserved for the developers of this game and their own purgatory would be to spend eternity playing their game over and over again with the music cranked up to 11. Hell, it may just be the worst game of the year… or the decade… just warn the population about this game! The people deserve the right to know!

For once, a review that’s on the nose

Atlantean Medallion Award

For the Best Game of 1992

6th place – Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The well-polished graphics, story, and setting of this game places it in the top-five of all time (so far). It’s a game that’s more fun than you think it should be.

5th and 4th places (tied):

KGB: We think the quality of the story and setting, and the virtually flawless interface should put this in the top 5.

Quest for Glory 3: It is a, for the time, technical tour de force that captures the vibe of an old adventure pulp/serial that perfectly blends RPG and adventure game elements. It has a satisfying, logical story, no wacky unsolvable puzzles, fantastic music, great writing and dialogue, and memorable characters.

3rd place – Kings Quest 6: It does many things well and is a major step forward in the King’s Quest series. But it still doesn’t hit the excellence of the better Lucasarts games.

2nd place – Gateway: It’s only handicapped a little bit by being a hybrid parser game, but it’s also a polished game with a dramatic story, good puzzles, and a fun cyberpunk soundtrack. It easily broke the top 10 for the blog when the score was established, so it should also be in the top 5 for the year.

Winner – Fate of Atlantis: We already gave the game our highest score ever.

It would have been a bit embarrassing, if the game hadn’t won this award

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Those were the TAG awards for 1992! And just like last year, you’ll have a chance to guess the TOP 5 for the next year. If you can state which 5 games will be the best games of 1993, you’ll get 10 CAPs. You won’t have to know the exact ratings the games will get, but you do have to get the exact order of the top five games. If no one pinpoints the exact order, persons with closest guesses will get 5 CAPs as a reward.

You’ll also get to guess the BOTTOM 5. The rules and the prizes are same as in the TOP 5, but you’ll have to guess the five worst games of 1993, in the exact order.

And to top it all, you’ll also have a chance to compete for the FULL HOUSE. Guess the exact order of all the games of 1993. If you get them right, you’ll get the TOP 5 and BOTTOM 5 awards, but also 2 CAPs for each game not in TOP or BOTTOM 5. This year getting FULL HOUSE will thus mean a prize of 90 CAPs. Again, if no one gets the exact order right, persons with the closest guess will receive half of the total prize (45 CAPs).

For ease of reference, here are the games we’ll be playing in 1993, in the order they will be played:

Ween: The Prophecy

Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon

The Journeyman Project

Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet

The Legacy: Realm of Terror

Eric the Unready

Space Quest V: The Next Mutation

Veil of Darkness

Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist

Dare to Dream Part One: In a Darkened Room

Fatty Bear’s Birthday Surprise

EcoQuest II: Lost Secret of the Rainforest

Return of the Phantom

An American Tail: The Computer Adventures of Fievel and His Friends

The 7th Guest

Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon

Simon the Sorcerer

Blue Force

Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle

Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!

Dracula Unleashed

Gateway II: Homeworld

Lost in Time

Pepper’s Adventures in Time

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Volume III

The Beverly Hillbillies

Sam & Max Hit the Road

Black Sect

Wayne’s World

Return to Zork

Myst

Cosmic Spacehead

Companions of Xanth

Star Trek: Judgment Rites

Bloodnet

Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox

Daryl F. Gates Police Quest: Open Season

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

Innocent Until Caught

Isle of the Dead

Alone in the Dark 2 + Jack in the Dark

Inca II: Nations of Immortality

Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness

The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate

Curses!

Please make your guesses for TOP 5, BOTTOM 5 and FULL HOUSE in the comments for this post. The guesses should be made before the first two final ratings of the year 1993 are published. The prizes for the winners will be handed out at the end of the year 1993.

By taking part in the FULL HOUSE competition, you’ll also be automatically competing for STRAIGHTS. After a sequence of five games from the main game list has been completed, we’ll look at who has guessed closest the order of those five games. If someone got the exact order, she’ll be awarded 10 CAPs, otherwise, those with closest guesses get 5 CAPs.

Let the contests begin!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-year-that-was-1992/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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