The Hamburglar

You see I really liked the first two Bioshock games, the setting is spectacular and the plot in both is serviceable enough with some really standout characters (I like Sander Cohen, I'm a sucker for a psychopath with a flair for the artistic). That being said, retrospectively reading that bit about Suchong and the puppy just seems hilarious now, but not necessarily in a bad way. There seems to be an unspoken rule in pop culture that you can kill as many people as you like and you'll remain a pretty average villain, but as soon as you even hint at making a dog mildly uncomfortable then you're an absolute bastard.

But that doesn't make it any less poorly written. The fact that I could come up with something like that in 2 seconds should speak out as to how poorly thought out that audiolog is. What's frustrating is that they did this right the first time with J.S Steinman. Steinman didn't kill a puppy for the hell of it. He was trying to make his vision of the perfect woman and his pursuit drove him mad when he kept failing over and over again. The shock value isn't the focal point with Steinman it's a byproduct and it's also ambiguous. Can you figure out what he did to his clients to make them look like that? Obviously not whereas with Suchong he tells Jack to break the puppies neck and that's literally it. It doesn't mean anything except that Suchong is a dick. It's quite jarring to go from a well written, nuanced character like J.S Steinman and Sander Cohen to completely flat characters like Suchong.

 

I would tend to hold Bioshock a lot higher then pop culture shlock but I suppose you can't help that when developers are willing to make a half assed character.

The way System Shock 2 handled the idea of "doing the powers-that-be's bidding" way more responsibly; you were following Shodan's instructions to the T without questioning anything. It keeps the player involved while reinforcing the theme.

It's been years since I actually went to see a play, but I enjoy reading certain playwrights work. I especially like the "harrowing normalcy" of Scandinavian authors, the Norwegian Ibsen and the Swedish Strindberg in particular.

 

"Talk about the weather? Which we know... Ask how we are? Which we know... I prefer silence. Then you hear thoughts, and see the past. Silence can conceal nothing, which words can. - August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata

I love Ibsen! My sig is actually from his play Ghosts, which is as beautiful as it is esoteric at times.

KOTOR just didn't grab me. I have no idea what was up with it, but I liked KOTOR II just fine. I've never liked BioWare's gameplay too much, I always preferred Fallout and Planescape Torment for that isometric RPG action. I'm curious what you think of Neverwinter Nights 2.

I'm with you on KOTOR II and Planescape Torment. If I created a list for the most well written video games Planescape Torment would be at the top and KOTOR II would be just below it. Sadly I can't really make a list with just two games. Seriously, well written video games a practically nonexistent.

 

IIRC I played Neverwinter Nights 2 until midgame, hit a breaking point and never picked it up again. I seriously can't remember what happens in NWN 2. I just remember it being very boring. Obsidian usually does good writing but their games are often infested with bugs as well. Though I've heard good things about Pillars of Eternity so I might get around to playing at some point.

Pillars is great! I totally recommend it, writing and gameplay are solid. It fixes a lot of micromanaging hassles that were present in a lot of the classic Black Isle games. I definitely feel like Baldur's Gate hasn't aged as well as I remembered, because I was super excited when I found another copy of it and played it for about...20 minutes and went back to Morrowind. Bioware has a habit of making games that do not age well.

As for a "Best Written Games List" you could probably populate both System Shock games on there as well...but that's a topic for another thread.

BG II(Baldur's Gate II), NWN I and KOTOR I. I still think the character progression in these games are great(except for KOTOR I because fuck KOTOR I). But man, if these games don't show that Bioware can't write for shit then I don't know what will. I'll start with BG II as it's easily the worst of the bunch IMO. Let me put it this way, I've beaten BG I whereas I haven't spend more then 20 mins with BG II once I figured out where the plot was going. BG I didn't require you to rescue Imoen who btw is single handedly one of the most annoying characters ever written in gaming IMO and the fact that most of the plot revolves around rescuing her is.

NWN I and KOTOR I aren't nearly as bad but their stories still suffer from being egregiously boring trite. Both stories in NWN I and KOTOR I are basically fetch quests. Go find/touch the four thingies to get the big reward thingy at the end and that's as far they ever go. Outside of KOTOR I having a pointless midgame plot twist they're pretty similar if you boil them down.

KOTOR just didn't grab me. I have no idea what was up with it, but I liked KOTOR II just fine. I've never liked BioWare's gameplay too much, I always preferred Fallout and Planescape Torment for that isometric RPG action. I'm curious what you think of Neverwinter Nights 2.

Is it this one?

UryTuPseiUo

Yes! I get goosebumps everytime. Absolutely phenomenal.

Michael Crawford? I think you're referring to Phantom of the Opera. As far as I know, I don't know if he was cast in Jesus Christ Superstar, guess i'll have to search.

No it was a one-off performance. I should've specified. I can't remember what it was for though.

I also saw Jesus Christ Superstar which was... It was good but I didn't really understand entirely what was going on because it was just so "Uh... What?"

 

I guess I can help with that. Jesus Christ Superstar is set during the last few days of Christ through the perspective of Judas. To keep it short, Judas is concerned with the way Jesus is leading His disciples and how He is hailed as their Messiah, and is afraid of the subsequent consequences. I'm not good in summarising things up, i'm sorry.

 

JCS is a big favorite of mine, something I inherited from my dad, who saw the 1973 movie version. While he stuck on to the movie version, I collected 4 other recordings of JCS, like the original 1970 album, the 1996 London revival, the 2000 movie remake and the 2012 Arena Tour, just for the sake of hearing the different cast's take on the songs.

Im not familiar with it, but ive heard Micharl Crawford do a piece from it and it was BEAUTIFUL! Id love to see the whole play.

I haven't ever been into plays or stuff like that but I've been on a field trip a few years ago to go and see a Romeo and Juliet play which was alright. I also saw Jesus Christ Super Star which was... It was good but I didn't really understand entirely what was going on because it was just so "Uh... What?" I'd definitely go and see more plays but I never like to do anything alone, so that's out the window.

I'm personally not into musicals, though I know too many people that are. If you're interested in going I'd say it's not bad to go alone, having friends there isn't necessary at all. As a performer, I was always more happy to see people sitting quietly and enjoying the show rather than a group of friends tapping each other on the shoulder constantly.

But yes, see more! Read more! It's all wonderful.

I agree all MOBA communities across the world are horrible, but the dota 2 SEA servers are the worst by orders of magnitude, i can only imagine it's the same for League of Legends.

I can relate with you there, and I've seen it from behind the keyboard/mouse a few times.

Whenever I began a League game I'd just mute all, out of principle. Sometimes if I was feeling saucy I'd pull some shit in game on the toxic person (who was almost ALWAYS Udyr), but I was usually just there to try and make Kassadin work (he doesn't.)

Dark Souls 2 is my game. Totally uninspired design, really clunky gameplay, breaking shit that worked in Dark Souls 1, and reusing the Bell Gargoyles and Ornstein in the absolute textbook definition of "I just don't care anymore." What a colossal waste of my time. The most disappointing thing I've ever laid down the green for.

Essentially, it traces projectiles based on the physics math, not the framerate & display position of the projectile. (which was surprisingly common at the time)

Yeah, I was gonna say. I'm not an expert, but that sounds like the pretty common method for hitscan weapons.

Also Sonic Adventure. Jesus christ. What a mess!

I haven't played it, but I find it funny that e.g. metacritic score is 53/100 which usually means its shit, but steam reviews are very positive.

I hate that steam has the metacritic near the game itself. The critic to player divide is great for Harvester. Thankfully though, people know Harvester more for its surreality than its metacritic.

I have to confess I find it amusing how it's become something of a norm for everyone, including yourself, to refer to you as Ross's Girlfriend Although it does worry me slightly, I would hate to think the work you presumably do for your significant other doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated.

 

"Companies making jeans sell "short-leg", so now I got to know I have "short" legs...It's kinda insulting, when you think of it..."

 

I'm starting to suspect that your sense of humour has invariably rubbed-off on Ross... :3

 

Uh, huh... I just refereed to myself like that so people not knowing me would know For all the others I'm AmazingMagda!

 

My work for Ross is appreciated by Ross, that's for sure. Everything else is AmazingMagda's stuff! I have no idea how my sense of humor influences Ross, but it mostly probably works both ways I mean, we have to understand each other

you're ross's girlfriend? How about that. I havent been on this forum in years, but better late than never. I'm actually jealous, Ross has an extremely infectious personality, id love to hang out with even for just a day.

I'm a huge theatre buff and wanted to see if anyone on here shared the passion.

What's your favorite play? What are you reading? Seen anything lately? Been in anything lately?

I'm currently reading "Tango" by Slawomir Mrozek (if anyone could tell me how to pronounce that...) and The Homecoming by Pinter. Im already very familiar with Pinter but i picked up purely by its description; "his mother sleeps with a vulgar hoodlum; his father looks the other way, meanwhile writing avant-garde plays."

So let's talk theatre. Even if you're not into it, but are intetested, I've been wanting to make a beginning reader's guide.

Okay we've gotta talk about Harvester. I want to know opinions on the overall message, do you think the game diluted its own message with the sloppiness of the last half or do you think it presents a very compelling narrative based on violence in media?

I think the game's writing and humor is totally surreal, it helps the game age well. The FMV just adds to the Lynchian vibes, though i do think it gets real rough at the Lodge.

Please, lets talk Harvester.

Fallout New Vegas with significantly more mads than previous... And finally loaded in the order they're supposed to be loaded in. (currently at 117 mods on top of all the expansions and pre-order packs)

Exactly what do all these mods entail? Are they realism mods, texture mods, what? Because that's fucking excessive. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind)

I mod all my Bethesda games so that I can play an anime girl. It is of utmost importance that I play an anime girl in a video game. Protip: Play an Asuka character and be really, really rude to characters.

One time I played Oblivion as Lucy from Elfen LIed and to make a long story short; I recreated the opening scene.

Been playing me some hyped Blood Dragon.

 

Fallout New Vegas with significantly more mads than previous... And finally loaded in the order they're supposed to be loaded in. (currently at 117 mods on top of all the expansions and pre-order packs)

 

Damn, dude, and I thought I modded the shit out of that game lol

i can't play bethesda games unmodded. when i first played oblivion on console i thought it was average, once i modded oblivion's character animations and user interface i ended up really liking it a lot more.

Shadowrun Returns.

 

Nowhere near the table-top, but still better than nothing when you can't get your friends together.

Yeah it's a nice replacement. And it's hugely modifiable too.

Feels like a better Fallout sequel than Fallout 3...

Skipped FO3...

I didn't. Oh my god how do you fuck up a plot so bad, there was no point to anything in the main quest other than to bug the fuck out of me.

Also Thief. The Maw of Chaos is a bad final level. Still a kickass game.

Thief.

I'm really glad that whoever made Thief Gold decided to include The Thieve's Guild Mission. When I've just gotten out of a fantastic mission like Assassins and am waiting for The Sword, one of the best video game levels of all time, the one thing I want to break up the action is a two-hour sewer level with cramped design not suited for a stealth game, along with non-sensical fetch quests which require me to backtrack across the fucking map to find a fucking safe key. Man I'm so glad we have fantastic people making fantastic decisions for fantastic games in this world.

Dishonored. What a colossal fuck-up of narrative and pacing this game is turning out to be.

I bought Dishonored for 10 bucks. if it sucks i'll probably cry or something.

System Shock 2 was leaps and bounds beyond Half-Life.

I will agree with this too, SS2 is a great game. Now that it's on steam i don't see what excuse people have to not be playing it!

speaking of Dark Engine, I bought Thief to see if it's still a great game.

Yep it's still great.

Unreal 1. I do not think that game will ever stop being my all-time favorite.

I was 14 or so when I first saw a picture of that in a gaming magazine. It was the prettiest, most vibrant thing I had ever seen. I simply *had* to have it, so I saved all my lunch money until I could buy it. It didn't matter that I didn't have a computer yet, I figured that I would. Eventually.

 

I had to wait a few years (hiding it from my parents the whole time), but it was the best purchase I ever made.

Damn straight it is. Unreal is leaps and bounds beyond Half Life, and most shooters really. I would say it was a perfect game if the level Cellars at Dasa weren't such ass.

Unreal II is fucking awful though.

Unreal 1. I do not think that game will ever stop being my all-time favorite.

Half Life. Fights with soldiers on hard mode is absolute bullshit, considering Valve pulled out all the stops on creating the least-useful machine gun in shooter history.

Far Cry 2. I think this game is one of the finest shooters on the past decade.

that's just me though.