Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I just hope this all ties together satisfyingly. Act 2 has some stuff in it I'd typify as being delaying tactics of a sort, and the text adventure side quests end up feeling more cluttery this time around. Things happen because they do. I wish it gave us more time with the characters themselves.
I didn't know that first bit, Classy! That's pretty cool. I still haven't fully explored the map, it's good to know there's a few things stuck around like that.
Is there any part in particular for Act II you're talking about, Linespider?
Some of the comments I hear elsewhere are generally dislike for the Bureau bits. Especially at the beginning where it wants you to muck around in bureaucracy for a bit, I think.
I liked the Bureau though myself. It set that kind of mind-numbing banality against a lot of weirdness in a way that really meshed well with the rest of the game, for me. The thing itself being an office set inside a cathedral whose congregation has been relocated to a storage warehouse, the 'grotesques' in the lobby, the proposals Lula sifts through regarding other reclaimed spaces, 'ingestion clerk' is basically a really strange job title.
There are some smaller touches too that are nice, such as the reactions of the bears and the people in the conference to your presence. Like, the bears turn and look at the elevator as it moves past but ignore you if you get out, the conference dwellers ignore the elevator but turn and stare at you if you come in. The incredibly irritating skipping record on the top floor that the guy there neither notices nor cares if you fix it (ungrateful bastard). The pamphlet of secret tour locations.
Also, there's a floor labeled "bears" that has nothing but bears on it.
i've yet to play act II of this and i don't know why. i replayed act I when II got released so that it'd be fresh in my mind and to take the chance to explore the area off the highway and see/read about the various locations in the area but for some reason i've still not moved onto act II.
so finally got around to playing through Act 2 and WOW!
i thought Act 1 was impressive but they really took it up a notch with this. everything about the game screams 'simple' and yet the visuals are stunning(the forest especially), the music haunting and the writing draws you in, doing an amazing job of making you feel lost and confused in a world where everyone else knows what's going on.
and as Ynuu pointed out,
Bears!
so random and unexpected and yet somehow it doesn't feel at all out of place, because why wouldn't they be there?
No word on Act 3 yet, but these guys just released 'The Entertainment', another side thing. It's interesting. Maybe half an hour to go through once.
edit: and by just released I mean it's apparently been out for a few weeks, but this is the first I've heard of it
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
edited December 2013
I have such high hopes for this series, if that's what we should call it. I'm just not sure the Acts are going to stand on their own very well. I thought Act 1 did an excellent job at this. Act 2 had a lot of what made Act 1 great, but it felt a lot more disjointed, not as cohesive in terms of 'these are things that belong together in this narrative.'
My main concern is that this may be a story that chooses to end, rather than having a cumulative ending. But I'll still be getting each piece as it becomes available.
Without getting into specifics, this act contained moments of incredible poignancy and beauty the kind of which you desire to be able to experience again for the first time, and also moments I didn't want to end despite a compounding sense of unease and horrible realization.
I didn't get to ask what he'd be driving in the future. But I did ask what his next job would be. "Driver."
I picked up on him working for Hard Times right at the beginning, with the leg and all the couched language from the Doctor.
But that you can't get out of working for them... the sheer, bureaucratic terribleness of it all, I did not see coming.
I also didn't expect the cursor hijack.
Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I know I would hardly be the first person to decide it might be time to attempt a longform essay about this game. I won't be doing it now, but I think about it quite a bit.
Two things this game does, very, very well, that a lot of games could learn from:
1) The very deliberate sense of stagecraft exhibited here. More than level design or scenery building, the way this game succeeds at building spaces that have real presence and significance to them in a very palpable way, without even having to tell you why.
2) The camera. My god, the camera in this game. Where there are games where the camera whips all over the goddamn place at absolutely any errant whim of the player, letting people barrel through scenes with hardly any focus or attention to their surroundings, here you get...focus. Slow builds. Angular shots that gradually climb over a scene. See a scene from one point of view and expect that's the entire presentation, see it in that one point perspective and observe it as a two dimensional composition, and, oh....now...watch the entire scene rotate before your eyes, showcasing the structure entire. It's just marvelous.
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But yeah I went the (act 1 spoilers)
And those mines....... eeeeeeep!
Is there any part in particular for Act II you're talking about, Linespider?
I liked the Bureau though myself. It set that kind of mind-numbing banality against a lot of weirdness in a way that really meshed well with the rest of the game, for me. The thing itself being an office set inside a cathedral whose congregation has been relocated to a storage warehouse, the 'grotesques' in the lobby, the proposals Lula sifts through regarding other reclaimed spaces, 'ingestion clerk' is basically a really strange job title.
There are some smaller touches too that are nice, such as the reactions of the bears and the people in the conference to your presence. Like, the bears turn and look at the elevator as it moves past but ignore you if you get out, the conference dwellers ignore the elevator but turn and stare at you if you come in. The incredibly irritating skipping record on the top floor that the guy there neither notices nor cares if you fix it (ungrateful bastard). The pamphlet of secret tour locations.
Also, there's a floor labeled "bears" that has nothing but bears on it.
Although, I did just find this on their twitter:
I am excited and really impatient
i thought Act 1 was impressive but they really took it up a notch with this. everything about the game screams 'simple' and yet the visuals are stunning(the forest especially), the music haunting and the writing draws you in, doing an amazing job of making you feel lost and confused in a world where everyone else knows what's going on.
and as Ynuu pointed out,
so random and unexpected and yet somehow it doesn't feel at all out of place, because why wouldn't they be there?
edit: and by just released I mean it's apparently been out for a few weeks, but this is the first I've heard of it
My main concern is that this may be a story that chooses to end, rather than having a cumulative ending. But I'll still be getting each piece as it becomes available.
EDIT: Just finished 'The Entertainment'
Holy crap. That got...
I wasn't expecting shit to get real like that.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
FUUUUUUCK YES
The one shame is it's...
It's a game it feels like you should play once and be done.
Why I fear the ocean.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I know.
That's part of why.
Why I fear the ocean.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
(Bunk bed. New truck. Nice foreshadowing.)
But Junebug picked up an IOU from the bar. That's pure debt in the opposite direction. If there's an out, there it is.
Why I fear the ocean.
I picked up on him working for Hard Times right at the beginning, with the leg and all the couched language from the Doctor.
But that you can't get out of working for them... the sheer, bureaucratic terribleness of it all, I did not see coming.
I also didn't expect the cursor hijack.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Two things this game does, very, very well, that a lot of games could learn from:
1) The very deliberate sense of stagecraft exhibited here. More than level design or scenery building, the way this game succeeds at building spaces that have real presence and significance to them in a very palpable way, without even having to tell you why.
2) The camera. My god, the camera in this game. Where there are games where the camera whips all over the goddamn place at absolutely any errant whim of the player, letting people barrel through scenes with hardly any focus or attention to their surroundings, here you get...focus. Slow builds. Angular shots that gradually climb over a scene. See a scene from one point of view and expect that's the entire presentation, see it in that one point perspective and observe it as a two dimensional composition, and, oh....now...watch the entire scene rotate before your eyes, showcasing the structure entire. It's just marvelous.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
http://kentuckyroutezero.com/here-and-there-along-the-echo/
FUUUUUCK YES
(see also here)
I haven't played it yet but Limits & Demonstrations and The Entertainment were every bit as good as KR0 proper so I'm pretty happy.
I was uh, apparently a little behind the curve.
Anyway that was fantastic.