Duck and Cover

Context clues, dude.

We knew Turkey has good tobacco, but video games? Never would have guessed.

Anyway, I have no time for games... unless you count staring at this stoic fractal thrilling work. I've been trying to trace the subtle changes in this picture for years, to me it looks like it's growing...

I've decided that the Secret Ending is some form of meta-trollery. It's just too traumatic a prospect to interpret in any other way. Also, I think I like the plot even more if one assumes that all the phone calls are entirely devoid of ulterior content, and the resultant claret parties are solely due to the instability of the player (character(s)).

Found Jones, the alligator. Ahahaha. It's so wonderful.

Oh, and so is this. It's like they read my mind as a child and sought to extinguish all the underwhelmdom of edutainment software.

SenisterDenister wrote:Mountain Blade is taking up my time again. Playing with the Floris mod this go round. Something different than Native Expansion, which is what I normally use. Any other suggestions for mods?

Funny you should mention this because I'd decided to give Floris a go for the first time ever earlier this month. In truth, I wouldn't recommend the 2.5.4 version I played. Bugs bugs and more bugs. Also, incredible imprecise archery model. The array of options is impressive, as is the endless troop tree, but having to go into the options menu everytime you open the minimap is too bloody annoying. Also, siege-ing is messed up. Some castles have too many ladders- some (Uhhun) have messed up AI. That rush where there's a handful of you in there and you can hold it vs a mighty army is gone because you can't. That despair when you're taking massive losses and even haven't gotten inside is gone because it's become too easy getting in.

Other mods, other mods... Brytenwalda (recommended to me by Kash iirc) was great (huge overworld; huge battle maps; well implemented boats) if for a few niggling flaws (same archery model as Floris (although it makes sense because it's supposed to be realistic British isles circa 12th century); not enough weapons/items (again, realism); lack of Diplomacy options you've gotten used to; annoying honour system made you have to waste 3 hours burying the dead after EVERY skirmish) although these might have been fixed/updated by now.

Another is the one I played the most, Prophesy of Pendor. Unfortunately swimming too deep in fairy-tale fantasy crapola was about the only big fault it had circa version 3.5- of everything else there was just so much more of than in vanilla/other mods that it made for a completely different experience. More weapons, vastly different factions, uber units, uber weapons tied to new quests, diplomacy type options, bigger and much more rewarding "own faction" creation. Frankly, it was a blast. Then 3.6 rolled around and I thought it was a step backwards. They introduced new items and weps that didn't fit in with the rest and had a couple of other arguable decisions I didn't like but can't recall. Anywho, last time I checked they were in for a huge, game-changing update I'm not sure already came about. Version 4.0, I believe. Recommended, tho, all things considered.

Been meaning to try 1256 AD but never got round to it.

SOOOOOOOOOO...

Hotline Miami is now done.

Funny, I came here mostly to MIGHTILY BASH BLARGH'S NOTIONS THAT THE PLOT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE INTO THE FLOOR AND STOMP ON THEIR HEAD WITH ME BOOT and then he switched camps. Bah.

You're right about one thing in your previous assertion, tho- I reckon it really doesn't matter.
I mean, we've all been coddled into accepting never-ending exposure at the cost of intervals in gameplay so the mid-mission bits could've given us a bit more (maybe some more interaction as well) but then, so have we been accustomed to these -often obnoxiously so- deliberately complicated "artsy" folk having their shit steeped in minute references that're inscrutable to anyone but themselves (more as a defense mechanism than as anything else), even if I'm only partially convinced (if at all) that that was the case. But in the end, it *doesn't* matter. The game sets out to deliver a series of cramped quarters stuffed to the brim in enemies for you to test out your planning skills and lightning reflexes, not to push the boundaries of gaming storytelling; that it manages to deliver, at it's very basic interpretation, a story of revenge through the eyes of a clearly unstable individual (drugs? psychosis? both?) is enough. As he and the player, stood there, mask definitively off, having his post "coital" cigarette and staring at the ocean of neon, I felt somehow vindicated. I felt pleased. That Miami's gameplay and hopelessly enamouring Perturbator track had more to do with it than the resolution of what little plot there'd been to that point is something I can't really blame the game for.

But then there's the ending that could've been. It's not genious, I'll tell you that much. Realising you'd killed the "good" guy and let the "real culprits" off the hook is about as satisfying as knowing how lame their motivations were and, well, never knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt what the main character's were. Still, extra levels. More good music. And they *do* bite the bullet. Or cleaver, as it were.

All in all, I'm extremely pleased. Cynicism demanded this game failed to impress in the most horrible manner after such ravishing promo trailers. It does not. I'd gladly put it up there with the likes of FTL on January's incredibly irrelevant list of the better games of the last 12 months, because we somehow arbitrarily decided that one year was the cut off point for real-life relevance and also decided to port that concept to the internet unscathed for some reason.

Those of you who haven't- play it.




Also, plumbers in Miami enforce the "dumb american" stereotype-


Also also, your girlfriend has a penis-


and in the game.

Also also also- PHIL doesn't work :tristeface:

My money's on JAKE btw. Probably shift to PINKJAGUAR at some point for the time factor.


And HO, whereas I'm pretty confident about the points system, getting a good grade is still chinese to me. Went from straight BB to an A to straight CC. Why? Hell if I know.

You know what's sad? It's when you put up a 3 paragraph reply and you let something like this slide

Tofu Man wrote:

SenisterDenister wrote:Mountain Blade

and you only end up noticing because you wound up in this page by mistake. Oh, well.

Tinfoil Voyeurism wrote:penis

Miami is, after all, the only place in the northern hemisphere where floor tiles are used during gender reassignment surgeries.

The Princess is in Another Hostel wrote:PHIL

Works for me.

Yeah, some parts of the game are a tad buggy. Fortunately, have yet to experience the negative points to new friends quirk . . .

But I digress.

How to reliably A+ in a thoroughly boring manner :

Use Carl. Apply drill. Watch out for dogs (even more so than usual).

LOBOTOMY FIESTA !

So, what is coma induced ragged dreamscape, is it an afterlife, are the events portrayed a disjointed timeline (signs point to VERY YES), what, if any, is real, are they accolated universes or just (oh so banal) what-if(s) ? I DON'T KNOW. And not knowing is half the fun.

That written, my psychoreactive benjamins would be on the first hapless pawn, as the cleaver brandishing ninja biker is, I feel, a bit too EIGHTIES EXTREEM to be taken entirely at face. Or perhaps THEY just wanted me to think that. Or perhaps THEY just wanted me to think that THEY wanted me to thin -

I confess, I just prefer the scenario that involves murdering the 'hero' with a 9 iron. Also, hurling trophies at faux samurai. Also, baiting the barricaded police officers on the final floor of the station to fruitlessly empty their magazines, the better for them to look at me as I stared at them.

You know, I entertained the notion of a 'Murkan Psycho-style "rich youth gets bored and decides to go mental" for a while there, only to have it dispelled by :bikerman:. His appartment, rather. I'm now thinking much the opposite. I don't know where you got that idea that the coma bit might'nt be reality (then again I didn't think it immediately obvious GF was dead after she disappears from the apartment after 3 days/missions only to be revealed dead much later; I might've been slightly drunk at the time) but it fits with the concept. As in, everything after :homo bikus: confrontation is fiction/dream/whatmightabeen, when in reality, Bikerman does his thing as a metaphor for how mainstream/garishness/"EIGHTIES EXTREEM" winds up "killing" genius (phone guys)/ madness (MC)/ originality (car)/ simplicity (apartment) in a video killed the radio star kinda way. Fuck, maybe it's a metaphor for destroying the rainforest (I mean, you are wearing animal masks, oui?). Maybe one's just looking too far into a simple "Sliding Doors" -type bullshit alternate reality bit.

Let it be know, though, I was perfectly content with the plot winding up portraying me/main character as a conscience-less thrill-seeker. Truth be told, I didn't expect any less out of a deliberately weirdo developer.


Also, not gotten Carl yet. Only managed to find 3 of the hidden ones :en bare assed:

Venezuela, MD wrote:northern hemisphere

Hahaha. That's funny because :Bowie's wife:.

Wait, that wasn't gender reassignment at all... Don't care- still funny.

Of course, there's the horribly boring interpretation that Cock Head actually lost his tête-à-tête with the biker (and may have, in fact, hallucinated the merrily strewn corpse bits, as you can later finish Prank Call while ignoring everyone but the manager - and, unlike Cock Head, the biker does otherwise <strike>have the option of</strike> spare<strike>ing</strike> (?) the unarmed end of level plot dispensaries he encounters ; also, dialogue discrepancy regarding impromptu coda to Neighbours/Prank Call from the biker's point of view, i.e : I KILL YOU/leave now if you don't want me to KILL YOU.)

The biker did, after all, have a lot on his mind at the time. Might have only (FACE GRAVY) severely wounded Cock Head, and, assuming <strike>that no one could survive his self taught cleaver based technique gleaned from meditation over hundreds of Iron Chef¹ repeats</strike> he was past tense, returned to his previously scheduled righteous bloodletting.

Which doesn't really account for Fun and Games, unless one takes it as the biker attempting to delay suspicion, having missed one or more assignments by this point, while he finalises Things. Or perhaps he just loathes arcades and/or Russians.

Or, it could be, (and I know this is a tenous supposition) DRUGS !

With everything occuring from biker skull tee off until Trauma a soup of memory, DRUGS (?), dream, PTSD/DID, and, perhaps (outlandishly, I know), actual bonafide psychosis.

Of course, that leaves the whole encounter with the Rat somewhat out of joint. Except, perhaps, as a subconscious rationalisation for the whole comatose and hospitalised bit ?

Of course ! They're both time travellers ! Because <deleted> !

It's so obvious now !

OVERTHINKING

I'm beginning (ha !) to suspect that certain plot threads were deliberately left unfinished.

Hope the DLC eventually gets to a randomised scenario generator. That would be 105% ducky.

Also, more murdertoys, masks, music, mindfuckery.

More everything, really. No pressure.

¹Obviously an alternate timeline (Ruso-American coalition) in which Everything diverged after Iron Chef made its debut in 1983. That, and/or time travel.

A follow-up playthrough has revealed to me so many things amiss. I really should start medicating the self.

Anywho:
- Read-able newspaper clippings @ home. Mission-relevant info and not plot. Sad.

- Bespectacled beardman with the gifts turns up dead TWICE before turning up again "alive" and claiming not to really be there. WHO IS THIS MAN? Imaginary friend? Self? Brother? Dealer? Girlfriend killer + a beard and some glasses?

- I'd missed

Blargh wrote:Rat

entirely because CTD. Oh dear.

- On that note, GFK is present in allucinations before you ever actually see his face on VENGEANCE. How? Is he self?

- On that that note, one already assumes meetings with Owlhead, Cockface and Sarah Jessica Parker are product of Self's imagination, so why not the meeting with Splinter? Admittedly, flowerpots on the dinnertable and regular sex with someone other than self might've pushed a shit-hole dwelling man of psychic imbalance OVAR TEH EDGHE. Killing spree on Poliz Stazion actually suicide?

- SJP with the "Nothing you do from now on will matter. You will never know." before TRAUMA. So imaginary village people (pet edition) can see teh footoor? Self is dead/comatose?

Worst of all, I completely ignored :springsteen: and thus Ending 3.0. So final judgement will have to wait. Feel free to spoil whatever happens if relevant since I'm a couple letters away and will not be finding them that soon.

Blargh wrote:Fun and Games

(note to self*, replay Fun and Games)

Gordon Blarghsey wrote:debut

:<strike>golf</strike>chefclap:

Blargh wrote:DLC

Philistine.


*actual self

Coconuts - Silver Lights has grown on me like some sort of fungus. Amazing track.

Spatulas at Dusk wrote:clippings

Aside from the leaflets at the beginning of both character arcs . . .

*offensive hand gestures* wrote:Bespectacled

Could be a dead drop/method of payment. Though the (implied) element of coercion/threats leaves me unconvinced of this. Perhaps he's/they're a method of exposing Cock Face/Richard/Letterman to mind control vectors (possibilities include subliminal encoded shop musak or, less exotically, drugged food or simple verbal code phrases/triggers in conjunction with hypnosis), or (more plausibly, I think) just humanoid white noise - Cock Face's brain/coma/issue(s) won't let him see them as particularly important (compared to say, the whole coerced suicidal murder sprees/post brain stomp convalescence thing(s)), and so, their functions virtually indentical, they all blur together. Also, DRUGS/psychosis. It's (perhaps) worth noting that, unlike all the others, the bartender at the night club during the first visit doesn't appear to recognise Cock Face.

That, or, perhaps my favourite theory - a quiet nod to the brothers de Santos of Jagged Alliance 2. Also, DRUGS/psychosis.

Gregarious Bush wrote:GFK

Just another aspect of the loss of boundaries between memories, I think. Which could mean that if the existence of Rat was just a rationalisation, Assault was for no reason at all (ooh, recurrent themes !), and that the conversation in the cell was psychosis masking the (possibility of) the unmasked Rat being a proxy of a figment. Was possibly just some (ha) poor sod (trying to) sleep(ing) off a particularly heinous bender. Perhaps a serial parking ticket evader. Congratulations, anonymous innocent, for your walk on role in DEATH PANTOMIME (one night only !), here are your lines. Curtains down.

Or perhaps THEY simply decided that Cock Face had become a liability, whether by knowing too much, or as punishment for his failure (?) to subdue the biker ?

Which would, in turn, paint the conclusion drawn from the evidence collected via Assault as erroneous, with regard to the whole issue of ultimate responsibility for the phone calls.

Mildly tangental, but did you notice that Vengeance (July 23) and Resolution (May 24) <strike>seem to</strike> occur in the same building (while the cited street addresses are different, I'm inclined to put it down to Cock Face's tenuous psychological state, rather than recycled art assets) ? It may well be simple Sliding Doors bullshit.

Though if the above is true, noting the time between each visit, I wonder how the police and/or Russians would fail to notice the sewer operation and, more pertinently, (potential/likely (?)) bodies of the cleaners . . .

And then, once again, the narratives fail to mesh comfortably. What a shame.

Marimba Tie wrote:suicide?

Mmm. Perhaps Cock Face and Rat are the same man ? We never see the face of the former. If so, the cell altercation becomes approximately surreal³. :firstruleofmemes:

Then again, they do look quite different (as much as a dozen odd pixels can be) from above, headwise. Though can we rely on any aspect of the game experience as irrefutable confirmation of anything ? It is flux.

Also, was Wheelchair anything more than a sickly nonagenarian Rafioso ? Does it matter ?

You just callously extinguished a slew angry pixels for Arbitrary Reason #5. You monster.

Surreptitious Mole Wizard wrote:SJP

Ha.

Parsimonious Ham wrote:footoor

They've/Cock Face have/has already seen it, but they can't/won't/don't recall that it has already occured. Brain debug. A blue screen of the superego.

Or, <strike>DRUGS/psychosis</strike> time travel.

Ultimately, it seems that Cock Face is just another puppet, the latest in a cavalcade of failures (the mid mission acquisition of masks, mostly from the corpses of colleagues/fellow victims), he does not learn the truth, he doesn't even realise that he missed his opportunity, he continues to kill the wrong people, he continues to inadvertently further the designs of those who have made him a slave, he may have precipitated the collapse of the <strike>Soviet Union</strike> Ruso-American coalition.

All because <strike>Iron Chef -</strike> his girlfriend left him.

50 Clod wrote:relevant

Possible sequel hook(s)/prior mentioned meta-trollery. It's worth hunting down those letters if only for the awesome mask the TRUE ENDING grants. If I recall, there are no letters to be found in the cleaver chronicles. Which raises : how does the biker learn of the password ?

BUT YOU MUST wrote:<strike>Philistine</strike> Optimist

Fixed. They're both undeniably filthy, scathing labels, but if hoping for more of a good thing is indicative of either, then so be it.

EDIT - FAILURE OF KEYBOARDING.

That's too much to read, but I'm gonna play it.

Ahaha, and then I notice (a) typo(s), only after someone else has posted. Oh well. Hope you find the experience engaging, D5it-m38.

Oh, and for anyone who has unlocked the dart, try cornering a mook with an empty gun by himself (if you can close quickly, you can <strike>safely</strike> boringly neutralise their firearm by standing on top of them, and not attacking, until they deplete their ammunition), and bounce the dart off of them (and nearby walls) a few times. Works best in narrow corridors, with a minimum of furnishings.

Or you can try it on a gaggle of live shotguns for maximum funtimes. PRESS R TO REMEMBER.

Natural Selection 2 was officially released today. All in all pretty solid. Leaps and bounds ahead of the alpha I bought in to two years ago. Glad to see the dudes that made the game are doing well, its one of the highest sold games on Steam for the moment.

Hotline Miami so far is interesting, but I find the controls to be... annoying, with things facking moving too fast and then you end up having to restart the same goddamn room like 4 times in a row.

D3 might be shinier than D2, but superior graphics engine or not, I still can't play it on my remaining (and older) computer. I'm glad my rig busted, now I can see;

• 8 player multiplayer > 4 player multiplayer.

• PvP > No pvp.

• Loot mechanics that make you feel like your earning it > Glossed over itemization/difficulty where everything you receive makes you feel like you're on a slow linear slope to 1337z0RzN355!1 (whether you like it or not).

• Gameplay that actually has the threat of failure or being accosted by PKers at any moment > Gameplay that is pretty much watching your stock accrue worth... and sometimes like watching paint dry, when things get hairy.

• Cows > MLP

• My sorceress that grunts and shuts the fuck up when I push (spam) the potion key > My wizard that asks in a nasally monotone "Why would I do that?" when I push my all powerful HEAL button .004762 seconds too early for it to come off cooldown.

Why does my infernal digibit stock chip ask me rhetorical questions when I'm about to be looking at the death screen? Because the majority of video gamers deserve to be laughed at straight to the kisser.

Been playing a lot of Natural Selection 2. The engine isn't well optimized, but it hasn't crashed on me yet. Games load slow, initially, but speed up the longer I play. Lag is an issue, but the game's netcode is lightyears beyond what it used to be.

And most everyone I've played with, all on public servers, have been pretty fun to play with. Haven't met any assholes, everyone is working together, and even when we lose the chat is showered with post-game GG's.

For a purely multiplayer experience I am pretty content with what I got on release.

Installing LA Noir right now. I haven't used my DVD drive for such a long time that it gets stuck and doesn't want to come out sometimes

SenisterDenister wrote:Been playing a lot of Natural Selection 2. The engine isn't well optimized, but it hasn't crashed on me yet. Games load slow, initially, but speed up the longer I play. Lag is an issue, but the game's netcode is lightyears beyond what it used to be.

And most everyone I've played with, all on public servers, have been pretty fun to play with. Haven't met any assholes, everyone is working together, and even when we lose the chat is showered with post-game GG's.

For a purely multiplayer experience I am pretty content with what I got on release.

I find that most assholes are on consoles. PC gamers tend to be much cooler. Anyway, can't wait to pick up Natural Selection 2 but it probably won't be for another 2 weeks, hopefully by then some bugs will be addressed. I figured it would start out with some heavy bugs considering it's a half-priced Indie.