june gloom on 7/9/2011 at 03:38
Well, endings tend to be boring. It's a common problem. It's saying something when it takes being raped by a dead girl to get players to stand up and take notice.
Sulphur on 7/9/2011 at 08:19
The only reason people stood up and noticed that ending was because it was so incredibly, hilariously awful, they were probably shocked into momentary paralysis by it. I know all I could do was twitch my left eye a little and try not to let a little rivulet of drool drip from the corner of my mouth.
Boring endings? 75% of the reason why they're boring is because we're stuck watching a cut scene, often poorly thought out or lacking any actual resolution. Narratives need arcs, and games usually don't give a fuck about that, eschewing resonance and resolution for '...TO BE CONTINUED, SUCKERS! HAHAHA!!'
If HR hams up the mechanics of getting to an ending but does the actual ending right in terms of leading into the world of DX, that's still a notch in its favour. If it doesn't, well, that would be a shame.
june gloom on 7/9/2011 at 08:40
Quote Posted by Sulphur
The only reason people stood up and noticed that ending was because it was so incredibly, hilariously awful, they were probably shocked into momentary paralysis by it. I know all I could do was twitch my left eye a little and try not to let a little rivulet of drool drip from the corner of my mouth.
Your experience != anyone else's. I personally thought it was good, if reaching Gainax levels of fucked up and being obvious threequel bait.
Painman on 7/9/2011 at 08:49
Finally finished.
I liked the gameplay. Mostly. Main problems for me, were that searching for a vent in order to bypass or get the jump on chumps usually ended with me finding one. Every camera, turret or bot had a hackable security computer associated with it, and oftentimes that security computer had a password located on a nearby pocket secretary... which I woudn't use anyway, because my well developed h4x0r skills were a prolific font of extra XP for aug upgrades. Getting Capture 5 and Stealth 3 probably paid for themselves a few times over.
It was still satisfying, though, that you could patiently and carefully neutralize an entire facility, system by system, meatbag by meatbag, without them knowing what the hell happened. I wasn't quite careful enough this first time through, so I didn't get Foxiest of the Hounds (lookit me, this game has made me care about achievements... Good Lord).
Cover system was a bit abusable, but since there wasn't any leaning, I suppose it served in lieu of that. I used it to peer around corners/over obstacles a fair bit, and it was the mechanism the game gave - not necessarily the one I would have wanted.
"Choose a button" ending was kinda lame - I had hoped that earlier convos with major characters would have sent Adam down different paths, but alas, I got to see them all by saving my game in the last room. I actually think that IW handled the ending choice the best out of all 3 - in DX1, you could reduce it down to choosing which of 3 buttons to push, like Dethtoll pointed out. In IW, you could neutralize most of Liberty Island while keeping your options open, but at some point, you did have start closing some doors in order to get one ending or another.
I thought the original game's story had better pacing. JC's world got turned upside down fairly early on in DX1, before he even left New York. As someone else said, waking up in that cell (possibly with Navarre taunting you) and then being contacted by Daedalus really set up a wonderful "WTF?!?" atmosphere. Then you discover that UNATCO is a front for this "MJ12". From that point on, the remaining 2/3 of the game is the gradual, exhilarating onion-peeling. In HR, the "WTF" moment is discovering that Megan and her team are still alive - but it comes much later, it's nowhere near as overwhelming, and the rest of the story felt kinda rushed from there.
There are more thoughts in my head, but they're kinda garbled because I'm tired, for one thing. I will have to play the game through once again right away, and pay more careful attention to detail now that I know the general course of the story. DX1 has the benefit of being 11 years old. We know how it plays out. I really need to look at this game again, in its entirety, now that I know how it plays out, and perhaps pay special attention to any foreshadowing that takes place in the earlier sections. Perhaps I'll judge the earlier portions differently then; perhaps not.
It ought to say something about the overall quality of this game, though, that I want to become jaded with it in order to give it a fair comparison to its 11 year older sibling.
Sulphur on 7/9/2011 at 09:12
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Your experience != anyone else's. I personally thought it was good, if reaching Gainax levels of fucked up and being obvious threequel bait.
We both know that when it comes to Fear 2 our opinions are... different. But there's no way in hell that ending can be described with the use of a word like 'good' applied to it in a complimentary fashion without the universe folding back on itself and bitchslapping you into a parallel fucking
dimension.
Seriously man, we share similar tastes, but you can't see the woods for the trees with this one.
june gloom on 7/9/2011 at 09:33
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Sulphur on 7/9/2011 at 09:53
What do the hot tears of my naked cosplaying sex slave with the Alma 'do rolling down my naked chest have to do with anything? :confused:
Painman on 7/9/2011 at 11:42
What? :confused:
Keep it on topic, guys. Why does Megan's bed have a ridiculously heavy gauge power cord running to/underneath it?
Jason Moyer on 7/9/2011 at 16:37
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Well, endings tend to be boring. It's a common problem. It's saying something when it takes being raped by a dead girl to get players to stand up and take notice.
Dude, it's not that the ending is boring. The actual cut scenes at the end are quite good, actually, in my opinion (I thought all of the out-of-engine scenes were fantastic - Square are the masters of that). What's stupid is that it's literally: you have beaten the final boss, now pick which of these 4 buttons you want to push.
That said, I am curious to see how much the dialog during the final, pre-credits cutscene differes depending on what you did during the game. In mine he talked about how he kept his humanity and whatnot. I haven't seen a video of what he says if you play like a douchebag.
Also, speaking of the ending, hopefully you guys sat through the credits.
Slasher on 7/9/2011 at 19:37
Quote Posted by Painman
What? :confused:
Keep it on topic, guys. Why does Megan's bed have a ridiculously heavy gauge power cord running to/underneath it?
Possibly an implication of something hidden under the bed? Maybe ammo or health? Maybe there's a hackable door that leads to a dungeon. Megan could have been in to that kind of stuff. :confused:
