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greensaplinggrace · 4 years ago

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What makes Dishonored your favorite game?

The biggest thing for me was the lore and the atmosphere. No game I've played has ever had such a well-incorporated feel and sense of immersion to it like Dishonored except for Bishock 1, which is incidentally my second favorite game of all time lol. The lore is brilliant, the world is creative, the atmosphere is spectacular, the soundtrack is to die for, and it taught me a lot about how to create a city and a world and a system of myths and religion and tales and perspectives.

The way it's set in a steampunk/clockpunk/fantasy world where whaling is the primary source of energy is brilliant. The books and papers and notes you can read throughout the game are endlessly fascinating, and the different perspectives you come across in writing on certain characters throughout is especially interesting to me. Granny Rags is amazing, Slackjaw is great, the Loyalists were quite a unique set of allies, and Daud is probably my favorite antagonist of all time.

The stealth and magic system is the only one of its kind I've ever come across, and literally no other game compares in quality to stealth missions and chaos systems and gameplay except maybe Assassin's Creed, and that depends on which game we're talking about. After playing Dishonored I legitimately scoured the internet for games like it that had good stealth/magic and nothing else was as good.

Also, I love the exploration of classism and the critiques on society. The main antagonist is the game is vile, and the reveal for why he did what he did will always stick with me. The Boyle party is my favorite part of the game despite my beef with the low honor choice. Largely because of a) the aesthetic, which is breathtaking throughout the entire game but especially on this mission, b) the boyle sisters themselves, who are very complex and who you can learn a great deal about through exploring their home before even meeting them, and c) the fact that even in this rich person's mansion, as all these wealthy and privileged people dine on a vast amount of food making small talk while the rest of the city starves and dies and bodies pile like mountains in the flooded district, there is still blood on the floor.

The disconnect when hearing the rich wonder why they're also dying to the plague is well done, too. The fact that they never even considered they would be vulnerable because they judge the lower classes so much.

The heart, which is probably the greatest part of the game, spilling secrets and giving you knowledge. A horrifying companion that tells you everything about the world you're in. It's such a great way to incorporate more lore as well as highlight the complex lives of the characters you're surrounded by. Even a random man wandering the street has a story the heart will tell you. I like that. I like how even the side characters feel fleshed out. There's no part of that world or that city that doesn't have a purpose. There's no piece of that game that feels worthless. You point the heart not even at a person but at a place and it will tell you the secrets of the world. That's the type of worldbuilding I admire. That's the type of lore that means something to me.

The religion is cool. The Outsider is interesting. The void as a concept is genius and the way its explored is so incredibly compelling. I love the way magic and religion are tied together. I enjoy the way cultism is explored. I ADORE the abbey and the religious corruption and how tied it is with the government. Just the entire setup of the government/accepted religion/'heretical' religion is really great.

There are dozens of ways to complete the missions and explore the city. Playing the game without powers is fun af. You are a rat bastard. I love the rats in this game. I love the powers in this game. You can have charms made out of bones and you can find shrines to the outsider and you can teleport in front of your allies without them even going "hey! why does this dude have a strange heretical marking on his hand?!" The powers are fun, the void is fun, the dynamics of the game are fun. It's just fun. I mean, maybe a bit too easy now, imo. I have to set it on very hard and make sure its basically unbeatable to really have a challenge anymore.

Corvo as a character seems dull at first when you don't get much of his story in the first game, but his potential and the pieces of his history that are dropped occasionally by npcs and his relationship with emily make him pretty fucking stellar, imo. You learn more about him and his relationships with people as the game progresses. The way the world changes is so interesting.

Like idk, I could go on but this is already enough of a ramble. It's just... really good. It was also the game that got me back into videogames. I had a massive gaming slump for about five years where nothing interested me. I gave Dishonored a try and loved it so so much I started playing other games again. Luckily I then played Bioshock 1, and that passion didn't immediately die. So really it just holds a sentimental place in my heart as well. Also I majorly shipped the Corvo/Jessamine/Daud OT3 you guys have no idea.

(fill my inbox)

#dishonored #asks and answers #ask games #myramblings #corvo attano #anon #mymetas

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grandinventor · 4 years ago

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At the risk of sounding like a Jindosh apologist here (I am.) I will preface that Jindosh is a bad guy, he has either killed people personally or got them killed for experiment purposes by his Clockworks and has dissected the dead so he is not good, he is a villain, I acknowledge that.

Now with that out of the way I wanna criticize the narrative surrounding him and his mansion and how it sometimes falls flat on it’s face trying to demonize them thanks to a lot of points my friend @divaythfyr brought up. I’ll put all of that below the cut:

Yesterday I was told this line and I won’t lie it is...bad. Line in question:

Billie: "His home is supposed to be full of marvels. Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal. Kids, even. People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help."

But because I couldn’t live with the idea that he kills children you know the simplest villain demonization tactic in writing history (kick the puppy, kick the child whatever) and I think it’s pretty cheap to try and make him worse than Sokolov, I talked to the Jindosh apologist committee and thot about it so I’ll go over this line by line.

1. "His home is supposed to be full of marvels.“ - Okay but isn’t his home also supposed to be scary? Isn’t the whole “Why would anyone build a scary mansion like this?” line from Emily/Corvo as they enter supposed to tell us that this is a scary place? Which is funny because in reality the mansion itself isn’t scary at all, in fact it’s extremely logical in the way it unfolds and exposes the rooms. It’s perfectly functional and as someone with a major in architecture, I can say it’s the best designed house in terms of organization in the game. There is no way to die in the mansion unless the Clockwork Soldiers and the guards get you - which goes for literally any important/rich person’s house? You walk in someone’s house uninvited and their guards get you. You can die if you get behind the walls but it’s extremely difficult to do so especially in the places where you can get squished. The house itself is completely harmless. So the whole idea from Jindosh’s end that it’s a maze is stupid on it’s own too, the house is perfectly logical and Stilton’s manor is an actual maze because I got lost 10 times in there.

2. “Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal.“ - okay first part is correct people go in his house to either steal, test their skills or kill him. He says as much himself. He says fabled thieves and assassins died there. Again probably from his guards and Clockworks since you can’t die from the house in any rational way. And then he dragged them half dead or dead in his lab to dissect them. He has a fascination with watching people die because he is like evil and a villain like that. Which brings me to the next point which is:

There are only two ways to get in his mansion without powers. There is the bridge below which is broken and the railway which is guarded and has a Wall of Light on the other end. So how will anyone that is not prepared with a grappling hook or some kind of way to close this gap gonna get in? How is your random average person gonna go in? And most importantly why? Do people just walk in aristocrat’s houses and expect not to get out in a body bag or?

Besides he has a) a lot of free food and drinks in the lobby which is his threshold as to how far you are allowed to go so if someone wanted food they can just walk in and take it and leave (after you know, scaling a mountain for whatever reason because there aren’t easier houses to steal from) and b) he has an audiograph, because I am sure he assumes people can’t read, which tells you “Do not enter or you will die and I will dissect your remains and this is a promise.” Like why add a warning if you wanna lure people in? Unless those people think they can outsmart him so they come with intent and not just because they need food/shelter. Also he has food right next to that audio.

3. “Kids, even.“ - okay this one, the scary line. I won’t lie this made me uncomfortable. So like if we assume that normal people can enter by normal means (which in point 2 is clear they can’t unless further elaborated by the game on How? and Why?), a child going in as a dare and dying is possible. Billie after this line goes on to say that she saw a child dare his brother to touch the wall of light which vaporized the child, so the implication is possible. It’s possible a child went in his mansion as a dare and bad things unfolded. It’s also equally possible that it didn’t. We know of adult men dying because we see the bodies. For this one is just a rumor. You can take it either way depending on how you feel about Jindosh. It’s very unlikely a child would get this far though, unless this was some kind of Disney movie. Also Jindosh wouldn’t personally have a reason to kill a child you know, like I know it’s the easiest “this villain is super evil!!!!” writing tactic, but he had a pretty shitty childhood, he felt hated by his mother and probably wasn’t treated so nicely by his (bastard) brother. He likes to exercise his lack of control during his younger years by having control over other people through his house and toying with them. He is very childish in a sense too (with his toy house and toy soldiers), and because of all of this I truly don’t think he would kill a child. He wants a real challenge and to test out his machines and his house against the best and smartest Karnaca can offer, not children. Though my opinion here can be highly biased.

Also many children can casually pull 6ft tall levers I’m sure--

4. “People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help." - we know people have died in the mansion and they have been crying for release, as he says so himself. But again the above points kind of challenge as to who these people that died inside were. However because you know I’ve been playing with his mansion for four years cause I am a dumb hoe, I can say that there are very little windows. In fact the majority of windows that aren’t blocked off by the cliff or the mechanisms are around his laboratory.

Now yes people could go there and bang on them sure. But they literally...face the lab and chances are no one is gonna hear you bang on that side. The other windows not facing the lab are in the foyer where...you are allowed to be and nothing is gonna happen to you.

And the windows that actually face a side where let’s say someone could hear if someone was banging are the windows on the front of the house. Only the thing is, there are no windows on the front of the house except in the foyer.

Here are the buildings from across his mansion which I guess can maybe hear if someone was banging on the windows. But again no windows on the front of the house.

The fake windows is where the mechanism for the ceiling over the gallery in the upper hall is. The one that kinda extends and unfolds from there. So isn’t entirely possible that the banging and screaming or whatever people heard is just...the mechanisms of his house? The scary evil child killing house? Which is actually moving and making a lot of noise at all times?

So in conclusion? Yes, Jindosh is bad, he has no regard to human life, he divides society as innocent bystanders and criminals. He does dream of an army of Clockwork Soldiers to eradicate all crime. Be, he isn’t a senseless killer, it’s his neutrality and fascination with death as well as his black and white thinking that makes him dangerous. He doesn’t see people as human. In the majority of cases we know of (except one for some reason? That cursed baker who got his brain fried why did you have to do that Jindosh!?) he experiments on people who he deems criminals without sympathy. Also in situations where he thinks it’s justified - breaking in to steal from him or hurt him, the Blade Verbena, prisoners that can actually provide a learning experience for his Clockworks and Sokolov. He doesn’t go kidnapping people off the streets to experiment on them.

And despite his evilness being completely logical, the whole game tries to paint his mansion as this big puzzle and trap when in reality it’s...really just a house. The level design is beautiful and amazing but I think it doesn’t really carry the point as strongly simply because it’s not any more dangerous than any other mission and it’s just more fun when it comes to gameplay. The design is great but it never gave me the feeling of it being a horror house. So I think that demonizing Jindosh through hearsay instead of through his actual mission is a bit of a weird choice. A lot of things don’t reflect how evil he is, but not in the good way of “The Grand Inventor doesn’t seem evil but he is.” and instead you get it hammered how evil he is from the start without actually ever experiencing a climax of his evilness you wouldn’t expect. It’s not that every story should have a twist, but usually when you say someone is evil, you either make them good at the end or even more evil. Jindosh never has that climax, he is the same start to finish and that is... mildly annoying and slightly threatening. Like his level is pretty but not scary and they keep trying to convince you it’s scary which makes it weird which I guess is because if you listen to a lot of his unused lines and old concept art, he was supposed to be this stereotypical mad scientist but in the end they changed his visual design and lines so much he comes off as lukewarm. I understand what they tried to do with Jindosh but I feel like they failed to do it and had to rely on everyone saying he is super irredeemably evil to justify lobotomizing him.

Anyway this post is too long, sorry if the read more doesn’t go through somewhere and please feel free to counter my points I am open to different and non biased views (or even information I might not know because I haven’t read the books or found everything).

#kirin jindosh #me putting this with full confidence in the tag #i hope i dont wake up to anything bad

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beholdingslut · 4 years ago

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hey mads! just wondering if you have any game recs? i've been super into dragon age and assassins creed lately but they're also like, the only games i've ever been even close to good at lol because generally i am. bad ajsdkfdj

hello my game recs are limited to the same six viddy games because i’m also not an amazing gaymer in terms of actually playing and getting through the game but i am passionate about the following recs

dishonored: one of my favourite games ever. it’s an action adventure game with a heavy focus on stealth but it has this advice of ‘play your own way’ where any given level will have multiple different methods you can complete it with — stealth, offensively fighting every enemy you come across, buying favours to avoid encounters, a mixture of all three. you are corvo attano, ex-protector of the empress and her kid until the empress died and yu got out in prison and to top it off, some god keeps summoning you to his realm to give you supernatural abilities and unwarranted advice. there’s the first game and two dlcs that take place at the same time, a second game takes place twenty years later where you can choose to play as either corvo or emily (and emily has different powers) and then a third standalone expansion with another character from the main games. i would recommend... playing on easy haha i just finished playing them for the third time on hard or brutal and it was hard and brutal, and the game is still challenging in a fun way on easy!

fallout new vegas: released in 2010 so it only exists on ps3, xbox 360 and pc which was less than ideal because i prefer to play games that have either been released or remastered for ps4. but i slogged through the older graphics and controls and was rewarded with one of the most interesting and complex stories i’ve encountered. you are a courier who has been shot in the head and when you wake up, you’re basically tasked with retrieving what you were transporting and making deals between the factions that control the mojave desert in a post-nuclear apocalypse world with a war that happened 200 years ago. lots of commentary on society here! choose to side with people such as: a capitalist that’s wrung everything good out of a community, the head of an imperial army named caesar, or a parasitic military group that came from california and will not leave the mojave despite the fact everyone hates you. you will not be able to play this game making 100% morally right decisions that keep everyone happy. you will get blood on your hands. it’s just how much and what style you want it to take that’s up to you. also play this game on easy, i found it incredibly difficult for the first 15 or so hours of playtime and then it got fun.

uncharted: a recommendation that comes with some clauses. these games were made in response to tomb raider so the premise is uh. looking for mythical objects in non-western societies. but they definitely become aware of why this might be considered Not Good and make adjustments in the final two games of the series. they’re probably the easiest to play of all the recs because they’re narrative driven — you can only go a specific way in the terrain (although your methods may vary based on the environment). lots of cutscenes, very cinematic, very very character based. main character is a roguish archetype named nate drake who has the world’s biggest chip on his shoulder for no reason which drives him to do stupid reckless things and thus, the game. and then there’s a slew of cool recurring characters that they’ll carry over into every game. main features of the game are climbing, puzzles (this is a big one, lots of carrying weights to set on pressure stones or turning wheels at the right time) and a ridiculous amount of fighting with an abundance of guns. again, game is still good on easy. the first three games are a bit... not as good as the last two, they have been remastered for ps4 at the very least but they’re definitely in a different league in terms of gameplay, graphics and even a little bit depths of story? or they took a more emotional turn when they released the fourth game five years after the third.

so yeah that’s on video games i play. the other major ones are dragon age and assassin’s creed which you’re already amongst! i hear bloodborne is cool but i would not for the life of me recommend it because i’ve watched someone play it and it looks like the most disgustingly hard game in the world.

#ask #recs #all recs

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exultedshores · 5 years ago

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🔥 the ratdad 🐁

(Send Me a 🔥 + a Topic, and I’ll Tell You My Honest Opinion About It)

Ratdad is the best dad.

Corvo as a character is an interesting case, because his character is so dependent on the player’s actions. There are dozens of different iterations of him in the fandom, and all of them are supported by canon, at least to some extent. Murder hobo? Could be canon, if that’s how you play him. Distinguished non-lethal spy? Could be canon, if that’s how you play him. He can simultaneously be the bastard who eats trash and windblasts people into the river for fun, and the ghostly figure no one ever truly sees, the only sign he was ever even there the fact that all valuables in a ten mile radius have mysteriously vanished. Corvo Attano can be everything at once and that’s pretty damn cool in a character.

I personally like to think of Corvo as predominantly a good man. He loved Jessamine, he loves Emily, he’s an excellent father, and he canonically took the low chaos route in the first game. And I’m amazed at that. After being framed and jailed and tortured for months on end, Corvo could have snapped so easily. He could’ve taken the magic the Outsider offered and gone on a bloody rampage, and no one could have really blamed him for it. But he stayed true to himself and saved Emily and the whole damn Empire with minimal bloodshed.

Which is why his life is so tragic, in a way. He tries so hard, does nearly everything right, and still his life is turned on its head time and time again. I bet he blames himself for Jessamine’s death and also for Delilah’s coup, even if there’s nothing he could have done. He deserves a goddamn break.

That said, I’m also very fond of the idea of high chaos Corvo – especially Corvo the Black. The notion that he could be so corrupted, so broken by everything that has happened to him that he would take the throne for himself, keeping his daughter ‘safe’ for the rest of time, damn what a concept. I’m a low chaos kind of gal, but I do love me some good Corvo the Black content.

Also, fanon Corvo spending all of his time eating rats and dicking around? A delight.

#Dishonored #Corvo Attano #ask #Shores answers #Shores rambles #thanks bid! <3 #this one was hard #Corvo isn't just one character #he's dozens of characters in a trench coat

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eggoreviews · 6 years ago

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Playstation All Stars 2 - Dream Roster! (PART 1)

I love Smash a lot. And I really wish that PS All Stars was a bit, you know, better. A few mechanical tweaks and the addition of some sorely missed character could turn All Stars into a genuinely awesome fighter, so here’s my dream roster for if Sony did ever attempt to clean up the slight mess they made the first time.

Note: I’ve cut a few from the first game. I’m keeping it to one character per franchise. There’s 42 altogether (because I don’t know when to stop) so here’s the first 21!

Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn)

Here’s a fairly obvious pick, with Horizon being one of the Playstation’s most recent flagship RPGs. The star of Sony’s answer to Breath of the Wild but with added machine animals, Aloy’s tale of discovering her place in her beautiful, post-apocalyptic world is certainly a heartfelt one and it’s easy to get attached to. Plus, she has her bow, spear, traps and focus chip, so the moveset just sort of makes itself.

Astro Bot (Astro Bot: Rescue Mission)

The arguable mascot of Playstation VR, I think Astro Bot would be an unusual fighter, yet a perfect fit into an All Stars sequel. I’m sure they can think of a cool moveset from Rescue Mission and his brief cameos in the VR Playroom! I mean, if Nintendo can weaponise the Wii Fit Trainer, Sony have it easy with Astro Bot.

Big Daddy (Bioshock series)

The first character I’m carrying over from the first game, I think Big Daddy is just such a surprising character that I didn’t have the heart to cut him out. He’s a cool looking robot and I really liked Bioshock Infinite. So Daddio stays.

Cloud (Final Fantasy VII)

In an act I can only describe as ‘big oof’, Nintendo managed to swipe up Cloud to appear in a certain other fighting series, despite the fact that Cloud is most heavily associated with Playstation. And his home game is the most iconic game on the PS1. Hey, I’m not saying I don’t want him in Smash (he’s my main I love my big sword twink), but can’t they share? He’s gotta be here too, come on.

Colonel Radec (Killzone series)

Being 100% honest right now, I know basically nothing about Killzone. But what I do know is this guy has a cool helmet and probably uses a lot of guns. So he can stick around I guess. Plus, I’ve been meaning to try Killzone out for a while.

Crash Bandicoot

As the previous mascot for the PS1, Crash was one of the most glaring omissions from the first game. He’s got enough different ways of jumping around and riding motorbikes to make for a cool moveset, so if they’re doing another one, Crash really does need to be onboard.

Dante (Devil May Cry series)

Dante is heckin cool and his moveset potential is awesome and that’s kind of all there is to it, so I think he kind of needs to come back. In terms of design, it doesn’t matter too much, but it would be REALLY cool if they either went back to the original PS2 design or to his new DMC5 model. Either way, Dante would be one people would miss.

Deacon St. John (Days Gone)

The protagonist in Sony’s upcoming zombie thing Days Gone seems like he’d pretty cool in a crossover fighter, that is if they can make him unique. I doubt having him run everyone over on his bike would quite cut it, but it seems like Days Gone is gonna be pretty good, hopefully good enough to justify his place here. Bring on the bike dad.

Delsin Rowe (InFAMOUS: Second Son)

I’ve replaced Cole MacGrath with the series’ most recent protagonist, Delsin Rowe. I feel like this chaotic rebel with big ol superpowers would fit just as well as Cole, but seems a little more recognisable due to him being a little more recent.

Doom Slayer (Doom)

A lot of people have been speculating that we could be seeing Doomguy in Smash, but I think there’d be much less need for censorship if we saw him in a PS All Stars. They wouldn’t even need to tone him down at all, he can just go full out gun. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be fun.

Ellie (The Last of Us)

I mean yeah, there’s Joel, but I think Ellie would be the much cooler pick, especially now she’s all grown up in Part 2. Not the most obvious choice for an over the top crossover fighter, but The Last of Us is Playstation royalty, and by extension, Ellie. And hey, she has enough usage of cool weapons to keep her place on the roster so I would be more than down for this.

Emily Kaldwin (Dishonored series)

I think Emily is pretty much my most wanted character. I love Dishonored and I toyed around with Corvo in my head for a while, but ultimately settled on Emily because I think her powers are a bit cooler. Such an obvious fit if you think about it, with her cool shadow reach thing and all her weapons. Basically, she needs to be here.

Fat Princess

Who is Fat Princess? Does anyone actually know? Because I don’t. The pure enigma around her keeps her on the roster.

Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher series)

Monster hunter by trade. Wields two swords and a crossbow. Has access to several magic signs that allow to create magic traps or set things on fire. Plus, he’s the protagonist of one of the best RPGs of this console generation. Put him in pls.

Heihachi Mishima (Tekken series)

Another veteran I’m keeping, as I think the sequel would still need its representation from an actual fighting game. I mean, Nintendo got Street Fighter so it’s only fair Playstation get to keep Tekken. And no one’s gonna be mad, he’s from a fighting game so of course his moves would be cool.

The Hunter (Bloodborne)

It was either this guy or Solaire of Astora, so I thought I’d stick with the one that’s the PS exclusive. I imagine the Hunter as a fast-paced fighter who’s a bit jumpy, which would be a good contrast to some of the other heavier fighters. He’s got plenty going for him and he’s from a great game, so he seems an obvious choice.

Isaac Clarke (Dead Space)

Everyone’s favourite janitor who’s in way out of his depth, Isaac Clarke, is here to stay. Access to fun weapons and would probably be a nice break for him to fight Fat Princess rather than the necrofuckery he normally has to deal with. Oh, but don’t make him DLC this time.

Jak and Daxter

The poster boys of some of the best platforming on the PS2, these guys were clear picks for the first game and it’d be a little sad if you cut them from the sequel.

Joker (Persona 5)

I am BEYOND excited for my best boi to get into Smash, but it also makes a little too much sense he join in for an All Stars sequel. After all, P5 started life as and still is a PS4 exclusive, though I suppose that’s likely to change soon. Still, let him and Cloud join the fun too!

Kat and Dusty (Gravity Rush)

I have never played Gravity Rush, but I’ve heard that it’s pretty much amazing, so I thought I’d leave a spot for these two and carry them over. Plus, their designs are cool so I’m here for it.

Knack

Yeah, yeah, I know. Knack was kind of rubbish and Knack 2 was more rubbish. But how cool would Knack be in a fighting game? He could be a really technical fighter, switching between two separate movesets for his bigger and smaller forms, a bit like Pokemon Trainer in Smash. And he’s owned by Sony so he’d be easy to slot in. Sure the games weren’t great, but as a character concept, yes please.

So there’s the first half! Curious as to my other 21 picks? Drop in next week to see who they are! If you’ve got characters you’d like to see, let me know down below and we can all talk about a game that will probably never happen. Have a gr8 day.

#persona 5 #final fantasy #dishonored #the witcher #playstation #ps #list #gaming #gravity rush #horizon zero dawn #bioshock #killzone #Crash Bandicoot #devil may cry #the last of us #infamous #tekken

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samgibbsmultiverse · 4 years ago

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Further Audience Discussion

Here I am going to be looking at 3 games which I have researched and talk about what they did in order to hit the same audience as me. What they implemented in there games and trailers in order to interest the audience. As the audience is aimed towards someone like me I will be pointing out what they do in order to interest me in there game. Just as a recap my target audience are people who enjoy first person games with aspects of horror/gore as well as puzzles.

Dishonoured 2 :

First I am looking into dishonoured 2 which is what mainly inspired my project due to its amazing super power game mechanics. I feel like my game would definitely have a very similar target audience as dishonoured as it is heavily inspired by its crack in the slab level. Of course I have decided to look into the games trailer due to the fact that a trailer is very important to getting your game concept across to your target audience.I am going to be analysing the games trailer to see what it does right to interest their audience into buying the game.

youtube

The trailer is indeed very interesting and has the audience asking many questions. Firstly we aren't entirely sure who we are actually playing as in the game. This goes quite well with the fact that you can play either emily or corvo in the actual game. We also have the question of who is this mysterious lady who has turned up. Why has a fight broken out. We also ask questions such as who are these characters as they are people knew to the story of the game. We also get an insight into a new machine into the game which players of dishonoured 1 havent experience. The trailer also shows us a lot of the scenery as well as powers the game includes which might also interest the player.This game hits the target audience well by showing off how the game is a first person game meaning that it will be an immersive experience. It also shows that the game contains aspects of gore which some people really enjoy in their games. Unfortunately the trailer doesn't show how the game has a few puzzles for the player to complete. However in the game I find the puzzle aspect to be a really nice touch to the game. Here I am going to be looking at some gameplay of the game:

youtube

Dishonoured 2 did an amazing job of hitting its target audience. The way they use colour to get across the feeling of how everything outside of the palace is in poverty and is almost like as living nightmare is amazing. The main 3 ways that the game hits its target audience is.

Playstyle - The play style of the game is absolutely amazing and makes the player feel like they are actually have super powers. The way this really hits the target audience is giving them a really good first person experience with really good game play mechanics.I also love how it gives the player lots of freedom which I hope is what my own project will contain too.

Scenery and environment - The scenery and environment inside of dishonoured 2 is absolutely amazing. It gives the right sort of atmosphere and in some cases can make a player feel like they are in a horror. This hits the target audience who want a bit of horror and gore in there game where they feel like they are in a creepy place. It also hits the target audience with the puzzles that are out in the level for the player to complete.

Enemies and characters - Finally the third point which really helps them nail the target audience is the enemies and characters. In the game all the enemies and side characters all have personality and aren't just plain and boring. They are also one of the things which really add to the horror/gore aspect. With some enemies being some really weird blood flies aswell as the graphic ways you can kill enemies it really gives enough gore to the game to make it fun to play.Here are some screenshots of what I mean.

Bloodflies:

Graphic deaths:

Resident evil 7:

Resident evil 7 is the second game I have decided to look into. Although it is a game I have personally played very little of I would love to sit down and play through the game. However I find it a tad bit too scary for my liking. With this being the first resident evil game to be in first person they have done a really good job with it. Of course when changing the perspective of a game you always have to be careful. This is because it is a huge risk due to the fact that fans of the series might not be a huge fan of the change of perspective. I personally think that moving to first person was a very smart idea as it makes the game more immersive. It also limits your field of view which makes the game more scary as you can't always see what is behind you. I am going to be looking into the trailer and some gameplay in order to see what they do in Resident Evil 7 in order to hit their target audience.

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Just like the dishonoured 2 trailer it causes the player to ask many questions. For example where are we? Who are these people? What has happened here? and why won't he just die? The trailer gives the player a good look at the characters as well as the environment and enemies they will be expecting to face. This is very good as it interests the player and makes them want to play in order to find out what the games story is about.The player is going to want answers to their questions.Here is some game play which shows us the start of the game.

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The gameplay of this game is just absolutely beautiful. The beginning of the game answers the main questions of where are we as it takes the player to a house which his wife sent a video from. He is on a journey in order to try and find her to take her home. However it unfortunately doesn't go well and you have to encounter the Baker family.There are many ways this game hits its target audience but the 4 that really stand out to me are.

Scenery and environment - Just like Dishonored 2 the game makes sure that the scenery and environment has a lot of detail in it. With the game having aspects of environmental storytelling through newspaper articles as well as vhs tapes you can watch. You can see clips of things which have happened in this house before you got their. The graphic design also perfectly hits the aspects off horror and gore any player would want from the game.

Characters and enemies - Unlike other resident evil games where most enemies are mindless zombies and there are only a few half interesting characters. Resident Evil 7 does an outstanding job when it comes to characters and enemies. In this game they focus more on maily a few characters and give them more personality as well as backstory to them. This makes the game feel like you get more close to the characters and get to see what they are like more. This really hit with the audience as it makes them almost feel closer to the characters in the game. When jack is cured you get to see that in actuality he is just a king gentleman who wanted to live a peaceful life with his family,not become the monster he is for the majority of the game.

Audio - The audio in the game is amazing and makes the scene feel very realistic. The audio also adds to the horror aspect of the game which really puts the players on edge. This hits the target audience as it gives them a really nice and fully immersive feel to the game. This game just really hits the nail on the head when it comes to horror.

Perspective - The final thing is the perspective. With the fact that this game has moved over to a first person perspective I really think that it has done the game good. It makes the game a lot scarier to play than the other Resident Evil games. This hits the target audience as some people especially me only really tend to enjoy first person games. This also hits the sort of target audience which my game will contain as well

The Room series:

The room which my game isn't going to be massively inspired by does contain some features I would like to contain. This is mainly the lens feature as well as the aspect of puzzles.Although this game isn't like Dishonoured 2 or Resident Evil 7. I still feel like it hits its target audience well. Although it may not be a game which most of my target audience may want to play. I feel like some of my audience my play it and give it a go. At first glance most people think “oh its just another boring puzzle game”, well that's at least what I thought it was. However when I started to play it I just started to love it more and more. I have watched the trailer which unfortunately doesn't get across the true feel of the game. It makes the game look more boring than it actually is which is what I find is challenging when making a trailer for a puzzle game. You don't want to give away any spoilers for any puzzles. Due to the trailer being so minimum I have decided to add a clip of the gameplay instead. (I would of added both but I can only add 1 more youtube video to this post.)

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The room is an amazing game and when I played through all the games I absolutely loved playing them and really made me think outside of the box.This game really hits its target audience and even though it may not be the exact same audience as my game I feel like it will definity be a similar audience. The main 3 things that the game contains which hits the target audience are:

Environment - Firstly the environment of theses games are amazing. With the puzzles affecting the environment around you in the later games it really makes the game more interesting. I also love the environment design. This is due to some puzzles being cleverly hidden in the environments at times. This really hits the target audience as it gives them a really nice experience, with the later games leaning towards the more horror mystery sort of genre I can even say this relates to my target audience too.

Gameplay mechanics - The game play mechanics in these games are outstanding. With the gameplay mechanic of the eyepiece which makes the player feel like they are looking into another world,as well as the game play mechanics in the 3rd game where the player can use the eyepiece to enter other worlds. This game really perfects these mechanics and makes them very fun to play with.The way this hits the target audience is by giving them a bit more freedom to try stuff and to find other things which they normally might not of found.As someone who considers themselves being part of this audience I will say that these mechanics made the game more unique and fun to play compared to other ordinary puzzle games.

Puzzles - Finally we have the puzzles themselves. They are so outside the box and complex, These were some of the hardest puzzles I have ever seen but once you find one element of the puzzle its almost like a dominos effect. You find a key which leads you to a puzzle to solve which once completed gives you another key to use somewhere else. This positive feedback is amazing and makes the game a lot more fun to play than frustrating. These puzzles really hit the target audience by being difficult. They give the player a challenge and forces them to think differently. It forces the player to observe stuff more and to look at parts of a puzzle more carefully in order to find a secret compartment or a symbol for a different puzzle. The puzzles really just make the game so much fun as they really forces us to think more outside the box.

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stompsite · 7 years ago

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Can Violence Be Okay?

As some of you know, I’m basically gonna die real soon unless I can get heart surgery, but that’s expensive. I make money by writing essays about games. If you like my work, please share it around, because personally, I’d like to keep on living. If you wanna support me, I’ve got patreon, ko-fi, and a critically acclaimed game out. I’m also looking for work as a designer or writer, so if you know of anything, let me know, please? I’ve worked on well over a dozen AAA and indie games doing everything from emergency script rewrites to helping devs improve their investment loops. I’ve put a lot of time into the 29 years of my life so far, and I’d like it to pay off, lol. But seriously, my mortality is distressing, so if you know how I can get my heart fixed and put a roof over my head, I want to hear from you!

Dishonored 2 is one of my favorite games. I’ve written about it at length before. I’ve talked about some of my problems with the game (doing the right thing in D2 feels like an easy choice compared to D1), but I mean, man, I still love it. When it first dropped, though? Man. I had A Problem with it.

Dishonored 2 was so good until I got to the end and got an ending that didn’t match up with my feeling of where I was at when playing the game. There I was, being the best Corvo I could be, running around trying to save my daughter Emily, realizing how bad things had got in Karnaca while I’d been away, and wanting to do my best to keep everyone safe and improve the empire.

At the end, the game told me that Corvo ruled the islands with an iron fist. What had happened? Why was it doing this to me? I didn’t ghost every level, but I certainly approached things non-lethally where I could.

Turns out that the game doesn’t like it when you kill monsters.

I mean, sure, if you kill, like, a rat, the game doesn’t seem to care, but if you kill a witch, the game gets mad. Apparently, the game considers witches to be people. I did not--I felt the game had led me to believe that witches weren’t actually people. So when I made the choice to kill them, the game saw it as Corvo choosing the path of violence… but that’s not the decision I made.

Let’s rewind a bit.

One of my favorite story archetypes is about people without power who, through cleverness, ingenuity, and grit, overcome those with power. It’s not just about being an underdog, it’s about being underestimated, devalued, even downright abused. It’s about the defiance that comes with that, and overcoming the expectations someone has.

I don’t know exactly why, but I’ve always liked these kinds of stories. It frustrated me to watch my wealthier peers pick on the poorer ones. It insulted me when I was essentially told “wow, it’s remarkable that you’re so intelligent for someone so poor” after I won a scholarship. I had to protect two disabled students from one of the richer students in school because he wanted something they had and they didn’t want to give it to him. I have watched people with power hurt and abuse those without. Heck, I’ve been at the mercy of people more powerful than me before. I don’t like that. When I can tell someone’s struggling with the power dynamics of a group, I do my best to help them feel more comfortable in that space.

One thing I liked about the first Dishonored game is that the Empress, Jessamine, is portrayed as a good person who wanted to do right by her people, but she was actively sabotaged, and eventually murdered, by the nobles whose power she threatened. That kind of story is alluring to me; getting justice for Jessamine and delivering Dunwall from the powerful, punching up like that… that’s awesome as heck.

It was kinda weird when Dishonored 2 shows up and indicates that maybe Dunwall didn’t actually improve that much after the nobility was killed off/not killed off (I was mostly nonlethal the first time). D2 never really confronts this head on, at least that I can recall. Instead, it feels like two different stories. There’s the personal story of “someone hurt your family and took your home and you should take it back,” and then there’s the idea of “you’re fighting for justice for people who are downtrodden by the people who took your home.”

These are both great, but after the fact, it did seem kinda strange that Corvo, literally the dad of the Emperor, as upper-class as you can get, is playing the part of the underdog (or Emily herself, who I haven’t played because I wanted to hear Stephen Russell’s voice again). Like, there’s this implication that he and Emily haven’t really fixed anything at all and maybe kinda betrayed Jessamine’s legacy with that? I dunno. It’s really the only criticism I have of Dishonored 2 anymore, and I mean, the game’s still a 10/10 for me. It’s one of the only games that can grab hold of my attention and actually distract me from the pain I’m in.

Arkane has done such an amazing job with their games; I get to be someone else for a while. I can block out the health problems for a while and just fall into another space and experience relief from my awful life. I will never be able to thank everyone there for making such pure and wonderful games.

So Dishonored 2 has this kinda odd relationship with privilege and power and how it contextualizes its protagonists, but then along came Death of the Outsider, which solved this problem by letting you play as Billie Lurk, who, for my money, is the best protagonist in Dishonored history. I love playing as Billie. I love that she’s not an upper class person, just a normal person with cool tools and powers.

Anywho, back to the violence.

So, one thing I love about Arkane games is that they have amazing gamefeel. It’s like saying a drink is smooth, right? Like, it just feels right. I’ve never played an Arkane game that felt bad (maybe Arx Fatalis does, but I’ve never played it!), and I feel like, with every successive release, they only get better at making great gamefeel. Buuuuuuttt… it feels like since Dishonored, every Arkane game is a test. You can’t just do what feels good; you’re taking a test.

When the witches came along, I’m not gonna lie, it felt good to let loose. They’re just as powerful as I am, so it’s not like it’s an uneven playing field.

But… that wasn’t my first reaction. I’d encountered the witches before in The Knife of Dunwall and The Witches of Brigmore, and they’re portrayed in those games as unequivocally bad. Still, for Dishonored 2, I was trying to play stealthy and nonlethally, so I decided to knock them out at first. When I found out I could take their powers in one mission, I decided to try that, and then figured that when Corvo stopped Delilah, he’d probably arrest them or something.

Then, an unfortunate bug occurred (kudos to Arkane for fixing it really quickly! I think they had it solved in a couple days or something amazing like that) where some of the witches were dying when I was trying to render them unconscious. I couldn’t get the nonlethal option to work.

But I wasn’t that concerned, because I felt the witches needed to be killed.

Why?

Because they’re horrible, and I think they seem closer to Vampires--supernatural monsters--than people.

I mean, listen to their dialogue. Look at what they do to the people they kill. They even backstab each other--one of their idle dialogues is about stealing from another. Another is about brushing her sister’s hair so she can gain trust and then stab her sister in the throat. The witches are hostile too--it’s not possible to approach them peacefully. They react to you like you’ve just invaded their vampiric crypt.

The mechanics don’t really leave room for interacting with them sympathetically; there’s no chance to talk to them, work with them, or anything. You can knock them unconscious, but it feels weird, even unconscionable to do that to people who are talking about stabbing each other in the throat.

I’m okay with knocking someone out when the heart says something like “He wasn't always like this. One of his works still hangs in a museum,” or “If he looks sad, it is because he mourns the child he lost,” but I had to look up a list of the heart’s lines about the witches because I couldn’t think of a time when the heart ever said anything good about a single one of the witches.

So, they have magical powers, want to do nothing but kill us, and they’re even happy to kill each other too. Read some of the notes--it’s indicated that they’re sadists. They take delight in killing anyone and everyone. The environmental storytelling seems to indicate the same thing; nothing good comes of a witch’s presence.

When I first did my quick gut-reaction post about Dishonored 2, I fumbled to articulate why Delilah bugged me. I felt like the game tried to excuse her at every turn. She had a bad life. She was a bastard child and treated poorly. Given my propensity for liking underdogs who were underestimated and mistreated, you might think I’d like her too. But I saw what she did. I saw what she’d chosen to become.

Many of the witches are contextualized in this way. I think the actual target of the museum mission--sorry, I’ve forgotten her name, it was 18 months ago--has this whole long backstory about being a rich lady who was going to get married off to a man she didn’t love who was kind of a shitty person anyways.

In reading all of the lines in the game that the heart has for witches, most of them are about enjoying drinking blood, murdering families, and abusing children. One woman struggles to remember the person she was before, but that reminds me more of a vampire’s thrall than anything else, and the game never does anything with that. No “please, I don’t want to do this,” or anything.

They became witches, and are now visiting a far greater violence upon the Empire. As one of my friends pointed out--and I’m inclined to agree--the Empire kind of deserves it, at least in Dishonored 2. It’s not a good society. I mean, it’s weirdly forward thinking in some ways, right? Like literally all of the romantic fiction I’ve encountered in the universe is LGBT stuff. But then in other ways it’s a mirror of the 19th Century British Empire, abusing people and nature in equal measure. Like I said, Jessamine seemed to be trying to fix those things, but she died, and Dishonored 2 indicates that Emily shirked her responsibilities to be a better Empress.

But.

I mean.

Literally all of the heart dialogue we have for them paints them as bad people. The nicest person we have is one who despairs because it’s easier to hurt people with each passing month.

One of my friends has argued that these were all women who were mistreated or whatever, but the heart doesn’t tell us about that. It isn’t saying “her husband used to beat her, so she relishes the power she has” or anything. None of these lines speak to a culture of misogynistic violence. Instead, we have a woman who “spent a month killing those who had slighted her.”

Slighted.

Not abused, beat, hurt. Slighted.

There is, as far as I’ve seen, precisely one person who was a victim: “Beaten and abused, she was barely sane when she heard the coven's call. Now she does the same to others, wielding her power like a barbed whip.”

I’ve been abused. It’s not something I like to talk about at length, but I was molested by an adult male (thankfully not my parents!) at the age of 11. I was abused by an ex who wanted to destroy me the way her mother had destroyed her, and those actions included gaslighting, emotional blackmail, and a ton of other things I don’t really want to talk about. I’ve been physically and emotionally abused for my genetic shortcomings.

I learned, a very long time ago, that almost all abuse comes from people who were abused. I’ve met people who are very angry, and I’ve heard people say “ah, well, it’s okay for them to lash out, because they were abused, so it’s only natural.” Heck, I’ve been one of the people who lashed out. It was only an emotional outburst, but it remains one of the worst things I’ve ever done. I will never stop regretting it.

I understand wanting justice. I understand wanting someone to hurt for what they did to you. I still have nightmares I don’t talk about. I’ve sat with friends who’ve had it so much worse than me and done everything in my power to give them what comfort I can.

But the witches are different. They chose power. And they chose vengeance. Should we justify that? Would I be justified if I started murdering everyone who looked or seemed like the people who had wronged me? Does anything excuse the murder of a bunch of academics in a Karnacan museum? The witches speak with sadistic dialogue. One of the notes left behind by someone trying to hide in the game’s final level makes it abundantly clear that their behaviors are monstrous.

So. Uh.

Look at Gary Oldman’s Dracula.

Dracula’s whole thing is actually super sad, right? Like, the love of his life died while he was out fighting bad dudes. She was tricked into committing suicide, so he renounces God and gets cursed into becoming a monster. His origins are tragic. It’s unfair what happened to him. But I mean, he still murders people and stuff. Dude’s gotta get stabbed in the heart. Sure, it’s cool that his wife got reincarnated as Mina Harker and all, but his whole kidnapping her and trying to turn her into one of his thralls is still bad.

The reason that killing Dracula is good is because Dracula has power and he is a monster. These witches have power and they are monsters. They hurt people--not just the ones who deserve it, but the ones who don’t. In the Brigmore witches, it sure as heck appears to be that they’re preying on the poor. It’s not like they’re out there fighting a revolutionary war against the nobility, and that their magical powers tip the scale. No, they’re killing everyone, even like… public works dudes. It’s an indiscriminate process. They’re killing people they don’t even know.

What makes them not monsters? They have power, and they use that power with cruelty. Dishonored’s world is not a good one to live in, but there is nothing the heart has for us that says that these women were victims. In many cases, they were perpetrators before they got their powers.

Corvo may be kind of a shitty ruler, by seeing a ton of problems during the time of Dishonored 1 and not addressing them leading up to Dishonored 2, but he’s one of the only people who can actually fight a witch; I think the only people actually capable of fighting them are the creepy religious zealots who enjoy torturing people for fun (why didn’t Corvo shut that down?).

So I was thinking about all of this when I killed the witches. They weren’t human anymore. They were indiscriminately murdering anyone who stopped them. Their leader, Delilah, had been portrayed in two stories already as a monster, and while her backstory was tragic, she took that tragedy and used it to excuse being a murderous monster, who ruined the lives of everyone she met, regardless of who they were.

I would have had a much harder time squaring off against a witch who was using her powers to put a stop to her abuser. Like, I, personally, would probably not hunt down the man who hurt me as a kid and put a sledgehammer through his brains, but I mean, in a game, if a witch went to murder a man who molested her, I definitely would be treating her like a person.

These witches, I felt, after listening to them talk, listening to the heart, and watching them act so casually around the bodies of the people they murdered, weren’t out for justice. They weren’t trying to fight back against an oppressive and cruel society. They were monsters. When a witch is wandering around talking about going for a swim later or wondering how the new girl’s doing, it might seem fine, but to be so casual as she walks past a pile of bodies… that’s monstrous. Murder is not a casual act.

Corvo (or Emily, if you played as her) is the only person who can stop the witches, even if you reject the Outsider’s gifts and play without any powers at all. They outclass everyone else, and they kill for the thrill. Someone has to stop them. It’s urgent.

A friend of mine got really upset with me for killing the witches. He said that these were women who’d been mistreated and society deserved to burn. But I mean… if you’re a random guy in a library, are you gonna be able to stop a squad of guards who throw innocent people in prison, kill people’s dogs for meat to sell, or murder innocent people? What about a groundskeeper? What can he do?

The game does not, as far as I can tell, back up the assertion that the witches were victims given power. There is no justice--they’re psychopaths who tortured children and animals, who murdered families, who relish in the carnage. The few women seen as good are losing those memories. Their existence as witches is a tragic one at best, and they’re so reminiscent of horror characters who lose themselves through possession or vampirism that I don’t know how to justify refusing to stop them.

A cop once told me about how he fought a man on PCP. The man had beaten his partner unconscious and was trying to choke him to death. Apparently this huge guy didn’t even feel their tazers and they weren’t supposed to shoot him. This cop ended up in a knock-down, drag out brawl with a man who wasn’t feeling any pain. He ended up bashing a pyrex bowl over the guy’s head so hard it shattered before backup arrived. He told me “if I could have shot him, I think I would have.”

To me, this brings up the question: is it possible to be violent in a game for a constructive purpose? There’s that old quote, misattributed to Orwell, that says something like “we sleep soundly in our beds at night because there are men who visit violence upon those who would do us harm.”

I must admit, I’d love future Dishonored games that involved dismantling the monarchy and trying to find a better, fairer government. I’d love to visit Pandyssia and dismantle traditional colonialist tropes. I’d like to grapple with questions about the ethics of violence, because that’s a subject that interests me on a personal level.

But I must admit, I was surprised when Dishonored 2 did everything to portray its witches as these inhuman, incredibly powerful beings, and then punished me for trying to protect the weak from their unbridled power. To me, my actions were heroic, because I was fighting a corrupted and almost unstoppable power in order protect the innocent. This is a game that let me save Aramis Stilton, a man who had fought for workers rights and was destroyed by the Duke for it.

(as an aside, I love Stilton; he grew up poor and earned his wealth honestly. He earned everything he had, so of course the nobility didn’t think he deserved it, because rich people think the only honest way to have money is to receive it from one’s parents. He never forgot where he came from and tried to do right by his workers, so the nobility destroyed him for it. Restoring his mind through time shenanigans is one of the most… most right things I have ever done in a game. I felt fortunate to be given that option)

I think, if the witches were human, if they were victims who deserved better, then the game should have supported that through its mechanics and narrative. But the heart--which, last I knew, told the truth--told me that they were monsters, and those that weren’t had lost their humanity and were on their way to becoming monsters.

I would love other ways to solve problems. When the heart tells me that this man beats his son so hard his bruises last a month, I want to put a stop to it. But what can I do? My only verbs are “knock out” or “murder.” Should I knock out a monster that rejoices in slaughter? Or should I put it down so that it won’t kill again?

Dishonored 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I felt that the ending only considered whether I had performed violence, not whether that violence needed to be performed. In my own life, I went through hell and chose not to come out of it a monster. I don’t know how to justify these women performing child abuse, animal abuse, and murder. Like vampires, they are monsters. No matter how tragic their origins, they prey on the weak and defenseless. I don’t like violence, but I think maybe there are times when it’s an unfortunate requirement. They might have been powerless at one point, but in the game, their actions showed they did nothing but punch down. Personally, I think we should punch up or not at all.

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doctorpariahdax · 7 years ago

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Dishonored Fancast - Dishonored ->Brigmore Witches

Angela Bassett as Jessamine Kaldwin She’s just very professional and strong and she has a powerful presence on stage so I think even for a small part she’d be a really strong pick for Jessamine, someone who commands power and respect just with her voice.

Anson Mount as Corvo Attano Mostly because he has the beard and long hair game down. The first time I saw him was on Hell on Wheels, and I haven’t watched much of that show, but for being someone who I would usually dislike simply because of the background of the character he did a really good job at showing a caring and friendly side of a rough skinned man. I think he would be amazing at being everyone’s favorite deadly vengeance/family driven assassin while also showing compassion for Emily.

Carol Kane as Granny Rags Aside from the fact that I think she’s a terrific actress and very funny/scary Carol Kane always seems to make her characters more realisitc than just being acted for the sake of existing. Even in funny roles like her role on Kimmy Schmidt she’s far more entertaining and believable than any of the other actors in my opinion. I think she would do a terrific job at scary us and empathize with her as Granny Rags.

Jeff Bridges as the High Overseer Jeff Bridges is an amazing actor. I can’t even describe how flexible he is as an actor. And maybe it’s just his stature, voice, and talent but he makes a terrifying villain.

Mads Mikkelsen as Daud Unabashedly biased on this one but it’s for a good cause! He is probably my favorite actor because of his micro-expressions. He’s notoriously been cast as a villain in ‘Hollywood’ movies like Le Chieffre in James Bond and Hannibal Lecter. Beyond being a great villain, in his Danish and French films he’s a superbly empathetic actor. He doesn’t overact, he doesn’t yell, he doesn’t have to physically force his way through a scene because he does wonderful micro expressions that show us accurately feelings of rage, pain, loneliness, despair...etc. The guy is amazing and I think that Daud should have a cold and calculating actor who’s an expert at subtle acting. P.S. Go watch his Danish films.

Sir Patrick Stewart as The Lord Regent/Spymaster Sir Patrick Stewart is amazing (starting to sound like a broken record) but like Jeff Bridges he adapts excellently and flawlessly to practically any role he is given. I picked the picture above from the film adaptation of Macbeth because he did an amazing job at being devious and unhinged. (And I did not like the movie....like I was mad that I had to watch it, I just really didn’t dig the dystopian cold war adaptation to the play, but Stewart was FRIGHTENINGLY convincing as Macbeth) And you can’t have a spymaster without that nose, you know? :P

Gal Godot as Delilah Copperspoon I haven’t really seen anything that Gal Godot is in but I love her as Diana Prince and she is really a strong presence on screen. I think that for a character like Delilah that was confident and extremely independent Gal wouldn’t be a bad choice and I think she’s far more capable of actually appearing in a macabre characterization of someone and usual typecasts like Eva Green. She has a very beautiful voice too and I think an essential part of Delilah should be that she’s alluring, even when she’s speaking to you through statues.

Cillian Murphy as Treavor Pendleton Cillian Murphy, to me, is just really good at playing slimy, evil, devious people. I don’t really like him as an actor, but I think that’s mostly because I can’t stand the characters he plays. He’s really a good actor but I think he would fit a perfect niche of being enigmatic, devious, and someone who you can call a friend but never really trust - aka the epitome of Treavor Pendleton.

Christoph Waltz as Teague Martin Christoph Waltz was a frightening and alluring character in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Bastards’, and as Blofield in James Bond. In Hollywood he’s played snake like people such as Walter Keane in ‘Big Eyes’ and as August in the film rendition of ‘Water for Elephants’. Despite that, he’s really a charming gentleman in person and he has played roles from a cute, scheming, pet shop manager in ‘ Weihnachtsmann gesucht’ to the infamous Hans Landa in ‘Inglorious Bastards’. Making him, in my mind’s eye, a great Teague Martin - capable of being very charming and quite frankly very sarcastic and funny to straight up terrifying and murderous.

Peter Mensah as Thomas I really wish I could see more of Peter Mensah in movies. In what little I have seen of him on television he’s always found a way to be my favorite character, even if he’s only a side character or a very minute villain. (Remember when he was kicked into a well in ‘300′? ...Literally my favorite character) His portrayal of the Doctore on ‘Spartacus’ was really emotional, even when you didn’t know much of his character. He’s a very strong and powerful actor who, on the flip of a dime, can be intimidating and calloused and then suddenly quiet and warm, compassionate.

Gary Oldman as Samuel Beechworth Like with Jeff Bridges and Patrick Stewart Gary Oldman adapts to all of his roles without flaws. I really like Oldman’s performances in practically every movie/play he’s done and I really like him playing ‘calmer’ characters. I think if he was Samuel a lot of fans of the game would immediately feel more connected to the character and love him more than we already all do for being LITERALLY our only friend in the whole game.

Lupita Nyong ‘o as Billie Lurk I can’t describe how much I love Lupita. She’s an empowering figure for women and she exudes confidence and strength. It was a tough pick between her and Laura Mvula (wonderful singer, go check out her songs). I can’t help but see her as Billie when I think about Billie’s character development - being abused and belittled and mistreated by the world around her, then finding a family and making a niche for herself through dedication and skill, always looking forwards, always being ambitious and adventurous, with a healthy dose of hubris and care for others’ well being, but not afraid to get her hands dirty for those who harm the ones she loves.

Amandla Stenberg as Emily Kaldwin She straight up tore my heart out as Rue. I know it’s been a couple years but I loved her in Hunger Games and I think she’d be a great Emily. I can totally see her being quiet, shy, and looking out for Corvo at the Pub and also totally fighting back and really giving the Whalers a tough time as she throws punches and makes a run for it at every chance she gets. Also kicking the shit out of the Pendleton Twins

Steve Buschemi as the Older Pendleton Brothers, Crispus and Morgan I don’t think I really need to say anything on this. Steve Buschemi is amazing and scary. I think he’d be great at the Pendleton twins. Like really great...and really scary.

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zlukaka · 7 years ago

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Dishonored 2 - LC - Impressions

My first impression of the game was very mixed (great gameplay and visuals / cringy dialogues and poor writing, good actors’ talents wasted), but further along the good outweighed the bad. So, yes, it was an enjoyable game, all in all not worse than the original - totally worth playing.

So far I did a Low Chaos Corvo. Later I’ll also share the impressions on High Chaos Emily.

Lots of spoilers (and some screenshots) below cut.

Let’s start with the weak points of the game:

Non-mute Corvo. Having a silent protagonist in the first part left Corvo very open for interpretation. The Corvo I heard in D2 was not Corvo to me. As much as I like Stephen Russell as Garrett, his Corvo felt like a week-old piece of bologna that someone microwaved out of sheer desperation. It’s not his fault, though. I think it’s the writing and whoever directed the voice acting. I blame the same party on my next issue.

Jessamine / The Heart. In D1 I would go out of my way to poke everyone and every location with the Heart to hear what it had to say. Its lines were fun, inspiring, eerie. In D2 I would accidentally click the Heart and shudder in disgust at Jessamine’s lines. 90% of the time they were clumsy, unimpressive, banal and spoken in almost the same tone regardless of the graveness of an NPC’s crimes. Speaking of which a ridiculous number of the NPCs turns out to be psychopaths or assholes with no redeeming features. The fact everyone except the main characters only gets one line makes it even worse. I understand why they did it technically, but the end result was awful. I never played High Chaos in D1, I couldn’t bear to kill any of those people because each of them had a bit of good and a bit of bad in them, just like real people. It was an integral part of Dishonored for me, the message that most people will do horrible things during a crisis, but that there’s still hope for them and killing them is bad. But D2 seems to go out of its way telling me “you know what, they’re all assholes, annoying unlikable assholes, kill them all”. A weird message to send when you want people to get a good ending. As a result I can’t wait for the HC playthrough where I’ll slaughter every living person in the Empire. It will feel so good.

Generally, the weakest link in the game for me was the writing. Interestingly, the more important the character, the weaker their lines, with Corvo’s early game lines being some of the worst, while some banter between ordinary citizens was fun, witty and refreshing. Also I get the impression the message the game tried to deliver kept getting lost in the clumsy storytelling. The Outsider and Sokolov would tell us how Delilah has such potential to change the world for the better, and then we return to Dunwall, and it’s a post-apocalyptic mess, and her plan for ‘improving the world’ is filling it with statues of herself. The Outsider would preach that being a witch is so much better than being in a loveless marriage, then we meet the witches, and they’re a bunch of murderous psychos. For a game about how oppressive institutions are bad Dishonored 2 sure keeps flopping on the show-not-tell part. At the end of the day, despite all the in-game finger shaking, I feel fully justified siding with the Overseers. According to Jess, most of the people on Karnaca are some flavor of violent criminal. Might as well let the zealots have their way, the only way from here is up.

Ghost Jessamine is another complaint of mine. Her being more than a piece of meat stuffed with clockwork takes away from the mystique surrounding her state. Her in-person ghostly conversations with Corvo make her feel alive rather than an echo of her former self, taking away from the strong impression the Heart created on its own in the original game.

The Voguing in the Void. Bad writing makes it hard to take characters seriously. Having them teleport and take a different pose every time they utter a sentence only makes things worse. Maybe the intention here was to make me want to kill the Outsider in the new game? If so, good job.

Continuing the Dishonored tradition of introducing a female character and killing her off in the first three minutes of the game. And then telling us post-factum how noble, good and interesting she was. Only this time after one more mention she is completely forgotten, which is even worse than last time. I’m talking about Captain Mayhew. Cool design, ok story, but feels extremely like a token character. Maybe her part in the story was meant to be bigger, but got cut? I don’t know, but she felt completely unnecessary, so did her death. At least Jessamine and her death were integral to the plot of the first game.

The atmosphere of the game wasn’t as strong as in the original. I blame the Heart for it. The Heart and the weak storytelling (not the weak story, the story was actually alright).

The bloodflies were less of a threat than the rats in the first game. Most of the time you could sprint to their nest and wack it to pieces without even getting hurt. They should be harder to get rid of to live up to their intimidating reputation.

Oh, and this:

(whoever decided to use this number of fonts needs to go back to design school)

Now, you might think after all those complaints that I hate the game. I thought I might, but I didn’t. After I got used to the bad, the good eventually shone through and dominated my impression. Here we go:

Music. The music is just as good. Such a pity Daniel Licht is no longer with us. May he rest in peace.

Gameplay. No complaints here. The levels seem bigger and more fun than in the original game, sneaking is a little tougher. No more killing people by throwing them on beds. Being able to use the Heart on unconscious people, the unconscious indicator is a great addition in its own right.

Meagan Foster and Sokolov. Ok, the writing on these two was actually pretty cute and solid. I wonder if different people worked on these two compared to Corvo and Emily, or if it was the same writer, but having a bad/good day, etc. For once, I love how Meagan was written.

Kirin Jindosh. I didn’t get too much of him because he never knew I was there, but from what little I saw of him - best baddie in the game. 11/10, would reduce to below average intelligence again.

Good Guy Overseers. Yes, they will drown the occasional kiddo because witchcraft, but come on, their preaching is pretty reasonable. Notice how the Abbey actually comes last. Sounds better than many real world religions to me.

The Overseers were the turning point in the game’s writing for me. I realized the NPCs actually say fun stuff, it’s just the main cast that’s being boring.

The visuals. Often with a new game in a series I fear the HD-photorealism takeover, but Dishonored 2 stayed loyal to its artistic direction while making things more high-res. It’s beautiful.

The second half of the game. I thought the Clockwork mansion would be the best part of the game, but then I was very surprised to discover things actually truly picked up in the Dust District, or more precisely in the mansion. The time-shifting was a great addition to the gameplay! Moreover...

The plot was decent. The storytelling was kinda mediocre, but the story they were trying to tell was actually quite fun. Breaking Jindosh, saving Stilton and replacing Abele were some of the highlights of the game. There was a number of rather fun twists, like Delilah and Luca actually being truly in love?? Who saw that coming? I didn’t. I thought she was just using him, like she was using Breanna, but then in the end she calls him ‘my love’ right after expressing nothing but cold disappointment that Breanna is no longer a useful tool. That makes Delilah a little less of a calculating cold monster and a bit more human. For once, I actually sort of like her after hating her guts since forever. So that’s pretty good.

Giving Billie her arm and eye back. Holy shit, that felt amazing.

Keeping with the good tradition of not-in-your-face gay characters. The occasional Overseer who dates millers behind said millers’ wives’ backs. The emphasis on how close the old Duke and Stilton were. Good stuff.

The Oracular Order and its role within the Abbey were expanded upon.

Killing Paolo in slow-mo and gobbling up all the white rats.

The non-lethal takedowns were all satisfying.

The very freaky nest keepers and their delusions.

The Ultra Low Chaos Happy Ending:

(look, Mom, both hands!)

My conclusion from all of this is that when I play High Chaos I will try not to use the Heart almost at all not to spoil the fun with Jess’ banalities. And I will let Jindosh know I’m there so he can comment his heart out about my escapades around his home.

I am so pumped for the Death of the Outsider now, because if Dishonored finally manages to address its theme properly, that would be nice. Also, finally playing as Billie is amazing, and killing the Outsider sounds like fun to me (please, remember I enjoyed low chaos Jindosh take down). I won’t be watching any more trailers, gameplay videos and such, I prefer to go into a game with minimal knowledge. Thankfully the game will be out soon enough. I will doodle some silliness meanwhile. Also, D2 left me wondering about what would happen to Heathen-Go-Lucky folks under Delilah. Pretty sure someone would end up turned to stone. XD

#dishonored #dishonored 2 #low chaos #video games #text #long post #all opinions are personal #maybe you enjoyed the writing more - that's fine #everyone has different tastes #if someone's vision of Corvo actually coincided with what they saw in the game - great #I'm happy for you

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madegeeky · 7 years ago

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So, I’ve been playing Dishonored 2, I just haven’t been talking about it because, well, there’s not much to complain about and I wanted to finish my first run through before writing about what I loved about it.

Dishonored 2 is almost the perfect sequel, though, because it took almost everything that I loved from Dishonored and it brought it into the sequel without tweaking it too much (so it still felt like the game I’d just finished playing) but then improved on a lot of the stuff that I did have problems with in the original.

So, the things I liked: You now can play as one of two characters, Emily (now grown) or Corvo (the protagonist in the first game), and any chance to play as a woman in a video game is amazing, especially considering that there was no reason to do it since they already had Corvo. THEY GAVE CORVO A FUCKING VOICE AND PERSONALITY AND IT IS AMAZING AS I KNEW IT WOULD BE. They brought back some characters that you only learn about in the DLC, but not always in ways you expect. The characters, both the old and the new, are amazing. I also very much appreciate that they kept the highly questionable morality found in the first one, where when it comes to the main targets, killing them often seems like the kinder option. They also kept the story relatively simple, just like in the first one, and instead let the characters and the worldbuilding be the biggest draw outside of gameplay and I love that.

They also took some real love and care with the levels they made in the sequel. Like, some of these levels are amazing and breathtaking with so much thought put into them. (For example, there is a whole level where you’re in a clockwork mansion and pressing buttons makes the whole room change how it looks or moves it from floor to floor and then you can get in-between rooms, among the gears, and it is just amazing.) And! They added a New Game Plus, so that when you do your next playthrough of the game (I’ve actually just started my second, to go the high chaos route), you get to start out with an advantage.

I literally only have on large and three tiny complaints about it and the latter are such nit-picky complaints they’re barely worth mentioning. Let’s talk about the big one first, which is that this game is fucking fucked when it comes to optimization. Optimization, for video games, is how well a game uses its resources and, thusly, how well it runs on your computer. Basically, it’s the difference between eating a sandwich one ingredient at a time and eating a sandwich as god intended; no matter what all those ingredients end up in your stomach but one is going to take significantly more time, energy, and patience to do than the other. It’s really really poorly optimized which means even computers that meet the recommended requirements sometimes struggle to play the game on anything other than the lowest settings and let’s not even speak of the poor computers that only meet the minimum requirements.

Now, onto my (very) minor complaints: My first minor issue is, in both games, you get an item that will tell you the secrets of the area and the people in those areas. One of my favorite things to do, in the first game, was to learn all the secrets of the area. They literally had nothing to do with your actual gameplay or the plot, but they were a small touch that really helped with the worldbuilding and I loved it a ton. I loved getting to a new area and busting the item out and listening to it whisper secrets in my ear as I scouted around. In the sequel, for some reason, they decided that the area whispers that you get always say the same thing no matter the area. (At least as far as I know, I stopped trying after a while because it was frustrating me.) I didn’t realize how much I’d love starting the levels like that until it was no longer an option.

My second minor complaint is also a compliment in some ways. There are two levels where, for various reasons, you have to go through the whole level looking through each room multiple times for items. (The clockwork mansion mentioned above is one of these.) This might not have been a problem but, in both cases, the overall area is also huge. Which means that I spent a ton of time trying to get all the items as my little completionist soul demanded and, by the end, I found myself very tired of the levels. They put too much into those levels but that’s seriously such a weird complaint that I feel like it’s more a compliment than anything else.

My final issues is just the fact that it felt like they tried a little too hard to come up with some twists for the story. (Although, really, I’d rather have a game try too hard, rather than not try at all.) But even then, the twists that they added weren’t even necessarily a key to the plot (they were character oriented twists, versus plot oriented ones) and as such, even though they didn’t really belong, they never really hurt the story either.

Basically, I just really, really love this whole series and Dishonored 2 is an absolutely amazing sequel.

#geeky talks #mari talks dishonored #mari writes daily (or tries to)#this also counts for yesterday because i started it yesterday #mr. geeky doesn't like my sandwich metaphor but he can suck it #because when i asked him what metaphor he would use instead #he just stared at me blankly

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toasthorse · 7 years ago

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Recap on Dishonored 2/stuff that comes to mind

I recently finished my first playthrough of Dishonored 2 as Emily and I gotta say it’s absolutely amazing.

Short story overview:

The story follows the roots of the first game, thus it follows its title: Dishonored. On the annual memorial day of the death of late Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, Delilah Copperspoon/Kaldwin and the Duke of Serkonos, Luca Abele, announce Delilah as the rightful ruler of the Empire since she claims to be the sister of the deceased Empress. They call you, Emily Kaldwin, an impostor who rules rightlessly and therefore attack you and the other guests, Delilah turning Corvo Attano, Royal Protector, into stone in the process and usurping the throne. You’re being locked up, however with the help of captain Meagan Foster and her ship, the “Dreadful Whale”, you manage to flee to the “Jewel of the South”, Karnaca, and forge a plan to gain your throne and your father Corvo back.

Hint: I do not know yet how picking Corvo as your playable character affects the whole turning Corvo into stone thing, however I suppose it’s simply Emily who gets turned into stone?

The gameplay is fantastic. Steering your character of choice (Emily Kaldwin or Corvo Attano) through the streets of Dunwall and Karnaca feels as smooth or even smoother than in the first game, which I already enjoyed a lot. On top of that, I’m very happy they added to new knockdown options:

1. Drop Knockout: when in position for a drop assassination, you’re able to simply knock out your enemies in the same manner

2. Knockout during fight: if you manage to block an enemy sword blow so swiftly that it makes him stagger, you’re able to knock them out as well instead of killing them or having to sacrifice a sleep dart.

This obviously makes a nonlethal approach quite a bit more comfortable in the listed situations. As I am (usually) a fan of keeping the kill count low, I really enjoyed these new mechanics.

Playing as Emily, I enjoyed toying around with her new powers; however, this time, it is not mandatory to take the gift of the Outsider. The game can also be played in its entirety without powers at all, offering quite the challenge. Then of course, just like in the first game, there are several ways to finish a mission, giving you a lot of freedom in how you decide to approach the objective. Add that to the fact that you’re able to play as Corvo Attano as well, with or without powers, stealthy or full-on Rambo, this game gives you lots of reasons to play it more than twice, which I’m certainly gonna be doing.

A small but sweet thing which I loved to see again was the mumblings, short monologues and dialogues of the guards. They’re just this charming addition which I really enjoy. No gatherings for whisky and cigars in Karnaca though as far as I noticed.

However, the fact which impressed me the most was the level design of this game; especially in Kirin Jindosh’s Clockwork Mansion and Aramis Stilton’s Mansion. I mean, you can literally SHIFT ROOMS AROUND OR TRAVEL BACK AND FORTH IN TIME TO OVERCOME OBSTACLES AND ENEMIES. It’s marvelous. Even though the Clockwork Mansion mission took me the longest to finish (around 5 hours), it was absolutely worth it. Also the ingenious Clockwork Soldiers can be quite unnerving.

The general graphics are beautiful to look at. None of the textures felt out of place or bad or anything, even though I was only playing on Medium settings since my GPU won’t handle too much above at an acceptable frame rate. They also did leave a bit of that comic-ish note to the characteres with very large hands, which I feel like simply belongs in this game.

This was a bit of everything and I left out a lot probably but to wrap it up: it’s a beautiful game and you should definitely play it. 10/10 will play again.

#dishonored 2 #mine #go play this now ok

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elaminator · 8 years ago

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We made it through another year (hurrah?)

It was a rough one, right?

Warning: this will be TMI. Not in a “gross, see a doctor for that” way, but in a, “Hey, this is somewhat in-depth about your life and experiences, and is a bit rambly and depressing and whiny, so maybe not everyone will enjoy it” way.

Also, there are some pictures.

I can’t even remember the last time I’ve made a personal post (and personal posts are a more recent thing for me anyway, since I didn’t tend to talk about my personal life much until it went to shit), but I know it was sometime in 2016.

(I think it was shortly after my mom had her stroke, and we had to temporarily admit her into a nursing home for therapy. She was in behavioral facilities, hospitals, a nursing home, etc last year, in and out, pretty much over and over again. She’s been home now for a little less than three months, and part of me is amazed we’ve made it this long. I love my mother more than anything, but taking care of her isn’t easy, and I know I won’t always be able to do it. I certainly wouldn’t alone, because there’s so much involved with day to day activities like cooking, cleaning, laundry, making appointments, keeping track of medicine and bills, etc, and keeping all of that going as well as watching her 24/7 would be impossible without dad to keep an eye on her too. Dad has his own problems (which I’m trying to help him with), but between the two of us we’re managing…for now. However, mom does require supervision basically all the time, so things can be tiresome, and I’m not sure how long we can continue to manage it.) As bonkers as last year was in general (for the entire world), it felt completely balls to the wall insane to me. 2016 was without a doubt the worst year of my life. I had never been so stressed, so lost, and my life had never been so unstable. (Mom’s nurse phrased it as, “Last year was a wash. You were just trying to keep your head above water.” It seemed fitting.) Frankly, the whole year happened in a bit of a blur (given how painful it was, you would think the opposite); maybe this is because I had so little ‘fun time’ that I couldn’t honestly catch my breath. I spent a lot of it crying and losing my shit in-between being busy because I didn’t feel prepared for anything that was happening, but now that 2017 is here I’m more terrified than ever (what with the shit-stain the US now has as president, and with my mothers poor health; I’m afraid that something catastrophic will happen to Medicare, which would ruin us because my parents medical bills are waaaay too numerous; it’s already bad enough that the ACA might be repealed, hurting millions of people, and that Medicare might be a pipe dream for the younger generation, but my parents would be absolutely screwed without Medicare so you can see why this concerns me. Don’t even get me started on the environment, the suppression of the scientific community, the open corruption and lies that the president and his lackeys keep sprouting, and the attacks on the media and the public. I’m honestly afraid to live in America right now). (But since this is a personal post, and ya’ll can clearly see from my reblogs how I feel about the nightmarish political climate in America…)

Mom was lucky as far as her stroke went, in that she can speak fairly clearly when she tries, but she rarely does. She’s had about nine visits from home health (and therapy) a week, trying to get her back into shape, and while some of it helped, she refused to participate in speech therapy, so that was a waste of time. Ironically, speech was probably the thing she needed the most help with, but sometimes there’s no getting through to her. It isn’t easy asking her to repeat herself (which I do often, and occasionally give up on; I’m not going to ask her to repeat herself twenty times. There’s a limit to what I can do), and her mental state is a bit better atm, but it’s clear she’s not getting better. For a large portion of last year I doubted she even had Alzheimer’s (“Her memory is too good”, I thought; “Schizophrenia and depression would make just as much sense, and her diagnosis was so sudden”), but now I feel like I was just in denial about her condition. Her memory isn’t as bad as it could be (we haven’t reached the point she doesn’t know who I am, and hopefully won’t…), she has a good handle on long term memories, and sometimes short term isn’t so bad, but she’s an entirely different person than she was a couple years ago (paranoid, repetitive, anxious, sometimes mean… If she isn’t screaming something upsetting, downright bizarre or possibly insulting, or interrupting me every three minutes from whatever I’m doing it’s a good day). Our roles have switched, too; I feel like her mother sometimes, and I no longer get any parental reassurance because she isn’t really capable of it. There are things to be grateful for, but ngl, it’s hard to be grateful when you’re so emotionally exhausted. (Kind of physically exhausted too tbh, what with mom and everything going on right now in the US, I’m not sleeping as much or as well as I should be.) Now we’re back in the house (after the flood, which…is something I’m never forgetting), and I’m trying to get into a normal routine again, but it’s hard. (Mom has a break from therapy starting this week, but when therapy was coming we would have someone over at 8 AM at least three times a week, and three visits a day sometimes too, so while I appreciated she was getting help, it was difficult to plan for anything else. It’s 25-40 minutes away to grocery shop or see a doctor, and we have to make those trips on a very regular basis, so we kind of need time for them.) I used to be able to get up at 4 or 5 AM to workout, shower, dress and eat, but rarely do I feel like it these days. I am miraculously still working out (it’s been about four years now that I started my weight loss regime, and I’ve lost about 134 pounds), but usually it’s a bit later in the day. I even lost an extra 10 pounds last year without meaning to (a combination of stress, barely working out while displaced, eating less to compensate for it, and being constantly on the go), but I’ve been up and down the last couple of months. Truthfully, I don’t mind the way I look being a pound or two heavier (though I am annoyed that every time I gain weight it goes straight to my belly), and I don’t actually want to lose more than the few pounds I’ve gained by stress-eating (I already have difficulty finding clothing in my size), but I care far more about the numbers than I should. Acknowledging it is good, right? I’m much more energetic (despite everything), healthy and have more confidence now that I’ve lost weight, but it didn’t come without a price (though one I find acceptable), which is that sometimes I get a bit ridiculous with the self criticism and obsession with staying at a particular number. Moving on…

As mentioned, we are finally back in the house (we were out…around seven, maybe eight months?), so that’s a blessing, and if there’s one good thing to come of last year it’s that the house turned out lovely. We went through a hell of a time getting the insurance to pay for the flood damage, but regardless of what other issues we have (and they are numerous), it’s a pleasure to be back.

It’s odd sometimes (having lived in the house as it was so long), but it does feel like home, and it reflects my taste now (as mom can’t/won’t make such decisions now, and dad was completely lost so he left most of it up to me), so that’s pretty cool. It is a lot more upkeep than being in the trailer, but it’s worth it. I debated on if I should upload a few pictures of the house or not (because I’m paranoid af of someone IRL finding my online accounts), but figure I’m probably fine. There are a few pieces of furniture yet to arrive, and we don’t have everything we would like yet, but we’re making progress. We (mostly) have what we need, and we’re filling our wardrobes out again (I’ve done a lot of browsing in the last couple of months…for both myself and my parents) and trying to replace whatever else we had too. It’s taking time, but having new stuff is nice.

(Wanted to rave about the Corvo mask; how cool is it? Coming out of the bathroom one night, I jumped the fuck out of my skin because I forgot it was there; still, it was worth the near heart-attack.)

I have a PS4 now, btw! Granted, I’ve had very little time to actually play it, and all the games need massive day one updates to play half decently (some of which might take two months just to download because of my dumb data cap), but…hey, better than not having it at all. I bought The Uncharted collection (unfortunately I lost all my PS3 games) and The Last of Us Remastered, as well as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Uncharted 4, and Dishonored 2. Probably going to be a bit before I get to Uncharted 4 (which I’m very hyped for, as Uncharted is one of my favorite series) or Tomb Raider, but the fact that I own them now gives me something to look forward to. I finally (after months) finished replaying Dishonored again about a week and a half ago (with the DLC this time, which was excellent), and I just arrived at the beginning of the second level in Dishonored 2 (as Emily). It’s a damn beautiful game, even though I’m not as comfortable with the gameplay as I was with the original yet. Most the time I’m fine, but with large groups of enemies… Not so much. I do absolutely love the ability to choke out guards and catch them before they fall to the ground though; it looks so seamless and is a lot easier than having to wait that extra few seconds for a guard to fall to the ground. (And being able to non-lethally choke out an enemy after being spotted and engaging in combat is a time saver.) Hope the rest of the game is just as good as the first, though I know it’s unlikely. Either way, I feel like I’ll enjoy the experience. (I will however say that The Outsiders voice actor change threw me off. It isn’t bad, but… It’s just distractedly different. On another note, I hate that I’m so attracted to this version of The Outsider. The graphics and his slightly updated design really work for me. Emily too, though I remember seeing the first trailer and flipping out over her perfection so she isn’t surprising. Emily is a hottie with a great VA, and it’s incredibly satisfying and fun to see the world through her eyes; I hope there’s lots of Corvo and Emily moments later in the game.)

Anyway, that was long, and this is where I leave off. It’s been a…time (what descriptor would even be appropriate for the year 2016, or the start of 2017?), and though I’m not as up-to-date with everyone as I would like to be, I wish ya’ll the best. Sorry for being so out of touch, it’s just tricky finding time for tumblr and such (I miss fandomsecrets like crazy); I’ve been choosing to spend what time I have on Dishonored, Pentatonix and news, and although I’m missing things elsewhere, I haven’t found a better way to manage my time yet.

Hopefully this year will surprise us and will be better than last, though considering everything that’s happened so far (Trump hasn’t even been president a week and everything is already going to shit) I’m not holding my breath.

#personal #personal post #my posts #rl shit #tw: mental illness #tw: sickness #tw: depressing shit #needless ranting #my house #gaming #dishonored #dishonored 2 #politics #Long post

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fanfiction-and-coffee · 8 years ago

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Sleepover Saturday question: What are some fandoms that you're in that you don't post about a lot?

oooooh, I love this question!! I’m definitely a “fiction as a coping mechanism” person + a book worm/amateur film buff and on top of that my whole family is really nerdy, so I have a lot of fictional properties that I’m super attached to and a lot of them are older and have less active fanbases or just aren’t as popular as I think they deserve to be :(

Lord of the Rings is definitely a big one. (In fact, I literally just finished watching The Two Towers lmao) This is one of the only situations where I think the movies are actually better than the books! (I do not like the Hobbit trilogy, though. I haven’t even seen the last movie tbh.)

I know I actually do post about Star Wars sometimes but I feel like it isn’t one of the “main fandoms” on this blog (it’s a lot more prominent on my personal), but it’s probably my favorite film series of all time, and has been since I was very, very young. As a kid I had all of the action figures, like sixteen toy lightsabers, AN R2-D2 THAT MOVED AROUND AND MADE NOISES AND LIT UP, and a lot of the extended universe books (The Last of the Jedi was my fav.) Honestly, aside from maybe DC comics, it’s probably the fandom that I have the strongest emotional attachment to. Episode VIII is gonna kill me I can’t wait

Again, this is one that I do talk about sometimes, but until a couple of years ago I was actually more into Marvel comics than DC? I blame my mom tbh, because she was really into the X-Men and Spider-Man and she raised me on them. (We’re both Team Magneto, fyi.) I legitimately collected Spider-Man comics as a kid. Marvel has been incredibly problematic in recent years, but I am still very attached to some of the characters. (And the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes TV show is the best thing ever you can fight me on it.)

Harry Potter is one that I feel like I almost don’t even have to mention??? Because pretty much everyone loves it??? But I love it a lot and I’ve been meaning to reread the books because it’s been a while. I only got to see Fantastic Beasts in theaters once but I loved it a lot more than I expected to??? I’m a Ravenclaw but Hufflepuff is my favorite house.

I don’t really watch a lot of TV but I was really into Vikings for a while at the end of last year. The first two seasons were great but season three was really slow to me. Season four is better but I still haven’t finished it. (Lagertha, Bjorn, and Judith are my favorites.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender is literally the best show I’ve ever watched. I don’t care if it’s technically a children’s show, that shit is phenomenal. The story world is so unique and interesting, the characters are so diverse and realistic and wonderful, the art style is beautiful, and they also pulled off the Best Redemption Arc Of All Time™ with Zuko. It’s literally my favorite show ever. I haven’t finished Legend of Korra yet but I definitely plan to.

The Dishonored video game series is so good??? I haven’t finished Dishonored 2 yet because I’m SO BUSY I NEVER HAVE TIME FOR GAMES ANYMORE but I adore my beautiful daughter Empress Emily and her trash dad Corvo and the Omnipotent Edgy Asshole that is the Outsider.

BioShock Infinite is still my favorite game of all time, though. (Dishonored is a very, very close second.) The entire BioShock series is the loml and the fandom is so small and so dead and I cry

(Also while we’re on the subject of video games I love the premise and ideas and characters and lore from Overwatch even though I’ve never played the game lol)

Fire Emblem: Awakening is the only DS game that I really love (or even like… I’m not usually a DS gal), but I love it SO MUCH. It’s so fun, the story is amazing, I love all the characters, it’s just My Favorite. I’m also highkey chrobin trash fyi I got Fire Emblem: Fates: Birthright and didn’t like it enough to finish it, but I’d like to try Conquest because I think I’d like it more.

This post is getting long, but real quick here’s some of my favorite book series that I wish had bigger fandoms: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (and the Grisha series, which I’m currently reading and also love), The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow, and the Jackaby series by William Ritter.

this turned into a “sam rants about her special interests” post because it’s late and I’m tired but you asked so there it is. and if any of you wanna request fic for any of these I would be so happy tbh

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pixelprinny · 8 years ago

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RIP Everyone in Dishonored 2

Day 173

I finished my second playthrough of Dishonored 2. A playthrough highlighted by the fact that Emily descended deeper and deeper into madness as the game progressed.

At first it was only killing guards and obvious threats. Then she started listening to the heart and meting out justice to those she deemed guilty. Then came killing anyone who looked like they might panic and call the guards, even without the heart’s say so.

Things took a turn for the worst when the heart voiced its disappointment in Emily’s idea of justice. Chastising her for killing without remorse, concerned that she had been led astray by the path she chose. And so, the heart’s voice no longer mattered. The rivers would run red with the blood of the guilty and the innocent alike, and they did.

As if Emily could have become any more twisted than evidenced already, she killed her allies, making casual remarks as she slit their throats. “What’s one more pile of bones?” and “You’ve served your purpose”. I was actually a bit surprised the game let’s you kill them, as it doesn’t let you up till the final mission. But all bets are off once that last mission hits and you tell them you’ll be taking the skiff to shore by yourself.

When you defeat the false empress, you’re given a final choice - one that let’s you pick possibly the greatest evil in the game. You can choose to leave your father in stone, and rule as Emily the Bloody. Crazy stuff.

While I certainly felt very guilty at a number of parts in the game, it was certainly fun playing as a pure villain for once. Hell, I’ve never even played someone that evil in Skyrim, and I’ve played plenty of assassins. I’ve never played someone who didn’t have some form of moral compass, or rather, someone who’s compass broke down over time to the point of being beyond salvation.

The game’s a bajillion times easier playing as such. Like it’s night and day. From having very few options in how you’re going to deal with enemies (avoid em or knock em out without getting caught via sleep dart or choke hold) to having a dozen different ways to approach each fight. Sometimes, I’d go in for a stealth kill, other times I’d link them all up and take them out with one arrows, yet others ,I would freeze time and slash all their throats, and yet still others, I’d have my doppelgangers do the work for me, etc etc.

I just take a moment to mention how amazing a couple of the levels are. The first being Jindosh’s Mansion and the second being Stilton’s Manor. Jindosh’s Mansion is a remarkable piece of level and art design with rooms shifting and changing with the flick of a switch. It’s like a dev always had a dream of making a transforming house and they were allowed to go wild with it. It’s seriously one of the most impressive levels I’ve seen in any game. And to top it off, there’s a secret route behind the walls that lets you get to the boss without him knowing you were ever there. Truly amazing.

Stiliton’s Manor is great in that it incorporates a really fun time-warping mechanic where you switch between two time-lines, being able to glance into the other with a mirror before deciding whether or not to shift. Obvious plotholes created through such a scenario, aside, the idea of shifting through timelines to avoid detection, alone, is a really awesome and original concept. Add to that the whole mirror aspect where you can watch whats going on in the other timeline while you’re still in your current one is a marvel of game mechanics.

After having finished it twice, in very different ways, I think it is safe to say I’d go and change my GotY list, yet again, and put Dishonored 2 at the top. Hell, I’m tempted to jump back in a third time as Corvo, but I have other games to play, dammit!

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summerbloguk · 7 years ago

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