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indigozealI can't say that all of the things below made me happy. Some of them made me happy. Some of them made me puzzled. Some of them left me with foreboding. All of them are definitely things.
- First thing off the bat: I mentioned Yahtzee Croshaw's "Let's Drown Out" short LP series in the previous post, but I can't recommend them as a whole; the friend with whom he's commentating doesn't bring out the best in him, and there's guaranteed to be at least one unfortunate comment or laddish "ironic" use of a slur per video. Fair warning.
- Run Button is doing a run of Silent Hill 4. Their Silent Hill videos are not the unambiguously good thing they once were, though; after posting a near-definitive blind run of 1, they stumbled through 2 and 3 and are at the point where they're kind of mentally done with the series but are persisting in going through the motions. They're not even at the stage yet where they hate the game, and they're already bogged down in iPhone talk. Oh, dear. (I'm also not sure they're doing this run blind.) But they are unequivocally going to get the bad ending, and it's going to be interesting to see them struggle with that. I just hope they pay enough attention to the game to notice.
- The extremely popular YouTubers at Game Grumps also started their own Silent Hill 4 playthrough, though it seems to have stalled out at episode #7. Their commentary is several cuts below the usual standards, though, and I stopped browsing after their channel after I hit one video where they were talking about doing cocaine? What? (The Five Nights at Freddy's videos aren't that bad, though, and are narcotic-free.)
- The Overblood games are genuinely fascinating, in a way: they're PS1 titles made by people who have certain talents but seem to be completely unfamiliar with how to make videogames, and so they put their resources into really odd aspects of production (orchestral music; voice acting that's more "normal" and less affected than what you usually get in games) but completely muff things that are totally taken for granted in more mainstream productions (like, how to make a character walk). Game Informer's LP of Overblood 2 is fascinating in a way because, on top of all of the above, the game is trying to be a rip-off of Final Fantasy VII with a more conventional Western sci-fi novel plot. Unfortunately, the execution of the LP is lacking, with some unfortunate jokes at the start, timing problems in cutscenes (supposedly caused by using European PS1 disc in a U.S. machine) that make the game more bugged than it already is, and a heck of a lot of drowning out the game. I'm really interested in what's going on here but couldn't make it through. Maybe I'll eventually just play the game myself.
- Someone linked to this Popful Mail animated music video, which apparently was a pitch for a full-blown Popful Mail anime. I think we dodged a bullet here, though - it doesn't take long to let you know where its mind is, it does not have the energy or comic timing that Popful Mail needs (every shot is held for at least twice as long as it needs to be), and the whole "timid, ordinary girl from modern world finds self-confidence in a magical fantasyland" trope would've been to a Popful Mail story what Shia LeBeouf's parents were to the Transformers movies were the Transformers movies not already ruined in the first place.
Also, Tatt is amazingly out-of-character here.
- This is a verbose but uniquely smart article about the visceral feedback we get from pressing buttons in videogames and how developers need to be cautious of how they employ that.
- Koei says that the Angelique remake is coming No, Really and released a promo pic in which, as someone on the Angemedia community astutely observed, Clavis & Julious look like they have egg heads.
(Also, the remake's tagline is apparently "Love, or duty?", which means that Ghaleon is now narrating the series.)
- In other news, the Project Scissors game, which is now titled NightCry, has released a trailer. The game looks for all intents and purposes that it is going to be a true Clock Tower in all but name, but...man, that's kind of a rough trailer, isn't it. Not that I think it'll be indicative of the game's quality, but I'm not sure it's the marketing campaign's best foot forward. (It is, unfortunately, kind of emblematic of Takashi Shimizu's output. At least what I've seen of it. I can't say I found The Grudge impressive.)
- Ending on a high note: Giant Bomb's CD-I Don't Know about These Games, Man. Jeff Gerstmann's disgust while playing Dark Castle is palpable.
.
- First thing off the bat: I mentioned Yahtzee Croshaw's "Let's Drown Out" short LP series in the previous post, but I can't recommend them as a whole; the friend with whom he's commentating doesn't bring out the best in him, and there's guaranteed to be at least one unfortunate comment or laddish "ironic" use of a slur per video. Fair warning.
- Run Button is doing a run of Silent Hill 4. Their Silent Hill videos are not the unambiguously good thing they once were, though; after posting a near-definitive blind run of 1, they stumbled through 2 and 3 and are at the point where they're kind of mentally done with the series but are persisting in going through the motions. They're not even at the stage yet where they hate the game, and they're already bogged down in iPhone talk. Oh, dear. (I'm also not sure they're doing this run blind.) But they are unequivocally going to get the bad ending, and it's going to be interesting to see them struggle with that. I just hope they pay enough attention to the game to notice.
- The extremely popular YouTubers at Game Grumps also started their own Silent Hill 4 playthrough, though it seems to have stalled out at episode #7. Their commentary is several cuts below the usual standards, though, and I stopped browsing after their channel after I hit one video where they were talking about doing cocaine? What? (The Five Nights at Freddy's videos aren't that bad, though, and are narcotic-free.)
- The Overblood games are genuinely fascinating, in a way: they're PS1 titles made by people who have certain talents but seem to be completely unfamiliar with how to make videogames, and so they put their resources into really odd aspects of production (orchestral music; voice acting that's more "normal" and less affected than what you usually get in games) but completely muff things that are totally taken for granted in more mainstream productions (like, how to make a character walk). Game Informer's LP of Overblood 2 is fascinating in a way because, on top of all of the above, the game is trying to be a rip-off of Final Fantasy VII with a more conventional Western sci-fi novel plot. Unfortunately, the execution of the LP is lacking, with some unfortunate jokes at the start, timing problems in cutscenes (supposedly caused by using European PS1 disc in a U.S. machine) that make the game more bugged than it already is, and a heck of a lot of drowning out the game. I'm really interested in what's going on here but couldn't make it through. Maybe I'll eventually just play the game myself.
- Someone linked to this Popful Mail animated music video, which apparently was a pitch for a full-blown Popful Mail anime. I think we dodged a bullet here, though - it doesn't take long to let you know where its mind is, it does not have the energy or comic timing that Popful Mail needs (every shot is held for at least twice as long as it needs to be), and the whole "timid, ordinary girl from modern world finds self-confidence in a magical fantasyland" trope would've been to a Popful Mail story what Shia LeBeouf's parents were to the Transformers movies were the Transformers movies not already ruined in the first place.
Also, Tatt is amazingly out-of-character here.
- This is a verbose but uniquely smart article about the visceral feedback we get from pressing buttons in videogames and how developers need to be cautious of how they employ that.
- Koei says that the Angelique remake is coming No, Really and released a promo pic in which, as someone on the Angemedia community astutely observed, Clavis & Julious look like they have egg heads.
(Also, the remake's tagline is apparently "Love, or duty?", which means that Ghaleon is now narrating the series.)
- In other news, the Project Scissors game, which is now titled NightCry, has released a trailer. The game looks for all intents and purposes that it is going to be a true Clock Tower in all but name, but...man, that's kind of a rough trailer, isn't it. Not that I think it'll be indicative of the game's quality, but I'm not sure it's the marketing campaign's best foot forward. (It is, unfortunately, kind of emblematic of Takashi Shimizu's output. At least what I've seen of it. I can't say I found The Grudge impressive.)
- Ending on a high note: Giant Bomb's CD-I Don't Know about These Games, Man. Jeff Gerstmann's disgust while playing Dark Castle is palpable.
.
