@Werehog Here's a screencap from Tomorrow Never Dies on PS1, showing the resolution of its movie clips. Put it this way, when I finally saw the movie proper, seeing the extra detail was awesome!
Jumping in here (like a pirate) to say I've played that game and it was one of the most wooden games I've ever seen. I think it's because the character was basically a stick with some shoulders. The World is Not Enough was a lot better, and if you haven't tried 007 Racing? you are in for a terrible treat, it's amazingly kinds of awful. I think the franchise really shines on PS2 with Nightfire and Agent Under Fire. I really liked the actual movie of Tomorrow Never Dies, Jonathan Pryce is such a good actor but the Playstation One era of Bond games don't really stand the test of time. I think it's due to so many of the same studios been given the license from the same movie studios, followed by the rush to meet the deadline of the movie release. Blade was the exception, it plays really well. Games like Die Hard Trilogy and even Alien Trilogy benefited from not having to meet that deadline, those movies were already out.
Obviously the same can't be said for Alien Resurrection, I kept an original factory sealed copy due to it's secret hidden boot-disc exploit. Original copies are basically tools to spin the disc-drive down by using a developer code which then allows the use of disc swapping to CR-R copies. It was left there as an internal tech test that Sony at the time forced for certification purposes. The game code then syncs to the consoles CPU so perfectly (in timing) that it allows for backwards compatibility, it leaves the in-game doors open. I didn't even know what I had, but I suppose when you spend all night chatting to hackers etc you learn all kinds of things. I learned a lot about PS3 exploits too, there are many.
Also I don't think I saw this thread before, or did and forgot. I might eventually add to it since I do collect and play quite a lot retro games for the history lessons and the appreciation.
These violent delights have violent ends & in their triumph die, like fire & powder Which, as they kiss, consume.
@GirlVersusGame Fair points about Bond's exploits on the original PlayStation. My formative nostalgia for the era does a lot of heavy lifting and makes it difficult for me to step back and be objective about the trilogy. I even enjoy replaying 007 Racing on a regular basis, and would argue that The World is Not Enough is a step back from Tomorrow Never Dies due to its lack of variety (no driving mission, its skiing mission is laughable, the casino blackjack mission is implemented poorly, etc.) but it's certainly a lot more polished. Blending with our conversation about Sonic music, I also reckon Tomorrow Never Dies has a better soundtrack, contributing to a more Bondian vibe overall. But that's just me!
I had heard that about Alien Resurrection and funnily enough, on the subject of Bond, I think I'm right in saying that Agent Under Fire is similarly prized for doing the same to its consoles...? Awesome that you have a sealed copy of the former! Might explain why I found it prohibitively expensive when, a few years back, I wondered about tracking it down and playing it for myself.
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
Since the later 80's. I can't remember what I played before Super Mario Bros/Duckhunt which i remember getting with my NES Action Set. I'm sure i dabbled in Mall arcades with my parents or aunts & uncles, friends & cousins. But Duckhunt is the furthest i can remember back and that was in 89.
Along with Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Bros 2, Mega Man 1&2, Bubble Bobble, Adevnture Island, DuckTales, just to name a few. And then we've got Commodre 64 with GIJOE, Giena Sisters, Ghostbusters and more. Dabbled in some Coleco vision as well, but it wasn't my jam.
NES, with a splash of C64, SNES, Genesis, GameBoy & Arcades were the golden years for me, including pop culture as a whole.
Wii is, or was, also one of my favourite Nintendo consoles of all time, paired with the Virtual Console(Technically cheating ) on a big fat 2006 Sony WEGA Trinitron CRT SDTV(Using component cables) . Metroid Prime 3 was revolutionary thanks to the Wii remote pointer & nunchuck controls, then there's the brilliant Wario Land Shake it!, Klonoa remake, Super Paper Mario, Mega Man 9, Elebits, Pikmin New Play Control, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Zack & Wiki, Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth and more.
The DS Lite, Wii + Virtual Console and first two years of 3DS(Aqua Blue) era was amazeballs for me persinally. So much ballsy innovation and fresh ideas that breathed new life into a hobbie that for personally, in many ways, was started to feel played out and boring. My PS3 & XBOX360 were eating dust. I was more into retro, new wave retro, and experimental stuff with Wii, DS Lite & 3DS, which has now carried on over and transitioned into VR/MR with PSVR1, PSVR2, Quest 3 and now Steam Frame, including the upcoming meta Pheonex & Q4 slated for 2027, and hopefully PSVR3 for PS6.
@Thrillho Nope, not even a level skip cheat. It was bizarre, a neat idea poorly implemented with legit random chance deciding its outcome. The DS version of Blood Stone 007 would later include a similar poker level, but it had a safety net whereby if you did badly, your opponent would suddenly go all-in on a terrible hand. Not sure if that's better or worse, but at least it meant you could keep the pace flowing!
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
@Werehog Nice to meet you, insufferably uptight! I'm very judgmental. Two sides of the same coin we manage to hide sufficiently on this forum... 😉
I'm glad that that what was available on the shareware disc was enough to soothe your interests! A full ten levels of DOOM sounds to me like it was anyway a fairly large amount of the game. Did it have that many more levels that this was just a small slice of the game, or was it a ridiculously generous demo? As for my aversion to replaying games... I don't think it roots from my trauma with MySims Agents, but who knows if that unconsciously has played a part? I just find replaying games to be largely unsatisfying. I know everything that's to come. There's no sense of discovery or wonder anymore. I understand that for some that becomes a comfort, but for me it starts feeling like wasted time. I much prefer the idea of playing something new and exciting that has the potential to become my next favourite game rather than staying stuck in something that is a known entity to me already, but has lost the excitement I felt in realising my enjoyment of it upon a new play. Sure, new games can't always reach the same heights as ones I've loved previously, but I'd much rather take that chance to expand my love for many different games than stick with just one I adore.
Mass Effect is really the only one I've fully replayed that I can think of, and that was only because of the idea I could alter the story upon replay and experience new things. I did replay Dishonored as well, but that was largely because I was young and dumb. When I was but a broke young'un, I acquired that game in... let's say, alternative ways similar to my DS cartridge scandal. When I later bought it on Steam to support the developers of a game I had come to love, I also bought the DLC I hadn't played previously. I wanted to simply go in, use the old save file I already had and exclusively play the DLC after I had purchased it there. One (not really) problem: when I opened my save, the DLC was greyed out. I instantly assumed that meant I would have to start a new playthrough to access the DLC, and so I did. I finished it a second time. When I then opened my new save, the DLC was still greyed out. This time, I took it upon myself to scroll forwards to the DLC... and lo and behold, it wasn't greyed out anymore as soon as my mouse was on it. Turns out I was never withheld from playing the DLC the first time around, I just didn't do my due diligence in at least trying to click on it before making assumptions. Oops.
You know what, that Tomorrow Never Dies screencap is nowhere near as atrocious as I had imagined it to be! He actually does still look like he posesses a normal humanoid body! Still, I have no doubt that seeing it on a dedicated DVD (Betamax? VHS?) release looked ten times better. I'm actually going to assume this was in the times of VHS, but I have honestly no clue when VHS started and ended. When I was a very young child in the early 2000s, my parents still had a VHS player I was actively watching stuff on. I think even at that point DVDs were already available and we were just behind the times, but it has warped my knowledge of how that technology actually progressed timeline-wise! I mean, hell, in the mid-2000s, I was still listening to Sesame Street cassette tapes in the car. I don't think we were the most technology-forward household at the time.
Haha, I'm glad your crush didn't figure your obvious fumble out even if others did! Maybe he was equally infatuated with you without knowing it, and he simply didn't point it out even if he realised. Though that means he might have come on to you more strongly afterwards, which since you don't mention that within your story, doesn't sound to me like that's what happened. It's funny we all have those (presumably) ''first crush'' memories. The one I always remember once I finally started realising that I was gay was when I was on holiday with my parents in a bungalow. We signed up for one of those activities were they strap you into a harness and you fly over a lake or whatever. I forget what the actual name for it is. Anyway, there stood this (maybe) 20-year old guy ready to strap me into my harness. And as he did, I felt feelings I hadn't felt before as a young 14-year old still discovering his preferences. Let's just say I was present for every holiday activity he was heading afterwards... A non-gaming related tangent, but it always makes me crack up when I think about it.
No worries about the whole childhood trauma thing! I'm happy to say I'm nearly decades sober of actively being bothered by those thoughts. If you had caught me with that question as an eight-year old, I might've reacted more intensely! Let's just say I was not a fan of whenever it was time to do art in primary school. I hope that if you searched up Drawn to Life you liked what you saw! As far as I can remember, I think they're pretty well-made games and hardly child-oriented slop like the Ubisoft fare. But maybe I'm misremembering them to be of higher quality than they really were. I think they released a new one during the PS4 era. I was intrigued by the idea of going back to it for nostalgia's sake, but it seemed like it wasn't well-received when I looked it up at the time. A shame!
I did something similar just last year going back to a newly release game within the Delicious franchise. I'm going to assume you never heard of it because it has a very specific target audience of housewives, but I was obsessed with these types of time management games as a kid. You might be more likely to have heard of Diner Dash, which if so, it's a similar thing with a bigger focus on narrative. Every game follows this young restaurateur called Emily and her misadventures. There's one where she travels to Paris after a love letter addressed to her from a fling as a teenager arrives at her doorstep decades late. There's the one where she marries the Irish guy and her mother-in-law is a personification of the wicked witch of the West. There's the one where her car breaks down on the highway on the way to an audition for a cooking show Julia Child-style with an Elvis Presley impersonator in tow. Not to mention the multiple spin-off series like the one about her sister Angela, who's a fashion designer. Suffice it to say I was heavily invested in this universe, but when I tried it again last year, I couldn't get past the very simplistic time management gameplay for longer than an hour. I had a nice, short nostalgia trip and called it a day, followed by a refund.
Ha! We'll have to do a tackle-off one day. I wonder how much we can get away with that in the modern FIFAs, assuming that the AI is a lot more advanced nowadays and might catch us breaking rules more often. Which club would you be? Who is my Tottenham Hotspur facing (and breaking the ankles of)? I think our friends/parents should've just asked to play wrestling games with us. Seems like we were more into that type of sport as kids! Ah, San Andreas and Just Cause are perfect games for that toybox approach. I'm not even sure if I did this with any other games personally, which makes my choice to showcase my stage talents in Mario Kart DS specifically all the more odd. I definitely was already doing a lot of creative writing (including but not limited to Harry Potter fan fiction) as well at the time, so I'm sure whatever I came up with involved magic. Not to mention my legions of Playmobil and race tracks taking up the entire upper floor of our house where I'd turn on my stopwatch and play out a full movie! I had to keep the story going for at least 90 minutes, as anything less would be a failure of movie length. I suppose it was a great exercise at trying to be creative and keeping a coherent story through total impulse and improvisation!
@Tjuz I just realised, hiding something doesn't work when you openly acknowledge its presence. We are so very good at this, aren't we? Said without judgement, of course!
Oh yeah, the original DOOM games are quite extensive, as are many of its contemporaries. I think there's around forty levels in the first DOOM which get progressively larger and more complex, so the first ten are pretty linear by comparison (although they do introduce some maze-like areas and the concept of backtracking for keys, as well as secret areas) and represent less than the quarter of the whole game they appear to. You're right, though, it's still a very generous demo by today's standards!
Well, that answers why you play games, then! I'd certainly agree that discovery and a sense of wonder is a huge part of the appeal for me, moreso with the advent of sprawling open-world sandboxes. Linear games I tend to enjoy more as interactive experiences, like they're movies with a skill-check (and even if they don't have stories or heck, even any context, you can bet my brain's dreaming up its own). The real question is, did you enjoy replaying Dishonoured despite your mistake? Did you speed-run through it, sighing and rolling your eyes? Or did your frustrated realisation after the fact forever colour a pleasant experience?
Same as you, I couldn't tell you when certain technologies came and went. We just had what we had and were happy with it (case in point, that shareware disc on our PC, which was still running Windows 95 long past the point of any upgrade). I do know that I first saw Tomorrow Never Dies when it was broadcast on TV, in a pan-and-scan 4:3 aspect ratio, so I then got to enjoy another couple resolution bumps on both DVD and Blu-Ray. I also know for a fact that Sesame Street is awesome, regardless of its format, and that I'd still listen to a cassette of it today, let alone twenty years ago! Lucky kid!
Thanks for sharing your "realisation" story. Let's just say, that's a very relatable tale! Although I applaud your eagerness to take part in more activities, not less. My anxiety would have seen me running and hiding from him, terrified of being noticed. There, you see? I do know how to hide things! Weirdly enough, the biggest "realisation" story in my life was being the target of somebody else's... but that's a bit of a messy tale, one best kept for another topic. Ask me again someday!
Glad to read all's good. Let's just say Drawn to Life wouldn't disgrace you in Fantasy Critic, but I doubt it would win you the competition, either! Some things are just of a particular moment, so it's a shame whenever they get dragged back again with less-than-favourable results. Although it's always fun to hope, like you did when returning to the Delicious franchise... or I should call it, the Delicious epic saga, based on your description of its interconnected and twist-laden lore! Good grief, who will be playing Emily in the movie?! Never would have pegged that kinda series for maintaining any sort of strict internal continuity, but it definitely has my respect for doing so! Effort like that makes it so much easier to get invested (and I mean that most sincerely... remember, I'm not the judgemental one, we all like what we like, and my split-second, kneejerk reaction to what Google showed me can get in the bin). Sorry to hear your return to Emily's misadventures didn't stick, but at least it gave you the nostalgia hit you were presumably looking for!
What club would I be? Um... whichever one is wearing my favourite colour shirt? I think they're called North Palace Unitedshire Rovers. Yeah, them. I know my sportsball. It's coming home, and so on.
Ah, a fellow fan fiction writer! Pleased to meet you. In exile, or still practicing? At least when contained to a game or Word document, our imagination no longer takes up valuable floor space, and doesn't result in complaints from those unfortunate enough to step on an errant Playmobil brick. I think my mother must have been incredibly relieved when I started writing down my stories, instead of using our upstairs landing as scaffolding upon which my action figures would fight, die, and invariably fall on her head mid-climb.
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
@Werehog What? Who told you this about hiding? I thought if we sneak away quick enough after our acknowledgement, the NPCs on this forum will simply assume it was the wind.
Crazy that the DOOM demo could already make up a good quarter of the game back in the day! You're lucky nowadays if you get more than one area or an arbitrary one-hour timer holding you back. I guess it was still in a time where gaming was on the up and up and needed to catch as many people as possible. Nowadays sales are more of a given, especially with the ease of advertising compared to the demo discs and magazines of old! As for Dishonored, it's long enough ago that I don't distinctly remember how I felt having to replay it. I remember the dread when booting it up and believing I needed to play it again, but nothing beyond that. I guess the fact that I don't have any subconscious negative feelings attached to it means I probably enjoyed it! I'm sure it helped that, at least, Dishonored also offers multiple different outcomes to every level. I'm sure I made an effort each time to get wildly varying results in each level, so maybe that softened the blow a bit.
Hey, as long as you could run the demo discs you wanted to with that Windows 95, what's the point in upgrading? I wonder what Windows my grandparents' PC was running when I was a kid. It's definitely the oldest version of Windows I experienced. It still had the whole envelope flying across the pop-up along with the beeping noises to connect to the internet. I don't know if XP was maybe the latest to have that or if that must've been an earlier version still! The fact you got to enjoy Tomorrow Never Dies in gradually increasing resolution is funny to me. I wonder how much that affected your viewing experience in each of its increments. Did you notice a lot of details in the Blu-Ray version, for example, that there was no way you could've recognised in the orginal release you saw? Or was it all just a bit prettier over time, but nothing major in how it felt to watch?
I'm somehow not surprised ol' Roger would've ran away in fear in that same situation of realisation! If this is not too weird to ask since I know you have a partner, how's your flirting game nowadays? Cooler, or still the same ''pretend to the go to the toilet and climb out the window''? Just trying to establish how much that anxiety has stayed with you over time! I will say you've given me incredible blue balls in regards to this other person's realisation story. I'm going to have to keep this in mind and ask you at the most random of times to elaborate on this... I need the gossip! But give me one tease: is that person your current partner? If it is, that would just be adding the icing on the cake.
Well, since you mentioned Drawn to Life in relation to Fantasy Critic, it seems this surprise sequel a few years ago would have disgraced me! A horrendous 53 score on OpenCritic. Yikes. That's impressive with gaming critics and how much more eager they are to give out high scores than, say, film critics. Glad that came out way too early to have blinded me and my nostalgia and pick it for a Fantasy Critic! As for Delicious, I certainly can't disagree with your likely knee-jerk reaction to a swift Google search. It's, uhh.. an acquired taste, let's say. Especially with the mobile market nowadays in full swing in the way that it is, I fear looking at these games from an outsider perspective comes across even worse than it might already have back in the day. It's not surprising to me that nowadays these games have most of their playerbase on mobile as well, for as far as I'm aware. Still, it was Shakespeare to lil' old me! And I didn't even tell you about the time Emily got stuck in a hotel during a snowstorm or when Angela went to jail! Thinking about it now... I think it was just a game version of a British soap opera. You've got me thinking with who should play Emily in a movie however. It needs to be an actress who can pull off innocent, girl next door vibes and preferably a redhead. Isla Fisher, you're up!
The North Palace Unitedshire Rovers? Frankly, I can't tell if you're pulling my leg or if that's an actual club. It doesn't sound outlandish enough to me to be a joke for sure, but it likely might be! That shows how much I know about football. Well, prepare to get your ankles injured and your knees bent by Tottenham Hotspur, which I can confirm is not a fictional football club.
Sadly, my fan fiction writing has long been in exile. I mostly did it (as well as try to come up with my own stories) during primary school. At some point, I just stopped. I had Word documents upon Word documents to show for it however! Not to mention how proud I was that not once, but twice, separate teachers singled out my writing assignment to read out loud in front of the class as an example of how it's done. A crime against literature I never continued! Now my writing outs itself in verbose forum replies and the occasional review I post for few to see, which I suppose sates my inner need enough for the time being. I could definitely see myself trying to do some (non-)fiction writing at some point again, though. Hence why I was both incredibly saddened and excited for you when you first left the forum to focus on your writing! As an ex-aspiring writer, I couldn't have been more happy for you to find inspiration and go for it. Of course I don't know the details about what happened with that in-between your departure and return outside of your letting me know it didn't work out, but I'm nonetheless proud of you that you went for it. No matter what may or may not have occurred behind the scenes in the meantime!
@Tjuz Ah, I didn't realise Dishonoured offered multiple paths and outcomes. Initial dread aside, I think it's a good sign that you don't remember it being an atrocious experience, but I do wonder what might happen if you were to replay something more linear. Just out of sheer morbid curiosity, so please don't waste any precious gaming time on booting up, I dunno, an Uncharted or something!
Despite being a user, know very little about Windows (or any other desktop operating system) so when it comes to identifying which version your grandparents had running, I'm afraid your guess would be as good as mine! As a general rule, the idea of digging into a PC's technical guts, whether software or hardware, scares the heck out of me. I figure all I can do is break something. What about you? Mention of your less-than-official gaming history makes me suspect that you might be good with technology.
For me, each leap in home media's visual quality has been slightly less radical (same with generational leaps in gaming graphics, I suppose) so I notice less and less each time. I mean, sure, it's fun to be able to finally read the labels on some doors or whatever, but the movie's still telling you the same story. I also have this awful habit of spotting continuity errors, CGI glitches, etc. no matter where in a particular frame I look, and so there's an argument to be made that perhaps I shouldn't be shown anything in high quality, since there's a danger I could end up ruining the experience for myself. Tomorrow Never Dies isn't too bad in that department, but the next Bond movie in sequence, The World is Not Enough...? There's a good dozen in that, and each upgrade only serves to make them more and more noticeable. D'oh!
Nah, I don't flirt. Famously so, I'm way too blunt for any of that. No disrespect to folks who enjoy the game, but case in point, I met my partner through work and on his second day, surprised him by randomly blurting out, "Wanna get some coffee sometime?" Luckily I met him during a period when my anxiety was largely under control because, to answer the source of your question, my mental state is a hot mess. Always has been, most likely always will be. And no, with apologies, he's not the star of the other story!
What about you? I'm guessing your confidence in continually signing up for all those holiday activities means you're at least capable of putting yourself centre stage on occasion?
The state of modern mobile games is definitely to blame for my kneejerk reaction to the Delicious saga, and I reckon that's a real shame, because it's often the case that trends start with good reason, and that early examples of a style or sub-genre are better than what followed. I had access to some real cool mobile games in my youth, stuff that kept me quiet and made me smile, stuff that I'd dismiss off-hand today. I guess you were lucky to find the Delicious games when you did, at just the right moment to get hooked and appreciate them in the best possible way! But what the heck did Angela do to wind up in prison? Did she sabotage her sister's car before that cooking show audition? I'll bet it was her. She was the mastermind behind it all. That's the "bold new direction" a movie would go in, at any rate. Isla Fisher better watch her back!
Hopefully any actual football fans passing through laughed at my exaggerated attempt to make up a club name, although it's a testament to how ludicrous some club names can get if you thought it didn't sound outlandish enough! Well, back to the drawing board, I guess!
Congratulations on getting your prose highlighted in class as an example of what to do, rather than what not to do! Your witty and well-written replies were already evidence enough, but you've certainly got the gift, so I'm real glad you can see yourself using it again someday, because you totally should. Thank you for what you added about my own literary attempt up there. It wasn't so much my writing that didn't work out, but rather my attempt to focus on it, thanks to various external factors which prevented me from doing so. Apologies for being vague before. Participation is a constant struggle for me!
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
I remember the PS1 being the first console I played on. so I think 1998 or 1999 (I was 4 I think). PS2 was when I actually started understanding and falling in love with games.
@Werehog The only Uncharted I could possibly replay would be the very first! I never made it further with the franchise. And honestly... I apologise, but I don't intend to, haha. As much as I appreciated its cinematic nature even way back in its roots, shooter games are simply not for me! Might as well put me in front of a Call of Duty or Battlefield. I do remember that one odd section where it suddenly got supernatural, so that was weird. Not sure if it's the outsider of the franchise or if that's a regular thing with each entry, but it sure came out of left field when I played that back in the day!
I'd like to think I'm pretty good at the software side of a PC, but it mainly involves lots of Googling. And then Googling the definitions of each and every term I just read. And then being confused, but just going for it with mixed results. Yet somehow, it mostly works out in the end. I'm either a wizard or have incredible luck. Just last week my graphic drivers started acting up while playing Baldur's Gate 3. I never had to deal with any problems in that area before, so that was a first! Luckily it was all AMD's fault and doing a bunch of reverting to older drivers seems to have fixed it for now. Damn you, technological overlords for making me have to deal with "safe modes" and "DDU"! I also remember updating my BIOS drivers once. I can promise you that even with my decade of trying to tame Windows, I was still pissing my pants. But yes, when it comes to stormy high-seas... even if I don't partake anymore, I'm the guy.
Oh, and no, my hardware side is worse entirely. I did "build my PC". However, when I say I "built my PC", I mean I bought the parts online after much research and had my friend put it together. Only for it not to work! Traumatising. I wasn't sure if I had to send my friend to the gallows for breaking something, but it turned out my power supply had simply arrived broken. Thanks for nothing. So again, after much anxiety, it did all work out in the end. Believe you me when I say I will never touch within my PCs innards as a result however!
It sounds like we're going to have to limit your media consumption to 360p. Or is that already too high-fidelity for you to be able to notice a film's abundance of errors? You'd think it'd be easy for films to avoid the wrath of you and your eagle-eyed squad. Especially nowadays, where they're able to use CGI for just about anything! I'm glad I'm never that focused on anything to notice mostly. I feel like, if possible, the best way to enjoy media is to turn your brain off and let it tell its story to you. I'll almost never see a twist coming except if they make it ri-donk-ulously obvious, because I'm actively making sure I don't overthink anything. Or maybe I'm simply stupid and that's my cover story. All this complaining about media literacy in young'uns when I'm the idiot after all! Surely not. I'll be sure that if I ever record anything in 360p quality or above, there won't be any continuity errors!
Frankly, I enjoy the concept of the game, but am terrible at it myself. I'm way too blunt and Dutch to have any patience to play games. I either like you or I don't, and if my words don't already swing one obvious way, my body language sure will! I hope you've felt the former in our conversations, because I do have a great time talking to you! No body language necessary (or possible to prove otherwise)! Did you pay for the coffee you invited him on too? That's the way to the famously greedy Dutch people's hearts. Pay something for us and it'll be love at first sight. Not sure how well that translates to our neighbour Brits! My biggest "putting myself center stage" is being the loudmouth in the friend group, the one on stage belting his heart out to karaoke or a generaliser internal superiority complex. None of those are particularly romantic, and in the case of the second, mostly off-putting. That said, it does help with just the usual, boringly platonic socialising!
What mobile games were you into in particular when you were younger? I hit my mobile phone age just as microtransactions started becoming increasingly part of the landscape, so I wouldn't even know what quality games there were to capture the likes of you beforehand. And I'm sorry to reply so late, because I know you must've been on the edge of your seat for days wanting to know what Angela did to get jailed. Well, not to worry, because I have an answer for you: she vandalised and started a physical fight with her bitter teenage rival at the high school reunion she organised. She had to go to jail, and since there was no staff available to process her crimes, she had to stay overnight. Dramatic stuff, I know!
Thank you for your kind words on my writing all the same! I do really appreciate it. If ever I get back into writing something seriously, I'll be sure to show you some kind of draft as a fellow professional. Until then, it'll be me sitting over in the review thread with needlessly long explanations and criticisms of game systems. I hope that your future writing efforts will have less friction and nothing external stealing your focus. Likewise, if ever you have some new writing and would like to share, I'd be delighted to take a look! Or not, if you're more so the type of writer to live in isolation until it's done with a hunger for sunlight!
@Tjuz Oh, don't worry about the Uncharted series, I was just picking a random example of a linear game which holds little reward for replays! And perhaps I recalled it not being your thing anyway, so that might have contributed to its mention. Curiosity aside, I would never expect you to play something you weren't interested in! For the record, only the first and second games have supernatural elements. The others certainly have weird goings-on, but they're explained away and stay a lot more grounded as a result. You're not alone in finding the first game's third act somewhat of a strange turn!
Sounds like you're somebody who knows how to figure things out, and that's half the battle no matter what your chosen interest or profession. Older members of my family tend to lean on me for tech support because they conflate being a geek with being "good at computers" or whatever, but all I ever do is Google their specific problem and talk them through the top result. That being said, I'm sensing a healthy dose of self-deprecation in your reply, so I suspect that you might be somewhat more capable than you're letting on! Successfully reverting drivers, making BIOS edits, whatever the heck "DDU" stands for... it can't all be luck, can it? Give yourself some credit, your custom PC worked once the faulty power supply got fixed, and you hand-picked its components! That's more than I could ever do!
Heh, depends on the error. Some would still be egregious in 240p or less! It's unfortunate that CGI and digital shot composition can sometimes create more problems than it solves. There's a real noticeable digital error during the emotional climax of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 which, despite blinking through floods of tears, I immediately spotted, and my friend (who we'll have to call "Charles 2", seeing as you're now Charles in this surreal friend-ception joke we have running across multiple discussions) won't let me point it out, for fear it'll ruin the movie for him. And he's right, of course. I'm envious of your approach. It doesn't make you stupid in the slightest, I wish I could watch every movie and play every game that way, just surrender to it and let it tell me its story on its own terms... and indeed, I can do that on an emotional level. I'm always the first person in the audience to start crying. But there's always this other part of my brain scanning and analysing what's in front of it, sneering at inconsequential oversights, and I hate it. On this point, unlike the previous paragraph, I'd say you definitely are lucky!
Are the Dutch famously blunt, then? Can't say I have ever heard of that particular cultural stereotype before, but perhaps I should have! My people!! And yes, in the interest of clear communication, I too enjoy our conversations. Wouldn't spend so long composing replies if I didn't (and am always real grateful whenever you're equally generous with your time, too). Yes, of course I paid for the coffee, it was my suggestion! Who the heck wouldn't pay in that scenario? "Hey, I like you, let's go on a date... oh, and by the way, here's the bill." Please tell me that's never happened to you (and if it did, please tell me you had enough coffee left to chuck in his face before you stormed away)...?! Well, I'm certainly learning a lot about the Dutch here! Never would have thought you a blunt people, and never would have thought you greedy, either!
In brief instances of being social, I also tend to default to a bit of a loudmouth mode. Mine's somewhat of a defence mechanism, but I figure that, if I can make everybody laugh, they'll be more comfortable in themselves and as such, won't see through my act. Whatever the motivation, at least you'd have a small chance of scoring a backing singer for one of your karaoke performances!
Wait a second, you're telling me that Angela's a vandal who started a fight... and we're supposed to be rooting for this criminal? Hah! I knew she was a wrong'un! Forget just one night, I say we lock her up and throw away the key! Alas, my mobile games were never that dramatic! Although I do have some more recent experience, when I was working I had early incarnations of both Lara Croft: Relic Run and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes on my phone to keep me busy between deployments, as well as ports of a couple Sonic the Hedgehog classics. Otherwise my first experiences would have been with simple Java games, the stuff they used to chuck out for any ol' reason. I think there was a 24 one where you had to defuse a bomb or something. Oh, and Snake. Every old phone had Snake. Not of the Solid variety, just the basic "eat apples and get longer" game. Such sophistication! Such depth!
Wow, thank you, I'm both honoured and flattered that you'd wanna share your writing with me! And I very much appreciate your reciprocal offer, too! I shall most certainly keep it in mind, should that day ever arise (and I sincerely hope it does, for both of us). I'm somebody who definitely writes for himself, but I also recognise that there always comes a point where it's important to let others take a look, and make sure that my own personal connection to the material isn't clouding my judgement. In other words, I'll need you to tell me that it's all a load of rubbish, please and thank you!
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
If you’re up for playing Granblue Versus Rising, please ping me. I can also play Guilty Gear, Blazblue, Melty or Under Night. No SF6 or Tekken cuz I lack hardware space.
@Werehog Haha, how relatable it is to be deemed the computer expert by family simply for knowing how to utilise a Google search. The amount of times my mother has asked for help for herself or friends with the illusion that I'm some kind of tech wizard! And while, yes, I did all of the things you mentioned, that also was nothing more than the result of endless Google searches. If you would've threatened me to explain what DDU is or kill me beforehand, I'd be dead right this very second. I'm sure you could've figured it out all the same with your equal tech wizardry! I'll concur that hand-picking parts is a lot more of a hassle than any of that, but you'll certainly believe me when that still took me a good week of non-stop research that I didn't mess anything up. It's a lot more luck that I happened to research all the right things and getting a proper rig together than any amazing knowledge of mine!
Well, now you'll have to tell me what this noticeable error in the conclusion of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was. I haven't seen the movie myself, but Eggman should be embarrassed he let his final scenes be spoiled by such amateurism. I'm now doubting whether Jim Carrey is called Eggman. I'm getting the faintest memories that it's Dr. something-bot now instead. Dr. Eggbot? That doesn't sound right either. Does it even have to do with eggs or have I completely imagined this on the spot? Oh, lord, please forgive me for my transgressions against the Sonic IP if I am genuinely getting this totally wrong. Speaking of failures! This was where I was supposed to transition into a joke about Sonic being rendered as Knuckles instead... that's the red one, right? I think? You know what, I think I better just shut my mouth when it comes to the lore of this franchise. I either am totally right and this whole mental breakdown was for no reason, or I have exposed myself as the fool in the process of trying to be a jester. I guess both are appropriate! I'm glad you can at least enjoy the moments for what they are even with your analytical brain trying to get in the way. I can't even imagine what could've happened in that film for it to leave you with tears rolling down your eyes! Other than, of course, a major continuity error.
Ah, I'm glad that the blunt stereotype has not reached across the pond. Or well, as was the case prior to my actively exposing my people. Not only have I betrayed my country by moving elsewhere, but now also by perpetrating our bad name. I suppose no one will be able to accuse me of nationalism at least! Which might actually be a helpful thing when living in Germany, all things considered. I can't say being asked to pay the bill on a date has ever happened to me, but I think that's because I have exclusively dated people who weren't Dutch. Turns out these cultures are a lot more giving when it comes to dating! Hell, not only was I not asked to pay, they even specifically barred me from doing so after I brought it up. Madness! My Dutch friends would've sent me a payment request on WhatsApp before I even left the scene. It's good to know that if ever you invite me on a platonic drink, I won't be having to pay. I'm going to have to manipulate the absence of greediness of people in the future! I'm going to have to find a long-term boyfriend real quick to have someone paying for me all the time. Though I think I've now descended into sugar baby territory.
As for your loudmouth act, hey, even if it's a defense mechanism, it's surely helping you when it comes to socialising! And maybe that loudmouth would lead me to being able to get you on a karaoke stage. Why so quiet suddenly, Rog? Get up there!
How dare you come for Angela like this?! I'll have you know she's, as we have established previously, c-word. I'll be ready to break her out of this eternal damnation you've sentenced her to. Anyway, as for your mobile games, what do you mean with your deployments? When you say the word deployments, I'm thinking about military, but were you in the military? I feel like you weren't and mean something else, but hey, there's a lot I'm sure I don't know about you! I'm glad you had some fun mobile games to keep you busy despite not being familiar with the Delicious franchise. I guess these other franchises are pretty well-received too. Snake is a classic obviously. When I still had my flip phone, it was that, Panda and Chicken that were my options as a kid. Big fan of Panda!
My oldest memory of playing video games is from around 1987
The game was called Digger (it was from 1984 but things got to Poland with considerable delays back then).
I was a PC gamer through all of the 90s (and PC gaming kinda sucked before DOOM) and a while more.
I may be getting old.
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