Posts by Thrik

  • Monkey Islands! Plural!

    Just about at the end of Melee Island in the special edition now, and I have to say the work is really impressive. While I love the original to bits, when you flip between the new version and the old version the sheer lack of ambience and whatnot is quite striking. The fact that every scene now has (at least subtle) animation and ambience adds a lot to the atmosphere, and having not played the original in years it's great rediscovering all the dialogue with voices. Also a great job has been done of revamping the music and such.

    What's really cool is how the remake opens up the game to new audiences as if it were new. My younger sisters have been playing it and loving it, whereas with the ancient-looking original they'd never have even considered it.

    Some guy on another forum I use has been kind of taking the piss, though. Whereas LucasArts basically just redrew the background art and upped the resolution on the visual side of things, this guy has been doing some crazy experiments with 3D projection where he basically gets the original concept art (only a few were released) and then models it. Using techniques I can only begin to imagine the result is kind of breathtaking — especially the second video. Hit HD and full-screen to really appreciate it.

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  • Terminator: Salvation

    I don't get what you mean by "more of a Terminator film". Are you saying you just wanted another film where you've got some guys running from a lone terminator in the modern world? Frankly, Terminator 2 took that as far as it could go — hence why Terminator 3 is badly compared to it so much.

    The only other thing I can imagine is being on the run from multiple terminators, which I believe is what that Sarah Connor series covered (didn't watch it)?

    I don't think it would have been possible to do another Terminator film using that tired formula, which is why they went for another part of the Terminator lore altogether: the war. And to be honest that's something I've always wanted to see. I do see some of your points though, such as the lack of lasers. However they have said this is the first of a new trilogy, which means Skynet could very easily develop and equip itself with those a bit later.

    If they do depict the war significantly further through time, I hope they make at least part of it totally stylistically resemble James Cameron's rendition of the war as we briefly saw in the original films, and saw in detail in the Terminator 2: 3D movie at Universal Studios Florida (which also had gigantic 'Transformers' robots BTW, except made of liquid metal shit like the T-1000). As in very dark, very blue, lots of explosions, and lots of lasers. That'd tie it all together quite nicely IMO.

  • Terminator: Salvation

    I think you are possibly a bit too much of a Terminator geek, D3.

    It had some inconsistencies, but it was a lot better than Terminator 3 as an overall film — and I thought that was decent too! Okay so it had a lot of special effects and action, but what exactly were you expecting from a film set after judgement day?! And a Terminator film for that matter?

  • Terminator: Salvation

    I have to say, I found Terminator: Salvation pretty good. I didn't like how contrived the whole ending sequence felt, but overall I certainly enjoyed the film.

    I can't actually think of how the post-nukes world of Terminator could be better depicted to be perfectly honest. While some of the plot points were questionable, I think there's a lot more good than bad there.

    It's certainly a much better film than Terminator 3, whatever the case — and I quite enjoyed that too. Maybe I'm not too fussy about my Terminator.

  • Max Payne 3

    While I'm always willing to give things the benefit of the doubt, looking at these screenshots I literally can't see anything that made the earlier Max Payne games appeal to me so much. While it may very well be a competent shooter, it doesn't look like it's going to bring back one of the most atmospheric series ever.

    I suppose it's worth remembering that Rockstar does have some serious storytelling chops though, so I'd imagine it will still be an engaging storyline with interesting characters. I'm just going to miss the deeply immersive night-time snow/rain setting.

  • Alan Wake

    Looks fuckin' awesome IMO!

    I like that bullet time is in there. Definitely what I expect from a Remedy game, and to be honest I think this'll feel closer to Max Payne than the real Max Payne 3.

  • Uncharted 2 - Among Thieves

    This does look truly astounding. I still consider the original Uncharted one of the best games of this generation, perhaps not entirely for its gameplay but the whole package of its atmosphere, story and characters — it actually reminds me of Broken Sword in some respects. It came out a bit too early in the PS3's life cycle for its own good really though, as when it was hot news not too many people had one.

    It looks like this is really stepping things up a notch, and it also happens to look aesthetically superb. Going to be one of the strongest games coming out for quite some time I think.

  • Monkey Islands! Plural!

    Yeah, I'm really excited about Telltale's game. Not only is Telltale itself comprised mostly of ex-LucasArts staff, but they've brought in loads of people from the original games such as the original designers (Including Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert himself!), the guy who did the music for the first three games, etc.

    I'm quite looking forward to the Monkey Island 1 remake too. While Guybrush looks a bit too much like a Hitler Youth recruit for my tastes, the graphics, new music, etc are wonderful. I've been fancying replaying Monkey Island 1 for a while, too.