The Good Doctor

Because how could they spend $10 million on catering when the whole movie’s budget is only $5 million?

Gaming journalists don’t like games. What else is new?

For once I’m glad all my musical idols are dead.

Oh fuck

As they should be. One of the things I don’t care for in Fallout 76 is how deathclaws got so drowned out by other, more dangerous, wasteland creatures to the point of basically being forgettable. Other games might have introduced a few beasts who can rival them with numbers (like cazadores and tunnelers), but in my opinion, deathclaws should always be the apex predators of the wasteland. From Fallout 1: "The Deathclaw is the most evil thing to rise out of the ashes after the war. Some say it's a powerful ghost from the war that haunts the land. It's no ghost, it's as real as you and me. It's 20 feet tall with teeth as big as your arm. It's some kind of demon that found its way here when the world was engulfed in fire."

How’d you find it on a rewatch?

That’s what I meant. Like screwed out of having any sort of safe zone. I guess you could still retreat into the generator room and lock the door to it. But there’s nowhere to run if he gets past that.

So then you’re just screwed, huh?

Bunker does a good job of keeping the terror up even as you get more familiar with it. It’s never been quite as scary for me as it was in the first hour, but the beast digging a hole into the "safe" room definitely got close. He also seems to hang out around the early game area a lot more than he used to. Game won’t let you get too comfortable.

And the decision to make the flashlight noisy, forcing players to choose between varying degrees of stealth and vision, was inspired. It perfectly encapsulates the devs’ original gameplay philosophy when making Dark Descent: instead of forcing scary moments onto players (like scripted jump scares), they wanted to force the players to do the scary things themselves. The horror is so much more real when you must personally create noises that you know will attract the monster.

@BigBossBalrog Gosh dog, this game is sooooo much better than Rebirth it’s almost unreal. I am slowly but surely getting more comfortable with the mechanics and really loving the gameplay loop. It’s basically just a terrifying Metroidvania where you gradually explore each area more and more over several trips, limited in how much you can accomplish at once by the small carrying capacity. The monster never stops being scary. Thing is too smart for an AI, knows how to navigate around obstacles and traps, and I could’ve sworn it even dipped away when I threw a grenade at it. Have pretty thoroughly explored the maintenance tunnels and the prison. Even kinda-sorta saved the German (took several attempts) using an explosive barrel and a molotov to drive the beast away. Though one of the coolest and most surprising moments was popping up topside for a breather only to nearly get my head blown off by a German sniper. Crazy all this is happening in the middle of an active trench war, and nobody up there seems any the wiser.

Yeah, wrong turns can be lethal. But at least those are my fault. Watching my legs get stuck on flat planks of broken wood that I pried off a doorway is easily the most frustrating thing in this game. Otherwise, I have few complaints. It’s very good.

#1 cause of death in this game: getting stuck on random tiny objects on the floor while trying to run from the beast.

Yeah, that purchase removed any doubt that they’d be doing a sequel. Wonder if they’ll get GRRM’s name on this one too.

I’d almost prefer it to be seperate, considering how much Rebirth diminished my investment in the universe. But I’ll probably just ignore that one and plow forward like it never happened. I did find a note mentioning Roman ruins, so I’m guessing that’s going to be where the ghoul is from. Some old world evil that got buried by the Romans until the French dug it back up.

The pistol is functionally a noisy lockpick.

That is one thing. But I’ve heard plenty of "typical Bethesda" complaints as well.

The ghoul is a terrifying enemy. I had so many encounters in the first hour or two where I just couldn’t figure out where the bastard was, but could hear him very close, and he definitely heard me. I have a feeling he saw me too, but I wasn’t about to look over my shoulder while running to find out. The gameplay and puzzles are a very nice return to form. So is the atmosphere. No "fear flashes" or cheap jump scares, no obnoxious music cues, and no whiney protagonist who can’t shut the hell up. Just good old fashioned hide-and-seek with a creature in the silent dark. I’m getting the impression that this is going to be a simpler, less "high concept" story than any of their other games, but that’s probably for the best after the mess that was Afterbirth.

That’s funny, because most the criticism I’ve heard has almost been the opposite. Starfield is too much like other Bethesda games, in many of the wrong ways. You can only do the same tricks for so long before people get tired of them. Especially given that Bethesda’s awful writing, mediocre gameplay, and wonky engine have always been carried hard by The Elder Scrolls and Fallout being incredible settings. If anything, Starfield’s reception proves that they aren’t really worth much without their brands.

Which is a huge number of people. Even a quarter of that would’ve surprised me with how high it is, to be honest. I’m not a researcher, and it doesn’t help my argument, but just intuitively I have a hard time believing that 1 in a 100 people have experienced this, or even close to that number. The ability to prove what’s going on in a person’s head is a lot more limited than the ability to prove fantastical capabilities. There being a debate over whether cases of DID are physical neurological issues, "in their head" psychological issues, or simply dishonest patients playing a character, doesn’t have much bearing on the question of whether the patients become powerful monster men. If that wasn’t exceptional, then we would have examples of that behavior regardless of the explanation or label. Which is enough to support the point of it being very mild superpowers, as you said in an earlier post. That’s not a criticism of the movie, it’s just what it is. I would also throw in the wall crawling.

Clip got me imagining what would’ve happened if this was how the Emperor responded to Paul in Dune 2.

Finally checked out Amnesia: The Bunker today. I liked it. Too tired to get into it now, but man it so much better than Rebirth.

I mean, it’s not a newly discovered or unstudied condition. And not even that rare in the grand scheme of neurological conditions (not to say it isn’t rare, but it’s not like a 1 in a million thing). There are thousands of documented cases, and while some can get pretty wild, a case where a person turns into something like "the Beast", a crazy cannibal with super powers (or near enough), would certainly be an extreme outlier, if it’s ever happened at all. But that’s why the movie is fun; it takes a real condition and combines it with an absolute human extreme. Of course. You don’t need to convince me of the movie’s premise. I know and like it quite a bit, even wish we’d gotten more of it. You’ve honestly made me want to go back and rewatch.

She’s had some DID patients and spent a fair amount of time studying the condition, but unfortunately never had any that were particularly exciting. Hopes to someday. I believe that’s primarily what she was referring to. The way his "Beast" personality took it from a medical condition to a super power. I don’t recall his strength being beyond what a human could potentially do at their limits, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it and same for her. Plausible isn’t the word I’d use. Whole point of the movie is that it’s exceptional.

We were talking last night so I asked her about this. I guess I should backtrack because she does have complaints about inaccuracies, but it made for a better movie so it gets a pass. Just treat it like a fictional "Super DID" and it works fine.