Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-08-24 08:11 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-08-24 08:11 pm
I Took It Very Seriously From The Start.
There's a twenty-minute gameplay preview of Life Is Strange 2! It takes a while to get going and then gets extremely going very quickly. I'm already invested. (And it's already upsetting, which is very Life Is Strange.)
I was a little sorry at first to learn that Life Is Strange 2 was going to focus on male protagonists, when the original Life Is Strange was about young women, but then I watched the trailer and went '...siblings? on the run? I'm in so much trouble.' Someone's baiting a Riona trap and I am going to walk straight into it.
(Rei commented on similarities to Supernatural and then made the mind-shattering observation that the sibling protagonists of Life Is Strange 2 are named Dan and Sean.)
I watched American Animals last night! It's an excellent film. I don't often get very into films, but I hugely enjoyed this one all the way through.
The story American Animals tells is true; it's about the Transylvania University rare book theft of 2004. A group of students decided that their lives needed more excitement and romance, and that the best way to achieve this was by carrying out a heist. The film is cut with interview segments with the actual people who were originally involved, which I think work very well. (If we hadn't seen the real Warren in the film, I'd have gone 'pfft, obviously Warren's character is hugely exaggerated, some "true" story.' But no; the real Warren seems just as larger-than-life as the character.)
It was a preview screening (the official UK release date is the 7th of September), and the writer/director, Bart Layton, did a Q&A afterwards. I was impressed by how much thought had gone into the film. A few interesting details from the Q&A:
- The writer originally got in touch with the culprits when they were still in prison. He was fascinated by the case and couldn't work out why they'd gone 'hey, let's do a heist!' in the first place, so he wrote to them and they wrote back. As he came to understand the 'it just seemed so romantic, it was a fantasy, and we were just playing around in the expectation that at some point we'd hit an insurmountable obstacle, and, whoops, that obstacle never came and we found ourselves actually doing the heist' reasoning behind it, he started to think this might be a story worth telling. The whole film was based on what he learnt from the people who were actually involved.
- The actors weren't allowed to research their roles by talking to the actual culprits. 'The real Warren is very charismatic, and I didn't want him telling the actor "hey, don't make me out to be too much of a dick." But the actor, obviously channeling Warren, completely disobeyed me and tracked him down on Twitter. I had to put a stop to it.'
- To begin with, the film's shot in a fairly low-key, 'realistic' style. As the boys get more caught up in the fantasy of the heist, it becomes more like a 'heist movie' in visuals, structure, sound. Until they cross that line and realise that, whoops, this is reality, this isn't a daydream, actual heists have consequences, and the style snaps back to realism.
- In the process of the heist, the culprits seriously traumatised a librarian. She was initially hesitant about being involved with the film, but she eventually agreed to be a part of it. Apparently she loved the final film and said it had helped her begin to forgive the people involved, because she had come to realise that they were 'idiots rather than criminals'.
American Animals is fun and interesting and stressful and I recommend it!
I was a little sorry at first to learn that Life Is Strange 2 was going to focus on male protagonists, when the original Life Is Strange was about young women, but then I watched the trailer and went '...siblings? on the run? I'm in so much trouble.' Someone's baiting a Riona trap and I am going to walk straight into it.
(Rei commented on similarities to Supernatural and then made the mind-shattering observation that the sibling protagonists of Life Is Strange 2 are named Dan and Sean.)
I watched American Animals last night! It's an excellent film. I don't often get very into films, but I hugely enjoyed this one all the way through.
The story American Animals tells is true; it's about the Transylvania University rare book theft of 2004. A group of students decided that their lives needed more excitement and romance, and that the best way to achieve this was by carrying out a heist. The film is cut with interview segments with the actual people who were originally involved, which I think work very well. (If we hadn't seen the real Warren in the film, I'd have gone 'pfft, obviously Warren's character is hugely exaggerated, some "true" story.' But no; the real Warren seems just as larger-than-life as the character.)
It was a preview screening (the official UK release date is the 7th of September), and the writer/director, Bart Layton, did a Q&A afterwards. I was impressed by how much thought had gone into the film. A few interesting details from the Q&A:
- The writer originally got in touch with the culprits when they were still in prison. He was fascinated by the case and couldn't work out why they'd gone 'hey, let's do a heist!' in the first place, so he wrote to them and they wrote back. As he came to understand the 'it just seemed so romantic, it was a fantasy, and we were just playing around in the expectation that at some point we'd hit an insurmountable obstacle, and, whoops, that obstacle never came and we found ourselves actually doing the heist' reasoning behind it, he started to think this might be a story worth telling. The whole film was based on what he learnt from the people who were actually involved.
- The actors weren't allowed to research their roles by talking to the actual culprits. 'The real Warren is very charismatic, and I didn't want him telling the actor "hey, don't make me out to be too much of a dick." But the actor, obviously channeling Warren, completely disobeyed me and tracked him down on Twitter. I had to put a stop to it.'
- To begin with, the film's shot in a fairly low-key, 'realistic' style. As the boys get more caught up in the fantasy of the heist, it becomes more like a 'heist movie' in visuals, structure, sound. Until they cross that line and realise that, whoops, this is reality, this isn't a daydream, actual heists have consequences, and the style snaps back to realism.
- In the process of the heist, the culprits seriously traumatised a librarian. She was initially hesitant about being involved with the film, but she eventually agreed to be a part of it. Apparently she loved the final film and said it had helped her begin to forgive the people involved, because she had come to realise that they were 'idiots rather than criminals'.
American Animals is fun and interesting and stressful and I recommend it!
no subject
It does sound incredibly you.
If we hadn't seen the real Warren in the film, I'd have gone 'pfft, obviously Warren's character is hugely exaggerated, some "true" story.' But no; the real Warren seems just as larger-than-life as the character.
Ooh, I really want to see that now!
To begin with, the film's shot in a fairly low-key, 'realistic' style. As the boys get more caught up in the fantasy of the heist, it becomes more like a 'heist movie' in visuals, structure, sound. Until they cross that line and realise that, whoops, this is reality, this isn't a daydream, actual heists have consequences, and the style snaps back to realism.
Stylistic choices that serve the narrative! I have to see it now!
no subject
When the real Warren is introduced to us, he's enthusiastically showing the camera his wobbly tattoo of a T-rex trying to reach a ceiling fan.
I hope you enjoy it, if you do watch it! I think it's come and gone in US cinemas, alas.
no subject
...it took me a few minutes to figure out why he'd have the T-rex trying to reach a ceiling fan.
Yeah, I think it's out of theaters, but should be obtainable soon.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-08-25 01:55 pm (UTC)(link)I really need to play Before the Storm. I own it; I just haven't got around to it yet.
I don't really watch films, but that does sound interesting and experimental!
-
This Summer, I've finally been working on Assassin's Creed again! Long story short, I played Assassin's Creed 2 on PC when you were writing about it in your journal. The controls are very unforgiving when you multi task as badly as me and they involve both keyboard and mouse, and they're set up like mine were. (Iirc, camera control was on the mouse, while the keyboard was everything else.) I got very frustrated and didn't finish it.
I picked a bunch of Assassin's Creed up on PS4 earlier this year, and have been playing it this summer! I replayed 2 and finally finished it, and am about halfway through Brotherhood at the moment. I jotted down some thoughts, comparisons etc - they did get a bit absurdly long so I think I'll post them as a separate reply to this!
I won't talk about Brotherhood yet except to say I did the world's most frustrating mission last night. I nearly rage quit, haha. "Shut the gates!" Er, sure, okay. -gets hit- -kills guys by the switch so I can close the gate- -six more swarm in- Rinse and repeat. I desynchronised at least 3 or 4 times - I don't even know why for two of them! I don't -think- I died. (Once I desynchronised as my ally died.) Though I have also had a mustery desynchronisation before in Brotherhood; I logged out between missions in the big castle, and it restarted me in the middle of the town despite the fact I needed to climb upstairs. I started running back and after about 30 seconds the game desynchronised me for literally no reason, probably realising the area I was in was supposed to be out of bounds or something, and restarted me in the town where I was actually supposed to start the mission from.
Okay, lots of WORDS incoming.
-timydamonkey
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-08-25 01:55 pm (UTC)(link)(Got up to sequence 12, memory 3)
OVERALL:
Synchronisation: 50.7%
Time Played: 17:55:40
Distance Travelled: 97491
FIGHT:
Deaths: 26
Favourite Weapon: Double blade
Enemies Killed In Fight: 347
Enemies Killed With Hidden Blade: 97
Air assassinations: 4
Double air assassinations: 0
Disarms: 4
NAVIGATION:
Height climbed: 5042
Distance travelled on ground: 60911
Distance swam: 1816
Distance travelled on horseback: 10134
Distance travelled on gondolas: 780
Distance flown: 936
VILLA:
Restoration: 76%
Value: 114060
Population: 2661
Renovations Completed: 100%
Shops Opened: 100%
Collections: 11%
Equipment: 26%
SOCIAL:
Florins earned: 281775
Florins spent: 207926
Blended: 00:09:03
Times Notorious: 17
Couriers Killed: 0
Courtesans Hired: 18
Mercenaries Hired: 9
Thieves Hired: 12
PS4 PLAYTHROUGH (CONTROLLER) – 2018
(To be fair, these stats are from me being up to the same section of sequence 12, memory 3 for a direct comparison) – The bracketed stats afterwards are the post-game ones. LOL look at the difference in the “times notorious” stat.
OVERALL:
Synchronisation: 53.52% (66.19%)
Time Played: 20:37:23 (23:43:27)
Distance Travelled: 150594 (171769)
FIGHT:
Deaths: 10 (10)
Favourite Weapon: Hidden blade (Hidden blade)
Enemies Killed In Fight: 435 (626)
Enemies Killed With Hidden Blade: 249 (334)
Air assassinations: 11 (13)
Double air assassinations: 5 (6)
Disarms: 3 (3)
NAVIGATION:
Height climbed: 6895 (7910)
Distance travelled on ground: 100587 (115251)
Distance swam: 3365 (3562)
Distance travelled on horseback: 13421 (15727)
Distance travelled on gondolas: 493 (493)
Distance flown: 1008 (1008)
VILLA:
Restoration: 94% (95%)
Value: 141790 (142920)
Population: 3308 (3334)
Renovations Completed: 100% (100%)
Shops Opened: 100% (100%)
Collections: 50% (55%)
Equipment: 97% (97%)
SOCIAL:
Florins earned: 597867 (838370)
Florins spent: 479762 (481676)
Blended: 00:07:20 (00:10:24)
Times Notorious: 26 (45)
Couriers Killed: 2 (2)
Courtesans Hired: 22 (22)
Mercenaries Hired: 10 (10)
Thieves Hired: 12 (12)
Some funny things about AC2 from replay:
-The minstrels. Oh god, the minstrels. There’s something deeply hilarious about hiring some courtesans to occupy a guard so you can get to a chest, and trying to stand vaguely non-suspiciously while they get into the going with the courtesans animation while two minstrels dance around in front of you trying to make me conspicuous. I like to think the guards were so happy dancing with courtesans they never stopped to see where the music came from.
-On the other hand, I’m currently doing a tail the templars mission as I write this, and I’m trying to be at a vaguely stealthy distance while a minstrel blocks my way and sings loudly over their conversation so I can’t take any of it in. CLEARLY HE WORKS FOR THE TEMPLARS. No wonder the templars keep knowing Ezio is chasing them. It’s because the minstrels sing whenever they see him in a “hey, here he is!” cue. xD (In the subsequent dialogue: “[Ezio] could be anywhere! He could be here right now and we would not know!” Clearly the templars greatest fault is not listening to the minstrels more.)
-“Whoops, I glitched the game” moment: There’s an assassination mission that also doubles as a smoke bomb tutorial. What I think you’re supposed to do is to go and speak to somebody about smoke bombs and acquire them before starting the mission. I hate timed missions - that’s both timers, and prolonged chase sequences, as I don’t have time to think. I climbed up onto the roof of the building where my target was sheltering before trying to progress so I could scout it out and get a feel for the place, placements of guards etc. The game then went “uh, you’re up here?” and kicked the mission off – kill him before he fully shelters inside the building. I watched in eagle vision mode for my target, then did a flying dive off the roof that I’m really proud of as I somehow landed directly in front of my target and immediately stabbed him. The game then went “kill your target before he flees”, and I was like… uh, pretty sure he’s dead. The game then realised he was dead and came up with its smoke bomb tutorial. I opened my weapon wheel and… surprise, no smoke bombs! Because I sequence broke. xD I tried running around in eagle vision mode but couldn’t find a door, so dropped it and managed to run out the building, then dive on a horse and gallop away as fast as I could. …I never did learn to use smoke bombs, but it was certainly a far tenser escape! (I did eventually figure out where to buy smoke bombs after reading a lot of useless “Where do you get smoke bombs?” “In sequence 5” posts. Yes, I know that, people. I am –past that point in sequence 5-.)
-More weird sequence breaking: There’s a plotline where the templars are trying to kill the doge and install one of their own. The building is impenetrable, better scout it out! But Ezio has already broken onto the roof there prior to this sequence to tackle an assassin’s tomb. Relax, Antonio, that building isn’t a big deal at all!
-Leonardo, I still have a grudge against you for your flying machine from my first playthrough. Have you ever tried to fly that thing on keyboard controls?! It was much, much easier this time through, when I flipped the controls and could use a controller.
-Ezio: -flies flying machine for literally half a second before crashing due to inverted controls-
Leonardo: “I can’t believe it, Ezio! You really flew!”
…Er, I think it’s called a crash landing, Leonardo. No need to be so excited.
-My main gameplay memory of Assassin’s Creed 2 was carnevale – specifically, the 2 minute race between checkpoints (and to a lesser extent capture the flag). I hated it. I nearly quit the game. This time, I did it in two goes – I used first partially as a scout route, then chose a wrong way to a route which completely wrote it off. The controller really does make a huge difference to making the timed missions bearable. Using a keyboard and mouse together, I’m not too coordinated so I had to move, stop, move camera, etc because the game is very awkward about where the camera is facing when you jump forward if you don’t want to suicidally dive off buildings. This, naturally, eats away a lot of time and makes timed missions hell. I think, on my PC playthrough, in the end my brother did it for me on an xbox controller. So it’s cool to see how the mission is actually intended to be played. You never know, I may not have a manic hatred for the carnevale sequence by the time I’ve finished this one! Let’s see if capture the flag is as hateful as I remember it being. (Capture the flag: won 2 rounds easily, suddenly became rubbish and opponent won 2 rounds, before I won the final round.)
-I wish civilians wouldn’t stand in the middle of my guard fights. “Desynchronised: Ezio did not kill civilians” appeared when I was in the middle of a brawl with city guards to free mercenaries, and leapt at what should have been a guard but actually did a double air assassination on two civilians instead. Whoops. You guys should really move out of the way.
-Got stuck in a building and had to reload. I’d finished one of the nine Florence assassination missions, having killed my target and ran up onto the roof tops, then hid in a bale of hay on the roof to go anonymous. When the game acknowledged I was anonymous, it decided to restart me on the floor in the middle of an enclosed building. I could climb up some of it and hang on the side of a low roof, but game absolutely refused to let me climb up even though it’s something I regularly do in the game. Everywhere else that I could climb I seemed to be hitting invisible walls or things above my head meant it refused to let me jump. Reloaded and started outside of said building, thankfully.
-The enforced stealth missions in sequence 13 prove to me that I’d be a terrible assassin. (Look at those kills stats between sequence 12 and end of sequence 14! I reckon at least 100, maybe even as much of 150 of those extra kills were from sequence 13… so you can see why the “assassinate this guy WITHOUT EVER BEING SEEN” in said sequence missions were not my forte.)
-I hate these rooftop chase scenes. I like being on the roof, but the NPCs run so fast you have to free run to keep up, and free running on roofs mean that at any given moment Ezio discovers his want to be a lemming and starts diving off buildings. Ordinarily, I just hold R2 but not free run up there, so I’m not falling off all the time.
no subject
I don't know whether you played The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, but the ending suggested this game might deal with a different type of power.
I'm enjoying all your tales of weird Assassin's Creed glitches. Assassin's Creed II behaved itself when I played it, as far as I recall. (I'm also entertained by the fact that you accidentally killed two civilians simultaneously.)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2018-08-25 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)I did not! I'm trying to go into it mostly blind.
Brotherhood seems far glitchier than 2, for me. Other highlights include a mission where you were told explicitly to use blending groups to not be seen for part of a mission, but on 2 separate attempts the 2 separate blending groups I was trying to utilise got stuck in their walk and stopped moving. (One group got stuck between buildings, one on a tree.) One of the groups was glowing, so the game was trying to tell you to use them... but nope, gotta glitch em out.
Ezio also got stuck climbing up a building. I mostly ignore the free run start points, and climb directly up windows. I climbed up and there was a wooden platform above me; normally Ezio will move back and climb up it, but nope, he moved directly into the middle of it and hung stuck in this platform. xD He would make animations but couldn't get out til I restarted the game. I could call my horse though! I hoped I'dfall off onto the horse, but alas, no.