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Oct. 30th, 2009 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickFrom the NYT review of Boondock Saints mk II: Apparently the world has been waiting for another cartoonishly violent, broadly comic Boston Irish Catholic vigilante action movie with gay overtones. Yes, NYT, it has. At least this tiny little corner of the world has been so waiting. This movie may have an audience of one (that would be me) but, hell, that's one more than went to see Pluto Nash.
In other news, Garrett is still stuck in the tunnels evading the damn lizards. I tried again with that last night with not a lot of progress. Extensive research of the problem suggests that once you drop him down the rope into the small rooms with zombies (I hatez them, I do) and connected swimming pools, there is no way for him to get back up the rope. The rope is too high for him to jump up and catch. Rope arrows also do not drop down far enough for him to climb back up them. While it is possible to pick up and carry pieces of corpses (the only carry-able items nearby) and pile them up under the end of the rope, standing on same still does not make it possible for Garrett to jump up and catch the rope. There is "rubble" further down the lizard tunnels, the which Garrett is able to move and able to stand on, but he'd have to carry it quite a long way back *and* climb a ladder while holding it, which I am not certain he is able to do. I haven't tried that yet because usually the game designers do not expect you to carry shit for miles and miles of backtracking. Not only is it boring as hell, I still have other, more-plausible unexplored options in the lizard tunnels.
I'm still clinging to the idea that there is a way out and that it is through the lizard tunnels, which show up on Felix's alleged map as "Where am I?" off to the right of where Garrett is supposed to be. There is an arrow scratched on the wall very close to the beginning of the lizard tunnels that points back to where Garrett came from to get INTO the lizard tunnels, but since he can't go back up the rope in the three rooms with swimming pools, it is clearly an arrow intended for persons that are not him.
Further exploration of the lizard tunnels eventually winds Garrett up on a ledge way above a large and commodiously accomodating piece of water. (I'm not sure how I got him there but I did get him there once and I suspect I can get him there again, with more ammo and better health.) There are several ledges and tunnels and whatnot below the first ledge. There is a way (relatively safe) back up to the top ledge from the water. In fact, about the only damn thing Garrett can do from the water is get back to the top ledge. (There is an additional small room accessible from the water which has water arrows in it. That is only interesting one time, however, because after the arrows are stolen, there is nothing else there to see or do.)
As should now be blindingly obvious to everyone who has ever played one of these games, the point of the large and commodiously accomodating piece of water underneath the ledges is so that Garrett doesn't die when he fucks up a jump. (I am putting this forth for my mother, who does not play these games and may not immediately understand why there is water at the bottom of this set-up.) The general idea, here, is that Garrett is to leap cautiously and carefully from ledge to tunnel to ledge and whatever, working his way down (and past the aforementioned lizards) to where he is supposed to go, which will likely be the absolute last place that he can leap to from some other place. (A more sadistic game designer would make it the next-to-last place, but unobviously, so that one would have to leap down N+1 times due to the incorrect assumption that the intended out is at the absolute last place. This game is not that sadistic.) Not sure how Garrett feels about this (he'll be doing a hell of a lot of swimming because I suck at this sort of thing), but I am not amused.
Thing is, there has to be a way out of the lizard tunnels. It is not fair to drop a player down a reasonable non-mistake (eg, didn't fall off a cliff and survive by accident) level and have it be a game-ending and unrecoverable error. There was a rope, for fuck's sake. If they didn't want us to climb down the rope and have a look-see, then there would not have been a rope over the conveniently located hole in the floor. Nor would there be so many interesting things to do (all of them, unfortunately, proximal to poisonous-gas burping lizards) once you've dropped Garrett down the hole. Rule 3 of Proper Game Design: If the game doesn't want you to go there, then there isn't a there there. The fact that you CAN go there, ipso facto, means you are allowed to go there. Hell, you might even *need* to go there to accomplish whatever the hell it is you're supposed to be accomplishing, which in this case is stealing the Horn of Horniness (Not its actual name. I keep wanting to call it the Horn of Gondor, but that probably isn't correct either.) from some crypt using a butt-useless map written by the illiterate and directionally-confused Felix (who totally passed up the opportunity to put Here Be Dragons on his map), said map offered up by Cutty-the-fence as he died mid-rescue in the Hammerite prison while Garrett was trying to save him so that he could get paid for stealing the Jeweled Sceptre of Phallic Symbolism from Baffort's mansion. I am not at all certain to whom Garrett plans to sell the Horn of Horniness, seeing as how his fence is dead in the Hammerite prison, but perhaps it is a horn worth blowing for its own sake. :) We shall see, assuming I get past the ever-present lizards and the annoying ledge-leaping set piece.
In other news, Garrett is still stuck in the tunnels evading the damn lizards. I tried again with that last night with not a lot of progress. Extensive research of the problem suggests that once you drop him down the rope into the small rooms with zombies (I hatez them, I do) and connected swimming pools, there is no way for him to get back up the rope. The rope is too high for him to jump up and catch. Rope arrows also do not drop down far enough for him to climb back up them. While it is possible to pick up and carry pieces of corpses (the only carry-able items nearby) and pile them up under the end of the rope, standing on same still does not make it possible for Garrett to jump up and catch the rope. There is "rubble" further down the lizard tunnels, the which Garrett is able to move and able to stand on, but he'd have to carry it quite a long way back *and* climb a ladder while holding it, which I am not certain he is able to do. I haven't tried that yet because usually the game designers do not expect you to carry shit for miles and miles of backtracking. Not only is it boring as hell, I still have other, more-plausible unexplored options in the lizard tunnels.
I'm still clinging to the idea that there is a way out and that it is through the lizard tunnels, which show up on Felix's alleged map as "Where am I?" off to the right of where Garrett is supposed to be. There is an arrow scratched on the wall very close to the beginning of the lizard tunnels that points back to where Garrett came from to get INTO the lizard tunnels, but since he can't go back up the rope in the three rooms with swimming pools, it is clearly an arrow intended for persons that are not him.
Further exploration of the lizard tunnels eventually winds Garrett up on a ledge way above a large and commodiously accomodating piece of water. (I'm not sure how I got him there but I did get him there once and I suspect I can get him there again, with more ammo and better health.) There are several ledges and tunnels and whatnot below the first ledge. There is a way (relatively safe) back up to the top ledge from the water. In fact, about the only damn thing Garrett can do from the water is get back to the top ledge. (There is an additional small room accessible from the water which has water arrows in it. That is only interesting one time, however, because after the arrows are stolen, there is nothing else there to see or do.)
As should now be blindingly obvious to everyone who has ever played one of these games, the point of the large and commodiously accomodating piece of water underneath the ledges is so that Garrett doesn't die when he fucks up a jump. (I am putting this forth for my mother, who does not play these games and may not immediately understand why there is water at the bottom of this set-up.) The general idea, here, is that Garrett is to leap cautiously and carefully from ledge to tunnel to ledge and whatever, working his way down (and past the aforementioned lizards) to where he is supposed to go, which will likely be the absolute last place that he can leap to from some other place. (A more sadistic game designer would make it the next-to-last place, but unobviously, so that one would have to leap down N+1 times due to the incorrect assumption that the intended out is at the absolute last place. This game is not that sadistic.) Not sure how Garrett feels about this (he'll be doing a hell of a lot of swimming because I suck at this sort of thing), but I am not amused.
Thing is, there has to be a way out of the lizard tunnels. It is not fair to drop a player down a reasonable non-mistake (eg, didn't fall off a cliff and survive by accident) level and have it be a game-ending and unrecoverable error. There was a rope, for fuck's sake. If they didn't want us to climb down the rope and have a look-see, then there would not have been a rope over the conveniently located hole in the floor. Nor would there be so many interesting things to do (all of them, unfortunately, proximal to poisonous-gas burping lizards) once you've dropped Garrett down the hole. Rule 3 of Proper Game Design: If the game doesn't want you to go there, then there isn't a there there. The fact that you CAN go there, ipso facto, means you are allowed to go there. Hell, you might even *need* to go there to accomplish whatever the hell it is you're supposed to be accomplishing, which in this case is stealing the Horn of Horniness (Not its actual name. I keep wanting to call it the Horn of Gondor, but that probably isn't correct either.) from some crypt using a butt-useless map written by the illiterate and directionally-confused Felix (who totally passed up the opportunity to put Here Be Dragons on his map), said map offered up by Cutty-the-fence as he died mid-rescue in the Hammerite prison while Garrett was trying to save him so that he could get paid for stealing the Jeweled Sceptre of Phallic Symbolism from Baffort's mansion. I am not at all certain to whom Garrett plans to sell the Horn of Horniness, seeing as how his fence is dead in the Hammerite prison, but perhaps it is a horn worth blowing for its own sake. :) We shall see, assuming I get past the ever-present lizards and the annoying ledge-leaping set piece.
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Date: 2009-10-30 04:34 pm (UTC)The example that sticks in my mind: Playing the new Ratchet & Clank now. When fighting a particular boss, it looks like he has these three laser arms and when they stop spinning around it's clear that the arms are held on by giant bolts. Hmm. Perhaps to defeat the boss I should unfasten those bolts with the giant wrench (http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/1048/1110297-omni_wrench_super.jpg) our hero carries around everywhere? The one he's holding on the cover of the box (http://playstationsquad.com/files/2009/08/ratchet-clank-ait-cover.jpg)? The one he's had in every game in this series for the past ten years, and used to turn innumerable bolts with already? But no, they were worried some people wouldn't get it, and so there's an NPC constantly yammering in my ear and telling me to unfasten the bolt! Quick! Hurry!!...
Er, well, anyway, the reason I bring this up is that suddenly a game which doesn't explain in agonizing detail what I should be doing next is starting to sound pretty good.
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Date: 2009-10-31 01:39 am (UTC)*Some of the zombies may be ghouls. They didn't look quite like the other zombies and had different moans. I'm not sure that it really matters -- they're undead. They are trying to kill me. They sort of shuffle along.
**Probably only five or six. I believe I've mentioned that the zombies creep me *right* the hell out? Zombies do not seem like appropriate Thief foes, honestly. It's not like they have anything to steal, after all.