Video Games: Dawn of Waaaaagh!

[Werthead]

14 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Heck, I think if someone reimagines the ending to Mass Effect 3 then the original trilogy could translate well to a TV series.

But the TV adaptation should start with the discovery of the Prothean tech on Mars in 2148 and the discovery that Charon is a mass relay, anchor that point by moving Shepard's birth year coincide with those discoveries, show HER being born and being named. 15 minute prologue, then fast forward to 2183, Shepard and Anderson taking the Normandy through its paces.

I was thinking, logistically how much more expensive it would be to simply film each scene with a male and female actor playing Shepard and then viewers can choose their own preference to follow at the start of the series  

At the very least, they should do gender-blind casting if it ever came down to it.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

14 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

But the TV adaptation should start with the discovery of the Prothean tech on Mars in 2148 and the discovery that Charon is a mass relay, anchor that point by moving Shepard's birth year coincide with those discoveries, show HER being born and being named. 15 minute prologue, then fast forward to 2183, Shepard and Anderson taking the Normandy through its paces.

  

I love the idea of a Mass Effect TV series. With effective writing and a strong cast it could be hugely successful.

[mcbigski]

A quick question for MEA on the PC - does it support controllers or is it strictly mouse and keyboard?  M&K is pretty much a deal breaker for me because a mouse makes my hand hurt like hell while using a console style controller causes almost no discomfort.

[briantw]

1 minute ago, mcbigski said:

A quick question for MEA on the PC - does it support controllers or is it strictly mouse and keyboard?  M&K is pretty much a deal breaker for me because a mouse makes my hand hurt like hell while using a console style controller causes almost no discomfort.

I'd imagine a AAA game designed for consoles would include controller support for the PC.

[KiDisaster]

1 minute ago, briantw said:

I'd imagine a AAA game designed for consoles would include controller support for the PC.

You'd think that, but the original trilogy (or at least the first two games) didn't support controllers on PC. You had to download a mod for it. 

Andromeda does though. 

[DunderMifflin]

KOTOR on pc didnt

[briantw]

1 minute ago, DunderMifflin said:

KOTOR on pc didnt

 

20 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

You'd think that, but the original trilogy (or at least the first two games) didn't support controllers on PC. You had to download a mod for it. 

So I guess the message here is that BioWare are just historically lazy fuckers when it comes to PC ports.  

[AndrewJ]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

A quick question for MEA on the PC - does it support controllers or is it strictly mouse and keyboard?  M&K is pretty much a deal breaker for me because a mouse makes my hand hurt like hell while using a console style controller causes almost no discomfort.

Yep - XB1 controller works fine. That's how I'm playing.

[Jasta11]

On 4/8/2017 at 0:33 PM, Fez said:

Something I've discovered going through ME:A is that not all (at least yet), but a fair amount of the plot holes and logic failures actually do have explanations in game. Its just that they are way too buried for them to matter to most people. For instance...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

One thing that made no sense was how poorly written the first contact with the Angara was. Another thing that made no sense was how the exiles in Kadara Port and the Angara seemed to have a long history with each other. Well, if you talk to Aya's governor after going to Aya; she says that the Angara had contact with the Kadara exiles from well before the point when you first come to Aya. And that she didn't mention it because they assumed we already knew all about Kadara. So for the Angarans, it wasn't first contact at all; which is why it wasn't as big a deal for them. And the reason Kadara Port and the Angarans seem like they have a long history is because they do.

It seems like poor execution to bury something like that more 20 hours after the fact. But at least there is an explanation in-game.

Likewise, its mentioned in a couple Codex entries that there's actually quite a bit of time passing during the course of the game. It seems like quite a big oversight for no one to mention it. But it helps explain why things seem to happen so suddenly sometimes; its because its weeks or even months after the last event.

 

 

Spoiler

Yeah, they really should have explained the Angara being able to understand English right away. At the very least, Ryder should have had the option to be surprised that a race that has never met any Nexus race perfectly understands them from the get-go.

As for your second point, unless the contrary is explicitly pointed out by the game I always assume this happens in RPGs. For example, while it's never said in-game, Dragon Age: Origins happens over the course of a full year. When you see the outpost established on Eos, it appears right away, but I assume it took at least a few hours, if not days, for the shuttles to arrive and offload all the prefad buildings and supplies. When playing Witcher 3, I assume that it takes a lot of time for Geralt to travel back and forth between points of interest given the setting. So on and so forth. 

[DunderMifflin]

1 hour ago, briantw said:

 

So I guess the message here is that BioWare are just historically lazy fuckers when it comes to PC ports.  

Both those games were at the height of pc master race campaigns. I wouldnt be surprised if a lot of pc games during that era werent controller friendly.

[briantw]

2 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Both those games were at the height of pc master race campaigns. I wouldnt be surprised if a lot of pc games during that era werent controller friendly.

Also worth noting that one of the main reasons controllers have become such mainstays on the PC now is because of how easy it is to just plug modern console controllers in to a PC and use them.

[drawkcabi]

I just got the Nintendo Classic Mini and I souped it up, I am in classic gamer ecstasy.

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

I was thinking, logistically how much more expensive it would be to simply film each scene with a male and female actor playing Shepard and then viewers can choose their own preference to follow at the start of the series  

At the very least, they should do gender-blind casting if it ever came down to it.

Hell, I would go further than that, for people who have the ability to pause live TV (or if streaming) some of Shepard's major binary decisions (like whether to kill Wrex, whether to save Ash or Kaiden, whether to kill the Rachni Queen) should be up to the viewer. One could even consider whether to let the viewer determine if Shepard is gay or straight, sapiens-sexual (is that the correct term?) or xeno-sexual. We'd probably have an argument in my house about which sexuality route to choose.

There would obviously be a diminishing financial returns curve where cost of production would spiral if there were too many viewer decisions. But sexuality and a handful of major decisions could potentially be incorporated into TV production. Would probably mean such a TV series would be economically more viable if animated rather than live action.

Thinking on it some, I would probably prefer to have a straight, male, xeno-sexual Shepard for the TV series, because Tali is my one true love in Mass Effect. She's really the main reason I played a Male Shepard playthrough of the series.

[DunderMifflin]

I'd rather have more mass effect games than any tv show or movie.

Never got the video game to movie/tv thing. I've never seen one I really enjoyed. No matter how well done/written/filmed/acted, I'm just incredibly bored while watching and I just want a controller in my hand so I can be more interactive in this thing that isn't as good as the game.

Maybe if I could watch one where I've never played the game before I might could enjoy it like a regular movie.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, DunderMifflin said:

I'd rather have more mass effect games than any tv show or movie.

Never got the video game to movie/tv thing. I've never seen one I really enjoyed. No matter how well done/written/filmed/acted, I'm just incredibly bored while watching and I just want a controller in my hand so I can be more interactive in this thing that isn't as good as the game.

Maybe if I could watch one where I've never played the game before I might could enjoy it like a regular movie.

Well, that's one of the fundamental problems for pretty much every such movie / TV shoe to date, usually at least 3 of those 4 elements are mediocre to terrible, and pretty much none are ever good to outstanding.

Warcraft had great visuals. But that's the least important element of what makes for a great movie or TV shouw.

In theory there should be no qualitative difference between adapting a good video game story to movie or TV and adapting a good book to screen.

And I think the main point is to bring these stories to a wider audience, because if it's only fans of a video game that will go see a movie or watch a TV show the audience will never be big enough for the production to make its money back.

I must also admit to wanting non-gamers to give video games more credit and standing as entertainment and art. And one way to do that, IMO, is to successfully adapt a game to movie or TV that gets well received by critics and by non-gamer audiences.  

Was a time when people thought adapting fantasy stories could not have wide appeal outside of genre fans or be Oscar worthy. Then came Lord of the Rings with lots of Oscars, lots of profits and widespread critical praise. And a little while later came Game of Thrones, and that really caught people's attention for a whole lot of other reasons. 

Dave and Dan first read ASOIAF and loved it so much and they saw the story on screen in their own minds before they put a proposal to anyone. I don't know that a good video game adaptation will happen until someone gets inspired to make an adaptation through playing the game, and they bring that passion and excitement.

[DunderMifflin]

I'd like to see the company that made the game make the movie, or at least be heavily involved (in charge)of it. Rather than just selling the rights to some Hollywood studio. 

Something that might be exciting is merge the game with a tv show. And both of them relate....somehow. Then the game could update after each episode or something like that.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

I'd like to see the company that made the game make the movie, or at least be heavily involved (in charge)of it. Rather than just selling the rights to some Hollywood studio. 

Something that might be exciting is merge the game with a tv show. And both of them relate....somehow. Then the game could update after each episode or something like that.

I agree that the creative minds behind a game should at least be creative consultants on an adaptation, though I think even with Naughty Dog involvement The Last of Us adaptation things have hit a bit of a wall.

Was tried with Quantum Break (though not sure how the game and TV show interacted or if the QB TV show ever even happened). Don't think it went well. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried again.

And I must have missed it, but the Uncharted Script is finished https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2017/01/09/should-we-get-excited-for-the-uncharted-movie/#558709f25ddd  https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-uncharted-movie-has-an-r-rated-script-naughty-/1100-6448152/

The script is not based on any of the game stories. Not sure how I feel about a movie that is only related to a game because of the names of the characters, it's not really an adaptation then is it? Imagine a movie about Hobbits not actually being one of Tolkein's stories. Or a Mass Effect TV series being about something other than the the Milky Way vs. the Reapers?

[briantw]

11 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The script is not based on any of the game stories. Not sure how I feel about a movie that is only related to a game because of the names of the characters, it's not really an adaptation then is it? Imagine a movie about Hobbits not actually being one of Tolkein's stories. Or a Mass Effect TV series being about something other than the the Milky Way vs. the Reapers?

I think that's fine for a franchise like Uncharted, as each game was essentially stand-alone.  There's no sweeping arc from one game to the next like in Mass Effect.  Uncharted is more akin to James Bond or Indiana Jones, where each film is its own thing but some characters and secondary arcs carry over.

[DunderMifflin]

How can Uncharted movie be anything but a money grab. Nothing to do with any of the games plots. Then what's the point? Anybody can write their own movie about an adventurer/explorer dude.
 

[briantw]

Just now, DunderMifflin said:

How can Uncharted movie be anything but a money grab. Nothing to do with any of the games plots. Then what's the point? Anybody can write their own movie about an adventurer/explorer dude.
 

Every game to movie adaptation is a money grab.  

As for Uncharted, I think it's the characters who mattered more than the individual stories of the games themselves.  I couldn't even tell you half of what happened in the first three Uncharted games, and I finished all of them.  It's not as if these games had incredible stories to begin with.  They were about the characters more than the plot, which tended to be ridiculously over-the-top.