The Nerd Thread (comics, movies, anime, cartoons, video games, lore, fun stuff, ect.)

@Dex Stewart  
Or at least, for when Eggman was going to be the hero originally.
 
@Background Pony #43A7  
Yeah, I tire of that “Sonic ripped off Mario” bumpkis… It was inspired yes, like the coin/ring system, but Sonic has many differences. By that logic any classic platformer is a “Mario rip off.” Or going back further, it’d be like saying Super Mario “ripped off” Pac-Land.
 
Ironically, I see some Sonic fans accuse Mario of the opposite. Like saying New Donk City ripped off Station Square. (Frankly, Sonic didn’t invent city levels, and Mario had city levels before in Mario Kart, and in Gameboy Donkey Kong ‘94.)
 
It’s like people don’t understand the difference between “blatant copy” and “common tropes.”

@Beau Skunky  
… he was going to be the hero?

@Phantom Rider
 
He was going to be, if I recall, a bit of a cowboy’ish character vaguely reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt.

 
Somehow looking up “the Man Behind the Slaughter” memes got me Handsome Thanos.

@Dustcan  
i mean…
 
purple, main overall villain of their respective franchises, killed a lot of people…

@ichiban iceychan 1517
 
Sure that tracks but I’m still trying to figure out where Squidward entered the equation.

@Phantom Rider  
@Zincy  
They considered many characters before Naoto Oshima designed Sonic.
 
Eggman/Robotnik was one, but they liked his design enough they made him the villain instead.
 

@Dustcan  
Bald and hates everything but themselves?

@ichiban iceychan 1517  
That tracks.

The first 10 minutes of Tremors.  
Lost count on how many times I’ve watched it.
 
The movie is still to this day one of my favoritest ever.

Spec Ops The Line is easily one of the most overrated games in terms of story I’ve ever played:
 
It’s a game that wants you to feel bad about playing as a soldier with serious mental issues who should’ve never enlisted in the first place who also wants to be the stereotypical military action hero in a situation that was doomed to end horrendously no matter what.
 
(Yes, I get that at the beginning you don’t know that the guy you’re controlling is unstable but there’s clear signs that they’re not all right in the head pretty early on too.)
 
If the Devs had truly cared and wanted to really next level this shit, they should’ve added an option in where you literally leave the city at anytime instead of using that “no one forced you to keep playing” card.
 
You don’t make scenes like this that can’t be avoided and just blame the player when they have no alternative:
 

 
GIVE US THE FUCKING CHOICE DEVS, DON’T SHOVE US DOWN ONE ROUTE AND ACT LIKE WE HAD A CHOICE IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR GAME.
 
Or at the very least, don’t accuse us of being the character we’re playing as who obviously doesn’t represent what the player would chose to do in that situation.
 
(At least those with morality.)
 
Remember this guy from Metal Gear Solid 3?
 

 
This is how you do it.
 
 
Good lord, I lost braincells watching every single reviewer suck off Spec Ops for it’s story.
 
The gameplay is good, that’s what kept me going.
 
Now, to wait and see how much hate I get for this opinion.
 

@CaptainXtra  

 
Thing is, you totally would. You just spent a couple hours in a so-so shooter, literally nobody believes you wouldn’t take the opportunity to break up the flow by trying something different in a blind playthrough.
 
The lack of an ability to not fire the mortar is irrelevant. Nobody would’ve looked for one after dude-broing their way through the story up to that point, and are complaining about it in hindsight after the game backhands the player with a surprise deconstruction.
 
Spec Ops The Line is not as clever as it thinks it is, but it is right in the point that yeah, that massacre was 100% your choice. The fact that the player, after the fact, reloads and finds that they had “no choice” doesn’t change that fact.

@CaptainXtra
 
@Dustcan  
The game has always felt really pretentious tbh and i’ve noticed in recent years a lot more people seem to be more critical of the game and it’s story/themes.

@ichiban iceychan 1517
 
It is very pretentious.
 
It’s big problem is not for flipping the script on the player. It’s big problem is that it tries to be deep while playing like meh.
 
You can be anything, as long as that includes “entertaining”.

@Dustcan  
TBH the Simpsons Game, of all things, done the whole “rage against the payer” thing better.
 
Why get angry at the player for making you do bad stuff when you could be angry at the person who created you in the first place just for the sole reason of letting people d bad stuff t you and making you suffer?

@Dustcan  
To be fair, you do get an actual choice at the end, but I dunno if that makes up for it.

@CaptainXtra  
IMO your hand being forced is the point. You have NO CHOICE but to commit atrocity. You cannot choose the Hero route. This is commentary on what the devs think is the reality of what hired guns with a conscience go through. Pretentious, for sure.
 
If you want to go meta. Then you actually DO have a choice. Just the quit the game.
 
Similarly for example if you were forced to do something absolutely abhorrent like, say, raping a pregnant woman until she aborts at gunpoint you could argue that you: A. don’t have a choice or B. you do. just take the bullet or try to fight back and most likely get shot anyway.
 
This kind of player forced to do something they don’t want was done much better in UNDERTALE, to be honest.

@Dustcan
 
@tehwatever
 
I’ll leave this fact about the beta here:
 
“However, one major difference between this early version of the game and the final product is that originally, the player could choose not to use white phosphorus during the scene at The Gate. What would happen if the player did not use it is unknown. If the player did choose to use the phosphorus in the early version, the events would pretty much play out as they do in the final game. During an interview, someone from Yager claimed that the camera focuses on the dead woman and her child for ‘an uncomfortably long period of time’ and that several game testers actually stopped playing at that moment, so they shortened the cutscene and forced the player into using phosphorus, knowing that this scene had an effect on the player.”
 
I’m done with this topic.

As pretentious Spec Ops The Line can be, the fact that it takes so many usual conventions of modern FPS games, especially at the time, on top of their heads, does make for a more interesting experience if nothing else. I know some people are hoping that revived “Six Days In Fallujah” game takes the same route as Spec Ops, but just like most modern day shooters it’ll probably just be a US Army wankfest, especially given who’s attached to it

@Kiryu-Chan  
The main issue people are having with 6 Days is the guy behind it constantly trying to say “It’s not political” despite the fact that this is based of a real recent war that by default, is political in nature.
 
Allso i don’t see how this game could be the same to Spec Ops. That game had fictional characters in a fictional war so its easier for them to do the whole “You’re a bad person for playing this” thing, 6 Days is is based of actual events from people who were actually there, so not much leeway for story stuff

in fact gonna be honest, a lot of those “you are a bad person/look at this horrible thing you done” type games do come across as being pretentious as hell that seems to focus more on trying to guilt trip the player then actually being a good game.

@ichiban iceychan 1517  
He was probably using the definition that a lot of alt-right rant-tubers like TheQuartering use.
 
And if he wasn’t, then he’s a dumbass.

Did Godzilla vs Kong get removed from HBOMax or something?

@Dustcan  
It did. HBO Max only has the theatrical movies run for about a month before being temporarily removed. It’ll be back later this year.