Ross's Game Dungeon: A New Beginning

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I really like seeing Ross videos on this sub, the guy really pours his soul on his work, he could really use more exposure.

👍︎︎ 21 👤︎︎ u/matiasandres 📅︎︎ Apr 23 2018 🗫︎ replies

Yeah! Ross Game Dungeon is the only long form YouTube content that I consistly enjoy.

One day I'll Patreon, one day.

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/LiquidMoves 📅︎︎ Apr 23 2018 🗫︎ replies

[removed]

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Apr 23 2018 🗫︎ replies
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[Subtitles by danielsangeo] Hey! Welcome to the Game Dungeon! This is the Earth Day episode. Now if you're like me, you know Earth Day exists, you don't remember when it is, or what it even means you should be doing. Well, it's today and I like holidays, so we're going to be covering one of the most Earth Day-ish games I know of: "A New Beginning". This is a graphic adventure game. Unlike last time, we do NOT have aliens or robots. Nor do we have monsters, demons, lasers, but...um... We do have time travel, so I'm there. Let's go. Now this is a 4:3 ratio game. That's nothing new on this show, but I feel like it's worth mentioning, because this was released in 2010 in Germany, and 2012 worldwide. Almost all games had made the transition to widescreen by then, but my understanding is production on this started before that became mainstream, and unlike 3D games, where you can literally change a few numbers in the code to convert it, this is all hand-drawn content, so they would've had to modify everything, so 4:3 it is. That means this is last NEW 4:3 only games sold in stores. I mean, yeah, I'm sure some indie people are still making 4:3 games to give it a retro feel or whatever, but you're just being a contrarian if you're doing that on purpose now. I think widescreens are great and don't miss the old ratio AT ALL, but you take what you can get. Now I'm not sure if I'm on board with psycho-widescreen or not, but 16:9 is great--that's a good ratio. Let's get started. ["You keeping an eye on the watch, private? ["300 seconds and not a second to spare. ["And don't forget: Never look directly into the sun."] What, like this? [static] ["-ea-y?"] [static] ["--at?"] Sounds good! Bird mode activated. Ah! This is the life. Anyway, we cut to a board meeting, and it's the future, and a giant solar flare is coming. ["The Phoenix Plan is NOT an evacuation plan, Hardy. ["Quite the opposite...No, Salvador is right. A manipulation is our last chance." ["What are they talking about?"] I don't know. ["We are looking at certain death for every living thing in two weeks."] Ohh! Okay, that's easy to understand. Seems like we should've led the meeting with that. So best I can tell, we have kind of a "12 Monkeys" situation. The Earth is ravaged and dying, everyone's living underground, but wouldn't you know it? We have time travel. So I can only assume we're going to go back and fix things. Though, I've gotta dock points since I'm not actually SEEING anyone go back in time. This is a missed opportunity. Do they have to be naked like in "Terminator"? Hello? And we cut to...somewhere. Looks sort of like northern Europe. Maybe Canada. Dammit, it's Clippy's brother: Pointy. No! Piss off! So our first goal is to fix the fogger. This is one of those games where you don't really know what's going on, but hopefully all will be revealed later. ["The basement: Mausoleum of a failed life."] Ha ha! I'm liking this guy already. ["It's locked. The plan was to leave everything behind. ["That day, I was so drunk I don't even remember where I hid the key."] Yeah, this is a good character. This is a slow, but good, start. ["The fishing rod was Dr. Angust's suggestion. ["'It is very meditative, Bent. It will help you find peace.' ["I've been sitting at the bank each morning since then, ["apathetically staring into the water."] So this must be the party shack. Let's head inside. Here, we take a trip down memory lane. That's your wife. She's dead and you weren't around when it happened because you were too busy at your job trying to save the world. That's your son in the corner. He hates you because you were too busy at your job trying to save the world. For someone who hates his dad, he sure seems to be following in his fashion footsteps. And something tells me those guys in the back have a criminal record. ["Sometimes Dr. Angust comes for a visit. That's why I have a second chair."] We don't get much company up here. Anything in the 'refirgerator'? ["If I didn't have dinner in town, I would never meet any people at all. ["A full fridge would be social suicide."] So we don't have any friends either, it sounds like. This is Bent Svensson. He looks to me like a man with no focus, a life of regrets and nothing to lose. I enjoy self-destructive characters like this. Let's just say a lot of revenge action movies start off this way also. So we head down to the basement to reflect on how much we hate ourselves, and find some spare parts to try and fix the fogger, when, what's this? Someone lands a helicopter in our front yard, and, hey, isn't that Future Woman? Yep! It sure is! She's wearing the same uniform from earlier so I guess they don't have to come back naked. So that's one mystery solved. We ask her a few questions. I like how clumsily she dodges them about where she's from. ["Is that your helicopter out there?" ["It belongs to a...friend, I think?" ["Nice outfit. Are you military?" ["No. I am... from a different organization."] Ah, time travelers! They're always making mistakes. She says she desperately needs his help, but he's WAY too jaded to care. Whatever she's taken the time to fly out here and tell him can wait until he fixes his fogging machine from spare bicycle parts. Priorities. And I'd like to point out that someone landing a helicopter to come ask an expert in retirement for help is how the movie "Commando" starts off, too. Just saying. So the future can wait. It's motor repair time. The belt's snapped so I'm using my kid's bicycle tire on it instead. Except it's too long, so let's just jam a screwdriver in there as a makeshift axle to make it the right size. This is a very "Red Green" solution to our problem. ["All right, put the screwdriver--and use your screwdriver...as a chisel." ["For example: Take a screwdriver. Why not use a screwdriver as a hammer?" ["When you're in there... ["You want something with kind of, uh... Plexiglas or a hard handle that's... ["not gonna mar, anyway. In she goes."] Oh, and I'm also using some salad dressing as lubricant. ["Okay, that should work."] So let's fire it up. ["Ugh. Dammit. Someone has to hold the shutter ["to keep the stupid screwdriver from popping out again."] Huh. Looks like Future Woman can be of some use to us after all. Let's go get her. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Oops! Looks like the fumes are so strong, a bird drops dead in front of us! Future Woman doesn't take this too well. ["You are so stupid."] "Oh yeah? Well...your helicopter's ugly!" Actually, it's not. Then she makes a grave for the bird and contemplates life. ["Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you can't help me after all." ["Help? Help with what, for Christ's sake? ["I am retired. I don't help anyone anymore."] Yeah? Well that's what John Matrix said, too. Anyway, he changes his tune once she has a dizzy spell and needs water. But whoops, it's a call from his sleazy therapist. I do like how she makes him say his mantra that he's not responsible for the whole world, then we immediately get our explanation, and Future Lady tells him he is responsible for the whole world. ["You, Bent, and you alone are responsible for the whole world!"] I'm sure people who have saved the world have similar dilemmas like this. Prior to this, she reads from her time traveling pamphlet on how to win friends and influence people from the past. ["Mutual trust. My name is Fay. I am a time travel pilot. ["Confrontation. I come from the future. Mankind is facing extinction." ["What's that? What are you talking about? And what is that note for?" ["Guidelines for trans-temporal contacting. I told them I couldn't do this."] Ah! 500 years. So Fay shows us the rest of her team, and I realize this wasn't a big-budget game, but the voice sync work here is a little lacking. ["All right. Never mind. [overlapping] ["It was a misunderstanding. ["Please, calm down."] Needs some work! So then we flashback... wait...no, forward... to 2050 to see things from Fay's perspective. Okay, we get to see the time egg. That's something. She argues with another future guy about future stuff. ["Don't give me one of your responsibility- isn't-born-from-guilt lectures." ["Well how about my set-up-the-antenna ["or-I'll-lock-you- into-the-atomic-oven lecture then?"] And he reiterates their mission for the rest of us. ["What exactly is our mission? ["We search out the political leaders, take them to task, ["then convince them to take more care of the planet." ["That's the plan?" ["Yes! That's the plan! Why?"] Ah, future people. ["Sounds a little naïve." ["It's a matter of survival for mankind! The future of our planet! ["Of course they will listen. Anything else?"] I really like how they're operating on the premise that we're just not aware of the harm we're causing to the future. So all it should take is them coming to tell us we need to change and then that should clear things up. I guess we'll see how that goes. So we work on setting up the antenna, argue like future people some more, and hey! It turns out this is sunny San Francisco. ["The whole city is destroyed. Can it be possible that we were so thoroughly mistaken? ["Everything is lost. We are too late."] I really enjoy the matter-of-fact nature of the future people. "Hm. The city is dead. We appear to have made a mistake." Okay, so global warming's a problem, but I'm not buying San Francisco is going to be THIS bad in 2050. I mean, either the biggest earthquake ever came through here, or the place got bombed by a nuke. But even then, there are no denizens or refugees. Something else is going on here. We also find out why Svensson is so important. In the future, everything is powered by this special blue-green algae that he helped engineer, or something like that. Again, this game only gives us pieces of information at a time. So we get the antenna working, and check in with Command. [static] ["Oh...God. We tr...reach you for days."] Hm. ["Hello? Hello? ["The connec...is bad...can we...?"] Okay! See ya later! So, we contact the rest of our team and... Hm. Hm... Okay, she's having a bad day. ["I repeat: We are--"] OH! DEAD! ["Abort mission! Get...get yourselves to safety."] Dead. ["...point six... I c...hea...It's the da..."] Okay, bye! I have to give the game props. They just killed off almost all the characters in under a minute. And this is after learning all their names the scene before. Boy, that's time travel for you. Our characters may be naïve but the game sure isn't. So we come back and our superior's headed off to go kill himself or something. I don't know. I guess we'd better go find the body. [screams] ["Nigel?!"] Oh, he's alive. ["Fay!" ["Hold on! I'm coming! ["Ah!"] And that's the game! It's short but satisfying. I've got to give an award here: Most naïve time travelers. I love them. Too bad they're all dead. Well, if you head into a rough situation with little more than optimism, this is usually how it plays out. Anyway, stay tuned for the next episode for a mo--Oh wait! She can't be dead. This has already happened. Or rather it hasn't happened yet, but she obviously made the jump back farther if she's telling us the story. Most stories don't end with "And then I died!" So, um... Oh yeah. It was just one story. That's nothing. ["Strange. There's a lot of paper on the wall."] Yeah, that's called wallpaper, Fay. That's what probably killed Napoleon. Future people are great. So after looking around, we find Nigel, and Fay makes multiple good suggestions. ["I will get a rope! Then I can--" ["No, Fay. You have to--" ["Did you try the railing...?"] Yeah, try the railing. That's what I would do. Or hey, there was a rope right here. But no, instead he gives these long-winded instructions-- seriously, it takes him over a minute to talk to her-- then he fakes her out like he's going to take her help, and instead, passes her some data capsule, NOW he's dead. ["Aaaaaaahhh!"] So um... ["What's this? A distress signal! The second San Francisco team is still alive! ["The source of the signal is less than two miles away."] Ah, okay. We were a little premature there. Onward! We find the other team--they're having some problems like all future people seem to-- and through some adventure game puzzling, we rescue them. But, oop! We have an interruption. ["Honestly! I know the theories about climate change. ["And I truly believe something must be done about it. ["San Francisco flooded? Tornadoes in Europe? ["And all this early as 2050? Ridiculous!"] Yeah! Exactly! ["We calculate time differently than you do."] Why? ["Maybe it's 2500."] That's kind of a big difference, Fay! ["Wait! I am sure. It was 2050."] Fay's not a very good witness. ["Do you want me to continue or not?" ["Depends. How long will it take?"] Yeah. I've got drinking to do. So, back to the future, we rescue the other team and discuss plans for the next time jump. ["If I miscalculate, we could end up ["all across a period of three weeks in pieces." ["Then you'd better not miscalculate." ["Hm. Then I'd better not miscalculate."] Ah, future people. I'd say "never change" but you kind of have to. And we have power at night in the devastated city, but still no people. ["I don't want us to get murdered in our sleep."] Me neither. So we start getting things in order for the next jump doing future stuff. Pew! ["Whoa-whoa-whoa! That's dangerous! My color modulator has gone crazy ["and I need the membrane to keep the energy level steady. ["If the light slips into the red spectrum, even a little, ["the pulser will--"] Okay, okay! Settle down. Nobody's taking your color modulator. All right! It's future time! PEWM! ["Are you mad?!"] Salvador takes my gun away from me for some reason, but I get to explore the library. I like this part. What can I say? I'm a sucker for future history. Anyway, I solve some future puzzles, because of course I do, and then I gain access to the archives. ["My name is Quickie! And I am part of a multifunctional--"] Oh no... Okay, so he's Quickie, not Pointy. Just go away. Stop. Just stop. ["Error: This query cannot be processed."] Yeah, that's what I thought. ["There is no help available on the topic: help."] It is kind of interesting seeing a battle of the wits between Fay and the AI here. ["Please talk to our friendly personnel at one of the service points." ["All the personnel are dead!" ["I am sorry, but I didn't understand you correctly."] Fay loses. ["Dammit! Ugh..."] But we get our data anyway thanks to future elbow grease. We take it back to Salvador--who has mellowed out a little bit, and we get a big plot point. Our research shows that an energy tycoon, Emilio Indez, has a chain of power plants, except one ended up screwing up and took out a bunch of the rain forest, which triggered a rapid climate change event which led to San Francisco here. Just before the accident, there were protests and a hearing to shut down the plants. but they decided to let him keep going due to a lack of alternatives. Fay thinks they should present the blue-green algae at the hearing, Salvador says we need to prevent the accident, and sort of insinuates that maybe we need to assassinate him--I don't know. And that drawing keeps making it look like Fay has a soul patch. It's weird. Either way, we need to get our asses to Brazil in the past. Except is that our future or the present? We're not given any dates and Fay here mixes up 50 with 500. I don't know when we are. And Svensson jumps in. ["Nonsense. If a climate catastrophe occurs, ["it will be through global warming. ["Continuous environmental pollution is the enemy, and not some Hollywood scenarios."] Yeah, sounds right to me. These are very expressive faces. Anyway, from here we get into a lot of technicalities of time travel. I won't bore you with the details since I could go on all day about that, but it ends up with Fay sabotaging the jump zone, and Delvin being stranded in post-apocalyptic San Francisco. He takes it very well, but I think the reality just hasn't sunken in yet. And the game redeems itself because we finally get to see a jump. ["The second time jump was... ["...different from the first one. ["The pain was excruciating."] Boy, ain't that the truth. And that concludes Fay's story. And wouldn't you know it? After all is said and done, Svensson is still just a grumpy old hermit. ["Get out. Get out of my life!"] I can't blame him. I mean, let's get real. That fogging machine fix isn't going to hold. He's going to have to buy real parts, then you question if you're just throwing good money after bad, and I think drinking time is going to come early today. Oh wait. He's just going to get cold cocked instead. That works, too. So Svensson wakes up on the helicopter, breaks out, traps Fay and her converted pilot, tries calling the cops, but because it's time radio and not normal radio, he gets Delvin instead. Then he sees the time egg, this really confuses him, and it's flashback time! And this one is 100% flash BACK this time, as in this happened in the PAST before she showed up in the helicopter. So not future-past, just present-past. Or rather, Svensson's past. I'm still not sure what time this is in relation to us. So we head to Fay's and Salvador's arrival. I like Fay's reaction to seeing a rubber chicken. ["I've never seen such a strange thing before!"] So here we are at the conference. Here's where the game starts turning up the mixed reactions for me and it's not going to stop. First off, we were teetering on the brink of one-dimensional stereotypical characters, but it completely goes over the edge here. We have the bumbling scientist trying to defend us... ["...find the relevant graphs on...uhm...page 522, ["but I am sure you've already read it."] ...we have the evil megalomaniacal energy baron smoothly lying through his teeth, we have his paid-off lackey inspector also dripping with evil and arrogance... ["No 'but'! Tell the kitchen Dr. Brown sent you. Ooh, yes, THAT Dr. Brown!"] This all confuses me because I feel like we have two different narratives here. On one hand, the story is trying to be taken seriously, and if you're willing to accept time travel, it's attempting to be plausible. Also, this is not a game for kids. I mean, it's not hardcore R-rated or anything, but there's some language in here, plus... well, I don't want to spoil too much yet. Yeah, 12 and up. This is meant for adults or mature-enough teens. So we have a plotline and content for adults, but the characters, the dialog, some of the acting, is pure Saturday morning cartoon material. I mean, let's not beat around the bush. This game is trying to channel "Captain Planet". You're playing the underdogs trying to stop the big and powerful polluters. Except we don't have superpower rings or an actual pig-man as a villain; we just have regular people. So you would think this is Captain Planet for adults, except the dialog never grew up. ["Take me to your leader."] So I don't even know how to judge this. It's too bizarre. I feel like I'm witnessing an identity crisis. In fact, this gets an award: Captain Planet midlife crisis. Okay, so that's the first issue, but let's reiterate. This is a sort of hearing to decide if Indez's power plants are safe, right? We have to change people's minds because, in a week, one of them is going to blow up, take out the rainforest, and bring forth global warming. But here we learn these are NUCLEAR power plants. To the best of my knowledge, nuclear plants: 1. Aren't built to blow up anymore; and 2. Are not the problem as far as global warming is concerned. The big issue with modern nuclear power is the waste disposal, because that stuff does not go away. In fact, "disposal" is kind of a misleading term because that implies once it's disposed of, it's done, you don't have to worry about it anymore. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe in 300 years, it'll leak and contaminate the ground water. The future people in 500 years? Whatever nuclear waste we create now, that's still their problem. But for global warming, it's not really going to do much? So yeah, if it's not handled properly, it'll make everything in the vicinity sick and kill you in a horrendous way, but the climate shouldn't change too much. So if global warming is the big culprit that ruins the future in the game, why is the NUCLEAR power plant the villain here? The game wants to be taken seriously, but then it throws up a scenario that undercuts its own logic! But, it seems AWARE of this, too! Isn't that EXACTLY what Svensson was saying earlier? None of the plot works this way? So is there some between-the-lines-fourth- wall-breaking wink to the audience here? Why?! Okay, okay. I forgot. I think that's the real answer. We'll see more of this, but let's focus on some of the good. I mentioned how this game didn't have an enormous budget, but it still has a lot of production value and it was probably still pretty high for an adventure game, especially visually. That really starts showing here. I don't know if it's how my brain is wired, but part of me thinks everything looks good in evening light. And man, that is certainly the case here. In fact, I like this art style in general. It keeps reminding me of "Aeon Flux" and I love that show. Anyway, this part of the game stands out since we have some pretty solid eco-terrorism here. First, we incite the crowd in order to distract security. ["Listen to me!" ["Listen to her!"] LISTEN TO HER! ["Listen to her!"] Then Fay steals the distracted monitor's car keys, wrecks his car, which is his pride and joy... ["Oops! That must've been the self-destruction mechanism."] He's mysteriously gone after that. I like imagining what might've happened. Next, after negotiations fail with the lackey inspector, Fay taints his beverage so he runs to the bathroom, except she's switched the signs where the bathroom is, so he meets up with Salvador instead. Surprise! Salvador's negotiation methods are a little different than Fay's. ["Let me talk to him. I have my own methods."] His aren't any more effective, but he decides, what the hell, he'll just stand in and pretend to be the inspector. Now here I'm a little confused because I don't think that's a wig since this entire operation is a Plan B. They're just making this up as they go. So I think Salvador must've scalped him? Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. He already killed some wastelander back in the future off-camera. He was a little loopy but not really dangerous, but Salvador isn't big on taking chances. ["Where? Where is my friend?" ["He refused to cooperate. I had to 'minimize the risk'." ["Did you--?" "Yes."] I mean, we just have some blood stains afterwards, maybe he stuffed him in the cabinet. I don't know. Moving on! Salvador gets an "A" for effort but an "F" for execution. Again, I can't stop but admire how blunt the approach is of the future people. ["If we allow him to contaminate our planet with his pollutants, ["we have to expect catastrophic climate changes worldwide as early as 2050."] They're just using common sense, and guess what? That gets you arrested. ["Security!"] And to really round this off, Fay steals a key card and opens up the doors for the protesters who rush in so Salvador escapes in the confusion. It's like they're trying to squeeze in a little bit of a zombie movie in here. I'm not going to complain about that. This entire chapter is above average for the level of chaos you can cause in an adventure game. And that's saying something since almost every adventure game hero is a kleptomaniac right from the start. I'm a big fan of games and movies where you maximize chaos, and this doing it justice. The whole game should've been like this--there's real potential here. And hey, if you've been paying attention, you'd know that we just changed history. The convention did NOT approve the plant because it never finished. That means we're doing something! So let's keep doing things. Fay managed to give some airtime to the blue-green algae, so now we need to head to the source so we can prove it to the world. And that means going to the ocean lab where it was developed. ["You old warhorse! Never thought I'd see you around here again! ["Is that gray in your beard?"] "Beard", huh? Looks like the scriptwriter wasn't talking to the character artist enough. ["May I introduce you to Princess Leia." ["Huh? What are you talking about? My name is Fay!"] Uh-oh! You hear that, Disney? Looks like somebody's getting sued! And again, the audio direction needs some help. Listen to Svensson talk about the possibility of his life's work being destroyed. ["The research funds were canceled." ["What?!" ["Bent, that's a disaster!" ["Indeed. It would mean the end of my work. It has all been for nothing."] Yeah. That performance really pulls on the heartstrings, huh? The research base has converted from an old oil rig, and as usual, the art looks is pretty spectacular. Before we're let on, though, we have to go through a medical exam, and this game does not forget its adventure game roots. Jeez, that's a lot of crabs for a doctor's office! Uh, anyway, we need to get the doctor to approve our medical pass, but he's busy. So rather than tap him on the shoulder, we try to stamp it ourselves, except the inkpad is out of ink. So we just use blood from storage to stamp that sucker instead. No time for ink! We've gotta save the planet! So we show up, and this part just gets depressing. The research facility has lost its grant money so now it's having to curry favor with investors to buy them out. So we get to attend a meeting trying to convince them we're worth it. And since we've changed history, now Indez is here interested in buying the algae research. Here we have another identity crisis since we have to eavesdrop and hear his real plans, which are to buy out the technology and shelve it, because it would represent a fundamental threat to his energy profits. And you know what? That is a real business tactic that gets employed sometimes. Did you know that Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975? And while it was rough, it was good to go in the '80s, but they buried that because they thought it would jeopardize their regular camera sales and stalled it as long as possible. Sometimes business interests are diametrically opposed to producing a superior or alternative technology, and that's a good point to bring up in the game. But the presentation of this is back to Captain Planet. He's antagonizing the scientists and even does an evil "BWAHAHA!" laugh when nobody is looking. ["And what do you plan to do about it?" ["What every good businessman would do. I'm going to buy it! ["I will put one specimen on my shelf, and I'll dump the rest into the ocean. ["Bon voyage, Dr. Svensson! Hahahaha!"] Yeah, that'll really drive the point home, guys. I swear, this game builds itself up just to tear itself back down again. But we actually get a decent mini-mystery in this chapter where both Fay and Svensson discover signs of sabotage. We also have to talk to Svensson's son about this who's an insufferable prick. He's no help at all. ["So, how's life as the head of research on Atlas 11?" ["How do YOU think it is?! It makes me sick! ["I still can't believe that I wanted to be like you once..."] No wonder your dad drinks so much. So we try talking to another researcher who we're long term friends with. Surely she'll be help, right? ["We don't have any money left. ["That means no new instruments, no repairs, no qualified experts. ["And if the research gets worse, we get fewer investors. A vicious circle. ["We work under a lot of pressure and under horrible conditions. ["In a situation like that, mistakes happen."] Yeah, this is depressing... At least their refirgerator is in good working order. Well that sucks, but what's going on with the algae? She keeps dodging all my questions. ["I'll find out what's going on." ["Please don't. Please stay out of this." ["But--" "Trust me. It's better this way. ["And I suggest you stop searching for it. Just trust me. It's for your own good."] Man, what the hell? ["I found a dried out sample in its pocket." ["Please, Bent. Put it away before someone gets hurt."] Good God, man! You trying to get us all killed?! Actually, the answer is closer to "yes" than you might think. We'll get there in a minute. ["Lissa?"] Meanwhile, Fay's investigation gets spurred when Indez's lawyer reveals he's trying to sabotage the algae. ["The algae must be completely destroyed or my client won't pay."] And does that not sound exactly like a cartoon villain voice? ["Enjoy it while you still can! ["As of tomorrow, you'll be a long way from here!"] I mean that is a kids' cartoon character inflection. I'm not even listening for this; I just notice it playing the game and have to remind myself he's not a talking alligator or something. ["Hahaha! These things happen."] Anyway, long investigation cut short, the algae was being sabotaged six ways to Sunday: During the presentation by a mole; two weeks before the presentation by the same mole, I think; and by a worker straight-up planning to bomb the rig. Ah, more evening light. Svensson diffuses the bomb... [ticking] Uh... ...while Fay chases after him. He bumbles around, they struggle, and he falls to his death, maybe. So they save the day in the end, but... Oh. No. Excuse me. The algae fields were set on fire while they were taking care of the bomb. So they puzzle their way back to the lab and oops! Your longtime friend has been shot and killed! Damn! Like I said, despite having cartoon characters go "Bwahaha!", this game isn't really for kids. This is not Captain Planet territory here. The power of Heart isn't going to fix this. ["Heart!"] So everything is trashed except the algae ball where we can salvage the last sample, except WHOOPS! There's at least eight more BOMBS set to go off here! It turns out THIS saboteur is kid cartoon lawyer/villain. I mean, that's plausible. Lawyers are known for getting their hands dirty rigging bombs and holding people up at gunpoint. You know, what with all the free time they have. Hey, wasn't this the same guy running the panel at the conference? So that conference didn't think that was a conflict of interest letting Indez's lawyer be the chairman? Okay, back to the present...I think. We learn that the mole is--bum bum bum... ...your son! This isn't really a problem for us since the game made him totally unlikable. But I guess that's Svensson's problem. Anyway, we get trapped in here James Bond-style and we get one of the best music tracks in the game that would fit a James Bond or Hitchcock film. [driving music] I'll save more of it for the end. Anyway, while we're not doing anything, about the music: It's serviceable and has some interesting ideas, but it's a tad too reserved for my tastes. I remember thinking it was so-so when I played this, but considering how many generic symphony scores I've heard since then, it makes this look better by comparison. I like the moody music in the future at night. [eerie ambient music] Yeah. So we escape, but the lawyer catches up and allows us to live if we hand over the algae. And I know I keep doing this, but I have to point out these lines. ["I may just be the lackey of an unscrupulous energy mogul, ["but you are no James Bond!"] I guess the music got him thinking about Bond, too. ["Farewell, Mr. Bent! Hahahahahaha!"] Anyway, we get reunited, Fay offers her usual insight... ["Are you hurt?" ["I think I...broke my leg." ["Does that hurt?" ["YES! YES, GOD DAMMIT! YES!" ["Then it is broken." ["YEEAAAARRRRGH-AAARRRRGH--!"] And we puzzle our way to safety as we watch the oil rig explode. And it is back to Brazil for the final showdown to get our algae back and put a stop to Indez. Meanwhile, Salvador is already in place and is going in solo without us. This is all coming to a boil and this really is starting to feel like a Bond film, if he had no gun or combat skills whatsoever. But, since this game is a kids' cartoon when it wants to be, we throw a snake at a mean guard with a submachine gun trained on us, and that's all it takes to stop him as you can hear. ["ARRRRRGGH! GO AWAY! GET OFF OF ME! HURRRRRGH!" ["Hurry, Bent. Get in the boat."] So we make it. The jungle is gorgeous and we sneak inside. We're getting close to Salvador which means this is starting to look like a scene from "Scarface". So I guess that means we turn kid cartoon mode back off. Here we learn the villain is planning on killing our son and idiot pilot. Oh no! But that's okay. Fay assures us this can't happen. ["If Duve had died today, the algae wouldn't have existed in the future ["and we wouldn't have been able to travel to the past. ["The timeline would've changed drastically, ["so much so, in fact, that I would disintegrate."] Wow. Okay. We split up, Fay saves the algae, and this part of the music sounds very familiar to me. I can't place it. [music] Svensson saves Salvador who returns the favor with a vengeance. ["Good grief! You didn't have to go and kill the man!" ["Are you here to discuss ethics or do you want to save the world? ["Because we don't have time for both."] Let's save the world! And here we get a big plot reveal. ["Fay lied to you, Svensson. There was no accident. *I* am the accident. ["What day is it today? March 27, 1982."] What the f--? Okay, he's making a speech, we'll keep going. ["There was a catastrophe, yes, ["but it wasn't an isolated individual event that caused it. ["There wasn't a big bang. It was a gradual process that took decades. ["The photos you saw were from the early 26th century, not from 2050." ["My blue-green algae! The one you use as a power source in the future!" ["Think about it. We live in bunkers below the earth. ["What use is photosynthesis to us if we don't have any sunlight? ["Ironically, we must get by with the sources you left us. ["Our electrical power is provided by nuclear reactors." ["So there IS no Svensson-Generator?" ["Ha ha ha, no. At least not before my job is done."] IT WAS ALL A LIE! ["People must be forced to do the right thing. ["Power plants like this ["will completely ruin the rainforest's ecosystem over the next century, ["but when people finally realized that, ["and decided to act, it was already too late. ["Only a catastrophe will open their eyes to the truth."] All right, all right. I have to stop. This is such a mess. Okay, first off, yeah, if this is 1982, then nuclear power WAS still pretty dangerous, enough to wipe out a big part of the rainforest if there was a meltdown. But we fixed that, right? And the creators knew that! This was made in 2010! SO WE ALREADY KNOW THIS WAS TO PREVENT SOMETHING THAT WASN'T GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY! Nrgah! Second, I KNEW that wasn't 2050 and so did Svensson. ["2050 is nonsense, like the rest of your story."] But third, THIS ISN'T 1982! Let's back up. That is a flat-panel widescreen monitor! Oh look! ANOTHER flat-panel widescreen monitor, with what looks like reasonably modern multi-track audio editing software! AND ANOTHER FLAT-PANEL WIDESCREEN MONITOR! Now you might be saying, "NO, ROSS! THAT WAS FROM THE FUTURE! "HE WAS TALKING TO DELVIN ON IT!" Uh-uh. You see it moments before the time jump. Fay and Salvador haven't even entered the timeline yet. Now this is a CRT but that looks an awful lot like the starfield simulator screensaver for Windows 3.1. Or maybe the After Dark screensaver for Mac in 1989. And the bulky rounded edge keyboard and mouse are looking awfully 90s to me! Sure, the hairstyles check out. I mean, damn... But who had this in '82? Even the damned game isn't in widescreen. But fine. It's 1982. I got Black Mirror'd again. I guess the fact that the soundtrack CD is made to look like a record should've tipped me off, but what the hell? Well then, if Fay was lying about the algae power, why were they at the conference? If there's no nuclear accident, and the algae power isn't ready for primetime yet, what are they even doing? I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF THIS MANY LIES! Okay, let's continue. You know, I actually kind of agree with Salvador here, except he has a flaw in his logic. He's assuming if there's a giant disaster and impending danger, humanity will naturally react to save itself. Uh, maybe? We had Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, nuclear power's still here. We had the Gulf War spill, Deepwater Horizon spill, the Valdez, we still use oil more than ever. I don't think Salvador is going to get the results he wants by blowing up the plant. So since this is Earth Day and this plot twist got me riled up, I thought I should say some Earth Day stuff, but my mind's kind of fragmented, so we're just going to do the lightning round. Let's go. This game is all about global warming. Here's a time-lapse video by NASA of the Arctic that shows ice tens of thousands of years old melting in the past 30 years. That looks like ice cream melting. I see that and I think we're freaking done. We're going to lose this. It's just a question of how bad we're going to lose. Antarctica is holding out better, which is good because that's where all those Lovecraftian ruins are. We don't want those melting. But it's still melting under the surface so that's bad. While it's important, I think all the talk of global warming crowds out talk about regular pollution which currently kills one in six people. I mean, holy crap! That's like Russian Roulette. Speaking of holy crap numbers, over half of our wildlife is gone from 40 years ago. Unless you're someone who gets attacked by wolves on a regular basis, that sounds really bad. [Awoooo!] I think most of humanity just kind of goes with the flow and isn't trying to break everything, unless they're 15, so if we have all these problems, I think it's our system pointing us in the wrong direction. I see it like "Lemmings", except the Blockers are in the wrong place, the Diggers don't know what they're doing, this level's a mess. So I think to save the Earth, we need to get better at Lemmings? Or maybe sophisticated counterpropaganda across multiple venues over a long period of time AND rooting out actors trying to sabotage the human race? Okay, that's all I've got. Let's finish the game. Fay shows up and starts her usual spiel about how we shouldn't kill everyone. Salvador tells us to get out of here because he needs to kill everyone. This leads to some disagreement. We head to the reactor, and it's getting close to melting down. We try to stop it, but Salvador intercepts us. From here, it reminds me of that door gag from Looney Tunes as he chases us around. It ends with Svensson and Indez inside, and Fay and Salvador being BURNED ALIVE by steam! ["Steam, not smoke."] [screaming in agony] BOO! This ending SUCKS! Salvador was live by the sword, die by the sword, but I think Fay was the most likeable character in the game. Her rampant naïveté can-do attitude, and not understanding the present, all surprisingly worked. I found myself looking forward to a lot of her commentary. ["Mascara? A lipstick? Why do people need a paint box for their face?" ["I wonder how many people live here." ["Such a huge bed. He must've found it in some kind of palace."] So yeah! Kill her off, game! What's the point of anything, then? So Indez gets a threat because some committee member was watching this on camera, because we have videoconferencin g inside reactor cores in '82 al so apparently. She says that this accident will be investigated, so maybe he'll go to jail or maybe nothing at all will happen to him. We don't know. I imagine Indez can afford pretty good lawyers. The annoying pilot writes a book on the incident and goes on the TV circuit talking about his bestseller. Whatever. I don't care. Bent is still alive, so that's something. He's working together on the algae with his unbearable son. Yeah, I don't see that lasting. His son made it really clear how much he hates him. Even as he was in a sinking capsule where it was looking like they were all going to die, he was still trash talking his dad. He's on permanent Brooding Teenager Mode. If he's not an insufferable prick when his dad's not around, I'll never know because that's all I ever saw of him. And it ends with some stupid joke I'm not even going to repeat here. And that's the game. This ending is garbage. It needs to be recycled into something better. They should've escaped with Fay, let Salvador kill everyone else, blow the reactor, start over. I mean, the way this ends, we don't even know if we've changed anything since everything was a lie. So is that what happened? Everything's already a done deal despite having time travel? That always is a risk. ["Do you know what a predestination paradox is?"] So what to make of this game? Well, despite its many problems, I found it largely enjoyable. Between time travel, the different locales and the conflicts, it definitely felt like an adventure. And you know what? That's exactly what I want from my adventure games. I'm not sure it had any impact at all on making people any more environmentally conscious, what with the kid cartoon performances and getting really preachy. ["Wait." ["'Wait'? Is that your generic answer to every problem?"] I mean, what was the message? "Don't build nuclear power plants based on 80s technology "because they'll wreck the climate, even though that's not how that works"? I still don't know how to place this game. It did so many things right, then just sorta got drunk watching Captain Planet episodes. Here, let's bring out this award again. This much is obvious. I can tell a lot of heart went into this game and that took us into odd places. That's about the best I can ask from most games. Oh look! We have a kicker. Yeah, another time egg. So we didn't fix anything. Yep. Well, uh, happy Earth Day! I'm still not sure what that means we should be doing, and it seems like the game doesn't know either, so really, it's perfect. And that's the episode! Stay tuned for the next one for a movie-based game. Yeah! One of those. [music] Svensson? Where are you going? Svensson?
Info
Channel: Accursed Farms
Views: 335,456
Rating: 4.941545 out of 5
Keywords: A New Beginning, Videogames, Earth Day, Adventure Games
Id: G4bJqpVH0O0
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 44min 17sec (2657 seconds)
Published: Sun Apr 22 2018
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