Secret Level

Aldarion said:

Commercials on modern streaming services on the other hand are pure AIDS.

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I could murder everyone involved with Pie and no jury in the country would convict me.

Burns said:

A browser with UblockO works on Amazon ads, so if you are watching a lot of Amazon/YouTube on TV, there are various solutions to getting a desktop screen onto the TV. From using a long HDMI cable (or duel CAT6 w/ HDMI converters) through the attic to buying a miniPC as a dedicated home entertainment PC.

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The amazon VOD plugin for Kodi is also a good possibility if you use an android device.

starting up.

-dnd start. ok. I don't think it sold the various races well. too much uncanny valley. story eh. honestly, I wanted to know more about the lich. What kind of life do you have to lead that results in choosing to be a lich? family, childhood, studies, etc.. what can turn a child playing in the fields, into that?
also, cleric standing up to Tiamat. lol ok.

-sifu. neat. the silly game mechanic, is more interesting then presented. like we get this short story of it... but really wasting your entire life to kill one asshole? get a gun mate. also, the lack of reaction of the goons to this guy magically healing, and growing older right in front of them..

-new world joke episode. yeah, the millennial, deconstructionist bullshit everyone hates. fable3, forsaken, etc. yeah, fuck off.

Watched a few the other night -- WH40K, New World, and Armored Core. Liked em all. Keanu works in fucking everything and I liked Arnold being a doofus king. WH needs no praise, Syama's name was buried in the credits but it's blindingly obvious they emulated his style from Astartes.

set 2.

Unreal- solid animation. plot is retarded. why would you design robots with thoughts? like we see the robots HUD. its in english, etc.. like a person.. a machine ai would not have any of this. why would miners "abuse" their machines like this? no one that relies on tools, treats their tools like that. Imagine some off shore rigger, or combat vet treating their weapons, mining gear so absurdly. not even just disposable. but intentionally breaking shit for no reason. the gamemaster character is just as dumb. it would be more interesting, and make more sense if they literally did not give a shit, and were actively empowering the robots, as they are so far above, they don't care. but instead present it as if they personally care, and are teaching the robots a lesson.. as if they can't control the robots, while also somehow taking the weapons away at the end of a match, and putting them back in prison. there is no reason, they wouldn't just shoot the robots, crush them, etc..

40k- great sound design. silent space, power armor augments, whispers. plasma guns. man this one really shines on the sound. even the soundtrack. the sound drops out at the start of the first battle. to just soundtrack. then COMES BACK when the mutant shoots the marine in the face.
incredible visuals. time stop, the foosteps in demon blood, etc. story of course also nails it. they give backstory on what a space marine is. state age, showing they are centuries old. show these hardened men, fighting as a unit, super efficiently. monsters of physical combat. then they get one shot by a demon attacking the mind. its a battle of the spirit and the body. best of the bunch so far easily.

pac man-not the first "grim reimaging" creating a story for pacman. this is interesting as how nearly obscure it is. like if the episode wasn't called pac man, you probably wouldn't put 2 and 2 together for a very long while. while other versions are typically more obviously pac man. I dont love the full outcome. why are these cyropods in this "maze". puck needs a humanoid body to open the gate? why is possessing someone a thing it can do? why doesn't it do it immediately? what are the ghost apes? I dont think this part of the story makes sense, or was flushed out well. whats up with the sword? like the idea that puck only understands eating, eat to get stronger is a neat idea. encouraging the ally to eat to get stronger, only to turn on them and eat them, makes sense. cant eat ghost eyes joke is subtle, but if you are going to make it.. do something with it.

set 3.

Crossfire- solid. great real world visuals. very convincing. solid story showing both sides, seeing themselves as the heroes in the story. definitely one of the strongest narratives. this could be a movie/tv show.

armored core- super realistic, star studded armored core is neat. does a great job selling the world, making you want to go play the game.

outer worlds- another comedy one. rough uncanny valley with ultra modeled face, but fantasy everything else.. like what the DnD one had going on with the gnome. It does a better job of turning the comedy back into a real story. unlike the new world one.

It seems like it was just one guy. The other guy at the start was telling him to cut that out because he was more likely to fuck things up than help

The machines probably werent designed to think - the main robot was basically Johnny-5

megaman-megaman is another one with a ton of back material. comics, games, manga, etc flushing out the world/story. not much here. just a fun intro. very short. only 2minutes.. nice theme integration.
its the only one I noticed... did any of the others incorporate theme songs? interestingly the theme and megaman on the building is Megaman 2, not 1.
its a mix of "dr wily", and "megaman 2" opening theme.
I wonder if they have the orchestral version they used up somewhere. it doesn't match any other versions I found.


exodus: yeah, few games/stories really deal with time dilation. hell even here. they would know this going in. leaving planet would mean massive time shifts. and the world/culture/governments would need to reflect it. and the worldbuilding falls apart a bit as they don't. all travel, all trade would reflect these massive time shifts. culture itself. 86 years later. nothing has changed when hes come back, except old people dead, grandkids now around. but not 86 years of tech or culture change. makes me wonder what the actual game is about. presumably the aliens.

spelunky- cute cartoony art.. nice to see when so many others pushing for reality. another one to make respawning/roguelike to be canon.

concord- guardians of the galaxy at home. rough., ugly and unlikable characters. shocking how even when given a chance to shine, its pathetic. surely everyone is going to love the anticapitalist pirates!

Honor of kings- does a great job presenting its premise. makes me curious of the game.


playtime. -thanks. I hate it.

Playtime was the worst out of all the episodes - it felt like a Playstation Online commercial

lol. honor of kings is a chinese phone moba. haha.

The New World actual game really could have worked a lot better with the vibe of this show. Painfully generic grimdark emo leaves me struggling to remember the name of even a single character in it, but the video was great fun.

If we're going to go episode by episode:
1. D&D - 6/10. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills - WHAT FUCKING VIDEOGAME IS THIS FROM? Yeah, D&D has had videogame _adaptations_ before, and Tiamat has appeared by name in Neverwinter and Idle Champions, but this doesn't appear to be a continuation of either (unlike the 40k episode). So the introduction to their video game anthology is an episode that isn't based on a video game?
Beyond that I would have preferred this to be way longer - sure, most people have probably absorbed the D&D setting through cultural osmosis, but it really could have used more room to breathe.
2. Sifu - 5/10. One of the biggest downsides of this anthology is a number of episodes are just "Let's summarize the game in 5 minutes." I'm not here for summaries, I'm here for adaptations. The art and character movement are great, but there's nothing here for people who have played the game - and probably those that didn't either.
3. New World - 8/10. Other than respawning, does this have anything to do with the game? No. Is the humor pretty broad? Yes. But for those of us of a certain age, hearing Arnold get one last round of "Reowrears" in before he retires/dies is not something I expected out of this series. Besides, maybe I am getting sentimental in my old age, but I like to think that even most of us would gain perspective (dare I say wisdom) over a long enough timeframe.
4. Unreal Tournament - 8/10. Hearing 'Headshot!', etc. was surprisingly nostalgic for a game I barely remember, but they managed to convert turn based multiplayer gameplay into a storyline that's actually engaging (cough*Crossfire*cough). Again, I'm after adaptations into actual stories - not a summary video that plays while you install the sequel. Loses a full point for all the Tron Legacy shot stealing.
5. WH 40k - 8/10. In a timeline that doesn't have Astartes, this is a 11/10. But Astartes does exist, and frankly the massively bigger budget of this isn't better than Astartes. Giving it a pass on the videogame linkage since this is a direct sequel to Space Marine 2.
6. Pac-Man - 6/10. Proving you can't satisfy anyone, for all my complaining about wanting adaptations and not summaries, they adapted the hell out of this property - and it did nothing for me. Full point for sheer audacity.
7. Crossfire - 1/10. Do I want to watch a slower than real time animated version of a modern military multiplayer shooter round, complete with "No one is really the bad guy so players don't get upset when they get autobalanced to the other team"? Fucking no I don't. One of two episodes I actually contemplated quitting early.
8. Armored Core - 6/10. I've never played Armored Core, so no nostalgia, but most of us have already had a steady diet of mech based combat from Macross on, and nothing really stood out here. Also seeing Keanu now in anything video game related beyond Cyberpunk is weird. The ending establishing that Keanu is actively a psychopath, not just merely mercenary, didn't help.
9. Outer Worlds - 7/10. Yeah, yeah, power corrupts and love makes us stupid. I just appreciated the black humor as he loses all his extremeties and is tossed out on the street in the process, and bonus points for not just being a summary of combat from the game.
10. Mega Man - 5/10. Remove the credits, and this episode is less than four minutes long, and feels like it, with, what, four characters and two rooms? Another entry that falls into "Summary not adaptation" - this could literally have played while you installed (a theoretical) Mega Man 2 to your PS3.
11. Exodus - 7/10. Looks great, and has me interested in the eventual game release. Could have used more time to set up the universe, however. Jump to the bottom for the explanation on the setting*
12. Spelunky - 3/10. Another summary episode with a vague message about "Keep trying until you make it!". I had to keep trying not to skip to the next episode.
13. Concord - 6/10. Do I remember literally one character's name from this? No. But at least something happens in it, and it isn't a recreation of a round of actual gameplay (as far as I can tell).
14. Honor of Kings - 5/10. Looks great, but what is the fucking point? Especially since the ending implies that the entire episode was just one possible iteration of how the match would go, implying nothing in the episode actually happened.
15. Playstation Ad - 2/10. On one hand, I give Sony props for submitting an episode that boils down to "Do you remember playing single player games and not just grinding out season passes for slightly different armor tints?" Too bad that other than that message, nothing is interesting in this short, AND the Sony property that gets the most screen time is Helldivers 2... a repetitive multiplayer game with season passes.

*Exodus breakdown: Exodus is a future sci-fi release that is heavily staffed by the original Mass Effect team, including Drew Karpyshyn as head writer. The universe is very Mass Effect-y, with some significant twists. Humans eventually developed warp drives and found a large number of undeveloped human suitable worlds. With massive untapped resources, those humans** (the Elohim) kept working up the tech tree, genetically engineering a variety of post-human species, like the 9 foot tall Celestials, along with intelligent animals, and developing the Gates of Heaven, Mass Effect style relays that only accelerate their travelers to 99.999% of light speed - meaning the rest of the universe keeps aging during your trip. Because issues elsewhere then can't be addressed in real time, the Celestial society is an aristocracy, with blood relatives in charge of chunks of their domains, while the Celestials transfer their memories to one of their children as their bodies get older, effectively becoming immortal. Those Celestial empires are constantly engaged in subterfuge against their neighboring empires, and are ruthless bordering on completely amoral.

Since Secret Level came out, I read through Amazon.com - the book is pretty mediocre but gives you the background on the universe, even if the empries in the book aren't those the game takes place in.

**At least, that's what the backstory says, but this all smells like very familar lies. The "large number" of undeveloped human worlds is literally over a million that The Elohim supposedly developed the technology to and completed terraforming in just ~12,000 years. No one knows what The Elohim look like now (cough*Mass Effect Keepers*cough), but The Celestials actively ban (/have intentionally erased the knowledge of) the original warp drives humans used to get there (cough*a variation of the supposed original Dark Matter ME twist*cough). Some of the Elohim tech is sentient to the level it is disappointed in the culture that evolved - at this point, my guess is the Elohim were benevolent self-replicating nanotech from a dead alien race that figured helping humans out was the best replacement for their original directives, and humans fucked up paradise since.