As a mechanic, in reality, if they really wanted to play up the simulator aspect- that fucking phone would be ringing constantly and people wouldn't leave you alone to ask when their car would be ready. lol
Consulting mental health professionals is fine and all, but did they consult any actual mentally ill people? That seems like the more prudent thing to do if you want to portray the struggle of mental illness in a realistic way. Seems sort of silly to only get your information secondhand. I'll have to watch some of the game myself before I believe it actually handles the subject matter well.
Yes they did. In fact they consulted with people who struggle with various mental illnesses including psychosis all throughout production of the game, even up until they had the final product ready to play and had them sit in so that they could get input on how they handled it in game and be sure that they were treating it with respect and in realistic ways to what they actually experience.
This is from their most recent dev diary a few days ago before the game released.
I'll give a listen tomorrow but just out of curiousity, do they address the Nick Robinson situation at all? There's video content of him on this site...
Brad didn't really touch on it in the quick look but I think it should be noted that:
-Ninja Theory has been regularly making and posting dev diaries online for the past 2-3 years while making this game, taking viewers through the process.
-Ninja Theory is entirely self publishing this so as they could make the story and experience they wanted to without having to appease a publisher, and the team that worked on it was about 20 people.
-They literally built a small mocap studio in one of their meeting room so they could do it on site to keep the budget down.
-The woman who portrays Senua is actually someone who works at Ninja Theory who ended up just taking on the role as they were in production. Originally she was helping them test various methods for facial capture and then I guess they just decided to go further.
-They used binaural audio recording equipment to achieve the voices and how they constantly sound like they are moving around and coming from different sides of you. Thus why wearing headphones for this is a good idea.
-The game is $30 because they are billing it as an independent AAA game that can stand with bigger production games but it's also half the size and length of AAA games, which is why they priced it as such.
-Mental illness is definitely something they wanted to tackle with as much respect as possible, which is why the institute they consulted is right up front on the credits. As well as consulting with doctors, professionals and actual people that have psychosis and other mental illnesses.
Been following the development of this game for a couple years via Ninja Theory's regular dev diaries. I'm really glad it seems to be getting excitement and praise from around the internet. Been playing it tonight already, it's great.
Add another person to the "I prefer to get assigned seats" list.
I mostly prefer it because it eliminates most of the bullshit of trying to find seats in a theater. Like when people "save" seats for their friends who aren't even there yet or are at the snack bar. Fuck that shit. I had a guy want to fight me once when I went to go see Inception a few years back. It was like the opening weekend- my girlfriend and I were trying to find seats in a nearly full theater and we saw a couple empty seats, so naturally when we got to them the guy next to them was like "these are saved". I told him well there's no seat saving and your friends aren't here now, so i'm sitting here. Or as the saying goes "move your feet lose your seat". Not wanting me to get into a fight, my girlfriend convinced me to just go find a seat elsewhere. And by that point the only seats left were literally in the first and second row of the theater so I was craning my neck up the whole movie. Fuck that, never again. This is also why I almost never go see movies opening weekend anymore and try to go on off hours like on sunday night or on weeknights or something.
I remember seeing some preview videos of this a few months ago and thinking it looked so cool. But maybe it was just the way those videos were edited because watching it played now, it kinda looks a little boring. It basically looks like Gone Home (which I liked) but with a twist that the character is blind and there's a supernatural force in the house.
Also Vinny, Alex, and Dan's commentary over this are pretty good.
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