Playdate: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (07/02/2018)

@meierthered:

I just came here to see if anyone else was annoyed by this so I'll double down on it. I agree that they need a guide just in case they get stuck, but often Alex doesn't even let them try all the options before he tells them the correct way to go. He should also wait for an "OK" before he throws out the answer. Love it all regardless.

I don’t get why people are upset about a walkthrough. It’s pretty clear they’re not going to play more of this game so getting through at least one of the arcs in a sitting with a walkthrough seems like a good approach.

harlan was truly on one

@waterlogged: Yeah I agree, it started to annoy me in their MG2 playthrough as well.

When Alex constantly checks the guide it just ruins the flow of the video since everything seems to be rushing along with not so vague hints as soon as Vinny tries something wrong. Exploration is actually half the fun and usually mean people get more into the game as well.

In my view videoes like this would be much better if a guide was only used in emergencies when they truely get stuck, instead of as the default. Sure that probably means we see less of the game, but I can always watch let's plays or other videos of the rest. GB to me is about cool people relaxing and enjoying video games, it feels like they are just rushing to get through something that doesn't help the experience.

People mad about the walkthrough haven't played this game. Not only are there fail states, there are states where you can not have what you need to continue, you can't go back, and you can't die. You have to either quit or load a save, hopefully you have a save before you got screwed. Ted's is the only one that wasn't crazy with that stuff. Nimdok is the worst.

I wasn't annoyed by their approach. I suspect they worked it out before hand, of playing it as an adventure game, till it looked like x amount of tries till progress could be made. They probably wanted to cover some ground, because they were never coming back to it. Or so I suspect. Where to draw the line on using the guide is what got/looked awkward.

I enjoyed getting a good amount of what this game I have heard so much about. The amount of ground seemed just right for my exposure to something originating from Harlan Ellison, and also the art that went into the game, both of which I found interesting.

I enjoy these guys playing adventure games. Even though the game looked bad I enjoyed them reacting to it a lot.

I love this game and I wish they'd continue with it. The walkthrough approach is perfectly fine if you ask me.

I gotta agree with other people though when it comes to the wird critizisms from Abby and Alex mostly. What a character says or does should never get someone to think that the writer must have similiar views or feelings. Reality and fiction are not the same thing.

This is just dumb, because then everyone who ever wrote anything with some asshole or evil character would have to be a total prick himself. (Are the people that wrote God of War 1-3, hence Kratos, murderous psychopaths and lechers?

I highly doubt it.) Doesn't matter that this was an "edgy 90's" game either. Don't judge something ir someone for stupid reasons.

Also it's fine for a character to be bad, flawed, terrible even. It's also fine to depict heavy themes like rape. (Of course, there should be trigger warnings.) It's supposed to make you uncomfortable, it's never going to be "tasty" and will always offend some people. That's fine, not everything is for everyone.

You aren't necessarily supposed to like a character even if you as the player are "helping" him out, that's not the point. The point is that a story id being told, not weird player agenda.

Wasn't saying that they shouldn't use a walkthrough. Just that, at times, Alex was reading it out before they had even discussed what to do or where to go. I'm also sure they discussed ahead of time what the best approach with this game in particular was. Just throwing in my two cents.

I know that there are fail states but they were saving pretty often.

I thought he sounded a lot like Nicholas Cage.

Yeah, those moments were baffling.

Abby especially gets overly defensive and seems unable to separate the characters from the author - "Wow, I guess the author must think women are just objects for pleasure." Well jeez, don't ever ask her what she thinks of George R.R. Martin!

I'm not familiar with the original short story but the crew getting annoyed at the game portraying Ted as a white knight as Abby said confused me as I thought the whole point of it was that it was how he viewed himself? Like he talked about how he was familiar with all those books in the library in a very snobbish way, but I really don't think the game was trying to point out him as a cool dude. It was pointing out what a prick he is. But who knows! I'm not cultured enough I guess lol

Great stream guys

What is this ridiculous inflated display of being offended?

Ted was pretty clearly not supposed to be a very good guy, and the only one who regarded him as one was Ted himself, which is why AM made fun of him by casting him as the knight in shining armor.
Hell, it could have been a more interesting story if it wasn't as obvious.
They're all clearly supposed to be shitty people, and maybe that's the why of them being the ones left alive, to represent why AM hates humanity.

But I can see this has already been covered pretty well by other comments.

@mckinley: Middling example? It's a good game, a 7 out of 10 range, and it was pretty well received at the time.

It totally sounds like Abby when Benny does the "Oooo?"

@polkaduke: I believe her deal is that she's one of AM's designers. Don't they say she's some kind of brilliant engineer or programmer?

Abby the reason the game currently has a poor view of women is because you are playing as Ted a womanizing manipulative piece of shit of a person.

Dr. Wallace Breen is that you? sounds a lot like Robert Martin Culp

Ted just sounds like Otacon.

I remember trying to play this game. I enjoyed the look of the game and the VO a whole lot more than actually trying to play it. In an era of adventure games with incomprehensible puzzle solutions... it was one of those.

Playing it with a guide is definitely the way to do it, in my opinion. This is not a player-friendly Lucasarts adventure - far from it. I seem to remember you can potentially get hooped completely if you mess up in this game and have bad save points.

i appreciate alex pushing things forward with a guide, and that they shut it down soon after ellen's caricature nature became clear

@mckinley: I agree and think that Abby gave this game barely a chance before hating on it which is depressing

@mitosis: I have to agree, I had just found Giant Bomb around the time Abby and Ben were added so I didn’t really care, but Abby has really rubbed me the wrong way in most things shes in, but if she’s good enough for Vinny, then I can live with it

Had the game sitting in my Steam library for ages, but I've never played it. Nice tribute to Harlan Ellison, and great to see Vinny play an adventure game, as always.

I have to think the environment they played this in is a contributing factor to their barely surface-level read of the story. Like, a stream is probably not the best way to digest what's going on. When Abby mockingly said something like "I'm a white knight and I want people to like me" I about buried my face in my hands and just bailed.

IMO, Abby is one of the best things to happen to Giant Bomb in a long time. She fits in perfectly with the GBeast crew

Late to the party, but, yeah, I don't understand how you could come to the conclusion that the author of a story about terrible people being tortured for 100 years for being terrible is, himself, terrible. Sounds like being offended for the sake of being offended. Context matters.

I must say, this was an interesting look at a game that I've always been curious about since I first learned of its existence. I really should read that short story sometime.

I think the live stream context compels people to be more snarky/jokey than they would be otherwise. Streamers have talked about how they feel they have to be entertaining, they have to be cracking jokes all the time, so sometime the criticism will feel unwarranted or way overblown to viewers.

People keep saying that all the characters are terrible people and that the games message is that these terrible deserve the punishment for their points of view, but why is Ellen being punished? A few people have mentioned that Ellen had been raped previously and as a result was suicidal and claustrophobic, something which AM then uses to torture her? if all the other characters are getting their comeuppance for the horrible lives they have lived, what does this say about Ellen's plot? I havent played the game but if thats true, thats pretty fucked up.. I dont see how you can justify her character arc in the same way you can ted's. That has to reflect some form of mysogyny on the part of the author and /or writers of this game? Or am i missing something from Ellens plotline?

Well, having read the comments before watching the video, I can say that, in my experience, people have again been reading a lot into a few offhand and one-off remarks.