henke on 21/2/2013 at 09:12
Not everyone has read Lovecraft, dude. I had read some of his stuff by the point I played Amnesia and it certainly felt Lovecraftian, but not to the point where the plot developments were predictable.
Angel Dust on 21/2/2013 at 09:14
I liked the story in Penumbra (most notably Overture and particularly the character of Red) but that was a different writer from the one who worked on Amnesia, the story of which I largely found to be unengaging and forgettable. It wasn't awful but it was the biggest problem I had with the game and I don't think it's a coincidence that the worst parts of the game, the last few sections, were also when that story came to the fore.
But, yeah, basically what dema said. I don't rate Dear Esther that highly in the prose stakes either, it's more the ambition they show in regards to storytelling and subject matter that interest me. I'm hoping that the fact that Amneisa is rooted in the horror genre means that any ambitions will be at more achievable levels.
june gloom on 21/2/2013 at 09:32
Quote Posted by henke
Not everyone has read Lovecraft, dude. I had read
some of his stuff by the point I played Amnesia and it certainly felt Lovecraftian, but not to the point where the plot developments were predictable.
Irrelevant. There's a million different ways to do a cosmic horror story. Look at Warhammer 40k. Look at Mass Effect. Look at Hellboy, or, since we're talking Mike Mignola, the DC crossover miniseries Cosmic Odyssey. Or any time Starro shows up. Or Neon Genesis Evangelion. Or Dishonored. Or Event Horizon. Or like, friggin'
Aztec mythology.
Hewing so fucking close to Lovecraft that it's like something he wrote (Penumbra is pretty much a love letter to At the Mountains of Madness) is just plain unoriginal and boring. It's why I shit on Eternal Darkness too. Christ, that one was even set IN Providence, Rhode Island! How much more transparent could you get?
SubJeff on 21/2/2013 at 09:41
Yes. It is bad to make homages. Even if you use a really cool feature that breaks the fourth wall really well. Homages are bad. Gakakakkkkhjh
june gloom on 21/2/2013 at 09:46
You are not ZylonBane. Actually that's a good thing, because you didn't phone that post in like he always does these days.
And anyway there's homage and there's unoriginal. I'm done with Lovecraft knockoffs. Either make your fucking tentacle monsters and creeping dread interesting, or get the fuck out. Yet another goddamn "ooh crawling horror in basement, house owned by weird guy who didn't like visitors and has been about to turn 93 for the last 20 years" just isn't going to cut it anymore, not after a fucking century.
Sulphur on 21/2/2013 at 09:53
Japan took your advice and knocked it way out of the park more than a 100 years before Lovecraft ever did.
Al_B edit: Warning, borderline image not really safe for work (or for eyes): (
http://i.imgur.com/nEQNG.jpg)
june gloom on 21/2/2013 at 09:55
god dammit dantes
demagogue on 21/2/2013 at 09:56
Well I for one can't wait for deth's review of A Machine for Pigs.
It'll be like the immovable dreck meeting the unstoppable suck. What hope does it have?
faetal on 21/2/2013 at 10:37
No need to hate on homages. People make what they want to make and people either like it and buy it or don't. Getting annoyed because a bunch of people liked something you don't because of a reason you think makes you right and them wrong changes nothing.
It's a bit much to expect that rules should be played by or a game should be decried as bad full stop regardless of whether its execution surpasses the originality of its setting. Originality may be a very powerful tool in creating something which is exciting, but that originality doesn't need to come from just one place. Yes Lovecraftian horror has been derived a little too many times, in much the same way as Nietzche has forever been spoiled by philosophy undergrads wearing NIN t-shirts, but if something is well-executed, then it's capable of being good, even if it isn't necessarily original. I mean, I loved the shit out of Dead Space, safe in the knowledge that John Carpenter's The Thing and poor imitator Leviathan were horror films which were popular in the early '80s.
SubJeff on 21/2/2013 at 11:14
Eternal Darkness came out in 2002. Were Lovecraftian games already played out by then?
I agree on the originality though - there is a dire need of it and everything is so derivative now that I'm mostly bored.
