[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Oh me, that's quite an experiment! 🤔 Please share your feedback when you do.

I am just finishing up Horizon Forbidden West, after that, I'll need to choose something new to play. I was thinking Pacific Drive, but Mafia remakes may be good too...

Mobile does not count

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch So I’ve finished the Mafia remake and just started LAD (should’ve waited until midnight today to match the New Year’s vibes in the game 😆). I’m actually fuming about how little recognition the Mafia remake’s voice acting gets 😤 All the characters are so likable and believable! If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, maybe you can grab the Mafia remake through Prime Gaming. Hopefully, it hasn’t expired yet 😓

Oh man, I’d love to read your review of Forbidden West, especially compared to Zero Dawn. The backstory in Zero Dawn was amazing, but the gameplay was...😅

LMAO the mobile game slander 😂

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Wait, did they hire new actors to do voices in the remake, or recorded everything again? I'm afraid I do not know anything about that aspect of the remakes. I do not have an Amazon Prime subscription, but I have a Mafia remake already, I got it at some sale, maybe 2 years ago...



To be honest, I think the story in Zero Dawn is lacking in several aspects, one of them being, that there should not be that many ruins around if their timescale is to be believed. I can believe human hubris and somewhat simplified events, but I am more cross about not following the laws of physics. Even if we allow humanity developed strong concrete and steel that rusts at a significantly slower speed, a thousand years is still a bit of a stretch. Even Fallout only made a 200-year gap between the Great War and the events of the games. Maybe I am too much of a nerd to be ticked off by this that much, I dunno.

I also have some beef with character building, to me most of them were very not memorable. When I was playing Forbidden West (which I finished yesterday, by the way), and it kept pulling out characters from the first game, I did not remember any of them, I was like

But that's me. All in all, I'd say Forbidden West was better than its predecessor and not a bad game, but still there are much, much better alternatives. Have you played it, by the way? I would not want to accidentally spoiler it.

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch Yessir! This article gives great insight into the work that went into casting for the Mafia Remake. The game’s pretty short (around 10 hours), so it might be perfect as an in-between game 😁

😂😂😂
Now that you mention it, it is indeed strange how you can look at some structures and think, "Oh hey, that used to be a park!" The underground vaults kinda make sense, but the rest... yeah 😅

And yeah, besides Aloy, her dad, parts of the Sun King, and Sylens, most of the characters didn’t leave much of an impression. I’ve completed Zero Dawn, but only played an hour of Forbidden West before putting it down. I just wish I enjoyed the gameplay loop of the series more 😭

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Oh my, I did not realise so much work went into this edition. I wonder if there are any polls online for people to vote on their favourite voice.

Yeah, for me that breaks the immersion when something like this happens. If you have a 1,000-year timeline, stick to it. I mean, I get it, architectural physics is not that critical for the game, but it is a pebble on a scale. For me, Zero Dawn has enough of those pebbles so that I do not see it as an epic story it is positioning itself as, but more as a AAA-budget fanfic about the end of the world. It lacks...nuances.

To be honest, I played Forbidden West on the easiest difficulty, I just wanted to get through the story and be done with it. Which, in itself, is somewhat illustrative about the game.

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch Your comment made me curious, so I looked up whether any VAs from the Mafia remake got nominated for "Best Performance" at The Game Awards 2020—sadly, that wasn’t the case 😭

Couldn’t agree more with your take! It feels like most of the writing and worldbuilding budget went into the Ted Faro storyline, while the present-day stuff was just quickly patched together.

I just wanted to get through the story and be done with it.

It’s a bit disappointing to think that these aspects might take an even bigger backseat in the rumored Horizon MMO 😓

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH I'd say that there probably needs to be a separate category for games like that, "Best Remake" or something, seeing how many remakes there are these days.

It may not be entirely fair to compare remake voice acting with the original, could get a bit murky: on the one hand, back then technology was not as advanced, as microphones, recording software, recording storage and formats, all that. But on the other, the feeling of nostalgia is a strong one, and many may prefer the original over the remake on that basis alone.

Not to mention that repeating someone else's performance is different from actually doing a brand-new voice acting. Maybe it would be fairer to separate remakes from "Best Performance" into a separate category. Then again, last year's awards did not even have a separate category for the DLCs, even though many were arguing that they should, so it may be some time for Remakes to get their own category, if at all...

To be fair, Ted Faro's storyline lacked inner logic as well. I mean, was he the only arms dealer in the world? There are plenty of holes in the plot. And while it is conceivable, I mean, real history knows plenty of "plot hole situations" too, the game story is still too and very black-and-white.

I hear the plot is one of the complaint points in LEGO version of Horizon, so it is very likely it will keep going downhill in MMO too...

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch I think the folks behind TGA took the DLC and remake feedback into account, especially with how Geoff was roasted during the show 😅 With the Switch 2 announcement on the horizon, I expect a flood of remakes and remasters, even more than we have now.

Oh yeah, we shouldn't be comparing the OG and the remakes at all. It's actually a positive thing that we're getting two unique experiences. In Rockstar's case, though, the GTA definitive edition is up on the stores, while the past versions are accessible after some hurdles 😓

Lols, agreed. It's just my personal opinion, but I feel like the other PlayStation first-party studios have been adopting the same sterile approach to the stories in their games. I have similar complaints for Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok. As for Lego Horizon, the Lego games were never known for the plot, but I hear they also fumbled the "fun" aspect found in these games 😅

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Hopefully, there were enough people who thought Elden Ring DLC would be better suited in its own special category, so it'd be nice if TGA really did make some changes next year.

I started playing Mafia and, to my surprise, kept finding differences in how I remembered it, so I looked into it and discovered that the changes are even more substantial between them, with some characters cut out or changed, missions altered, and so on. Not only the looks and voice of the main character changed, but also his demeanour even. It really does play as two unique experiences, sort of like an old film and a modern remake in actual movies.

You know, I was thinking about that whole Ted Farro thing, and I started to wonder if they are actually attempting some sort of social commentary with this: these days, it is not uncommon for a single mogul to have much power in the world affairs, maybe they were hinting at what might happen if it goes on unchecked? I doubt that it was their intention, to be honest, and it is a botched attempt if so, but still, maybe they wanted it to be more than just a meh story, I dunno... Horizon is not a game I'd play for social commentary anyway.

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch Oooh nice! I personally enjoyed the creative liberties they took in this remake. What are your thoughts on the game 😄? I've read that they botched the Mafia 2 remaster, so I'm genuinely waiting for your impressions of the game before playing it.

I was kinda following Faro's logic of wiping the slate clean for humanity's future to avoid repeating mistakes. But then you enter this tomb and get the most generic, cartoonishly evil portrayal of him. The only thing missing was a twirling mustache! I think the rich mogul bit you mentioned was definitely the writer's intention, but they didn't execute it well 😅