New first impressions with the long dark Part:1 Wintermute:

[RegentRelic]

I recently took a break from the long dark for about four months and going back in I decided that I would try to look at the game from a blank slat and to observe my impressions. This is those impressions remember that these are impressions, feelings and first thoughts I am not making any claims here. Also the sections in parenthesis () is me with thousands of hours, reading everything hinterland has ever put on the internet as well as experience with this community talking. So the I enjoyed the tutorial, very well integrated. Though some of the little things you can click on and Will would talk about them forced. I don't think the lines where delivered poorly or that this objects shouldn't be interactive at this stage. It's that there where many other ways to tell the same story other then dialogue. Such as, for the picture of astride a well acted sigh, a picture of a pretty girl and the ring on his finger tell us everything we need to know. Where as the part with plan was perfect because he personifies it in the dialog so it seems right that he might talk to it/to himself/ to the audience for a moment.( It would have been nice if during the first scene of Will playing solitaire would have had the phone in it more because I know plenty of people that have wondered around for minutes looking for it.) Has for the cut scene that followed it did it's job at making want to know more about these characters and giving just enough personality to anchor my perception of they should behave in the future, as well as setting up the McGuffin. (good job to Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale for the second best performance in the game. Yes it was a little over done at times such as the "whats in the case line" and " I need a pilot to take me somewhere remote, someone who won't ask any questions, someone I can trust". But, in both cases it works out favorably. I need to also mention how the art team really showed us what they could do here.)

 

    https://youtu.be/q4_h8GyIWkM This, the intro to episode one and two is the best part of Wintermute, the perfect mystique. As in a atmosphere of reverence and foreboding. So well it says now it begins, this world is not yours and that you are not cut out for the new one you are entering better then a thousand words. Better then ever time gray mother and Methuselah tell you so. If there is an award for best for seconds of animation who ever did the animation for the forth frame or 0:14 to 0:18 deserves it. I have seen that face a thousand times and I know what it means, I understand what someone is thinking and feeling when they make that face, in four seconds they set my expectation for what this story would be; the trials the characters were going to face were going to face and feel me with both excitement and dread. The next frame seems simply hammers everything we learned from the last home. (The next three do capture the core themes of the game) The next three seem to just give the music the rains on the story and immersion while the credits roll. If fire in game looked the way that it does at 0:53 the long dark would the champion of graphical design in games as art. Since I have never seen this character and it came right after the wolves I realized that there will be some interesting characters in this other than Will and Astride. Also about this time I had no doubt that the main "enemy" was going to be wolves. (the part at 1:08 with ??? helps like every scene to establish expectation and anticipation but, it still hasn't met a pay of and I don't think that it will be able to do as well as the other similar scene in the intro; mostly because the telescope in the back ground, there isn't really any more room for a stargazing or government facility subplot and I fear that suddenly the aliens knocked the power out or something.) In summary it paints the scene well and put me in the right frame of mind well. (this what I still think and thought my first time through Wintermute and is difficult to argue the cut scene doesn't capture the spirit of the game. But remember when I mentioned the "now we can play" aspect the entering of other world, like the Nordic stories before the long dark this is most effective if first we know the normal world and know the consequences of the leaving it. That is why I think the episode two intro is best as an intro two episode two.) My computer is running low on battery so I will have to finish episode one once I get it charged. Next time I will discuss how, why and the effect of after my fresh perspective run it seems like hinterland doesn't really have a plan or at least what they should have after what can I can only assume was years of pre production. Also please tell me how difficult this was to follow and how I can improve I have never tried double narrator writing before.

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by RegentRelic