After getting and watching Force Awakens again...

[DefunctTheory]

I like how you keep amping up Rey's desperate and lucky piloting though. I'd like to see you describe Empire's asteroid belt scene, where a clunky freighter manages to out fly some four smaller and more maneuverable fighters until said TIE fighters manage to introduce themselves to space debris. Especially considering the pilot, Han Solo, has no more ability in the Force than I do.

It could also be argued that the Falcon's constant improvements by Han and Chewie greatly increased the capabilities of the old ship, and the "hunk of junk"/"garbage" look to it is partially camouflage that makes most anyone encountering it underestimate its abilities. It can also be argued the modifications make piloting said ship fairly easy. I'd like to think that Han and Chewie did a lot to the Falcon, even before they lost it, that would make it as efficient and less complicated to fly, especially because the more complicated it was the more likely it would fail at some point (which it's already prone to doing).

The Falcon is pretty consistently shown to be a pile of garbage. A high performance piece of garbage, but garbage non-the-less. It has mechanical problems pretty much every time it shows up, in the movies or in the (No longer canon) EU.

Unfortunately for the discussion (But fortunately for the new EU), the Falcon doesn't show up. What does show up, however, is the name 'Corellian' which is pretty much used universally to prove how amazing a ship is. Anything made by the CEC is 100% guaranteed to blow your socks off.

My interpretation of the new continuity, including the original movies, is that the Falcon is an old but impressive ship that Han and Chewie have modified, 50% to squeeze a bit more performance out of it's already impressive design, and 50% to keep the ancient thing from blowing up in their face.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Meanwhile, Rey flies the second most awkwardly designed ship in the setting like a pro after an awkward takeoff through an Obstacle course that managed to take down at least one smaller and more maneuverable fighter.

Nitpicking, I know, but zero TIE FO's crashed via interacting with the environment due to Rey's piloting. Both were destroyed via laserfire from Finn. Using an antiquated quad cannon that probably hadn't been properly serviced since before he was born, if ever.

I like how you keep amping up Rey's desperate and lucky piloting though. I'd like to see you describe Empire's asteroid belt scene, where a clunky freighter manages to out fly some four smaller and more maneuverable fighters until said TIE fighters manage to introduce themselves to space debris. Especially considering the pilot, Han Solo, has no more ability in the Force than I do.

Actually, thank you for correcting me on that. I got that wrong, and I apologize. That said, Han had been flying the Falcon for years by that point. He knew exactly how it handles and what to expect out of it.

Not to mention said Asteroid belt was actually pretty damn roomy. Seriously, I know at least one Star Destroyer got destroyed in there, but the fact that they could get in PERIOD kind shows how much open space was there. Compare that to the wrechage canyon Rey flies through, it's no contest.

Snip

Except that wasn't subtle either. Vader hammered it into our heads that "The Force was strong with this one". This movie was never subtle. I mean for fuck's sake. The Force is divided into light and dark. How unsubtle is that as to which one is the good one? The Force is space magic crossed with Jesus. Subtle it ain't.

No, it is not feasible. At all. That's like saying I could get into a Blackhawk helicopter and it would be feasible to take off. The results would be similar. A smoldering pile of wreckage When he crashed into the hanger of the droid ship, he should've been dead. Pushing random buttons in a flying vehicle is a good way to get yourself killed For some reason you think a ten year old blowing up an entire army is more acceptable that Rey out flying two fighters, because he did the first by accident. Really? Well Rey did it by accident. Is that an acceptable explanation?

Lucky is not the word I would use. Lucky is when you find a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. What Anakin did was skull fuck reality. Anakin built a robot at the age of ten, beat a veteran in a pod race with a sabotaged pod, and then saved an entire day and an army. And Rey is the one you call a sue.

Yeah not really. Espically considering Anakin was named as the fucking chosen one with a power leve- midichlorian count of over 9000. How is that subtle again? Right, it isn't.

I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS TOO! IT DOESN'T MAKE YOUR POINT STRONGER! Yeah I mean Rey has no character flaws. I mean it's not like she ran away because she panicked and got captured-oh wait. I mean it's not like she didn't easily explain something to Finn instead of insisting she just hand him a thing that nearly got them killed-oh wait. And I've said it before and I'll say it again. Rey running off set off a chain of advents that got Han Solo killed. So you saying that she doesn't have flaws? Incorrect. Plus there's that whole obsessively waiting on Jakku thing. Or does wasting the majority of your life squatting on a desert planet of your own free will not count as a flaw?

OH! And you STILL haven't replied to my earlier points in this post.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.936976-After-getting-and-watching-Force-Awakens-again?page=6#23609531

Are you going to ever get around to that?

Actually, the light and dark split was purely the work of the old EU. Before that it was just The Force, and The Dark Side of the force. Seriously, go through the first 6 movies.

And what about the points you raised? You kinda went on a bit on a tangent there. I'll focus on the Starkiller ones if only because those ones seem interesting, and I gotta be honest, I'm starting to get more than a little bored here. Feels less like The Escapist and more like the comment section of the Nostaltgia Critic's review of The Force Unleashed.

First off, I'd already mentioned exceptions to the "no one wants to be a non-badass" point I made, and while I missed the horror genre, it's mostly because there aren't a whole lot of horror games like that these days. Yeah, you have things like Outlast where you ARE a non-badass, but most of them these days are going the Resident Evil/Deadspace route. Spooky environments, and badass weaponry.

God I would kill for another Clocktower game.

However, it still doesn't change the fact that, by and large, NO ONE wants to play, say, a Star Wars game where you're playing as C-3P0. They want to be Boba Fett, or Wedge Antilies, or Luke Skywalker. Shoot stuff, fly stuff, or use the force.

While videogame characters CAN be Stues and Sues, the bar for that is much more different than it would be for characters from books or movies, and can even vary from genre to genre. Games like The Force Unleashed in particular have an odd placement because the entire point is to make the player feel like an unstoppable engine of destruction. Playing as some dipweed who can barely hold a lightsaber in a game like that really doesn't make for a fun time for most people. (Unless they decided to make a Star Wars version of Monkey Island which actually sounds pretty baller.) Complaining about Starkiller's sueishness would be like griping about the Player character in any Fallout games sueishness. Keep him as a player character and he's bareable. Put him in the books or movies and people would toss him in the pile with Rey.

Actually, you could make a better argument that the Player Characters in the main Fallout games are sues than you could Starkiller. 3, New Vegas, and 4 in particular. Not hard to ensure those guys are charismatic as hell, skilled with all types of weaponry, lock picks, and computer hacking, able to endure anything the world sends at them without a care in the world, stealthier than a ninja, and trained medical professionals to boot.

Really though, you want an example of a Stu in an actiony game, try Rico from Killzone. Dumbass screws up CONSTANTLY due to being a violent jarhead, but he keeps getting promoted and placed in positions of authority when any General with any sense would've put him on latrine duty LONG ago.

I don't see it. Yeah a Wookie that no one else felt needed to be interrogated or properly processed. I'm not military expert, but I'm pretty sure that two random privates can't just take a prisoner deep into a highly secure base without confirming it with their superior.

You're right. You AREN'T a military expert. Nor are you an expert in paperwork. My little brother recently got a ticket for running a toll booth. He ran it back in freaking NOVEMBER. And this was up in DC! Paperwork gets lost and misplaced CONSTANTLY in any government positions in cities! You really think it's gonna be any better on a moon sized space station!? For crying out loud, College Humor did a joke about how something as simple as a coffee run could take a long time, and you're expecting quick and efficient paperwork!?


Of course that's still ignoring the fact that they DID get called out on it by a superior. The guy was actually gonna check on that when Han and Luke started shooting.

Once again, did you actually SEE that movie?

Rey said that she flew ships before, how come that doesn't apply too?

Freaking when!? The only thing I recall her talking about that even REMOTELY relates to flight was when she said she was the one who put the extra crap on the Falcon! We don't even see her flying her freaking speeder! At leat Luke actually mentions having flown before twice in Episode 4! Yeah, it's telling and not showing, but it's still more than Rey ever got!

Yeah, and Starkiller could bring down a star destroyer, video game characters are bullshit. Your point?

You're really gonna say that on a gaming website? Really? I'm not even certain what I CAN say about that.

Yeah, and she and Poe warmed up to a character that stood by and watched while a massacre took place and used to work for the enemy. Where are you going with this?

Number one, neither of them have any idea Finn was involved in that. Number two, considering the end result of trying to rebel then would be (SHOOT SHOOT STAB) why would the hold that against him? Number three, my point is that someone attempting to kill you because of a jacket you are wearing is generally NOT someone you warm up to as quickly as Finn did. Poe at least was friendly to him and gave him a name. Even Han and Luke didn't bond as quickly as Finn did for Rey.

I'm guessing because the standard for story telling in gaming is considered to be that low? Pardon me for expecting games to be on par with other media. Games can do more than make people feel powerful.

I'm terribly sorry to be the one to tell you this, but in most videogames the story generally comes secondary to actually being fun to play. Hence the GAME part of the name. You could have a story that makes Lord of the Rings look like Eragon, nobody outside of the GameJournoPros is gonna care if the game plays like crap. (And even then, you'd need something to offer the GJP.)

Even RPGs tend to have stories that are paint by numbers, and the ones that don't tend to focus on sheer spectical than anything else. (Square, I'm looking at you.) Even games like Walking Simulators and Visual Novels tend to be rather lackluster on the whole, and that's all those games have GOT! (The best I've ever seen out of Walking Simulators would have to be the Stanley Parable, which actually has some interesting ideas and food for thought on the topic of free will and choice in video games.)

Not a hard shot, a physically impossible shot, hence the "Even for a computer" aspect to the conversation.

As stated by one guy out of everyone in that room. Plus, have you ever spoken to fighter pilots? Particularly good ones? I've heard those guys bragging about even harder targets than that.

Seriously, one guy says it's impossible and you take that as law? It's pretty much impossible for me to make a slam dunk, but that doesn't mean others don't do it on a regular basis.

Well I didn't say that, so why'd you bring it up? It's what happened in the first movie to save the day. Training helps, but its clear that believing in the force is enough to save the day when you're untrained. And you accuse others of not having seen the first movie.

If belief in the force was enough to save the day, the heroes would never face any real opposition, and the only thing that could reliably stop a Jedi would be a Sith who's really big on Self-Help seminars. There were COUNTLESS examples of Force users being taken down by non-force sensitives. As Atton said, it's not hard, you just have to be smart about it. For crying out loud, Boba Fett was one of Vader's favorite guy to call for Jedi hunting when he was busy with other things. The man actually had a lightsaber collection.

Seriously, under your mindset Anakin would've beaten Count Dooku the first time they fought. Younger, sure in himself, and was literally half made of Force. What part of that wouldn't curbstomp Dooku with your thoughts here? Or did Dooku just believe in himself that much harder?

Until Rey showed up, the most an untrained force user could do was physical improvements that could be written off as skill or luck, one case of telekinesis, and jumping real good.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

They didn't specifically refer to the Jedi as using the light side of the force, but they still called what the Sith used the dark side? I'm sorry, that's still a pretty clear good guy/ bad guy split. IE, the subtly of a Saturday morning cartoon. For fuck's sake, who the hell honestly calls their side the dark side with no irony?

If you're getting bored than stop. I'm not forcing you to constantly reply to me.

You know there's in-betweens when it comes to Star Wars. It's not, "Completely useless comic relief" or "most badass person in existance." What the hell happened to games like TIE fighter and X-Wing? Where you play as average joes fighting the war? Or Battlefront, where you play as soldiers in the field? There are other ways to do Star Wars games other than being a force user or Han solo, and I really wish game devs would remember that. I swear, games limit themselves by focusing on making the player feel like a massive badass without letting their actions just speak for themselves. I didn't need to be Wedge in X-Wing Alliance to feel badass when I helped defend a base from an Imperial incursion. I was some nobody who only joined the rebellion out of desperation. And I still felt like a badass. You don't need to go out of your way to say the character is a badass, just let the player kick ass and things will follow through. Even more understated moments of awesomeness tend to be satisfying, especially if you're an underdog. Yeah, except a Fallout character never did anything totally jaw dropping like pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky. Even in video games, Starkiller crosses a line. Because that's without getting into how he was trained by Darth Vader, had tragic dead parents, beat Jedi masters, but had a change of heart and was a founding member of the rebellion, died except not really and kicked the shit out of Vader (Twice) and then helped capture him...yeah the second game had an ending that completely shat all over the source material. That was the point where it hit me that I had just played someone's half baked fan fiction. Fallout characters have a bit more sublty and grace to them, especially with the faction system in NV where you're guaranteed to have one faction pissed at you no matter what. The main problem with Starkiller isn't just that he's overpowered. It's that being overpowered is all he has, that's pretty much his personality. Whatever you say about Rey, there's more to her than that.

Ok, do you think you're making a point by all caping words? You're not. And call me crazy, I think your brother's speeding ticket wouldn't have the same level of importance as the the bastard child of the Pentagon and the Manhattan project when there's a captured ship in it. They pulled that ship in, they couldn't find anyone on it, they would've been on high alert and wouldn't have just let two privates take away the one person they couldn't find without pulling Chewie to the side for questioning. Yeah, they did call them out, way later than they should have. They shouldn't have gotten out of the hanger. Chewie's kinda hard to miss and I refuse to believe that a half competently run military organization, which the Empire is supposed to be, would just let a Wookie waltz out with two soldiers that are never established to have any kind of authority.

She said that she flew ships before. It's a crappy explanation but it's the same level of justification we got for Luke and Wamp Rats. Seems to be par for the course for Star Wars.

Yeah I'm pretty sure Poe could guess that a First Order trooper had done pretty terrible things. After witnessing the massacre, he shouldn't have given a crap either way. Even if he was keeping his mouth shut because Finn was rescuing him, he wouldn't have been all buddy buddy when they met up again, because Finn had worked for the organization that carried out God knows how many war crimes. How would either of them know the First Order's policy on deserters? That's not the kind of thing you announce across the galaxy, and they sound like they have a next to nonexistent desertion rate. I refer you to my earlier point of not warming up to someone who was a former member of a genocidal order of war criminals. Luke wasn't desperately fleeing for his life from the word go. If I was in Finn's shoes I'd be worshiping anyone who got me away from the First Order, even if they were a bit hot headed.

Then they shouldn't bother with a story in the first place. Go the route of Civilization or Prison Architect. If you're going to half ass it, then don't bother. And video games could be fun and have a good story if people tried. Apparently the motivation doesn't seem to be there. And nobody would care? Yeah, uh, I don't know how you came to that conclusion, but there are countless games out there that people go through just because they like the story, not for the gameplay. Legacy of Kain comes to mind. Spec Ops the Line wasn't gaining appeal for its gameplay either.

We are not talking about reality, we are talking about Star Wars reality. That rebel said it was impossible, and no one, freaking no one, objected to him until Luke spoke up. With such a serious mission, you think people would be quick to correct him if only to give themselves hope. Considering that no one else did...yeah. I take it as a law because no one seemed to object to it. And considering that out of all of the pilots on the rebel main base, he was one of the 30 chosen to lead a desperate last strike against the Empire, I would assume the picked someone who had some idea of what he was talking about. Plus someone did take a shot at it, with the assistance of a computer, and it didn't work. He wasn't wrong...we never saw someone who didn't have the force make a shot like that.

It's enough to get one last push across the finish line. And to be frank it really is hard to feel that the main characters face serious opposition. Seriously, Vader and the Emperor seems like the only people who can actually get things done in the Empire. Their soldiers got routed by teddie bears for fuck's sake.

See above for when I said it was more of a last push.

Yeah could be written off if you didn't recognize what was going on. And I still refuse to acknowledge Akankin's ten year old accomplishments as luck. The universe bent over backwards for him so many times there it's a freaking pretzel now.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I blame Abrahms inability to create good content.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I blame Abrahms inability to create good content.

Here here. After what he did with Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness (Particularly Into Darkness. It's pretty damn clear the man has no idea what actually made Kirk and Khan's dynamic work.), whoever put him in charge of Star Wars was either a moron, or owed him drug money.

You know there's in-betweens when it comes to Star Wars. It's not, "Completely useless comic relief" or "most badass person in existance." What the hell happened to games like TIE fighter and X-Wing? Where you play as average joes fighting the war? Or Battlefront, where you play as soldiers in the field?

Did you miss the Fly Stuff and Shoot stuff part of what I posted, or did you deliberately ignore that?

Also, don't you play as the Empire's best pilot evar in TIE fighter? Y'know, the guy who probably could've single handidly won the Battle of Endor if he wasn't stationed on the other side of the Empire and was also part of a secret cabal in the empire as well as force sensitive? Yeah, total regular guy.

 

[Erttheking]

I blame Abrahms inability to create good content.

Here here. After what he did with Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness (Particularly Into Darkness. It's pretty damn clear the man has no idea what actually made Kirk and Khan's dynamic work.), whoever put him in charge of Star Wars was either a moron, or owed him drug money.

You know there's in-betweens when it comes to Star Wars. It's not, "Completely useless comic relief" or "most badass person in existance." What the hell happened to games like TIE fighter and X-Wing? Where you play as average joes fighting the war? Or Battlefront, where you play as soldiers in the field?

Did you miss the Fly Stuff and Shoot stuff part of what I posted, or did you deliberately ignore that?

Also, don't you play as the Empire's best pilot evar in TIE fighter? Y'know, the guy who probably could've single handidly won the Battle of Endor if he wasn't stationed on the other side of the Empire and was also part of a secret cabal in the empire as well as force sensitive? Yeah, total regular guy.

I didn't notice it, but it was an argument that missed the point. I'm not saying you should be a non-combatant, I'm saying you don't have to be the best evar at something in a video game. At the end of the day, the main character of TIE fighter was a regular dude in a fragile fighter that would go down after a couple of hits. And, quite rarely for video games, his victories end up being meaningless as he fought to win a civil war for the Empire. The Empire that's about to fall.]

And that's all your replying to? Is that your way of saying that we're done here?

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Honestly never thought of Episode I Anakin Skywalker as Gary Stu, but once you come from that mind set and use Gary Stu vocabulary, I think a far better case could be made for Anakin rather than Rey. Certainly saying Anakin is not, but Rey is the weakest set of arguments I've read. I would choose non of the above. But I think once you throw Rey under the Mary Su bus, then Anakin goes as well... unfortunately that won't be very hard for a lot of people, considering the outright revulsion people tend towards the prequels. (Which granted, have problems, but Stu/ Su ness isn't really one of them.)

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Honestly never thought of Episode I Anakin Skywalker as Gary Stu, but once you come from that mind set and use Gary Stu vocabulary, I think a far better case could be made for Anakin rather than Rey. Certainly saying Anakin is not, but Rey is the weakest set of arguments I've read. I would choose non of the above. But I think once you throw Rey under the Mary Su bus, then Anakin goes as well... unfortunately that won't be very hard for a lot of people, considering the outright revulsion people tend towards the prequels. (Which granted, have problems, but Stu/ Su ness isn't really one of them.)

Well there is ONE thing Anakin has going against him that Rey doesn't. Just about every Jedi in the galaxy never fails to bust his chops when given the chance. Seriously, it's part of what encourages his fall to the Dark Side. Heck, even his promotion to a Jedi Knight had council members arguing against it. Rey on the other hand is pretty much instantly liked by everyone she meets, even if she tried to kill them before.

I blame Abrahms inability to create good content.

Here here. After what he did with Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness (Particularly Into Darkness. It's pretty damn clear the man has no idea what actually made Kirk and Khan's dynamic work.), whoever put him in charge of Star Wars was either a moron, or owed him drug money.

You know there's in-betweens when it comes to Star Wars. It's not, "Completely useless comic relief" or "most badass person in existance." What the hell happened to games like TIE fighter and X-Wing? Where you play as average joes fighting the war? Or Battlefront, where you play as soldiers in the field?

Did you miss the Fly Stuff and Shoot stuff part of what I posted, or did you deliberately ignore that?

Also, don't you play as the Empire's best pilot evar in TIE fighter? Y'know, the guy who probably could've single handidly won the Battle of Endor if he wasn't stationed on the other side of the Empire and was also part of a secret cabal in the empire as well as force sensitive? Yeah, total regular guy.

I didn't notice it, but it was an argument that missed the point. I'm not saying you should be a non-combatant, I'm saying you don't have to be the best evar at something in a video game. At the end of the day, the main character of TIE fighter was a regular dude in a fragile fighter that would go down after a couple of hits. And, quite rarely for video games, his victories end up being meaningless as he fought to win a civil war for the Empire. The Empire that's about to fall.]

And that's all your replying to? Is that your way of saying that we're done here?

Don't Anakin's victories as a Jedi become meaningless as well then? He fights to preserve the Republic, but his actions cost him everything he cared about while turning the Republic into The Empire. Heck, he even loses Padme, and saving her was the entire REASON he fell to begin with!

Either way, yeah we are done here.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I just want to know why the Rebellion Resistance doesn't have it's own Death Star by now. They've had the plans for the fucker for 30 years now...you mean to tell me they couldn't have built one of their own by now? You know...just in case anybody wanted to...oh, I don't know...turn a planet into a star-devouring doomsday weapon that can obliterate other planets from half-way across the galaxy? Seems like having your own Death Star - a station that can destroy planets - would come in handy in case the remnants of the Empire decided to start acting up again.

Renegade for Life!

Because using any version of the weapon that was so expensive and impractical it's destruction ruined the faction that made it is fucking retarded. If you must bomb a planet a few star destroyers could probably do well enough. The Death Star is no more practical and no less sillier than the Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster, or stupidly massive siege towers before it. Of course the First Order despite learning in some areas still made another one because JJ Abrams wanted a worse version of A New Hope with some bits of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi thrown in.

The original Death Star would probably be workable if instead of being treated like a mobile space station, treated as the center of a carrier group: ergo it would have an escort of several Star Destroyers, possibly also the Super Star Destroyer, any smaller craft in the Imperial Navy, and of course enough TIE Fighters to drown a black hole.