By Kieron Gillen on November 14th, 2008 at 7:39 pm.
Still Life 2 (the sequel to Still Life (the sequel to Post Mortem (no, really! (which John didn’t like (I mean Still Life, not the sequel (which isn’t out, so John would be very bad not to like it.)))))) was announced in the ancient history of the past. Like, the arse end of 2007. But it’s coming out next year, and its debut trailer has just appeared online. You’ll find it beneath the cut. I was going to do a sarcastic second-by-second break down, but frankly, I don’t know what to make of it.
Er… yes.
Anyway, here’s some Still Life.
And here’s Still Life, the awesomely melodramatic Suede record.
More news when we’ve worked out what it all means.
Please. When did that little detail ever stop anyone from not liking or otherwise having an opinion on something?
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It was only about half way through the trailer that my brain found the difference between Still Life and Second Life.
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The second half of that trailer really reminded me of the video for Sober, by Tool. Musically and visually. Also, nice still life.
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Second Life is the one with more criminal perverts in rubber masks.
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pretentious – expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature.
This trailer is ^
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I think that first sentence is why people consider you guys to be rgeat writers. Younger, less experienced would buckle under the pressure of so many brackets.
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Smashing job with the parenthesis here!
Many people (particularly teachers) don’t derive (what I feel is) the full amount of joy out of parenthetical use. They tend to get all hung up on things like proper grammatical use (which I never was particularly good at grasping (I managed to get into advanced english and (luckily) we went with the lit. rather than the grammer (which oldschool school types might bemoan)) rather than taking a more creative view of parenthetical use. It wasn’t until college (Freshman Studies (Does every university have an analogous class (I suspect so)?)) that I really learned what english teachers want (from a french teacher, no less). They want you to follow the formula: Here’s what I’m going to tell you, here it is I’m telling you now, ok this is what I just told you. I never took much pleasure from writing in such a style (nevermind what was easiest for my reader) (though I did eventually learn to do it (I was suprised how much my grades increased!)). I guess one needs to have very strong English-Fu before the Faulkner Style can be attempted (speaking of Kung-Fu, if you guys wanna check out a pretty sweet kung-fu flick rent “The Prodigal Son” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085211/ (err non-english title (but available w/ an english dub))) it was pretty freaking crazy (and available on netflix))(teachers didn’t have a problem making me READ it in H.S. tho). No, english teachers don’t have the the joie de parenthesis. Mathmaticians generally are more prone to creative parenthesisivication. If you want really excessive parenthetical use, however, you gotta talk to the computer scientists (particularly the scheme/lisp programmers (those guys are outta control (and by that I mean personal heros))).
To those of you still with me (a dedicated group (which I believe you (collectively) are (good job))) I wish to offer my comedic thanks (hope you had fun).
(My wife says she used the word “parenthetical” the other day at work, and was nearly thrown out of the meeting room for being an egghead)
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Parenthesese unnecessary are you Notation Polish Reverse use if.
Awkward rather English for, though.
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Wow, once again the RPS comments thread impresses me (though obviously the initial parentheses impressed me too (and this is as far as I go – I get scared of punctuation within brackets)).
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I love all you guys.
KG
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() vs. [] vs. {}? Three forms of bracketing enter, ONLY ONE LEAVES…ALIVE!
(Seriously, though, when do you use {}?)
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If you’re a programmer.
KG
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I’m still not sure who exactly it is that regards Still Life fondly. Although having played a few recent adventure games, having semi-decent voice acting seems to be more than enough to propel it into the class of minor masterpiece.
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It seems that the esteemed writers of Wikipedia don’t even really know what the curly braces are for:
<a href”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Curly_brackets_or_braces_.7B_.7D” title=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Curly_brackets_or_braces_.7B_.7D”
One of the vaguest encyclopaedia entries ever.
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Also if you’re extra-fancy. {Think of them as parentheses with moulding and scrollwork. Corinthean Parens, if you will.}
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@Adam T:
You failed to close the parentheses you started between “use” and “which I was never particularly good at grasping”.
{Programmer here. If my curly brackets don’t match up, my compiler yells at me incomprehensibly until I negotiate.}
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Different styles brackets can be used inside each other to help the reader keep track of things ([{}]) or ([([])]).
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I skipped straight to the Suede song…
Maybe Brett Anderson can write the theme song for this game.
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Pffft, you can’t fool me: computers program themselves; these “programmers” are just the computers’ way of hiding this from the rest of us. Have you ever seen a programmer? Thought so.
I’m really curious about the history of the parenthesis now. To Wiki!
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Something tells me Kieron has been drinking again.
(myself though, I only love some of you.)
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Pace may be right. But the bracket craziness *was* sweet.
KG
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With all this talk about parentheses you guys should start coding in LISP. I also love parenthetical phrases, but that has little to do with why I picked up the language.
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and does anyone else find it odd how whenever someone wants to create tense action music they immitate Zeppelin’s Kashmir?
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I thought the animation and rendering were stiff and dated looking. Is it supposed to simulate the game engine?
Plus, I think that lady is just green screen footage of Victoria Beckham.
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Irony: brackets on a shelf are there for sturdiness. Brackets in an RPS post are indications that the authors are less than sturdy.
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ps. I mean that in the sozzled sense, not the terrible writer sense.
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RPS, where the discussion is always bracing…
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The different variations of parenthesis are obviously for making different kinds of ascii face. Clearly:
Mustache :-{|
Vampire fangs >:-[
Devil horns ]:-|
.
oh, and Quirk: )
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Doh, wrong name above…
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Still Life 2! Yay! I really enjoyed Still Life…embarrasing racist voice acting for the black characters aside. I hope Still Life 2 comes out for the 360…or at least the Mac.
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I also like still life. I rented it. I’ll buy this, just to show support. It was pretty silly, but genuinely intruiging. At least for me.
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I am actually curious to know how voice acting can be racist. Was it bad writing, overblown accents, or using “spear-chucker” as a pronoun?
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Overblown accents. Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8rOia-9i9Q
Around 3:35.
Please note…this game is set in Chicago not in the South somewhere.
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Rumour has it that the original Still Life started out as a Half Life clone. However, they dumped the original code and made it into an adventure title.
You’ll notice hints of Half life clone in the sequel as a Combine soldier makes an appearance in the teaser above.
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It’s worth remembering that the first Still Life came with Starforce DRM.
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I enjoyed Still Life. I fear this is going to be fairly consolized from that video. Sure, Dreamfall and Fahrenheit were absolutely superb adventure games but I still like the gameplay of my adventure games to be a little more traditional. Nevertheless, I really wanted a Still Life sequel so I’ll be buying this.
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