I was searching for an unrelated txt file, and happened to notice
"Namedroppers.txt" in my Pathways Into Darkness... doc files?
I guess whoever made this PID compilation (it's been so long, I don't remember where I got it) also saved this bit from the
PID story archive. Which is the best way to experience old Bungie titles, by the way. I've completed PID a couple of times, but getting Basilisk II working is a little complicated, and... actually *playing* the game, can be very frustrating. That subdomain is so well crafted, it's essentially a well-written Let's Play of the most chilling game Bungie ever made. With subsections for explanations, and fan theories.
I say that as a die-hard Marathon fan, and a fan of Halo 1-3. With proper suspension of disbelief, and ignoring the multiplayer crap, the Halo *trilogy* was a good story. Pathways Into Darkness and Marathon were great.
I digress. The file is an examination of the corpses you can speak to in the game.... And who remembers whom. You see, the dead quickly started to forget their lives, as they lay there trapped in their bones. Many of them forgot their own names, sometimes before they forgot their friends. But it's possible to work out who everyone is... was. The game doesn't reward that in any way, it's just possible.
That mechanic (like the "translator logs" in Unreal, or the terminal messages in Marathon (and System Shock 1-2)) really helped set the tone. Modern games... try, I guess. With "collectible" letters and audiologs and such. But it usually falls so flat. Maybe because the rest of said games is so desperate to grab attention, and pretend to be a movie (be cinematic).
Far Cry 3 was damn good, and some of its letters had impact, but never so much as happening to find
this poor desiccated skeleton in a forgotten corner of a catacomb of waking nightmares.
And the room full of useless gold... And the pitiable, yet *evil* lost soul within. Harmless and horrible.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14839453 times)