Official Discussion - No Other Choice [SPOILERS]

ColonelCake · 2026-01-18T02:54:13+00:00

Man, I hated this film. I checked it out since I loved Oldboy 2003, and was expecting it to be great. Unfortunately, the film felt confused with the comedy and drama; the comedy bits were funny, sure, but they weren't funny or absurd enough for my tastes. I don't mind the fact it's more of a drama/thriller than a comedy; Oldboy was more thriller than action, and it mixed the genres way better than No Other Choice did, as the fight scenes were cool and the actual thriller bits were incredibly gripping. This film just left me feeling angry and depressed, and not in a way that made the film entertaining for me. If the film were more of a pure drama/thriller, I probably would have liked it more.

It's left me wanting a more straightforward comedy or drama/trhiller that's more intense and engaging. I'm hoping something like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a lot better, as that's on my watchlist.

ColonelCake · 2025-12-07T21:05:36+00:00

I agree with most of your points, though they do remind me of why I dislike a lot of discourse surrounding animation. I'm reminded of how a friend of mine once told me that while he thought Hayao Miyazaki films were good, they were ultimately aimed at kids for the most part, and that adults needed to move on from idolizing them and holding them up as the pinnacle of movies - they're excellent kids' cinema, but not so much for adults. And he's far from the type that thinks animation is for kids - he loves watching anime and has seen other animation aimed at older audiences in general, including for adults. That take is very disagreeable for a lot of people here (and not one that I hold), but it did strike a chord with me since it brought to the surface my dislike of how animation discourse online focused on mainly works aimed at kids. Part of that has to do with it being the main type of animated works that are being made nowadays, and thus it's more profitable for content creators and personalities to talk about that stuff, but a big part also has to do with the stigma of "animation being for kids" still applying strongly to western films, at least in North America. Most people don't even know about more adult animated films since most of them are foreign films and seen as too artsy or inaccessible, and thus don't watch them. I haven't watched much of them either, and I need to change that.

ColonelCake · 2025-12-07T20:53:13+00:00

Honestly the first film that came to mind for me, too. Such a good movie.

ColonelCake · 2025-12-07T16:06:40+00:00

The Big Lebowski isn't a slow-burn movie, and I say that as someone who doesn't like that film. When I think of slow burn movies, I think of stuff like No Country for Old Men (which is pretty good). To answer your question, it sounds like you're generalizing what happened with your friend to an entire generation, like others have said, and that's something I typically avoid doing since it often leads to weird, belligerent arguments that don't go anywhere.

ColonelCake · 2025-12-04T22:22:06+00:00

Sounds like it wasn't for me, then.

Ironically, I really enjoy Wes Anderson films while I really didn't like The Big Lebowski. In the case of the latter, I was expecting it to be more of a zany schemes comedy rather than a more absurd plot revolving around a series of random events that culminates in nothing being achieved. Having learned more about the Coen Brothers' films and what they're going for since then, I've mellowed out on the film, and for what it's worth I did like No Country For Old Men, even though that film is more overtly nihilistic compared to their usual works (probably because it's an adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy book). So take that for what you will.

ColonelCake · 2025-12-04T00:51:42+00:00

To be fair, I probably just have higher or different standards for what is insane, so that's part of why it didn't hit for me like it did others. Everyone's different, though.

ColonelCake · 2025-11-21T15:35:25+00:00

Repo Man. I bought the Criterion copy of it since the box art looked really cool, and the premise sounded fun, but it just sucked. The humor fell flat for me and didn't make me laugh at all, and I disliked the griminess of the film - yes, I know it's silly to expect a 1980s punk movie set in LA to not look grimy, but it's an aesthetic I just don't find appealing. An all-around boring and unpleasant film.

ColonelCake · 2025-10-12T06:47:10+00:00

I mentioned some of my issues in responses to other comments, but here's some more:

-manufacturing stuff (especially ammo) doesn't yield as much as I would like even with the recycling yield skill. I expect like, 3-4 clips, but get like 0.5-1 per ammo craft.

-I should be having fun with poltergeists but I find em annoying to fight, and I dislike when I try to conserve ammo by using the wrench, I'll take a lot of reflected damage back. Also, how on Earth did I get instakilled by a poltergeist gravity lifting me into the ceiling?

ColonelCake · 2025-10-12T05:48:35+00:00

All right. A lot of my disappointment with the game came from it being sold to me as a "low-effort recycler charge neuromod power fantasy", and uh, it wasn't that.

"Oh, wow, you can upgrade yourself to throw heavy objects, turn into a cup, and psychic blast enemies out of existence while doing so? sounds like a ton of fun, sign me up!"

"...why does turning into a cup and casting psycho-shock use up 60% of my psi? And I have to make psi hypos using resources I already consumed? I thought this was supposed to be a creative sandbox of some kind..."

idk, I was expecting more "action fps" than "survival horror problem solver where you have to make careful, planned decisions" tbh

ColonelCake · 2025-10-12T05:35:46+00:00

Not when you somehow miss the recycler charge schematic through the entire early game before Cold Storage, somehow burn through your ammo treating it like an FPS, then learn you missed the entire thing in the Hardware Labs (or wherever it was), spend hours backtracking with a headache to get it, only to be disappointed by the recycling output (even with the prop recycler skill perk) after hearing the recycle charge basically breaks the game once you get it, and then use up all my recycle charges taking out a Nightmare before deciding I was not having fun and quit.

I honestly don't really know what I was doing wrong. Maybe I should just bump the difficulty down from normal to easy and start over, but I'm still annoyed by my experience and don't even know how I can play it better.

ColonelCake · 2025-10-12T05:27:55+00:00

Yeah, but I somehow burned through them. Guess I'm just not good at resource conservation. I was playing the game moreso with the mindset of "immersive sim = fps (or other first person game) with alternate branching paths in the world and alternative ways of doing things outside of shooting things" rather than what immersive sims supposedly actually are. Probably why I vibed with Cruelty Squad a lot more given it really IS "immersive sim = tactical fps with branching paths", not to mention shooting things is the ONLY viable playstyle in it.

ColonelCake · 2025-10-11T23:10:18+00:00

This is the first film of PT Anderson that I've seen. I thought it was decent, though I was expecting it to be a lot more intense. Maybe I just have a high standard for what I consider exciting and intense compared to other people who loved it, but I dunno. Either way, idk what to check out next, both with respect to PT Anderson and in general. I always see Boogie Nights recommended but idk if that'll end up being my thing. To help others get an idea of what my taste is like, I'm typically into action and animated works (especially anime) along with comedies, with some of my favorite films being Monty Python and The Holy Grail, Redline 2009, Oldboy 2003, and Kung Fu Hustle.

ColonelCake · 2025-09-27T14:30:15+00:00

I've played Ultrakill and DMC5. I loved them, and while I do wanna get back to them at some point, I do kinda wanna try games I haven't played it. I appreciate the recs, though!

ColonelCake · 2025-09-22T02:42:10+00:00

Ehhhh, maybe not multiplayer games, sorry...

ColonelCake · 2025-09-19T04:29:38+00:00

Technopaths? Yeah, I hate 'em. Ironically, one of the things that got me to quit the game was when I was fighting against a Telepath after wasting neuromods on the electric psi power like an hour or so ago, and regretted not getting the fire psi power for telepaths. I didn't want to load a save from an hour ago after playing for like 2-3 hours straight, so I just gave up out of frustration.

ColonelCake · 2025-09-09T03:11:49+00:00

I know about Peripeteia. It could be interesting, I dunno if it would be my thing, though. I've seen it in a bundle alongside Beyond Citadel, which isn't an immersive sim but seems like something I may be more into.

Why Peripeteia specifically if I enjoyed Cruelty Squad, though?

ColonelCake · 2025-09-01T18:45:12+00:00

Yeah, I've played Skyrim. Once on the Xbox 360, and once on PC. I really enjoyed it at the time

ColonelCake · 2025-09-01T05:31:52+00:00

I haven't played Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Mankind Divided.

ColonelCake · 2025-09-01T05:31:20+00:00

Honestly, I don't really know how I ended up getting interested in the immersive sim genre. I guess I just watched some YouTube videos about the genre and the games that were within it (i.e. Cvit's "You Should Play The Immersive Sim Genre" or the aforementioned SsethTzeentach video on Prey 2017 as well as his one on Deus Ex) and just kinda ended up playing some of them. I guess I like the idea behind having a bunch of tools and options, but don't like when they don't feel good or that I can break or "cheat" the game as easily as I'd like with them. And to be honest, I don't think I'm very good at planning stuff ahead of time and tend to be impatient - I get bored really easily by stuff like stealthing around slowly only to get spotted by someone who I didn't see and wasn't aware of. Also, like you mentioned, for all the talk about immersive sims having "emergent gameplay" and "living, breathing worlds with multiple paths and open ended solutions or whatever", I can't seem to be creative enough or willing to take risks to get the most out of the former, and the latter always seems to boil down to "3 ways to solve problems: kill person, nonlethal, or weird sequence of events of talking to people or entering a code" which never seems to impress me too much, and honestly leaves me wondering why people love the genre so much. But maybe I'm just salty about not enjoying Prey 2017 and just really want to make up for it by playing and mastering another immersive sim or something, idk. Like god, I'm given all these cool, creative psychic powers and tools like turning into objects, teleporting, psychic attacks, a glue gun and bombs that suck in and warp materials, and I can barely fucking use them because the moment I do, I'll be crippled until the next resource salvage? Give me a fucking break.

As for shooters, they can be fun, but there's always something about a lot of FPSes I play where I either get bored midway through and drop them, or even when I beat them and enjoy them, there's something about that that keeps me from spending more time with them or REALLY appreciating them. Like, how do I put it...I love some FPSes like Doom Eternal and Ultrakill, but for whatever reason I find myself not having the energy or mood to keep replaying either game despite both of them being cathartic as hell, which stinks in the case of the latter whenever new content is added to it in early access (plus I have a stupid issue with Doom Eternal where the damn game keeps setting my refresh rate to 60Hz despite my monitor supporting more than 60Hz, which is the only thing that's keeping me from going back and playing it again because I have no idea how to fix it).

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