Quotes / Scenery Porn

"Somewhere deep inside my brain my little reviewer voice was gabbing off about the level design being unintuitive and confusing, but I hushed him because it just looked so damn nice it didn't bother me"

— Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw on Crysis, Zero Punctuation

"It's like having your temples gently massaged by a swarthy concubine while her twin sister stands some distance away doing aerobic stretches in a leotard three sizes too small."

— Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw on the scenery in Prince of Persia (2008), Zero Punctuation

"This isn't art. This is cottage porn."

— Lila Tournay, Dexter, "The Dark Defender"

"This would be beautiful if it wasn't so damned cold."

— Shay Cormac, Assassin's Creed Rogue, regarding the Arctic.

You are on the edge of a breath-taking view. Far below you is an
active volcano, from which great gouts of molten lava come surging
out, cascading back down into the depths. The glowing rock fills the
farthest reaches of the cavern with a blood-red glare, giving every-
thing an eerie, macabre appearance. The air is filled with flickering
sparks of ash and a heavy smell of brimstone. The walls are hot to
the touch, and the thundering of the volcano drowns out all other
sounds. Embedded in the jagged roof far overhead are myriad twisted
formations composed of pure white alabaster, which scatter the murky
light into sinister apparitions upon the walls. To one side is a deep
gorge, filled with a bizarre chaos of tortured rock which seems to
have been crafted by the devil himself. An immense river of fire
crashes out from the depths of the volcano, burns its way through the
gorge, and plummets into a bottomless pit far off to your left. To
the right, an immense geyser of blistering steam erupts continuously
from a barren island in the center of a sulfurous lake, which bubbles
ominously. The far right wall is aflame with an incandescence of its
own, which lends an additional infernal splendor to the already
hellish scene. A dark, foreboding passage exits to the south.

— ADVENT, for room 126.

"On the other hand, movies like Avatar were actually shot with a 3D camera, and though people may bicker about how shitty the story was, they have nothing but praise for the 3D and the visuals. Even people who thought it was a piece of shit thought it was a beautiful piece of shit. (Like Treasure Planet. Seriously, get that movie and watch it with the sound off.)"

— Cracked, 4 Reasons 3-D Movies Don't Have to Suck.

Tycho: It's a pretty striking piece of technology. It's like stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting.
Gabe: Yeah! And then killing all the beautiful people inside it.

— Penny Arcade, on Mafia II

"Neat!" *click!*

— Bender, Futurama

"I tend to find backgrounds can really be the difference between setting the mood and missing the mark completely. With color this adds a whole different level of perspective. Not only do you have the colors themselves to consider but the saturation and tone. The blend and contrast. How the colors relate to each other in the entire composition."

—Naarie Kermie (creator of Ears for Elves) commenting on a filler strip

Captain Jack Harkness: But all the legends of Gallifrey... made it sound so perfect.
The Doctor: Well, perfect to look at, maybe. And it was. It was beautiful.

— Doctor Who, "The Sound of Drums"

Geoff: Cool.
Burnie: C'mon, help me. What are you doing?
Geoff: Sorry, but this game is so pretty.
Burnie: Dude, this is war. Nothing is pretty.
Burnie takes a look at the scenery.
Burnie: Oh, wow. I take it back.

— Rooster Teeth Comics, Art of War

"Wow, beautiful fountain...perfectly manicured shrubbery...this is like Parks Department porn!"

— Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation

Situated within the Milky Way’s Cygnus constellation, HD 904790 b possesses a frustratingly high number of attractive geological, atmospheric, and hydrological features that we poor saps living on Earth can only dream of, NASA officials reported. In particular, the newly discovered planet is said to contain lush, flowering biomes across all of its 340 million square miles, which reportedly do not include any of the barren tundras, glacial ice shelves, or arid deserts that contribute to Earth’s status as a lousy, second-rate excuse for an inhabitable terrestrial body.

— The Onion, "Astronomers Discover New Planet That Really Makes Earth Look Like Shit"

The lake had regained the verdure along its contours and the serenity of its waters. The trees on the shore, once again covered with leaves, provided shelter for countless nightingales, wood pigeons and turtle doves that filled the air with songs and cooing. The murky torrents of winter had become clear babbling streams. The mild and benign winds brought from the mountains the aromas of wild roses and broom in flower. The wild ducks and moorhens fluttered over the clumps of reeds and bulrushes where they made their nests, and the sky itself, hitherto overcast and scowling, began to streak its blue with those lightly coloured clouds that in the spring adorn the horizon as the sun rises and sets.
Mount Aquiana had lost its resplendent crown of snow, and only a few spots of ice remained in the darker recesses of the rocks, forming a colourful mosaic on the mountainside. Finally, the whole of nature was so beautiful and gallant, as if it awakened from the sleep of death to a green and enduring life.

— The Lord of Bembibre

It was a great day's journey that Tuor put behind him that day; and he came ere evening to a region where trees again appeared, and the manner of the land through which he now fared differed greatly from those shores about Falasquil. There had Tuor known mighty cliffs beset with caverns and great spoutholes, and deep-walled coves, but from the cliff-tops a rugged land and flat ran bleakly back to where a blue rim far to the east spoke of distant hills. Now however did he see a long and sloping shore and stretches of sand, while the distant hills marched ever nearer to the margin of the sea, and their dark slopes were clad with pine or fir and about their feet sprang birches and ancient oaks. From the feet of the hills fresh torrents rushed down narrow chasms and so found the shores and the salt waves.

— The Fall of Gondolin

LANDSCAPE. During a Tour, both Tourists and Management will be kept too busy to examine the Landscape much. The Management will draw your attention to a view only when it is likely to prove a threat. Thus a WOOD will be mentioned if the TREES or WOODSMEN are going to be hostile, MOUNTAINS will figure if you are going to have to cross them in bad WEATHER, and steep-sided gorges are delineated when you are about to be AMBUSHED there. If you want to know what the average Landscape is like, consult the cover of any brochure. Here you will see a range of spiky Mountains in the distance, from which a tall WATERFALL descends adorned with a rainbow at its crest. There will be huge and intensely gnarled Trees in the foreground, and both these features will dwarf the line of horsemen making its way across a misty green plain towards the Mountains. The sky is orange and purple. This is what Fantasyland really looks like. This is what entices Tourists to enrol for Tours.

—The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

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