NOW what are you playing?

PigLick on 2/8/2019 at 13:24

Thats some solid gaming there. As for me I have been checking out A Short Hike, and it is absolutely lovely, a strong animal crossing feel with relaxed exploring of a small island where the ultimate goal is to reach the summit. Love the art style, worth trying.

Marecki on 2/8/2019 at 14:47

Having all but memorised SOMA (which by the way still really gets me after all those play-throughs) I went out to look for some new horror game to play - and as luck would have it, a Humble Bundle came out at around the same time which contained Bendy and the Ink Machine. It has been... underwhelming. I like the artwork and the ambience, moreover at first it was nice to be armed again for change - but that's pretty much it on the positive side. Whereas on the negative...

To begin with, the "horror" bit consists primarily of jump scares (AKA the horror equivalent of fart jokes).

Secondly, stealth has been reduced to not much beyond hiding from monsters and even that has been done in seriously immersion-breaking way - you shut the cabinet door behind you and the monster who was just about to rip you a new one simply turns away and leaves as if nothing'd happened. Sometimes you do not even have to hide, there are at least three places in the game where monsters turn around and leave with you still in plain sight merely because you have walked a few steps up the stairs. And speaking of hiding from monsters, there must be something seriously wrong with the AI sight algorithms in this 3D engine because on the one hand I have repeatedly been spotted through pixel-wide gaps between objects, whereas on the other a monster and you can stand at two ends of a straight hallway and they will not spot you without coming much closer even though it really doesn't look that dark in there.

Third, the protagonist is quite badly written. Or maybe I am just out of touch and bashing a deformed humanoid that has just spawned out of an ink puddle over what passes for its head is all in a day's work for a retired cartoonist, seeing a living, breathing version of a cartoon character suddenly show up in front of you in a building full of said deformed humanoids indicates all is well, the character clearly is friendly and it is time for a nap, and that it makes perfect sense to react with perfect calm to plywood cutouts peeking out at you on their own volition around corners yet get "scared to death" (Henry's own words) upon bumping into said friendly character moments later (even more funny if you walked along the far wall and was therefore able to see them long before the voice clip got triggered).

Finally, IMHO there is just too much fighting in this game. At a risk of oversimplifying, in my book a "horror" game should take a long, hard look at itself if its core gameplay involves circle-strafing enemies.

I've lied about "finally". One more thing - more engine weirdness. The protagonist seems to have orangutang arms because his range for both attacking enemies and interacting with objects feels too long. Strike a spawning enemy too early and you will hit nothing but air, you must actually wait for them to start moving. Whether an object can be jumped onto or not feels quite arbitrary. Etc. etc. etc.

PS. (this time it's really the last thing, I promise) From what I could see online even the Windows version is quite buggy, with the worst bug being apparently that once in a blue moon auto-save stops working for a given save slot - sometimes until you have restarted the game, sometimes permanently. From my own experience, the Linux version is even more buggy.

Summary: I wouldn't say I regret having played this game but I am quite sure I shall not play it again, I definitely will not buy the sequel and I do not recommend it.

WingedKagouti on 2/8/2019 at 15:58

Quote Posted by Marecki

To begin with, the "horror" bit consists primarily of jump scares (AKA the horror equivalent of fart jokes).

I disagree on the assessment that jump scares are equivalent to fart jokes. They may be one of the most simplistic ways of trying to cause a fear-based reaction, but that only means they do have a place in proper horror stories/games. When used apropriately a jump scare will be the payoff for a period of building anticipation/uncertainty. But like everything else jump scares can be both overused and misused.

A good writer/designer will make sure there's a balance between jump scares, gross out moments, uncertainty, calm and anticipation.

if you haven't tried it yet, you may want to look at (https://store.steampowered.com/app/356670/Spookys_Jump_Scare_Mansion/) Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion for a game that uses jump scares effectively.

Starker on 2/8/2019 at 18:23

Hell, even Silent Hill isn't above jump scares. The cat in the locker, the bathroom scene in the prison, the roof surprise, etc. But they definitely have to be used relatively sparingly or else the tension curve is ruined. No idea what the Jump Scare Mansion is about, but for that price I'm willing to take a look.

Thirith on 5/8/2019 at 09:56

I built my first little base in Subnautica, which made me feel like I'd accomplished something... until I realised that its entrance was barely one metre away from the Aurora's radiation zone. :-/ Soon after I did fabricate a radiation suit, though, so I'm feeling a bit better about my planning skills.

I also successfully returned to Hitman to replay the Bangkok level. While I'll be concentrating on The Outer Wilds in the near future, I'm planning to replay these levels every couple of weeks and then get started on Hitman 2 in earnest.

Finally, I finished God of War, enjoying it up to the end, but I don't think I'll go and mop up everything. The whole platinum thing isn't really for me. I'm fine with being relatively thorough while playing the story of a game, but once that story is over (including side quests), I tend not to have that much of an incentive to persist with all the little bits and bobs that I didn't do. Since I'm going away for a week on Friday, I don't think I'll start another PS4 game for now, but once I'm back I'll probably check out S3 of The Walking Dead. I hope I will remember that.

Sulphur on 6/8/2019 at 04:59

RE: God of War, if you haven't returned home after the credits, you probably should. The Valkyrie fights seem to continue a thread of story as well, but they're calibrated to be absolute ball-busters, so it's going to take some amount of experimentation and armour crafting, which means fucking around in other places to gather resources. It's not bad, though, and something I probably want to get back to now and then.

Thirith on 6/8/2019 at 05:39

I might return for the remaining Valkyries, but I'm not sure I will; I usually lack the skill and discipline to put the legwork into doing the hardest extra bits, added to which I'd now have to start world-hopping again, and that's getting to be a bit of a slog. (I wish that the fast-travel portals would also work across worlds after the main story is over.) I did return home for a bit of a snooze, though, and it was worth it.

I've also got to the point in Subnautica where I feel I know better what I'm doing and, more importantly, have an idea of what to do next. At the beginning it felt pretty aimless, which I guess is always a risk with survival games, but on the whole I think that Subnautica does a good job of balancing the sense of direction that comes with the story and the more free-form survival gameplay. Also, those toothsome horrors around the Aurora? They're quite... impressive... when you first encounter them in VR.

Starker on 6/8/2019 at 06:05

Quote Posted by Thirith

once I'm back I'll probably check out S3 of The Walking Dead. I hope I will remember that.

If you don't, Clementine will.

WingedKagouti on 6/8/2019 at 10:05

Quote Posted by Thirith

Also, those toothsome horrors around the Aurora? They're quite... impressive... when you first encounter them in VR.

Reaper Leviathans can feel like a massive pain when you have a Seamoth and are just trying to get somewhere. Thankfully they do have territories they stick to.

henke on 10/8/2019 at 11:31

Played through Uncharted: Lost Legacy over the last few days. The story and characters didn't quite live up to earlier Naughty Dog games, I thought, but nonetheless I enjoyed this more than most of the Uncharteds. The balance of exploration, stealth and all-out action felt really good. A lot of the stuff that irked me in Uncharted 4, like the manufactured drama of the hero loosing his grip during climbing sections over and over again, was toned down here as well. Overall I think reducing the runtime by half that of a mainline Uncharted game made the pacing much tighter and kept it from getting repetetive.

Watching the end credits I was kinda astonished by just how many companies worked on this. Besides Naughty Dog, there's an entire (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6304452/companycredits) SIXTEEN companies who were involved in the production.