samIamsad on 19/8/2017 at 23:07
Re: Parsers, interactive fiction and character interaction, there are have been a lot of interesting experiments in the indie space, like Facade. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%C3%A7ade_(video_game))
Personally what I also see areas to progress in are the more traditional values LGS used to pioneer, which would advance
some with technology anyway. Physics, as they are oft still somewhat goofy. But also means of movement in a virtual 3d space. Shock and Underworld play clumsy now, being developed prior to established WASD+mouselook standards for movement. But the fact that you have almost flight-sim like number of commands (and buttons to push) to get the character to crouch, prone, lean all at different speeds and angles also belongs to that pursuit of "approaching virtual reality from a software perspective" that LGS used to pioneer in 3d action games, which oft felt (and still feel) arcade, "gamey" and twitchy even if they aim for somewhat more grounded, realistic stimuli.
Despite the then advanced physic simulations, the default character speed in your average Source Engine game always took me hugely out of the experience, and playing Quake with a VR headset on for a prolonged period is probably quite an unpleasant, barf including experience, whereas Thief or the more recent Alien:Isolation are probably not. (On that front, it's probably a small touch and may not apply when playing with analog controllers, but I've always missed a button for "realistic" walking speeds in Dishonored, even Prey's default movement feels a bit "gamey" as well. That's something Human Revolution got surprisingly right for me, walking is walking and that's it).
I've never played any part of (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trespasser_(video_game)) Trespasser except for the demo back then. But it seems no surprise that behind Trespassers concepts were some Ex-LGSers: no HUD at all, no cutscenes taking you out of it, a (clunky) attempt at simulating control down to the level of a specific body part (your arm)... That sort of stuff. :) This extents to audio design as well. Whilst Thief was supposed to be that
kind of game where sound was supposed to be as vital as what you get to see and "touch", the way you are able to anticipate movement and distances just by listening to the audio was phenomenal stuff, there's modern games that struggle here to this day.
It also extents to all kinds of executions. I've put the tutorials off for Prey so don't know what they look like when playing. But I
immensely enjoy that the game lets me discover how things interact by myself, down to wondering what the heck I am supposed to do with a crossbow firing rubber bolts, WTF. :cheeky: And no pop-up telling me to push x+y to trigger the almighty shock-wrench "one-two-punch" doing a bonus damage of x would appear.
icemann on 20/8/2017 at 04:15
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I think icemann was replying to Jason Moyer instead of Abysmal or me?
Yeah to Jason's post. Sorry should have quoted.
Pyrian on 20/8/2017 at 05:50
Quote Posted by Abysmal
...the problem of OCD talking to every NPC in the area like a dumbass.
I blame the designers for that. Deus Ex has a potentially important store on the first level that's literally just another Unatco soldier clone walking around. We act that way because the game designers intentionally trained us to act that way.
demagogue on 20/8/2017 at 13:34
Anybody watch last night's
Halt and Catch Fire season premier & notice this quote, circa 1993:
Quote Posted by "AV Club"
Cameron Howe, explaining why she won’t allow the company to include instructions with her newest game, the immersive, enigmatic Pilgrim, exclaims, “This isn’t a game you play. It’s a game you live.”
Makes her one of the early immersive sim pioneers, if only fictionally.
EvaUnit02 on 30/3/2018 at 05:36
Do they factor in the fact that Dishonoured 2 and Prey were financial bombs?
Renault on 30/3/2018 at 14:37
They're only considered bombs because they were made by large studios with huge budgets. The place Randy is working has a staff of 12.
henke on 23/3/2019 at 14:44
I started thinking about this thread on how things were looking for ImmSims just a year and a half ago. Prey, DXMD, and Dishonored 2 had gotten great reviews, but somewhat lacklustre sales and there was uncertainty about The Future Of The Rebirth Of The Immersive Sim.
Now, early 2019, things are looking kinda bright I must say. Just from a quick scan of the internet and my own memories, here's what's around the corner:
Consortium: The Tower
Cyberpunk 2077
The Outer Worlds
Skin Deep
System Shock Remake
System Shock 3
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2
Void Bastards
Did I forget anything? I might be too generous with what I'm classifying as immersive sim here, some of these are perhaps merely first person RPGs. I look forward to your STRONG OPINIONS on why some of them don't count. There's also that (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/765880/The_Occupation/) The Occupation thing which just came out and some people are describing as an imm sim.
EvaUnit02 on 23/3/2019 at 14:52
Underworld Ascendant was released and it was broken, unfinished.
Sulphur on 23/3/2019 at 15:02
Cyberpunk 2077 and The Outer Worlds are FPS RPGs from all appearances, not imsims with systems-level simulations.
In any case, the legacy of the immersive sim isn't about a single game bearing standard predefined traits; this thread's more like the tombstone for a platonic ideal. What Deus Ex ushered in was the idea of the post-genre game, where simulated systems could collide to cause emergence - we already have bits of that DNA in games as different from each other as Heat Signature and Far Cry 2-5. Post-genre games are doing just fine, and will continue to do so for as long as the medium's around.