froghawk on 26/2/2025 at 13:35
Afraid not. It's unfortunate, because it's so close to being a real game and I actually think it does a lot right and there's a lot of potential there, but ultimately there's no story or substance there and a lot of bad decisions (like only being able to take a quest at a time, or XP being gained only through achievements). It ends up being trivially easy and every quest feels like filler. Neurath has always been about creating story-driven games - it's weird to play an empty sandbox from him.
Aja on 27/2/2025 at 00:22
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Recently played through
Mouthwashing and I looked up Aja's thoughts on it in last year's thread, which I think I generally agree with.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one! I love David Lynch, though, as I think he generally does a much better job of letting his imagery speak for itself.
Briareos H on 27/2/2025 at 17:09
Slowly making my way through GTA IV which was sitting in my backlog of shame for all these years.
I miss some of the quality of life improvements from its sequel like mission checkpoints, better handling of in-game conversations and disruptions, better gunplay and general ease of controlling the game although it makes me realise that driving is probably too permissive in GTA V.
The world of GTA IV is surprisingly more detailed, likely due to the size difference with Los Santos, and a lot more serious in tone. That particular aspect feels refreshing, while the three criminal archetypes of GTA V are full of fun tropes that deserved to be explored, I am enjoying the rougher symphony of violence emerging from the interplay of ethnic and territorial conflicts in the densely populated Liberty City.
It's a shame that I don't buy the character of Niko Bellic as our protagonist. He has an interesting background but he's presented and portrayed inconsistently from cutscene to cutscene and not in a way that I feel matches human inconsistencies. I don't have an issue with exaggerating the schizophrenic aspects of the character and making him both vulnerable and cold-hearted depending on his internal state, my issue is that he is in whatever state the game needs him to be in for a particular dialogue. Not the end of the world.
Playing on Steam Deck, the game holds up visually, except for its really strong color filters that give off an obligatory end of the 2000's flair.
Thirith on 2/3/2025 at 16:59
Just finished Thief: Shadows of the Metal Age, and I liked it a lot on the whole, but yeah, the final mission is the kind of ending where the best thing you can say is, "... at least it wasn't very long." Still well worth playing - but I'll now take a bit of a break from Thief and check out some other things on my back catalogue. I got started on Far Cry 4, but I'm not really feeling it so far, so it might end up being a case of me checking out the game so I can tick it off my list.
Yakoob on 3/3/2025 at 07:58
Inline Image:
https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/2961530/header.jpg?t=1726757992After Mouthwashing, I played
(https://store.steampowered.com/app/2961530/Fears_to_Fathom__Woodbury_Getaway/?curator_clanid=43753848#app_reviews_hash) Fears to Fathom - Woodbury Getaway which overall I liked better. It does a good job building up the psychological element of horror (if tad slow at times), and keeps you guessing where the story is going and who the real villain is gonna be, even if most of it really unfolds towards the end. The twist was surprisingly effective and did a good job of evoking that "ooooh fuuuuck" panicking feeling, the same way you'd get in a good horror movie when you abruptly realize everything you thought is wrong and shit's about to hit the fan.
That being said, I can only give it a recommendation with some major caveats:
* cheap cheap jumpscares
* annoying minigames that I didn't feel added much to the experience
* I actually didn't finish it because the finale
chase was super annoying and either buggy or too random, with me seemingly getting spotted and dying for no reason, only to have to redo it all over again. I think I just gave up after like 6 retries and watched the ending on YouTube
* completely out of character joke segments. like having an atmospheric spooky dinner and watching a show about... some stoner dude with a dumb voice making gasoline ramen and yelling at his gramma?? it just completely broke all the suspense it's been building for the past hour. baffling choice
So turns out the game is actually part of episodic horror series and I saw steam reviews saying the 3rd and 4th episodes were better, so I might actually give those a try.
WingedKagouti on 3/3/2025 at 13:18
Quote Posted by Yakoob
That being said, I can only give it a recommendation with some major caveats:
Those caveats sound annoying enough that they'd ruin the game for me. Which is sad because it otherwise sounded interesting.
henke on 3/3/2025 at 13:31
I played (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506160/Fears_to_Fathom__Ironbark_Lookout/) the firewatch episode of Fears To Fathom, and yeah I kinda liked it but it was too jumpscarey for my liking as well.
My review at the time:
Quote:
The atmosphere and vibes are impeccable. I liked all the quiet moments more than the horror stuff. As for the horror, it's mostly atmospheric, which I like, but also a few jumpscares, which I don't like. The game looks and sounds great, but feels flimsily put-together. No gamepad support, some bad checkpointing, some wonky object interactions, have to Alt-F4 to quit, etc. Overall, yeah, this is... alright.
These are definitely some B-horror games.
Barking Goose on 3/3/2025 at 15:24
Some time ago I finished Alone in the Dark remake. Very atmospheric, and generally a pleasant experience. I'll surely be replaying it in the future.
Right now I'm "juggling" The Black Parade and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. It's one of my favourite games ever... Even despite numerous game-breaking bugs.
Yakoob on 4/3/2025 at 00:36
Yeah the vibe and sense of space is impeccable indeed, and "flimsily put together" is a great descriptor as well. That explains the minigames ("its a game so we gotta have a fishing minigame!!") and some totally out-of-place jokes and sparse (but mostly bad) VO.
Honestly though, I'd say it's probably worth playing just for the atmosphere and environmental design alone, especially if you enjoy feeling teleported into a different reality for a bit. I feel I've been a big sucker for that kind of a thing lately (which is also why I've been enjoying Far Cry 5 as well, which nails its rural midwest during a hot summer setting so well)
henke on 6/3/2025 at 17:05
Impossible Mission on C64 (1984)
which you can play in your browser (
https://c64online.com/c64-games/impossible-mission/) HERE. Loved this as a kid but could never beat it. Decided to try it again and see if my senior gaming skillz would see me throuh. Nope, still too cryptic with the whole punchcard-assembling puzzle solving thing. Had to look up a walkthrough to figure out what was even supposed to be doing. Once I had that figured out tho, I actually managed to assemble the first 3 out of 9 password letters you need to beat the game, but then I used the save state save/load feature which apparently broke the game because now it's just frozen and I can't do shit.
This was still a remarkably good C64 game tho, actually holds up! I found it quite compelling to play again for a couple hours.
