Thirith on 12/7/2022 at 13:56
I have to admit that I never quite got the sense that these games punish you for being more aggressive. Much of the difference lies in the story, but I don't think a grimmer ending to the story is automatically punishment. (With the Star Wars games of yore I always felt that the Dark Side endings were much more interesting.) Then again, I'm a total Goodie Two-Shoes in games and therefore never experienced Dishonored with higher Chaos levels. I seem to remember that there are some gameplay changes, but how much do things change? And how punishing are they? If you get more and/or more aggressive enemies, wouldn't that again incentivise a more varied use of your powers?
henke on 13/7/2022 at 19:39
Finished Umurangi Generation, a game where you're a photographer with a set of photo-tasks for each area. It's kinda the Riddler photo-challenges from the Batman games, but fleshed out a bit. Gameplaywise, it's quite rough, but the core idea is great enough that it's fun despite the rough movement and controls. It feels very apparent that this was a game created by artists, not engineers. Where the game really shines is in its vision of the future. There's no dialogue, but the environments you move through tell their own tale, and it is something that'll stick with me for a long time.
Highly recommended! It's in the XBox game pass.
Anarchic Fox on 17/7/2022 at 06:06
I just moved, and I've only been playing Dragon Quest XI on my Switch. Damn this game is long. I want to be as pretty as Sylvando. At some point I'll convert my Dragon Quest Builders thread into a general-purpose DQ one.
Thirith on 18/7/2022 at 07:46
I've since moved on to mission 3 in Death of the Outsider, and for me it's probably the high point of the expansion. It's probably closest to what I like about Deus Ex at its best, giving me multiple different paths to achieve the same result, while also being interesting in terms of stealth. And I just love Arkane's environmental design and art: while I also see the appeal in the first game's more painterly look, the more realistic textures and shaders in the second game and its expansion give everything an illusion of tactility and materiality: the surfaces and the way light plays off of them is wonderful, and doubly so in combination with the actual architecture and design. Polished wood never feels as polished or as wooden as it does in an Arkane game.
Briareos H on 18/7/2022 at 09:22
Man I really need to get to playing Dishonored 2. Loved the first one but when I started the sequel I just couldn't build up the motivation to even complete the introductory level.
As for what I'm currently playing, I've just completed one full playthrough of Not For Broadcast and enjoyed the experience a lot. I'll probably stick around to see more endings. It's a FMV visual novel with branching paths and light gameplay elements, a superficially absurdist but deeply satirical take on media and manipulation of public opinion. It contains an insane amount of high-quality video with perfect production values, excellent over-the-top acting and a good dose of British humour. While it's not always Bruiser-level of funny, it has a few wonderful moments. On the negative side, the gameplay elements are mostly perfunctory and... not fun.
[video=youtube;j9yrE6ymHwQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9yrE6ymHwQ[/video]
Note that you can run this perfectly on Steam Deck by installing Proton GE, which includes required non-free video codecs.
Thirith on 18/7/2022 at 09:55
Quote Posted by Briareos H
Man I really need to get to playing Dishonored 2. Loved the first one but when I started the sequel
I just couldn't build up the motivation to even complete the introductory level.
I love
Dishonored 2, but I can relate. There's something about these games (
Hitman and
Outer Wilds were quite similar for me) that takes more of an up-front effort. I've thought about this a lot, and I think it's mainly the freedom that they offer - which is also why I genuinely love these games, but I need to go into them with a certain set of expectations and a certain energy level, for want of a better word. The games don't put much effort into 'on-boarding' (eugh, but I think the term applies). There's little in the way of short-term gratification, it's all a slow burn. And sometimes, quite honestly, I don't have the presence of mind for this. When I'm tired from the day or the week, sometimes I want to be told, "How about you start by doing this?" When I push past the initial resistance, I appreciate what they're doing, and they tend to be the games that stay with me for years and years, but I need to be able to push past the resistance they offer and find the way I enjoy playing them.
There's more to it than that, certainly. With stealth especially, it's also about rewiring myself for the specific game: How can I move so they don't hear me? Where can I move? How aware are the guards? When I first played any of the
Dishonored games, I found that I was playing too much like I'd play
Thief, which for all the similarities doesn't quite work, possibly more so because of the small differences in the mechanics than because of any big ones.
Briareos H on 18/7/2022 at 10:53
Yeah you've got it right, the task seems daunting at first and it's a very similar feeling to my tendency to procrastinate in life (e.g. at work) -- where I genuinely want to do stuff but if I don't impose a plan on myself wherever there's a lot of freedom to choose, then nothing gets decided or done. It can get somewhat crippling at times. When I say I need to "get to playing" the game it's exactly like you describe, I need to cultivate a proper mindset and break down the early experience in advance, even setting milestones so that I don't give up. Once I got it rolling, it's usually smooth sailing.
Sounds a lot like undiagnosed ADHD tbh, but I've always procrastinated too much to actually get a medical diagnosis.
henke on 18/7/2022 at 11:21
Quote Posted by Briareos H
Not For BroadcastFascinating!
And also sounds quite similar to my idea for a FMV game: Reality Show Editor. Basically the idea would just be that you get reams of boring footage of people in an appartment and then you have to manufacture drama and stirr shit up by cutting together disparate clips into SHOCKING SCENES. I was never gonna make this game so I'm glad someone's doing something similar.
Briareos H on 18/7/2022 at 11:41
There's a little bit of that and more, I think you should give it a try! It doesn't get as deep as proper video trimming since it's all live, but the game is very good at prompting seemingly mundane editing choices that will radically alter the outcome -- there are altogether 14 endings -- giving at least the feeling of agency, even if the actions that actually decide which narrative path you're getting are more straightforward than it first seems (unlike, say, Blade Runner). This all fits the theme of the game rather well.
Thirith on 18/7/2022 at 12:05
Quote Posted by henke
And also sounds quite similar to my idea for a FMV game: Reality Show Editor. Basically the idea would just be that you get reams of boring footage of people in an appartment and then you have to manufacture drama and stirr shit up by cutting together disparate clips into SHOCKING SCENES. I was never gonna make this game so I'm glad someone's doing something similar.
C'mon, man, you just haven't yet found a way to make this physics-based.
