WingedKagouti on 2/5/2023 at 06:40
Quote Posted by Brethren
Further investigation revealed that it was in the Thermal Plant, a building I hadn't found yet, and that only had one vague reference in the game, in a memo buried deep within my PDA. Sheesh.
The Thermal Plant is vital for that key as well as
the blueprint for the Ion Power Cell, which is required for the booster rocket.
And the PRAWN sinking into the floor after warping is an annoying thing, but I have never had it sink so deep I couldn't access the storage. From what I can tell it happens when the PRAWN lowers itself after you exit it and you then go through a gate while it's still lowered. This seems to set the spawn point for the cockpit at the lowered level, but with the suit in a standing position.
henke on 2/5/2023 at 08:17
Glad you enjoyed it Brethren! :) Did you play the whole thing in VR tho? That seems like a lot of VR.
Thirith on 2/5/2023 at 08:47
(Not Brethren, obvs, but I played all of Subnautica in VR. I did briefly try it in non-VR but found that I vastly preferred the immersion of VR, even if the game's performance wasn't brilliant and some of the implementation was janky. The sense of depth in VR was key to my enjoyment of the game: looking down and getting a sense of how far down you'll have to go, or looking towards the surface when you're running out of oxygen.)
Edit: I played standing up, since it makes a huge difference for me whether I look around by looking around and turn by turning or by pushing a stick in a certain direction. Seated VR play generally makes me think that I might as well not be in VR at all, unless it's a cockpit-based game or something more diorama-like. Subnautica in VR makes a distinction between swimming/diving and pootling about in a vehicle; in the former, you turn physically, in the latter you look around the vehicles but you turn the vehicles with the controller.
Malf on 2/5/2023 at 14:22
Having finished Tyranny as a Rebel, I dove in to Encased for more RPG goodness.
I think Sulphur has previously played this, and I quite like it, although it can feel heavily derivative.
It's basically a post-apocalyptic RPG with turn-based combat, except the era of focus is the Seventies as opposed to the Fifties.
So yes, the primary influence is most definitely Fallout.
But then they mix in a bit of Stalker and the things that was based on, with anomalies and a location called "Roadside Picnic Staging Post".
Then, on top of those foundations, they also pile some Gothic / Annihilation stuff, with the entire game taking place in a mysterious dome that you can enter, but never leave (huh, even some Hotel California!)
It's enjoyable enough, but it struggles to differentiate itself from its influences, and there is so. Much. STUFF to click, along with some systems that don't feel fully playtested. Like picking pockets, where you can pick a pocket fairly easily, but the target will always notice their pocket has been picked, whereupon they'll go into an alert state for a ridiculously long time, with an extended detection radius. It may seem more realistic, and therefore hardcore, but it doesn't play very well.
And despite this melange of influences, that's exactly what it feels like; it doesn't have a strong enough identity of its own. And I can't say that about PoE or Tyranny, where despite sharing the same engine, their stories are unique and compelling.
The companions so far have also felt a bit undercooked, but maybe I'm picking holes.
After all, this is an RPG funded through Kickstarter that is also very pretty with a fairly distinctive visual style. And yeah, I'm comparing the output of a new team with Obsidian ffs.
I did also start up Hi-fi Rush, which is a breath of fresh air, and very polished. Very impressed so far, having beaten the first boss. I know a lot of engineering work must have gone in to the core mechanics to get them working so naturally, but it feels like this is the way other spectacle fighters with great music should play. It feels a lot more natural to create combos based on the flow of rhythm, and I'm sure playing older games with excellent music, such as MGR, has gotten me into trouble because they don't play this way.
For the co-op crew, I re-upped with Game Pass when I switched back to Windows, so I'm game for giving Redfall a shot, despite reviews.
Malf on 2/5/2023 at 20:31
When has jank ever dissuaded us from diving in?
;)
Aja on 2/5/2023 at 21:16
After learning the 3DS eshop closed down, a helpful YouTube video suggested I jailbreak my 3DS, and now I have access to a bounty of games.
So I played Metroid Fusion, which back in the day I scorned for being too linear compared to Super. But now, 20 years later, after the endless backtracking of Prime Remastered, I was grateful to be told where to go and what to do. Same devs as Super Metroid, and you can tell. Very refined controls, harkening a bit to Dread, and great sound design, especially on the crunchy Game Boy Advance sound chip. Also, it's got a pretty moody story and a few genuinely creepy moments! And some genuinely annoying moments, particularly the bosses whose movesets amount to swirlling around the screen randomly so that you can't dodge them. I mean, Super had that, too, but you could always tank your way through anything with enough energy tanks. But overall I highly recommend it. I think they just released it on the Switch virtual console, so play it there if you want to not be a dirty criminal like me. Only took me about 4 hours to get to the end, but that was at a shameful 54 percent of items collected.
I also downloaded the entire Mario and Luigi series, the entire Phoenix Wright Series, whatever Professor Laytons are on there, all the Mario sports games, all the Zelda GBA games, and a bunch of other stuff I'd probably never consider (Snake Eater 3D?? holy cow!). The 3DS is a great console, and it's great for playing before bed.
Then I too restarted Subnautica. It feels oddly tranquil now compared to the terrors of the deep I felt when I first played it a few years ago. And it's grindy, but that's part of its relaxing appeal. I made it up to building a Cyclops last time; maybe this time I'll see the ending.
I also started Horizon Zero Dawn because I apparently already owned it, and I'm enjoying the aesthetic of Call of the Mountain, which is decent but feels more like VR window dressing than a substantive game. Zero Dawn has a bit of a design-by-committee feel to it, but I'm enjoying the main story, I like Aloy as a character, the art is beautiful and the gameplay seems to have some depth although it may just be the skill trees that are deep. A lot of the incidental dialogue is soporific, though thankfully you can skip it.
Thirith on 2/5/2023 at 21:32
And then I got to level 6 in Legend of Grimrock and realised that whatever the devs consider fun, their idea of it is very different from mine. So I went and uninstalled it. Huzzah!
Komag on 3/5/2023 at 01:27
Yeah, level 6 is a beast to tackle! I really enjoyed Grimrock 10 years ago, enough to work on mods for it, my main one being called "Master Quest", which is basically a remake of the entire game with various changes and upgrades.
faetal on 3/5/2023 at 10:42
I'm playing Stranded: Alien Dawn and am having a great time with it.
