Aja on 18/10/2023 at 17:37
Good write-up. Prey really won me over when I couldn't find a key to get through a barred-off door so I turned into a coffee cup and slipped through the bars.
samIamsad on 18/10/2023 at 18:19
Whilst it has its flaws, in concept as well as execution Prey in many ways goes much beyond System Shock 2 (and the first one).
Neither of any Shock game has the variety of ways through its locales. Neither of any Shock game lets you kill important NPCs (and the game still carrying on). Neither of any Shock game is as consistent with how it treats your actions, right to the ending. And neither of any of the Shock games has that deliberately same sense of place (the SS Remake upgraded that some visually), as you're getting an over- and outside view of the station the game is taking place. And can later on enter it at multiple points from the outside. The work gone into this alone must have been staggering, as it also means individual levels must take into account to somewhat scale correctly.
At some point, a fairly relevant NPC died by an accident triggered by me. I didn'T reload. And I was rewarded for not doing so at the end of the game. WolfEye's Weird West did something similar. As the Prey team is no more with several key guys leaving Arkane thereafter, I'm looking forward to their next game. If you'd team K. Levine up with those guys to write and let them do the game stuff, that could be a real winner.
Until Prey rolled around, Alien:Isolation felt the closest to System Shock to me for a very long time, despite being more of a stealthy/survival affair -- and unlike either System Shock game, lacking in gunpower on purpose. Sevastopol has a similar kind of space station design, gradually unlocking as you progress. It's also a more deliberately paced game (well, most of the time). And you're also meant to reasonably improvise with the tools at your disposal, judging real RISK and real REWARD. Which isn't merely about ressource management. But also judging the minute to minute situations at hand. Throwing that noisebomb may attract the alien to kill those armed looters in your way. But that also means the alien is alarmed and you may easier end up as its, well, prey as well...etc. Time for a few replays, I guess. =)
henke on 22/10/2023 at 11:28
Fears to Fathom - Ironbark LookoutSpooky 2-hour (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506160/Fears_to_Fathom__Ironbark_Lookout/) indie first person horror game where you're a fire lookout in a national park. The opening sequence has you driving into town in an RV, stopping at a diner to have a bite before driving up to the park. Aesthetic is PS1-graphics with VHS filter (as is the fashion of this year's indie horror games). Vibes and atmosphere are impeccable. It's a true indie production tho, and there's plenty of jank, like having to press Alt-F4 to quit because there's no quit function. The horror is mostly atmospheric, which I like, but also some jumpscares, which I don't like. The game shines the brightest in its quiet moments, when you're just doing your duty as a fire lookout, and I kinda wish the game was just that. In other words I kinda wish it was just Firewatch. It's not tho, but it's something in that direction, which is kinda nice.
L.A. NoireWatching (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK8GB1gwTOU) Murder in Coweta County recently reminded me of LA Noire, since they're both crime procedurals set in the late 40's. I was enjoying my replay a lot through the Traffic and Homicide sections of the game, but now I'm on to Vice and kinda not feeling it any more. That string of Black Dahlia murders in Homicide where you're never quite catching up to the real killer was very captivating, but now that it's over I'm having a hard time caring about these new cases.
Malf on 24/10/2023 at 09:46
Having finished my latest playthrough of CP2077 and Phantom Liberty, I've now hopped back in to my latest playthrough of BG3, and thanks to a mod, have both Halsin and Minthara in my party.
Minthara's awesome, and I suspect paladins may be a bit OP. But aren't they always? I get the feeling that they're a developer favourite no matter which game they appear in.
CP2077 with Phantom Liberty is now a stone-cold classic as far as I'm concerned, up there with Witcher 3.
The main story is still significantly more linear than Witcher 3, but there's a lot more choice and consequence in there than is at first apparent.
There's several quests I had no idea were in the game that I previously unknowingly cut myself off from, for example.
In Phantom Liberty, I couldn't bring myself to give up
Songbird, so didn't see any of the new PL specific endings, but I did get a new one for me which felt a right and a lot more satisfying than my previous two (Assault on the Crystal Palace or let Johnny take over).
This time, I went with Panam, the Aldecaldos and Judy, which was a lot more optimistic. Anathema for a Cyberpunk story, I know, but felt right for this iteration of V.
There's still some jank in there, but the character build system is now a proper one with proper choices to be made; you can't be excellent at everything, and netrunning is no longer an "I win" button. I had enormous fun once I swapped to a Sandevistan-driven, katana wielding nutcase. There's a fun little bug with charged katana attacks and Sandevistan that crops up very frequently:
(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru-ueO7z3PM)
Sorry for the lack of embed, but I age-restricted the video voluntarily (it's probably a bit gory for kids to stumble across!)
henke on 24/10/2023 at 17:39
[video=youtube;vsGVBpSv9QY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsGVBpSv9QY[/video]
American Truck Simulator is a good game for roadtripping. I know plenty of you like just driving around and listening to music or whatever. This is a good game for that.
It's EASY to set up! Here's what ya do:
1. get ATS
2. get a nice car mod like (
https://www.modsats.com/nissan-skyline-gtr-r34-interior-v3-3-1-48-x/) this Nissan Skyline GTR.
3. pop that .scs file into My Documents\American Truck Simulator\mod folder
4. activate dat shit in da ATS start-up settingz
5. buy the car from the Mod Dealer (yeah you still gotta pay for the damn thing, AND have a garage to store it in. might need to take out a loan for this)
6. Once you're in the car you'll wanna hit F4 to adjust your seating position and FOV.
7. Oh yeah and go into options and reduce Brake force to like 90% or it'll be real jittery when braking.
8. HIT DA ROAD
Ok so I lied about the easy part, there's a bit of tinkering and fidgeting with settings, but I gotta tell ya, it's worth it.
Aja on 25/10/2023 at 03:40
Henke how long is an average ATS session for you? As someone who lives in a city surrounded by endless boring highway, the idea of driving it in a video game is not the most appealing. But I guess I could understand it if I didn't have to drive literally three hours to get anywhere of note.
henke on 25/10/2023 at 05:12
In case you haven't played it: America in ATS is at 1:20 scale. Every mile in the game represents 20 real world miles. So it's maybe 20-40min per delivery. I might do 2 or 3 deliveries in a session, while listening to a podcast or some album I've been meaning to listen to.
Hahaha oh boy, busteeeeeeeed. :o
Thirith on 25/10/2023 at 14:26
While I've not got around to it yet, I love the idea of modding a car into ATS and just driving around listening to the radio. I imagine this to be very Zen, especially in VR. Perhaps I should finally try it out this autumn/winter.
Harvester on 25/10/2023 at 18:05
I'm enjoying the System Shock remake but I seem to have hit a game-breaking bug :(. I'm on Engineering and have combed through the level, but an enemy has activated behind a locked door with no way to open the door. I can see it with the Sensaround V3 and I can hear its voice. The door probably opens after destroying the nearby antenna. But I can't destroy the antenna because I can't enter cyberspace to open the doors to the antennae, because the game says I can't use the cyberspace terminal while threatened. I can't use the medbed in the medical section either and it keeps playing the action music so it thinks I'm engaged in combat. I have no way to stop the game from considering me unthreatened because I can't kill this enemy behind the locked door. I have one save left from Executive but I really don't feel like slogging through Engineering again for the time being. Maybe I'll do it later but maybe I'll also play a different game for now, I still have Quake 2 64 and the Quake 2 MachineGames episode to play.
