PigLick on 31/12/2023 at 10:17
That True Stalker looks very cool thanks for sharing! I'm a big Stalker fan.
henke on 31/12/2023 at 10:51
Decided to finally give Wolfenstein: Youngblood a go after some crazy guy claimed it was the best Wolfenstein game. It plays a lot like the last few Wolfensteins except with leveling and looter-shooter stylings. A lot of picking up collectables and coins so you can upgrade your guns and earning XP to unlock new skills. Some of the skills are pretty fun though. The enemies level too and if you wander into a higher level area, seemingly normal enemies will suddenly wipe the floor with you, and y'know I just hate that shit. If you stick to missions at your current level though, it's... alright. The game is set in Paris, and the Arkane-designed levels look great and have some nice non-linear bits. The biggest pleasant surprise of the game are the twin protagonists. They're weird. When you've got B.J. and Anya for parents, raising you to be a fighter on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, of course you're gonna grow up weird.
[video=youtube;CzNtFcW5KXI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzNtFcW5KXI[/video]
I've played a few missions now, might play some more. It's alright.
Jason Moyer on 1/1/2024 at 06:24
I don't really like the looter-shooter/levelling stuff, but what I did like was the level design and being able to actually play the game without watching hours of cutscenes I don't care about or gimmicky setpieces where you do something once for 5 minutes then never do it again. Like, all I want to do in a Wolfenstein game is take some Nazis and apply some sort of lethal force to them, possibly via a projectile based weapon. Of the reboots, it's the one where you spend the most time actually shooting Nazis, which is my favorite part.
Renault on 1/1/2024 at 07:08
Quote Posted by vurt
Almost none, which of course is extremely lame if they're gonna go under "sim"... They're not simulating much of anything apart from just basic mechanics needed for the game to be a game. But this topic belongs in the immersive sim thread where i already discussed this.
Problem is you're using your own personal definition of "sim," but when someone refers to an "immersive sim" they're referencing Warren Spector's definition of an immersive sim from an article he wrote for Gamasutra, which is quite different.
vurt on 1/1/2024 at 07:44
Quote Posted by Renault
Problem is you're using your own personal definition of "sim," but when someone refers to an "immersive sim" they're referencing Warren Spector's definition of an immersive sim from an article he wrote for Gamasutra, which is quite different.
Problem is Simulation isn't what those games does or are even very good at, then any game can be labeled "sim" just for shits and giggles. Simulator has a very distinct meaning for computer games. Mario 64 simulates more things than what e.g Thief does, i still wouldn't label it a sim.
I do think Ultima Underworld 1-2 absolutely were immersive sims but then the much watered down Thief or SS2 games, no. He can label it however he wants of course, not against the law :P
WingedKagouti on 1/1/2024 at 09:20
Quote Posted by vurt
Problem is Simulation isn't what those games does or are even very good at,
The name of the genre is "Immersive Sim" and pointedly NOT "Immersive Simulation".
The problem here is that you are trying to redifine it as if the genre was called "Immersive Simulation".
vurt on 1/1/2024 at 09:38
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
The name of the genre is "Immersive Sim" and pointedly NOT "Immersive Simulation".
The problem here is that you are trying to redifine it as if the genre was called "Immersive Simulation".
I hope you are joking. Guess what "sim" is a short for? Never heard of a flight sim? Exactly what do you think "sim" means? It's a new made up word that just happens to be the same that we are using as a short for simulator since the beginning of simulator games?
The simulator aspect or "sim" (for short) when it comes to "immersive sim" origins from games like UW1-2 and Ultima 7 which you could say created this genre. And they did simulate many aspects of the game world and it went beyond just mechanisms needed for the game to be a game. when we think of simulators it's kind of what they do, they can simulate weather, day/night, physics, food and water requirements maybe etc. Ít's there because they wanted them to go way beyond the norm of what games were originally, beyond the basic mechanisms.
Current immersive sims in that vein i would say would be games like Bethesda's Skyrim or FO which heavily borrows from the UW1-2 and Ultima 7 thinking, e.g tons of objects can be picked up and dropped anywhere, they can be stacked on top of each other, any door or drawer can be opened even if it doesn't always have any impact or is useful (other than for immersion itself). Stalker is also up there but not leaning into the RPG aspect as much and isn't as interactive. Games like Thief or Deus Ex unfortunately borrows very little from UW1-2 or Ultima 7, a real shame and i don't think they deserve to be called immersive sims, though obviously i can't stop you from using it and i don't really care either i just find it lame and missrepresentative.
Sulphur on 1/1/2024 at 11:38
Lol. As much as I love U7, it's not a simulation of anything. It has some granular object interactions with NPC and night/day schedules with neat details, but there's not a lot that's systemic about its design.
Also if you guys are gonna rehash the quarterly imsim debate that's been done more eloquently by other folks, please stick it in an actual thread this time so it's easier to index it as attempt #75896.
vurt on 1/1/2024 at 11:47
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Lol. As much as I love U7, it's not a simulation of anything.
in comparison to which games? hell even most modern games are laughable in comparison to what u7 managed to do. They even managed to simulate physics decently for such an old game, almost any object could be picked up, many had uses (e.g baking and whatever). How is that not a great world simulation? It simulated different weathers, day, night cycles (not even BG3 does this). NPC's went to work, to sleep, or had stuff they did in their homes etc (you can forget that something modern like BG3 does this, almost no game simulates this, they stand in one place for the entire game).
It was the first game to basically simulate an entire world. Yes by some of today's standards the physics etc might not be very impressive and even laughable, but the game did it 10-20 years before other games did something even remotely close. I was super disappointed in baldur's gate etc thinking there was no way this game didn't set a new standard for others to follow.
...convenient to tell others to discuss it in another thread btw, while you discuss it in this thread instead of posting there :P
Sulphur on 1/1/2024 at 12:49
Quote Posted by vurt
in comparison to which games? hell even most modern games are laughable in comparison to what u7 managed to do. They even managed to simulate physics decently for such an old game, almost any object could be picked up, many had uses (e.g baking and whatever). How is that not a great world simulation? It simulated different weathers, day, night cycles (not even BG3 does this). NPC's went to work, to sleep, or had stuff they did in their homes etc (you can forget that something modern like BG3 does this, almost no game simulates this, they stand in one place for the entire game).
It's not a simulation because it's not being simulated. Elements like mixing flour and water into bread are object combinations, not physics-based interactions. Water wasn't given any physical properties, for instance. A bucket of water was simply something that worked on a few objects and didn't on others because Origin didn't design for every interaction that was possible to simulate. The weather effects wete great, but had basically no impact on the world aside from NPC schedules. The closest U7 came to simulating anything was object volumes for your inventory bags... which was also not a great feature because it gave very little information about what the problem was when things didn't fit.
Quote:
...convenient to tell others to discuss it in another thread btw, while you discuss it in this thread instead of posting there :P
Because you're gunking up this one with three separate arguments, buster. One: what is a simulation, two what is an immersive sim, and three, your need to be validated. Out of those, the second one has been done to death already in this very forum multiple times, so yes, I have to tell you that in the thread you are gunking it up with.
