vurt on 25/2/2024 at 11:51
Tried the demo for Outcast 2 (whatever the full title was).
I remember the original Outcast, it was pretty cool for the time, not exactly the most memorable game for me personally, decent fun and and pretty groundbreaking when it came to the graphics.
Didn't play the remake so i can't comment on that. I was hoping maybe this played similar to something like ELEX (which i enjoyed a lot). But no, nothing here resembles ELEX or a Bethesda title. This plays like a mixture of Ratchet and Clank and i guess like a more shitty third person version of Halo. There is no immersion to be found here. I do think there's an attempt at it because you can even dive under water, something you'd expect in games from Bethesda or in PB games, but no, very arcade-like gameplay where enemies dies in arrays or colors and items that shots off (very Ratchet and Clank-like or Nintendo like i guess).
The colors are very vibrant, neon green grass, purple and pink trees. In some of the videos the game looks impressive because they captured it in the right angle at the right moment. In-game though, it looks like a rather amateurish indie game, Horizon it isn't. The art direction is plain bad, i understand what they're trying to do, but this type of very vibrant graphics requires a really talented team to pull it off, and they didn't.
Seems like they've tried to mimic some popular games like Ratchet and Clank, Halo and the new Jedi Knight games perhaps, they fail miserably at it. The combat here is horrible, really really tedious. Controls are floaty. I hated the new Jedi Knight game but at least the combat and control there was much better, and in comparison to Horizon's really fun combat this is laughable.
Garbage.
Jason Moyer on 25/2/2024 at 20:46
For a second I thought you were talking about Outlast, and I was getting really confused when you got to the bit about it being third person.
Quote Posted by Tomi
Jason Moyer, have you tried it yet? :cool:
I have not. I'll probably give it a go whenever it gets massively discounted, as I would like to eventually check it out.
Tomi on 26/2/2024 at 16:48
Played the Dead Space remake on the XBox. It's an okay game I guess, but I had uninstalled about half a minute after the end credits had stopped rolling. The jump scares stop being scary after about one hour in, and even though there's lots of gore and the atmosphere remains oppressive throughout the game, it quickly loses its desired effect and becomes a bit boring. The story is very predictable and gets somewhat annoying towards the end. At least I can cross Dead Space off my list now.
Next up, The Lies of P. Already started it today, and it seems to be about as Souls-like as I expected, in both good and bad. Mostly bad so far, I guess, but there's some good stuff too.
Aja on 28/2/2024 at 18:12
I finished Act 1 of Pentiment and have been really impressed with it so far. I'm playing a theologian from the Low Countries with a strong interest in the occult, which allows me to spit scripture when I need to but also uncover darker mysteries. I thought I did okay in Act 1, thoroughly investigating (and ruling out) Ferenc and Mathilda, partially investigating Lucky, and not having time for the rest. I kinda felt like none of them were guilty, but when the archdeacon pressed me, I didn't have the option to equivocate, so I made my choice, and immediately an achievement popped up saying Got Lucky executed. :o :skull: So now I'm in Act II, roleplaying a man with a guilty conscience.
Pentiment's art style has been rightly praised, but I haven't heard much about its sound design, which is equally excellent. I never tire of the pen scratching and page turning sounds, and the ambient noise (especially the rain sounds, that change depending on the building) and footsteps create such a natural atmosphere that it's pleasurable to just stop and listen.
qolelis on 29/2/2024 at 20:51
Well, I've got 200 hours in Infinifactory—and I'm still on my first playthrough—so that's what I'm playing (mostly). It's Zachtronics' version of factory building. I really prefer this over Satisfactory or Factorio, because there's no survival element, having to deal with hostile attacks. I can just focus on building my factories in peace. It's also easy to get started building and rebuilding, experimenting, and trying new ideas. It being 3D also makes it feel more hands-on.
There's a story, which is okay, although I focus a lot on the building—even more than the game itself seems comfortable with, because it starts nagging me to move on after a while, which is the only design decision I don't agree with. The nagging comes in the form of a black screen with a random gameplay tip, harshly interrupting whatever I was doing and clearing my undo history. Luckily, you can clone your factory, so you don't risk loosing a lot of work if you're experimenting a lot (like I do).
Definitely my favourite factory building game right now. Techtonica will most likely be a competent contender to that title—whenever it leaves Early Access.
Anarchic Fox on 1/3/2024 at 03:26
Quote Posted by qolelis
Definitely my favourite factory building game right now.
I am rather happy that this became a genre.
qolelis on 2/3/2024 at 16:06
Yes, although Infinifactory is the first I got into. I tried the demo for Factorio, but, while I liked the building, the part where things constantly break, because of hostile attacks, forcing me to rebuild the same thing over and over, wasn't my thing at all. Might be that there's a threshold to get over and after that it gets better, but I don't want to spend time (nor money) on something that only maybe might pay off in the long run.
Satisfactory also had great building with the added advantage of being 3D and first person, which I prefer, but rebuilding felt a bit like a chore and there was also hostile creatures to deal with (although to a lesser degree than in Factorio). I got it for free on Steam and played for 3 hours and thought of returning later to rebuild and optimize, but never did. It could have been my kind of game, but the "dash of combat" (as it's called on Steam) put me off and the building had enough of a threshold to not be worth it. Maybe one day I return to it, but probably not. It's a little too action-oriented for me, I think.
Infinifactory gave me exactly what I wanted: no combat, no running out of fuel or resources, just building with no stress. It gives me the same feeling I got from building with legos when I was a kid. Calming and satisfying. If something doesn't work or break down, it only means that I have designed it badly. There are no external factors nor any tedious management. I don't have to constantly maintain or repair what I've built, so I can focus on what I like, building new factories and optimizing them. The game was also very easy to get into, no threshold at all for me. It's easy to rebuild and the UI feels fluid. Being able to clone a factory allows for a lot of experimenting and returning to a previous version if an experiment didn't work out. I could wish for a few things, but the game is good enough already as it is.
I've also played the demo for Techtonica, which feels like it's taking all the good parts from Infinifactory and Satisfactory, plus a few from exploration games, and leaving out the bad parts. The developers have said that they have no plans of ever adding any combat, so I think it could very well be my next favourite factory building game. I felt like it was easy enough to get started on the building, get something up and working, and then rebuild, experiment, and improve on my design. It could be that it will have too much resource management for my tastes, but that's a thing that could be worth dealing with for the parts I really like.
Thirith on 4/3/2024 at 08:16
I played Sheepy: A Short Adventure over the weekend. It's a free and (as the name says) very short game, but in spite of the length I would've gladly paid something for it. Sheepy: A Short Adventure (not to be confused with Sheepy, another game that's free on Steam but definitely not worth playing) is a platformer that takes one or two pages out of the Metroidvania book (mainly in its player upgrades), but it's a linear affair. As a game it's fine, it plays well, traversal is fun and interesting - but it's mostly the fantastic pixel art, the great music and the fantastic atmosphere that make this worth checking out.
Tomi on 5/3/2024 at 16:43
So I've been playing The Lies of P. It's very much like Dark Souls, in fact it's so identical at times that it's a bit annoying. Crafting and grinding still sucks, but it's not as bad as in DS. It's been years since I last played a Souls game, so it took me a while to get going again. I almost gave up because I just couldn't beat one of the first bosses in the game, but then I suddenly remembered how to play these games. There's also a nice little feature that allows you to summon a "specter" to help you in the boss fights, and it's great to have an alternative for just having to git gud. Some of the boss fights are actually fun now, and still definitely challenging enough for me.
I also somehow prefer the general mood of The Lies of P over Dark Souls for example. The Lies of P is mostly quite gloomy and melancholic and gray as well, but it's not as overwhelming as DS. I'm still not sure if I'm going to finish this game, but I'm starting to warm up to it.
