Tomi on 9/2/2020 at 22:43
I too want to try out
A Plague Tale some time, but right now I'm too busy with my metroidvanias and platformers... My current game in progress is
Ori and the Blind Forest. Oh it's so pretty. Not quite Trine-level of pretty, but almost there, and really quite gorgeous at times. The music is beautiful, the atmosphere is a tiny bit melancholic but also kinda soothing, and there's something very relaxing about the whole game. It's not terribly difficult either - at least it hasn't been so far and I think I'm past the halfway point now - there's a bit of trial and error when you explore the world, and there are a couple of fairly challenging platforming bits, but that's about it. I like it and I'm definitely going to play this until the end.
I also wanted to try something a bit different after playing only action platformers for the last couple of weeks, so I'm now playing (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148292&p=2438473&viewfull=1#post2438473) Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice too. It is indeed a bit different... but very interesting. I might even have to put Ori's adventures on hold until I see how this turns out.
Thirith on 10/2/2020 at 08:06
I finished my replay of Dishonored 2 yesterday. Arkane is one of my favourite present-day studios, mainly because they tick my boxes so well - their environments are gorgeous, interesting and intelligently designed, and moving around them is generally a joy. I'm already looking forward to replaying Death of the Outsider and Prey, but first I'll want to get back to Hitman 2 and finally play its own missions (rather than replaying the Hitman missions in the sequel) and play some shorter games.
Mainly, though, I started replaying Kentucky Route Zero, since I want to revisit Acts I to IV (as well as the interludes) before playing the final one. I'm not going to rush it, though - it'll probably be one act at a time, with some other shorter games in between.
henke on 10/2/2020 at 16:54
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Bioshock 2 tightened up the combat considerably, to the point where it actually got to be a little fun. BS1's combat still feels like it didn't get enough time in the oven and is safely the worst part of the game until you get to fight a metal Atlas in the end in some sort of similarly underbaked objectivist folly.
Quote Posted by Starker
Yeah, it gets real bulletspongy real fast. Big Daddy fights are probably the best part of it. And as far as I'm concerned, Minerva's Den remains the peak of the series.
I don't know guys, I loved the combat in it. I think it helped that I played on Medium this time as well. IIRC I played on Hard the first time around, but playing on an easier setting gives you more chance to play around and get creative with the plasmids. The splicers do get too bulletspongey towards the end tho.
Anyway, BS1 finished. About to fire up this Minerva's Den thingy everyone's raving about. :)
Thirith on 11/2/2020 at 07:50
Back when I got my RTX graphics card, I got Battlefield V with it. While I enjoyed the first couple of Battlefield games online, I never really got into any of the ones after Battlefield 3, but I've been interested in checking out the BF5 campaign as a showcase for raytracing, so this morning I returned to the War Stories. Not that I got anywhere, because the North Africa mini-campaign does a Far Cry lite thing - you're given a largeish map and a bunch of objectives to tackle in any sequence and with any strategy. I thought I'd go the stealthy route, but I'm not sure how viable this is: the Germans saw me way before I was anywhere near enough to take them out. I'll try again with different weapons, but I wonder whether their ideas for the campaign and the design of the missions don't quite work with the AI and overall balancing.
Marecki on 11/2/2020 at 11:07
Replayed the first four acts and all the interludes of Kentucky Route Zero, then followed up immediately with Act V and the final bit (I hesitate to call it an interlude, seeing as there is nothing to follow it. Frankly speaking, I am disappointed. So much waiting - for this? It feels as if the creators were under so much pressure to provide an ending that in the end they felt they had to get something out, regardless of how many plot lines it would leave unresolved - or indeed how much sense the wrap-up of the ostensibly main plot line would make. And no, this being magical realism is not an excuse.
Then again, maybe I just do not "get" KRZ. Wouldn't be a surprise, seeing as I generally don't "get" modern art and that I stopped enjoying KRZ specifically roughly halfway through Act III.
Next up: Tower of Guns. Because I really need to relax my brain a bit after all the high-brow stuff I've been reading/watching/playing lately.
Judith on 11/2/2020 at 16:44
Quote Posted by Brethren
I've been playing A Plague Tale after a fellow TTLGer gifted it to me. It reminds me a lot of The Last of Us, very story driven, with gameplay broken down into chapters, and some light crafting and stealth. Enjoying it so far, but being only about 25% done, I'm hoping the style of gameplay gets changed up and/or expanded, as things are starting to get very samey. The story is solid, and is keeping me engaged. I saw someone earlier complain because it's not immersive simmish enough, which is a fairly stupid thing to say since that's definitely not the type of game it is.
Oh, and even on my 8 year old PC, the game is gorgeous and runs super smooth.
The only fairly stupid thing will be the look on your face when you realize nothing in this game will change for the better, you boob :D as the game doesn't try to be anything but a set of artificial rat/torch/guard/puzzle setups dressed with great graphics and dramatic storyline, where everything gets more and more ridiculous / trial-and-error grade.
Renault on 13/2/2020 at 00:54
Judith, I don't doubt your criticisms of A Plague Tale at all. If you see in my quoted post above, I was already having doubts the game would hold up.
My point was, you criticized it for not having an Immersive Sim type design, when that's completely not even close to the type of game it is, or is even trying to be. It just seemed like and odd, random statement.
Tomi on 13/2/2020 at 19:58
I did end up finishing
Ori and the Blind Forest before
Senua's Sacrifice after all, and I must say that it was a very enjoyable experience. Around two years ago I actually had a chance to play Ori for half an hour or so, but it didn't really catch my interest back then, so I decided that I'd wait for a good discount before giving it another chance. Well, I got it for a fiver two weeks ago and it was definitely one of my better investments lately. :D
Ori is indeed a damn beautiful game in many ways; the visuals, the music, and the story - they're all superb. I've seen a lot of people call Ori frustratingly difficult, but even though there are some difficulty spikes, I actually enjoyed those challenges and never found the game
too difficult at any point. It's nowhere near as frustrating as
Hollow Knight for example when it comes to difficulty. The gameplay is incredibly smooth and enables you to do some really precise moves (those are often required too!), and in addition to the usual double jumps and wall runs there are some more unusual abilities too.
Inline Image:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/794259586443274936/1BAA4EFBA9B319D8BDFA6B65D99CAA5FDAB80549/If I have to find something negative to say about the game, I think it lacks a bit in character - Ori plays it a bit too safe with the fairytale card, but then again the all-around prettiness makes up for it. Even though the forest is evidently in great danger, it never really feels like there's something bad happening. The enemies are mostly some slimy blobs that don't feel very hostile, and pretty much everything is nice and pretty. But that's part of the fairytale thing and it probably wouldn't work otherwise.
Ori and the Blind Forest is quite a rare exception these days, because I genuinely didn't want the game to end so soon. I found all the secrets and collectibles during my play through (around 10 hours), so apart from the higher difficulty levels there's not much reason to return to the game any time soon, which is a shame. But... I just found out that there's a sequel coming out in less than a month! \:D/ Right now
Ori and the Will of the Wisps goes to the top of my hype list.
Judith on 14/2/2020 at 09:06
Quote Posted by Brethren
Judith, I don't doubt your criticisms of A Plague Tale at all. If you see in my quoted post above, I was already having doubts the game would hold up.
My point was, you criticized it for not having an Immersive Sim type design, when that's completely not even close to the type of game it is, or is even trying to be. It just seemed like and odd, random statement.
Ah, okay then. I should have elaborated a bit, I was on the phone while commuting. I thought that im-sim design approach was with stealth games almost from the beginning, and it's hard for me to think about a good stealth game that doesn't employ it at least in some minimal extent (correct me if I'm wrong).
In this case, that would be e.g. some more coherent rules on how rats are used (maybe on certain lighting conditions, not whenever designers see fit, or to easily ramp up the tension, because often that is super obvious to a player as well).
Or things like having at least some room in the levels where you can escape when being detected by a guard? What made me most disappointed with this otherwise gorgeous game is the general lack of room for player expression when things go wrong. You make a mistake with rats, you have one second to realize it, and bam, you're dead, auto-reload. A guard sees you, bam, one-hit kill. And it gets worse later. There are one-hit-kill archers, and a particularly frustrating cart section. There will be maps with no detection objective as well.
Yeah, I wish the puzzle setups were more im-simmy, as they feel more and more artificial as the game goes: at some point you get timed runs with rats not fearing the daylight but getting back to their holes when a lightning strikes. All that looks weird when made with beautiful photogrammery scans they got from Quixel. Maybe more simplified graphics would make this less jarring? Not sure. The only thing that felt really consistent to me was the player toolset, didn't even mind the crafting bit.
henke on 14/2/2020 at 10:52
Ugh, yeah, that cart section was annoying. It was just a matter of trial and error, memorizing where the baddies are gonna come from so you can hit them with rocks the moment they pop up on the next go-around.