Sulphur on 25/7/2020 at 04:32
If you're looking for an homage to oldschool Wolf, you're looking for The Old Blood. TNO is very much in the vein of a narrative-driven, pulpy Tarantino-esque exploitation flick with production values up the wazoo for all that dark retro-futurism. It's a reimagining, and the voice acting's perfectly in sync with the themes - I didn't notice any of it being cringey. The writing, though, is divisive for sure.
Thirith on 25/7/2020 at 09:34
After finishing Chapter 4 of Red Dead Redemption 2, I'm now taking another break. I'm taking this opportunity to finally return to Hitman 2, where I'd only played the tutorial level so far. Man, Miami is such a great showcase of what the developers do so amazingly well.
Tomi on 25/7/2020 at 10:31
Quote Posted by Sulphur
If you're looking for an homage to oldschool Wolf, you're looking for The Old Blood.
You know what, I might even do that and buy The Old Blood next time it's on discount. Thanks for the recommendation! The best bits in TNO were indeed a whole lot of fun, so if TOB can offer some of that in a more "traditional" setting, that sounds good. I always kind of liked the occult stuff in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Operation Eisenfaust was my favourite episode in Wolf 3D too. :D
Speaking of the voice acting, the cringey ones for me were some of the over exaggerated German accents. Of course they wouldn't be nazis if they didn't have silly accents, but that Frau Engel for example was so over the top that it was just annoying. :p Why would they speak bad English in a world that is dominated by the Nazis anyway?
twisty on 25/7/2020 at 11:44
Quote Posted by Thirith
After finishing Chapter 4 of
Red Dead Redemption 2, I'm now taking another break. I'm taking this opportunity to finally return to
Hitman 2, where I'd only played the tutorial level so far. Man, Miami is such a great showcase of what the developers do so amazingly well.
Yeah, Miami is great, along with the other levels included in the purchase of Hitman 2. I've turned a bit sour on them though after they've made the final 2 episodes available through a dlc which costs more than the actual base game.
Sulphur on 25/7/2020 at 12:15
Quote Posted by Tomi
Speaking of the voice acting, the cringey ones for me were some of the over exaggerated German accents. Of course they wouldn't be nazis if they didn't have silly accents, but that Frau Engel for example was so over the top that it was just annoying. :p Why would they speak bad English in a world that is dominated by the Nazis anyway?
I'm not the best judge of German accents, but the voice actor for Frau Engel speaks both German and English in the game, and she's originally from Berlin, so I'd assume it isn't a stereotypical put-on by someone doing a funny Nazi voice. As for why, I'd assume so that she'd be understood by you (as B. J.)? She does switch to English when she's directly addressing you after all. Anyway, I thought you meant the English VO was cringey, which is where the disconnect happened.
Jason Moyer on 27/7/2020 at 05:25
Finished Descent 1...on Trainee. :mad: I still love it like I did in 1995, but it took me 20 levels to really get good at developing strategies to deal with the two bullshit enemies, and on certain levels I was still leaving the mine with basically no health (I actually finished one of them with 1 shield left somehow). I do want to go back on Rookie and then Hotshot and give it another go, but I'd never finished the entire game back in the day and I didn't feel like save scumming. The difficulty spiking is probably the worst of any game I've ever played. Level 6 (of 27) is harder than level 25 because it throws the hitscan/homing dudes at you and nothing in the level drops shield boosts. Some of the later levels had so many enemies that dropped shields that I was leaving them floating all over the mine. Anyway, now I'm on to Descent 2.
Thirith on 27/7/2020 at 08:45
Wow... Descent. I loved the game back when the demo came out, but I don't think I ever managed to get through more than the first few levels. Which makes me wonder how many (story-light) games there were back then that I simply didn't finish for one reason or another.
henke on 27/7/2020 at 09:03
Heh, I kinda wanna replay Descent as well now. I still have the CDs for the first 2 games. I wonder if they play well with gamepad? Only played with KB back then.
Sulphur on 27/7/2020 at 09:57
Even I've never finished Descent 1, so massive kudos for doing that. It's a bitch of a time managing those hitscan enemies.
In other random thoughts, if I were a person making a game and doing a trend analysis, last week's releases would give me pause. We had three games that had a decent lead-up and got released almost all at once: Röki, Necrobarista, and Carrion. Out of the three, Carrion is currently sitting on 3K+ reviews, while Necrobarista has ~230 and Röki has ~50. All three games are short indie experiences in different genres: Carrion's a reverse horror metroidvania, Necrobarista's a stylish VN mélange, and Röki is an adventure game. All three have reviewed fairly well, but success-wise only Carrion seems to be doing the business.
We can allow for Microsoft canoodling its developers to carry Carrion on Gamepass as a potential reason for its success - word of mouth, advertising, etc. leading to more people picking it up to own on Steam. We can also allow for the fact that not everyone who buys a game drops a review for it. But that wouldn't account for a difference of at least two orders of magnitude, realistically. If I were being merely cynical, I'd say that that violence sells, just like it always has. But Carrion's probably just a bit more innovative than a normal metroid game, too - it's a 'reverse horror' game after all, where you play the evil beastie chowing on people. So, if I were a marketing person (i.e., cynical AND soulless), I'd probably say if you want to make an indie game that does well, it needs to be more interactive, spill claret and also repackage old ideas in a new format. Something to chew on, I suppose.
Sulphur on 27/7/2020 at 10:06
(Yes, that post exists mostly because I wanted to make that pun.)