Actually it was any of the "angelic" characters in Dogma. The hoodie was a kind of visual signifier denoting the wings that character ostensibly was hiding. And I have Alan Wake on PC, I think the original rather than the remaster... unless like the bioshock or other remakes it updated for pc for free. Not that graphics or upgrades matter, I recently played through Saints Row 2 and after a few minutes of "wow that looks terrible" I got back into the groove of it. Really Alan Wake is kind of a blank spot in my gaming cred I need to fix. Like Dead Space, The Witcher, or Mass Effect. I never got far into Dead Space 2 or Mass Effect 2 before losing interest. And I never finished Witcher 1, despite owning 1,2, and 3.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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I don't know about PC, but the upgrade is free consoles if you go from PS4 to PS5 for example.
I am of a similar mind set. Alan Wake still looks good, despite aging in certain areas, with or without the Remaster. I just know Remaster fixes all of the lip-syncing issues of the original version, has the DLC packaged in, and runs at 60 fps on consoles for the first time.
Do what you can, when you can.
I gathered from the name and the images in the ruins. It's neat that they're using Sumerian mythology for once (every character ever named "Gilgamesh" in gaming doesn't count) but the combination of everything being so vague while also banking on the significance of your actions just isn't super appealing. It reminds me of The Witness a bit - you're a nameless someone dropped in a gorgeous, colorful somewhere and vaguely working towards something with no stakes, no real opposition and almost no way of interacting with your surroundings. And the game itself is sort of about getting lost in that phony sense of purpose.
ab='water' zu='deep
So it’s basically a hardcore swimming game of some sort I take it…Ugh? Or do you get a submersible craft? Hopefully it’s really short because I have enough of these ps+ freebies in my backlog.
I wouldn't call it hardcore. It's pretty chill for the most part but it is centered around swimming. Like journey you'll finish in 2-3 hours at most
Oh, I remember this one. Yeah it's this whole sub-genre of games where it's not games, it's interactive visual art or something. I like them once in a while. I remember playing Abzu in one sitting, which, you know... is about right.
I spent a good chunk of time with Death's Door yesterday and made it pretty far (hooray for slow work-from-home days).
I see why both so many reviewers love it and put on their best-of lists for the year, and why Yahtzee dismisses it.
It is a classic case of a game that does nothing new, but it does it very prettily.
Beautiful art, excellent sound design and decent level design.
The best and worst part about the gameplay is how simple it is. Combat is your textbook standard attack, roll, range/spell. But it also wants to be challenging so you have these moments where you're locked in a room with waves of enemies. And since the mechanics are so simple, there is no clever or unique way of dealing with anything, you just have to keep trying until you get it.
It also does that thing where it's like, "open world," and also MetroidVania, and also old Zelda. So you can go back to places you've been but now with a tool to access new areas for upgrades and such. But of course I can't remember where everything is! Yay, youtube.
tl;dr: Death's Door is a game that is exactly what it looks like, which is fine.
I see why both so many reviewers love it and put on their best-of lists for the year, and why Yahtzee dismisses it.
It is a classic case of a game that does nothing new, but it does it very prettily.
Beautiful art, excellent sound design and decent level design.
The best and worst part about the gameplay is how simple it is. Combat is your textbook standard attack, roll, range/spell. But it also wants to be challenging so you have these moments where you're locked in a room with waves of enemies. And since the mechanics are so simple, there is no clever or unique way of dealing with anything, you just have to keep trying until you get it.
It also does that thing where it's like, "open world," and also MetroidVania, and also old Zelda. So you can go back to places you've been but now with a tool to access new areas for upgrades and such. But of course I can't remember where everything is! Yay, youtube.
tl;dr: Death's Door is a game that is exactly what it looks like, which is fine.
Not at all hardcore. Like I said there's hardly anything in your way and you'll be mostly pushing forward and the occasional button. And it's only 2 or 3 hours long but apparently you can speedrun it in 1. Not that I recommend doing that. The whole point of the game is marveling at the pretty cel shaded graphics and enjoying a chill ride that's as deep as you want it to be.
Took a break from Tails of Iron, maybe halfway through. So my big gripe about this is that after a certain point you have to go raise money to repair the castle, but the only way to raise money is to go do side quests from the job boards(Witcher Style). Said sidequests are basically going to a point on the map(helpfully marked) and killing some dudes who will spawn there in response to the side quest. On the bright side, the side quests do tell you what you'll be facing and apox how difficult it will be, as well as how much it pays, but the downside is you have to do a couple of these because they pay like 2-3-4 coins each. And at first it's not bad, because fixing the castle kitchen costs 5 coins and the castle smithy costs 8 coins. Fair enough.
But then you do another story quest and after that you get a quest to repair the throne room and it costs 30 coins....and at that point I just decided to take a break. Maybe the side quests start paying better(with a ramp up in difficulty) but this feels like padding in a 10 hour game. And make no mistake, there is no other way to get coins for these repairs then doing the side quests. You can't send the guards to go clear these monster dens, you can't levy taxes to repair the castle(God knows how they funded the castle the first time around) and raise an army in case the frogs come back(you're still at war, btw), you have to go do it yourself. You have to do everything yourself, including fetching stuff for the kitchen and smithy. I get it, it's a video game, but they also make it clear you're the king as well.
So I jumped into another game I've had in my backlog for a while: Heaven's Vault. It's basically an adventure game, but it's also an adventure game about being an Archaeologist. And I don't mean Indiana Jones-like archaeology , I mean "looking at mundane objects in ruins and trying to figure out what they were and what they meant" kind of archaeology. Notably, the game has a constructed language that looks similar to Arabic(based on a brief check of the wikipedia page) that you have to decipher by finding inscriptions and look for similar groupings of characters or words. The idea is to lock down the language one word at a time(the PC will help by confirming when you have one right or eliminate one when it's wrong, making it a little bit easier) since this is a long lost language nobody uses anymore and all that's left is scattered phrases on ancient artifacts. Beyond that the game is generally a walking sim, with a lot of dialogue and some exploration(to find artifact and inscriptions).
It does have a nice art style and music, with a big middle eastern theme to it but it also takes place IN SPACE, presumably in the far future. The entire game takes place in a nebula, where moons are linked by rivers of air and water that flow through the nebula and allow space sailing ships to float along the currents in wooden spacecraft. It's wierd but interesting and I dig it. There's a quasi mystical vibe about the whole thing. Especially with talk of divine emporers and the religious belief that time, like the nebula, flows in a big loop.
The plot is mostly you being dispatched to search for someone but along the way you're discovering ruins that he was looking for and uncovering more about the ancient empire that left ruins all over the nebula after it collapsed a few centuries before. The plot so far isn't much to speak of but there's some decent worldbuidling and really if you're here, it's for the aesthetic and the "translating a constructed language, one word at a time" aspect, because the game is built around the translation mechanic.
But then you do another story quest and after that you get a quest to repair the throne room and it costs 30 coins....and at that point I just decided to take a break. Maybe the side quests start paying better(with a ramp up in difficulty) but this feels like padding in a 10 hour game. And make no mistake, there is no other way to get coins for these repairs then doing the side quests. You can't send the guards to go clear these monster dens, you can't levy taxes to repair the castle(God knows how they funded the castle the first time around) and raise an army in case the frogs come back(you're still at war, btw), you have to go do it yourself. You have to do everything yourself, including fetching stuff for the kitchen and smithy. I get it, it's a video game, but they also make it clear you're the king as well.
So I jumped into another game I've had in my backlog for a while: Heaven's Vault. It's basically an adventure game, but it's also an adventure game about being an Archaeologist. And I don't mean Indiana Jones-like archaeology , I mean "looking at mundane objects in ruins and trying to figure out what they were and what they meant" kind of archaeology. Notably, the game has a constructed language that looks similar to Arabic(based on a brief check of the wikipedia page) that you have to decipher by finding inscriptions and look for similar groupings of characters or words. The idea is to lock down the language one word at a time(the PC will help by confirming when you have one right or eliminate one when it's wrong, making it a little bit easier) since this is a long lost language nobody uses anymore and all that's left is scattered phrases on ancient artifacts. Beyond that the game is generally a walking sim, with a lot of dialogue and some exploration(to find artifact and inscriptions).
It does have a nice art style and music, with a big middle eastern theme to it but it also takes place IN SPACE, presumably in the far future. The entire game takes place in a nebula, where moons are linked by rivers of air and water that flow through the nebula and allow space sailing ships to float along the currents in wooden spacecraft. It's wierd but interesting and I dig it. There's a quasi mystical vibe about the whole thing. Especially with talk of divine emporers and the religious belief that time, like the nebula, flows in a big loop.
The plot is mostly you being dispatched to search for someone but along the way you're discovering ruins that he was looking for and uncovering more about the ancient empire that left ruins all over the nebula after it collapsed a few centuries before. The plot so far isn't much to speak of but there's some decent worldbuidling and really if you're here, it's for the aesthetic and the "translating a constructed language, one word at a time" aspect, because the game is built around the translation mechanic.
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Alan Wake Remastered - Episode 4 is done. This is when combat encounters get really tough. The best part in the game is where you're defending the music stage on the Anderson Brothers farm. The level should have ended right there, but there are a couple of combat encounters afterward, and then another forced walking section towards the end. Well, more like an astral projection view of what Alan did after his wife had been taken to the darkness. I did a little of Episode 5 and will finish the rest tomorrow.
I do remember enjoying the Rock Concert bit. That was amusing and where they weren't furiously trying to remind everyone how how much they loved Twin Peaks. Don't get me wrong, I liked Twin Peaks but I feel the references were a bit overdone in Alan Wake.
I have never seen Twin Peaks. So a lot of it's references flew over my head.
It might be better that way. It actually kind of got on my nerves a little just how blatantly they were alluding to it with a straight face.
If you wanted to make a twin peaks game, I'm sure it wouldn't have been that hard to get the license. It's the "We're not Twin Peaks but we're gonna pretend we are but with just enough removed to avoid getting sued" that feels off.
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Yesterday I spent my morning completing the post-game / secret ending for Death's Door using youtube guides because the game is Zeldametroidvania and to find everything you have to either remember where everything is and I suck at directional memory. But because I actually bought the game on Steam I wanted to see all the content. It's fine, it's all basically a giant easter egg. When this game appears on Gamepass, I heartily recommend playing through the end credits then moving on.
Then I spent some time later in the day on my Sekiro replay. I don't know if I'll actually make it through the whole game as I just wanted to relive some of the thrill of this combat. Yesterday was about bashing my head against Lady Butterfly's wall. It's one of my favorite boss fights ever, so fluid. I finally defeated her by lucking out a bit when she didn't send so many yellow dots during the second round WHILE ALSO fighting at me, and ending by fighting "through" the last bits of her illusions and whacking her despite them. It's funny that as much as I know that the key is aggression and persistence on most enemies, I still am often not aggressive and persistent enough.
Outer Wilds is on Gamepass. It is my current "game I feel guilt-tripped into wanting to like." I found Yahtzee's stream of it and am watching/listening now. Yeah no I don't think I can handle it: first person, darkness, real-time physics, and having to figure out where everything is and what it is despite or because of those constraints. Seems like a game designed to make me miserable. It seems like the video game equivalent of Modest Mouse or one of those old cool indy bands that all the critics and a certain kind of fan love and I'm bored by but hey I'm glad there's different stuff out there for people.
Then I spent some time later in the day on my Sekiro replay. I don't know if I'll actually make it through the whole game as I just wanted to relive some of the thrill of this combat. Yesterday was about bashing my head against Lady Butterfly's wall. It's one of my favorite boss fights ever, so fluid. I finally defeated her by lucking out a bit when she didn't send so many yellow dots during the second round WHILE ALSO fighting at me, and ending by fighting "through" the last bits of her illusions and whacking her despite them. It's funny that as much as I know that the key is aggression and persistence on most enemies, I still am often not aggressive and persistent enough.
Outer Wilds is on Gamepass. It is my current "game I feel guilt-tripped into wanting to like." I found Yahtzee's stream of it and am watching/listening now. Yeah no I don't think I can handle it: first person, darkness, real-time physics, and having to figure out where everything is and what it is despite or because of those constraints. Seems like a game designed to make me miserable. It seems like the video game equivalent of Modest Mouse or one of those old cool indy bands that all the critics and a certain kind of fan love and I'm bored by but hey I'm glad there's different stuff out there for people.
You should never feel or forced to be guilt tripped to be liking or playing a game. Either play it or don't. I've known people who tried that shit, and that made me even less interested to play a game. It did not matter if it was from AAA, AA, or Indie. Play because you want to or are interested. I'm glad you were able to come to your own conclusion. I can see how people are a fan of Outer Wilds, but if you're playing in just a be vindictive against Bethesda, then that doesn't improve the actual game. Because at that point, you're most likely going to ignore the flaws it does have, and just go into over praising for not being Fallout 76.
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I tried outer wilds around the time it came out and liked it, but stopped playing and haven't really gotten back in. I keep hearing all the praise and want to give it a 2nd shot. Maybe I'm the next month or so I will, but I know how you feel.
Sorry I'm not understanding your point- is there a specific connection between Bethesda and Outer Wilds? Or are you just making a general indy vs AAA comparison?
If the latter then yeah, I certainly don't necessarily favor indy. I play shit like Assassins Creed so, whatever.
I have tried Fallout games and they are just not for me. The difference between Fallouts and Outer Wilds is that the latter is different. Fallout is, you know- open world shooter blah blah blah, if you like that stuff then great, I don't, and I don't need to know more about it to know anything. But games like Outer Wilds are different and worth at least learning about, as we are interested in games as a medium.
No of course it doesn't mean you "have" to play them. I'm content for now just watching a steam or two and reading/watching reviews and getting a feel and moving on. I sort of watched Yahtzee play for like an hour and I know if I try this game I will get headache, but I appreciate how others feel about it.
A lot the people that worked on Outer Wilds, worked on Fallout: New Vegas. Those developers used to work at Bethesda. But even they feel that people should enjoy the game and not bring up costs and comparisons between New Vegas and their game. They even told people to play the game for the right reasons, and not just to play it to be vindictive and insulting.
I wasn't trying to make an indie versus AAA comparison, though I do prefer those games from the former than the latter. Don't know where you're getting that, but sorry for the misunderstanding there. Like I said before, just play what you want to play for the right reasons. That's all I'm saying.