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NeoSeeker posted:As I said before, I agree it adds to the oppressive nature. But, again, it goes too far some times. Maybe I'm creeped out by that dev log I saw a bit too much. I really need to find that video. The guy gets way WAY too excited about it. 
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Oct 18, 2014 07:49
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The death bits in Tomb Raider were a bit ick when you see them the first time but by the time I figured out how to stop dying I was desensitised anyway.
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Oct 18, 2014 07:53
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NeoSeeker posted:This is why you play either AC2 or Black Flag.
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Oct 18, 2014 07:53
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Palpek posted:Let's see what released on Steam: Roommates. Ultraviper posted:But installing Battlefield 4 on one reduced my loading from from 5 minutes to 4! FadedReality posted:Please do defrag your SSD once a day for maximum speeds. Ragequit posted:Oh boy I can't wait to play "School Shooting, The Game" in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srjA84_FC18  What a surprise Assepoester fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 07:54
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Quest For Glory II posted:Thanks Assassins Creed Brotherhood, yes I would like to sit through 15 minutes of unskippable credits before getting to play/save post-game Ezio, thanks ubisoft. thanks Assassins Creed 3 had something like thirty or forty minutes of credits 
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Oct 18, 2014 08:00
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Actually forget it. This started with Alien anyways, so I'll leave you with this. Why didn't the xeno just tear lambert apart in the first Alien movie? NeoSeeker fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 08:01
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NeoSeeker posted:Not the video I was talking about, but skip to the last death. You gotta admit, someone had a bad childhood. No, I don't. I don't know these people and making these kind of assumptions and conclusions over some unknown person's life and childhood based on video game death animations of all things is hilariously idiotic.
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Oct 18, 2014 08:03
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Palpek posted:I also want to add that people who complained about Alien AI being unpredictable were simply worng. It really adds to the atmosphere that it doesn't have set patrol paths and decides to run from one place to another on a whim. This makes it feel more animalistic and real. Is the checkpointing system still too far apart? That's what would put me off it, repeating the last half hour over because of a death that felt random.
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Oct 18, 2014 08:04
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I appreciated the intent behind the Stanley Parable, but found it getting old by the time I finished the demo. Just wasn't my thing. Edit: Also, that horse DLC demands a saxophone. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 08:05
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Kin posted:Is the checkpointing system still too far apart? That's what would put me off it, repeating the last half hour over because of a death that felt random.  Its AI changes by then too though to the point of running away the moment it sees the flamethrower pointed at it and trying to flank you or drop behind your back from vents.
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Oct 18, 2014 08:15
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Gog's freebie Dragonshpere is now on Steam with a price tag. Brilliant.
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Oct 18, 2014 08:16
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Ragequit posted:Oh boy I can't wait to play "School Shooting, The Game" in 2015: Well that was legit nauseating.
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Oct 18, 2014 08:18
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Cat Army 
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Palpek posted:I also want to add that people who complained about Alien AI being unpredictable were simply worng. It really adds to the atmosphere that it doesn't have set patrol paths and decides to run from one place to another on a whim. This makes it feel more animalistic and real. Palpek posted:I think people are used to the usual stealth game AI where the idea is to find a tiny opening between various patrol routes instead of for the enemies to act natural. This makes them frustrated. It's worth mentioning that androids do have set patrol routes which fits their function and this shows that the devs made Alien unpredictable on purpose. I also get the distinct feeling that the Alien AI isn't so much “unpredictable” as it is simply operating on far different parameters than what almost every other game ever has taught you. Sound seems far more important than sight, for instance, even in instances where other games (and other entities in this game) would say that, no, you're too far away to affect the AI behaviour. Sure, the Alien might not patrol in the normal sense, but from what I've seen, it also seems to deviate from its non-patrol because it actually reacts to the world around it far more than the standard horror-enemy AI does. Anonymous Robot posted:Did Black Mesa source become 100% finished yet?
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Oct 18, 2014 08:33
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Anyway, a few titles that I noticed in new releases. No idea if they're good or bad, some of them are Early Access. Input from people who tried them out would be appreciated. Windward - a new take on Pirates.  DeadCore - some sort of platforming FPS. Looks really nice visually.  Fist of Jesus - a 2D brawler where you're Jesus.  Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - an HD remake of the first Gabriel Knight.  TRI: Of Friendship and Madness - a story-driven 3D puzzle game. 
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Oct 18, 2014 08:39
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Tippis posted:Not yet, but apparently they've now got a deal with Valve to turn it into a commercial release on Steam, at which point it will have the full game (for better or worse) and maybe some balance tweaks as well…
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Oct 18, 2014 09:09
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Bieeardo posted:I appreciated the intent behind the Stanley Parable, but found it getting old by the time I finished the demo. Just wasn't my thing. No you fool, we need to lose the sax solo.
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Oct 18, 2014 09:13
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Palpek posted:Well, the checkpoints are sometimes far away but there are always manual save points in a new area. The problem is that it's almost always dangerous near them so you're kinda torn between hiding and risking losing progress or going for it and risking losing progress faster. This becomes way less of an issue when you get a flamethrower and can scare the Alien away on a whim. See, i can get behind the clever AI and that does sound great and all, but you don't ever gently caress with the ability to save. This just makes me think that the game isn't scary because of the alien/atmosphere, but because that the alien is going to wipe out your last large chunk of progress through jump scares. That really doesn't sound enjoyable to me.
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Oct 18, 2014 09:22
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That's the whole problem I have with the game, honestly. The Alien's AI is cool and all but Palpek has been posting gifs in the glitch thread where it either bugs the gently caress out and instakills you or pops up out of nowhere because of some crazy deep AI subroutine the player has no way of figuring out. It's the fact that the Alien is unpredictable that is keeping me from wanting to try it, because even if there was a manual save it'd be real easy to save yourself into a corner because you can't tell what it's going to do next and you might save right before it decides to pop out and kill you. I haven't played the game but it looks like a pretty cool idea, though the constant threat of the Alien seems like it's trying to hold up the whole thing underneath it.
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Oct 18, 2014 09:28
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CJacobs posted:It's the fact that the Alien is unpredictable that is keeping me from wanting to try it Isn't that the point, though? It is an Alien so it should be unpredictable, shouldn't it?
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Oct 18, 2014 09:36
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Palpek posted:Let's see what released on Steam: Roommates. Also Bloodnet is now up on Steam :scared:
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Oct 18, 2014 09:41
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The AI ins't perfect, it does have its usual game glitches but honestly they're pretty rare and overall it works really well. The unpredictable Alien mostly comes down to not having set patrol routes so you don't know when it decides to turn around while walking down a corridor. It would be ridiculous otherwise though and people would laugh at this game if the Alien was circling the corridors in the same manner over and over, the threat would be gone. As for the situations where it surprises you it's about ruining your false feeling of being safe where you find a way to 'trick' the game. For example you find out that you can jump into a vent and the Alien won't see you there, so you start using vents exclusively until you turn a corner one time and the bastard is in there with you. Or you find out that you can hide under tables and the Alien won't notice you so you start walking from table to table thinking you finally "cracked" the code. But then that one time the Alien goes on all fours and sniffs you out. Or you hang out in the lockers a lot and do the hold-breathing thing perfectly so you think you can always hide like that. That is until you see the Alien rip out every locker door one by one until it finds you. Or you get a flamethrower and you find out you can set the bastard on fire and it will run away every time so you just start walking around with the flamethrower and clicking a button when you see the Alien. But then it learns to circle you, run the moment you have it in your crosshairs before you even press fire or jump into a vent and reappear behind your back. Etc. etc. This is the game that prevents those "heh, this game was scary until I figured out I can do this one thing always  " posts from happening. That is a good thing. It also basically rewards swift thinking, rapid decisions and taking risks instead of the usual stealth gameplay that rewards hiding for hours behind a crate and crouch walking OCD.
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Oct 18, 2014 09:46
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Also all that I wrote about is about the Hard difficulty. Turn it down to Medium or Easy and your experience will be WAY less deadly and frustrating (if that's what you're feeling). Some people claim Medium is the sweet spot.
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Oct 18, 2014 09:51
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Kin posted:This just makes me think that the game isn't scary because of the alien/atmosphere, but because that the alien is going to wipe out your last large chunk of progress through jump scares.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:22
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Kin posted:See, i can get behind the clever AI and that does sound great and all, but you don't ever gently caress with the ability to save. Didn't you already post this exact same thing? Again, being able to save at all times practically defeats the point of a horror game. It's not your kind of game, we get it. There's plenty of video games out there, you don't need to enjoy all of them.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:26
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Ghostlight posted:The only thing that makes an atmosphere disperse faster than opening the airlock is save-scumming. People choose to savescum.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:29
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Kin posted:People choose to savescum. Self-imposed limitations is not something a video game's design should rely on, ever. I don't understand why you have such a hard time with the concept of horror games. You can't say "well you don't have to do it" because that's not how it works, it's still an omnipresent safety net which is completely against the point of a game that's supposed to make you fear for your life.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:37
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If your game is only scary because it screws up your progress you don't have a very good horror game.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:43
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Kanfy posted:Self-imposed limitations is not something a video game's design should rely on, ever. That works both ways. You can't say “you shouldn't include it” because that only demonstrates that the video game is poorly designed: it has to rely on silly mechanical limitations to build its supposed atmosphere. If a solid save system disrupts your game enjoyment that much, maybe you should take a step back and look at what it is that actually frightens you about the poorly designed scenario: is it still what happens in the game or is it what happens outside of it? Being a horror game is in every way completely disconnected from the ability to save. Being a horror game is about being able to scare the player with what happens in the game. Having to meta-game that anxiety (onoz, I might have to re-do this entire section) means the game has failed, utterly. All you're doing at that point is locking out a sizeable chunk of players who want to, you know, play your game and see where it leads, but you refuse to let them experience the story you've created. Your sole means of evoking the response you want is fundamentally flawed, and you know it, so rather than fix that problem, you choose to alienate the players who'd enjoy it in spite of those flaws. e:f;b Tippis fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 10:50
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The White Dragon posted:Assassins Creed 3 had something like thirty or forty minutes of credits Seriously. 40 minutes sounds about right. I went to take a shower and get some food and when I returned the thing was still going. Probably the longest credits sequence I've ever had the displeasure not to watch.
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Oct 18, 2014 10:57
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lordfrikk posted:Seriously. 40 minutes sounds about right. I went to take a shower and get some food and when I returned the thing was still going. Probably the longest credits sequence I've ever had the displeasure not to watch. That, and apparently everyone who ever delivered a pizza to any of Ubisoft's offices around the world went into the credits. And their mother, and their dog.
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Oct 18, 2014 11:00
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Tippis posted:That works both ways. But that's the thing though, horror is a difficult genre in that it has to affect the players themselves. To build proper tension and fear, you need to be afraid of losing something to the threat you're facing; if there are no consequences to failure then the only thing that's likely to actually scare you are lovely jump scares and they're going to do it exactly once. Scaring a player is super easy but all good horror games are memorable because of the overall tension and atmosphere, not the actual scares themselves. Now, strictly in-game what one is afraid of losing is of course the protagonist's life, but the player isn't going to actually die in real life when the game character dies so that doesn't work. However it's precisely the player in the real world who is supposed to feel this same tension, so some means of real life consequences are an ideal way to simulate it and that's largely limited to one's game progress. It doesn't have to be nor should it be much because that will quickly become obnoxious, but as long as there's something at stake then that's enough. I'm not saying that quicksaves in general are bad or anything, but I think that not having them is a perfectly legitimate design decision if it works towards what the game is trying to accomplish. Video games' biggest strength is their versatility, so having games that use manual saves as means to do that is not at all a negative thing. Alien Isolation does this and most people don't at all call it "utterly failed" or even "poorly designed", so obviously it works at least for that particular title. TL;DR version, video games are allowed to be different and that's strictly A Good Thing.
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Oct 18, 2014 11:18
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Yeah, sitting through the long credits just to watch a short cutscene (which you may not get to see if you skip out) is getting really old. I guess there may be some point for the people who work in the industry to back up their CV ("yes, I did work on that game, you can check the credits") but for the punters, ugh. Usually I may be interested to see who the lead devs and the voice actors were, but as for who did the marketing in Poland? Who cares! Especially when someone will put the scene up on Youtube to save you all that tedium.
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Oct 18, 2014 11:20
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Kanfy posted:But that's the thing though, horror is a difficult genre in that it has to affect the players themselves. To build proper tension and fear, you need to be afraid of losing something to the threat you're facing; if there are no consequences to failure then the only thing that's likely to actually scare you are lovely jump scares and they're going to do it exactly once. Scaring a player is super easy but all good horror games are memorable because of the overall tension and atmosphere, not the actual scares themselves. In fact, I'd rather turn that around: the only scares that quicksaving ruin are those jump scares because now you know they're coming, and even then, they're only ruined if they are strictly deterministic events that are scripted or otherwise completely predictable. Good game design removes those caveats, at which point quicksaving only does what quicksaving should do: it lets you start off from a point of your choosing with no real concept of what will happen after that. quote:I'm not saying that quicksaves in general are bad or anything, but I think that not having them is a perfectly legitimate design decision if it works towards what the game is trying to accomplish. Video games' biggest strength is their versatility, so having games that use manual saves as means to do that is not at all a negative thing. Alien Isolation does this and most people don't at all call it "utterly failed" or even "poorly designed", so obviously it works at least for that particular title. Yes, video games are allowed to be different, but that isn't an excuse for lazily relying on poor mechanics and alienating players that would otherwise enjoy the game and the story it is trying to tell. Just because they're different doesn't mean that there aren't multiple audiences for any one game, nor that some of them should be arbitrarily shut out. Serving several audiences at once is also A Good Thing and doesn't really conflict with the fact that games are different. I'm sensing that there is a “dumbing down of games”-style argument lurking out there somewhere, but it's not even that — there's a difference between difficulty and tedium. Properly done, quicksaving removes the latter without affecting the former, and even in the cases where precise execution of a chain of moves is the actual difficulty, a simple “ironman” option (possibly included in, but preferably separate from, the regular difficulty levels) preserves that tension for those who want it. Tippis fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 11:39
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AC credits are insanely long (i should know, i beat and 100% em all.) But i do think its cool that they you know, give credit to everybody involved.
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Oct 18, 2014 11:48
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Yeah, truth be told if they scrolled them a bit quicker or actually used more than one column, just to keep them all but get them out of the way quicker... Just reminds you how absurdly huge the production effort on AC games is.
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Oct 18, 2014 11:56
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I'm perfectly fine with people being credited for the game they have been a part of, but not being able to skip a 30-40 minute credit roll is just stupid and makes no sense at all. Why do I need to watch who was the personal assistant for the localization manager in Hungary, the junior accountant at Ubisoft HQ or see the names of the countless individuals who came from 3rd party tool makers, not to mention the endless list of names of babies being born during production. Make it completely skippable, add a FF and RW for when voice actors and music credits or place the full credits in the Extras section and only have leads from the primary team in the main credits. No HR department are going to play through a game to watch and confirm your CV from each game anyway.
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Oct 18, 2014 12:08
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Zedd posted:AC credits are insanely long (i should know, i beat and 100% em all.) But i do think its cool that they you know, give credit to everybody involved. All those people definitely deserve it, but making 40 minutes long credits sequence unskippable is just... Nobody is going to sit there there the whole time reading all the names.
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Oct 18, 2014 12:09
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The ability to savescum pretty much takes all the tension out of a horror game, so it's extremely important that if you're going to use save checkpoints, you balance them right. Far enough apart that it doesn't feel like you're just jumping from point to point, and give you just a little edge of "I'd rather not lose this progress", but not so far apart that a death, particularly one from an enemy billed as being unpredictable, is just going to make you go "gently caress it" and quit for the night. In general I thought the save system and tween-save checkpointing was another thing RE4 did quite well, although there were a few points where the checkpoint closest to a tough boss fight is down a really long path and through a fairly drawn-out cutscene with several instant death QTEs. Those parts weren't great.
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Oct 18, 2014 12:11
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Wait, so it's actually unskippable as in "cannot exit to main menu/save new game+", not only for maniacs who want a special achievement for watching a post-credits cameo?
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Oct 18, 2014 12:12
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Tippis posted:But that's just it: the atmosphere and tension isn't tied to the saving system because saving does absolutely nothing to them. A quick F[whatever] key press leaves you in the exact same atmosphere with the exact same uncertainties as before you saved.
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Oct 18, 2014 12:16
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