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CV 64 Fan
Oct 13, 2012

It's pretty dope.
Visage is going to give me a loving ulcer.

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Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



If you'd like to see a good way a point-and-click series can gently caress up everything it's gotten right so far, here you go.

:ohno: SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker :ohno:

1. Apsulov: End of Gods
2. Conarium
3. TAMASHII
4. Apparition
5. Secrets of the Maw (DLC)
6. Bad Dream: Coma
7. They Breathe
8. The Final Station
9. Love, Sam
10. Pacify
11. Return of the Obra Dinn
12. Silver Chains

13. Bad Dream: Fever



Bad Dream: Coma ended up being a middling point-and-click with a few clever sequences tucked away at the end. I had hopes that Bad Dream: Fever would build on that and mix that cleverness in across more of the game. It certainly looked like it did from the screenshots, and the greater level of detail and polish. But for all the steps forward this one takes, it leaps backwards in terms of gameplay and story flow. I suspect that this one still hides the best parts at the very end, but it’s such a slog to get to that point that I can hardly say it’s worth it.

You awaken in a bedroom that is very much not yours, in a world where everything is dead or dying. A strange, inky substance is consuming everything, filling the veins of the inhabitants and blotting out entire city blocks. You’ve got to get to the bottom of this horror, and for once you’re not alone. Aided by a mysterious woman in a plague mask, you’ll have to comb the city for clues and tools that will help you uncover the purpose and source of this plague. But once you do, you may find that the world itself is not at all what it seems to be.

At least, that’s how my understanding of the story goes. For my part, I could barely get an hour in before all the issues with the gameplay drained me of any motivation to continue. Where Bad Dream: Coma had all the trappings of a traditional point-and-click, Fever streamlines and re-arranges these elements in bizarre ways. You have an inventory, but you don’t use or combine items from it. Having the right item for an interaction just changes your cursor to that item automatically. Items also tend to be much more tucked away than normal, sometimes even hidden behind scenery pieces you have to move just to get at them. Honestly at times I felt more like I was playing a hidden object game than an adventure.

These quibbles are nothing next to the bigger design problems, though. Right from the start you meet your unnamed lady friend, and for the next hour (at least) you’re simply following her orders. What little info you get about the world and the ink destroying it are filtered through her as she sends you to collect tools and samples and cleaning products for her every whim. Even examining an object gives you her take on it instead of your own or something informative, and if she’s feeling impatient she won’t describe it at all. Worse than this, though, is that the game won’t let you collect objects if you haven’t been told you need them yet. This is one of the mortal sins of point-and-click adventures, because players can easily find something that’s clearly useful, not be allowed to take it, and then forget about it when given the vague go-ahead to get it later. I’ve had to do so much backtracking and random clicking in this game simply because it won’t let me take things I KNOW I’m going to need.

There’s one locked door in the game that absolutely sealed the deal for me. It was locked with a three-digit combination lock, so I set out to find the combination. I combed every open area in the game for ten minutes to no avail, and eventually had to consult a walkthrough. Turns out that there is no combination to find for the door. You have to click on the lock and try to turn the numbers to discover it’s rusted over, go find a can of oil you couldn’t pick up earlier, oil the lock, and then the girl tells you the combination. No part of this is interesting or satisfying puzzling or adventuring, it’s purely stumbling into the developer’s very specific plan for the player and following it to the letter or getting stuck.

The irony here is that apparently Bad Dream: Fever is about game design, a sort of reflection on the process of making Bad Dream: Coma. I never got to the point where this even becomes apparent though, on account of how poorly-made this one is. It’s never fun to give up on a game like this, because the art is more interesting and more polished that before and the concept is certainly novel. But I just have so many problems with the way this one is paced and plotted that I can’t do it. Maybe if you’re more in tune with this sort of pointing and clicking you can get through to the theoretical good parts, but as for me, I might be done with the Bad Dream series as a whole.

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



If you haven't played the original DISTRAINT, kindly remedy that (it's $5 normally and goes down to like a buck) so you can fully appreciate its gorgeous sequel.

:ohno: SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker :ohno:

1. Apsulov: End of Gods
2. Conarium
3. TAMASHII
4. Apparition
5. Secrets of the Maw (DLC)
6. Bad Dream: Coma
7. They Breathe
8. The Final Station
9. Love, Sam
10. Pacify
11. Return of the Obra Dinn
12. Silver Chains
13. Bad Dream: Fever

14. DISTRAINT 2



Given how the original DISTRAINT ended, I wasn’t sure how exactly DISTRAINT 2 would manage to be a direct sequel. I wanted it to find a way, because I did so enjoy my grim little journey as the tortured, conflicted Price the first time through. Ultimately this one did manage to keep the tale going, just in a way I didn’t really expect. I wasn’t even all that thrilled with it at first, but the lush pixel art and deepening mystery kept me going. And in the end it all tied together into a tale that lifted me up more than any other horror yarn I can think of.

I won’t spoil how the first DISTRAINT ended, but I will assure you that you are once again Price, fresh off his many traumas in the original game. He’s found himself in a dark place, quite literally, and is going to need some help getting out. Fortunately there’s a whole cast of questionable characters lurking in the shadows, and more than a few of them have plans for our dear protagonist. Escaping this particular prison is going to mean facing some memories and demons Price would rather not deal with, though, and revisiting places he surely never thought he’d have to see again. If you and he can weather these trials, you’ll see him off on the long road of redemption, and learn a little about how all this came to be in the first place.

Let me start by saying that DISTRAINT 2 is built around a narrative conceit that I really don’t care for. The original had a tight narrative with clear objectives for the player and moments where Price’s misgivings and struggles would break in on his real-world activities. This one eschews a lot of that for more metaphorical settings and goals, which initially left me pining more for the first. While the gameplay is the same, examining objects and collecting items to use on simple puzzles, it’s not nearly as grounded as before which made it harder for me to invest in the story at first. There’s also some funky details like most rooms not having proper walls, and instead having an inky darkness that you can get momentarily lost in. Thematically it’s great for what’s going on, but gameplay-wise it just made me miss the discrete apartments and halls of the first.

These misgivings didn’t last, though. I might not have been a fan of the story up front but I was absolutely in love with the art and atmosphere. As good as the first game looked with its charming characters and ominous backdrops, this one just blows it away in terms of spectacle. There are plenty of dingy halls and flickering lightbulbs hiding dark figures, but also sun-touched fields and colorful cafes. The colors burst with life, from verdant trees swaying in the breeze to party lanterns glowing against the cold night. Scenes often whip back and forth between welcoming and threatening, an effective way to keep the player on their guard even as they enjoy a beer or pet a dog. The moments of comfort make the more intense sequences that much more effective, and while there aren’t any scares quite as good as the ones in the original, emotionally this is a much more affecting game.

I think that’s what really makes me love DISTRAINT 2 in the end, how much of a personal and emotional journey it is. The first DISTRAINT was as well, don’t get me wrong, but both the themes and how they are presented have matured so much since then. By the end of the game, those aspects of the story I said I didn’t care for at the start became its greatest assets, charting a character arc for Price through so many feelings and challenges that everyone’s faced at some point. It ends up being a story of hope and perseverance, one so effective that it lifted my mood out of a funk I was feeling and kept it there.

If you were a fan of the first DISTRAINT, you have absolutely no reason not to pick this one up. It’s a wonderful continuation of Price’s journey, and it offers some fascinating insight and expansion upon elements seen in the first game. I wouldn’t suggest anyone come to this one without playing the first, though, so it does bear that one caveat. Still, even beyond the story, this one needs to be seen for the masterful art and animation. Few titles large or small can boast such impressive graphics, or such an effective, emotional story, and for that you won’t want to miss this journey.

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
Distraint was an excellent game, and while I do not entirely appreciate for reasons of storytelling that they went with a sequel instead of simply a new story in the style, I am glad to hear that it is just as good.

King of Bleh
Mar 3, 2007

A kingdom of rats.
I think it's fair to say Distraint 2 cheats a tiny bit to tell its story and is a bit closer to an alternate ending to the first game, rather than a sequel. I do think it's an interesting choice to take, for your starting point, a character who is at the end of one story about their tragic downfall, and then spin an entire second story about whether it's possible to come back from that brink. It reminded me a little bit of The Cat Lady in that specific regard.

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
I suppose that's not wrong. In general, I just think that telling more of a new story about a different person, even if it's about all the same things, allows you to be more insightful about it by showing off the diverse ways in which people may cope with similar emotional issues.

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



If any of you have never experienced the weird Polish off-brand Dead Space that is Afterfall: Insanity, I'm streaming it tonight for everyone's pleasure: https://www.twitch.tv/goldplatedgames

EDIT: Done for tonight, going to finish it Wednesday night at 9pm PDT! I forgot how long the initial shelter part is.

Too Shy Guy fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Oct 15, 2019

catlord
Mar 22, 2009

What's on your mind, Axa?
Afterfall: Insanity was certainly a strange one. Apparently the developers got into a fight with Epic and you can't even buy it now, which I think is kinda a shame, it's not great but it's certainly interesting.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


Afterfall: Insanity sounds like a name you would invent to make fun of video game titles.

woodenchicken
Aug 19, 2007

Nap Ghost

exquisite tea posted:

Afterfall: Insanity sounds like a name you would invent to make fun of video game titles.
Except in that case it would go: AfterFall: InSanity!
wait...

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Too Shy Guy posted:

If any of you have never experienced the weird Polish off-brand Dead Space that is Afterfall: Insanity, I'm streaming it tonight for everyone's pleasure: https://www.twitch.tv/goldplatedgames

EDIT: Done for tonight, going to finish it Wednesday night at 9pm PDT! I forgot how long the initial shelter part is.

I played through the whole thing years ago. It certainly goes in a direction!

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



exquisite tea posted:

Afterfall: Insanity sounds like a name you would invent to make fun of video game titles.

The whole thing plays like some kind of parody of Dead Space, Fallout, and other popular games so yeah, it's pretty appropriate.

:ohno: SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker :ohno:

1. Apsulov: End of Gods
2. Conarium
3. TAMASHII
4. Apparition
5. Secrets of the Maw (DLC)
6. Bad Dream: Coma
7. They Breathe
8. The Final Station
9. Love, Sam
10. Pacify
11. Return of the Obra Dinn
12. Silver Chains
13. Bad Dream: Fever
14. DISTRAINT 2

15. Pamali: Indonesian Folklore Horror



International horror is far and away my favorite part of the genre, and really it should be anyone’s favorite. Learning what frightens people from other cultures and seeing how that interacts with your own concepts of fear is so much more interesting than combing through the same haunted houses or cemeteries. Titles like Devotion, Unforgiving, and The Last NightMary have all shared visions of horror from around the world, and now we have Pamali to expose us to the creepy side of Indonesian culture. While it’s definitely a unique experience, it falls into an area of design that’s going to be a hard sell for a lot of horror fans.

Pamali is designed as an anthology centered on your character, an aspiring supernatural investigator. From their tiny little apartment late at night, they communicate via email and piece together cases to look into. Eventually the game will contain four cases but only two are available now, The White Lady and The Tied Corpse. During the case you play through the experiences of the person telling their story, facing a multitude of choices in how to conduct yourself in the face of the paranormal. For most of the case you can leave at any time, and when you leave plays a big part in determining which of the many endings you’ll get to that particular story.

This is the core of the experience, a pretty sharp departure from collecting spooky pages or banishing a ghost. Here your real goal is unlocking endings, sometimes by learning all you can about a haunting and following specific steps, and other times by running the hell out of there as fast as possible. Conduct is a huge aspect of getting the ending you want, because just about everything you check, take, use, or even look at plays a part in the ending. If that sounds kind of absurd, keep in mind that these cases have something like thirty endings each, nuanced down to escaping from a haunting with or without making rude remarks about the ghost’s appearance.

What you’re really getting here is a ghost etiquette simulator, presented as a first-person horror sim, and both of the current cases embody this in different ways. In The White Lady, you’re trying to sell your family’s decrepit country home, so you have to split your time between cleaning the place up and investigating the strange presence left there. While it’s possible to die in this scenario it’s not likely, and most of the story branches depend on how much you know about being polite to Indonesian ghosts. The Tied Corpse is even more structured, casting you as a gravedigger with a particularly ominous body to inter. You’re given a list of tasks to take care of during your night shift, as well as a warning about some special measures that one body may require. Death is even less likely here despite scooting around a spooky graveyard, leaving you to be judged by how well you complete your tasks.

Is it scary? In a word, yes, but falling much more on the atmosphere and implication side than actual threats. The settings for these cases are intensely creepy, and only grow moreso as you carry out your tasks and the paranormal cues start mounting. But there’s really no running or hiding from monsters here, leaving the fear as uncertainty at your actions and their ramifications. Being set in a different culture for most of us helps a lot, obfuscating what would otherwise be obvious choices and putting us on paths to clash with the unknown. But from a more active, visceral perspective, very little happens here and your goals are much more mundane than what most horror games shoot for.

It remains to be seen what the last two cases, The Little Devil and The Hungry Witch, will offer in terms of depth and scares. If they expand the variety of the game with more active threats or more intense scenarios, then Pamali will likely stand as a fine example of international horror. On the other hand, if they hew close to how the current cases work, focusing on conduct and implications, I doubt it’ll be much more than a curiosity to most horror fans. I love the concept and the unusual beings, and the presentation is great with dark landscapes and evocative sound cues. I’m just not sold on the actual gameplay, with a proliferation of ending blurbs being the ultimate goal. Pamali definitely gets points for being unique with its structure and folklore, but I don’t know how many horror fans will be able to invest in it.

Relin
Oct 6, 2002

You have been a most worthy adversary, but in every game, there are winners and there are losers. And as you know, in this game, losers get robotizicized!
i beat inside. i really enjoyed the last part of the game. i would have at least liked an explanation for why the kids on the run, or why there's that entire rotting farm area

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
Huh I think I remember watching a playthrough of The White Lady, some time ago (when you described having to clean up a place while simultaneously fending off the ghost, it triggered some sort of memory within me). Kind of cool, taking on ghosts who aren't explicitly evil or what have you.

i think it'd be neat to play, essentially a game combining The Witcher with ghosts - you enter a location, hearing rumours of a supernatural presence, armed with some tools and a big book o' ghosts that you need to reference, eventually using clues and actions of the presence to determine what you're facing, so that you can find the correct way to banish it, put it to rest, whatever. And how to stay alive around it, of course - maybe it will kill you if you look away from it? That sort of thing. Sort of like how, in Buffy, that librarian guy is always pawing through books to determine what threat the gang is facing before they can actually fight it with any efficacy. Only you have to stay alive long enough to find said clues. Is there anything like that on the market?

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



Not ghosts, but there's HellSign, which is like an action-RPG take on that concept with different cryptids to hunt and clues to find. Unfortunately the last time I checked it was going in a very grindy direction with it, forcing you to do the same missions and hunt the same monsters dozens of times to get to the next tier of gear and missions.

It is kinda nuts that there's no straight-up ghost hunting game where you research and track hauntings. The closest we've gotten with ghosts is probably that lame Apparition game I reviewed earlier in the month.

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
Oh by the way there's a Halloween sale on the Playstation store. Some decent-looking stuff, maybe not explicitly 'horror' for most of it, but there are spooks to be had.

Too Shy Guy posted:

Not ghosts, but there's HellSign, which is like an action-RPG take on that concept with different cryptids to hunt and clues to find. Unfortunately the last time I checked it was going in a very grindy direction with it, forcing you to do the same missions and hunt the same monsters dozens of times to get to the next tier of gear and missions.

It is kinda nuts that there's no straight-up ghost hunting game where you research and track hauntings. The closest we've gotten with ghosts is probably that lame Apparition game I reviewed earlier in the month.

Bummer. I just like the idea of, like, seeing a spectral woman roaming the halls and whipping out an ancient book filled with post-its to check 'uh gently caress okay so she's letting out a load moan, going through walls, leaving no trail and doesn't seem to be tied to any particular object, is this the one that will kill me if I look at her, or flee when I do oh jesus she's getting close'

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
Witcher always has a bit of that when you need to figure out just what the spooky of the day actually is so that you can destroy it properly instead of making a mess of it, but it's not quite the same thing. I would like to play a game like that, really.

Ineffiable
Feb 16, 2008

Some say that his politics are terrifying, and that he once punched a horse to the ground...


Morpheus posted:

Oh by the way there's a Halloween sale on the Playstation store. Some decent-looking stuff, maybe not explicitly 'horror' for most of it, but there are spooks to be had.


Bummer. I just like the idea of, like, seeing a spectral woman roaming the halls and whipping out an ancient book filled with post-its to check 'uh gently caress okay so she's letting out a load moan, going through walls, leaving no trail and doesn't seem to be tied to any particular object, is this the one that will kill me if I look at her, or flee when I do oh jesus she's getting close'

Dark wood is on sale, plus man of medan and Doom is also at its lowest price. It's a good sale.

Skyscraper
Oct 1, 2004

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming



I'll be interested to see how much of that World of Horror has when it comes out.

Danknificent
Nov 20, 2015

Jinkies! Looks like we've got a mystery on our hands.

Thanks for this. My wife is way into Indo, so she'll be all over this game. I'd never even heard of it.

goferchan
Feb 8, 2004

It's 2006. I am taking 276 yeti furs from the goodies hoard.

Skyscraper posted:

I'll be interested to see how much of that World of Horror has when it comes out.

The demo is pretty old by now and apparently there are (non public) preview builds that journos have played that are way far ahead, but even from the demo it seems like yeah that's a big part of the game. There are like randomly generated rituals that you can learn to banish the main enemy in it and the game doesn't stop you from trying to complete them with incomplete information and it's really cool

Darthemed
Oct 28, 2007

"A data unit?
For me?
"




College Slice

Too Shy Guy posted:

It is kinda nuts that there's no straight-up ghost hunting game where you research and track hauntings. The closest we've gotten with ghosts is probably that lame Apparition game I reviewed earlier in the month.
I didn't get too far into it, but the adventure game STATIC: Investigator Training has a premise that's pretty much that. I think it only takes place in one castle, though, so it may not scratch the itch that thoroughly.

Meallan
Feb 3, 2017
Pamali isn't going to be a hard sale for me, going to buy it the moment I get home. That game sounds immensely cool, and I wish there were more games that could be described as "ghost etiquette simulator".

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters
So currently, the Exorcist VR game is on sale (on PSVR, don't know if it's on other platforms):https://store.playstation.com/en-ca/product/UP4486-CUSA11176_00-BUNDLE0000000000

Anyone played this one? It looks like something my friends and I could play to get all spooky with, but we've been burned before and $30 is just a little high to go in blind.

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?

Too Shy Guy posted:

Not ghosts, but there's HellSign, which is like an action-RPG take on that concept with different cryptids to hunt and clues to find. Unfortunately the last time I checked it was going in a very grindy direction with it, forcing you to do the same missions and hunt the same monsters dozens of times to get to the next tier of gear and missions.

It is kinda nuts that there's no straight-up ghost hunting game where you research and track hauntings. The closest we've gotten with ghosts is probably that lame Apparition game I reviewed earlier in the month.

I have HellSign on my wishlist but I really want it to be a bit more than what it currently is.

Too Shy Guy
Jun 14, 2003


I have destroyed more of your kind than I can count.



Yeah HellSign was a pretty big disappointment for me. I love the way it looks and plays, the combat is punchy and the atmosphere is great for an isometric game. But the "investigation" is just finding souvenirs to sell and the grind gets absolutely absurd when you want to start fighting things spookier than giant spiders and centipedes. It is getting regular Early Access updates though, so there's at least a tiny chance the grind is just there to fill in for content they're hoping to add later.

:ohno: SPOOKY GAMES 6: Hellseeker :ohno:

1. Apsulov: End of Gods
2. Conarium
3. TAMASHII
4. Apparition
5. Secrets of the Maw (DLC)
6. Bad Dream: Coma
7. They Breathe
8. The Final Station
9. Love, Sam
10. Pacify
11. Return of the Obra Dinn
12. Silver Chains
13. Bad Dream: Fever
14. DISTRAINT 2
15. Pamali: Indonesian Folklore Horror

16. Tormentum - Dark Sorrow



I have to assume most horror fans are familiar with the works of H.R. Giger and/or Zdzislaw Beksinski, and if so are always pining for games that feature similarly disturbing and creative art. Wistful looks back at Dark Seed and cautious optimism for the upcoming Scorn tell me that much, so I have to also assume fans were pretty pleased with 2015’s Tormentum. The art style is really everything you could hope for, from twisted nightmare creatures to massive living castles. And the gameplay makes good use of it for a pretty standard point-and-click romp, though the relative ease might clash a bit with the grim, hopeless trappings.

You awaken in a cage, slung beneath a flying machine en route to a particularly ominous castle. There you are to be tortured to death, to purify your soul of some nebulous sins you’ve committed. No motivated adventure protagonist is going to let that keep them down, though, so you set about breaking free of your cell and exploring the castle. As you navigate the many traps and threats these terrible halls offer, you find yourself compelled to an altar set atop a distant mountain. This is where your journey leads, far beyond the confines of the castle and across the blasted nightmare landscape of a world so very unlike our own. But what awaits you at the end of such a macabre tale?

That’s a good question, actually, and I wouldn’t really recommend this game for folks more interested in the destination than the journey. Tormentum’s story is mostly relegated to the background, focusing on the novelty of the setting like a Heavy Metal or 90s MTV animated short. You won’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing until the very end, and it’s a rather cliche bit of moralizing especially coming out of a land of torture castles and cannibal monsters. Fortunately you won’t need to pay that much mind as you puzzle your way from hellhole to hellhole, and the legs of your journey at least offer plenty of interesting world-building and scenery.

The focus here should absolutely be the art and presentation, because whoever came up with the designs for this game channeled Giger and Beksinski as if possessed. Living walls of sparking metal and stretched flesh glower at you, titanic statues of glowing conduits twisted into alien skulls float just out of reach, and that’s just in the first thirty minutes or so. There is no mistaking the nightmare world you find yourself in, and the atmosphere it creates will please any fan of dark surrealism. What might impinge on that atmosphere are the puzzles, which ape standard adventure fare almost to a fault. None of them will present you any challenge, and I say this as someone who’s had to consult walkthroughs for the majority of the point-and-clicks I’ve played in my life. Puzzles here are never complex and are honestly rarely creative, settling for sliding block puzzles, gear assemblies, and other standards of the genre.

The only thing that really provides any variety in the gameplay are the moral choices you get on your road to Tormentum’s good and bad endings. These aren’t the usual binary save-or-eat-the-kitten choices, either. Your options are often to heed the words of two opposing characters, which lead to different puzzles depending on the path you choose. This complicates matters by both giving you options out of tricky or tiresome puzzles and obfuscating which options are truly good or bad, as helping someone who seems good may require harming or killing an innocent. Honestly it’s the kind of morality system that’s going to bother the kind of people who insist on perfect pacifist runs, and while I find this murky sort interesting I was sort of annoyed when I killed a perfectly nice character because I didn’t fully understand the buttons in front of me.

Overall it’s a solid adventure game, a little bit more dense in content and design at the front than the back, and held back only by its lack of challenge and nearly non-existent story. None of these factors will affect your enjoyment of the art all that much, and realistically that’s what you’re here for. Games that look this striking and evoke such specific horrors are rare, and none of the quibbles I’ve trotted out should detract from that appreciation. As a short, simple point-and-click Tormentum is merely passable, but with that incredible presentation it becomes something that really deserves to be seen.

Bogart
Apr 12, 2010

by VideoGames
I’ve had bowel movements that look like that train before.

Skyscraper
Oct 1, 2004

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming



goferchan posted:

The demo is pretty old by now and apparently there are (non public) preview builds that journos have played that are way far ahead, but even from the demo it seems like yeah that's a big part of the game. There are like randomly generated rituals that you can learn to banish the main enemy in it and the game doesn't stop you from trying to complete them with incomplete information and it's really cool

I saw them! I wasn't sure if what was in there scratched that particular itch for people or if it needed more in-game reference manuals. Either way, it looks good.

ulex minor
Apr 30, 2018

Morpheus posted:

So currently, the Exorcist VR game is on sale (on PSVR, don't know if it's on other platforms):https://store.playstation.com/en-ca/product/UP4486-CUSA11176_00-BUNDLE0000000000

Anyone played this one? It looks like something my friends and I could play to get all spooky with, but we've been burned before and $30 is just a little high to go in blind.

i enjoy supergreatfriend's playthroughs a lot and he just recently did this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiu6KVyyuNE

SpiritOfLenin
Apr 29, 2013

be happy :3


I'm gonna comment a bit on Afterfall: Insanity - its a janky rear end game, but I remember liking it a decent amount because I just played through it mostly using the fire axe. It made the game into a silly axe murderer simulator - which is an improvement over whatever it tried to do, because its janky mechanics weren't that well thought out, and the plot was strange.

Blockhouse
Sep 7, 2014

You Win!
Kind of a bummer the Exorcist III VR game has relatively little to do with Exorcist III, my favorite Exorcist movie

I want VR George C. Scott yelling at people about a trout in his bathtub

Bogart
Apr 12, 2010

by VideoGames
They Named The Sequel To Layers of Fear Layers of Fear 2

al-azad
May 28, 2009



5 Layers of Fear Burrito

FirstAidKite
Nov 8, 2009

Bogart posted:

I’ve had bowel movements that look like that train before.

You should probably get yourself checked out by your local fat controller

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


Layer of Fear: Origins

SelenicMartian
Sep 14, 2013

Sometimes it's not the bomb that's retarded.

Layers of F.E.A.R.

Although, the third one was just that, with procedural spooks.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



Bogart posted:

They Named The Sequel To Layers of Fear Layers of Fear 2

missed opportunity for Slayers of Fear

Eox
Jun 20, 2010

by Fluffdaddy
Layer of Fears

Hel
Oct 9, 2012

Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

SelenicMartian posted:

Layers of F.E.A.R.

Although, the third one was just that, with procedural spooks.

F.3.A.R. had spooks? It probably did but I can't remember them.

Like it's an interesting but flawed game but I feel like the fear games for further and further away from horror and they didn't even start as that scary anyway.

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woodenchicken
Aug 19, 2007

Nap Ghost

Hel posted:

F.3.A.R. had spooks? It probably did but I can't remember them.

Like it's an interesting but flawed game but I feel like the fear games for further and further away from horror and they didn't even start as that scary anyway.
I remember it, and, especially, the DLC, Extraction point, having some good 'scary parts'. Can't name anything specific obviously, it's ancient history at this point.

Edit: i'm talking about F.1.A.R., obviously

woodenchicken fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Oct 17, 2019

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