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2 Talos 2 Principle is out now! Launch trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5W0RrDA0AA Edit: the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, mostly in the 8.5-9.0 range. The main complaints seem to be that the game is a bit buggy and prone to either crash or spawn you outside the map when you load a save. According to someone who had early access, the devs did put out a big patch last night so those issues may have been fixed. Also, if the final game is anything like the demo there will likely be shader compilation stutters as you traverse the world which is extremely unfortunate since the game otherwise runs very smooth (at least on my system, Ryzen 3900X + RTX 3070 Ti). Mr.Radar fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Nov 2, 2023 |
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Nov 2, 2023 20:53
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Mr.Radar posted:Also, if the final game is anything like the demo there will likely be shader compilation stutters as you traverse the world which is extremely unfortunate I really want to know why this keeps happening. Is there something crazy dynamic all these games with shader stutter are doing that means they couldn't just precompile their shaders at first launch (/whenever the cache is invalidated)?
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Nov 2, 2023 21:52
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I played through the first proper area (half of that was in the demo) and so far I'm having a blast. Especially the music is outstanding. And I genuinely like those new set of humans.
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Nov 2, 2023 23:31
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There is a compilation step when you first start the game, but there are still shaders that it misses here and there. The stutters aren't too frequent or severe for me, though I'm on a high-end PC. My first impressions of the game are very positive so far. The explorable areas are huge and beautiful with more things to discover than in the previous game. The story is intriguing, and I'm into the new direction they're taking in this one. And the puzzles are just as good as they were last time. I've already played for four hours today and I want to keep going, but I need to give my noggin a rest.
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Nov 2, 2023 23:34
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I'm at the northern region now, and guys, this is such a good follow-up to The Talos Principle. Holy poo poo. edit: I'm a bit less than a third of the way through, judging by my progress through the areas on the map at least. So far, the puzzle solving has been very good, the exploration has been much more satisfying than the first game, and the environment design has been excellent. There's a lot more mystery and story than the first game too, with more traditional storytelling aspects this time around. The game is a bit more linear than the last one, but this allows the developers to layer on the puzzle mechanics in a more structured manner. I can already tell that there will be some devious late-game puzzles. Not every aspect of the presentation has been nailed, you can tell that this is a AA production at best (Croteam has seen better days), it's still just a beautiful game. I can't believe I paid less than $25 for this. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Nov 3, 2023 |
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Nov 3, 2023 14:16
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Also on the Talos principle 2 bandwagon, the first is one of my favourite games of all time so I was really excited when I found out it was being made. Which was three days before it came out somehow. I do not have my fingers on the pulse of the gaming community I'm loving it so far. The scope seems far bigger than the first game, which I don't know if that's a good thing, but I like the characters so far (I'm only in the first puzzle area but I explored the poo poo out of the city first). I have a good idea of where I think the story is going, it'll be interesting to see if I'm correct. Puzzles are good so far, also excited to see how they change things up. I've breezed through them all so far, even the museum bonus puzzles, completely on my experience with the first game, so it'll be cool to see them ramp up in difficulty. I can't believe I only had to pay sixteen dollars for this.
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Nov 3, 2023 14:44
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Lmao the early joke ending in Talos Principle 2 is very good
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Nov 4, 2023 03:20
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            this is a game that really makes me want to take a lot of screenshots.
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Nov 5, 2023 01:05
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I'm nervous about trying talos principle 2 because I hated 1 with a passion- the rote, occasionally janky puzzles and the whole conceit of the plot.
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Nov 5, 2023 01:35
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Discendo Vox posted:I'm nervous about trying talos principle 2 because I hated 1 with a passion- the rote, occasionally janky puzzles and the whole conceit of the plot. I loved the things you hate, and I'm pretty sure you'd hate Talos 2.
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Nov 5, 2023 01:39
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Discendo Vox posted:I'm nervous about trying talos principle 2 because I hated 1 with a passion- the rote, occasionally janky puzzles and the whole conceit of the plot. I would say that 2's plot is built on very different conceits, but the puzzles are still the puzzles. It's not really a game for people who hated 1, it's a game for people who at least quite liked 1 and want a sequel that massively builds on it.
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Nov 5, 2023 01:54
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Thanks for the input. It's a shame because I loved the environments in 1, just not any other part of it. I need a new Myst...
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Nov 5, 2023 02:07
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I don't know if any of the things you dislike have changed much, but man the environments blow the first out of the water IMO. Wandering around between puzzles is so good
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Nov 5, 2023 21:05
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Does it have bombs/cameras that don't clearly specify how close you can get to them? Because that was my main beef with Talos 1.
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Nov 5, 2023 22:31
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I’m just over halfway through Talos 2, and so far there’s no mines or cameras or equivalent puzzle mechanics at all. I’ve also heard from the devs that recorder puzzles are out.
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Nov 5, 2023 22:41
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Tunzie posted:I’m just over halfway through Talos 2, and so far there’s no mines or cameras or equivalent puzzle mechanics at all. Praise the Founder!
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Nov 5, 2023 22:48
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Yeah, no gatling guns, mines, or recorders. The mines were the one part of the first game that I didn't like. They did visualize their aggro radius (as did the gatling gun), but the parts where the game expected you to just barely squeeze past them were pretty terrible, mainly because the cost of failure meant restarting the puzzle from the beginning. That's just not fun. There are a lot more mechanics added in the sequel to make up for this, and none are as aggravating as those. It feels like TP2 is to TP1 as Portal 2 was to Portal 1. Much like Portal 2, TP2 expands the world built by the first game, adds new characters, has a touch of spectacle and grandness, and always finds new ways to surprise you, all without betraying what made the first game special. It takes the mechanics and themes of the first game to their logical extreme, though I'll say that it sometimes feels like Croteam is reaching beyond what their budget allows. As pretty as the game can be, there are occasional obvious graphical glitches. And while most of it is good, some of the dialogue writing and voice acting can feel a bit hammy or even corny, which can lessen the impact of some of the more dramatic moments. Still a 10/10 for me so far though, with nine of the twelve towers activated. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Nov 6, 2023 |
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Nov 5, 2023 23:42
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Two Owls posted:Does it have bombs/cameras that don't clearly specify how close you can get to them? Because that was my main beef with Talos 1.
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Nov 5, 2023 23:45
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The recorder puzzles bothered me the most. It felt like they added complexity in a way that wasn't super interesting to me and lent themselves to trial and error rather than thinking things out. I definitely am more interested knowing that those are gone. The ambiguous ranges on the turrets wasn't great but it was usually contextually clear when they wanted you squeeze the outermost edge to stay out of range of one.
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Nov 5, 2023 23:50
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Yeah, instant deaths with a full reset and annoying time rewinding was probably the worst part of the first game. Having completed 10 towers, none of those have come back so far. Sort of TP1 spoiler: Interestingly, the museum notes, that the mines weren't even in the the basic configuration of the simulation and that Elohim added them later on. So he came up with the frustrating mechanics of the first game to keep people from finishing it. On a meta narrative this might mean that Croteam came up with those relatively late and didn't really remember that decision fondly. Some of those new mechanics are really wild in a cool way. The gravity stuff is just incredibly cool, if disorienting. I'm a big fan of this whole game so far and I don't think the rest will turn my opinion around. The only thing I find a bit annoying is the need to keep using Snipping tool, an image to text converter and a hex decoder. Honestly, there's nothing really worthwhile in those parts. But what if the next code is something actually significant and I miss it? cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Nov 6, 2023 |
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Nov 6, 2023 00:06
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I’ve basically spent the last three days playing through it and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I feel like there’s been a lot of QoL efforts to not let a tough puzzle stop you from progressing the game, without resorting to looking up on YouTube how to solve it. It’s gorgeous to look at, the puzzles have been great, and I’ve enjoyed the addition of the expedition members. My biggest problem is that I have to be at work and can’t keep playing, which is a good sign for the game’s quality in my book.
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Nov 6, 2023 00:34
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Audio logs in East 1-3 and North 1-3 Audio logs in South 2 
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Nov 6, 2023 07:06
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Is it possible to give me a spoiler-light, couple-sentences summary of why there even is a Talos Principle 2, plot-wise? I enjoyed the story of the first one quite a bit, but it's a story that really shouldn't have a sequel, imo, and the trailer didn't make me feel good about it*. Is the story good? As TP1 was an A+ story with C, maybe C+ gameplay, imo, this is what I really gotta know before I make a purchasing decision. *TP1 spoilers I might go so far as to say even the slightest glimpse of the world post-TP1, as we get in the trailer, already kinda ruins the vibe of TP1's ending. TP1's ending is full of hope and potential and imagination - emotions that get kinda dampened when you form them into some kind of concrete reality. I don't WANT to know what the player character's experience is like once they're outside the simulation, nor do I want there to be (god forbid) some kind of matrix-sequels-type twist where it's just another layer of simulation. Nor do I want to hear Elohim's voice (or read MLA's text) again - their purpose in the plot was satisfied at the end of the first game, and it cheapens them as characters to undo that retroactively. Is that crazy? Am I just a weirdo for thinking that way?
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Nov 6, 2023 09:38
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DontMockMySmock posted:Is it possible to give me a spoiler-light, couple-sentences summary of why there even is a Talos Principle 2, plot-wise? I enjoyed the story of the first one quite a bit, but it's a story that really shouldn't have a sequel, imo, and the trailer didn't make me feel good about it*. Is the story good? As TP1 was an A+ story with C, maybe C+ gameplay, imo, this is what I really gotta know before I make a purchasing decision. The spoiler-light version is that croteam apparently agrees with you about an immediate sequel not being a very good idea, which is why TP2 is set hundreds (thousands?) of years later in an established successor society.
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Nov 6, 2023 09:50
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Basic story idea without going far into it: After the previous player character, Athena, escaped the simulation. She continuously built a society of new humans like her and they set themselves to a goal of 1000. All of this happened over the course of a really long time and now you are that number 1000. The society is stagnating and doesn't seem to have any real drive, but as you come to be a mysterious message beckons you to explore an island full of puzzles and wondrous physics. DontMockMySmock posted:Is that crazy? Am I just a weirdo for thinking that way? If you feel that any sort of story continuation would ruin the original game for you, I guess no sequel could ever be good. So I guess, there's no point for you to play it. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Nov 6, 2023 |
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Nov 6, 2023 09:54
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It's an ambitious and interesting narrative sequel to the first game and (so far at least) it fixes pretty much all of the jank that could make the first game frustrating (ambiguous hit boxes, puzzles requiring a hard reset after a mistake, timing issues etc). Very good game.
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Nov 6, 2023 11:03
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Found my first put the laser in the exact position the dev wanted and not an inch different puzzle with "Interplay" in Talos 2. Had the right solution but not the exact location and was hitting my head against it for ages, and it required a hard reset after I made a small mistake. I think I'm going to uninstall for a little bit and come back next year.
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Nov 6, 2023 12:14
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I have not found any puzzles like that, and I'm 75% of the way through the game 
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Nov 6, 2023 12:36
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I have not found any puzzles like that, and I'm 75% of the way through the game It's fairly easy not to gently caress it up but you can if you're a few more inches forward than intended. The difference between against the wall and against the edge. It's "Interplay" a lost puzzle in North 1.
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Nov 6, 2023 12:41
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Yeah I didn't think that puzzle required a particularly hard angle. Although I guess if you take all the components over to the other side you will have to reset since there's no way to get them back.
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Nov 6, 2023 12:46
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Irony Be My Shield posted:Although I guess if you take all the components over to the other side you will have to reset since there's no way to get them back. That's what happened to me the first go around.
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Nov 6, 2023 12:56
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DontMockMySmock posted:*TP1 spoilers I might go so far as to say even the slightest glimpse of the world post-TP1, as we get in the trailer, already kinda ruins the vibe of TP1's ending. TP1's ending is full of hope and potential and imagination - emotions that get kinda dampened when you form them into some kind of concrete reality. Others gave you basic plot summaries, but I want to address this specifically. It's hard to do so without giving too much away, but what I'll say is that these feelings are something the developers were very much aware of and embedded deeply into the fabric of the sequel. I want you to trust Croteam here. They knew the task they had ahead of them when making this game, and they've absolutely nailed it.
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Nov 6, 2023 13:06
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On the whole I like the puzzle design in TTP2 much more than in TTP1, although it does mean that the occasional bit of jank stands out more. I also found it considerably easier than TTP1, although that might be because I'd replayed the original (and Gehenna) recently, so I was in the Talos frame of mind. But also it might be because each area (mostly) is focused around one new puzzle element, so there isn't much space to escalate the difficulty - by the time you've got some good practice, it's time to move to the next island (coincidentally, the hardest puzzles *by far* are in W3, where you don't get any new elements, and in fact the puzzles are minimalistic and "back to basics", very similar to the star world in Gehenna). I think the only puzzle that *really* stumped me (not counting the star monuments, which are a different paradigm somewhat) was Thrust Vector, it was the only one where I didn't eventually figure it out on first visit and had to return later with a fresh perspective.
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Nov 6, 2023 13:06
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drat the Pandora puzzles are starting to get wild. Not sure if it was the "intended" route but for North 3 I had to take a bunch of notes and ended up using 4 separate puzzle rooms for my solution.
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Nov 6, 2023 14:20
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As someone who never got around to finishing Talos 1, it seems like there's enough discussion of Talos 2 to warrant its own thread.
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Nov 6, 2023 15:42
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Irony Be My Shield posted:drat the Pandora puzzles are starting to get wild. Not sure if it was the "intended" route but for North 3 I had to take a bunch of notes and ended up using 4 separate puzzle rooms for my solution. I only had to use 2 puzzle rooms so yeah I think you did extra steps lol Edit: also for my two cents in case someone is getting turned off of trying Talos principle 1 from some of these posts, I thought the puzzle designs were incredible, and I don't know why people have issue with bomb radius when it's explicitly shown by lasers lol. I replayed it earlier this year and it's really rare when you have to get close to them anyway, you have ways around it most of the time. Personally I loved the recorder puzzles too but I get why people don't, there's a TON of planning that goes into those ones. The DLC puzzles I was less enthused about. Hobojim fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Nov 6, 2023 |
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Nov 6, 2023 17:40
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Looking it up... lol never actually noticed the RGB converter next to the statue. My solution was: - get a connector out of 3-4 using the boxes - use that connector to connect the green light from 3-6 to the accumulator in 3-5 - use the connector again to connect the 3-5 accumulator to the high-up accumulator in 3-2 (this was a pretty difficult angle and probably should've made me realize this wasn't the intended solution) - use the connector again to bridge the 3-2 accumulator to the Pandora statue I've found a few rooms where you can steal equipment, surprised it hasn't been relevant yet. I'm making a note of them in case the gold doors need it though.
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Nov 6, 2023 17:57
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The recorder was deceptively simple. They never had you do anything too complex with it. You never had to time a complex chain of actions between your recorded self and your actual self, for instance. At most, you just had to make your recorded self sit on a button for a while, and then you could make use of the duplicate items. There were definitely a lot of ways they could have made the recorder a ridiculously complex item, but the puzzle design kept things simple. With the bombs, yes, they showed the radius, but there were too many spots where they make the player thread the needle. And at that point, they're challenging your movement skills instead of your puzzle solving skills, which isn't as fun. Especially since the penalty for failure is starting over at the beginning of a puzzle. I'm here to solve puzzles, not to dodge bombs. They would have been extra punishing in the sequel since there's no rewind mechanic (restarting requires a full reloading of the level). That's also probably why there's no recorder. I agree though that 95% of the puzzles in the first game were great.
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Nov 6, 2023 17:58
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Just reached the bit in South 1 where Cornelius finally unleashes the dad jokes on Miranda. 10/10 goty
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Nov 6, 2023 18:22
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it feels like they've addressed basically all of my complaints with the first game so far, especially surrounding the star puzzles stars have a telegraphed starting point so you don't have to scour the entire map no fiddly platforming and hunting for the one wall you can climb in a world where nearly every wall is 1 inch too tall to climb puzzle rooms stay solved so you can easily access their resources for star puzzles the one thing that has tripped me up is it being difficult to see some of the laser repeaters placed outside of the puzzles, mainly because im having to use DLSS Balanced to keep lumen under control
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Nov 6, 2023 18:55
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