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The one thing that makes Silent Hill 2's twist reveal clever instead of annoying is that it never actually says that everything you were seeing was only in your head. It never outright states that the monsters you are fighting aren't real... it just heavily implies that they might also not actually be what you think they are.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:01
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the distinction between the real and unreal is usually an irrelevant one in any story that does it well and that's especially true for SH2 nothing in that game really happened, except it did
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Feb 18, 2021 23:05
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Yeah, SH2 explicitly validates that all the spooky stuff is "really happening" in some capacity because your path intersects with Angela's nightmare world toward the end, you get to experience a facet of what the town is doing to her, and you even blow up (a version of) her personal demon with a shotgun. It manages to incorporate the "personal hell" angle while also completely avoiding the normal pitfall you get from everything being Just a Dream, it's incredibly deft.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:07
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Yes, the story in Silent Hill 2 is very well-told such that whether or not it "really happened" in the reality of that world is meaningless and irrelevant. But $10 Steam trash just uncritically see spooky psycho twist ending and put that into their games.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:12
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How the gently caress did I forget about Lone Survivor that game's Silent Hill as hell
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Feb 18, 2021 23:25
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I wish we could just make ~psychological horror~ punishable by 50 bitch slaps or something for a couple years. I'm so agonizingly tired of "IT WAS ALL IN YOUR HEEEEEAD" and "BAD DAAAAAD" and "ASYLUM SPOOOOKY MENTAL ILLNESS = CUHRAAAZY" for a good long time.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:35
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I'd say there's a difference alright. There's just something a lot less poignant about wandering around aimlessly and occasionally flailing at thin air when compared to a story about a man who keeps pushing deeper into the heart of darkness even as the world literally falls apart around him and his own inner demons try to rip him apart.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:39
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Yardbomb posted:I wish we could just make ~psychological horror~ punishable by 50 bitch slaps or something for a couple years. I would like for one excellent game to come along and subvert all of those tropes and make anyone who tries any of them ever again feel dumb as hell.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:40
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I mean there's nothing wrong with games using those. It's completely possible to use those story elements and make them work. The thousand bad takes by people pumping out crap on Steam or AAA crap like Blooper Team shouldn't mean that psychological horror is forbidden from here on. This is me once again saying people should play OMORI.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:01
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yeah there's like a billion ways you can write in reasons for psychological trauma to manifest physically, as an actual threat with real world relevance, and not have to resort to "it was a dream/VR/hallucination/dying vision" mental illness in real life, and the way families and small town doctors and the entire work force structure treats it, is infinitely more terrifying than crazy dudes what do crazy things; the mentally ill aren't bad guys, the system that creates and exacerbates and refuses to acknowledge or treat mental illness is far more threatening also games in general are obsessed with dads right now--good dads, bad dads, I don't get it
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Feb 19, 2021 00:07
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Where are all these dad-obsessed games people keep talking about. There have been like 3 high-profile games with fatherhood themes made in the past 8 years.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:11
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exquisite tea posted:Where are all these dad-obsessed games people keep talking about. There have been like 3 high-profile games with fatherhood themes made in the past 8 years.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:13
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Looking forward to Bloober's upcoming project "Rule of Rose 2" For reals though what would be a good horror series that Bloober could reasonably make a sequel to that would play to any of their strengths? I wanna say Echo Night maybe but that'd require some restraint with the horror. I could also imagine them trying their hand at a 7th Guest style game but I'd really prefer seeing the Conviction people do that. Ooh, what if they were doing a horrorsoft followup? What if anyone was doing a horrorsoft followup?
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Feb 19, 2021 00:22
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Yardbomb posted:That was the guy who made Welcome To The Game 1/2 and Scrutinized. Which is stupid, because the only reason I'd play WTTG is to read all of the weird websites.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:24
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exquisite tea posted:Where are all these dad-obsessed games people keep talking about. There have been like 3 high-profile games with fatherhood themes made in the past 8 years. obsessed was probably a strong word but off the top of my head, Last of Us, God of War, Yakuza 6, Witcher 3, GTA 5 (or so I've heard?) Dishonored, Heavy Rain and a few others fall a little outside the 8 years mark but I'm going to use that to double down and say this dad plague has been creeping up on us for a decade that and as mentioned above, dad did bad and the dad is you horror runs rampant on Steam
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Feb 19, 2021 00:26
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where the gently caress are my horror games with "It was all a dream, but your trauma and psychosis is so powerful IT IS NOW REAL AND EATING OTHER PEOPLE (which is a clean allegory anyways for how trauma spreads and replicates)"
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Feb 19, 2021 00:28
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Black August posted:where the gently caress are my horror games with "It was all a dream, but your trauma and psychosis is so powerful IT IS NOW REAL AND EATING OTHER PEOPLE (which is a clean allegory anyways for how trauma spreads and replicates)" this is how Super Mario Bros 2 would have ended if I made it
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Feb 19, 2021 00:30
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Lunatic Sledge posted:obsessed was probably a strong word but off the top of my head, Last of Us, God of War, Yakuza 6, Witcher 3, GTA 5 (or so I've heard?) If you want to press it then Among the Sleep could be counted, although twisted slightly. Although tbh the ending to that is a bit unreal since the drunk mom presumably had custody and will continue to have custody after she calls the cops on the dad to get the baby back MockingQuantum posted:Learning that SH2 had multiple endings determined by the stuff you did (I think this was true to a lesser extent in SH1 as well?) was really interesting to me because I think I only found that out a number of years later, and at that point multiple endings were already a pretty standard thing, but the difference was most games hinged the ending on very clear choices or dialog selections over the course of the game. I can't think of many games other than Silent Hill games where just the general way you played determined the ending. Though I guess there could be a bunch of other games that do that too, and I wouldn't know without looking into it specifically. And that is what made the multiple endings good, that they were influenced in subtle ways. It's not like goddamned ShatMems where it's on every five seconds and yet changes very little
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Feb 19, 2021 02:42
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Bogart posted:Which is stupid, because the only reason I'd play WTTG is to read all of the weird websites. The game was "too streamable" from the difficulty level being so out of whack people would rather watch an LP than lose hours of progress on RNG.
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Feb 19, 2021 03:24
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Lunatic Sledge posted:man now I'm trying to remember which developers blamed their poor game sales on the game being too streamable
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Feb 19, 2021 03:31
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Yeah, Welcome to the Game was designed too much for a handful of obsessives or obligates to play it insane amounts, which makes for cool stream watches but not exactly a game you'd want to play.
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Feb 19, 2021 03:53
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Relin posted:that dragon, cancer So, what, the guy makes an extremely personal, extremely emotionally draining game about something that people would never want to put themselves through at any time and then blames streaming for poor sales?
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Feb 19, 2021 04:41
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DrSnakeLaser posted:The game was "too streamable" from the difficulty level being so out of whack people would rather watch an LP than lose hours of progress on RNG. Black August posted:Yeah, Welcome to the Game was designed too much for a handful of obsessives or obligates to play it insane amounts, which makes for cool stream watches but not exactly a game you'd want to play. Even the crazy people who devoted their entire being to finishing it first or speedrunning it were just fuckin exhausted by the end of 2, 1 is mostly fine because there's infinitely less RNG instadeath, there's just the kidnapper who very clearly marks when they're coming if you're paying attention, then the serial killer guy who's just beaten by listening for cars and checking the door every once in a while. 2 meanwhile there's like, the stupid silent mask people who can show up in like 3-4 different spots who kill you if you look at them for more than a second or two, the power goes out which can get you killed in different ways, there's the hitman guy who can just blap you through the door peephole sometimes or be hiding around a door corner, there's the random rear end SWAT team busting in because of I forget what exactly their trigger is anymore I think if you're not like changing IP addresses constantly maybe, there's the serial killer who can get you in two different places in the alley if you go to pick up ordered things, there's the dumb lovely rapedoctor who puts you on a timer to guaranteed death if you see his site and then don't do his dumb minigame, which you can also die in the process of completing if Agent 46 decides to be behind a door during that, further intensified by needing to find 'good' spots for your gear or buttcoin devices or whatever, just MAN WTTG2 very badly did not want you to play it in any fun or slowburn ways. Like 1 was also a plate spinner in that you wanted to find your clues in time or whatever, but you still were afforded time for the actual spooky internet browsing while doing that, 2 however just ratcheted that up x20 to the point where it's like no, don't do the spooky neat part of looking at weirdo sites, you don't have time, Anton Herzegovia's about to blow your head off, quick, change IP before the cops, oh poo poo don't look that way it's the cultist guys, woops you got shot anyway going to the stairwell because Nikita Slavalot decided to be behind that door that time, TIME TO START ALLLLLLL OVER. Yardbomb fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Feb 19, 2021 |
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Feb 19, 2021 04:46
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I think the ridiculous scenario where these comic book villains are all gunning for a guy who downloaded a Tor browser is hilarious and cool, just do a checkpoint every night instead of asking people to play perfectly for 3 hours straight.
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Feb 19, 2021 05:00
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The only controversy i remember of That Dragon, Cancer was that it was at one point an Ouya (lol) exclusive and the Ouya team put it front and center in their promotions I ultimately did play it when it released on other platforms and it was largely okay. Unfortunate that his kid really did pass on though after the game was released.
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Feb 19, 2021 05:05
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yeah, Welcome 1 had a much stronger appeal to me. It was slower and more sinister. doing that poo poo alone at night in a suburban setting is excellent-creepy atmosphere, and the scares were limited but sharp. it needed to expand on the 1st game, and allow more chances to move around the house to hide. which they kind of tried with Scrutinized but they made that game so loving poorly that they've clearly forgotten everything that made the first game any good
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Feb 19, 2021 05:26
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A style of horror that wouldn’t work in America because after the first night you’d just buy a gun.
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Feb 19, 2021 05:43
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Black August posted:yeah, Welcome 1 had a much stronger appeal to me. It was slower and more sinister. doing that poo poo alone at night in a suburban setting is excellent-creepy atmosphere, and the scares were limited but sharp. it needed to expand on the 1st game, and allow more chances to move around the house to hide. which they kind of tried with Scrutinized but they made that game so loving poorly that they've clearly forgotten everything that made the first game any good It's always very, very sad when you can tell a developer, especially one that's primarily one guy, has talent but then their first game ends up being by far the best. Like I guess he figured making the game pretzel you to work harder and dumber and harder again along with brutal, game resetting RNG "gently caress you"'s would make the 'People buying it to see it themself' window longer or something? Cause like 2 and Scrutinized have a lot of potential you can plainly see, but instead of being cool tense and spooky experiences like the first, which they have all the groundwork in them for, they just devolved into ever greater joyless plate spinning each time. Though while it was probably already after he threw his hands up in defeat, at least he compromised on Scrutinized and put like an actual "No dumb gimmick killers that aren't interesting to interact with, just do the interesting part of the game I guess" set of options into it with a pretty quick after release row of patches. Yardbomb fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Feb 19, 2021 |
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Feb 19, 2021 05:54
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Okay I assume this is the thread for talking about Little Nightmares. So it's not making a big splash with everyone else, but I've had a bit of a minor hyperfixation on the series for a while now, probably one of my favorite games period. And apparently Tarsier got bought out by another company and are completely done with the franchise and I'm bummed about that. I wanted my Little Nightmares 3.
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Feb 19, 2021 09:11
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Huh I didn't realize they were bought out by THQ Nordic years ago and I definitely didn't realize THQ Nordic has rebranded themselves again, probably to wash off the stink of an executive being a hardcore 4chan rightwinger.
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Feb 19, 2021 09:28
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Black August posted:where the gently caress are my horror games with "It was all a dream, but your trauma and psychosis is so powerful IT IS NOW REAL AND EATING OTHER PEOPLE (which is a clean allegory anyways for how trauma spreads and replicates)" Silent hill 1 but i'm guessing you've played that
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Feb 19, 2021 09:31
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CuddleCryptid posted:So, what, the guy makes an extremely personal, extremely emotionally draining game about something that people would never want to put themselves through at any time and then blames streaming for poor sales? It’s a fairly short linear narrative game, if you watch a stream of it there’s nothing new to be gained through buying it to play yourself. This is one of the cases that I do sympathise with the developer.
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Feb 19, 2021 09:43
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That's frankly true of a lot more games these days than a lot of people want to admit, I think, and it's entirely their own fault for trying to make "emotional cinematic experiences" first and foremost instead of ensuring that their game is actually game enough to make people want to play it for its own sake.
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Feb 19, 2021 09:51
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That's a pretty poor outlook imho. Games can and should offer a wide range of experiences for people, it's the absurdities of our modern market that should be criticized not the designer's artistic vision for failing to conform within a narrow and arbitrary framework of commercial success.
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Feb 19, 2021 09:58
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Give me shorter games with worse graphics by people paid more to work less etc
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Feb 19, 2021 09:59
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exquisite tea posted:That's a pretty poor outlook imho. Games can and should offer a wide range of experiences for people, it's the absurdities of our modern market that should be criticized not the designer's artistic vision for failing to conform within a narrow and arbitrary framework of commercial success.
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Feb 19, 2021 10:07
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"I watched a stream" is an often inaccurate assessment of a game's interactivity since you are, you know, willingly bypassing the interactive elements and are less likely to be engaged in the first place. How many times has "I watched a stream and it was bad" been given out on these forums by some goon within hours of a game's release and then everybody finds out that person was full of poo poo and didn't know what they were talking about.
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Feb 19, 2021 10:11
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About as often as it turns out three months later that the forums opinion has shifted now that the overly-invested video game white knights have lost interest in defending it and everyone suddenly goes "yeah actually it was bad all along after all."
Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Feb 19, 2021 |
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Feb 19, 2021 10:15
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I don't buy the "streamers made our game sell like poo poo" argument. I personally have bought a bunch of games after having watched a complete playthrough of them, with no immediate plans to actually play the game myself but just because I thought those games were cool and developers deserved the money.
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Feb 19, 2021 10:31
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Yeah, it's not like it doesn't also work the other way around. I bought Metal Gear Survive after watching someone stream it because it looked fun as hell to play even though everyone was loudly crowing about how awful it was - and it turns out that yes, it is in fact actually fun as hell to play. I never would've touched it if I had listened only to the self-important gatekeeping types who insist that watching someone else play a game just doesn't give you an accurate impression of what a game is really like, especially if the impression you got from it is different from their own opinion. If something looks like a boring and lovely playing experience, it probably is in fact a boring and lovely playing experience.
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Feb 19, 2021 10:42
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