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Is Don't Starve of the same vein?
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Aug 1, 2014 21:21
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Bulkiest Toaster posted:Valve is so good with storytelling I wish they could spend a little less time on Dota. The only way Valve could spend less time on Dota 2 is if they had nobody working on it. Also, the first Half-Life is a better game and scarier/more atmospheric than the sequel.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:22
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RightClickSaveAs posted:I've heard a lot of good things about this, I'll have to check it out at the next Steam sale. "Home" is one to avoid though right? I get the two mixed up. NeoSeeker posted:Is Don't Starve of the same vein?
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Aug 1, 2014 21:25
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al-azad posted:Not really. There's some super old games in the vein of Mystery House called The Institute which are about living in an asylum. For the more recent stuff there's The Cat Lady. Phantasmagoria 2 also deals with a mental patient. Oh I doubt they can ever handle actual illnesses well, I meant like being trapped in an old style asylum where no matter how much you try to prove you're not a danger to anyone or capable of taking care of yourself, everyone from the state to a shifting line of doctors with their own ideas of treatment and diagnosis of your problem get in the way.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:29
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I've played that game and it isn't fun. How about one where the loonies take over the asylum by tricking and loving over the staff?
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Aug 1, 2014 21:32
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The Darkness 2 had some interesting scenes where you're a patient in an asylum.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:34
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:Also, the first Half-Life is a better game and scarier/more atmospheric than the sequel. I dunno man, other than a handful of situations you were basically a walking god dealing death to all that oppose you. It's kind of a major theme of the game and something the narrative comments on. I don't think they set out to make Half-Life 1 into a scary game at all. Half-Life 2 on the other hand was obviously intended to scare you.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:35
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The only reason why Half Life could be considered better are the lovely graphics. Which do add to the atmosphere. Seriously go play black mesa source. Kind of a clear demonstration that when you put half life on half life 2's level, they just cannot compare at all. HL2 is far superior.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:47
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NeoSeeker posted:Seriously go play black mesa source. Kind of a clear demonstration that when you put half life on half life 2's level, they just cannot compare at all. Black Mesa Source just made me want to play the original game again. And you are right, of course, but not in the way you meant.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:52
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RightClickSaveAs posted:I've heard a lot of good things about this, I'll have to check it out at the next Steam sale. "Home" is one to avoid though right? I get the two mixed up. Lone Survivor is pretty good. It has all the trappings of Silent Hill, both good and bad which means in between intense scenarios you'll be plodding through maze-like halls wondering where to go next. It's almost like a 2D Silent Hill 2 for all the good and bad. Home is indeed one to avoid. It has an interesting aesthetic and the narrative is influenced by whether you accept or deny the events presented to you (kind of like Anna, almost) but the end result is a text screen that amounts to the writer shrugging his shoulders at the climax. Dear video game writers: asking the player questions without setting up the answers doesn't make for good storytelling! You can leave things to the imagination of the players, but you can't build up your plot as a series of questions that literally go unanswered because that's for the player to decide. If the point of a story is for the author to say something, these open ended plots are as substantial as air.
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Aug 1, 2014 22:24
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Whoa whoa whoa, there are people that don't like Black Mesa Source? That poo poo was goddamned incredible. So many wonderful little details. I was absolutely blown away by the quality and it is all entirely free. The absolute worst part about Black Mesa Source was that it eventually ended. I cannot give it enough praise. Just download it already it is free.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:50
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Whoa whoa whoa, there are people that don't like Black Mesa Source? That poo poo was goddamned incredible. So many wonderful little details. I was absolutely blown away by the quality and it is all entirely free. The absolute worst part about Black Mesa Source was that it eventually ended. I cannot give it enough praise. Just download it already it is free. I had serious issues with the design philosophies that went into the game. I've posted about it at length but I'll summarize just by saying that I don't know what audience they had in mind when designing the game. There are too many changes both to difficulty and design that I didn't like it as a Half-Life veteran and don't recommend it to Half-Life newcomers. If you're getting into Half-Life play the original first. If the game is too ugly for you then play Source. But Black Mesa is for people who already know Half-Life and it still just made me want to play Source. It's also not finished and while people claim Xen is the games low point I disagree. It's the great climax where you feel isolated on an alien world. It's the point where the atmosphere of Half-Life actually comes out, almost like a Metroid game.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:41
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Xen is so far from Metroid that it could not see Metroid with the Hubble Telescope. Xen is loathed for good reason.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:45
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Oxxidation posted:Xen is so far from Metroid that it could not see Metroid with the Hubble Telescope. Xen is loathed for good reason. My comparison is on the feeling of isolation in an alien world. Xen changes the rules of Half-Life in the final chapter, introduces a new traversal feature (the jump boots), and has you taunted by the Nihilith the whole time who serves as the game's only antagonist that kind of brings things together. The previous sections of Half-Life feel disjointed at times. You follow the orders of random scientists, shoot a bunch of things, then move on through the next platform/puzzle section. Xen is important to me because it has a theme. It's one of the first alien things you see when poo poo hits the fan in the beginning of the game and you realize how loving small you feel in comparison to it. Compared to the first 4/5 of the game, Half-Life is Aliens whereas Xen turns into Alien. It begins in silence, alone, on a floating platform right after an intense all out battle with waves of enemies. The first thing you come across isn't an enemy, but a fellow scientist in an HEV suit symbolizing how the story is greater than you and hinting at failure. It reminded me of how I felt about Ravenholm the first time. I hated that Half-Life 2 went from exciting vehicle chases to narrow corridors against slow enemies but that one level adds a creepy ambience to a game that's mostly about running real fast and shooting people in the face. Ravenholm grew on me during a second play and Xen did the same. Xen was great and out of all the levels that could do with a remake I wanted to see this the most. al-azad fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 04:02
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I didn't know anyone hated Xen until I was 27 (Half-Life came out when I was 13).
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Aug 2, 2014 04:19
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I really can't blame people, I didn't like it at first. Too many platform elements. Too thematically different. But I was 12 when the game came out and just wanted to shoot more people. I appreciate it now for what it was trying to do and if there's any set of levels that needed a remake it's Xen but Black Mesa ends right before it.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:29
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I'd been looking forward to Xen since those bizarre vistas you're shunted through during the resonance cascade event. That last battle with the Nihilanth was just awful though.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:35
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Yeah the Nihilanth and headcrab boss fights are pretty bad but I'll jump on the "Xen is actually kind of cool" bandwagon. People like to bitch about the platforming bits but I've never understood why, they aren't difficult in the slightest. Maybe I was just properly conditioned by dozens of bizarrely laid out Sven Coop maps at that point. Anyway, while there are certainly parts of HL1 (particularly towards the beginning) with an atmosphere of horror, there's nothing in it at all like Ravenholme. Or any encounter with poison headcrabs, which turn your empowering shootmans game into a "spaz out and run like a loving sissy" simulator.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:44
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:Whoa whoa whoa, there are people that don't like Black Mesa Source? That poo poo was goddamned incredible. So many wonderful little details. I was absolutely blown away by the quality and it is all entirely free. The absolute worst part about Black Mesa Source was that it eventually ended. I cannot give it enough praise. Just download it already it is free. Black Mesa is pretty good, but I dunno why the gently caress they thought requiring crouch jumps for every jump was a good idea.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:46
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Black Mesa is pretty good, but I dunno why the gently caress they thought requiring crouch jumps for every jump was a good idea. Or the stupid rear end tweaks they made to the soldiers, turning them into perfectly accurate rapid firing death machines. It ruins some of the best sequences in the game.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:51
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Oh yeah I forgot I had some tweak that made the soldiers less accurate and have a lower response time, more in line with what a human is reasonably capable of.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:53
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al-azad posted:If the game is too ugly for you then play Source. Except don't play Half-Life Source because for some reason it is totally loving broken and has tons of issues once you hit Xen including a game-breaking bug where the game will always crash while you fight the Nihilanth ever since one of the Source engine updates. At least, that was my experience attempting to play through it a while back. Maybe they fixed that. Even then, it's not really a huge graphical upgrade.
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Aug 2, 2014 05:00
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Black Mesa sounds like one of those SNES romhacks that requires intimate familiarity with weird engine glitches and tactics, because the creators made them to challenge themselves and not a broader audience.
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Aug 2, 2014 05:18
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So I played Echo Night and the ps2 Echo Night: Beyond. Fantastic games. FROM SOFTWARE is very good at building an atmosphere, haven't been that engaged in a horror game in a while. Anyone know if Echo Night 2 has any sort of fan translation or at least a guide somewhere? Tried looking around but i'm not having a lot of luck, would really like to play it though.
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Aug 2, 2014 09:04
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NeoSeeker posted:Outlast Siren and Fatal Frame/project zero.
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Aug 2, 2014 11:06
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Darkwood, it's in Early Access but I haven't been this unsettled in a game since I played the first Silent Hill. Clicky
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Aug 2, 2014 11:20
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Bieeardo posted:Black Mesa sounds like one of those SNES romhacks that requires intimate familiarity with weird engine glitches and tactics, because the creators made them to challenge themselves and not a broader audience. I beat it a couple months ago without having ever played the original beyond the first few chapters. It had its problems (at the top of that list are definitely the marines' instant reaction and pinpoint aim) but it can be enjoyed by anyone who is familiar with FPS games. Crouch jumping is the only engine quirk the player need be aware of, and it's something that isn't exactly obscure or hard to pull off. Regardless, there are three difficulty levels and you can quicksave everywhere, so any challenge is what you make of it. It's an FPS, you're not playing a Paradox game. The beginning chapters are definitely supposed to be creepy and tense, but that wears off as you gather more weaponry and the marines show up--they're easily the most dangerous enemies in the game but aren't exactly horrifying.
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Aug 2, 2014 11:41
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All this HL talk is really making me want to play through the whole series again. HL: Source, Opposing force, Blue shift, HL2 and the episodes. Been a long time since I have played them all. I just started amnesia last night partly because of this thread. I went in totally blind with basically no idea what the game is about. Pretty fun so far. Surprised that it seems to be a period piece. Don't really understand the sainty effects too much other than I guess I am supposed to stay in the light to stay sane? I am hearing a lot of strange things that I am never a hundred percent sure are supposed to be ambient sound or my sanity draining. Haven't run into any monsters yet but caught a glimpse of one. Just got the key to the wine cellar.
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Aug 3, 2014 01:31
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Sanity basically runs on how much you stay in the dark and how much you look at monsters. It restores every time you finish a main objective. I'm not gonna spoil more than that, because it's honestly a really good game and you'd miss out on the experience.
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Aug 3, 2014 01:35
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Cardiovorax posted:Sanity basically runs on how much you stay in the dark and how much you look at monsters. It restores every time you finish a main objective. I'm not gonna spoil more than that, because it's honestly a really good game and you'd miss out on the experience. Just know that light is your friend, but also your enemy. Because things can see you when you're in the light.
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Aug 3, 2014 18:51
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:I didn't know anyone hated Xen until I was 27 (Half-Life came out when I was 13). I didn't know anyone liked Xen until now. Dreadwroth posted:Darkwood, it's in Early Access but I haven't been this unsettled in a game since I played the first Silent Hill. I'm really excited by this game, but I want to wait for it to be completed before I pick it up.
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Aug 3, 2014 20:54
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The only reason why I liked xen was because it marked a point when poo poo got so hosed up/real that "gently caress black mesa, the situation is so hosed up you're in another dimension now". Games that progress like that are my absolute favorite. Half Life 2 does this infinitely better. The trek is ultimately to the citadel. It's always looming in the distance skybox. It goes from a well organized gulag utopia to a hosed warzone. Dead Space does this infinately better than half life 2. There is no real objective looming in the horizon. You're inside the objective, trapped. The only thing you know is that you need to get the gently caress out of there. The flesh moss/flesh caverns and the PA system getting more and more hosed up. And the whispers, so on and so forth. It's the kind of pacing where everything gets more hosed along side the progression of the game. To the point where by the end of the game you question not just the sanity of the main character, but perhaps your own itself. Anime has a ton of examples like this. One of the best examples I can think of is gungrave. There are so many examples and way more better ones than gungrave, but you probably get it by now. As I have to repeat my point like 10 times before I feel I've made it.
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Aug 3, 2014 21:33
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Brackhar posted:I didn't know anyone liked Xen until now. Not too surprising coming from a Riot dev to be fair. NeoSeeker posted:Dead Space does this infinately better than half life 2. There is no real objective looming in the horizon. You're inside the objective, trapped. The only thing you know is that you need to get the gently caress out of there. You say HL2 does it better than the first yet Half-Life is a closed circle like Dead Space (which is why HL is a better horror game than the sequel). Before you get to the Citadel you could theoretically go wherever and escape into the hinterlands. I won't argue Xen is as tightly designed as the Black Mesa areas but the atmosphere and look are top notch. Lets! Get! Weird! fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 21:34
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Did BMS even *finish* Xen? They released like a few years ago without it and then said something like "Uh, yeah...we'll do it later since everybody hates Xen anyway".
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Aug 3, 2014 21:35
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They've been working on a retail release in conjunction with valve of BMS so I doubt it will ever be finished in the free version
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Aug 3, 2014 21:36
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Brackhar posted:I didn't know anyone liked Xen until now. The people who hated it used to bitch and bitch. Meanwhile the people that thought it was OK don't have much of anything to say by comparison. I happen to be in the latter group.
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Aug 3, 2014 23:47
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:You say HL2 does it better than the first yet Half-Life is a closed circle like Dead Space (which is why HL is a better horror game than the sequel). Before you get to the Citadel you could theoretically go wherever and escape into the hinterlands. In half life the goal never really seemed like "I NEED TO GET THE gently caress OUT OF HERE". It seemed more like cleaning up a giant loving mess. I also never got the feeling gordon was trapped. Half Life 2 offers that sense of urgency. I don't even feel like giving examples because there's so much fridge horror in the game it's mind bending. The only reason why it doesn't have what you see in Half Life is because it's a wide open world. The problem is outside of city 17 no one can last a second. You aren't trapped in this scenario, because you and everything around you starts out fubar. The best part is it only gets worse. If you consider the episodes 1 and 2 as well, the game as a whole is leauges better than the first in every way. It's a much more grander scale though, which may be what saps it for you.
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Aug 3, 2014 23:58
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NeoSeeker posted:In half life the goal never really seemed like "I NEED TO GET THE gently caress OUT OF HERE". It seemed more like cleaning up a giant loving mess. I also never got the feeling gordon was trapped. No, the idea of the game is to get out (you keep trying to get to the surface, after all) - there's no reason to think a nuclear physicist is going to clear out an alien invasion. That's why it's a bit of a twist when the Marines come in because you think you're saved but they're there to make sure nobody escapes. But you are right, I much prefer enclosed, unknowing horror to the direction the series went in. Lets! Get! Weird! fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 23:59
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Agree to disagree then. I'm not disputing what you say at all. Just in game you get to the surface plenty of times. Combined with the crappy graphics and the loads of claustrophobia it's fairly engrossing.
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Aug 4, 2014 00:04
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Cardiovorax posted:Sanitarium kind of loses its appeal by the time you get stuck as that weird Olmec statue (WHAT SAY YOU) but the early scenarios are pretty fun in a Goosebumps kind of way. Weird. You know that's the last major section of the game, right? It's also the bleakest IMO. Everywhere else a world is in the process of ending, but at least there's still some hope. In that one, the world already has ended and the only hope is picking up what pieces remain.
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Aug 4, 2014 00:06
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