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A racing game, a platformer, and an action brawler all in one doesn't seem like it leaves much room for going very far in any direction so I guess you're mostly just left with a narrow and basic list of things.
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Mar 17, 2022 04:18
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| # ? May 4, 2024 06:01 |
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Mar 19, 2022 14:49
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I love that there is a rubber ducky just floating in the background at one point.
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Mar 19, 2022 16:41
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The secret in the first level of this video is one of two that I had to bug Englishman about because I could not see it. Once you know what to look for it feels really obvious, but I also can't think of any points prior to this where the game has floating rail pipes in the sky. I just thought it was one of the many pieces of crap strewn about the level and my eyes glossed over it literally dozens of times. I also pretty much never used the Charge attacks unless required. There's just way too many different things they gave to characters and it's too unnecessary to stand around and build up an attack like that when you have other skills that are just as effective, if not better. Hell, since you only ever HAVE to deal with enemies when those arena blockades go up, most of the time the best strategy is to just drive past everything anyway.
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Mar 19, 2022 19:44
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It's an interesting decision to limit health regeneration to active characters, because in most games with character-switching mechanics they reserve health regen to inactive characters in order to incentivize actually using the mechanic. One might say it runs counter to the purpose of having a character-switching mechanic. I definitely agree that this game should probably have stuck with having everything in strict "lanes" rather than trying to have a pseudo-3D style depth mechanic. It would have resolved a lot of the obvious physics and hitbox jank we've been seeing.
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Mar 19, 2022 22:56
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Commander Keene posted:I definitely agree that this game should probably have stuck with having everything in strict "lanes" rather than trying to have a pseudo-3D style depth mechanic. It would have resolved a lot of the obvious physics and hitbox jank we've been seeing. I think the ideal camera for Steel Rats would be isometric, like Excitebike. Every enemy would only attack in their lane except for big enemies (which would take up two) and bosses (who would attack in all three lanes but their attacks would only take up a portion of the screen). Plus LittleBigPlanet and its sequels proved that you can make 2D jumping puzzles on three unique layers, even if the first game’s layer switching was pretty bad. Jamesman posted:The secret in the first level of this video is one of two that I had to bug Englishman about because I could not see it. Once you know what to look for it feels really obvious, but I also can't think of any points prior to this where the game has floating rail pipes in the sky. I just thought it was one of the many pieces of crap strewn about the level and my eyes glossed over it literally dozens of times. NGL I had no clue where that secret was either until I stumbled on footage of a Polish Let’s Play from 2018 with less than 50 views. That guy found it by accident and while I can’t speak Polish, his tone of voice suggested he was not expecting anything to be there. theenglishman fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Mar 19, 2022 |
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Mar 19, 2022 23:05
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Car elevators, layered cities, underground transports, and overly designed technology that would just open more problems even if it solved others? Someone take this game away from Elon Musk.
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Mar 21, 2022 07:14
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Whenver Toshi's not onscreen, everyone should be asking "Where's Toshi?" because he makes the game end faster.
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Mar 21, 2022 12:28
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Mar 21, 2022 13:14
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This might be one of the most ineptly executed plot points I've ever seen in a video game.
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Mar 26, 2022 18:26
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Couldn't even get a "you guys go ahead, I'll join you later" plot point before arbitrarily declaring Toshi kidnapped.
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Mar 26, 2022 18:51
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Yeah.... so, gently caress the levels where you don't have Toshi. Rant incoming. The only thing that comes close to a decent alternative to his junkpet ability, is getting guns, in that it's the only other means of long-range attacking you've got (Randy's harpoon WOULD count if it didn't latch you on to the loving enemies). But by this point in the game, the junkpet's damage is insane compared to chipping away with bullets, and this level is also extremely stingy with ammo pickups. This made some of the objectives so horribly frustrating, like the "Don't take damage from Screamers" objective mentioned. As I said earlier, I didn't know what Screamers did because I killed them so fast... with Toshi. Without him, I couldn't kill them fast enough before they got attacks off, with includes an AOE with a wide enough range to piss me off very much. And as also mentioned in the video, at this point, James has a rechargeable shield to absorb a hit, and it will recharge as long as you have full health. But you can't use it to tank a hit from the Screamers, because for some loving reason, it still counts as damage. So what are you left with? Well, the ultimate attacks can do some decent damage, but they have a build-up that leaves you stationary as you charge up, and they can all be classified as AOE attacks which require you to be close enough to the enemies that ALSO have AOE attacks. You see Englishman do this exact thing in the video. Oh and also the LAST thing you do in the level is fight Screamers, so you can go through the whole thing, get right up to the end, get hosed, and have to do the entire level over. Do you understand why this is so frustrating? What I ended up trying to do was baiting the Screamers into doing their other attack, which is directed in front of them, and trying to pull an ultimate off before they recovered and followed up with their AOE. This level took dozens of attempts. The other level they mentioned in the video that I got very upset with, was the first one where you have all the characters (and get to hear Lisa's STELLAR line delivery). The timed objective felt significantly tighter than previous ones, and I kept falling short by just a few seconds despite my best efforts. But it turns out my best efforts were missing a section or two where you could shave off some more time by taking some flying leaps to lower areas instead of taking stairs. This didn't feel intuitive to me, because falling too far results in death/respawn and those jumps felt like they would be too far. It also required me to have a good understanding of level layout so that I would know that jumping off a balcony would line up with the train tracks with no obstacles in the way, which you really don't know until you try it. The second Non-Toshi level, I think Englishman's video speaks for itself on why "Beating the level in under 2 minutes" is an experience, to say the least. And then for the race with Possessed Toshi, Englishman and I seemed to agree that the win state seems to be that there are various invisible checkpoints during the level, where the game will check if Toshi's health is above or below X. This makes the whole thing feel like a mess because you have no real indication of where these checks are. But at least we now have Toshi back and everything is good forever and there's no other bullshit moments in the game, right folks?
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Mar 26, 2022 20:23
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Jamesman posted:As I said earlier, I didn't know what Screamers did because I killed them so fast... with Toshi. Without him, I couldn't kill them fast enough before they got attacks off, with includes an AOE with a wide enough range to piss me off very much. And as also mentioned in the video, at this point, James has a rechargeable shield to absorb a hit, and it will recharge as long as you have full health. But you can't use it to tank a hit from the Screamers, because for some loving reason, it still counts as damage. I'm so happy I decided not to do all optional objectives lmao
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Mar 27, 2022 17:00
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The sacrifices you two have gone through for the rest of us to ... experience this game will not go unforgotten. Thank you both.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:04
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When I originally played the game a few years back, I got through the first world and then gave up. This time around, I not only finished it, but didn't have nearly as negative an opinion of it as I did. I don't think the game is great, but I also don't think the game is awful. There were a few moments of significant frustration (Apologies and thanks to Englishman for letting me vent on Discord), but the overall experience wasn't unpleasant at all and I do think there are many other games that are much worse than this one. It just needed some more refinement in its ideas.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:53
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It honestly seems like the beta version of a terrific game.
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Mar 27, 2022 19:00
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By popular demand posted:It honestly seems like the beta version of a terrific game. I absolutely agree. I’d love to see a more talented studio do something with this concept.
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Mar 27, 2022 19:08
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Apr 2, 2022 15:06
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In the video's first level, I'm positive that is the legit way to get to that collectable. What might not have been apparent to viewers is that you need to ramp off that car just right in order to get the air and distance you need, which is harder than it should be. You're prone to destroying the car with your wheelsaw and/or pushing it out of place as you ram into it over and over trying to get the physics to cooperate with you. I hope this isn't a spoiler, but I don't remember ever seeing the Instigator ever again for the rest of the game after its first appearance. Am I correct, or do all the Goon variants just blend together so much for me and they all die so quickly that I never realized there were more in later levels? The Killdozer chase level is a great idea, but its execution is kinda rough. Shocking, I know. I think the biggest problem is that you really can't sight-read and set-up to get through it, so it's a lot of trial and error as you fumble your way through and learn the level death by death. It's entirely possible to do a chase level that both feels tense and intuitive, but as we've seen in the three chase sequences this game has had so far, the devs just didn't know how.
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Apr 2, 2022 18:47
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And here is where the failures of the game become blatantly obvious even to the uncaring watcher.
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Apr 2, 2022 19:09
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Did anyone playtest this far in? Or was all the work on the game front-loaded? And can I have a game starring just Randal? Because he's the only one with character here.
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Apr 3, 2022 13:00
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In other news, we've just finished recording all the commentary for the LP!  It sure was an experience. These last few updates are when the game truly shows its rear end.
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Apr 4, 2022 03:17
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You did wish for the game to do more platforming with the pipes during the previous level.
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Apr 4, 2022 06:08
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Wishing for Steel Rats to do more of anything truly is invoking the monkey's paw.
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Apr 5, 2022 01:41
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Apr 9, 2022 14:27
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Like many things in the game, the handling of junk and score could have been done better. I'm not quite sure I agree with combining them into one thing, though. I just think both things could have been refined better to be more fun. Junk could have been actual physical pickups like coins in Mario; this IS a platformer, after all, and it could have been used to guide the player. If the game had better design, scoring could have been a really fun thing to do. You could chain together tricks and attacks and build up combos and create this really need sense of flow that made you have fun with it and encourage you to replay levels to do better. As it is, whenever I needed to actually care about score (in the few levels where I didn't instantly meet the requirements without even thinking about it), I literally just did standing hops and air spins to build my multiplier up before mowing down groups of enemies. I will say that I really liked the setpiece of chasing the carrier and blasting it to release the uranium rods, which is a totally safe thing to do, I'm sure. I do think it's funny how the previous level ends with it flying off with the rods, and then the next level, it's just... waiting for you, I guess? Like it could have just kept flying but decided to get a quick nap in.
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Apr 10, 2022 03:31
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I’m going to take the next week off, and updates will resume on the 23rd. Too much Steel Rats can rot the brain, I’ve been told.
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Apr 11, 2022 02:10
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Jamesman posted:Like many things in the game, the handling of junk and score could have been done better. I'm not quite sure I agree with combining them into one thing, though. I just think both things could have been refined better to be more fun. Junk could have been actual physical pickups like coins in Mario; this IS a platformer, after all, and it could have been used to guide the player.
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Apr 13, 2022 00:09
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Unfortunately I'll have to push back updates a bit further. The last two videos have been recorded, but work and health issues are preventing me from finishing the editing process. These two videos are definitely coming soon, just not sure what the timeframe is yet.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:06
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Stay healthy, riffing on a game for the internet can take a backseat.
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Apr 21, 2022 20:17
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You did Hydrophobia in the past and I think its fair to say both games have the same general problem. Hydrophobia wanted 1) to have highly detailed water physics, 2) be an Uncharted style shooter/platformer with big set pieces and environments, 3) have a score attack/points system for every encounter and the different ways to attack to encourage replays, 4) tell a character heavy story with lot of background information to go along with it. Steel Rats is more gameplay oriented but its still trying to wear a lot of hats and also trying to combine some genres that don't mesh well, or at least haven't yet.
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Apr 26, 2022 05:39
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My sincerest apologies for taking such a (relatively) long break. I've just lacked motivation to finish this LP. With that being said, to make it up to you folks I'm going to post all the remaining updates here. This game really does end on some interesting notes.    
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May 14, 2022 15:06
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How has no one kicked the poo poo out of Toshi after, He seems way too nerdy to not blurt out that this is all his fault
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May 14, 2022 17:59
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...Shooting ducks in a barrel? e: Okay, so how long did it take you to record a clear run of the final boss? e2: I really should only comment after finishing the video. Jesus Christ that song. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 00:33 on May 15, 2022 |
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May 15, 2022 00:10
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The lore from James in video 12 is hilarious. "No, I don't wanna talk about it." *proceeds to talk about it* That setpiece where you're inside the giant rolling pipe? Like everything else in the game, that pipe has physics, and it goes about as well as everything else in the game. You can't just sit back and enjoy the ride (a ride which goes on for way too long, if you ask me), because your character's weight will affect how the pipe rolls, and it can have some unintended outcomes. You need to keep accelerating and throwing your weight against the front, which would be fine if it was an actual gimmick for the level and not just you fighting the physics engine so the game doesn't leave you stranded. The level with the Hole/Junkbot Forge is such a garbled mess of a maze with so many different paths you can go. It's like the worst Sonic level you'll ever play. This was the other time where I asked TEM to help me find the collectable in a level, simply because I couldn't bring myself to explore everywhere in this place. Let that sink in. I - the guy who hundred-percented this game - did not have the patience to hunt down the collectable in this level on my own. The devs already showed how little restraint they had in implementing all the ideas they wanted, but this is the perfect example of that lack of restraint being applied to level design. And then the final level... There's little I can say about it to add to TEM's montage of just how loving jank that whole thing is. Except, now imagine dealing with all of that while also trying to finish the level in under 3 minutes and/or without anyone dying. Thank you for playing this, TEM. I still think this game is better than it's being given credit for, but not by much. Still, you can do much worse, and I'll be on the lookout to recommend some examples for your future LPs. 
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May 15, 2022 01:26
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Man, what a weird little game. So many moving parts fighting with each other, but pretty unique and I'm glad it was attempted even if the final product didn't come out well.
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May 15, 2022 02:08
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I've bagged on the game pretty heavily, and TEM is fully justified in blaming me for bringing the thing to his attention in the first place (because I did), but I will fully and wholeheartedly admit to respecting the ambition of the developers. They wanted to do something they hadn't really done before, and they clearly loved what they were doing; Note the bonus videos like them making scale models of the 'Screamer' enemy, and you can see just how much fun they had with the concepts. It's just that, to use a card game metaphor, they tried to shoot the moon and ended up with 25 points.
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May 15, 2022 05:20
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For a climax to a level that pipe part turns out really poorly. Besides the awkward physics it simultaneously goes on for too long and doesn't have enough to do (even if that "doing" is just watching robots get crushed). As with a lot of bad games the worst part is that you can see the good game right over there, just out of reach.
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May 19, 2022 16:16
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