Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 132
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Games.
Almost finished Blood West. Shooter with soulslike characteristics, with decently sized map open to exploration per chapter, emphasis on stealth and looting, very retro feel. The setting is cool and well executed - wild west under a curse, roamed near exclusively by various monstrosities. Narration is minimal but compelling (intro features a native american blaming the white man for the curse, but that angle never comes up again), voice acting surprisingly nice. Quests amount to pointing you in the general direction of the next thing to find, but any order works, so you can explore freely.
The oppressive atmosphere is a highlight, both aesthetics and gameplay. Enemies are fast and hit damn hard, combat is bursty - you either get those headshots in (supposedly 5x damage, but not stated in-game afaik; feels like 5x) as you methodically clear an area, or you're in a desperate fight for survival. Highly satisfying gunplay, great feedback on the shotguns. A lot of weapons/consumables to pick up, inventory tetris abound unless you can resist the temptation to hoard.
Only minor complaints. Could use some "elite" enemies scattered around. Some balance issues. Too few artifact slots to permit more elaborate builds, and one slot is all but reserved for the pocket watch that stops time when you open inventory.
Random hallucinated connection: the "barn + house + tiny field + ghouls + nothing around" locations could well be lifted directly from Western Plaguelands.
Highly recommended. Put the first points into +experience perk. You can toss rocks on X, took me half the game to realize.
Sounds like my cup of tea, wishlisted.
Last night I gave Prey from 2017 a try, playing it for a few hours. It wasn't bad, but I agree with some people who argued it's so beholden to its immediate influences (System Shock 2 and BioShock) that it maybe doesn't really have much of an identity of its own. I like immersive sims, but the very fact of their relative open-endedness sometimes makes me feel a bit overwhelmed: I feel anxious that I'm playing them "wrong" unless I meticulously search every single drawer and container.
I don't like that someone decided to call them "immersive sims". What does it simulate? Why is it immersive? I know it's "just a name", but MSFS with VR is a much more immersive sim. Why can't people call them "simulationist action RPGs" or just "shocklikes"?
Immersive sims simulate a virtual environment with a high degree of systems-oriented internal consistency, and unlike most games which do this (e.g. SimCity) they attempt to immerse the player in this simulated world by having them control a specific individual therein (typically from a first-person perspective), as opposed to having them observe the virtual environment from a God's-eye-view.
In general I vastly prefer genre tags which offer some kind of description of the game's mechanics: genre tags of the form "games that are like X" are useless because they presume familiarity with X, which is an intrinsically more insular naming convention than just describing how the game plays. Does anyone seriously think "Doom clone" is preferable to "first-person shooter", particularly when most FPSs have so little in common with the original Doom? I'd love if someone could come up with a better name than "roguelike" — I'd hazard a guess that the majority of people who use the term are unaware the term is a reference to a specific game, never mind having played it.
In the case of Prey, however, I'll grant that, based on the two or three hours I spent playing it, "shocklike" is a perfectly accurate description.
"Permadeath highly-variable X" and "permadeath highly-variable X with metaprogression" for roguelites respectively? Not sure how to make it not be a mouthful when "roguelike" is already a pretty specific modifier genre.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link