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The Road the Gehenna DLC will hit on July 23rd. The expected price should be no more than 20 dollars or euros - it depends on which region you live in. It's a full-blown expansion to the base game, so it should be rather long. I'll have some first impressions posted come release day. ======================================================================================================================================================  The Talos Principle, created by Croteam and released towards the end of 2014, has been a surprise hit for many players, myself included. It combines a fresh take on puzzle-solving with a thought-provoking philosophical interactive fiction segment. I mean, the game does ask you some rather tricky questions if you care to engage in this part of the game. You don't have to, though! There are no cutscenes, no forced moments where you have to stand around and wait for characters to stop talking, you don't even have to solve every puzzle to complete the game. You can play the game at your own pace- Wait, what? Croteam? Where have I heard this name before...  Croteam is a Croatian-based game development studio best known for its Serious Sam franchise. You've probably heard about and/or played the games. So how come they've made a puzzle game? The devs have been hard at work at Serious Sam 4, experimenting with new mechanics. They created several interactive objects and ended up creating several rather complex puzzles. Thankfully, they had the forethought to make a separate game out of it. Ok, but what exactly do you do in this game? In general, the game is divided into three separate world hubs, several worlds each. Each world consists of several puzzles set in a different location/environment. In order to solve each puzzle, you will have to use the tools granted to you for each puzzle. There are boxes, fans, laser prisms, jammers and more. The point of all this is to collect Tetromino blocks which are used to unlock stuff. Green blocks unlock levels, yellow blocks unlock tools, red blocks are just there for show. What makes the game so special? The philosophical side of the game is engaging, certainly, but is also rather divisive. Some people like it, some people find it boring or forced. The whole point of it is to make you think about this stuff and maybe, possibly discuss it with other people. You can just ignore it, though! Nobody forces this stuff down your throat, there are no cutscenes or anything. In my opinion, it's the puzzle-solving that really sets the game above many others. The tools at your disposal can be used in several obvious ways and many not-so-obvious ways that make you feel really drat smart for figuring it out yourself. There are also moments when you find yourself thinking outside the box - quite literally. Suffice it to say that some of the puzzles actually interact with each other. This makes it sound like Portal. Is it like Portal? Or Portal 2? People like to make this comparison. TTP and the Portal games are definitely similar in terms of production values and polish. I find the puzzles in TTP to be better since they are more complex and non-linear. But it's like comparing sports cars - even if you prefer one over the other, they still offer a pretty drat good ride. Is it just your opinion or... Nope. This game is universally praised. TTP is probably butt-ugly... No, it isn't! Have some screnshots to prove you wrong:      Alright, I'm interested, but my computer probably won't be able to handle it. There's a demo available on Steam. It offers you a general idea of what the game is like and you can check whether the game works on your PC. Since it's a Croteam game, there's a boatload of configuration options. You can tweak pretty much anything. The game also auto-detects your ideal graphics settings. Fun fact: Croteam released the demo about a month before they released the game to make sure there would be as few technical problems as possible. They are still fixing up edge cases and they are going to add VR support to the game.  Experimental VR support is already in!How long is the game? It's about 20 hours long, give or take a few hours. It depends on how good you are at puzzle-solving. Any tips? Don't look up the solutions. If you feel that you are stuck at some puzzle, try solving a different one. Usually you will be able to access several other puzzles and they might even give you some hint as to what you need to do. Try experimenting. The tools can be used in various ways, some of which might not be immediately obvious. You'll unravel the solutions if you just keep at it. I'm not exactly a puzzle master and I was able to solve all of the puzzles on my own, so it shouldn't be that hard. You might get stumped a few times later in the game, though. What else should I know? It's a Croteam game which means there are many secrets and easter eggs hidden all over the game. Many of them are quite hilarious. If you've already beaten the game, consult one of the guides on Steam to find them all! What does TTP do that I wish other games did? - You can adjust your run speed. - You can rollback to one of several previous savepoints in a game with autosaving. - Boatload of config options. Seriously. Even FOV. - There's a demo. - The demo was released way ahead of the full game. GUESS WHAT, DEVS! IT SOLD ME ON THE GAME AND I WAS ABLE TO BUDGET FOR IT AHEAD OF TIME! CRAZY, HUH? - The devs believe in appropriate regional pricing. If you live in a country with lower purchasing power, they're not going to charge you 50 pounds for the game. They want you to buy the game and enjoy it, not nickle-and-dime you. Check out the pricing for yourself. - Multiple narrators. The Serious DLC replaces the standard narrator with humorous narration which makes replaying the game more interesting. It was also released for free to owners of TTP, though now you have to buy it. If you really don't care about the story, you can just go with Sam. Alright, where do I buy it? The game's available on Steam right now! And on several other websites. Do I need Windows? Nope, the game is also available on Mac and Linux. I only have a console... The game should be available on the PS4 in the near future. No Xbox One version is planned, but it's not ruled out. I only have a smartphone... You can also play Talos on Android, but you need Nvidia K1 or X1 grade hardware. Those Tetromino blocks remind me of something... Wasn't there a game like that released on Steam? Yes, it's called Sigils of Elohim. It's a free companion game to the Talos Principle in which you solve those Tetromino puzzles you see in the game. It's available on Steam and on Android. The codes obtained in SoE can be redeemed in TTP for some non-essential in-game rewards. What about DLC? There are a few piece of DLC available. There's the soundtrack, the "making of" stuff and one other piece of DLC containing Prototype levels. I haven't really played the Prototype levels, though this is just a collection of puzzles they created while figuring out what they are going to put into the game. Some Workshop stuff does require this piece of DLC, though. There's also the Serious DLC which replaces the standard narrator voice with the voice of Sam. The narrator's whole script was rewritten, poking fun at the game while you play. When is Serious Sam 4 coming out? Sometime before Half-Life 3. Blattdorf fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 12:12
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Reserved for future stuff. Probably some extra info on Gehenna. How did I not see the other thread? drat... Blattdorf fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 12:13
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