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woodenchicken posted:Watched a playthrough of P.T., and I'm reasonably impressed as well. Even with the doofus hamming it up for the camera in the corner of the screen, I could feel the chill just from watching him play. Uh, let's say it stars the fan favorite immortal character from the TV show which that lovely game is based on (let's face it, if Daryl dies the show is over). He's also one-half the psychotic cast of Boondock Saints.
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Aug 19, 2014 12:45
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I haven't played the game but what I've seen nothing really happens Day 1 but things escalate too quickly Day 2. A quarter of Day 1 is listening to a too-long phone call. It's a really tough game to demo. Maybe a special demo level should have been produced just to show off the game itself. That HarshlyCritical guy is the best, though. He starts off really snarky and not liking the game. Then he gets to day 2... 
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Aug 20, 2014 16:03
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A demo is supposed to impress and the first night just doesn't impress. That's why a lot of demos usually take place a few hours into the game.MagusProject posted:Cat scares are jump scares without something scary as the subject, named for the cat jumping out of a suspicious locker in Silent Hill 1, if I recall. I've never heard the term cat scare but the concept is as old as audio in film. Here's a classic example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkrsymAhI0U&t=60s A long stretch of silence, the camera panning back, then a large object taking up the entire screen followed by a screeching sound. It's a classic jump scare and the movie is still applauded to this day. There are two things humans fear that's built into our DNA: heights and loud noise. If you hear a sudden loud noise, even if you know the exact second it's going to happen, your heartbeat will increase because we are programmed to be wary of sudden sounds. They are designed to make us "jump." Sometimes they're used poorly and end up being cheap scares, sometimes they have actual build up and can heighten an already intense scene, but that doesn't change what they are. al-azad fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 05:09
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Periodiko posted:Bad jump scares have a GIANT loving FACE and LOUD loving NOISE because they're trying to make up for the fact that you aren't actually feeling anxious or scared before they happen. See, good jump scares understand they're a cheap device and practically wink at the viewer before they happen. Another iconic movie scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH8ynu0jRvY You know something is going to happen, the question is when and how and they drag it out to its fullest.
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Aug 21, 2014 06:11
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I totally expect him to make use of the controller's speaker for something other than voice logs and of course touching the pad to fish your hand through a toilet or rusty hole.
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Aug 21, 2014 06:42
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Ineffiable posted:Since Kojima loves naming schemes, I bet he could use the tarots. This is a cool idea. I always liked liches in D&D with their phylactery you have to hunt down. You could have an entire encounter where you're in a mansion or something being stalked by an immortal creature that can't be killed until you find whatever object it's tied to. I always wonder how Deadly Premonition would have played out if the horror gameplay elements were actually good. Alan Wake was originally an open world game before the idea was scrapped and it would have played as an investigation during the day and nightmarish combat at night.
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Aug 21, 2014 18:35
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Capcom posted comparison shots for the Resident Evil REmake RErelease. I say it's a testament to the Gamecube's power and Capcom's aesthetic design that the old screenshots still look good.
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Aug 28, 2014 12:17
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Crabtree posted:Is a horror game good if you're terrified of the concept, yet when you actually play or watch the game it completely kills any dread you have about it? Because that's where I am at with Five Nights at Freddy's. I'm unfortunately having no trouble in scaring myself silly when I think about this game at night, yet when I watch one of the many jump-on-the-fad videos or steams about Freddy, I'm just laughing at every stupid jump scare or doofy plot reveal. Are you actually playing the game or just watching it? Because games are best experienced, not filtered through someone's reactions on a face cam. But I've experienced what you're feeling before. I never found Alien scary, even as a kid. Beyond the slow pacing and brooding atmosphere of the first half, the movie devolves into predictable slasher tropes. But it's still a thrilling and beautifully shot movie and I appreciate that much more than its attempts at being a scary film.
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Aug 29, 2014 06:33
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Neo Rasa posted:Speaking of which, there was a PC-98 detective game of this ilk where you had to stop a serial killer from getting to the other characters. I just remember it being unusual because the portraits for the characters were all just straight up photographs, like not traced pixel art they just used photos of folks dressed like normal, then dead, saved, etc. for the ways the game would play out. The only thing I can think of with realistic portraits that's as old as the PC-98 is TurboCD version of J.B. Harold.
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Oct 6, 2014 11:33
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woodenchicken posted:I tried watching both the LP and the Super replay of Illbleed, but it seems like such a super monotonous game. You look around through a scope and then walk forward and a trap activates, but you can either gain points or lose points depending on whether you stood around and watched the nothingness carefully enough. The cuscenes were fairly amusing, but probably not worth enduring hours of that "gameplay" for. It's important to understand what the game is asking of you from the scope. You're punished for wasting time looking at unnecessary things but the game gives you context clues to what you're supposed to be looking out for. Just for example, if a telephone registers as "smell" then it's not something you should waste time investigating.
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Oct 10, 2014 13:31
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I'm going to do my own Halloween roundup but with a focus on the weird and obscure just to set myself apart. My choices of games aren't necessarily "horror" in the strictest sense but include games heavily inspired by the horror genre. 31 Days of Weird Games 1. Zombies Ate My Neighbors    LucasArts' love letter to campy B horror. ZAMN is a top down 2D shooter where one or two players have to rescue up to 10 survivors in labyrinthine levels. Enemies constantly respawn and are hunting down the survivors. If they all die it's gameover! Each level is either named after or themed from a horror trope like Mars Needs Cheerleaders and Chopping Mall. ZAMN is unique in several areas. The levels are destructible allowing you to destroy barriers to create shortcuts. Several enemies can even bypass barriers or destroy them to reach you. You've got a huge arsenal of weapons and enemies have various weaknesses like blobs being susceptible to freezing from popsicles and werewolves dying to silverware. This game is hard, even with two players, and I've never completed the 55 stages in one sitting. To make things worse your saves only carry over survivors and the later levels practically require a large arsenal. A battery backup would have gone a long way in making this game more approachable but it's one of the best Gauntlet-clones and a great co-op experience for the SNES that will have you cursing every time your friend steals a health pack. ZAMN spawned a pseudo-sequel called Ghoul Patrol which is not every good. It's slow, introduces platforming for no reason, and has linear level design which goes completely against the spirit of the original. On the other hand, check out Monster Madness: Grave Danger on the PS3. It's the spiritual successor in every way to ZAMN. The PS3 version gives a major overhaul to the game's systems so avoid the other versions. 2. The Orion Conspiracy    On board the research ship Cerberus, engineer Danny McCormack falls into a black hole. After his father Devlin attends his funeral he receives a message saying Danny was murdered. Devlin vows to avenge his son's death. Complications arise when Danny's gay lover confronts Devlin, accusing him of being dismissive about Danny's sexuality which drove them apart. poo poo hits the fan when shapeshifting aliens begin hunting the crew and the tone shifts from mystery to horror. TOC isn't an amazing adventure game, suffering from a poor interface and glacial pacing. But it has a surprisingly mature story and takes heavy inspiration from Ridley Scott's Alien. Unlike most adventure games of the 90s which were largely light-hearted, TOC is dead serious with gory deaths and gratuitous profanity. It's up there with The Dig as one of the more traditionally cinematic adventure games of the early CD era. Setting the game in a single, fully explorable location lends a grounded atmosphere to the setting. Each NPC has a name and they patrol the hallways at random while you're exploring. 3. Monster Party    Monster Party was something of a cult anomaly. Released in 1989 on the NES you played as Mark, a kid on his way home from baseball who is accosted by a flying demon named Bert to save his world from evil monsters. In spite of Nintendo's strict rules Monster Party features blood, religious symbols, cartoon nudity, and irreverent bosses. Perhaps most famous is a scene change upon reaching the mid-point of level 1 which results in the colorful landscape warping into a hellish nightmare. The ending completely subverts the traditional NES game where you rescue the princess who transforms into a monster and melts your skin. In July of this year the Japanese prototype ROM was released. While I think the American version is overall better (surprisingly there's no real edited content for violence aside from the title screen) this version is more focused on affectionate parody. Some of the bosses visually edited for copyright reasons include Jason, Mogwai/gremlin, a horse riding ape from Planet of the Apes complete with fallen Statue of Liberty in the background, a xenomorph, and the giant plant more resembles Audrey II. I can't call Monster Party a good game but it's one of the more interesting artifacts from an era of bland, uninspired platformers that stood in the shadow of Mario. There's a Splatterhouse spinoff called Wanpaku Graffiti. I think Monster Party is a better game but if you're looking for another irreverent horror themed platformer then check it out. 4. Cosmology of Kyoto    Cosmology of Kyoto is an exploration of Japanese folklore. The player is a nameless mystic who explores Heiankyo, the center of modern day Kyoto and Imperial capital of Japan for over a thousand years. Despite being labeled an adventure game, it's actually an interactive encyclopedia. You walk around the city, watch disturbing animated events, and have an entire database at your disposal to read up on Japanese mythology and culture. Probably the most disturbing game on my list, CoK is filled with gore, scenes of torture, and grotesque nudity. I love all the little animations and they certainly make the world fun to fully explore.  You will often die in CoK. Each death sends you to one of the many afterlives where you're tortured by demons or forced to consume the flesh of the dead before you're reincarnated to continue your nightmarish journey. Roger Ebert is quoted for his enjoyment of this game. al-azad fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 07:30
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Accordion Man posted:I never heard of The Orion Conspiracy. Does it run on fine on Windows 7? Amazon has it for pretty cheap. It's a DOS game so you shouldn't have any problem running it in DOSbox but there's also a Windows talkie version. I actually recommend the speechless DOS version because the terrible voice acting ruins the atmosphere. It's really bad even by 90s standards. Download the brief comic book that came with the game called Devlin's Story. The guy really has a hosed up past. al-azad fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 17:29
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I could forgive Deadlight's faults if it weren't for the loose controls. Puzzle platformers use rigid grid movement to keep everything 100% consistent. It's difficult to judge things like distance and you'll clip through otherwise solid objects. Every time you turn around you take a half step which can throw you off a ledge. Deadlight serves as the example for why Oddworld or Prince of Persia fall apart if they were designed like a Mario game or more free form platformer. The Flashback remake fell in the same trap.
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Oct 12, 2014 22:17
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Weird Games days 1-4 5. Tecmo's Deception    Unjustly executed by your brother who framed you for the murder of your husband, you sell your soul to Satan for revenge. Acquiring a haunted mansion, your goal is to harvest the souls of intruders to revive the prince of darkness. Deception is a blend of RPG and dungeon construction. You create rooms and drop traps to murder the people invading your house. Some of the intruders are poor fools looking for a place to rest, others want to dominate or destroy you. You can harvest their souls for magic to power your traps, destroy their bodies for gold, or even save their bodies to turn into monsters. Deception has spawned a long running series but the original stands out as being the most married to its concept. The later games lean towards fantasy/science-fiction with an anime style and a focus on stringing trap combos. The original has a heavy haunted house aesthetic It's a dark, bleak game that makes you feel awful with every kill. 6. Veil of Darkness    The early 90s was a transitioning period for RPGs and adventure games which lead to a lot of hybrids. Veil of Darkness follows in the vein of Ultima 7, being largely an isometric adventure game with RPG-like inventory management and combat. You're a cargo plane pilot whose plane goes down over Romania and are prophesied to defeat the vampire lord Kairn. The setting is generic European goth with small villages, creepy graveyards, and dark castles. There's not much to say about Veil of Darkness but that's a good thing. It doesn't do anything unique but nails all its strengths. The 2D graphics are large and detailed and the non-linear hybrid gameplay works well (it has an automap, thank god!). The puzzles are far more naturalistic than most games in the genre. Horror games are rare enough but RPG-horror is practically unheard of. 7. Elvira    Coming from Veil of Darkness is Elvira, a similar blend of adventure and dungeon crawling RPG but from a first person perspective. Taking place after the events of the movie, hostess Elvira has inherited a castle but accidentally unleashes her ancestor's monsters from within. You, the player, must break the curse that haunts the castle. This is the first game by Horrorsoft who would go on to make a sequel and Waxworks. With that said, I find the original Elvira to be the best of their games. Years before The Elder Scrolls, Ultima Underworld, Lands of Lore, and Eye of the Beholder, Elvira was a sleeper hit for advancing the genre Dungeon Master revitalized in 1987. Horrorsoft would establish their trademark gory death scenes with a few shockers like a demonic chef adding your head to her pot of stew. Elvira 2 featured more detailed animations and scripted story sequences but it separates its adventure elements and dungeon crawling into two distinct zones while the first game mixes the disparate elements. It also has an obtuse magic system where it's possible to use plot critical items. These aren't long games and I definitely recommend playing with Gamefaqs open because they're noteworthy enough to be worth the 90-180 minutes it takes to beat them. 8. The Dark Eye    Edgar Allan Poe is the father of contemporary Gothic horror yet his influence is rarely felt in video games. The Dark Eye is a Myst-style cinematic adventure game that offers vignettes of Poe's stories framed around a story of a crumbling family. You, the one-eyed protagonist, are visiting your uncle Edwin and cousin Elise with your brother Henry who is ready to settle down after traveling the world. Edwin is getting on years and is becoming increasingly engrossed in his macabre paintings. As you fall under the ill effects of his paint thinner while learning about the affair between your cousins, you begin slipping into mad dreams. These nightmares retell Poe's classic stories The Cask of Amontillado, Berenice, and The Tell-Tale Heart with narrations of The Masque of the Red Death, Annabel Lee, and The Premature Burial during certain segments. William S. Burroughs narrates and plays crazy uncle Edwin. The Dark Eye is notable for its highly detailed puppets. The animators would set the puppets against their CGI backgrounds and create lighting specific to the environment. For an FMV cd-rom game in 1995 the result is startlingly lifelike. I remember seeing the game and thinking how much it reminded me of James and the Giant Peach. If you want to get it to run you absolutely need a Windows XP virtual machine but it's a cinematic adventure game with no puzzles and should be experienced first hand. al-azad fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 01:58
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woodenchicken posted:I liked tank controls for slower games. It gave your character weight. Human beings don't turn 180 degrees instantly. But humans do pivot. Tank controls were fine once they added the quick turn. Silent Hill took it a step forward with strafing and he also had a clumsy momentum where he could run into walls and shifted when he came to a full stop.
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Oct 14, 2014 15:07
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ethanol posted:Ok, so I'm having fun, but... the black borders are silly. Why? I mean. Why? Because it's cinematic, man! You heard the Ubisoft guy, 900p just looks better even if that means letterboxing 1080p.
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Oct 14, 2014 18:21
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Weird Games days 1-4 Weird Games days 5-8 Let's look at some more contemporary (but still weird) horror. 9. Shadows of the Damned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McKgiNhY_sA A joint production between the master of weird Goichi Suda and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, Shadows of the Damned was left in the shadows by Electronic Arts' tepid marketing. It's a mistake to skip out on this one as it's everything I wanted RE5 and RE6 to be. Taking the familiar over-the-shoulder action view, your weapon is a transforming skull gun (slash motorcycle) that can transform into various accessories as you collect them. Shadows play a role with some enemies being wreathed in darkness that must be dispelled and completely dark areas where your only hope is to light the area long enough to find the goat head that dispels it. Being a Shinji Mikami game you can expect crazy bosses and Suda throws his hand in with surreal sequences involving turning the game into a vertical SHMUP shooting and of course his fetish for wrestling. Being a Suda game the plot is lascivious and sexually charged which can come off creepy but it also serves the plot in a good way. You play Garcia Hotspur, a testosterone charged demon slayer whose girlfriend Paula is kidnapped by Fleming, the Lord of Demons. It sets up as a "get the girl" story but takes a twisted turn as Fleming constantly murders her before you. You're constantly chasing a princess that's always out of your reach and there's some legitimate disturbing scenes. While the payoff in the end isn't the kind of commentary I expected out of the plot it's still a wild ride all the way through. 10. Catherine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLEBzLf6RY8 When Catherine was announced nobody really knew what to make of it. Years after its release I still don't know what to make of it. At its heart is a puzzle game where you climb a tower of shifting blocks. But like Persona 3 and 4 it's framed around a social meta-game that's arguably its greatest strength. At its simplest, Catherine is about a curse that targets men forcing them to climb for their lives in a hellish nightmare every night. After every night you speak with your friends in a bar, interact with the various customers who all have their own issues, and get funny beer trivia by getting wasted. Catherine isn't a traditional horror game but it's still strongly horror themed. Death constantly looms behind you, sometimes literally as nightmares are ended with a boss representing a grotesque inhibition. But at the heart of the deadly curse is a fear of commitment. As reality twists around protagonist Vincent he becomes increasingly more paranoid and you, the player, begin questioning whether the events are truly real or not. My favorite feature is how so many of the social aspects ultimately tie into the plot itself. The story itself is framed in a Twilight Zone manner and there's an in-world arcade game, both of these elements tying into a greater meta-plot. If you haven't played Catherine, at least check the demo out. It's a unique game that shouldn't be missed. 11. Eldritch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBHpEuKxYcA I don't know where the procedural generated, roguelike-like explosion came from. Maybe Minecraft? I would argue that Minecraft's survival mode has a lot more in common with "survival horror" than most games carrying the moniker. Either way, Eldritch is one of those games whose appearance immediately comes off as cheap and copycat-ish but you'd be mistaken to write it off. Based on the Cthulhu Mythos, Eldritch is a first person stealth roguelike. Emphasis on the stealth. This is not an action game. Enemies respawn elsewhere when killed, some can't be killed at all, equipment is at a premium, and being spotted usually means you're going to get a tentacle or fireball to the face. The sound design is fantastic and you need to play this game with a good sound setup or headphones to get the most out of it. Enemies all make audio cues and it's not uncommon for something to sneak up and whisper behind you. It's relatively simple with only a few weapons and enemy types but its strength is in that simplicity. The first dungeon can be over in 10 minutes but after that the game gets haaaaard. The second dungeon starts throwing tricky enemies your way like a statue that instantly teleport to attack you when your back is turned and immortal mummies that follow you throughout the floor you're on. If you want a truly unique survival horror give Eldritch a try. 12. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZjk9zgKF4A Stubbs was a late Xbox release and carried a pedigree with it long before its released. Developed by one of the founders of Bungie and "Built with the HALO engine," Stubbs was hyped up and promptly forgotten. Which is a shame. Stubbs isn't a good game but it's certainly one of the more interesting in the Xbox's library. Reversing the normal roles, you play as the zombie who amasses an army of followers by eating their brains. Each level is basically an action puzzle where you consume as many brains as possible to send your army against increasingly well armed enemies. Stubbs can use his hand to sneak around and convert hard to reach enemies or launch his head like an explosive bowling ball. The game also features some great covers of classic songs like Mr. Sandman and Earth Angel. As far as I know the only way to play the game is by buying a physical copy. It might be backwards compatible with the Xbox360 but Microsoft removed it from their store for whatever reason. Apparently it was available on Steam at one point as well but I couldn't tell you how well the PC version runs.
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Oct 15, 2014 18:57
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Morpheus posted:All you folks playing horror games and such, I recommend Realms of the Haunting, an old story-heavy horror FPS for the PC. I won a copy of it at a simple university course I was taking during middle school, and it scared the poo poo out of my back then. Not so much anymore, but it's not terrible from what I remember (but it has been a long time). Get the Director's Cut if you can, it comes with extra cutscenes or something. Realms of the Haunting is my day 13 and you can get the Director's Cut off GOG which everyone should!
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Oct 15, 2014 19:25
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Morpheus posted:Literally minutes after I posted, it came out in an indiegala bundle, for $1: https://www.indiegala.com/ Nosferatu is in that pack and I recommend that too. It's a first person shooter where you have to rescue your family from a randomly generated castle within a strict time limit. Kind of reminds me of Eldritch in a way with enemies that have specific weaknesses. Not a great game but worth a buck.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:35
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woodenchicken posted:It seems that Gog is giving away AvP2000 for free if you sign up to test their multiplayer service thingy (by playing AvP2000) Alien is the only game I know of that trains you to look up. Normally you have to watch out for corners or shadows but this may be the first game where the enemy can and will attack you from the ceiling. Humans have no danger from the sky and I'm surprised more games haven't taken advantage of our natural blind spot.
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Oct 15, 2014 20:55
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InsidiousMuppet posted:Thanks for posting this, I've been wanting Nosferatu and a chance to try out Lucius, though I've heard pretty bad things about the latter. As poorly designed as Lucius is, it has some great kills and weird Lynchian moments throughout. It's basically a puzzle adventure game where you're trying to find out how to skill a specific target. You can't fail, you just have to click around until you figure out the specific triggers to watch people die in glorious fashion.
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Oct 17, 2014 19:40
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Weird Games days 1-4 Weird Games days 5-8 Weird Games days 9-12 13. Realms of the Haunting    I've already talked about Realms of the Haunting but I'll talk about it again: this is an unsung hero of the genre. A year before Half-Life revolutionized storytelling in first person shooters with its mix of scripted sequences and 2 years before System Shock 2 advanced the adventure/action hybrid its predecessor set, Realms of the Haunting was that blend. It uses cutscenes to advance the story but it also uses scripted events and items to great effect. To use an example, the very first scene is you standing in the entry hall to a creepy mansion. You walk into a room and immediately a typewriter begins spitting out a letter. Picking up the letter you read a scrawled message straight out of The Shining. As a shooter Realms is passable. But as a horror-adventure hybrid it's unsurpassed until System Shock 2 years later. It also has the acclaim of being one of the few games with live actors that isn't awful! Get it on GOG, it's great. Special mention goes to Clive Barker's Undying which follows a similar presence. It suffers from terrible loading issues (it was going to debut on Dreamcast and the design shows) but it's another decent horror shooter. 14. Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dwukeu8alE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIa7Kwt-uD0 Time for a bad double feature. Heck, if you know what you're doing you can beat each game in 90 minutes or so. H.P. Lovecraft brand of cosmic horror is much imitated but rarely well. In their heady early 90s days Infogrames released two games heavily based on his Mythos and both of them are laughing stocks. Shadow of the Comet is the better of the two games, although I say that lightly. Despite being released in 1993 it's entirely keyboard based like the 80s Sierra games which makes it hard to control. The graphics are actually very well done with large, detailed backgrounds and cinematic close ups. The same can't be said about the laughable voice acting. The plot otherwise unfolds like a generic detective story with sparse bits of Lovecraftian mystery thrown in. The sequel is laughably bad. The backgrounds are largely pre-rendered and the characters are CGI models converted to sprites. The result is an ugly game with stiff animations that look like someone tried to render an adventure title with Mortal Kombat characters. It's shorter and simpler than SoC but uglier and constantly interrupts the flow of the story with PowerPoint slides. I wouldn't be surprised if Hideo Kojima directed this game because whenever something interesting begins to happen the characters aside while still screenshots cycle across the screen. I'd give Shadow of the Comet a try if you're into old adventure games like Gabriel Knight. It's still a middling adventure but there's a sort of charm to it that I like. It's slow paced and meandering then ramps up to an alarming finish like most of Lovecraft's work although I take issue with the protagonist coming out fine in the end. As for PoI, watch the longplay to see how laughable it is. Special mention to MicroProse's Return of the Phantom. Again, a middling adventure game but with digitized actors and some stellar cinematic scenes for a 1993 game. It's everything Prisoner of Ice tried to be. 15. It Came from the Desert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWd_eyAmgQ Out of all the games I'm playing this year, this one is hard to truly call horror but its aesthetic is thick in B movie monster flicks like Them! It Came is an expansion on Cinemaware's Defender of the Crown formula, you have to convince a small town of an impending attack by giant ants. It's a free form, non-linear game with a time limit and failure state that can put people off. But it's well scripted, sticks closely to its strong aesthetic, and is a blast to play once you understand all the subsystems and mini-games. With King of Dragon Pass coming back in the public eye, I'd love to see a remake of this game. There's a lot of great ideas here and its setting practically stands unique out of all video games. 16. Braindead 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV4lQ_LgsGE This one is a straight up guilty pleasure. The CD era saw a revival of the Dragon's Lair style laserdisc games and Braindead 13 was one of the most heavily advertised of its time. And for good reason, it's beautifully animated and wouldn't look out of place as a Saturday morning cartoon. I remember renting this game and playing it after reruns of The Addams Family and Beetlejuice cartoon (the creator is actually credited as the character designer on Beetlejuice). I could beat this thing in my sleep but my bad reflexes today keep me from getting the iOS release. At least give it a watch if you like cartoons. The full game without dying is about 30 minutes and the video I linked I believe is from the superior 3DO version. al-azad fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 01:15
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Accordion Man posted:Yo, al-azad thanks for the info for Orion Conspiracy. Got it in the mail today and got up it running on DOS Box fine. Just don't be afraid to look at a FAQ. Like Alien, the beginning is a slow paced setup to the much more direct second half. Once you feel lost go grab a FAQ. It's how all old adventure games should be played. Zombie Samurai posted:I read a very detailed LP of this long ago (can't find it anymore) that made it look like so much fun. If I recall correctly, it's pretty punishing until you get the hang of your capabilities and priorities, yes? Still, I'm right there with you hoping that it makes a comeback in some way, mainly because I wanna play it myself. Cinemaware still exists for some reason and last time I checked they have pre-orders open for the unreleased Genesis version (you can find the ROM but don't play this). And yeah, it's one of those games that's utterly baffling until you figure out what the game wants you to do. You're expected to die a few times but it's about an hour long and you'll probably lose long before that.
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Oct 18, 2014 01:28
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Daylight is not good. It is essentially a higher budget Slender where you slowly move around large, randomly generated environments trying to find notes and macguffins to advance. You're chased by immortal ghost things and have to run away while sometimes solving rudimentary context based puzzles.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:53
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The mental illness as horror can be demeaning and reductive. It's almost always about creating a backdrop for horrible violent things to happen instead of the struggles of the person suffering. Depression Quest received the praise it did because it put you and your struggles front and center rather than personifying depression as some kind of demon world where monsters sit on your chest or something. It's a stereotype but even good intention stereotypes are still harmful. The media portrays mental illness as something that lurks within and can strike at any moment when real people suffering need support and healing. Can it be done well in video game? Yeah, just not as a backdrop to throw frothing crab crawling cannon fodder at you.
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Oct 19, 2014 14:40
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Lets! Get! Weird! posted:A game from the perspective of someone with schizophrenia would be more horrific than Outlast could ever hope to be. Yes, but not something where the demarcation is visible. Like horror games often have this theme of duality where reality and fantasy are quite obvious like maybe everything turns hazy or your "episodes" are signified by white light or something. I liked Scratches so much because the end game is so seamlessly blended into the gameplay that you question whether it's supernatural or the result of paranoia. In another example, my sister and I were watching Paranorman. I'd already seen it but she came in knowing nothing about it. Early in the movie when his parents are attacking him for being weird she said "Is this guy schizophrenic? This is why nobody in America can get healed." And I thought "Huh, I never thought about the story that way."
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Oct 19, 2014 15:03
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Weird Games days 1-4 Weird Games days 5-8 Weird Games days 9-12 Weird Games days 13-16 17. The Warbler's Nest The interactive fiction world has exploded the past decade but horror IF is pretty rare. The Warbler's Nest is a game about perception. It feeds you context clues sparsely to build up an image that suddenly becomes clear at the end when you have to make a tough choice. All the while it builds on your paranoia and patience (or lack thereof). It's short, maybe 20 minutes at most, and I recommend it even if you've never played an IF game. 18. The Blair Witch Experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cNFXJDU1Fw I'm going to talk about not one, but four games! Following the craze The Blair Witch saga created in 1999, a trilogy of video games were released. I find them noteworthy because they're loosely based on the series, allowing them to be their own unique thing rather than derivative works. First we have to start with Nocturne, a 1999 game by Terminal Reality that's unrelated to The Blair Witch. Set during the Prohibition era, you're a member of "Spookhouse" a government organization that hunts paranormal creatures. At its core is an Alone in the Dark style game focused more on action. The game made waves in 1999 for its (still impressive IMO) lighting engine that created deep, rich shadows that scaled well to weaker hardware. The result is one of the more visually striking games of the late 90s even if it's a particularly generic horror shooter. Bloodrayne also exists in the Nocturne universe and there's some recurring plot points in that game. Terminal Reality went on to make the first Blair Witch game titled Rustin Parr, based on a character mentioned in the film. Built on Nocturne's engine and even being set in the same universe. The game explores the background of the titular character and focuses on the duality of night and day. Much like Alan Wake almost a decade later, Rustin Parr focuses on some rudimentary exploration and interaction by day with action set pieces at night. It's a solid game, fixing some of the obnoxious issues with Nocturne while feeling more like a sequel than a licensed game. I could almost imagine a Hellboy game playing out like this, unfortunately we got the pile of poo poo Hellboy: Dogs of the Night. Volume 2, The Legend of Coffin Rock, was developed by Human Head Studios and it sucks. Just like volume 1 it takes a minor element from the film and spins off from it. This time you're a Union soldier who takes a mortal wound and wakes up in a small town. Gone is any attempt to build any kind of atmosphere and mood. I assume this game uses the same engine but the lighting effects are practically non-existent. The acting sucks, the graphics suck, the monster design sucks, everything about this game is garbage and I don't understand how it fell so low compared to the original. Volume 3, The Elly Kedward Tale, takes the series all the way back to the 1700s when the legends began. This one was developed by Ritual and goes back to the creepy atmosphere of volume 1. Being set in an era of flintlock pistols, this game is sparser on the action making it more of a traditional survival horror in the vein of Alone in the Dark. It's still uglier than Terminal Reality's work but it's actually stronger in being a atmospheric horror game. If you can get over the annoyances of mid-age 3D games I think Rustin Parr holds up. Volume 2 is hot garbage and Volume 3 isn't great but it's at least a strongly atmospheric game. And for a special mention, there's The X-Files: Resist or Serve, a bad Resident Evil clone that came out late on PS2. These games remind me of it because they have that same antiquated control style and clunky action, but I'll give these games a pass because they came out in 2000. If you want to play a decent (well, faithful) X-Files game then play The X-Files Game. Yes, that's the actual title. al-azad fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 16:41
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Neo Rasa posted:I like Resist or Serve a lot more myself just because it's a straight clone of Resident Evil 2 with Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny involved. Couldn't they only afford Mitch Pileggi for the FMV game? Plus the first puzzle of the FMV game is you're brought into your office and have to solve the puzzle of "what is my password for my computer that I just set up." They were filming for the movie, I believe. But I like it when licensed work focuses on original characters. It means they don't have to slavishly follow some kind of timeline and we usually get some kind of insight into the world or main cast we wouldn't normally see. Like Westwood made the right decision casting a different character in their Blade Runner game. I thought the story in that explored its themes better than the film. The X-Files Game suffers from all the instant failure trappings of its genre but it's pretty unique for an adventure game. Characters will actually get annoyed when you ask them to repeat dialog or do inane things, it adds to the cinematic feeling. Having characters comment on your actions as you do them subverts the normal internal dialog that accompanies like 99% of adventure games.
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Oct 20, 2014 00:10
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Monicro posted:I feel like saying that it should *never* be used is a shallow way of looking at it, but games (and media in general) tend to use rape as a no-effort cheap thrill and that is Bad And Wrongtm, and Outlast's approach is certainly no exception to that. This is what it's all about. Ultra violence is already a cheap device but one difference between sexual assault and decapitation is that there's a 0% chance your audience has experienced the latter. If you don't see an issue with taking real life experiences that people live through and turn them into cheap thrills then I don't know what to say to you. It's even worse when you consider the "target audience" is white heterosexual males who probably never have to fear being raped or assaulted while elsewhere in the world there are actually people who are being forcibly raped and having their genitalia mutilated (and by elsewhere in the world I mean right here in America, just look up the forced sterilization of female California prisoners). Bottom line, it's a cheap lazy plot device. I can name twenty good scary movies off the top of my head that don't use rape for scares and maybe one good movie that does and I don't think video games will top Deliverance any time soon. 7c Nickel posted:Hey al-azad, you should definitely add "Haunting - Starring Polterguy" for the Genesis/Megadrive to your list. I think it would fit in well with the other games you've done thus far. I'm actually playing that today. Technically I'm playing its big brother Ghost Master but Haunting gets a special mention.
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Oct 20, 2014 08:50
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A. Beaverhausen posted:I don't think you 'get' horror. See, when I think "abuse" I understand it as something mental. Rarely are you defenseless in a video game. And even when you are the end result of the villain catching you is death. They're not exerting their will over you, they just cut your head off and move on. Regarding that Outlast DLC I haven't played it but saw the scene in question. I thought it was an effective scene all the way up to the villain's laughable delivery about impregnation or whatever. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about! I am not denying sexual assault can't be used effectively but its been used so ineffectively for so long that any failure stands out like a sore thumb. It feels mocking. I don't know how that's "social justice" but whatever. Take Silent Hill 2. The game communicates to you what James did to his wife but weaves his sexual frustration into context clues in the way the nurses are scantily dressed and how off Maria looks (and of course pyramid head, uh, "strangling" mannequins). And then you have Angela and the abstract daddy which is really direct but her thick clothing and nervous reactions also hint at an abused past. All that without strapping her down on a table and having a monster gyrate above her or whatever cheap scares they could have shoved in the game.
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Oct 20, 2014 09:58
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poptart_fairy posted:He appears in a single chapter and can be hidden from. A lot of people in the main thread keep complaining about the difficulty and how they lost all their ammo, but I can only imagine they did this by staring at a wall and firing - non-stop - until they were dry. I've seen some cheap deaths involving it, like one guy running away to a door where a scripted monster pops out and he died. I'm not going to defend it as good design but it kind of comes with the territory, there are a few moments like this in Resident Evil 4. The PC version looks great, I don't know why people are saying the game looks bad outside of the dumb black bars you can turn off.
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Oct 20, 2014 10:46
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I've heard stories about Terminal Reality that amount to them having created loads of lore and notes for projects that never saw the light of day. They tried really hard to turn Bloodrayne into a big franchise but that kind of fell flat on its face. Oh well, RIP to a halfway decent company. Terminal Velocity/Fury3 was my poo poo.Normal Adult Human posted:I thought child molestation was horrifying before freddie kreuger made it mainstream. He was a child killer in the original, the remake made him a molester. But then Dream Warriors made his origin story that his mother was trapped in an insane asylum and raped a bunch of times giving birth to Freddy so... yeah, I hope people can see why I'm hyper critical of rape as a plot point! al-azad fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 13:53
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I said it before but Nocturne would have made a killer Hellboy/BPRD game.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:06
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Weird Games days 1-4 Weird Games days 5-8 Weird Games days 9-12 Weird Games days 13-16 Weird Games days 17-18 19. Ghost Master https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMUMStHyGvI Ghost Master is a strategy/puzzle game about scaring people and I love it. You control a variety of cookie-cutter monsters to scare the poo poo out of the cliche interlopers like sorority girls at a sleepover or film makers at a haunted cabin. Monsters can only be attached to physical objects that match their type so you have to lure humans to the areas that are haunted. Humans also have their own phobias, beliefs, and sanity so there's a balancing game here where you need to keep your victim from going insane while you're constantly freaking them out with scares. Eventually you encounter ghost hunters who can ward areas and exorcise your ghosts. Ghost Master scratches my trap itch from Deception but it's also a loving send off to the genre as a whole that Zombies Ate My Neighbors paid tribute to. The aesthetic is so wonderfully charming that the game still looks great today. To some extent Ghost Master can be seen as a spiritual successor to EA's Haunting Starring Polterguy. The concept is the same: scare the poo poo out of a family of human interlopers. Replaying it Haunting feels kind of arbitrary in places, especially the "death" mechanic where you have to run through hell to collect energy and get back to the real world, but it has some of my favorite 16-bit graphics. Next to General Chaos this was one of my favorite early EA games. 20. Papa Sangre/The Nightjar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeBFCQ-aBds Papa Sangre is a mobile game that has surprised me on two fronts: I'm surprised it doesn't exist on any other platform, and I'm surprised other developers haven't cribbed its concept. In Papa Sangre you are dead and apparently the afterlife is completely dark. With no visuals your only guide is sound (headphones are a requirement) and using binaural sound techniques it simulates a 3D space. Your UI consists of tapping for each footstep; tap too fast and you fall on your face. It's a simplistic game but very atmospheric and while it's not straight horror it's certainly thrilling when you're trying to navigate around patrolling monsters based on how closely they're growling behind your back. In 2011, Somethin' Else released The Nightjar which is the horror concept I really wanted Papa Sangre to be. You're trapped on a derelict ship in complete darkness. It's more of the same as Papa Sangre but the concept is far greater realized. The excellent sound design is straight out of the Alien films. There's an omnipresent computer similar to Mother that calmly announces passive-aggressive messages in the background. Your guide this time is the dulcet voice of Benedict Cumberbatch who acts as a driving force to a more complex story. The Nightjar is Papa Sangre's concept fully realized and I highly recommend it for anyone with an iOS device. Papa Sangre 2 was released last year. I haven't played it although this one features the voice work of Sean Bean. 21. Fear Effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxBiV0voczY Horror videogames tend to come in two flavors: Western and Japanese. Fear Effect focused specifically on Chinese horror and as a game felt completely new even if it was at its heart a Resident Evil clone. The early game is set up in a stylistic Blade Runner fashion with a futuristic Hong Kong before it dives squarely into the field of horror. The cel-shaded graphics have aged really well but I can't say the same for the gameplay which is somehow stiffer than Resident Evil. Very often you're asked to navigate hazards in the pre-rendered environments and there are multiple instances where you can die instantly. On the other hand I do enjoy some of the puzzles which feel more organic than anything in a Resident Evil game. Instead of finding hex cranks and chess keys you'll do something like burning paper to create objects (part of the Chinese mythology of hell) or sneaking behind chefs in a kitchen while avoiding their gaze as they turn to spit on the floor or crush roaches. If there's any game I would want an HD remake of it's Fear Effect. I also want to sing praise to the plot which is structured in a 4-act system and told quite well. Above all, Fear Effect isn't afraid to gently caress with its ensemble cast. Deke is straight up murdered and has his head shoved through a spike. You fight Deke in hell complete with his severed face. Glas has him arm cut off which limits his weapon choices. The ending of the game is choosing whether Hana or Glas shoot each other. There's a third ending if you play on hard which basically restores everything to normal but I find that to be a huuuge cop out and recommend against it. To be honest, I never played Fear Effect 2 even though I own it. I'll probably get on that soon but Eidos' strong "everyone loves lesbians!" marketing campaign turned me off even as a teenager. There was going to be a PS2 game called Fear Effect Inferno but it got canceled which pissed me off back then because it looked darker content wise and beautiful on the PS2. Looking back it was probably a good thing as the cutscenes on the demo reel (which you can watch on youtube) are pretty bad. al-azad fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 20:46
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Cardiovorax posted:Bad. Really, really bad. Hilarious to watch, but absolutely unplayable. This is the very first build and the game has updated 18 times since this video was posted. Literally the first couple bugs they brought up (being unable to chop wood, head missing, thumb clipping through lighter, enemies dropping through cave, clipping through plane) were fixed on the first or second patch. I don't own the game but it's not fair to call it unplayable when the dev has pushed out updates practically weekly. It's an early access game so yeah, you're not getting a complete project, but out of all the EA games this one at least shows the devs give a poo poo. e: I wouldn't be surprised if the devs watched that video before rolling out the first patch because their bugfix list is practically the entire thing. al-azad fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 15:20
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RightClickSaveAs posted:Yeah that video's been around a while. On the other hand this shows how early access can kinda make a game shoot itself in the foot, because a lot of people's impressions have now been set. I'm not going to defend the launch but they wouldn't have put the game on a special Steam sale unless they were proud of its current condition.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:49
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Weird Games days 1-4 Weird Games days 5-8 Weird Games days 9-12 Weird Games days 13-16 Weird Games days 17-18 Weird Games days 19-21 22. Cursed Mountain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16zLhqzVCw I mentioned that Fear Effect stands mostly alone in being a game about Chinese mythology. Now I'm going to talk about Cursed Mountain, probably the only video game I know at all about Tibetan mythology. It was a quiet release a Wii before it got another quiet release on PC (which you can buy on GamersGate). Cursed Mountain wears its inspiration on its sleeve. From the aesthetics to the controls you can see touches of Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark. The presentation is certainly its greatest strength. Even with the weaknesses of the Wii there's a lot of detail placed in designing a world that's visually unexplored in games. Creatures and environments are as good as the Wii gets and the sound design is phenomenal. It's not a scary game but it can be pretty thrilling. The integration of mechanics into the religion fueled story add to the immersion, making far more sense than a traditional survival horror which hand wave why you find shotgun shells in a child's bedroom. Unfortunately it's an old-school survival horror. Made for the Wii. I haven't played it on PC but the Wiimote isn't as responsive as I would like. Like 99% of survival horror games I've played I don't want to participate in combat. Cursed Mountain gives you the crutch of a health absorption ability, basically allowing you to heal without spending incense (the game's limited currency sort to speak), but it doesn't make up for the occasional uninteresting encounter. 23. Majyuuou https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD9A4HbmbuE Let's continue the Asian mythology with Majyuuou, literally translated to Demon Beast King. You're Abel and some rear end in a top hat named Bayer sacrificed your family to revive the King of Demons. In the first loving encounter of the game you nearly die and your wife's ghost infuses you with power so you can kick Bayer's rear end and travel through hell to get your daughter back. Majyuuou reminds me of a cross between Splatterhouse, Castlevania, and Altered Beast. You start out with only a pistol but as you defeat bosses you transform into demonic forms with different abilities. Your wife's spirit (I guess?) follows you in the form of an "option" from a traditional SHMUP. Frankly the gameplay is very basic and the game on the easy side. The highlight here is the gorgeous visuals. Like Rocket Knight Adventures, the game's design feels like an excuse to throw as many bosses at you as possible and with the large variety of creepy and interesting boss fights that's no hit against the game. It sucks that Nitnendo's hard policies were still in effect. Had Majyuuou come to America we'd be looking on it like Gargoyle's Quest/Demon's Crest as a cult classic. 24. KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz2eJ2c2hLA What's your favorite 2000 first person shooter? Maybe it's Soldier of Fortune, that was a good one. Perfect Dark? No One Lives Forever, Counter-Strike, TimeSplitters, Gunman Chronicles, Medal of Honor Underground... Daikatana? 2000 was a pretty good year for shooters, don't you think? Well gently caress that, my favorite shooter was KISS: Psycho Circus! Based on the Todd McFarlane comic you're a member of a KISS cover band given super powers to battle monsters or some poo poo, I don't know! Released a year before Serious Sam, this game was like a predecessor to the trash-mob slaying platform shooter that Serious Sam and Painkiller would later expand. There's almost a Gauntlet aspect to it as you have to hunt down enemy spawn points to keep them from flooding the map. It's more or less an above average shooter but the aesthetic saves it from total mediocrity. I can't think of a single shooter with as many gross and weird monsters as this game, most of them inspired by old circus acts. Each chapter has you play as a different character who have their own unique weapons like a laser whip and dragon head that vomits lava. I guess if there's one thing to take away from these last couple of games I've been playing is style over substance. I have a pretty high tolerance for "meh" games but a lot of these appeal to the part of me that just craves stylistically appealing games. I'll reiterate this when I'm done with the list but if given a choice between a generic "good" game and a unique "bad" game I'm probably going to choose the bad game. I'd rather have something I can enjoy visually dissecting and talking about than a game I'm pleased with for 4 hours before it gets shelved forever.
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Oct 25, 2014 21:39
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I beat Anodyne although admittedly I wasn't having fun at some points. The same asks you to perform some crazy platforming and puzzle tests near the end and god, as much as I love Link's Awakening I do not love the roc's feather or platforming in my Zelda games. I loved the bosses, though. One guy is like this horror movie slasher and I think he's in the same dungeon that's preceded by a Harvester-esque idyllic suburb with random bloody bodies found in the houses.
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Oct 27, 2014 16:44
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Weird Games days 1-4 Weird Games days 5-8 Weird Games days 9-12 Weird Games days 13-16 Weird Games days 17-18 Weird Games days 19-21 Weird Games days 21-24 25. Darkwatch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsQ2nVBFFo4 Coming off Psycho Circus I wanted another first person shooter to play and remembered one that flew under everyone's radar. Darkwatch is a first person shooter in a supernatural/wild west setting. It's the Jonah Hex game I always wanted to play and doesn't disappoint in delivering some good action. It's a solid shooter with good graphics and some of the monster design ranks pretty high up for me. There's a rudimentary morality system where good/evil choices grant unique powers much like the inFamous games. For some strange reason Darkwatch is console exclusive. The Xbox version has 16 player online multiplayer, which is absolutely insane to me in hindsight. The PS2 version only has 4 player but it exclusively has split-screen co-op and is the version I played. High Moon Studios knew what they were doing, this game looks good and plays well for a console shooter. If this had also come out on PC we'd probably remember it fondly today but I'd still drop $2 on a used copy. The "weird west" setting is untapped in video games and it's a shame because there's so much potential. The combination of native mysticism, old world religion, folklore, and the unexplored frontier could be used for great effect but Darkwatch is the only (good) game I can think of in this genre. 26. Kuon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d1NnvW8Mak Kuon is From Software tackling the survival horror formula. Visually it resembles Capcom's Onimusha series but plays much more deliberately. You're physically weak, as is often the case in these games, with your primary defense being a simple melee weapon. This puts focus on the magic talismans which are implemented quite like the Souls series. In addition to projectiles you can summon monsters to protect you. There are three chapters with three separate characters centered around a haunted mansion. The game is steeped in Japanese lore and I think the overall aesthetic is stronger than the first Fatal Frame although I readily admit it's a far better game. Kuon almost feels like a lost link in the games leading up to From Software's breakout Souls series. You can see vestiges of its gameplay carrying over and it's one of the stronger horror games I've highlighted this month. It's not a good game by any stretch of the definition but certainly an interesting one. 27. Darkwood/Sunless Sea (didn't take any screens of Darkwood, sorry)    I didn't want to devote two separate days to Early Access games but I find these two interesting enough to talk about them together. Darkwood, as far as I can tell, is a story driven "survival game." It strongly reminds me of Don't Starve* but with an active plot that I can't unravel. It's set in some Eastern European location where I assume the woods are sentient and rapidly killing off civilization. There's some monsters roaming the woods, a man with a wolf head, and other strange NPCs you'll encounter. I know I'm not selling it but trust me, the atmosphere here is top notch. The game is played entirely top down and stresses lighting and line of sight which reminds me heavily of Nox. It's not uncommon for creatures to sneak up behind you and I've genuinely been startled quite a few times from the snapping of twigs and a rushing monster from my flank. By day there's very few encounters but hidden traps, one of them being poisoned mushrooms which are nearly impossible to spot and my only major complaint at this stage in development. At night you have to return home to drink from an evil well (I guess) and hole up in your fortified home. Line of sight and lighting is also important for enemies: if the badguys can't sense you, they generally won't bother you. Stay away from the windows if you can because prolonged combat always works against you. There's some rudimentary level up system and the mechanics are sound. I've put about 5 hours into this game and I'm excited to see how it'll evolve over time. Sunless Sea is based on the Fallen London universe, a browser based game which is actually quite good. You're the captain of a ship in the Unterzee, a massive underground world beneath the surface where London has fallen. On the surface it's a trading and exploration game but the heart is its "living stories," essentially miniature text adventures with a variety of triggers. These mini-stories are the heart of Sunless Sea and the writing and world building is some of the best industry. I don't want to talk about it too much because every story is too good to spoil but game is heavily inspired by Poe and Gothic fiction writers. You have to manage your ship's terror and supplies or bad poo poo (including cannibalism) starts to happen. Death lurks around every corner, but one of the themes is that it's truly difficult to stay dead. There's a colony of the undead where people seal themselves in sarcophagi and ask to be delivered, old gods living beneath the sea that influence your adventure, and even hell exists where actual devils will mingle with mortals. I get a heavy feeling of Planescape's Sigil: this is a melting pot world but everything in the pot is fantastically written. Sunless Sea is one of the few Early Access games I'm comfortable in recommending to everyone. It had a successful Kickstarter, the game itself updates almost weekly (a major overhaul happened this month although it broke the terror system a bit), and the text-based story system allows the developer to pump out new stories which are downloaded automatically when you login.
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Oct 28, 2014 05:20
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Cardiovorax posted:I really want to dispute that claim. It's atmospheric, creepy and has solid if bare-bones gameplay. As survival horror goes it's definitely one of the better ones, especially for how basically completely unknown it is. It sets out to tell a creepy ghost story and succeeds admirably. I have to say up front that survival horror games usually aren't "good" games to me. At least not good playing games, however you want to define "game feel." I think Kuon is conceptually stronger than all the Silent Hills (except maybe SH2) but I wasn't looking forward to replaying it, even for the hour I could give it this year. I won't be playing Rule of Rose this year but that's the same deal: superb concept, meh game. e: It is a totally under appreciated game. If you want to see the evolution of From Software's design I think it's a link leading up to Dark Souls that's as important as King's Field and Shadow Tower.
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Oct 28, 2014 05:38
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