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 Shadowrun? That SNES game with the PC remakes? Any good? No, no, no. This is Shadowgrounds, a PC top-down shooter developed by Frozenbyte, released in 2005. We play Wesley It plays like every other top-down shooter, with 10 weapons, 3 upgrades per weapon including an alt-fire for every weapon, roughly 10 kinds of enemies and a few bosses. The game got middling reviews, but it has fast, fun and challenging gameplay, its voice acting is decent though cheesy, and while the story isn’t good, it is enjoyable. The music is way better than you’d expect, composed by Ari Pulkkinen and featuring some guitar riffs by the Finnish guitarist Amen. Anything else? All weapon and upgrade descriptions as we get them. We’ll also find a bunch of computer notes, mostly complaining about broken poo poo and signs of alien trouble. Finally, if I find something that can do with some creative input, that might also be in the books. Technical stuff This will be available in glorious 1080p! Well, faux-1080p really, my monitor is 1680x1050 and I’m resizing to 1728x1080 to trigger youtube 1080p. The alternative is recording in 1600x900, upscaling 20% instead of just 3%, but I think it's preferable to have better quality with left/right bars than more blurry without bars. Shoot me some feedback on whether this looks ok on a proper 1080p monitor, it will influence how I do future videos. Where can I get this? GOG and Steam. In fact, until March 14th Steam has a sale of everything Frozenbyte, including Shadowgrounds for €0.74 or whatever your local equivalent is. But if you have bought Trine at some point you might already own this game because it came bundled together on Steam as well as in a Humble Indie Bundle. It’s one of those ‘why the hell do I own this’-games that you easily forget about. Fleve, what the gently caress, weren’t you going for Dungeon Siege 3/Severance/Gothic/That Game From the Year 19XX? Yes, yes, yes, and I’m still going to do (some of) that, I just wanted a short break from an edit-heavy project and Shadowgrounds is perfect for a quick, fun, run. No depth, daft acting, fast kills. Introduction, From the Manual posted:Mankind’s longest dream – to reach out to the stars – started to become reality in the 2050s, when technology research reached a point where a planet could be terraformed into a suitable home for man. Nine unmanned spaceships were launched with the purpose of starting a chainreaction of life on Ganymede, the third moon of the Jupiter system. Episodes           Tech babble - Logs, Part 1              Tech babble - Weapons and Upgrades, Part 1     
Fleve fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 21:11
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I love this game to the point where I was thinking of LPing it myself. It's pretty much the textbook definition of underappreciated. The combat is simple but visceral and the weapon customization allows for some truly amazing things. Frozenbyte needs to forget Trine and revive this franchise.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:22
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anilEhilated posted:I love this game to the point where I was thinking of LPing it myself. It's pretty much the textbook definition of underappreciated. I discovered it after a friend gifted me a Frozenbyte bundle so we could co-op Trine. We had some fun hours with Trine but somehow never ended up completing it. Months later I saw Shadowgrounds in my steam list and didn't know how it got there or what it was and installed it on a whim. I went in expecting nothing and instead got roughly 7 hours of great and sometimes surprisingly difficult combat. I really wish that Frozenbyte had released Shadowgrounds with multiplayer like they did Trine. Local co-op doesn't cut it, especially because that doesn't refer to LAN, but you and me on the same keyboard. I haven't done that since... oh poo poo. Now I'm aching for some really silly ancient dirt racing game with guns and explosives that I can't remember the name of...
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Mar 9, 2015 21:47
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I had a stint where I played a ton of these types of games several years ago and had a blast with them, including Shadowgrounds. I tried to play Shadowgrounds: Survivor but I didn't care for it for some reason that I don't remember. My favorite was a game with the most generic title ever, "Alien Shooter: Vengeance." Guess I'm going to have to dig those CDs out and play it all over again and find out it isn't as great as I remember. 
Unperson_47 fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Mar 10, 2015 |
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Mar 10, 2015 03:25
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I played the demo for this back when it first came out, but then forgot about it. Mostly because my pc was destroyed in an apt. fire. So, I just bought it on Steam. Thanks for that.
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Mar 10, 2015 04:49
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Unperson_47 posted:I had a stint where I played a ton of these types of games several years ago and had a blast with them, including Shadowgrounds. I tried to play Shadowgrounds: Survivor but I didn't care for it for some reason that I don't remember.
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Mar 10, 2015 10:02
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I love this game and was really happy when I got it cheap during the Christmas steam sale like 5 or so years ago.anilEhilated posted:I love this game to the point where I was thinking of LPing it myself. I wish I was more smarter when it came to recording software and stuff because I would've love to LP this as well.
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Mar 10, 2015 12:33
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Oh, and here's the explanation for the shotgun comment.
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Mar 10, 2015 12:50
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I also wanted to one day LP this but couldn't due to lack of equipment/knowledge. It's an amazing game and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
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Mar 10, 2015 13:32
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Spudd posted:I wish I was more smarter when it came to recording software and stuff because I would've love to LP this as well. OwlFancier posted:I also wanted to one day LP this but couldn't due to lack of equipment/knowledge. The whole technical stuff for making LP’s isn’t that challenging. FRAPS, avisynth and Megui make for a very powerful combo and the SA LP wiki explains the basics well. But it’s silly how time-demanding it is. Something seems to always want to gently caress up for me and…well then I get these weird ideas that take half a day to produce half a minute… anilEhilated posted:Oh, and here's the explanation for the shotgun comment. My lack of knowledge on 80's music comes back to haunt me again. I always listened to what my brothers played back then and never cared to ask for names/titles. I’m a bit sad that developers no longer seem to care about their old games. I tried to find some concept art but had very little luck there. On the official Shadowgrounds website, there are some nice snippets of information (under Story & Characters), but unless it’s Chrome showing things weird, I think they hosed up their own site by placing a huge persistent Humble Widget in the upper left corner that tries to sell you the game for $9.99. While their site says that the official soundtrack is no longer sold, and they only offer 30 second snippets as downloads, Ari Pulkkinen graciously provides the world with all his music on soundcloud. Of those, I particularly like the boss music from last episode. The other track that played prominently was Run Like Hell.
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Mar 10, 2015 14:49
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This game is pretty fun but yeah the story is really forgettable. For some reason it also reminded me of the Doom 3 story. There was a point I ate up games like this and the Zombie/Alien Shooter games, they kinda sorta remind me of Smash TV since they're basically arena rooms that poo poo critters at you to kill.
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Mar 10, 2015 15:11
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Now that we’ve escaped immediate danger, we quickly find out that Jane can’t drive, that Lieutenant Dan Baxter is black and will thus most likely die, and that nobody apart from Wesley Tyler actually gets anything done, like a proper protagonist. This episode is a bit shorter. The game doesn’t have much story, but each map works better shown whole and I didn't want to spread the next area out over different episodes. I'm not quite sure how to order the logs/weapons/upgrades. I could put them all in the OP, but that'd be a bit of a spoiler for anyone who comes here later. I think I'll keep them separated for now, with each new update/post showing the info that we get during that part. Tech babble – Logs    [timg]http://i.imgur.com/buXnk1z.jpg][/timg]Tech babble – Weapons and Upgrades    Music It’s a bit difficult to properly find the right tracks, but I think during this episode we get, for the action, I Need a Minigun, followed by FMJ. Fleve fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 20:13
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This game is great and oddly enough, your use of guns really mattered. I did get annoyed with how some guns seemed weak until that one enemy showed up and went to town on it. Survivor is such trash though.
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Mar 11, 2015 21:01
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Whatever problems this game might have, it's so much goddamn fun that who would care? The fighting is absolutely great, the level design is good, the weapons are fun. What more could someone want?
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Mar 11, 2015 21:05
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Diggin this. I wanted to buy a Shadowgrounds game several times now, but never did end up doing it. May pick this up anyway now, and it's good to know that Survivor is apparently trash. I'm also a huge fan of the Alien/Zombie shooter series. They may be crude and blunt games, but cutting through screens of enemies with your arsenal is still fun! If the first few games in that series wouldn't be so crude, I would have made a mega thread and Lp'd them all on hard 
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Mar 11, 2015 21:20
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Scalding Coffee posted:This game is great and oddly enough, your use of guns really mattered. I did get annoyed with how some guns seemed weak until that one enemy showed up and went to town on it. Survivor is such trash though. I've been replaying areas a lot because of re-recording and you can get strangely good at the game once you know your weapons and enemies. Not saying that I'm good, but a lot better than when I first played it. There's a boss in the next area that can be somewhat difficult when all you do is shoot at it, but it just melts away with the right combination of weaponry. Once we get to meet enemies with shields, weapon type is going to be even more important. I keep reading how Survivor is the pits, so I never even installed that. From what I'm gathering it's not even fun bad but just the plain bad bad kind. Night10194 posted:Whatever problems this game might have, it's so much goddamn fun that who would care? The fighting is absolutely great, the level design is good, the weapons are fun. What more could someone want? Definitely. Sometimes games seem to forget that just being fun is way more important than being cinematic or whatever. I also love the pacing, levels take about 15-40 minutes, and usually every area brings new enemies, new weapons, more music. I can't wait to show off New Atlantis. Tin Tim posted:Diggin this. I wanted to buy a Shadowgrounds game several times now, but never did end up doing it. May pick this up anyway now, and it's good to know that Survivor is apparently trash. If you sell a bunch of trading cards you can get the game for virtually 'free' at this point. It's totally worth it.
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Mar 11, 2015 21:46
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The music is so totally rockin' in this game. I'm very glad you're posting music links.
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Mar 11, 2015 21:48
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It may just be that I really enjoy the general gameplay style of this game, but I actually enjoyed Survivor despite its problems. It was just fun to shoot some more poo poo.
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Mar 11, 2015 21:55
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Fleve posted:I've been replaying areas a lot because of re-recording and you can get strangely good at the game once you know your weapons and enemies. Not saying that I'm good, but a lot better than when I first played it. There's a boss in the next area that can be somewhat difficult when all you do is shoot at it, but it just melts away with the right combination of weaponry. Once we get to meet enemies with shields, weapon type is going to be even more important.
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Mar 11, 2015 22:00
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Leavemywife posted:The music is so totally rockin' in this game. Ari Pulkkinen composes some pretty drat good music, but I love that he also relied on Amen's skills for the guitar riffs. Sometimes, though, the guitar track sounds like it's a bit too....busy? Like it's out-efforting the rest of the music. Scalding Coffee posted:I think they gave away Survivor last year or two. The only good thing about it was the big gimmick you wish was in this game. You are left with even more low budget cinematics and a terrible combination of broken character mechanics and storytelling. Ah, that's a pitty. I'll definitely give it a try, though. I'm curious how they managed to gently caress up from such a solid basis. If I enjoy it I might LP it, but no guarantees. Edit: ↓ poo poo, yeah I can see how that can tank the game. Fleve fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 22:17
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The issue with Survivor is that it's just so goddamn low effort. It adds nothing to the story, there's no new weapons and I think a grand total of one monster. It's fine if you just want a couple more levels and don't mind having access to three weapons at a time.
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Mar 11, 2015 22:17
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While the rest of the gang goes with Lt. Baxter, Jane and Wesley head to the Comm centre to issue a distress call. Of course, nothing works, Jane gives bad directions, and I make a bad pun in the title of this episode. Since the last episode was a bit short, I thought I’d throw in the next one already. Tech babble – Logs           Tech babble – Weapons   Music babble; babble babble, I like that word The music this time starts off with the peaceful Request Adagio Part I, followed by some new music to go with new enemies around the 13 minute mark, Protectors. And because we only heard like 10 seconds of the boss music before the boss blew up, here’s the track Mech The Destroyer. I particularly like the second of these three. Fleve fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 12, 2015 18:39
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I've never found that minigun there. I guess I never explored in that direction. But yes, having that robot die like a chump instead of being the pain like it normally would be is quite the advantage. Will you also show datafiles of the upgrades you *won't* pick for the guns?
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Mar 13, 2015 12:43
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Nuramor posted:I've never found that minigun there. I guess I never explored in that direction. But yes, having that robot die like a chump instead of being the pain like it normally would be is quite the advantage. Will you also show datafiles of the upgrades you *won't* pick for the guns? Oh yeah, definitely. I forgot that we likely won't be seeing all of them because some upgrades are just way better than others. I'll try to get and show all the alt-fire modes once we got some spare parts, the early ones are pretty cheap anyway. Of the normal upgrades, there's a whole series of magazine extensions that I'll post-pone as long as possible, they're not crucial. Of the weapons we already have, that would be the following upgrades:     The shotgun upgrade I'd actually avoid at all costs. Shotgun ammo gets pretty rare later on and if your burst-firing mode shoots 12 instead of 7 bullets you're probably only wasting more ammo. The normal 7-shot burst already is an overkill for a lot of situations.
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Mar 13, 2015 15:53
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Space Pot at 20:30 
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Mar 13, 2015 17:11
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 I'm on a roll.Being responsible for the final evacuation of New Atlantis, we go and enjoy some disco music, break a lot of glass, and set everything on fire. If nothing else, go and check out the music below this time. It surprised the hell out of me the first time I heard it. Tech babble – Logs          Tech babble – Weapons     Music babble We start off peaceful again, with Valley of Shadows, but quickly proceed to the Super Cool Disco. This time that’s a youtube link because the version on soundcloud doesn’t sound like the one in the game, but there’s also a remix on soundcloud that is arguably better. We finish with a repeat from last episode, Protectors, which I still think is a good track. Fleve fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 18:55
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Come on, not even a disco inferno joke? I'm kind of disappointed you didn't go for the alternate fires on the first two guns - pistol's is very effective at splitting crowds so the aliens come at you in manageable numbers and the assault rifle's is utterly amazing against the big guys, especially once the shields come into play. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Mar 13, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 19:49
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anilEhilated posted:Come on, not even a disco inferno joke? poo poo, that would've been the perfect combo of elements, for once I even knew that song! If the flamethrower wouldn't slow you down while using it, it'd be pretty much the best weapon too. I tried the other two alts the first time around but back then I found them a bit lacking, the rifle had a huge cooldown. The shield guys are real bastards though, if the assault rifle alt helps I'll definitely give that a shot. The big guys return to their patrol route when they lose sight of you and you can shoot them in the back then, but drat, that's way too boring and I won't allow myself to do that.
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Mar 13, 2015 20:34
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The wackiest thing about this game is that the janitor is the biggest bad-rear end, while the people with actual military training mostly flail about. Yeah I know Wes also had combat training, but with a bunch of marines you'd figure one of them would be like "Get out civie, it is I who kicks alien butt!" Also the disco part was great, even if it was much too short and could have been so much more powerful. And I too was sad that the music didn't continue blasting in the rooms around it.
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Mar 13, 2015 20:41
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Tin Tim posted:The wackiest thing about this game is that the janitor is the biggest bad-rear end, while the people with actual military training mostly flail about. Yeah I know Wes also had combat training, but with a bunch of marines you'd figure one of them would be like "Get out civie, it is I who kicks alien butt!" At the same time, it's really nice to have everyone acknowledge that yeah, you're the go to guy.
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Mar 13, 2015 21:06
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The thing about the assault rifle secondary is that they can't turn while they're affected by it - and it's not that hard to sneak up into the range. Tyler being a badass becomes even better when you take Survivor into account - two of the three characters are in the military and they all achieve gently caress all compared to him. Not to mention being able to lug around considerably less guns.
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Mar 13, 2015 21:10
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It's pretty cool how the enemies come in different sizes and colors, at least the most common type. Does it actually influence their speed or hitpoints though? Back in the day I liked this game and didn't really get why the game was so disliked by reviewers, but seeing it in this time and age it's pretty monotone. Shadowgrounds was the first major title by Frozenbyte and they were probably going for a "simple" game with a solid core gameplay. Unfortunately gunning down the same enemies over and over again without much changing is pretty dull. The music is one of the reasons I picked up this game. The composer, Artz, had worked on a bunch of older games and demosene earlier. He composed for this spacegame no-one has ever heard of called Starfight and a racing/puzzle/physics game I've Got Some Balls. Shadowgrounds remains his best work though, I think. Gotta love how everyone seems to type on keyboards with a gun in their hand. EDIT: It's a nice touch how the disco's "umph umph umph" sound is heard outside it. SirDifferential fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Mar 14, 2015 |
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Mar 14, 2015 10:11
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I'm surprised, I thought that landing zone screamed "boss arena." Come to think of it, I'm surprised there hasn't been a boss battle since the sewer monster.
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Mar 14, 2015 11:06
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SirDifferential posted:It's pretty cool how the enemies come in different sizes and colors, at least the most common type. Does it actually influence their speed or hitpoints though? Yeah, I try to go through the areas as fast and as thoroughly as possible, but sometimes there's just not much happening apart from travelling while killing 2-3 types. The level design does a lot to keep things fresh, like with the disco. You got the right games, but the wrong name. The music in 'Starfight VI' was Ari Pulkkinen's first game music album, but after that he's done quite a lot of work. Mostly for Frozenbyte, with Shadowgrounds and the Trine series, and a whole bunch of games I don't know, but he also did the music for 'Angry Birds'. Edit: Oh and the different colours actually do change things. I'm not sure whether they deal more damage, but the bigger, red melee enemies do have more health. Cythereal posted:I'm surprised, I thought that landing zone screamed "boss arena." Come to think of it, I'm surprised there hasn't been a boss battle since the sewer monster. Weeeellll....there was the robot in episode 2 at the end. That was, sortof, a (mini)boss. Usually his two mini-guns and lots of health make that a longer fight, but the combo of mini-gun + auto-shotgun is just too powerful. There should've been more real boss battles I feel. The little arenas against streams of enemies (radar dish, landing zone) are fun, but real bosses would be more fun. We'll get a new enemy type next episode, at least. Fleve fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Mar 14, 2015 |
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Mar 14, 2015 11:24
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Tin Tim posted:The wackiest thing about this game is that the janitor is the biggest bad-rear end, while the people with actual military training mostly flail about. Yeah I know Wes also had combat training, but with a bunch of marines you'd figure one of them would be like "Get out civie, it is I who kicks alien butt!" anilEhilated posted:Tyler being a badass becomes even better when you take Survivor into account - two of the three characters are in the military and they all achieve gently caress all compared to him. Not to mention being able to lug around considerably less guns. This gave me an idea so I’ve thrown in a bonus minute at the start, with a button you can press to skip if you’re a heartless bastard. So…euh…  In this part Wesley shoots some aliens, burns some aliens, then gasses more aliens, and lasers a few more. I think there were also a few explosions. That's all part of Janitor Class 101: Lethal Solutions to Common Problems. Tech babble – Logs       Tech babble – Weapons      This includes two upgrades we’ll be skipping for a while, namely the autoloader and the assault extension. I totally forgot about the rocket launcher this episode. Music babble Once again, a new enemy comes with a new track, Prey on This. Later on in the Greenhouses we are joined by Request Part II. I think we’ve already heard the other tracks but I’m not sure. Fleve fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 14, 2015 20:47
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Fleve, thank you for showing this game off, and your voice over commentary is making me  what with your lovely accent. Not quite as rambunctious as Your Evil Twin's, but terrific all the same.A fully breathable pressurized atmosphere, gravity fairly equivalent to Earth, a working (surface) hydrosphere, and it's mostly arid, instead of snow and ice, on a moon of Jupiter? That's some technowizardry right there. Although I do have to give the developer's credit that they picked the only moon in the solar system to have a magnetosphere.
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Mar 15, 2015 06:44
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Ulvirich posted:Fleve, thank you for showing this game off, and your voice over commentary is making me Thanks. Sounding genuinely enthusiastic is pretty difficult I’ve noticed, requires a bit of acting too. It’s one of the things I’d love to improve on. And euhm...we're gonna get a few shots of 'Ganymede' from space later on, and it isn't just 'mostly arid', there's oceans on the drat thing, at first I thought, oh hey, this is earth, how did that happen  After the last episode I noticed that I’ve been skipping the loading screens because of technical reasons (sometimes they make the recording crash). Not only do they provide a bit more story, they’re also nice pieces of art, so I’ve retroactively added them to the previous updates, and for convenience all current screens are below as well.
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Mar 15, 2015 12:40
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So yeah, as we have seen during the assault at the and, the flamethrower can and will damage the deployed minigun. I guess this is why it always fell so soonwhenever you used this combination earlier. This whole "dead bodies block projectiles", which apparently includes the flamethrower, makes defending against entire waves of enemies a rather tricky in general. Also, boo for not showing off the rocket launcher indoors.
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Mar 15, 2015 13:12
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Nuramor posted:So yeah, as we have seen during the assault at the and, the flamethrower can and will damage the deployed minigun. I guess this is why it always fell so soonwhenever you used this combination earlier. This whole "dead bodies block projectiles", which apparently includes the flamethrower, makes defending against entire waves of enemies a rather tricky in general. Not only that, I also forgot that the minigun won't even shoot at things that are invisible. I thought once I'd light them up, both with actual light as well as with gunfire, the minigun would decide to join the party, but no fun there. For groups we're probably best off using the grenade launcher, especially with cluster grenades. The alt-fire laser is also drat great against groups, for about 5 seconds and then it runs out of ammo. The rocket launcher can be tricky, not so much because of the explosion, but because we'll have to upgrade it before being able to shoot and move with it. I'll want to have it fully upgraded before the end though, first time I met the final boss and didn't have all rocket upgrades was a terrible pain. I'll shoot some rockets next time, I think I'm at the max stockpile anyway 
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Mar 15, 2015 13:28
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Really liking this. It's kind of amusing watching you get surprised by something you could see on the radar. Regarding flamethrowers in video games, I've had two in particular I can think of that I've really liked: the first was the one in Resistance; not because of its regular fire, but the secondary let you make a cloud of gas, and ignite it in a fairly amusing explosion. The other is the one in Haze, at least in the single player game. It worked how flamethrowers are supposed to work: quick burst, guys catch fire, said burning guys drop what they're doing, and just  until they die. It made me smile. Also, the enemy has evidently enlisted the help of Zerg Hydralisks, and given them cloaking technology. Hmm... 
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Mar 15, 2015 17:45
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