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SR: Hong Kong is excellent. SR: Dragonfall is a loving masterpiece and has the most memorable, beautifully written, occasionally haunting companion characters of any game I've ever played. Except Blitz, who is simply a fuckboy
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Feb 15, 2021 13:24
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Dragonfall Dietrich is a great companion. He reminds me of an acquaintance of mine, a punk turned social worker who is really good at helping autistic children connect and bashing nazis. Dietrich also has the best line in the entire game. Regarding his time as a front man for MESSERKAMPF: "You can sing?" – "I was in a punk band. gently caress no I can't sing"
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Feb 15, 2021 14:15
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God yeah. My husband was napping on the couch when I first played through that bit, and that line made me laugh so loudly that I woke him up.
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Feb 15, 2021 15:44
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Angry Diplomat posted:SR: Hong Kong is excellent. SR: Dragonfall is a loving masterpiece and has the most memorable, beautifully written, occasionally haunting companion characters of any game I've ever played. Glory's story is so loving cool given the setting. It might be a bit too...I don't know, unique and special protagonist-y (mostly just the power of the entity involved), but the whole idea of deliberately doing what she does just makes sense with the rules, in a way that feels organic and believable. It's just nice to see that other people are also bound by, and use, some of the setting conceits well.
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Feb 15, 2021 17:20
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Disco Elysium and Divinity2 are the pinnacles of their respective branches of the crpg genre and its incredible time for crpgs because a lot of the other ones mentioned are good too. I liked Shadowrun Hong Kong a lot more than Dragonfall but they are both still good (mechanically they still have a number of problems and could be way better, but they are still fun to play and the world is great)
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Feb 15, 2021 17:29
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My pc is old and was never great, so I looked up Tyranny's system reqs on Can I Run it? and... no, too feeble  Bit disappointed, but still, lots else to play on the various consoles. Anyway I mentioned it in passing at home, and was told, 'Tyranny? Oh yeah, I installed it a while ago, it runs perfectly reasonably' !!! Antigravitas posted:Oh dear, so you missed the cRPG revival completely? Pillars of Eternity is the new Baldur's Gate, its sequel is the Baldur's Gate 2 analogue. Then there's Shadowrun: Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong., which are shorter and more focused but really well made. They are entirely my jam, I'm ludicrously excited by all this, it's like the Christmas when I first got Neverwinter Nights - it and its expansions kept me occupied for the best part of a year. I think I still have my character saved from NWN - I used to email it+my saved games back and forth between home/work so I could get a bit of sneaky playtime in the office.
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Feb 15, 2021 17:40
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I'm about to finish Arx and that's a really good game too. It's just new enough that I can tolerate it. Sadly Ultima Underworld is probably too old for me to ever power through, so I'm really glad I got to experience the single interconnected fantasy dungeon style of immersive sim.
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Feb 16, 2021 01:43
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feelix posted:Sadly Ultima Underworld is probably too old for me to ever power through I loved that game as a kid but yeah I tried replaying it a while back and the UI is just a nightmare now, I couldn't do it
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Feb 16, 2021 02:47
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So I just finished Prey - ended up with a near 60 hour playthrough and, I went from not wanting it to end, to hurrying along to get it over with. No question, it's an almost entirely brilliant piece of work, but the last section was just plain tedious. I'm glad I read no spoilers, because if I'd know the gameplay would get so shite at the end, I wouldn't have enjoyed the rest so much. I just spent the last 2 hours having about 2 minutes of gameplay followed by 45 seconds of loading screen, over and over and over again. I'm spoilering the above in case anyone, who, like me knew nothing about this game stumbles across this thread. Do not read the above if you know nothing about Prey and want to play it!!!
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Feb 16, 2021 21:04
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Yep that's the Prey experience. A very good game that leaves most people with that impression.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:12
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Yeah, I wouldn't want to play it on a console/HDD. There's quite a bit of backtracking.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:34
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A lot of highly regarded immersive sims have that problem. The end of these games is never as polished as the beginning.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:43
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I'm still amazed that I don't hate the ending tbh. With other games I would've rage uninstalled and written hate mail to the developers.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:44
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It's pretty much inevitable in any immersive sim with a lot of character progression
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Feb 16, 2021 23:28
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Having now played and beaten SS2 this game is nothing like System shock 2, I don't see the comparison at all except the aliens on a space craft
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Feb 17, 2021 04:24
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First person survival horror immersive sim set on an open ended space station from Arkane, developer whose first game was a spiritual successor to Ultima Underworld, the game engine the first System Shock was based upon. Audio logs. Hacking minigames. Psychic powers. There are differences but the games are very obviously cut from the same cloth.
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Feb 17, 2021 04:37
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Did people consider this a horror game, there were legit spooky moments in SS2, not so much in prey.
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Feb 17, 2021 04:41
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That comes off as more "lol you got scared  " than a critical observation. The game is clearly going for horror and there were times I jumped, like the elevator surprise. The strings in the soundtrack are also not particularly subtle.e: though I like me some DnB too SCheeseman fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 04:46
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Sorry man I never got the impression Prey was going for a horror angle. Just the difference in barks, the typhon have nothing on the creepy rear end shuffling of the infected, and the weird worms and meat walls gave off a stronger horror vibe to me than the glowing typhon network thing.
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Feb 17, 2021 04:58
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I think it's one thing to say that you didn't find it scary, that's fair criticism and to some extent you're right. But you're claiming that you don't believe there was intent for it to be horror and that's just silly.
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Feb 17, 2021 05:04
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Yeah I found it scary as poo poo, the first few encounters with the humanoid typhon before I got acclimatized to their strength (or lack of) / perception had me on the edge of my seat, and even as I got more used to them, whenever there were quiet moments it would often get my heart racing a bit when you would suddenly hear their voices. The first nightmare encounter had me freaking the gently caress out too, maybe partially by circumstance (I accidentally avoided it in the arboretum when I think you’re supposed to get a glimpse more safely, so my first exposure was it charging straight at my face as soon as I left the crew quarters elevator) but they still unnerved me a bit right to the end of the game. By the latter part of the game when you get superpowers and almost nothing can threaten you it became less scary, but most of it definitely had me. I am definitely a wuss by nature, but still.
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Feb 17, 2021 05:26
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Gaius Marius posted:this game is nothing like System shock 2 what the
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Feb 17, 2021 05:30
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Prey is absolutely a horror game in the same way that SS2 is lol
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Feb 17, 2021 06:56
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Gaius Marius posted:Having now played and beaten SS2 this game is nothing like System shock 2, I don't see the comparison at all except the aliens on a space craft Maybe they're different in that there weren't TVs flicking on all the time with a mean robot lady, but otherwise they're about as similar as games released 18 years apart can get. Or: just asking: did you play Prey (2006)?
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Feb 17, 2021 07:01
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In all seriousness, if you make horror with the intent to scare, you're going to fail 9 times of 10. Easier to disturb, just only just.
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Feb 17, 2021 07:03
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Sivart13 posted:If that's your experience so be it, but I think the two games where you systematically scrounge a space station for audio logs and garbage so you can upgrade your wrench to hit aliens are pretty similar. I did not, there seems to be no way to acquire it easily. Koramei posted:Yeah I found it scary as poo poo, the first few encounters with the humanoid typhon before I got acclimatized to their strength (or lack of) / perception had me on the edge of my seat, and even as I got more used to them, whenever there were quiet moments it would often get my heart racing a bit when you would suddenly hear their voices. The first nightmare encounter had me freaking the gently caress out too, maybe partially by circumstance (I accidentally avoided it in the arboretum when I think you’re supposed to get a glimpse more safely, so my first exposure was it charging straight at my face as soon as I left the crew quarters elevator) but they still unnerved me a bit right to the end of the game. yeah I think part of it is I immediately started to think of the Typhon as a combat puzzle to be solved, add to that the serious lack of enemy variety and how lame weird shadow men compared to poo poo like the Cyborg midwifes are I just didn't experience anything close to a shock during gameplay feelix posted:Prey is absolutely a horror game in the same way that SS2 is lol Basic Chunnel posted:In all seriousness, if you make horror with the intent to scare, you're going to fail 9 times of 10. Easier to disturb, just only just.
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Feb 17, 2021 07:07
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i think you just have a weird definition of horror game that has 'i personally was scared' up at the top of the list like the only times resident evil 4 ever put me off were around the various instakills but i absolutely wouldn't argue that the game isn't supposed to be horror
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Feb 17, 2021 07:25
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I agree the aesthetic of the typhon isn’t particularly scary, but their audio is IMO. The background ambience doesn’t have the same eeriness to it some older games do though I suppose. Gosh though, I do find mutated fleshy humans from 90s games just fundamentally horrifying. I dunno if anyone played Tomb Raider 3 here, but for weird horror, even those mutants that appear out of nowhere in the final section look so rudimentary now but still creep me out. Modern games can scare in other ways for sure but creature design often feels really overdone. I guess this is a deeply personal thing but the only monsters in recent games that creep me out for their aesthetic rather than the game’s other choices are SOMA’s.
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Feb 17, 2021 07:31
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flatluigi posted:i think you just have a weird definition of horror game that has 'i personally was scared' up at the top of the list Jesus leon jokes about Salazarr's right hand coming off, the entire game was tongue firmly in cheek. Not that it's a bad thing, but it was following the path that RE3 started turning the games into action games. A transformation complete in RE6. Koramei posted:I agree the aesthetic of the typhon isn’t particularly scary, but their audio is IMO. The background ambience doesn’t have the same eeriness to it some older games do though I suppose. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 07:32
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I always thought the infected crew in SS2 were telling you to run and / or kill them. Which is the second scariest bit of the game behind the introduction of the cyborg midwives. Third is the audio tape of the Captain going full Many in real time
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Feb 17, 2021 08:22
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Basic Chunnel posted:I always thought the infected crew in SS2 were telling you to run and / or kill them. Which is the second scariest bit of the game behind the introduction of the cyborg midwives. Third is the audio tape of the Captain going full Many in real time They vacillate between asking you to kill them join usor apologizing
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Feb 17, 2021 08:28
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Gaius Marius posted:I would You can be both tongue-in-cheek and horror, see the Scream movies and countless others for example
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Feb 17, 2021 08:34
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There's absolutely no reason to bring RE4 into this because it's a different type of horror while SS2 and Prey are incredibly similar. Sounds like you weren't in the right headspace to enjoy Prey, because I will never forget creeping around on the other side of a thin wall from a Phantom with the lights flickering, before knowing what the crazy bass heartbeat and the sparks mean, scared shitless and certainly not thinking "time to run out there and do combat". Eventually everything became a mundane combat challenge, but the same thing happens in SS2 as well. Considering you're being a dumb rear end in a top hat, I'm glad you missed out on that fantastic experience and will never have it in your life.
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Feb 17, 2021 08:50
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Cool, but I beat Prey years ago and liked it.
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Feb 17, 2021 08:55
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I hate horror and didn't find Prey to be offputting in that way. I literally refuse to play horror, watch horror, or watch other people play horror. Never touched a RE game or anything close to that. When playing Prey it was clearly trying to evoke a bit of horror, especially with the mimics being walking jump-scares and the phantoms being pretty creepy, but it was also clearly not trying to be a horror game to me. More a sci-fi game with some horror elements. Like, it contained horror, but it wasn't itself horror. Don't know if I'm explaining it right. It was too well-lit and clean-cut to feel horrific maybe.
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Feb 17, 2021 09:03
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What on earth are you people talking about? Prey is designed from the ground up to be a survival horror game. It's loving named to evoke the inversion of humanity's presumed position as apex predators, which is a staple of the genre. It revolves almost entirely around the stressful concept that everything and anything could secretly be a scary bogey monster that wants to turn you into a tortured corpse in order to make more scary bogey monsters. Prey is 100% a horror game and these assertions to the contrary are incredibly weird takes What do you think it's supposed to be, a comedy? 
Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 13:30
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Prey with its shadow monsters is not viscerally, aha, a horror game like SS2's worms. the horror is existential, as noted above: space is full of predators, consciousness is an evolutionary cul-de-sac, and (perhaps more broadly) even the amicable end of the Cold War and the shared dream of space exploration won't save us from the worst excesses of authoritarianism and capitalism which is also besides the point that both games mechanically are very similar if not outright identical - "nothing alike" indeed
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Feb 17, 2021 13:39
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Angry Diplomat posted:What do you think it's supposed to be, a comedy? No but because I personally didn't prolapse my anus out of fear I deem this game to not attain the heady heights of horror; furthermore
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Feb 17, 2021 13:52
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The enemy I found most unnerving were the poltergeists - weird muttering, thudding footsteps, and the anxiety of trying to hide from something you can't see. I met the nightmare for the first time in the crew quarters - just as the level loaded, I had switched sources on my monitor so I got a single glimpse of this enormous screaming horror rushing at me before I was looking at my desktop. That was extremely startling, since I'd gotten a bit blasé about immediate beginnings of new areas. Up to that point, I'd always arrived in a 'safe' place. I also really appreciated the very few times Prey went for scripted jump scares, they are fine in moderation, but they get a bit wearing after a while.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:11
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I found the small mimics incredibly unnerving when I started the game. Just really carefully going around with my starter weapons and staring at office furniture. Soon enough you get used to them, but then something new comes along.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:21
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