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Huh, interesting! No, I didn't know of that one. How do you rate it, if you don't mind me asking? (I assume you've played it, in any case) Since good top-down stealthiness is definitely something I'm always after!
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Oct 29, 2022 22:53
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| # ? May 9, 2024 06:11 |
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That one I own for some reason lol so let a homey know, 7A.
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Oct 29, 2022 23:09
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Major Isoor posted:Huh, interesting! No, I didn't know of that one. How do you rate it, if you don't mind me asking? (I assume you've played it, in any case) Since good top-down stealthiness is definitely something I'm always after! Funny you should ask... https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3828221&perpage=40&pagenumber=753#post483648715
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Oct 29, 2022 23:59
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Seventh Arrow posted:Funny you should ask... Ah, excellent! A good stealth gamer always comes prepared - you seem to know that very well! 
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Oct 30, 2022 02:18
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Seventh Arrow posted:Funny you should ask... 
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Oct 30, 2022 02:30
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Seventh arrow ftmfw
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Oct 30, 2022 02:41
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apropos to nothing posted:Seventh arrow ftmfw
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Oct 30, 2022 03:14
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apropos to nothing posted:Seventh arrow ftmfw
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Oct 30, 2022 04:49
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apropos to nothing posted:Seventh arrow ftmfw ----------------
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Oct 30, 2022 07:04
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Sniper Elite 3         By now, the Sniper Elite series has gone on sale so many times that no doubt a bunch of you own this already. But on the chance that some of you haven't played it yet, I'll provide a review. Sniper Elite 3 takes place in Africa 1942, in the Gov't USA-issued, roughened boots of Karl Fairburn, a noted marksman of the American forces. During the Battle of Gazala, your efforts are noted and you are sent on the trail of General Vahlen, an up-and-coming favorite of the Fuehrer who is planning a technical monstrosity that will overwhelm the Allies. Along the way, you get a bit of help from an Englishman named Brauer (why do all the protagonists have German names?) who helps you tag targets in one mission. The story is not bad, but it's mostly set dressing. Everyone knows that the real reason people play these games is to snipe nazis with a slo-mo kill cam! It certainly doesn't disappoint in that regard - you can have the slo-mo cam turned on all the time, something that is your patriotic duty to do. Get a shot at any major organ and you will be treated to a scene of your Gov't USA-issued bullet singing gracefully through the air and passing bloodily through the skull, heart, spine, or lungs of an unsuspecting fascist. And yes, you can even target the testicles, although this seems to require absurdly good aim so if you want to perforate their little nutzis, you better bring your A-game! One might wonder what a loud instrument like a sniper rifle is doing in a stealth game. Well, each level will provide you with some loud background noises that you can use to mask your shots. Usually this is going to be a generator that you can sabotage to backfire every 15 seconds or so, however, you have to be in the general vicinity of the malfunctioning device in order for your shots not to be heard. Some levels will also have noisy planes flying overhead; the advantage to this is that it can be used anywhere, but they are also far less frequent and are much shorter so you're really under pressure to set up and execute your shots in a hurry. Mind you, there's nothing stopping you from sniping dudes out in the open. If you do it without being seen, then the game gives you a chance to escape to a far-off position so that the enemies can't get a bead on your position. Things will go back to normal after a brief search and you can go back to the business of perforating kraut skulls. This was a bit of an underwhelming aspect of the game admittedly - you can completely cheese the mechanics so that you don't need to mask your shots if you just run away for 40 meters or so and wait for them to give up their search. The game is not going for any realism by any stretch of the imagination - you get a HUD with a radar indicating nearby enemies, you get notifications when bodies are found and there's even an aim-assist option that can be enabled. There are some cursory elements of realism like bullet drop, but these are negated by the UI anyways so it's kind of a wash. So it's more of an arcade-y approach to sniping, but for me this wasn't a letdown. The stealth mechanics combined with the visceral sniping experience made it worth it in my book. (although I watched Centerstrain01's walkthrough of the game and it didn't have any of the HUD elements, so maybe it goes away on higher difficulties) The sniper rifle isn't always the best choice for taking out the many goose-stepping ninnies that you encounter. A lot of times you will want to sneak through the area, getting up close and murking them with either your knife or a silenced pistol. If an NPC thinks they see you, a filling yellow circle will appear over their head; once they're sure they've spotted you, the circle will fill red. Once filled, you have a nanosecond to do something before they alert everyone in the area. You also have access to a noisy submachine gun, but I never needed it. You can use it if you decide you want to go loud, but this could be a challenge. You also get a number of entertaining traps - land mines, trip wire, dynamite, and anti-infantry mines. You can also hurl a rock to make your doomed foes check out a location that you've laced with explosives, something that never gets old. Also, once you complete the primary task - even if you've cleared out every soul on a map - the game will often add a new challenge, often some jerk in a tank tearing through the area and needs to be taken out. You can end his party early however, if you know where he's going to appear. Just place some land mines in that exact area and BOOM - the party's over before it's started. The game's engine is pretty old at this point and I found it to be quite janky - it was absolutely allergic to alt-tabbing and sometimes it would hang on exiting (fortunately, I have SuperF4 installed). Nothing within the game really bugged out though, so I was willing to tolerate it. Sniper Elite 3 gives you a fun mix of stealthing around and sniping and I definitely think it's worth a go if it's currently languishing in your Steam backlog. If you don't have it yet, it seems a bit overpriced currently for an 8-year old game so definitely wait for a sale.
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Oct 30, 2022 15:22
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I liked that when you fired your weapon the enemies knew the direction of the shot but didn’t know where you were exactly so as long as you relocated between shots you could have a neat sort of stealth where the enemy knew you were there but couldn’t find you as you picked them off one-by-one. I didn’t remember having to wait between shots as long as you moved a good distance away I really liked Sniper Elite 2, 3, and 4, I need to get back to 5
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Oct 30, 2022 15:40
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Yeah that's a good point - despite the fact that I complained that you don't need to mask all of your shots, it's still a refreshing change that enemies don't instantly know your location when you snipe someone. Instead, they have a rough idea of where the shot came from and try to close in.
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Oct 30, 2022 15:46
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I've only played 4 and quite enjoyed but, but it felt like it had outstayed its welcome even after its brief 10-hour campaign. I can't imagine playing five of these lol
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Oct 30, 2022 16:50
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I didn't mind 3 so much. I will try to do a review of 4, but whether or not I get and review 5 will depend highly on whether I'm fatigued out or not.
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Oct 30, 2022 19:46
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It’s definitely a series to play a little bit of here and there as the mood strikes you rather than marathoning through because it can get pretty repetitive. I like that the last couple Sniper: Ghost Warrior games made a “Contracts” sub-series where each mission is like a Hitman-style small but open map with a bunch of objectives scattered around, it seems like they realized that and made it more bite-sized
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Oct 30, 2022 19:54
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The first one is hosed. But kinda sick.
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Oct 30, 2022 20:06
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IIRC Sniper Elite 1 is the closest to like MGS1 level of stealth care game that I’ve played. Besides later MGSes of course.
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Oct 30, 2022 20:14
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:It’s definitely a series to play a little bit of here and there as the mood strikes you rather than marathoning through because it can get pretty repetitive. I like that the last couple Sniper: Ghost Warrior games made a “Contracts” sub-series where each mission is like a Hitman-style small but open map with a bunch of objectives scattered around, it seems like they realized that and made it more bite-sized That's one thing I really liked about 4 as well, I've been meaning to try one of those games but I need to work up the mental fortitude to bring myself to buy a game called Sniper: Ghost Warrior.
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Oct 30, 2022 20:16
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:That's one thing I really liked about 4 as well, I've been meaning to try one of those games but I need to work up the mental fortitude to bring myself to buy a game called Sniper: Ghost Warrior. i played 2 and it was good. it didn’t have any cringe worthy stuff you would expect from the title. Iirc it was basically “go here and kill a dude” The bullet physics ruled. Wind and drop really have a huge impact.
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Oct 30, 2022 20:42
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Oct 31, 2022 04:27
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So which one is the best in series? I played a bit of Sniper Elite 5 on game pass but it looks like I've got a few of them on steam from past sales
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Oct 31, 2022 05:09
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I played 3, 4, and 5 and couldn’t tell you a single, unique difference between them.
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Oct 31, 2022 12:00
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Yeah, it mostly seems to depend on what theatre of war you prefer. Since I mean, the sniping action is basically identical across the series from SE2 onwards, so the main difference is which exotic location you prefer to shoot nazis in
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Oct 31, 2022 12:33
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As I understand 4 and 5 lean most into the "open world" aspect which is done really well imo, it's never pointless collectathon poo poo, every optional area or objective is directly linked to the main goal of the map. 4 has some stunning locales but also a few too many boring bases, bunkers etc
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Oct 31, 2022 12:56
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Yeah, that's fair. I quite liked going through the side areas in SE4. I'll have to get SE5 once it gets a decent discount in a coming sale, I think. For me, SE games can definitely out-stay their welcome after a while, but I always seem to come back for more, eventually!
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Oct 31, 2022 13:06
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One significant difference that I'm seeing between 3 and 4 is that in 4, your speed while crouched is excruciatingly slow. You can still sneak up on guys, but you'll probably have to use some sort of distraction tool.
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Oct 31, 2022 13:45
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Sniper Elite 4         We return to the escapades of Lieutenant Karl Fairburne and his trusty sniper rifle in Sniper Elite 4, where the hot desert and jungle environments of Africa are traded in for the mediterranean setting of Italy. However, we're not here to make pasta and visit the pope - there are nazi skulls that need perforating and there's only so many hours in the day! Players coming from 3 will find that some of the controls have been remapped, but I found that this was often better - they've been streamlined to provide for more efficient button usage. The maps are also a lot - like, a lot, bigger than the ones in SE3, providing for many more hours of fascist-murking mayhem. Each map comes with a set of optional challenges that provide extra xp; for example, killing x amount of enemies with the pistol or finishing a certain objective within a certain amount of time. These add an extra bit of hot sauce to a fairly straightforward stealth operation but I utterly ignored any and all timed objectives. YMMV. Although I really enjoyed the game overall, there's one objection that seems fairly significant - in the maps in the later half of the game, there seem to be less and less opportunities for masking the sound of your shots. Not only are environment-wide sounds (like passing airplanes) absent, but local ambiences (like backfiring generators) become increasingly rare. Of course, you can snipe without using sound masking, but enemies will almost immediately know where the shots came from and will start convening on your location. You can set up traps to thwart their attempts (which is a good source of entertainment) but these will generate more noise and your supply of them is pretty limited. Maybe it's not so bad, but it means that if you don't want to play snipe-and-run on these maps, then you will probably be playing the second half of SE4 like a conventional stealth game, like WWII Splinter Cell almost. The rest will be very familiar to those coming from SE3. There is a heart rate monitor that increases when doing intense physical activities like sprinting or carrying bodies. A higher heart rate will make attempts at aiming very shaky. There are mission objectives that, when completed, will spawn soldiers and takes, creating new objectives. And of course, the slo-mo x-ray cam is back - this time it's also available for melee kills as well, so seeing Karl stick his knife into a skeleton's brain might be just what you needed in life. All in all, I think 4 does a lot to improve on the gameplay that was in 3. You just need to ask yourself whether you're ok with playing the latter missions like a conventional stealth game or not.
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Nov 13, 2022 21:28
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shadow tactics is free on epic game store if someone here hasn't purchased it for multiple 3.99 sales on steam/gog or didn't claim it when it was free on gog. farewell.
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Nov 14, 2022 00:07
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Drake yes  Drake no 
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Nov 14, 2022 01:31
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btw, I'm open to suggestions for what to review next as long as they're on Steam or GOG. I'm not averse to reviewing classics like Thief 2 or Splinter Cell Chaos Theory but I've never really seen the point since people in this thread have probably already played them. I guess logically I should pick up Sniper Elite 5 but I've heard that it's gone even more in the 'not-quite-so-snipey' direction than 4 (but I'm willing to consider it nonetheless). At any rate, suggest away!
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Nov 14, 2022 05:19
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Have you played Phantom Doctrine. I like the vibe and setting but not the actual game itself that much, and I can't tell if it's me or the game actually just isn't that good.
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Nov 14, 2022 06:08
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Larry Parrish posted:Have you played Phantom Doctrine. I like the vibe and setting but not the actual game itself that much, and I can't tell if it's me or the game actually just isn't that good. It's just not that good unfortunately. I was really hoping it would be but it ended up feeling a bit like their previous game Hard West, a lot of decent ideas but half baked and sometimes frustrating execution
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Nov 14, 2022 11:18
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:It's just not that good unfortunately. I was really hoping it would be but it ended up feeling a bit like their previous game Hard West, a lot of decent ideas but half baked and sometimes frustrating execution I got insanely mad and turned the game off and haven't touched it for the last month when two missions in a row the reinforcement guards spawned right on top of my guys lol ----------------
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Nov 14, 2022 11:26
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Larry Parrish posted:Have you played Phantom Doctrine. I like the vibe and setting but not the actual game itself that much, and I can't tell if it's me or the game actually just isn't that good. I kept trying really hard to like it and there's a lot of good stuff in there but it's buried under so many completely miserable gameplay choices that after a while I had to accept it's not actually any good The final straw was when I played Invisible Inc and remembered what it was like to just have fun without having to persuade myself that's what I was doing
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Nov 14, 2022 20:29
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Seventh Arrow posted:btw, I'm open to suggestions for what to review next as long as they're on Steam or GOG. I'm not averse to reviewing classics like Thief 2 or Splinter Cell Chaos Theory but I've never really seen the point since people in this thread have probably already played them. I'm interested in thoughts on the new Plague Tales: Requiem. I played the first and thought it was alright, is the second one worth it?
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Nov 17, 2022 01:19
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Aston posted:I'm interested in thoughts on the new Plague Tales: Requiem. I played the first and thought it was alright, is the second one worth it? Yeah, same. I doubt I'll get it full price, but I'd be interested to know if it's worth picking up the next time it gets a discount. The first one was a good start, so hopefully Requiem is a solid improvement
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Nov 17, 2022 01:24
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its on gamepass, no need to wonder or imagine. sign up today
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Nov 17, 2022 02:00
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I might give Plague Tale a try, then. I saw that Phantom Doctrine was $5 and picked it up with an eye to reviewing it but man, you guys weren't lying. It's pretty uninspired. The opening tutorial is good, but then you end up on the map screen for what feels like forever, not really knowing what to do. And when you finally get 'boots on the ground', it's pretty underwhelming. I'll give it a bit more of a go, but I have a feeling I'll just shift to Plague Tale.
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Nov 17, 2022 04:26
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The first Plague Tale was a pleasant surprise, I really enjoyed it
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Nov 17, 2022 04:46
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| # ? May 9, 2024 06:11 |
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Plague Tale 1 was OK but it all felt very... directed? Like there was a perfect solution to every puzzle / encounter and you just had to follow the breadcrumbs rather than ever getting to make interesting decisions. That sounds really vague/minor but I ended up bored halfway through even though I was quite enjoying the world and characters.
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Nov 17, 2022 14:17
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