Steam Thread 2019: hey, Half-Life 3 is here *monkey's paw curls* as a VR exclusive

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Thread 2019: hey, Half-Life 3 is here *monkey's paw curls* as a VR exclusive

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exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

SulphagneSocialist posted:

So Prey (2017 one, natch) is great, but its big weakness is the combat and the enemies.

Are there games like Prey with a similar sense of exploration, discovery and progress, but without combat or with better combat? Without horror? I've obviously played my Shocks and Deus Exes, but I'm wondering if something like Soma with the harmless enemies mod would fit the bill.

What I really love about Prey is rooting through a location with an excellent sense of place, like it's something that actually exists, and where everything comes together in a logical, systemic way. You slowly grow to understand the environment and inevitably you master it, not just having new tools but having player knowledge of it as well. You could say it's Metroidvania-ish.

Subnautica's maybe in a similar vein, but not really. I'm looking for something with more man-made environments. Maybe The Long Dark, even if it's in a wilderness? The exploration tag also gave me The Witness, which I realize is a puzzle game but might have some of that same feel. Event[0]?

I'm probably asking for too much because an exploration game with top production values and no combat is pretty much a unicorn.

You might want to see what happens in two days when Tacoma is set to release. It's from the makers of Gone Home and features you wandering around a derelict space station, no combat or horror elements. It appears to be very similar in style to Gone Home where you try to piece together what happened from observation and inference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQY1tOepLYk

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 22:28

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 09:23

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The Saddest Rhino posted:

is tacoma good?

It's made by the creators of Gone Home, so it's that kind of "rummage through people's personal belongings" sim in a sci-fi setting. Early reviews from the Guardian and RPS have been positive.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 03:03

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Does the game feature any futuristic Lesbots?

We can only hope.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 03:18

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Climbing things can be pretty fun.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 10:19

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Level-based requirements for loot in open world games are often a major dealbreaker for me. They also hurt replayability when you're experienced with the game and want to sequence break straight into some OP weapon for funsies.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 10:54

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

It seems kind of silly for lootboxes to exist in a single-player game.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 11:50

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

"This game looks bad." - How can you say that, you haven't even played it!
"Okay, I've now put 35 hours into the game and it's bad" - Then why did you keep playing if you hated it so much?!

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 18:14

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Fargin Icehole posted:

Anybody waiting on Absolver? I kinda want to play For Honor but with martial arts

The combat looks really nice and crunchy but I know nothing else about it and gameplay videos have been sparse. It definitely has that meaty For Honor vibe though.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 19:16

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

corn in the bible posted:

From the stories I've read about game development, more studios should have these.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 09:05

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I've played xX~HellBladEZzZ~Xx for about an hour, here are my initial thoughts:

- Atmosphere is very cool. I'm digging the story so far.
- Play this game with the best pair of surround headphones you have.
- You apparently have a limited number of lives, but the combat is so easy it's almost perfunctory. This is a puzzle + walking simulator through and through.
- You need a pretty beastly system to max this one out. 980ti with an i5-4760 and I'm hitting 45-55fps in most areas on Very High with some hitching.

Overall it's a very weird game. I don't know if it'll end up being one of my favorites but I'm glad it exists.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 11:21

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Harry Potter on Ice posted:

Are any of these decent? I've got some free time and I'm trying to find something fun to fill it with, looking at open world or RPGs. Slime rancher in particular but it looks so... boring

I just want to run around and explore a world and upgrade my loot with stuff I find with a character that develops over time or maybe doesn't

You could do worse than Kingdoms of Amalur if all you wanna do is level up and clear out the world map with some pretty entertaining combat. Just don't expect anything out of the story.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 17:23

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

As a Rhode Islander, I can assure you that it actually wasn't KoA that bankrupted Rhode Island, but the followup MMO project that was never released. Curt Schilling had very little to do with KoA's production, in fact. Game without shame.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 18:03

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Cowcaster posted:

i thought the company developing kingdoms of amalur went bankrupt and forfeited their property to the state of rhode island, not that it bankrupted an entire state

38 Studios received a $75 million dollar loan from the state of RI in 2010. They moved operations from MA to Providence and used that loan to finance two projects. One of them was Kingdoms of Amalur developed under their subsidiary Big Huge Games and already under development at the time they received the loan. It was a moderate success and mostly made back its production costs. The other, which ended up becoming the black hole of development that Rhode Island pissed away $50 million in taxpayer money on was Project Copernicus, Curt Schilling's pet MMO project that was never released. In 2012 the checks started bouncing and 38 Studios couldn't make payroll. It didn't literally bankrupt the state but when all was said and done RI was still left on the hook for about $30 million even after all the litigation and lawsuits.

It's true that if you buy KoA now you're giving us Rhode Islanders $$$.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 18:27

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Yeah our state is incredibly bad + dumb.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 19:14

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I love that Randy Pitchford made an announcement on the same afternoon that Gearbox's next project would also be a TCG.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 13:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I'm keeping my eye on Absolver, which comes out at the end of this month and appears to have that same impactful combat feel as For Honor.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 15:45

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Quest For Glory II posted:

A new benchmark is set

I see Lawbreakers currently selling at #5 on Steam, or are they talking concurrent player counts.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 20:08

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Orv posted:

Top concurrence (according to Steamcharts, so slight discrepancies yadda yadda) is 4,557 for Lawbreakers, Battleborn managed to clear 12K during launch month.

Almost as many concurrent players as Farming Simulator 2017, nice.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2017 20:14

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I can say that Hellblade is totally unlike any game I've ever played. It has a little bit of fluid but fairly simple combat, a little environmental puzzle solving, a little walking sim through Norse mythology, but it's mostly an intense and emotionally taxing journey with a grieving Celtic warrior on an psychotic break.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 09:12

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Phlegmish posted:

What are the controls on PC like? Did they actually try to make a good PC interface?

I played it with a 360 gamepad and I'd recommend using a controller if you have one. There's no HUD so when you're just walking around all Senua can do is run, focus in on clues in the game world, and interact with some objects. In combat Senua has a light attack, a heavy attack, a melee to break an opponent's guard, and a dodge. She can also parry, run, and slow down time with her mirror. In practice it's most similar to Arkham or Mordor, there's a combo system but enemies are easy enough to defeat by just evading their big windup attacks and wailing on them. I should stress that combat really isn't the focus though, there are maybe like 20 unique encounters over the course of an 8 hour game. Senua controls pretty well but for the PC interface you'd have to ask someone who played on kb+m.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 09:50

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Macaluso posted:

As someone who loves walking around while story happens w/ some mechanics, would I like Tacoma? Things like Firewatch, Vanishing of Ethan Carter (besides the ending), Stanley Parable, Layers of Fear, even Night in the Woods to some extent. How does Tacoma compare?

It was made by the creators of Gone Home and it's gotten favorable reviews despite not reaching the emotional heights of their first game.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice just came out though and it's hard not to recommend that now if you want a highly story-focused gameplay with light mechanics in between.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 09:26

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I've seen boxed physical copies of Diablo 1 going for $50 on Amazon lately, it's pretty crazy. Given the popularity of the franchise I figured it was just something everybody already owned, although now there are people in their 20s who weren't even alive when the game was released.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 09:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Max Wilco posted:

I remember my dad playing the demo when I was really young. All I could remember was the health and mana orbs, and the dungeons being really creepy. I think he made it up to The Butcher, but I can't remember for sure.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but your dad is a freaking noob.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 11:00

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The original Butcher was pretty scary when I was 11, the extremely loud AAHHHH FRESH MEAT and the fact that you could very well be unequipped to handle him depending on how quickly you got down to the 3rd floor. Believe it or not he wasn't a 100% spawn in the first Diablo, depending on RNG you could never get the quest outside the cathedral.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 13:35

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Everything I read about the production of NMS indicates that Sony was super hands off with its development, and Hello Games just had no idea how to scale production with the influx of cash money they got to promote it.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 14:28

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Dias posted:

So it's a bad dumb bait. I'm glad we've arrived at the correct conclusion.

Is Hellblade good then? That game came outta nowhere, I didn't even know it was a thing. It looks real good so I probably need to check if it won't explode my PC first.

It's one of the most unique, immersive and memorable games I've ever played but it's also the definition of Not For Everyone. The story takes maybe 6-8 hours to complete, there's no real replay value to speak of, the combat is competent but sparse, and there are some long sections where you're just solving a puzzle or walking. Somehow all these elements combine to become greater than the sum of their parts and deliver a harrowing and often hauntingly beautiful experience of a Celtic warrior suffering from extreme psychosis. There are a lot of ways that concept could have totally gone off the rails, but it doesn't and it's just so out there that I can't help but praise it.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 09:38

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Mr. Flunchy posted:

Well I was enjoying Hellblade until I got hit by the save ruining torch bug. Wait for a patch before buying imo.

X-posting from Hellblade thread:

exquisite tea posted:

That's unfortunate. Someone on reddit apparently has a save file prior to the torch sequence so you can properly light the brazier:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxREFzzMtV3teXlqWVl5bFVMUWc/view

You have to replace the file in C:\Users\XXXXX\AppData\Local\HellbladeGame\Saved\SaveGames

I have not tried this myself but it's worth a shot!

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 13:45

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

ELEX looks like if someone tried to make Horizon Zero Dawn in 2004.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2017 16:09

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

There are lootboxes in For Honor, you get metal coins or w/e and can buy gear for your character with the option of paying $$$. This can be problematic if you're interested in the 4v4 modes since the gear you buy does increase your character's stats there, but for the competitive modes like 1v1 and brawls your armor is only cosmetic. You can also unlock stuff like emotes, taunts and executions for your character and it's all too expensive.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2017 11:21

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

KakerMix posted:

Honest question for those of you that do it

Why do you continue to play a game you don't enjoy anymore?

Sometimes there's a delay where I don't immediately recognize that I'm not having fun, but then once it's obvious I almost always put it away never to return.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2017 19:06

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:

Holy poo poo you guys What Remains of Edith Finch is a staggering work of unparalleled genius. In ten years, we'll be holding it up instead of Silent Hill 2 to mouth-breathers still clinging to the "games aren't art" canard.

I have to catch up with Edith Finch and Tacoma soon but Hellblade caught me totally off-guard and I think I need to do something mindless in between.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2017 21:27

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Dias posted:

I just finished Hellblade and I kinda feel like any "I'm into walking simulators, what game should I play" should be answered with "go play Hellblade" even if it doesn't technically fits because that's a pretty good game. Sure, you have to do some swording and some puzzling but they're easy and 90% of the appeal there is seeing the pretty graphics and following Senua's story. Probably a dark horse contender for GOTY in my book and by dark horse I mean I won't betray Yoko Taro-san.

Hellblade is just so out there conceptually that I would strongly recommend it for anyone who wants a unique gaming experience altogether. It's hard to recommend on the basis of its gameplay elements alone, because they all work in service to the immersive experience it creates. Basically, just buy Hellblade so that more of us can talk about Hellblade!

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 16:18

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Dias posted:

It suffers from Nier Automata Syndrome, where there's actually quite a bit of depth to it but frankly, you don't ever need it because your basic options are already kinda insane and the enemies aren't that challenging.

I think it was probably a purposeful decision to make the combat relatively simple and not give Senua any sssstylish combos. That being said there is a bit more depth to the swordplay than at first glance and I'd probably spend some extra time in an endless mode.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 18:58

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Lakbay posted:

I don't think the devs ever wanted the game to be anything but roguelike, survival, procgen

I'm one TCG tag away from throwing up.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 20:01

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Orv posted:

Johnny Dad is great.

Wow, I am annoying.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 22:33

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Remember Me is aptly named because it's something I do whenever there's a Capcom sale.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 23:49

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Many RPGs more or less demand you to focus on the setting and imagine a much better story happening within it.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 15:02

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Looking exclusively at Steam numbers to argue "SP games aren't selling well" is kind of misleading, as Zelda and Horizon are both gigundo megahits this year and neither are available on Steam.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2017 10:33

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I just think it's dubious to look at the top-selling single player games on Steam only in 2017 and conclude "SP games are dying out" when you can just as easily build an argument to the contrary using the same available evidence.

1. Steam is not the only online marketplace and totally discounts sales from places like GOG, Blizz, Ubi or Origin. Steamspy itself is not even completely reliable as an information source.
2. Many people, even the majority of people will experience games like GTAV or Mass Effect as single-player only, but because they have MP modes they're excluded from this list. GTAV and Andromeda are both in the top 10 selling games of this year.
3. Zelda and Horizon are both gigantic hits that coincidentally happen to be console exclusives, but that doesn't mean future SP hits can't be multiplatform.
4. 2017 is just a particularly strong year for gaming and the little niche titles people might normally take a chance on are being swallowed up by masterpieces left and right.
5. Several SP games are in fact outperforming expectations on PC (Nier) which lo and behold are because they're good and getting strong reviews.

One year does not a trend make, correlation not causation, que sera sera.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2017 12:43

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 09:23

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

There are many competing factors behind every market trend but "gamers suddenly became savvy consumers" should always be ruled out.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2017 13:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Thread 2019: hey, Half-Life 3 is here *monkey's paw curls* as a VR exclusive

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