Well, I played/finished the newest Rusty Lake/Cube Escape game (The White Door), but enh. It was kinda disappointing. It's very tame/slow/boring/easy compared to the other games in the series. Here's hoping the next one, whenever it's released, is better. Heard about another similar series though called "Forgotten Hill", but apparently the puzzles are notorious for being ball bustingly hard, but maybe I'll check it out at some point.
As it stands, I'm in the mood for something dumb and trashy, so I'll probably be playing State of Decay 2 next, since I didn't mind the first one and the sequel seems to fit the bill for what I'm looking for. I've also been checking out Chilla Art's latest horror games, since I like small indie horror titles in the same vein as what is put out by Puppet Combo, whose stuff I also really enjoy. There's also The Longing, which I just installed and it looks pretty interesting too. And then there's the fourth entry in The Room series which I want to try to get to soon as well.
Man, so I just checked out The Longing and holy fuck the very essence of that thing pissed me off to no end. It honestly has got to be one of the most obnoxious "games" I've ever experienced. If I could kick the developer full force in the nuts, I gladly would. The sheer nerve to release something that staggeringly pretentious and up its own ass demands nothing less. The fact it has as many as 3000 positive reviews on Steam and is regarded overall as "mostly positive" has me convinced that people really are certifiably fucking insane. Even the negative reviews aren't anywhere near as harsh as they should be and most are prefaced with mentioning how they still half like it. How people aren't crapping all over this as the purposely designed pile of garbage that it is defies all comprehension. Instead of this, most people are praising it instead. Utter fucking madness. Either I'm the one taking crazy pills here, or everyone else is.
For those curious, it's an experience set around you having to wait 400 days of real time to see the end. There are ways to slightly speed up this obnoxiously long passage of time (like literally reading the entire length of Moby fucking Dick, yes they actually have the whole book in the game), but it's negligible at best. Instead, this game encourages you to not play it, since time keeps passing even when you're not "playing it". The actual "gameplay" involves you crawling around indistinguishable hallways at a pace that would make a snail seem like a cheetah. From what I can tell, it seems everyone is smitten with the little character you control, which is this Dobby-looking imp type creature, that will occasionally remark how lonely and miserable it is as you aimlessly see it shuffle from place to place with absolutely no payoff for doing so whatsoever except picking up lumps of coal. Why the fuck would I want to experience a game that is essentially my entire existence in a nutshell? I'm playing a game to get away from that, not have it obnoxiously shoved in my face. I honestly feel like the only people who have anything good to say about this must either not suffer from depression or are merely liking it ironically either for the "lulz", or to just seem artsy. For me, I find this whole thing deeply insulting. Almost like it's turning the miserable way I'm forced to exist into some big fucking joke for the normals to enjoy amongst themselves. Like some dumb kids curiously poking at a caged animal in a zoo for their amusement.
On top of this, I was never a fan of tamagotchi style crap where idleness is the intended feature and this is basically an equally insufferable version of that, except with a depressed imp creature that can't die and is just sort of always there to serve as a weak representation of "longing". For the hell of it I also decided to watch the endings on YouTube since I could only stomach about 20 minutes of this crap before uninstalling it, and man, I can't say I missed much. It seems as if the entire point of this "thing", right up to the various endings, was meant to convey the feeling of disappointment and lack of fulfillment. As if life itself doesn't provide enough of that shit in abundance already. As far as I'm concerned, the developer of this is either a cynical troll, or a guy completely drunk on his own self-indulgent farts. I wish him the worst either way.
Finished Song of Horror the other day and have pretty mixed feelings about it. Point and click + survival horror is maybe not the best combination of genres. I wouldn't call the game a waste of time, but it got incredibly tedious by the second half and certain things were straight up aggravating. I like the concept and the plot, but it's clear what the game is aiming for and it doesn't manage to get there. I wouldn't spend more than $5 on it.
I just played/completed it the other night, and yeah, these were exactly my thoughts on it as well. The atmosphere/puzzles were great, but everything else left something to be desired.
The overemphasis on QTEs in particular, in the form of random monster attacks, just became super tiresome after a while. The fact that you know nothing will ever be chasing you or coming after you within the environment really took a lot of the tension out of the gameplay. Whenever it does, it's always in the form of an easily accomplished QTE, which makes the monsters about as threatening/scary as a paper ghost on a string. The only time this wasn't the case was during the finale of episode 2, which while pretty annoying in how it was designed, was still basically the only point in the game where I felt vulnerable.
I also found the permadeath mechanic to be kind of superfluous since it really doesn't matter who lives and who dies story-wise. At the end of the day, it's basically just a traditional lives system and once you run out of lives for a given episode, you just have to start over and try again. Still, I have to say I really enjoyed the cautionary approach one needs to take while navigating the environment to avoid instant death traps, like putting your ear to the door and such before entering. Some traps are pretty bullshit, but most can be avoided if one is paying attention. The only one that really bothered me was how if you don't pick up the bolt cutters in episode 3, then your character will just instantly die after leaving the second to last area in that episode. I also had a glitch in that same episode where there were no voices on the other side of a door, but upon opening it I just died anyway, so that sucked. Those were actually my only two deaths in the whole game, apart from getting everyone killed during the first episode. And like I said, those two deaths had zero impact on the story whatsoever, which just makes the whole permadeath thing kind of pointless.
The story, while serviceable, didn't really grab me that much either. A cursed item that kills everyone that comes into contact with it. It's the sort of thing I've seen in J-horror movies tons of times before and, to me, it just felt really generic. The Lovecraftian aspect was cool and all, but it just wasn't enough to salvage what was otherwise a pretty boring story, which barely provided any reason for why 90% of these characters would even be involved in the first place. The ending also sucked, and while it was fitting for a story with Lovecraftian themes, it still felt really cheap and lazy. Also, would've it have killed the developers to add more than one outcome to the story? Talk about adding an extra layer of pointlessness to the character/permadeath system.
Anyway, it's still okay and the act of simply exploring the environments and solving puzzles was enough for me to enjoy my time with it. As a horror game though, it's pretty lackluster, but, even so, it still managed to capture somewhat of the same comfy feeling of older survival horror series like Clocktower and Silent Hill. By the time you get to episode 3 though, the whole thing just starts to feel pretty repetitive.
I'm currently playing Fall Guys. Season 4 is pretty fun and got me back into the game. Once I'm finished with that, I'm going back to play Final Fantasy on NES. Once I complete that, I'm going to play the Legend of Zelda (NES).
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@Imaginos It's like you read my mind. The game starts with great tension and atmosphere when you don't know what tricks it's going to pull, but yeah, episode 3 was right when it started feeling tedious. I was lucky enough not to run into any glitches, at least. I hadn't considered the possibility of multiple endings, but you're right, it would've added a lot to the game if your choices (even just things like which character you choose in each chapter and who's still alive at the end) actually made a difference to the outcome.
I just finished Arkham Horror earlier today. That game is the definition of mediocre (they should've called it Arkham Horror: Mediocrity's Embrace, har har har). There was nothing egregiously bad about it, just some inconvenient or annoying things, but there wasn't anything good about it either. I've never had such a neutral gaming experience before. It was bizarre.
The plot was boring and predictable, but not bad, exactly (until the last 2 chapters when things really went downhill). The gameplay is alright, but there are a lot of QOL improvements to be made. The turn based fighting did what it needed to do, but again, not interesting. There's no challenge or sense of tension or even anything remotely resembling an atmosphere. There are like 3 puzzles in the whole game, and they're all a joke.
Arkham never got tedious like Song of Horror, but SoH is still the better game by far. SoH is pretty solid in a lot of places in spite of its shortcomings. Arkham Horror has... absolutely nothing going for it. There was nothing eerie or unsettling at any point in the game, and I couldn't have cared less about the characters. There's just nothing in the game that grabbed my interest or got me emotionally invested in the plot. It's just an uninspired Lovecraft story with flat characters and no sense of urgency or purpose. This is actually the first time I've ever returned a game. I really wanted to like it, but I want my $16 back.
Well, it's possible that it actually wasn't a glitch and the absence of any noise at all was itself meant to convey danger, in which case that one is on me. A bit like how in episode 5 the typical "danger noise" changes to a soft scratch to trip you up, instead of the usual thing of a bunch of loud random noises. I actually forgot to mention that I had to restart episode 5 on account of that, since my first character died to exactly this change in noise, only for me to approach them later with Daniel which, of course, led to them going "ooga booga!" and him dying too. In episode 3's case I was just curious to see what was on the other side, even though I had that collectible golden tooth you can get from episode 2 warn me there might be danger (at the time though I didn't realize that was its function), but even then I still went ahead and opened the door, so yeah I think I was just being careless, heh.
I hadn't considered the possibility of multiple endings, but you're right, it would've added a lot to the game if your choices (even just things like which character you choose in each chapter and who's still alive at the end) actually made a difference to the outcome.
Exactly. It seems like such a bizarre omission for a game designed around multiple characters/permadeath. For one thing, it totally destroys any kind of replayability since the story is the same no matter what happens. I mean, yeah, each character offers their own unique observations in each environment and they come equipped with their own unique item, but it's the kind of stuff that's still pretty negligible overall. As I was playing the game, I actually assumed that if Daniel died, then another character would simply take his place as the protagonist. As a result, I tried to avoid that happening by only picking the throwaway characters first as cannon fodder for any potential screw-ups. I only found out after finishing the game, that even if Daniel dies in a prior episode, but another random character manages to finish it, then he'll just magically be alive again in the next episode, which is just super jarring/lazy. I mean, I get it, it'd be very hard to record the necessary lines for each character and account for story permutations with this many characters in the roster, but then why not limit the amount of characters to Etienne, the ex-wife, Erica, and Daniel? Less would've been far more in this sense, since at least that way they could've really focused on delivering a truly varied experience with meaningful branching paths in the story, along with distinctive/unique endings depending on who's still alive and who isn't. Again, it just seems like such a wasted opportunity and the way they went about it instead really squandered the potential of this mechanic.
Yep, agreed. As an example, although one could knock the maps for being generic, I actually really didn't mind them at all and, in fact, enjoyed the variety the game offers in that respect. Although SoH isn't all that compelling as a horror game, it still managed to achieve a pleasantly spooky atmosphere, which while not very scary, was at least pretty comfy. Like you said before, it's really just a horror themed point and click adventure game with fixed camera angles and freedom of movement, but, even so, it's still a pretty decent experience with clever/satisfying puzzles to solve and a somewhat serviceable story to enjoy.
Never heard about that Arkham game before, but yeah. It definitely does look pretty mediocre/cheaply made. Can't be as bad as The Sinking City though, because damn did that game suck eldritch ass. I still slightly cringe over the fact that I actually finished that entire thing, instead of dropping it after the first 10 minutes as I knew I should've. If anything though, it brought me closer to understanding what it must feel like for a character in one of these stories to slowly have their mind eaten away from them, except in my case it was the pure awfulness of the game itself making me lose my mind. I wasn't the biggest fan of that recent Call of Cthulhu game (the one that's literally named as such, and is in first person with RNG skill checks), but it's honestly a masterpiece by comparison. For the record, I'd consider stuff like Sunless Sea or Cultist Simulator, and the old Dark Corners of the Earth, to be much more my speed when it comes to Lovercraftian horror games.
It can sometimes be a bad habit for me (like in the above example), but I tend to play a lot of low budget/indie horror games, but usually more of the Amnesia/Outlast clone variety. Ever heard of Puppet Combo/Chilla's Art? Their games are about as low budget as it gets, but it's still the sort of stuff that, for me anyway, is right up my alley. Just as an aside, but if you have any random horror games you've played that I might not have heard of then I'd love to hear about them. I'm always on the lookout for that sort of thing, heh.
Nope, never heard of them. Have you played Conarium? It's a Lovecraftian puzzle/horror type game. I kind of blew through the second half because I got tired of all the reading (which totally defeats the purpose of playing a game like that. I should've just waited and finished the game later) but overall I liked it. The game didn't feel cliche or like it was a cookie-cutter cosmic horror plot that's been done a hundred times. The atmosphere is also very good, and there are two different endings, which I think you might appreciate ;)
I want to have more of a conversation about these games but I can't concentrate enough to read thoroughly or write a proper response XD
Just finished Carrion. It was good, but I guess I just expected a bit more. It's extremely short and kind of tries to be a Metroid clone of sorts, but just doesn't have the content to really justify it. The developers don't even bother giving you a map screen, since the game world is already so small anyway that it'd just be pointless. And there's also only 9 collectibles total, all of which are easily found.
I also felt it got kind of repetitive/boring near the middle, since every area plays out more or less the exact same way. Activate the nodes to open the exit, rinse repeat. The game was also a tad too easy and the monster you control is basically unstoppable, which I realize is kind of the point, but it just makes the actual gameplay a bit dull, since nothing is any kind of threat to you. More enemy variety and additional countermeasures/traps would've been welcome to help spice things up. To be honest, the more I think about this, the more it kind of reminds me of a flash game, in terms of how little content is actually there. Now sure, not every game has to be some huge production, but I guess I just would've like a bit more from this one, since the concept is so good. The ending was pretty eerily satisfying at least.
Yes, as a matter of fact I have. I played/finished it a few years back around the time it came out. And yeah, I also thought it was okay. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of any real threats and how it was basically just a walking simulator. Wasn't there a moment when a bunch of mummy type things start chasing you, but that even when they catch you nothing happens and the story just keeps going? I thought that was kind of anti-climactic. Overall though, it had good atmosphere and was pretty decent as far as a Lovecraft game goes. I don't recall the story being that interesting, but I appreciated the general premise of it picking up after The Mountains of Madness happens, and how you get to see little nods/references to that story. For instance, I seem to remember a cat, or something, turning into an elder thing for a brief moment, but it's just a shame that you never see more of that stuff play a meaningful role in the game.
No worries. To be honest, I've played so many horror games over the years, it's not likely that anyone could tell me of something I haven't heard of or finished before. Actually if you're interested, I have a list of all the games I've finished over the past few years and, if you'd like, I could post a trimmed down version with just the horror games only, just as something you might find interesting and so I could recommend you some stuff to.
I bought civ 6 on steam some days ago because it was 75% off, with the five Euros I had left i bought Lego Lord of the Rings, because I love Lego games and need a nostalgia trip every once in a while.
I bought civ 6 on steam some days ago because it was 75% off, with the five Euros I had left i bought Lego Lord of the Rings, because I love Lego games and need a nostalgia trip every once in a while.
The Civ games are probably some of the best games for your money. You're basically paying like ten cents for each hour of gameplay XD How's Lego LOTR? It sounds like a fun time.
Just came across a twitter thread asking for peoples' favorite horror games. There are a few on there that I haven't heard of, and a whole bunch of reminders about games that I keep meaning to play but haven't yet
The Civ games are probably some of the best games for your money. You're basically paying like ten cents for each hour of gameplay XD How's Lego LOTR? It sounds like a fun time.
Just came across a twitter thread asking for peoples' favorite horror games. There are a few on there that I haven't heard of, and a whole bunch of reminders about games that I keep meaning to play but haven't yet
In Smash Ultimate, Hero from Dragon Quest has a move called Kamikazee. It's not always a good idea to use it because it will always kill you first but if you have a stock lead then it's good to use because it:
-Covers a wide range
-Kills fairly early
-Is invincible once the move is initiated
-Can't be blocked or dodged without near perfect precision so the only way around it is to hope you can run away from it.
Smash has plenty of other ways to do cheeky suicide kills like Kirby's inhale, Chrom's Aether, or Ganondorf's command grab but Kamikazee is by far one of the most fun and deadly ways to weaponize suicide in any video game I've seen.
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My all time favorite is Nier Automata but these days I can only do mindless grinds in games like Dark Souls while listening to a podcast or an audiobook. Hollow Knight is also good for this purpose. Life is easier when I distract myself on multiple levels.
Man, so I just checked out The Longing and holy fuck the very essence of that thing pissed me off to no end. It honestly has got to be one of the most obnoxious "games" I've ever experienced. If I could kick the developer full force in the nuts, I gladly would. The sheer nerve to release something that staggeringly pretentious and up its own ass demands nothing less. The fact it has as many as 3000 positive reviews on Steam and is regarded overall as "mostly positive" has me convinced that people really are certifiably fucking insane. Even the negative reviews aren't anywhere near as harsh as they should be and most are prefaced with mentioning how they still half like it. How people aren't crapping all over this as the purposely designed pile of garbage that it is defies all comprehension. Instead of this, most people are praising it instead. Utter fucking madness. Either I'm the one taking crazy pills here, or everyone else is.
For those curious, it's an experience set around you having to wait 400 days of real time to see the end. There are ways to slightly speed up this obnoxiously long passage of time (like literally reading the entire length of Moby fucking Dick, yes they actually have the whole book in the game), but it's negligible at best. Instead, this game encourages you to not play it, since time keeps passing even when you're not "playing it". The actual "gameplay" involves you crawling around indistinguishable hallways at a pace that would make a snail seem like a cheetah. From what I can tell, it seems everyone is smitten with the little character you control, which is this Dobby-looking imp type creature, that will occasionally remark how lonely and miserable it is as you aimlessly see it shuffle from place to place with absolutely no payoff for doing so whatsoever except picking up lumps of coal. Why the fuck would I want to experience a game that is essentially my entire existence in a nutshell? I'm playing a game to get away from that, not have it obnoxiously shoved in my face. I honestly feel like the only people who have anything good to say about this must either not suffer from depression or are merely liking it ironically either for the "lulz", or to just seem artsy. For me, I find this whole thing deeply insulting. Almost like it's turning the miserable way I'm forced to exist into some big fucking joke for the normals to enjoy amongst themselves. Like some dumb kids curiously poking at a caged animal in a zoo for their amusement.
On top of this, I was never a fan of tamagotchi style crap where idleness is the intended feature and this is basically an equally insufferable version of that, except with a depressed imp creature that can't die and is just sort of always there to serve as a weak representation of "longing". For the hell of it I also decided to watch the endings on YouTube since I could only stomach about 20 minutes of this crap before uninstalling it, and man, I can't say I missed much. It seems as if the entire point of this "thing", right up to the various endings, was meant to convey the feeling of disappointment and lack of fulfillment. As if life itself doesn't provide enough of that shit in abundance already. As far as I'm concerned, the developer of this is either a cynical troll, or a guy completely drunk on his own self-indulgent farts. I wish him the worst either way.
Played/finished a really comfy first person puzzle game the other day. It's called "Homesick" and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Like listening to really soothing ambient music, but in game form.
I also checked out/finished those two adventure games set in the Dark Eye universe. First was "Chains of Satinav" and the second was "Memoria". They were okay, but not the best I've ever played. Puzzles were well designed and satisfying to solve and the story, while kind of boring, was serviceable enough.
Just came across a twitter thread asking for peoples' favorite horror games. There are a few on there that I haven't heard of, and a whole bunch of reminders about games that I keep meaning to play but haven't yet
That's weird. For some reason, I don't see the link. Would you mind posting it again without the spoiler? Or could you pm me the link? I'd appreciate it.
Well, most games allow you to kill yourself in some form or another (like by tossing a grenade to the ground, or jumping off a cliff), but if you mean a suicide that incorporates itself into the story, then a few come to mind. I'll list them below. I'll post again if I can think of any more.
A short puzzle game where at the end you blow your head off with a shotgun. The sequel shows that you managed to survive somehow, which is fine and all, but a part of me prefers if they had left it at suicide.
A light puzzle/exploration game of sorts. As the title implies, the game is centered around suicide, as your character tries to discover the reasons behind a suicide which took place many years prior. At the end, you have the choice to kill yourself too by duct taping your car shut and breathing in the fumes from the exhaust.
Not so much a game, as a short visual experience. It only takes 5-10 minutes to complete. You play as a guy who's about to kill himself (and seems to be a psycho killer of some kind too?) and it ends with you literally putting your head in a noose and killing yourself.
Another puzzle game. Starts with the character you play as killing herself by trying to overdose on some pills, but she survives. The game is still heavily focused on the topic of suicide and depression, but it bears mentioning that at the end it gets really preachy with its message as far as being anti-suicide is concerned. The final villain you're tasked to deal with is actually a guy who encourages people to die on a suicide forum, which I sort of felt like was an attempt to denounce forums like this one as being responsible for encouraging others to die, which is of course ridiculous. You get the impression that if the developer had his way, he'd gladly shut a site like this down if he could. I'm not sure if there's an ending where you can kill yourself again, but I'm pretty sure there isn't.
One of the best survival horror games out there. The canon ending, and the ending confirmed to be the most thematically appropriate by the lead creative director of the game, is where your character kills himself by driving his car off a cliff and into the middle of a lake.
Top down action game where you play as a mass shooter going on a killing spree. Your character overloads a nuclear power plant at the end, thereby killing himself and many other people.
A really out there type experience which, in some sense, you could hardly call much of a game, but it does have a couple puzzles of sorts, and plus there's a big emphasis on exploration. The ending involves your character killing herself by jumping off a high building, or one would hope so anyway. That it's high, I mean. Otherwise you just end up with broken legs.
Like Yume Nikki, it's a game that's a really out there type experience. Not sure how to classify it other than a surrealist exploration game, with a rudimentary JRPG battle system. The game starts with your character having just shot themselves in the head and who now find themselves in a bizarre landscape, that might either be the afterlife, a representation of their own dying mind, or an alien dimension. The gun you shot yourself with becomes sort of your guide through this place, and also your final nemesis.
Yeah, I'll admit that I went pretty overboard in that rant. I knew nothing about it going in and, I'll admit, that I was expecting it to either be an offbeat point and click adventure game, or have an otherwise meaningful story with actual gameplay mechanics. What I got instead was some kind of strange college-tier art project masquerading itself as something that could actually be played, when there is in fact no gameplay whatsoever. As a guy who loves the walking simulator genre, I have no problem with games that are limited in the gameplay department, but this takes it to a whole new level, and almost mockingly so. As a result, I still think the developer is a pretentious twonk, but I'll admit that the "experience" of this "game", probably just wasn't for me. I have no ideawho it really is meant for, but different strokes I guess. It seems to me that those who do have anything positive to say about it, just really like the idea of looking after a depressed neopet for whatever reason. It also seems like it captured the zeitgeist of all this "quarantine blues" that so many people are stricken with. Which you know, fair enough. If people feel catharsis from that, then who am I to say it's wrong. However, as a guy who puts this little bastard to shame when it comes to isolation and longing, it simply came off to me as annoying and stupid.
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Now I'm ashamed to admit that I actually started reading Thus spoke Zarathustra in the game...
I kind of liked the coziness of his room and the game was strangely relaxing. It does seem rather idiotic now that I've shared it with the world.
Now I'm ashamed to admit that I actually started reading Thus spoke Zarathustra in the game...
I kind of liked the coziness of his room and the game was strangely relaxing. It does seem rather idiotic now that I've shared it with the world.
Well, for what it's worth, I don't think that's idiotic, nor should you feel ashamed for enjoying what it has to offer. Even though I didn't personally care for it, if it's something that feels cozy and relaxing for you, then that's a great thing.
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@Imaginos Here's the link. I put it under a spoiler tag because for whatever reason it automatically turned into a giant embedded tweet (like so):
I just played through We Went Back. The gameplay is largely exploration and puzzles, with a creepy atmosphere that reminded me a bit of SOMA. It's a free game, so it's very short. Maybe 30 minutes total. There's a lot of environmental storytelling and little details hinting at what was going on before the start of the game that make me wish there was more to play. I definitely recommend it.
I have just got Doom (2016), and I will be playing Doom Eternal once the first game is completed. Also I am considering re-buying Return To Castle Wolfenstein because it is an awesome game, and then playing the newer Bethesda games in that franchise.
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Never heard of that before until you mentioned it just now. Decided to check it out for myself and, I have to agree with you, that was great! It's a shame there's so little available and you're absolutely right that it leaves you wanting more. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for bringing it to my attention. For what it's worth, here's a list of some other free games I've played/finished on Steam that perhaps might interest you.
Burning Daylight - A LIMBO/Inside type game with a cool sci-fi environment
Answer Knot - Really neat experience, don't want to spoil too much about it.
September 1999 - Extremely short horror game that only lasts like 5-10 minutes, but still pretty spooky.
Blameless - Another short horror game, but has a bit more meat on its bones and a couple puzzles to solve.
Concluse - An extremely grungey horror game, both in look and atmosphere. Really low budget, but pretty long for a free game.
The Static Speaks My Name - I mentioned it before in my previous post about suicide games, but it's worth putting here too since it's also free to play.
Dr. Langeskov and the Terribly Cursed Emerald - A short little comedy that pokes fun at the way games are made. Just thought I'd add something lighter in tone to help balance out the horror.
Funny you should mention that, since I was actually just about to replay it. I'll admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of SOMA since, like a Machine for Pigs, it removed practically everything from the Dark Descent that made it compelling gameplay-wise. Primarily stuff like the sanity meter and resource management. DD and Penumbra were actually survival horror, whereas Pigs and SOMA felt more like basic walking simulators. Be that as it may, I still feel this odd pull to replay it, mainly so as to re-experience the story again, while also holding the small hope that I might enjoy the whole game more than I did the first time. For contrast, I loved DD and its DLC Justine and replayed both immediately after the new hard mode came out for DD not too long ago. Next to being a great way to re-experience the game, I enjoyed almost everything about DD/Justine just as much as I ever did way back when. I guess, for me, I just wish that SOMA had evolved the formula on DD's gameplay, instead of tearing out everything that was there and leaving basically nothing in its place.
But hey, did you know a new Amnesia came out late last year? Shows how out of the loop I am, since I only just found out about that myself! The minute I'm done replaying SOMA, I'll be checking that out immediately afterwards. Really hope it's good. From the looks of it, it seems Frictional finally brought back some of the gameplay elements from DD and Penumbra, which is a very good thing in my book.
As an aside, I also found a couple new horror games that I'll probably get to soon. First is a game called "Paper Dolls", that also includes a sequel, and second is a game called "Yuppie Psycho", which looks pretty fun and interesting.
Thanks for the recommendations! Every so often it's nice to take a break from full length games and just blow through a whole bunch of short, free ones.
Funny you should mention that, since I was actually just about to replay it. I'll admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of SOMA since, like a Machine for Pigs, it removed practically everything from the Dark Descent that made it compelling gameplay-wise.
Yeah, you definitely play SOMA for the plot, not the gameplay. I love the plot and the philosophical questions it raises, so that's fine by me. I also like walking sims, so my feeling is that a good story trumps a lack of gameplay.
DD is a great game, though on replaying it I found that I liked it less than I did the first time. I never actually managed to get past the last suitor (I think that's what they're called) in the DLC, haha. Haven't gone near Machine for Pigs because of the mixed reviews, but I'm going to pick up Rebirth once it's more on sale. I also want to play the Penumbra games eventually.
Yeah, you definitely play SOMA for the plot, not the gameplay. I love the plot and the philosophical questions it raises, so that's fine by me. I also like walking sims, so my feeling is that a good story trumps a lack of gameplay.
Fair enough. I just don't understand why it had to be an either or situation. Given their past work with DD, I just found it a bit disappointing that they'd reduce the gameplay elements down to such a marginal status. Machine for Pigs definitely set the precedent for this kind of thing and while SOMA's story is much more compelling than Pigs' was, it still sucks that they had to sacrifice so hard on the gameplay. DD works so well because the gameplay helps to reinforce the overall atmosphere of vulnerability and dread. In the sense that although the darkness carries with it the unknown and possible danger, to use your resources and light candles or whip out your lantern will mean less of that being available when you really need it. In addition, even though you can hide from monsters, being in the darkness drains your mental health, forcing you to move and take the risk of confronting them. Further still, the fact that staring at the monsters is discouraged given the sanity meter helped to give them an extra sense of menace that otherwise wouldn't have been possible. In SOMA, nothing about the gameplay reinforces the overall atmosphere. You're just walking from place to place and reading notes/listening to audio logs. I like walking sims too, but I guess I just expected more from Frictional.
In Pigs' case, the devs who made Dear Esther played a big role in developing it, and Frictional's involvement mostly just boiled down to publishing it. In that sense, the lack of gameplay was to be forgiven/expected, since the Dear Esther devs were more geared towards the walking sim genre anyway. In SOMA's case though, I just don't understand why Frictional would follow the same kind of approach, when they were otherwise capable of really fleshing out the gameplay.
You're resetting that guy's consciousness in the simulated room over and over, so you can get the necessary information from him for solving a puzzle. That was by far, to me anyway, the most unsettling part of the game because it really leaned into the premise of what being digitized and copied really meant on a visceral and deeply disturbing level. A real nightmare scenario if you ask me. I have to say that I was glad that the game allowed you the choice to delete him from the servers and end his torment, especially since he never wanted to be there in the first place.
DD is a great game, though on replaying it I found that I liked it less than I did the first time. I never actually managed to get past the last suitor (I think that's what they're called) in the DLC, haha.
The only thing I found noticeably disappointing about DD upon replaying it was how mechanically linear/scripted all the monster spawns are. No matter what, they'll always despawn at a given time and, overall, their spawns are a lot less dynamic than I originally thought they were. It's nothing like the Alien from Alien Isolation, even though, granted, the random spawning in that game became super tedious after a while, especially on nightmare difficulty.
And yeah, Justine can be pretty annoying what with the whole permadeath thing. I always somehow get lucky with the last suitor and can manage to evade him just long enough to crank the door open and reach the end. Although permadeath raises the stakes/tension by a fair margin, I'd rather there was an option to restart a checkpoint to make the experience more accessible.
I played/finished Pigs a while back, and while it wasn't as bad as everybody made it out to be, it definitely wasn't all that great either. Like SOMA, the gameplay took a backseat to the story, but in Pigs' case the story just wasn't very interesting. It had a great setting and great ambience, but the plot was pretty forgettable. As I sit here, I can actually barely even remember what it was about, whereas the plots of Penumbra, DD, and SOMA, are still somewhat fresh in my mind, even after all this time.
The first Penumbra is pretty rough around the edges and the combat system is pretty crappy. For instance, you'll be spending plenty of time hitting buggy wolves over the head with a pickax while hiding up on boxes where they can't get you, which can get pretty tedious. The environment is really foreboding however and as someone who suffers a bit from claustrophobia, it succeeded in noticeably getting under my skin far more than most horror games ever do, even from everything that Frictional has made since. Out of the three Penumbra games they're all pretty decent, although 2 is definitely the closet to Amnesia in terms of gameplay/feel. The ending to the first game is probably one of the most chilling moments I've ever experienced in a horror game. You'll know what I mean if you ever play it.
Sorry for necroing this thread, but since I literally don't have anywhere else to post about these kinds of things; here I am. I just wanted to write my disjointed thoughts on a couple random games, mostly because I feel I need to express my opinion about them since, in this case, these opinions of mine otherwise run against the grain and, I'll admit, I sometimes get frustrated by how flawed/obtuse, that I feel anyway, the general consensus is.
I'd like to start with the aforementioned SOMA, which I ended up replaying a number of weeks back, and although I enjoyed it a bit more than I did the first time, it still disappointed me how stripped down the gameplay is compared to stuff like TDD and Penumbra. As far as the story goes, it certainly provokes a lot of thought about the concepts it plays around with, but Simon (the protagonist) is so dense when it comes to connecting basic dots together, that the series of events which drive the whole narrative to its conclusion feel extremely forced and contrived. I mean, yeah, his and Catharine's philosophical/existential conversations are nice and all, but their talks never really strike to the heart of what the nature of identity truly means. Instead, a lot of it feels like the same conversation happening over and over, just rehashed in different ways without any real evolution on the topic.
In addition, I found that a ton of shit that happens around the base is so confusing and overwhelming that it's pretty much impossible to piece together without a wiki. Every new audio log or bit of text you find just adds more and more names/places/events to keep track of, which eventually just ends up making it blend together into a complete mess of random information. As a result, it made finding this kind of stuff more of a chore to read/listen to than anything else, since very rarely does it actually give you anything truly meaningful to flesh out just what the hell's been happening.
I realize there are some people out there that like this sort of thing, insofar as attempting to collate all this disparate info and piece together the events of what happened, but that doesn't change the fact that as a player going through the story for the first, or even second time, you'll probably not have much idea about what's going on, at least beyond the primary events/goals of the main story. Kind of reminds me of Dark Souls in that sense, but I feel Dark Souls is much more superior when it comes to environmental storytelling, and is otherwise meant to be pretty ambiguous anyway. Granted, I suppose it's all random minutiae in the end, but it's just annoying having all this stuff fly at your face that you're then expected to absorb, no matter how incoherent it might be, while not really having much of an idea about what to make of any of it. Again, pretty much like Dark Souls; without a wiki or lore videos, you'll likely have no hope of getting a handle of most of what went down. Then again, I'm also willing to admit that maybe I'm just a complete idiot, but, even so, all I'm saying is that it sucked getting more and more info dumped on me, but only being left with more questions than answers.
It's cool seeing stuff like Catharine's body at the end, or that girl who was the last living human, but moments like those felt very few and far between. In terms of the environment resonating with the plot, those two examples were pretty much the high point. Everything else doesn't even come close to really having that same special feel. A slight second would go to rummaging through everyone's bunks in Theta (I think it was?), but that's basically it.
As well, I have to say that the main point of the game, just like the first time I played it, seemed laughably futile and pointless. Not to mention, it's only because of Simon's overwhelming dumbness that there's even a plot at all. If Simon could actually have understood what he was doing, and not have been 50 steps behind the player in terms of not getting something that is otherwise extremely obvious, then that would've made the plot way more powerful/meaningful. Instead, his enforced stupidity is used to push the narrative forward in a very awkward, immersion breaking way that really kneecaps what could've been a much more profound experience.
I mean, imagine for a moment if Simon actually had two simulated neurons to rub together and was able to realize that he was, of course, not going to be able to leave on the Ark at the end. At least not the version of himself that would actually do the uploading. Even when he switches bodies later on in the game HE STILL somehow doesn't fucking understand that copying your consciousness is just that; a copy. It's not a magical transference where the you who does the copying, is literally the same you that ends up wherever it is your consciousness was copied. Again, this just makes Simon's outrage at the end so very gratingly stupid, such to the point where even Catharine accidentally fries herself in sheer annoyance over said stupidity. This is the sort of thing that a fucking five year old could've understood, yet Simon is made to be so painfully thick by the writers, so as to justify their pathetically weak/predictable final "twist", and to also ram forward the events of the story leading up to the point. If Simon had actually known what he had to do, imagine all of the sorts of struggles he would've felt, the emotions that could've been explored, and the real meat of having to justify doing something even though you knowit's futile and that you'll never get to see the benefit of it anyway. Instead, the developers threw all that MUCH more interesting stuff right out the fucking window and put in its place a plot that rather aggravatingly insults the player's intelligence on every point where it counts.
Also, the lack of choice in the ending is still a huge disappointment. Compared to TDD, there's no excuse for Frictional to not have included alternate endings, some of which almost scream to have been included. One that comes to mind, would naturally involve not launching the ARK and simply destroying it instead. Why launch a VR reality into space that's doomed to be destroyed anyway? Worse than this, just think of the other horrific possibilities that could happen. Imagine if the simulated people in that environment started to go insane from the isolation, but were trapped inside and unable to kill themselves. Imagine if there was corruption of the program which caused endless torment. Why take the risk on any of that happening? Especially when the actual function of the ARK is such a stupid/pointless gesture anyway. Another such ending which comes to mind would involve recognizing that perhaps the intentions of the WAU are, in reality, the best option for humanity's survival, regardless of what that might mean. I personally don't agree with this particular ending at all (my pick would've been the last one I described), but it still should've been included nonetheless.
And one more thing, but the amount of choices you're presented with in the story, insofar as unplugging machines/people from WAU, or deleting people's stored identities (even your own), should've had WAY more weight in the story. I'm fine with some choices not having any consequences, but all of them? Seriously? Why even have them there in the first place then? The only choice that really had any gameplay resonance was early on where you can turn on the power and open a door immediately, and thus bypass a monster encounter completely, but that doing so leaves a simulated person unknowingly trapped in a machine screaming in agony due to the excruciating electrical current passing through their robot body. That's a choice, which while ultimately small, at least has something backing it up in the gameplay department. There's also picking which robot you want to "murder", so as to receive what you need to power the underwater zeppelin, no matter which one you choose though, it literally doesn't matter. I mean, yeah, if you look around you can discover the the tiny bot who's been your recurring companion up till then is actually more intelligent than the seemingly "human" sounding robot based on their hardware, but all it amounts to is brownie points. The choice itself still doesn't matter gameplay-wise. If killing the little bot instead of the dumb human bot led to you getting fucked over later, such as having to face an additional monster encounter (since the little bot wasn't there to help you), THEN it would've mattered. Likewise, if unplugging machines led to a different ending, one where you destroy the ARK for instance, THEN those choices would've mattered. As it stands, literally NONE of them matter at all, and that really more speaks to pure laziness on Frictional's part than anything. Also, let's not forget that killing or not killing the WAU has no effect on anything. Like, just what the hell was Frictional thinking with that? It's total bullshit. Again, think of Agrippa from TDD and how taking him along with you drastically changes the nature of the ending. None of that is present in SOMA.
Having said all that, does SOMA have a good story? Well yes, that goes without saying, but it also still has some really glaring flaws that ultimately kind of ruin the whole package, at least for me. It's just frustrating how limited/small minded the plot actually is, compared to what it could've been. Having said that, it just bothers me when people praise SOMA for its story and deem it the best of Frictional's work, even though it suffers from stripped down gameplay and a story that, especially when compared to that of Penumbra or TDD, isn't nearly as well rounded and satisfying. I guess most people just really like a game tackling existential topics, such as that having to do with identity, which is otherwise rarely done, but the execution of those topics left a lot to be desired. It sucks, because I actually REALLY want to like SOMA, and I do to an extent, but I still can't help feeling it's an overall disappointment in a lot of ways, and that's a damn shame because I'd absolutely love SOMA if it had more puzzles, more interesting monsters, a better written story, less minutiae cluttering up the audio logs/text logs, and engaging gameplay that incorporated staple aspects of survival horror, such as item management.
Speaking briefly on the gameplay, wouldn't it have been cool if swapping your consciousness was actually part of what was needed to solve puzzles or bypass enemies? Think of that one game called "The Swapper", but adapted to SOMA's environment. Now THAT would've really been something to make the gameplay resonate with the main plot, next to what I mentioned previously in an older post above. Sadly, what's there instead is nothing more than a walking simulator.
I also finished Amnesia: Rebirth just the other day and, I have to say, I really don't get why everyone bashed the hell out of it. For one thing, it actually brought back some of the gameplay elements that had been lost in both Pigs and SOMA. I mean, yeah, matchsticks are annoying as heck and the limit you have on how many you can carry is arbitrary and needlessly restrictive, but at least there's some actual honest to god item management again, which in turn adds much needed elements to the gameplay. The sanity and health meters are still both pretty much gone, which sucks, but at least there's a tangible penalty for dying, unlike in SOMA. Not to spoil it, but dying too often has a measurable effect on the ending, which actually makes it something you want to try and avoid, as opposed to being totally indifferent to it as in SOMA's case. There's also a ton more puzzles and physics related stuff in Rebirth, which is something that was also sorely lacking in both SOMA and Pigs.
From what I've read, it seems the main thing people are hating Rebirth for is that the story and protagonist aren't very good. On this point, I partially agree. The main character speaks in a very grating and over the top French accent and she often won't go five feet without muttering something to herself. Once the baby gets introduced via the pregnancy mechanic where you need to keep touching your belly to check up on how the baby's doing, this problem gets amped up even further, such to the point where you almost want to mute the woman's dialogue to spare having to hear her say the words "little one" for the thousandth fucking time. On that note, much of the dialogue is pretty saccharine and sentimental and really doesn't carry the same bleak vibe that Frictional is known for. The dialogue between the protagonist and her husband is especially nauseating, which would be almost acceptable if you weren't forced to hear so much of it.
All that aside though, I thought the story actually wasn't that bad and as a sort of pseudo sequel to TDD, I think it did pretty well. It clears up a lot of questions as to the source of the otherworldly forces which hunt Daniel in the first game, although sadly not all the answers are as satisfactory as they could be. Many people disliked this game for ruining the mystery of TDD, but I think Frictional did as admirable a job as they could to tie everything together. I mean, sure, the story has its flaws, but so does SOMA. It's pretty annoying when people put SOMA on a pedestal for being this narrative masterpiece, when really SOMA is just as frustrating from a story standpoint as Rebirth is. It's just that SOMA has a more compelling and not often used premise. As it stands though, at least Rebirth doesn't have such an avalanche of incomprehensible minutiae to slog through. Quite the contrary, a lot of that stuff is delivered MUCH better this time around and really adds to understanding what's going on, while dropping small additional details to TDD's plot as well. I imagine this is probably due to focusing on less stuff, and less people. In this case, you just have the crew of your crashed plane to worry about, whereas in SOMA's case you had an entire facility of names/events to hopelessly keep track of.
Another thing I've seen people complain about is the lack of interesting/frightening monsters, which is something I stand dumbfounded by because if there's one problem that SOMA had in spades, it was exactly that. All of the monsters in SOMA are completely disconnected from the narrative and utterly generic/boring. At least one of the monsters in Rebirth has some narrative weight attached to it, which can't be said at all of SOMA.
I mean, seriously, just think of Jin Yoshida from SOMA, assuming you even know in the first place who that is because, even if you finished the game, you almost probably don't. Talk about a fucking snooze fest of a monster that has no narrative weight to it whatsoever. It's just an empty obstacle blocking your path and nothing more. Or how about that monster in the crashed underwater ship that leaves you alone so long as you don't look at it. It's got a gimmick, a lame one I might add, but is otherwise totally boring and easy to evade.
Ultimately, I just don't get why people chewed out Rebirth for its flaws, while totally ignoring or glossing over those found in SOMA. For instance, people complain that the fortress was a bait and switch in terms of pretending to be a hub level similar to that of the TDD, but SOMA itself has zero hub levels and is literally just a linear walking simulator right to the very end. I too wish Rebirth could've been better, just as I wish SOMA could've been better, but at least you can give it kudos for trying to put things right when it came to the gameplay. It really bums me out because given the negative/mixed reaction to Rebirth, Frictional will probably tear out all the gameplay again with whatever they do next, mostly thanks to all the loudmouthed dumbasses out there, some of which I'd wager are probably just angry they didn't get SOMA 2 instead.
As it stands, when it comes to what I personally prefer out of everything Frictional has done, it would be the following.
TDD>Black Plague>SOMA>Rebirth>Pigs
SOMA slightly edges out Rebirth thanks to what it brings to the table in terms of its narrative/atmosphere, but it really could've been so much more. Assuming it had been, that would've made it truly worthy of being called Frictional's best game.
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