Gaming The RedCafe General/Random Gaming Chat Thread

The story should have been the main attracting point, considering the effort that went into it and the fact it's in the Alan Wake universe.

To call it Metroidvania is a massive stretch though. People calling every and any game that loops back on itself in the most basic way "metroidvania" really does a huge disservice to the classic design style and origins of the genre. This is way too linear, a few side doors that leads nowhere doesn't make it intricate in any way, especially when you get the access to them so easily and quickly.


It's ultimately an unremarkable tps, with some powers and a passable level design. None of which you haven't seen/used before, but still fun enough. The setting in the first couple of hours is intriguing, but it fails to do anything with it. The likes of AW and The Darkness have done it so much better.



One thing I will say is of you've seen it at full tilt rendering above 1080 with ray tracing, you've already seen what the next gen can be like (albeit with much lower fps on console).
 
Redlambs said:
The story should have been the main attracting point, considering the effort that went into it and the fact it's in the Alan Wake universe.

To call it Metroidvania is a massive stretch though. People calling every and any game that loops back on itself in the most basic way "metroidvania" really does a huge disservice to the classic design style and origins of the genre. This is way too linear, a few side doors that leads nowhere doesn't make it intricate in any way, especially when you get the access to them so easily and quickly.


It's ultimately an unremarkable tps, with some powers and a passable level design. None of which you haven't seen/used before, but still fun enough. The setting in the first couple of hours is intriguing, but it fails to do anything with it. The likes of AW and The Darkness have done it so much better.



One thing I will say is of you've seen it at full tilt rendering above 1080 with ray tracing, you've already seen what the next gen can be like (albeit with much lower fps on console).
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It's a video game, so gameplay > story any time any day for me. I can have a blast with a great gameplay and average story, but the opposite is hard to happen.

It's not a pure metroidvania but it has several metroidvania elements that are hard but to notice and appreciate. The building is designed in a pretty good way and encourages exploring whenever you gain new powers, and with each new power opens a new section of the map you haven't gone for yet. As I said, not strict metroidvania but copies several designs choices from them.

It's not a game without flaws or GOTY material but definitely a pretty fun ride and fast paced action that will keep you on your toes in many encounters.
 
el3mel said:
It's a video game, so gameplay > story any time any day for me. I can have a blast with a great gameplay and average story, but the opposite is hard to happen.

It's not a pure metroidvania but it has several metroidvania elements that are hard but to notice and appreciate. The building is designed in a pretty good way and encourages exploring whenever you gain new powers, and with each new power opens a new section of the map you haven't gone for yet. As I said, not strict metroidvania but copies several designs choices from them.

It's not a game without flaws or GOTY material but definitely a pretty fun ride and fast paced action that will keep you on your toes in many encounters.
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Gameplay > story for me too, however there are exceptions based on the overall experience. For example, Alan Wake had decent gameplay backing up a very good story. Witcher 3 had an epic story backing up mediocre gameplay.

This is mediocre in all elements. Apart from graphics, and even then that's heavily dependant on rig.

As for the metroidvania stuff being hard to notice? I'm not sure what was hard to notice, considering how linear the game actually is. But I,as I always do, explored every part of it from the off. Nothing was hard to notice, none of the puzzles were particularly taxing.

Don't get me wrong I've nothing against the level design, it's not bad, but it's neither intricate nor are there any "oh shit this is where this leads!" moments either. Nor does natural progression make you want to go back and explore, as there's nothing worth seeing. Hell, nearly all the "hidden areas" aren't even hidden, they are right in front of you all the way through. All the pathways are incredibly obvious, especially as every door you walk past with a red light you know for a fact you'll be opening within minutes. You don't have to remember a thing, you don't have to backtrack (past a few crappy chests to open that give you terrible powerups), and there's very few actual moments where new powers even open up pathways that do anyway.

All that being said, I think we'd probably agree about it's level. I guess I'm just disappointed overall. Remedy seem to be one of those always on the verge, but never quite achieve greatness. I almost don't want an Alan Wake 2 as I'm not confident they can do anything more with it.
 
Redlambs said:
Gameplay > story for me too, however there are exceptions based on the overall experience. For example, Alan Wake had decent gameplay backing up a very good story. Witcher 3 had an epic story backing up mediocre gameplay.

This is mediocre in all elements. Apart from graphics, and even then that's heavily dependant on rig.

As for the metroidvania stuff being hard to notice? I'm not sure what was hard to notice, considering how linear the game actually is. But I,as I always do, explored every part of it from the off. Nothing was hard to notice, none of the puzzles were particularly taxing.

Don't get me wrong I've nothing against the level design, it's not bad, but it's neither intricate nor are there any "oh shit this is where this leads!" moments either. Nor does natural progression make you want to go back and explore, as there's nothing worth seeing. Hell, nearly all the "hidden areas" aren't even hidden, they are right in front of you all the way through. All the pathways are incredibly obvious, especially as every door you walk past with a red light you know for a fact you'll be opening within minutes. You don't have to remember a thing, you don't have to backtrack (past a few crappy chests to open that give you terrible powerups), and there's very few actual moments where new powers even open up pathways that do anyway.

All that being said, I think we'd probably agree about it's level. I guess I'm just disappointed overall. Remedy seem to be one of those always on the verge, but never quite achieve greatness. I almost don't want an Alan Wake 2 as I'm not confident they can do anything more with it.
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I will disagree with Witcher 3 having mediocre gameplay. I though it was great, started very slowly yeah but at one point I became addicted to the combat, but opinions and all I guess. You aren't the first one I saw that didn't like the gameplay in Witcher anyway. The action in Control was pretty good though, and gave me a good adrenaline rush in few encounters.

I said "hard but to notice" which means the metroidvania aspects they copied were easily noticed. I think you missed the word "but" in the sentence. :D Again I didn't say it's a pure metroidvania. It's not. It is a semi linear action adventure game. It just copies several idea from the metroidvania games in terms of design and does them kinda well imo. It's semi linear, just less linear than Remedy previous titles, which is a good step for them imo. They were probably testing the idea of making their games more open and less linear than previously but didn't overblow it here. I guess now since the design worked pretty well for most aspects they will try to move several more steps forward in their upcoming action games when it comes to them being more open. I will take the metroidvania aspects they copied there as a try or a test.
 
el3mel said:
I will disagree with Witcher 3 having mediocre gameplay. I though it was great, started very slowly yeah but at one point I became addicted to the combat, but opinions and all I guess. You aren't the first one I saw that didn't like the gameplay in Witcher anyway. The action in Control was pretty good though, and gave me a good adrenaline rush in few encounters.

I said "hard but to notice" which means the metroidvania aspects they copied were easily noticed. I think you missed the word "but" in the sentence. :D Again I didn't say it's a pure metroidvania. It's not. It is a semi linear action adventure game. It just copies several idea from the metroidvania games in terms of design and does them kinda well imo. It's semi linear, just less linear than Remedy previous titles, which is a good step for them imo. They were probably testing the idea of making their games more open and less linear than previously but didn't overblow it here. I guess now since the design worked pretty well for most aspects they will try to move several more steps forward in their upcoming action games when it comes to them being more open. I will take the metroidvania aspects they copied there as a try or a test.
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Well the Witcher gameplay is incredibly mediocre, broken even. The fact they had to fix the movement and still didn't get it right speaks to that, plus the endless mod makers trying and failing to properly fix the levelling/rpg aspects. Not to mention the fact that it's ridiculously unbalanced all round. But that's been done on here and I still pumped well over a hundred hours into it :lol:

Again the metroidvania comments are off, it's nowhere near that kind of game. Might as well call it a shooter and say it's a "HaloDuty" game because it has a gun.

Anyway, as I said, I think we'd probably agree that the game is decent. However I don't agree about where they are headed. Remedy are great and have some talented people on board, but this isn't some open world game, it's still linear and they've tied it into the AW universe which means people are going to expect it to have a story and intrigue. It's fair to be disappointed in that sense though, as where AW paid tribute to noir films and the likes of Twin Peaks, this is just generic and boring on that front.

All IMO of course!
 
Redlambs said:
Well the Witcher gameplay is incredibly mediocre, broken even. The fact they had to fix the movement and still didn't get it right speaks to that, plus the endless mod makers trying and failing to properly fix the levelling/rpg aspects. Not to mention the fact that it's ridiculously unbalanced all round. But that's been done on here and I still pumped well over a hundred hours into it :lol:

Again the metroidvania comments are off, it's nowhere near that kind of game. Might as well call it a shooter and say it's a "HaloDuty" game because it has a gun.

Anyway, as I said, I think we'd probably agree that the game is decent. However I don't agree about where they are headed. Remedy are great and have some talented people on board, but this isn't some open world game, it's still linear and they've tied it into the AW universe which means people are going to expect it to have a story and intrigue. It's fair to be disappointed in that sense though, as where AW paid tribute to noir films and the likes of Twin Peaks, this is just generic and boring on that front.

All IMO of course!
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Regarding the paragraph about metroidvania, I think the comparison is kinda different from the example you mentioned. The game settings happen in a building that you can explore freely but need to acquire key cards or certain powers to open sections of it that were previously closed to progress. It is a clear idea from metroidvania games that many games currently copy, doesn't make them metroidvania games themselves but it makes them have metroidvania aspects. Kinda like many games which aren't RPG, but have many RPG elements in them, like levels, xp and skill tree, but these don't make them RPG games. They just have some RPG aspects that they copied. Similarly many games copy certain aspects from metroidvania style, but aren't necessarily metroidvania games. Just some aspects.

I don't expect their upcoming games to be open world and I don't want it to be. I'm fine with semi linear experiences imo. They just need to make it less linear and more freely explorable and improve the concept, and I'll be fine with that. I'm totally tired of open world games personally.

No problem in being disappointed of course. I mean I myself got disappointed with other big titles which I saw praise for me. Just from the memory as it came last year, I was very disappointed with level design in DMC5 even though the game is fully praised but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as many, because I thought the levels were bland with zero variety, like replaying the same mission over and over and over again. It happens. Each one looks at different aspects in the games he plays.
 
Damien said:
Yeah, after I finish Uncharted 1 I'm going to take a break from the series for a while :lol:
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Finished the game one day later. Was a bit surprised but the remaining chapters were so damn short for the most part. Now, to try and get the Platinum (feck going for 100%, not doing Brutal). I think I'll struggle on the speedrun trophies, never been good at speedrunning stuff.

Then can reward myself by getting FFVIIR.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
I regret giving away my Wii to my friends awhile back.

I could be keeping in shape playing tennis right now.
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I loved Wii Tennis. You could always play a tennis match video and pretend you're playing as one of the players. You'll still be fit but you'll look a bit odd. I saw a video of someone running a half marathon on their balcony.
 
I've been plugging away at Elite Dangerous on the days I've not been working. It's very relaxing doing my cargo runs, until any sort of combat starts then it's just the AI wrecking me in seconds while I barely damage them. It's multiplayer is fairly shocking.
 
I finally got around to playing (and finishing) Uncharted Lost Legacy... dunno why it took me so long but it was as brilliant as you'd come to expect from an Uncharted game.

That last chapter was something else... one of the finest levels of a game I've played in quite some time.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I finally got around to playing (and finishing) Uncharted Lost Legacy... dunno why it took me so long but it was as brilliant as you'd come to expect from an Uncharted game.

That last chapter was something else... one of the finest levels of a game I've played in quite some time.
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Ha, I was just doing the same off my PS Now account.

Or PS Go. Or PS whatever...I can’t keep track of all these subs.
 
I suddenly have a bunch of time for gaming for the first time in ages. Not sure why.

I just downloaded Assassin's Creed Odyssey and seems fun after 1 hour. Never played this series.

Any thoughts from the Caf?
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I finally got around to playing (and finishing) Uncharted Lost Legacy... dunno why it took me so long but it was as brilliant as you'd come to expect from an Uncharted game.

That last chapter was something else... one of the finest levels of a game I've played in quite some time.
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I started it but never finished it, don't know why, just didn't grip me like the others.
 
Why is there no soundtrack in DOOM 64 ?

its a pretty fun game but the lack of music is sort of killing the experience.
 
I bought 3 x ps4 consoles. 1 each for my 2 sons and me.
But my one is in belfast so i priced one up in Lima. Works out at £480 with 4 old games. I'm pretty sure that was the price when it first launched in the uk.
Feck that.
 
I picked up Valfaris on Steam yesterday. I'm terrible at games and hardly play any, but thought I'd pick something up since I'm gonna be indoors for the foreseeable, and I just wanna blast baddies. It's great fun. Plays like if Doom was a 2D sidescroller, with a boss battle pretty much every 5 minutes.

Tacky death metal soundtrack is pretty cool, but the novelty wears off fairly quick.


What else is good in way of metroidvania or hack'n'slash RPG types? (running a mid-range laptop, so nothing too heavy on the graphics). I quite like the look of Hades, but permadeath games are a bit of a drag.
 
I've been playing Nier: Automata for the past week, something I've been wanting to do since it released back in 2017 but somehow never got around to. I'd read a lot about it having multiple endings and really justifying multiple playthroughs, but holy crap, even then I wasn't prepared for what just happened! I've just arrived at

route C. What the actual feck just happened? I'm 60 hours into the game, finished 2 playthroughs (sort of), upgraded weapons, did loads of sidequests, etc etc. but it suddenly feels like all of that was just prologue and the real game starts now. Or they've somehow included the sequel without telling me! I have no idea how much game is still ahead of me, could be 5 hours, 10 hours, 30 hours, I couldn't say, but I'm excited to find out. I don't think a game has ever blown my mind quite like this, this is something else.
 
Playing Fallout: New Vegas, my first Fallout game. Quite enjoying it so far, it seems that Obsidian had put though in every quest they had designed.

Purchased yesterday, Torment: Tides of Numenara. Planescape: Torment is an all-time great, so hoping that this is near as good.
 
Terrifying model shows what avid gamers could look like in just 20 years

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/terrifying-model-show-what-avid-21820221

0_JS210138659.jpg

:lol:
 
Been playing assassins creed odyssey seems a good game never played AC before, but keep getting killed very easy, is this normal?
 
Deery said:
Been playing assassins creed odyssey seems a good game never played AC before, but keep getting killed very easy, is this normal?
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It relies heavily on gear and skills, so it can be a tricky game if you're under equiped. I thought it was tedious rather than difficult, with very tanky enemies that take too long to kill. You need to play a little defensively, with lots of dodging and parrying.
 
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