SketchTheArtist
Member
I was really interested with the old premise and the previous Art Direction that was fun and now I'm just bored looking at the screens. It looks like every game. Good job guys!
Fuse (formally OverStrike) Re-Reveal (and Impressions), releasing Q1 2013
- Thread starter 8byte
- Start date
RobotRocker
Member
Or Timesplitters: Future Perfect. Or Conker's Bad Fur Day. Or plenty of other games that have more animated aesthetics but can still roll with a mature rating.
Reminds me a lot of The Club which was a brilliant game but the "Gritty and realistic" atmosphere completely sucked the life out of it when a balls out crazy arcade aesthetic would have been perfect.
It's a complete cop out and a damning incitement of Insomniac's creative process if they think they have to make the art style more gritty and realistic to appeal to a broader audience.
Battlefield 2 Modern Combat also did that and it was awesome!
like every Insomniac game this gen (with the exception of the first resistance)?
Sephiroth503
Member
jstevenson, will we be getting gameplay footage including a bit of the narrative as well as gameplay itself?
I think it looks good. Doesn't look very much different from the mock gameplay in the initial cg reveal trailer. I don't understand where the complaints about this looking more realistic come from. Name is super lame and generic though. Why was Overstrike (the name) rejected again?
ScreenSplitter
Member
Hm. Local co-op, and you've redeemed yourself Insomniac.
McBradders
NeoGAF: my new HOME
Clearly we're reading different threads here.
Exterminieren
Banned
Man, Overstrike, what did they do to you? 
AcceptableGhost
Member
I still think this is going to be a huge bomb (regardless of art style). EA partners curse.
slaughterking
Member
It's a shame that Insomniac produces some of the most polished games out there and yet I have a hard time to find any of them appealing these days. If only they could make a cartoony/actiony platfomer that is not another Ratchet game...
BruiserBear
Banned
Uh, I think you're missing the point of the complaints entirely. The problem people have is that this game looked like something different from it's reveal trailer, and now it just looks like everything else.
Just as I feared, sadly. I'm out. Sorry Insomniac, but I've had enough of those games to never want to play another one for a while. OverStrike looked interesting, Fuse does not.
Sir Garbageman
Member
Pretty much this.
EDIT: I was originally hoping for a mish-mash of Timesplitters, TF2, the Incredibles and the tv show Leverage and instead I get Generic the co-op game.
The question people have is...why? Why take what had promise in the original trailer and "evolve" (no one buys this dude) it into a more "believable" and "grounded" take on the genre? Why? Don't give us buzz words.
Also, this makes THREE co-op games with EA on the label in March alone. Army of Two, Dead Space 3 and Fuse. Poor scheduling by...whoever.
McBradders
NeoGAF: my new HOME
If this new art direction is from EA focus groups... man, they done goofed.
Even worse if this remains, 3 games that all look pretty similar. BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!
Even worse if this remains, 3 games that all look pretty similar. BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!
Pai Pai Master
Banned
That's what I want to hear, but this Verge article comes off completely differently and I think that's what people are hanging on to. I guess...I'm past the point where I want videogames about shooting big ugly monsters and robots and whatnot to be "grounded and believable." I've personally had enough of that this generation.
That said, I obviously need to wait until I play it for myself before condemning the changes. I've always loved Insomniac's games. And Resistance 3 is a testament to the fact that you guys can do a "grimdark" shooter game and still pull something off that most other devs fail at, which is making me give an actual shit about the characters and what I'm engaging in.
This seems clearly inspired by the excellent co-op mode you guys did for R2 so I'm sure the gameplay is going to be very solid. I'm just getting tired of games that have a tendency to bring themselves closer to the "Modern Warfare" visual style in order to pull in that audience. I hope that's not what's happening here and I'm interested in seeing for myself how the new visuals mesh with the gameplay and tone, especially when the humour aspect is still mostly intact.
Spotless Mind
Member
The original artstyle was infinitely more interesting and would have made it stand out from all the other realistic/boring looking shooters. Overstrike was a MUCH better name as well. WTF Insomniac.
This has BOMB written all over it.
This has BOMB written all over it.
GuitarAtomik
Member
I am sad about the art change but at least the game sounds cool. Essentially a more focused, 3rd person with cover Borderlands apparently (which ironically has a cartoony art style with blood and gore).
I seriously don't get why it matters what the game looks like if it's fun. Hell, Insomniac didn't even produce the initial trailer, another studio did (because OverStrike at the time probably wasn't nearly far enough along). For all we know, it could have spent 2 months as a more animated shooter, nothing more.
That said, it isn't like the shift is worlds removed from one another. The differences are pretty minor. Looking at the two, you can still immediately identify who each character is. At least that's how I feel.
That said, it really is concerning to me that people are leagues more interested in the art style than they are the game itself. Next generation is fucked with precedents set like this.
Live Free or Die
Banned
Agreed.
It's written by a member of the "games journalism" club. Do you expect it to be accurate? If they saw what I did, it was a few missions briefs, some short gameplay segments, and played two sections. Unless someone told them specifically that it was a "more mature and serious story" (which a few members of the dev team told us it was NOT) then I don't know where they're getting that (outside of assuming new art style = mature and serious).
BruiserBear
Banned
I really doubt the March 2013 release date. That is probably just a target for now. I bet this shows up closer to summer.
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
I wouldn't doubt it
I am not just concerned with art styles but at this point I am sick of what most companies are delivering. Do at least something different!
BTW did anyone else notice that this seems to get the exact same marketing timeline as Syndicate? we also know how EA sometimes treats it's partners (Amalur)...
BruiserBear
Banned
Fair enough. I just can't see EA keeping that date with all the other games, even ones they're publishing, coming at the same time.
Are we going to see the trailer today?
Well, when I played, the co-op did feel different. Namely because it wasn't just "take cover and shoot shoot bang bang". It was "work with your team mates effectively". I guess I'll write a long post to explain why this isn't just Gears redux.
TheBioLover
Member
http://www.insomniacgames.com/community/showthread.php?49448-Fuse-Q-amp-A!&p=1339892&viewfull=1#post1339892
For those saying the game will be brown and colourless.
For those saying the game will be brown and colourless.
They're doing what their publisher told them to.
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
if the clearances come through, I think so. the trailer is awesome. The Fuse Weapons and their effects are pretty cool and really help give the game its own feel
Maybe people derive enjoyment from a game's aesthetic as much as they do from how it plays?
At least that's how I feel. I find it hard to put into words, but the way a game looks has an impact on how I'm feeling when I play the game, and to certain degrees that can detract or enhance the playing experience based entirely on its looks. Some people are suckers for ultra-realistic graphics, or want all of their games to be "gritty" or whatever. On the flip side, I'm a sucker for interesting, new and unusual art directions (no matter what they are, so long as they're aesthetically pleasing), and the direction Insomniac seem to have gone with this compared to the OverStrike trailer is not in any way, shape, or form appealing. Though not because it's ugly (five years ago I'd have really dug this); it's just that I've seen countless games that look exactly the same, to the point that playing Fuse would be like eating the same meal for a whole week. No thanks.
I'm going to continue giving the game a fair shake, and checking out new media releases and what not, but thusfar what I've seen so far is less interesting than what OverStrike looked like.
Of course it's going to bomb, most games released this late in the console life cycle bomb, especially if they are new IPs.
That said it looks interesting.
Pai Pai Master
Banned
Definitely not saying the Verge article is accurate when I've got you and James telling us otherwise in this very thread.
To be perfectly honest, Insomniac has never really struck out when it comes to cohesion in art style, tone and presentation. People are always really opinionated when it comes to certain games (i.e. every Resistance thread on GAF deteriorates into a R2 hate-fest, and every Ratchet & Clank thread is full of people asking why there's another R&C game), but visual style is usually a strong point when it comes to their games.
Personally, I'm obsessive over these things because I'm an artist myself and that's the primary reason for me to be drawn to a lot of games, but I think it's important that people feel like they're looking at the same game that they're playing, and a lot of developers tend to fail here. As I mentioned before, Borderlands and Left4Dead are able to pull off very different visual styles and still manage to be funny games, and I think Insomniac knows perfectly well what they want to go for. I don't doubt they'll be able to pull it off, but I'm personally more a fan of the stylized characters in the original reveal compared to the more "grounded" style we have today.
Looking forward to seeing more, and thanks for the impressions.
To explain why this isn't just "shoot shoot bang bang" co-op ala Gears, Army of Two, Dead Space, etc...
First and foremost, the combat encounters aren't as straight forward as those, so to speak, and are designed more or less to make you work together.
One of the segments we played saw enemies encountering us from the back after clearing an area. They came from the front, and along the two stair wells at either side. In order to deal with them, I dropped one of Daltons shields (he can carry one and drop one, IIRC) and allowed Jacob and Izzy to get behind it. I pressed forward absorbing fire from the opposite side. Naya, on the other hand, went into her cloak (invisible) and got behind all of the enemies. As she took them out from the back (and Izzy / Jacob from the front) with Dalton absorbing fire, we were able to deal with the enemies pretty effectively. If we would have just used cover, we would have died. The enemies move with a good deal of speed, and were mixed with some carrying shields of their own, making direct fire ineffective.
They didn't dilly dally on cover, peeking in and out waiting to get shot. There were a few in the back providing "cover fire" while squads of enemies QUICKLY pressed forward.
Given that we only saw one mission, I can imagine there is a much larger variety of enemy types that will require much closer integration and work. It's not just "shoot shoot bang bang" guys. The game play feels quite a bit more cooperative than other "cover shooters" I've played. Much more fun as well (particularly when you hit Fuse mode...it was a blast just wrecking everyone's shit).
First and foremost, the combat encounters aren't as straight forward as those, so to speak, and are designed more or less to make you work together.
One of the segments we played saw enemies encountering us from the back after clearing an area. They came from the front, and along the two stair wells at either side. In order to deal with them, I dropped one of Daltons shields (he can carry one and drop one, IIRC) and allowed Jacob and Izzy to get behind it. I pressed forward absorbing fire from the opposite side. Naya, on the other hand, went into her cloak (invisible) and got behind all of the enemies. As she took them out from the back (and Izzy / Jacob from the front) with Dalton absorbing fire, we were able to deal with the enemies pretty effectively. If we would have just used cover, we would have died. The enemies move with a good deal of speed, and were mixed with some carrying shields of their own, making direct fire ineffective.
They didn't dilly dally on cover, peeking in and out waiting to get shot. There were a few in the back providing "cover fire" while squads of enemies QUICKLY pressed forward.
Given that we only saw one mission, I can imagine there is a much larger variety of enemy types that will require much closer integration and work. It's not just "shoot shoot bang bang" guys. The game play feels quite a bit more cooperative than other "cover shooters" I've played. Much more fun as well (particularly when you hit Fuse mode...it was a blast just wrecking everyone's shit).
The PR just says 360/PS3