Anyone getting Second Sight?

olimario said:
It seems like a good rental but nothing more. I'll wait until TS3 to buy anything from Free Radical.

its gonna be 39.99 if that helps change your mind from rental to buying? :D
 
Wario64 said:
Isn't it out in Europe already? Any reviews out there?


yeah if you go to gamerankings. Looks like they like the cube version the best but its been scoring well on all three platforms
 
I've played it and it's pretty decent, but... Well, the level design (and enemy AI) is absolute crap. You can tell that they wanted you to do some mediocre sneaking, but there's never any real need to do that. And when it's supposed to get harder, they just cheat by like letting cameras see you when you're invisibe. The flashback missions are a little better, though, and don't focus as much on sneaking. It has a pretty fun to use sniper rifle.

However, the story is pretty neat. Nothing really amazing, but cool with a huge twist close to the end. I'd say, yeah, wait for it to get a little cheaper. No replay value from what I could see, and it is rather short.
 
here are my impressions for a while back:

Second Sight is one of those great games that wont do so well. People will be turned off immediately by the reports of spawning enemies and its stealth leanings.
Plus, PsiOps is already out and it offers, on paper, the exact same play experience.

But having played both games, I can tell you that Second Sight offers you that X factor.
Its the little touches which make an excellent game and FRD has poured them in.
Using the terminals in SS is a joy, similar to DOOM3 you interact with the terminal in-game, but unlike DOOM3, the exact info you are looking for isnt on the front page, you have to dig. Not too deeply, but its a nice touch.
There are loads of nice touches and i would only ruin the game if i described the ones i have seen, so i wont.

The script and voice-acting is quite pleasant, so far I havent wanted to rewrite any cheesy lines, unlike 90% of the games I have played and the story is nicely paced, although I fucking hate flashbacks as a story device (its very cheap and nasty)but it is handled in SS quite well.

But its a stealth game! yeah it is, but in another wonderful touch you dont HAVE to kill anyone (so far) in the game, so I for one, enjoy sneaking past and fooling the guards with my non-letal tactics.
For those respawning guard alerts, you have a large array of abilities you get you out of any tight spot, so I cant imagine too many people having trouble with the softly softly approach. But you also have the standard weapon set to blast your way out of any tight cover (I only tried it once... for a test)

But of course it does have bad points, training is a fucking chore, and its long. It would have nice to have had some story background 'colouring' at the same time, because its definetly a 'go get a sandwiche' moment.

The camera is a bit ropey at times and doesnt have the solid feel of psi-ops cam, it seems to always want to do its own thing and you WILL be fighting with it. There is survival cam option, but i found it useless.

I really like the gfx, they are clear and clean. i think FRD and IO interactive share a talent for avoiding clutter in level design and provide you a intuitive map. There is some slowdown and its in the craziest places, very very strange.
Although im not a big fan of the art design and i personally think that timesplitters 'thing' is a bit dated, but thats just me and it hasnt taken from the game one bit.

All in all: a very solid 8 out of 10.
Very solid.
 
buck naked said:
I'm interested in the murmurs of a PC version later this year... It looks much more interesting than TimeSplitters 3.

Same here. I want to see what the PC version offers before getting any of them.
 
buck naked said:
aku, who wins: Second Sight or Psi-Ops?
I wish I knew. Haven't played Psi-Ops, even though I really want to. But am I wrong in assuming Psi only offers telekinesis? That's totally the focus from what I've seen, at least.

SS offers many psi-powers and telekinesis is actually one of the ones I use the least. (Until it upgrades so you can strangle people at a distance, of course.)

Templar Wizard said:
I fucking hate flashbacks as a story device (its very cheap and nasty)but it is handled in SS quite well.
I take it you beat the game, then? :D
I enjoyed that twist on it, even though you realize what's coming before FRD want you to.

And having the tutorial level be a flashback to John's real military training is a pretty smart solution.
 
I've tried it for an hour or so. Slow beginning...especially with the tutorials getting redundant pretty fast, and it's a bit hard to know what to do exactly.

And I can really sense Timesplitters 2 in this game. The animations, controls, graphical design and even the music reminds me of TS2.

It's a nice game so far, but I guess I'm not very good at stealth games, I keep getting discovered all the time while running around trying to figure out exactly what to do. It's fun to play around with the psychic powers though. :P
 
Kiriku said:
It's a nice game so far, but I guess I'm not very good at stealth games, I keep getting discovered all the time while running around trying to figure out exactly what to do. It's fun to play around with the psychic powers though. :P
It's not you. As I mentioned before, the level design isn't good enough for proper sneaking.

You'll get Charm (invisibility) soon, if you don't have it already, though. Makes it much better.
 
aku:jiki said:
It's not you. As I mentioned before, the level design isn't good enough for proper sneaking.

You'll get Charm (invisibility) soon, if you don't have it already, though. Makes it much better.

Yeah, I got charm and it's really useful, only thing is it drains the psychic meter so freakin' fast.
 
Kiriku said:
Yeah, I got charm and it's really useful, only thing is it drains the psychic meter so freakin' fast.
Yes, but don't forget how dumb the AI is.

You don't have to activate it very far away from them, since they can't see further than like 5 meters in front of themselves anyway. (But sometimes they can see around corners!)
 
I wasn't all that impressed with what I played at GSL and on the OXM demo, especialy compared to Psi-Ops. The storyline seems marginally interesting, but that's about it. The controls and physics feel awkward and floaty, the stealth elements pretty weak, and it uses a MGS-style fixed camera system.

Plus I'm getting pretty tired of Free Radical's art and animation style. Hire a couple of new artists and try something different guys.
 
I had no problems with the controls or physics -- that must've been beta code you were playing. And you can switch to a free camera by pressing Y (on Xbox).

Pretty clever, I thought. Useless, yeah, but still. I only ever switched back to fixed to see if they had set a nice-looking angle for certain rooms.
 
aku:jiki said:
I had no problems with the controls or physics -- that must've been beta code you were playing. And you can switch to a free camera by pressing Y (on Xbox).
Ah, I'll have to try that.

I don't know that there is a problem with the physics/controls per se. It's just that objects don't seem to have much inertia or momentum, and it seems tough to maneouver around corners or obstacles. It may be that the controls were suffering in my mind simply because of the adjustment required coming from Psi-Ops.
 
aku:jiki said:
I wish I knew. Haven't played Psi-Ops, even though I really want to. But am I wrong in assuming Psi only offers telekinesis? That's totally the focus from what I've seen, at least.

Telekinesis (throwing), Pyrokinesis (burning), Mind Control (duh), Mind Drain (recharge), Aura View (worst power ever, almost ruins the game).
 
I also just had the chance to try it...

It seems like it could be a very good game, actually. I was really impressed by it. I've tried it on PS2 and XBOX. The XBOX version looks a lot nicer since it's running at 60 fps in 480p while the PS2 version moves at 30 fps without progscan support. Though, the PS2 version had some slightly different lighting effects that gave it a slightly more stylish look. The XBOX game had a very very clean look to it while the slightly dirtier PS2 game had different color usage or something. The scene in Foyer, for example, was REALLLY striking on PS2, for some reason. Also, the PS2 uses a lot of motion blur effects.

Still, I'd take the XBOX version just for the higher framerate and 480p support.

The controls are a bit floaty, but the game feels very polished. It animates well and feels very solid.

The game itself was already commented on in here and I agree with it based on the demo. I don't have the cash for this immediately, but I'd love to check it out later on. Also of note, the music is quite good (same composer as TS and TS2, it seems).
 
Prine said:
Psi Ops is the better game.

Debatable. They are in seperate genres IMO



Pretty much agree with dark on the XB vs PS2 comparison...only I should state again that the PS2 version runs at 30fps and seems to 'run' slower, too. the framerate, even at 30, is less stable, and the motion blur proved to be distracting, to me. the game itself is extremely enjoyable, however, regardless of the platform. it's just that, when given the choice, I honestly see no reason to choose the PS2 version over another outside of controller bias :b
 
Gattsu25 said:
Debatable. They are in seperate genres IMO



Pretty much agree with dark on the XB vs PS2 comparison...only I should state again that the PS2 version runs at 30fps and seems to 'run' slower, too. the framerate, even at 30, is less stable, and the motion blur proved to be distracting, to me. the game itself is extremely enjoyable, however, regardless of the platform. it's just that, when given the choice, I honestly see no reason to choose the PS2 version over another outside of controller bias :b

Yeah, it isn't fair to compare them. They are very different games based on a similar concept (ok, a VERY similar concept).

I also agree, I don't see any reason to go with the PS2 version over the XBOX version. The XBOX version just feels a lot better.
 
I have it for the Cube and it also runs at 60fps with a few drops here and there, but it plays nicely has a much better story and characters than Psi-ops which is full of that horrible art style and generic characters, this is better in those areas but Psi-ops does have much better physics.....
 
Doom_Bringer said:
I liked the demo but bought Psi-ops. The physics in Psi-ops are just awesome. Psi-Ops > SS :D


Maybe but the story and the settings is much better than the ones in Psi-ops, i have played a bit of the game and im sick of the industrial type of settings in games.....Second sight in this area is really great.....
 
They are not comparable...

If you prefer action driven games, go for Psi Ops. If you prefer more "adventure" games that let you focus on no lethal abilities (even if you can in some nasty ways) and focus on story, you should check Second Sight. Both are very interesting games and fun to play.

The animation and graphics in Second Sight are very nice, sure they have that Free Radical style you hate or like it, but it adds a lot of personality to the faces of characters IMO. The story its cool but I personally don´t like most of the flasback scenes where you don´t have any power, I think the game suffers a lot of this since without your mind habilities, stealth it´s quite clunky.
 
Wario64 said:
Isn't it out in Europe already? Any reviews out there?

Finished it a few weeks ago. Good game - and that's coming from someone who hated Timesplitters.

Quite a cool little story with a nice twist. Good mix of combat and even some Icoish Yorda style gameplay thrown in.

I'd give it a 8/10
 
Bluemercury said:
Maybe but the story and the settings is much better than the ones in Psi-ops, i have played a bit of the game and im sick of the industrial type of settings in games.....Second sight in this area is really great.....

Er, there were more than industrial settings. :P
 
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