Now might be a good time, the game comes out of Early Access with its big launch update on November 18th. I thought about adding it to the sale topic (I do love the game personally), but I opted not as it's going to get more exposure within the next month on release anyway (also I tried recommending mostly/only games with under 1 million sales, and Killing Floor 2 does have 1 million sales).
Great list. I'll have to try out some of the lesser known titles this weekend. It's all well and good me shouting about how SOMA is a masterpiece and how Oxenfree is one of the best of this year, but hopefully some of the smaller titles will offer something unique.
I'll be trying to name a few favorites in the topic itself and when answering people's questions, but people may be surprised how many really good horror games have released in the last few years which has almost no presence in the public eye. Shame too.
First DROD DLC is out, seems the devs plan to release a new pack each week. Which is great - more puzzle games need the Picross 3D weekly puzzle pack approach. Imagine Hexcells/Squarecells with that kind of support!
Keys are out on Caravel profile for people who registered/bought the games there.
Older game as DLC for a sequel... interesting approach! I guess that given the way that DroD works, with each 'major' game release being a new version of the game, it makes sense here.
Sadly, no keys for GatEB itself on Caravel (I bought it *ages* ago), so I guess that I'll be sticking with my DRM-free copy for now.
I remember someone saying good things about that game, which reaches its historical lowest price during these sales, but I don't remember what exactly. I only see 4 people on my Steam list who own it though. Any clue?
Remember waifu2x? I wonder what the open-source release of that kind of new algorithm, dubbed Neural Enhance, could achieve on pixel arts and other video game materials. Using a GPU, it is said to take 5 seconds to output a 1080p image out of an image originally 4 times downscaled, so 270p (if I read correctly in my quick look). I don't know if the close-ups of the faces are really outputs of the algorithm, but if they are, wow, imagine the applications. Online demo 1, demo 2, and demo 3.
I have not yet tried to send my own pictures there, but it should be possible, since there is an interface. Need to try with Blackwell.
Edit: I have just tried and it did not work that well. I imagine it is not the purpose of this pre-trained network, which was mostly trained on photos and faces, so it might explain the noise and artefacts. Time will tell.
Still impressive compared to the downsampled (left). The network is "hallucinating" the details of the jacket, so it is not supposed to give the same pixel art look as the original anyway.
Remember waifu2x? I wonder what the open-source release of that kind of new algorithm, dubbed Neural Enhance, could achieve on pixel arts and other video game materials. Using a GPU, it is said to take 5 seconds to output a 1080p image out of an image originally 4 times downscaled, so 270p (if I read correctly in my quick look). I don't know if the close-ups of the faces are really outputs of the algorithm, but if they are, wow, imagine the applications.
I hear gears of war 4 is getting multiplayer crossplay in competitive modes to see if it is unfair. I really hope people stop bitching because I want more people to play against.
Finished Mankind Divided. I didn't have a ton of problems with the ending since I expected it to be abrupt, but I felt it was fine enough and that ending stinger certainly suggests more interesting things to come-
totally knew Delara was an Illuminati plant, my guess is Jensen is their nanomachine test tube after they got their hands on him in Alaska. My guess is that Janus is either some sort of AI or Lebedev. Debeers is tracking him after all. No sign of MJ12 just yet.
And the best easter egg was the confirmation that
best girl Malik is alive and still likes Spy Boy.
Marchenko sadly was pretty dull, if we get that sequel (I'll take reused assets if the animation and subtitling is better next time...) I would prefer a young Walton Simons to show up, he would be really cool (Tom Hall is required). Would also prefer swimming to return to the series and for pick-up melee weapons next time. Still love Deus Ex.
Gonna replay I suppose. I will never finish my backlog. I want go through Resident Evil though.
It's the first time it's been on sale, I believe. I've been watching the price like a hawk for the past few months since I decided I would play it during Extra Life. I went ahead and bought it on Humble last week when they were doing 5% cash back. Guess I should have waited.
Anyway, a well received game that's previously not been discounted at all - a 15% discount seems fair.
It's an amazing game, it's well worth the full asking price. Why would you expect a better deal? A 15% discount seems fairly generous, it came out in July...
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The Extinction -- MB-21615EE00BA9F7E7 - Taken by illusionary
I noticed majority of Steam GAF seems to love this game, and after playing it for 7.2hrs according to Steam (no idling, I was literally just looking into anomalies + letters for a good amount of that additional time), I'm not particularly sure why it's received such great praise.
***You're obviously entitled to your opinions, but mine differs from the thoughts I've seen on the game in this thread. Seems to be loved, and I neither love it or hate it. The game frustrated me, despite doing a fair amount right. Despite how short a game it is to complete (4hrs?), it took me a week of stopping and going back to it because of how irritating some gameplay design choices + pacing issues are. Anyway, onto it!
Steam Desc said:
Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift. You are Alex, and youve just brought your new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight island party gone horribly wrong.
Tags: Story Rich, Indie, Choices Matter, Adventure.
Like the steam description says, "Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller/horror of some kids who, on a trip manage to open up a ghostly rift" that disrupts what's meant to be a fun trip to the island. A combination of Alex's new stepbrother joining them on this trip, the unexpected events, and high tensions between the characters: an already rocky dynamic shaken up by an addition to the group. It's a reminder of your classic teen-based horror film. A coming of age story gone wrong, or right, YMMV depending on your choices. It's dialogue is important, that's mostly where choices matter comes into it. It's better at effects on end game in comparison to Telltale counterparts in regard to that aspect. You get to choose who accompanies you throughout the game, relationships, etc. For a load of teenagers, the speech felt incredibly awkward, but looking past that? Not remotely problematic grand scheme - the writers got what they wanted to across. It's simple.
Things I felt the game did right:
Radio frequencies. I found this unique, using them to help you find the letters to gather more back story of sorts to do with what's going on at the island from a resident's perspective.
Choices - they exist, for most characters. You can sabotage/not help other relationships,
literally
sacrifice some, but outside of two endings
Michael being alive,
or
Clarissa being obliterated from existence
, it's really not that much that'll affect how your game goes until the ending outside of some sad exchanges. Even this is truly debatable, lol, remember that even TWD is tagged with this on Steam. Your choices matter at the end, when it's wrapped up, and then it's over. ¯\_(ツ_/¯
Music made the atmosphere.
Voice acting is GOAT, the end. They pinned down the teenage angst, sarcasm, and lovelorn tone too well.
What put me off:
Inorganic, b o r i n g dialogue. It also weirdly gets cut off sometimes if you walk through to another area, gg. Wasn't complaining, but, that's a little problematic. Once I noticed it the second time, I waited before moving on.
The anomalies you can find with the radio frequences(and yes, I went out of my way for them which is why I have 7.2hrs logged) are pretty much time wasters that offer nothing. Sure, that's why they aren't mandatory, but outside of one that relates directly to what the group is going through, "
Loops (used as a copout narrative wise) - for reference, they're similar in a way to Until Dawn's use of totems to foreshadow events, except you genuinely live through different scenarios over, and over, and over. It's like you're being toyed with. At first, it's a bit freaky. After a while, it's the most frustrating aspect of this game. I feel like they were tastes of things the writers thought about doing, but knew people may hate them for, so hey. Let's show them this but not follow through for shock value, then take it away. Wa-hoo. I wish some of it was true, because it'd make sense for a game so rooted in paranormal shit. Only one "bad" ending but all these shows of potential.
Pacing - it's the looping that screws with this. When I have to do something once, okay. A second time? Minor inconvenience? A third, or more? Quit. Except, wait, I can't quit becaaaause the save system ain't shit, especially if you're going out of your way to discover Adler's letters and the radio station anomalies because you will stay in an area for a little while doing so. When you're tired of that shit, you only stay because you need to get to that save point because no sane person wants to bother going through those loops all over again.
This is even ignoring bugs that broke the game on occasion for me since Jonas would manage to get into areas he shouldn't be able to, or would just stop moving at parts I guess because the game failed to stop us from moving that far out of where we should be.
I'm not one to tell people their opinion is wrong, but I don't understand the serious love this game gets. Even as a short game, I felt it overstayed its welcome in parts. Its pacing made me incapable of even completing it in a single sitting (Prinny bugged me about this the whole 7 hours over 5 or 6 days it took).
I wish the devs could have at least added an option for me to control volume through settings. Had all my Discord voice chat on 200% volume because I couldn't hear them over. Music was loud as shit. Good, but God damn, my dude. I didn't pay for it and I still left feeling a little cheated of time. ¯\_(ツ_/¯
I noticed majority of Steam GAF seems to love this game, and after playing it for 7.2hrs according to Steam (no idling, I was literally just looking into anomalies + letters for a good amount of that additional time), I'm not particularly sure why it's received such great praise.
***You're obviously entitled to your opinions, but mine differs from the thoughts I've seen on the game in this thread. Seems to be loved, and I neither love it or hate it. The game frustrated me, despite doing a fair amount right. Despite how short a game it is to complete (4hrs?), it took me a week of stopping and going back to it because of how irritating some gameplay design choices + pacing issues are. Anyway, onto it!
Like the steam description says, "Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller/horror of some kids who, on a trip manage to open up a ghostly rift" that disrupts what's meant to be a fun trip to the island. A combination of Alex's new stepbrother joining them on this trip, the unexpected events, and high tensions between the characters: an already rocky dynamic shaken up by an addition to the group. It's a reminder of your classic teen-based horror film. A coming of age story gone wrong, or right, YMMV depending on your choices. It's dialogue is important, that's mostly where choices matter comes into it. It's better at effects on end game in comparison to Telltale counterparts in regard to that aspect. You get to choose who accompanies you throughout the game, relationships, etc. For a load of teenagers, the speech felt incredibly awkward, but looking past that? Not remotely problematic grand scheme - the writers got what they wanted to across. It's simple.
Things I felt the game did right:
Radio frequencies. I found this unique, using them to help you find the letters to gather more back story of sorts to do with what's going on at the island from a resident's perspective.
Choices - they exist, for most characters. You can sabotage/not help other relationships,
literally
sacrifice some, but outside of two endings
Michael being alive,
or
Clarissa being obliterated from existence
, it's really not that much that'll affect how your game goes until the ending outside of some sad exchanges. Even this is truly debatable, lol, remember that even TWD is tagged with this on Steam. Your choices matter at the end, when it's wrapped up, and then it's over. ¯_(ツ_/¯
Music made the atmosphere.
Voice acting is GOAT, the end. They pinned down the teenage angst, sarcasm, and lovelorn tone too well.
What put me off:
Inorganic, b o r i n g dialogue. It also weirdly gets cut off sometimes if you walk through to another area, gg. Wasn't complaining, but, that's a little problematic. Once I noticed it the second time, I waited before moving on.
The anomalies you can find with the radio frequences(and yes, I went out of my way for them which is why I have 7.2hrs logged) are pretty much time wasters that offer nothing. Sure, that's why they aren't mandatory, but outside of one that relates directly to what the group is going through, "
Loops (used as a copout narrative wise) - for reference, they're similar in a way to Until Dawn's use of totems to foreshadow events, except you genuinely live through different scenarios over, and over, and over. It's like you're being toyed with. At first, it's a bit freaky. After a while, it's the most frustrating aspect of this game. I feel like they were tastes of things the writers thought about doing, but knew people may hate them for, so hey. Let's show them this but not follow through for shock value, then take it away. Wa-hoo. I wish some of it was true, because it'd make sense for a game so rooted in paranormal shit. Only one "bad" ending but all these shows of potential.
Pacing - it's the looping that screws with this. When I have to do something once, okay. A second time? Minor inconvenience? A third, or more? Quit. Except, wait, I can't quit becaaaause the save system ain't shit, especially if you're going out of your way to discover Adler's letters and the radio station anomalies because you will stay in an area for a little while doing so. When you're tired of that shit, you only stay because you need to get to that save point because no sane person wants to bother going through those loops all over again.
This is even ignoring bugs that broke the game on occasion for me since Jonas would manage to get into areas he shouldn't be able to, or would just stop moving at parts I guess because the game failed to stop us from moving that far out of where we should be.
I'm not one to tell people their opinion is wrong, but I don't understand the serious love this game gets. Even as a short game, I felt it overstayed its welcome in parts. Its pacing made me incapable of even completing it in a single sitting (Prinny bugged me about this the whole 7 hours over 5 or 6 days it took).
I wish the devs could have at least added an option for me to control volume through settings. Had all my Discord voice chat on 200% volume because I couldn't hear them over. Music was loud as shit. Good, but God damn, my dude. I didn't pay for it and I still left feeling a little cheated of time. ¯_(ツ_/¯
Wasn't gonna come in here with a dissenting opinion and not give my reasons, of course, of course. I'd love a write up from someone who loved Oxenfree, though. If I missed one, could someone link me? Would be interesting to read.
----
I really liked Life is Strange.
I didn't like Oxenfree.
I hate that analogy.
E: Gonna crawl back into my hole unless someone quotes me to tell me why I'm wrong or something, see you guys next thread/@ my next review of an EA puzzler called The Shape of Heart.
It's the first time it's been on sale, I believe. I've been watching the price like a hawk for the past few months since I decided I would play it during Extra Life. I went ahead and bought it on Humble last week when they were doing 5% cash back. Guess I should have waited.
Anyway, a well received game that's previously not been discounted at all - a 15% discount seems fair.
It's an amazing game, it's well worth the full asking price. Why would you expect a better deal? A 15% discount seems fairly generous, it came out in July...
Finished my first playthrough of Shadowrun Returns, and fell in love with it despite minimal knowledge of the source material; are there any must-play community campaigns or should I jump straight on to Dragonfall?
Finished my first playthrough of Shadowrun Returns, and fell in love with it despite minimal knowledge of the source material; are there any must-play community campaigns or should I jump straight on to Dragonfall?
So when do the Versus Evil deals end? The banner on the front page says they end Monday at 10 am, which is the 31st, but the store pages for the games all say they end November 1st, which is Tuesday.
Personal GOTY. Huge game (currently 60 hours in and still long ways to go) with fantastic level design in a interconnected world with satisfying progression, quirky system that's a joy to discover, lots of secrets to find, fun but sort of old school simplistic combat, lots of character stats to level up etc etc.
Honestly, super impressive work done by a small team of supposedly 1-5 members, and if this is the kind of fresh take you get with a tiny team like that at Arc System Works, they should divide the entire company with 5.
Actually, for the first time in my history with Steam, this game has got me to hold off purchasing or starting new games until I feel like I'm done with this one. IMO, that says a lot.
I love what I've seen and read of it, and I liked your view on the game! I'm excited to hop into the experience and see what I get out of it and see where it leads.
I just bought Unboxed after ignoring the tier in the recent humble bundle. It bills itself as a 90's style collectathon and it looks really awesome! I'm very excited to play it.
I enjoyed both Oxenfree and Life is Strange a lot. I personally think that Oxenfree is better overall. The quality is more consistent throughout the entire experience. The characters aren't wacky caricatures of teenagers and instead feel closer to actual human beings. I also thought that there were a good amount of choices that can affect your ending, like you pointed out, unlike LiS, which gives you two endings regardless of the choices you made, one of which is bad and almost feels like it was left unfinished. I also prefer the ending variants in Oxenfree to the ones in TWD: Season One, even if they are relatively minor compared to the two major choices that heavily impact the ending.
The dialogue could have been handled better, there were definitely times where I just stood around waiting for the conversations to end because I didn't want to miss anything. I didn't get bored by it, but I would have preferred if the conversations didn't end because of screen transitions. I didn't have any problem with the pacing, though the save system wasn't great, there should have been a manual save option, or the game should have saved upon exit. I had to redo an entire sequence (
the one where Ren is possessed up in the mountain
) because I quit the game after completing that segment without the game auto-saving. The game only took me about 4 and half hours to complete, which included getting all of the anomalies and journal entries, over two sessions, so that probably helped. I was kinda getting burned out on it towards the end. I only experienced one glitch, so I don't really have any counterpoints to that bullet.
So, the anomalies. They were mostly there to flesh out some of the game's backstory, and I ended up liking them.
A few of them suggest that the events taking place on the island have happened to other people. One of them references the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of a kid, which feeds into the possession/alternate dimension plotline. Another references how radio waves work, which is related to how Anna and the other spirits trapped in the other dimension communicate with Alex's dimension). Another one is related to Maggie and a park ranger who was hinted at being driven to suicide by the spirits as a form of revenge against Maggie.
The anomalies aren't necessary, but they help flesh out the game's narrative a little. The morse code messages hidden around the island do the same, and they're also pretty neat.
I also appreciated the time loops, I thought they were handled well although I understand why some people dislike time loops in general. They didn't feel like the totems from Until Dawn because they didn't really foreshadow anything. The loops are supposed to be frustrating, which is why Alex gets increasingly irritated with them over the course of the game. As I said, I completely understand why you didn't like them.
It's also arguable whether or not those were time loops or if they were alternate universes that Alex's consciousness was somehow transported between. I mean they were probably just loops, but that theory is still cool and meshes well with the hidden new game plus ending.
Other than that, I agree with you about the music and the voice acting. The cast and the overall story are great, which is why I like the game as much as I do.
I just bought Unboxed after ignoring the tier in the recent humble bundle. It bills itself as a 90's style collectible and it looks really awesome! I'm very excited to play it.
It's weird for Bamco to use denuvo for the God Eater games but not for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. GE is much cheaper and a port of old PSP games, while Xeno 2 is a brand new game with $50 price tag. I thought they will be using denuvo for their games after GE. Are they doing some kind of A/B testing?
