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STEAM | September 2015 - The Phantom Pre-Load or: AAA Movies Are Just +1s To Us
- Thread starter jshackles
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Baron_Calamity
Member
Steam doesn't have crosyroad. Game over Valve. 
Game
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Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes --MB-18C91D76FE082DB9- Taken by Teppic
And to go back to the topic of Airscape's lack of success, they also might want to make sure that their demo actually works. I just tried redownloading it to see if I missed something about the game the first time around that would make it really stick out, and it doesn't even work any more (getting "missing executable" errors).
Almost thought I'd slipped into an Apple Event thread if it wasn't for this
Anyway, the stuff Apple showed so far is just as boring as the usual 'funny' jokes people on social media come up with to mock the company eh. Waiting for the iPhone 6S though I don't think I'll be upgrading from my 5S just yet. Barely use my smartphone for more than texting, twitter and light browsing anyway
derExperte
Member
Can confirm. Oh well.
They can't be swimming in money but all their games get discounted relatively fast and they have a few bigger projects coming up so I wouldn't worry.
Baron von Loathsome
Member
Game Informer reported this morning that Harmonix has just received $15 million in investments. I guess that's why.
Baron_Calamity
Member
This has been the M.O. for years.
Does it matter? They will outsell all their competitors anyway. They could release a blinking led attachment for a phone for $500 and it would still sell fifty million units.
Se7enSword
Banned
Leafhopper
Banned
The apple conference is the greatest comedy act I have seen a long time.
freshVeggie
Member
Thanks Apple for inventing Context Menus that pop up.
Oh I am sorry, 3D Touch of course.
Oh I am sorry, 3D Touch of course.
Freedom = $1.05
Banned
you know how i knew that the apple tv thing wasnt going to be a big deal?
they wouldve had a conference just for that if it was. this is apple, they have a conference every time the ghost of Steve Job sneezes in the dark. if they really wanted to get into that market in any meaningful way they would push that shit hard
Only half an hour after inventing the pencil and the Microsoft Surface. Truly their innovation knows no bounds.
Leafhopper
Banned
Oh I knew it wouldn't had been a big deal either. Like you said it would be it's own thing. I just forgot how silly these things are.
but then i'd have to buy the shitty beth game
i still can't forgive myself for buying skyrim
and i payed 40usd for that shit
wtf was i thinking
Baron_Calamity
Member
Pro tip: Its available on the windows 10 store.... "free"
this changes everything
Old but still appropriate: Apple triggers 'religious' reaction in fans' brains, report says
Applies to all fanbases really.
lashman
Steam-GAF's Official Ambassador to Gaming-GAF
Present a Microsoft Surface competitor like it's a new thing, while being fuck-all even close to it, without having a actual decent CPU inside or a full-blown OS. Also present a fucking pencil and keyboard attachment like it's a super innovation that hasn't been done countless times before.
Present a Fire TV competitor with features that all TV boxs has had for a while, and over and over again presenting shit as if it's innovative in any way. Meanwhile, make it weaker than a damn Ipad Air 2
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Meridian: New World --MB-F532D2951C6CBE57- Taken by Baron_Calamity
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jaundicejuice
Member
While I will buy into the argument that the indie game market is indeed saturated and to standout head and shoulders above the crowd your product has to be amazing, we are discussing a 2D platformer in 2015. In seven short years since Braid ('08), Trine ('09) and Super Meat Boy ('10) revived the genre and made it commercially viable outside of annual Nintendo ilk people have gone from "remember 2D platformers, I miss those, they were awesome" to "oh great, another 2D platformer". We've officially hit Aero The Acrobat levels of platformer saturation. People straight don't give a fuck. Again.
The exact same thing is happening with Metroid-likes.
I get why so many people make 2D games in old genres, it's because that's an acceptable scope for a project being made by a pair or small group of people. A 2D "retro" game is something you could get done in a couple of months or a year or two depending upon your project's scope, ambition or ability. The problem is that so many people are doing the exact same thing. Indie and mobile gaming are hitting the same walls "traditional/triple A" gaming did, in seemingly a shorter time frame. Escalation seems to be the only answer. Make your game bigger, better than everything else, just to get noticed by a youtuber and maybe generate some interest in gamers and the enthusiast press.
It's not even the enthusiast press that matters at this point. PewDiePie matters more than Gamespot or IGN.
Not ludicrous at all, given that the 360 and PS3 are still around.
Se7enSword
Banned
Phawx
Member
so , apple said their device has GPU with the same power as home consoles ?
sure sure
Well they didn't say which generation.
Leafhopper
Banned
so , apple said their device has GPU with the same power as home consoles ?
sure sure
It does.
A Ps2 GPU.
crazyrabbits
Banned
Even better is that when you click on "Forums" or "Discussions" from the demo's store entry, it just redirects to the store page itself. I was just headed over there to mention the issue to them, but I see you beat me to it.
And on another note entirely, Ronin.
There have been other games that started out strong and then fizzled out, or games that just didn't do enough with what had the promise of being a really interesting concept. Ronin, on the other hand, manages to have equal parts really great ideas and absolutely terrible ones. Throw in far too many game-ending bugs and you have a game where when you're not rage-quitting it, you'll just be mourning what could have been.
Ronin's a tricky one to describe. There's a little bit of Mark of the Ninja, and some Gunpoint, but it really is its own thing. You play as a ninja/assassin-type person, moving through 15-ish levels of guys, murdering your way to some sort of ill-descibed vengeance.
You can stealth your way to a certain point but, as the game goes to great lengths to tell you, it isn't a stealth game. I don't think it's at all possible to get by without being noticed, and there will be lots of murder along the way. The nice thing is that the murder is done really really well. You can sneak around and kill guys stealthily, either by stabbing them or stringing them up from the ceiling. Once you get spotted, though, the game shifts to turn-based combat. Once this happens, you can only move via Gunpoint-styled leaps and through the use of a grappling hook. On every turn, you move, then the enemies shoot. You get a one-turn warning on who's going to shoot and where via red lines showing where they're aiming. This leads to some really intense and strategic moments where you're weaving through a hail of bullets and planning out where you're going to leap/grapple to next to get your next kill. It's all really well done and very satisfying.
So far, so good, right? Well, yes, but then the game tries its hardest to ruin all the good work that it's done so far. First off, the glitches.
Dear god, the glitches.
There's an easily reproducible glitch where you can grapple right through a wall or ceiling, placing you into a room that you're not supposed to be in yet, usually resulting in a level reset. I also ended up kicking enemies into walls on several occasions, leading to them remaining inaccessible and requiring yet another checkpoint reset.
Beyond the glitches, there's the just bizarre design decisions.
I'm not a huge stealth game fan (I loved Mark of the Ninja, however), but I'm of the belief that enemies in any stealth game should have 100% consistent behavior. Any randomness is not to be tolerated. In Ronin, they don't.
This doesn't really matter when it comes to the various soldiers, as they're not long for this world anyway, but the game also throws civilians at you fairly early on, and these fuckers can't make up their mind as to what will set them off. You can kill them, yes, but in order to get the crucial skill point in each level, you can't kill them or let them spot you. This leads to some purely stealth sections, which Ronin just isn't equipped to handle.
Sometimes they'll only see you if you're in the light, sometimes they'll see you if you're not. Sometimes they'll come across a body that you killed in a dark corner and sound the alarm, sometimes they'll walk right past a body in full light and not care. It ends up being extremely frustrating, and ends up being just lots of trial and error and restarting.
I was willing to give the game a pass for all this, honestly. As annoying as it all was, I was really enjoying the combat sections. Planning out a sequence of turns where you jump in the air, throw your sword past one guard at another, then recall it and hit the first guard while he's firing in the air where you just were is really satisfying, and Ronin's combat is full of moments like this. While the glitches weren't at all forgivable, I was willing to say that yes, the game's still worth checking out, just with the giant asterisk.
Then I got to the last level, which is pure bullshit. A new mechanic is introduced (but you're not actually told about it, which lead to a few rounds of trying to figure out what the hell was going on). Once you get used to it, things seem cool once again and the mechanic even kind of makes sense in the context of the story, and adds an interesting wrinkle to the combat. But then, as you get further into the level, you realize that there are no checkpoints in the last level. If you die, you start all the way at the beginning. On top of all the other garbage that Ronin made me endure, it was the last straw. There's no reason that a flexible checkpoint system couldn't have been implemented to compensate for the new mechanic, and there's a LOT of enemies to fight through in the level, so even if you do really well and screw up towards the end, it's time to do it all over again. It's unnecessary and unforgivable, so I sadly must admit that overall, Ronin just isn't that good.
ashecitism
Member
It was just funny to watch stocks go down and then jump when they started talking about Live Photos XD
derExperte
Member
I suddenly regret buying Ronin during last month's sale.
Honestly, as much as I was crapping on it, you really should try it. There really is a diamond in the rough here, there's just a lot of rough to get through. It's really unique, and the combat's satisfying enough that it's not like I'm regretting that I played it. If anything, I'm just kind of bummed that the last level's designed so wonkily that I'll probably never have the patience to sit down and perfect it.
AHA-Lambda
Member
So what happened to Steve Jobs hating styluses?
Eh, they've been doing that for quite a while. Nothing to worry about , imo.
you aren't alone
oh well, I just won't play it
Thanks for this, very informative and most likely will save me some time for other games
So what happened to Steve Jobs hating styluses?
He died.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Why are people hating on Ronin? =/
I thought it was really good!
I thought it was really good!
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Spoiler tag that shit man
Talking about Daedalic, what are you people talking about? They weren't fast to discount their games at least not as fast as Randal's Monday ending in a bundle, I'm still so tempted, but promise, but temptation.
I'm not a fan of frustrating games, and that part of being no checkpoints in the last level sounds particularly nasty to me, even disregarding all else said.
I'm not a fan of frustrating games, and that part of being no checkpoints in the last level sounds particularly nasty to me, even disregarding all else said.
Great write up Vlad. I really enjoyed my own time with Ronin, and like you found that the turn-based combat was fantastic. There's so many great moments that come about naturally from it, grappling through a window and kicking one guard, throwing your sword into the chest of another then throwing a shuriken at a third, it feels amazing. It also looks really stylish, even with it being locked 30fps.
I didn't encounter any of the glitches myself, though I just saw a clip of one and that's a real bad glitch. Hopefully it'll eventually be patched out.
The stealth parts with the civilians were pretty annoying too. Needed more consistency in behaviour, and maybe some actual stealth mechanics too. It felt like there was always one way and one way only to get past the civilians without setting off the alarm, which was quite a departure from the freedom the combat gave you.
The last level was.. well, in theory it's awesome. The new mechanic that gets brought in perfectly fits the 'roaring rampage of revenge' theme, and it's a suitably tough challenge to finish the game off. But the lack of checkpoints turns what should have been a glorious finale into a real slog. I fought my way through and got the Good Ending, but that was more my stubbornness coming in than anything else.
I didn't encounter any of the glitches myself, though I just saw a clip of one and that's a real bad glitch. Hopefully it'll eventually be patched out.
The stealth parts with the civilians were pretty annoying too. Needed more consistency in behaviour, and maybe some actual stealth mechanics too. It felt like there was always one way and one way only to get past the civilians without setting off the alarm, which was quite a departure from the freedom the combat gave you.
The last level was.. well, in theory it's awesome. The new mechanic that gets brought in perfectly fits the 'roaring rampage of revenge' theme, and it's a suitably tough challenge to finish the game off. But the lack of checkpoints turns what should have been a glorious finale into a real slog. I fought my way through and got the Good Ending, but that was more my stubbornness coming in than anything else.
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