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The Medium |OT| Silent Hells

SafeOrAlone

SafeOrAlone

Banned
Two hours in and I'm enjoying this a good bit.
I'm not sure it'll hold up throughout, but as of now, I'm really glad I sat down with this. The pacing has been good and it's eerie as hell. Some of the writing and voice acting is actually quite chilling. And I'm sailing through without a lot of tedious backtracking. I hope it doesn't crap itself out or drag on after it runs out of tricks.
 
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S

Sonic The Fighters

Member
This game has a lot of Silent Hill vibes while it's still unique in his own way, i absolutely love it !

The Medium will be an underrated gem...

I just played +5 hours straight and i just want to see more but i had to stop because of life.

This is truly the mark of a great game !
 
Tiamat2san

Tiamat2san

Member
The more i progress in the game the more I love it.
The story is really dark and the art direction is great.
Music is beautiful.
Graphically sometimes it’s impressive (chase sequences, some sceneries) sometimes it’s just ok.


The dual screen gameplay is cool but prefer the classic view.

I love fixed camera angles.
 
Moogle11

Moogle11

Banned
-MD- said:
Actually had no idea the camera looked like that, now I'm super interested.

Is it tank controls?
Click to expand...
Not tank controls. Just a fixed camera, character just turns and walks whichever direction you push.

I’m still digging the game, probably 2-3 hours in (haven’t tracked well since I played some this afternoon and fired it back up a bit ago.
 
Zeeed

Zeeed

Member
So these are the modes I have played the game with:
-Xbox X, 4k, 60hrz
-Xbox X, 4k, 60hrz, VRR
-Xbox X, 4k, 120hrz
-Xbox X, 4k, 120hrz, VRR
-PC, all highest settings, DLSS medium, 4K, 60hrz, VRR
-PC, all highest settings, DLSS medium, 4K, 120hrz, VRR

All that to conclude, that 120hrz VRR definitely helps to enjoy this game a bit more. I was still getting screen tear with 60hrz, VRR on PC.
Think I will continue playing this on console even though the console is lower settings/details, It has a faster SSD than my PC, so less pop-ins. Still, there is pop-ins on the Console which is really odd. Even non parallel world scenes would have long pop-ins at time.

As for the game itself. Liking it so far, but I loved Silent hill 3 and this has that vibe.
 
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A

Aguero9320

Member
This is really not my kind of game, I loved horror films as a kid but now I can't take it anymore, but I tried it out because of Gamepass and was really enjoying it. Turned it off because a) dark b) downstairs alone and it started to get creepy in the funeral home. Will come back to it in the daylight :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Definite Silent Hills vibe, and even older than that, Alone in the Dark. I also just played Edith Finch (farming rewards points) and it reminded me of that in tone, but I thought that was largely shit and this seems way better. All in all, liked it a lot more than I expected to do so far.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
The game controls like the old school Resident Evil games. It has the same camera angles and same kind of movement (why are you guys comparing to Silent Hill? gameplay wise it is definitely more Resident Evil.) Surprised not many people are mentioning this. As for graphics? I am not that impressed. I think people here are talking it up more than they should be. I also didn't realize this game was actually exclusive to the Series X (I guess we didn't have to wait 2 years to get a game that is for SX but a little disappointed.)
 
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Tickle My Tendies

Tickle My Tendies

Member
Some more thoughts after about 5.5 hours.

Looks great, sounds great
PC version could probably use some optimization tweaks in the coming patches. Doesn't run terribly, but odd spikes here and there that I can't really explain.
I am running on a standard SATA SSD and not noticing egregious pop-in. It could be happening, for sure, maybe I am just not seeing it, but I normally notice these things pretty easily.

The dual screen stuff is hit or miss for me. I think I prefer the Titanfall 2 style where you press a button and switch back and forth between worlds, full screen. I understand the dual screen nature is vital to the puzzle structures.

I think I have been legit scared once, maybe twice. One was just a jump scare I should have seen coming, another was an earned freaky moment.

I really enjoy the parts I enjoy, and don't really mind the parts that kinda bug me, if that makes sense. The good greatly outweighs the bad for me.
 
Moogle11

Moogle11

Banned
Alright, calling it a night after getting into the Dayroom. Really liking the game the more I get into it. Very atmospheric and has gotten creepier the further I got. I’m good with it no being outright scary. As I said earlier, I hadn’t read or watched much on it some I’m loving that it’s more an adventure game/walking sim rather than survival horror. I really like mostly linear, narrative-driven things with some simple puzzles and interacting with objects to get flashbacks, read letter etc. to piece the plot and lore together so this is right up my alley.

Graphics I agree with those that say it’s a mixed bag. It’s not a next gen showcase or anything, nor did I expect it to be as an AA type budget game. But it looks pretty damn good in spots, while pretty rough in others and the animation is pretty janky. The split screen parts are pretty meh. I can’t really focus on two screens at once so it’s just looking at a smaller screen for whichever I’m actively focused on at the moment. I liked the parts of going back and forth between the worlds with mirrors better than the split screen parts so far.
 
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Stuart360

Stuart360

Member
Started the game last night before bed just to see how it ran on my PC, ended up playing 3 hours of it lol.
I quite like the game. I find it atmospheric. It is quite slow though, although i dont think that has to mean its bad or boring, it just seems more of a slow burn.
Based on my 3 hours, i'd say the reviews around 7/10 are about what i would agree with so far.
 
Fess

Fess

Member
jaysius said:
I thought it was just me, I had that a little bit too, after not too much time playing.

I really don't want this mediocre game killing my Series X.
Click to expand...
That would be a real fancy GPU issue, normally you just see pixel noise. I’d say it’s a gfx bug.
But see it this way, it’s better that it breaks now if there is a hardware issue than it breaking when there is no warranty. 👍
 
SatansReverence

SatansReverence

Hipster Princess
Played the first 30-45 minutes, plays great on a 3070 but there are some bits that seem to hard tank performance but they seem to be fixable by pausing and unpausing.
 
R

Redlight

Member
ZlleH said:
Quick Resume in this game doesn't work for me when the console is shutdown and start up again.
The Quick Resume does work if I don't restart the console but switch back and fourth to another game.

In this article I found dated yesterday, there is this quote: The Medium is worth playing, but only if you already have Game Pass


*shrug*

Other then that. I like this game so far, but only 1 hour in. I like that it has the Silent Hill 3 vibe so far. And something that hasn't been mentioned (because everyone is talking about the graphics and performance) is the main character's voice acting. I think it's spectacular so far, you can really feel the melancholy sadness she has during these beginning scenes.
Click to expand...
I've been switching between this and Valhalla, turning the console off in between sessions. Quick resume has been working flawlessly so far (fingers crossed).
 
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Vasto

Vasto

Member
Vuox46o.jpg
 
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D

DustQueen

Banned
The game is actually not bad.
It is no Silent Hill mind you, it is more of a simplified point n click adventure with horror elements n bumped up cinematic quality.
It is sorta what point n click started evolving into during PS2 era but then
David Cage came and it all went full retard.
Turns out trying to make a movie style script n pacing with no baseline game design set ups requires to create different set of gameplay animations, systems n physics and you cannot do that everytime a frenchmen with horrible american accent wants to play with his ugly PS3 kids in his backyard...so QTEs became the name of the game... and even then it takes 5 years to make....And then....well...let's just say that there is a reason no 2000 page movie scripts with multiple leads are just lying around.
But what saves the day is that unlike David Cage games, Until Dawn, Bourne game it avoids going full retard every 20 minutes or embarrassing it self with shity attempt to mimic movie storytelling structure.
It has baseline gameplay set up n game appropriate story of a character going to the thing to do the thing and meet other characters n dangers along the way.
It based in an appropriate genre, where u can allow your self bit more freedom of implementing somewhat absurd story elements n where movies of the same genre with similar stories can be found so it gives the needed cinematic quality to compensate for the fairly simple gameplay n exploration mechanics so it would still remain an engaging game experience


I guess what I am saying is that you probably can lay out plenty of criticism for "The Medium" but it is just not retarded enough to not work as a whole.
Which is very rare for the story driven wally/talky game now days.

They could at least be stupid enough to put more jump scares...but no... it is kinda moody n slow.
It is 7 outa 10 game but it is one of those rare 7 outa 10 games that actually have more of a chance not to die half finished in your backlog then many 9/10 games have.

Good work Bloober team
 
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Zeeed

Zeeed

Member
Redlight said:
I've been switching between this and Valhalla, turning the console off in between sessions. Quick resume has been working flawlessly so far (fingers crossed).
Click to expand...
Hmm, something is wrong for me than.

Only difference I can think of is that this is the first game I have done a pre-install before the release date.

What power config do you have? instant on, or power saving? I have it as power saving.
What do you have for use storage when shut down. I checked the box for shut down storage when off. (I think, using my memory here)
 
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Moogle11

Moogle11

Banned
Dusktildawn48 said:
This kind of game is exactly why gamepass is so great. I wouldn't have wanted to spend $50+ on this, but because it's on gamepass I've played for 4 hours and am loving it. Probably my favorite horror game since RE7.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I know some (i.e. mostly fanboys of other platforms) say that means lowering standards, playing mediocre games etc. To me it‘s just that I love variety and experiencing a wide variety means that not everything is going to be a masterpiece.

Most everyone has always watched movies or shows that are just ok and largely enjoyed the variety. There was little barrier to enter even before streaming as rentals were cheap, people had cable with movie channels etc. With gaming the barrier was always higher. Rentals were more expensive than movies and then largely went away over the years, no streaming or cable channel options to consume a lot for little cost.

Gamepass and other services have filled that need. I get a lot more variety when there are a ton of games I can try out for a cheap subscription (even at $15 a month when I get to that point, that’s a drop in the bucket for me) and end up finding a lot like this game that’s something I probably never would have bought and played even in a future sale and the genre is more miss than hit for me.

Of course I’m not saying that’s all Gamepass is good for. A huge part of the draw is playing Gears, Halo, Forza, Doom Eternal etc. type AAA games for cheap as someone who doesn’t care about owning games and rarely replays anything. But I’ve been having a blast playing stuff like this, Man of Medan, Night in the Woods etc. that I just couldn’t bring myself to buy but enjoyed a lot playing on Gamepass. Would love to see Sony and Nintendo have something similar down the road.

I also get that it makes a lot less sense for someone that doesn’t play that many game a year. Cheaper to just buy a couple games than pay for a subscription, and I get having higher standards if one doesn’t play many games. Not much need to add variety or play less than stellar games if you’re only playing a few a year. But I made deliberate life/career decisions, and had some good look for them to pay off, and have a combo of decent disposable income and a lot of free time so it’s great for me and I’d be bored out of my mind and out of content if I only played masterpiece level games watched class worthy films etc.
 
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D.Final

D.Final

Banned
Moogle11 said:
Agreed. I know some (i.e. mostly fanboys of other platforms) say that means lowering standards, playing mediocre games etc. To me it‘s just that I love variety and experiencing a wide variety means that not everything is going to be a masterpiece.

Most everyone has always watched movies or shows that are just ok and largely enjoyed the variety. There was little barrier to enter even before streaming as rentals were cheap, people had cable with movie channels etc. With gaming the barrier was always higher. Rentals were more expensive than movies and then largely went away over the years, no streaming or cable channel options to consume a lot for little cost.

Gamepass and other services have filled that need. I get a lot more variety when there are a ton of games I can try out for a cheap subscription (even at $15 a month when I get to that point, that’s a drop in the bucket for me) and end up finding a lot like this game that’s something I probably never would have bought and played even in a future sale and the genre is more miss than hit for me.

Of course I’m not saying that’s all Gamepass is good for. A huge part of the draw is playing Gears, Halo, Forza, Doom Eternal etc. type AAA games for cheap as someone who doesn’t care about owning games and rarely replays anything. But I’ve been having a blast playing stuff like this, Man of Medan, Night in the Woods etc. that I just couldn’t bring myself to buy but enjoyed a lot playing on Gamepass. Would love to see Sony and Nintendo have something similar down the road.
Click to expand...
The Gamepass is a gift
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
Step outside of the 'console-war' for a little bit and stop acting like advertisements lol. It's cringey at this point. Also, The Medium is more like Resident Evil and less like Silent Hill [I guess, perhaps the way it handles 'horror' might be closer to Silent Hill, so maybe I should wait until I've played more than the opening intro (the forest area after the title), but regardless, controls are definitely old school Resident Evil.]
 
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Self

Self

Member
Just noticed you can't start games on Series X while their downloading an update unlike PS4/5. Is this only because of gamepass?

Let's see if the update changes anything...
 
Moogle11

Moogle11

Banned
Controls are not old school Resident Evil. The fixed camera is. The old school Resident Evil games had Tank Controls. You could only walk forward and had to stop and turn to change directions. In this the camera is fixed, but you don’t have to stop and turn. Your character just moves in whatever direction you push the stick.

I think they updated the controls to work that way in some of the HD remakes/ports of classic RE games, but the classic controls were the crappy tank controls.

I barely played any Silent Hills, but I feel pretty safe saying the game doesn’t really compare well to either RE or Silent Hills. It’s really not survival horror. It’s more a combo of a walking sim and point and click adventure game. The focus is really just walking around a mostly linear path, interacting with objects to find memories, read letters etc. to piece together the story and lore, gathering some times to solve some simple puzzles to progress and occasionally hiding from an enemy with some barebones stealth mechanics and occasionally a chase sequence to flee from something.

I’m not saying any of that as a negative as I love those kind of games and don’t particularly like survival horror. I just think it got marketed more as an RE or SH type of game and that’s part of the disappointment some have as many like those games but not more walking sim type things. Go in liking and expecting a walking sim type thing and I think fans of that type of game will at least enjoy it.
 
Moogle11

Moogle11

Banned
I didn’t see any FPS settings. Is that just on the PC? Or setting the XSX to 60 instead of 120 (I was under the impression that didn’t matter and just enabled the 120 option in the few games that offer it)?
 
DogsAndKisses666

DogsAndKisses666

Banned
DustQueen said:
The game is actually not bad.
It is no Silent Hill mind you, it is more of a simplified point n click adventure with horror elements n bumped up cinematic quality.
It is sorta what point n click started evolving into during PS2 era but then
David Cage came and it all went full retard.
Turns out trying to make a movie style script n pacing with no baseline game design set ups requires to create different set of gameplay animations, systems n physics and you cannot do that everytime a frenchmen with horrible american accent wants to play with his ugly PS3 kids in his backyard...so QTEs become the name of the game... and even then it takes 5 years to make....And then....well...let's just say that there is a reason no 2000 page movie scripts with multiple leads are just lying around.
But what saves the day is that unlike David Cage games, Until Dawn, Bourne game it avoids going full retard every 20 minutes or embarrassing it self with shity attempt to mimic movie storytelling structure.
It has baseline gameplay set up n game appropriate story of a character going to the thing to do the thing and meet other characters n dangers along the way.
It based in an appropriate genre, where u can allow your self bit more freedom of implementing somewhat absurd story elements n where movies of the same genre with similar stories can be found so it gives the needed cinematic quality to compensate for the fairly simple gameplay n exploration mechanics so it would still remain an engaging game experience


I guess what I am saying is that you probably can lay out plenty of criticism for "The Medium" but it is just not retarded enough to not work as a whole.
Which is very rare for the story driven wally/talky game now days.

They could at least be stupid enough to put more jump scares...but no... it is kinda moody n slow.
It is 7 outa 10 game but it is one of those rare 7 outa 10 games that actually have more of a chance not to die half finished in your backlog then many 9/10 games have.

Good work Bloober team
Click to expand...
Irrelevant opinion when you decide to bash David Cage
 
Zeeed

Zeeed

Member
ZlleH said:
Hmm, something is wrong for me than.

Only difference I can think of is that this is the first game I have done a pre-install before the release date.

What power config do you have? instant on, or power saving? I have it as power saving.
What do you have for use storage when shut down. I checked the box for shut down storage when off. (I think, using my memory here)
Click to expand...

Well, I decided to do some more experimentation.

-Turns out that if I turn the power configuration to "Instant on", the quick resume works for the Medium if I turn off and on the console.
-If I have the power configuration to "Power Saving", the quick resume for the Medium does NOT work when I turn off and on the console.

This must be an issue with The Medium, as Every other game I have played has no problem with quick resume when I turn off and on the console.

EDIT: This is just my experience. not sure about others.
 
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BigLee74

BigLee74

Gold Member
Played some more at lunch. Enjoying it enough. Atmosphere is great, and the dual screen stuff and swapping between realms is interesting.

Negatives? Well, the spirit world is a bit dull from an aesthetic point of view. And there are definite frame pacing issues now and again that result in micro stutters (maybe the patch that has just been released resolves this?).


When all is said and done, I’ll likely finish this. Even if it makes me feel like a chump for continually walking into walls!
 
D

Dane

Member
CrustyBritches said:
I'm on R5 1600+2060 Super. At 1440p(DLSS 'High'), RT 'On', High settings I'm getting ~48fps avg and 42fps min during a psychic splitscreen sequence. CPU usage was ~20% wandering, ~25% during the psychic sequence. This is just the first encounter, so I'm sure it can get heavier with more complex scenes later on. Planning on just going with 30fps for the smoothness, and I don't think this game needs 60fps.

I9JnE6O.jpg
Click to expand...

Yeah, it only uses one core mostly, the rest is very under utilized. Was playing for a good time on my 3060 Ti and did fall below 30 FPS on the main hall of the hotel in split screen.
 
Tickle My Tendies

Tickle My Tendies

Member
Lack of patch notes is irking me. I checked google and twitter and couldn't find any. It's easy for me to think "this plays smoother now" but could be placebo.
 
kunonabi

kunonabi

Member
Moogle11 said:
Not tank controls. Just a fixed camera, character just turns and walks whichever direction you push.

I’m still digging the game, probably 2-3 hours in (haven’t tracked well since I played some this afternoon and fired it back up a bit ago.
Click to expand...

Welp, I'm out.
 
M1chl

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Does anyone has the feeling that this was done by two animation teams? Because after.... *cough*

After that cutscene of Thomas, which was by the way "Naughty Dog Quality", you are playing by Thomas and he is way better animated... Not the mention played.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
Moogle11 said:
Not tank controls. Just a fixed camera, character just turns and walks whichever direction you push.

I’m still digging the game, probably 2-3 hours in (haven’t tracked well since I played some this afternoon and fired it back up a bit ago.
Click to expand...
You all refer to Resident Evil (old school) as tank controls and this is very much that.
 
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