Oh dear, I feel that it's coming out way too soon. I wouldn't have minded if they had pushed back the launch to February or something... Still, it's going to be interesting to see how this turns out, but I must admit that I'm getting more and more worried every day that my over-enthusiastic $200 pledge was a bit of a mistake!These previews seem quite favourable at least, so who knows, perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised too.
I had mixed reactions from playing the alpha and beta builds, but I genuinely believe there is a good game hidden in there. When it works, it really works -- the atmosphere, the wonder of discovery, it's there. The only question is whether they managed to polish it up and fix the issues. It isn't Underworld 3 by any stretch of the imagination, and it feels every bit like an indie game built by a small team (as opposed to what Arkane is doing), but it is definitely built on immersive sim principles. I've had lot of fun experimenting with the runic spellcasting alone.
That said, I think it's quite likely they'll have a lot of issues at launch that they will try to fix after release. There's also DLC planned to add more content and features, so only time will tell how the game shapes up at the end. Of course, as a Looking Glass fan, I hope for the best and I'm willing to give them quite a lot of goodwill and every chance for the slim hope of LGS 2.
I also hope this turns out to be a fantastic game, even if it takes some fixing later on. I've been craving for a game like this for a long time. And it's always great to hear Stephen Russell!
I won't be buying it this month though. My toaster probably won't handle this game very well. So I'm waiting for the console release in 2019...
I'm happy to report that, even give the fairly high system requirements listed on the Steam page, I tried one of the Backer Builds on my 5 year old PC, and it ran quite well. I had it on "high" settings, and I was getting 60fps in all of the passage/corridor like areas, and still 30-40fps in the large open areas. I didn't play much because I don't want to know too much about the game before it's official release, but I do like the visual style I'm seeing. I remember on some of the early screenshots and video, it seemed much more cartoony to me. Doesn't seem to be as much of an issue now, although my exposure is limited.
I did notice several graphical glitches, some flickering and textures popping in and out, but I'm guessing that's more about it being an alpha version than it is about my ancient machine.
I'd like to second Starker's comments. Despite a litany of technical problems and some questionable design decisions, there's a potentially great cult classic at the heart of this game.
I just hope the studio survives long enough to flesh it out and polish it after it's released.
Definitely a small team. Something like 14 I think?Originally Posted by Starker
This is great! Then it might just work on mine as well. Thanks! I'd rather play this on PC.
Re: Stephen Russell, is anyone else just finding his voice work a bit...jarring? Huge fan of course, and I love everything he's done. Using his voice for Corvo in Dishonored 2 worked perfectly, but here it's just too distracting. I'm listening to it, and saying "oh, that's Stephen Russell" instead of it just naturally blending into the game. It's kind of similar to hearing someone famous like Samuel Jackson play Mace Windu, or even Kiefer Sutherland play Big Boss. The actual actor is so well known that you can't get them out of your mind when hearing the voice and playing/watcing the game/movie.
I just played the latest backer build, and while it does feel more polished and complete than the alpha prototype, it still seems to have a long way to go.
There's potential there - despite my hatred of the art style - but I kind of feel like just giving someone a physics toybox to play with doesn't exactly make for great gameplay.
The physics systems still feel clunky (roughly grabbing a crate and hauling it into a fire then throwing it at a door, it's a bit surreal); combat, archery and magic also feels clumsy; the AI are terrible (they get stuck in doors and can't even hurt you most of the time); stealth feels rather rough, not helped by the enemies not having good/informative barks.
Now, this was just from me replaying the tutorial section. It might handle a bit better farther in, once you get access to the skills. But making the game really clunky and forcing the player to buy skills to reduce that doesn't seem like a great design.
I guess we'll see.
Yeah, I agree with all your criticisms. Which is why I hope they survive long enough to "finish" it. I'm not talking, "Oh, it will be great by January!" I'm thinking they need a good six months of patches and content additions.
It does get better later, not in the core mechanics, but in the large non-linear environments rich with different things to do and a great sense of exploration and discovery. The runic magic system helps, too.
But I worry the initial reviews (from both critics and Steam reviewers) will make it difficult for them to keep working on this for six months.
I'm a little worried Warren Spector will experience déjà vu. Like Ion Storm, he may join a newly formed studio and form his own separate office only to see the original office close and leave him in charge of the remaining studio's identity.
But I hope it doesn't happen like that.
And I agree with Brethren. Not only is Stephen Russel's voice too identifiable, but he doesn't have the best lines or the best role here. His role and his lines are a bit cringe-inducing to me, which I hate to say about anything he does.
At the peak. I think it was just 5-7 people for quite a while.
Does that peak of 14 include the Fullbright (Gone Home, Tacoma) people they brought in to help with level design for a period? Does anybody know if Fullbright is still working with OtherSide?
Today is the day. There are already a few videos out there by people who got an early build of the game to do paid promotion.
Here's one in English:
And one in German (quite a few of those, for some reason):
Somehow I was hoping that the orange-teal-green lighting setup a la Deadly Shadows is only temporary, and models would look like they have some color palette instead of being monochromatic. I'm not a fan of SR's lines either, but he was probably instructed to deliver them like that. Will get back to it in half a hear or so.
Btw. Germany has been a strong PC RPG market for decades, with generations of gamers that grew up with e.g. Piranha Bytes' games (Gothic, Risen).
The lighting also depends somewhat on the light source. In these videos, there's a green glowing crystal that the player is carrying, but I found that when I had a torch equipped in one of the earlier builds, everything was far more orange. And there are more colourful areas too.
the most important question is, can you bake cakes?
Unfortunately not, and neither can you bake bread and lace it with rat poison. You can roast things, though, including in ways PETA wouldn't approve.
Well this has Warren Spector written all over it, lol.
The mac version isn't supposed to be available yet, but I just put the key in on my mac and steam is letting me download it, which it's never done for a windows game before. I'm a bit confused by this, but I guess I'll just ride out the download and see what happens. It's not very big.
Sigh.
It's no RPG, that's for sure. It's a pure dungeon crawling immersive sim. Which in theory I should like. And I want to.
BUT YOU CAN'T SAVE WHERE YOU WANT
Good god, it's 2018 and PC games still have this problem. I really don't always have hours to devote to games any more... even my Thief sessions often get broken up. But quick save makes that perfectly fine.
UA loses your progress no matter where you save until you complete an entire level and return to the "portal" level (Markur?)
For god's sakes, OtherSide, give us saving anywhere. PLEASE! Otherwise I will really, really have to think twice before devoting time to this game. If I can't just dip into it then I might as well not bother.
Yeah, that's probably my biggest bugbear with the game as well.
They were working on some sort of limited saving, but apparently it isn't that easy of a problem to fix with the size of the team and the size of the levels.
In my first hour of play, I'd say the release version isn't all that different from the last beta. So whatever you thought of that beta, you'll likely think the same of the official release.
I can already tell I'm not the person to ask for an opinion on this game. I'm extremely biased in favor of any immersive sim that comes out, and am willing to over look a lot of jank because the genre doesn't get as much love as it should. Though I will say that save issue is a problem.
Probably worthwhile to post that on the Otherside Message forums. They're unlikely to see it here.
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