I'm not sure if your guys' description of Nine Sols is making me want to play it less or more.
If you're good at these games, then definitely go for it! If you're not, then stay the hell away from it.
You need to have both patience and skill to enjoy Nine Sols, and I thought that I've got what it takes, but turns out that I was wrong. Having patience helps overcome most obstacles, and I'm a very patient guy, but sadly I seem to be lacking in the skills department.
I wasn't particularly good at the game, but for me playing it felt very much like Sekiro. There were lots of moments where I was ready to give up because it all felt too frustrating, but up to the final boss I always ended up trying and trying until I managed, because I definitely felt that the game was fair, just hard.
In hindsight, I'd say that it probably nudged over the line and became too frustrating for me. By comparison, Hollow Knight is probably at the upper end of my sweet spot. I'd say it's worth giving Nine Sols a bit of time to see if you'll come to enjoy it, but if you're not there after a few hours, then it might be better to drop it.
Finished Indy. Reminded me of Far Cry 2 at certain points. And King Kong 2005 at other points. Good games to be reminded of. The final bossfight was annoying tho. Actually, the game is at its worst whenever it traps you in a big setpiece. Which is a shame, since the best parts of the movies are usually the big setpieces. Anyway, overall a good game.
Now I'm playing Daikatana. For some reason. No seriously. I just got to level 3 of Daikatana. I'm not kidding.
I'm not sure most narrative horror games have good gameplay to begin with. I think Alien: Isolation's best in class when it comes to that, but even then people were complaining about its design being restrictive while they were hoarding their tools for later, and not using them when they should have.
That's true. I don't expect great gameplay in this style, but I do expect not-actively-bad gameplay. Incidentally I replayed Alien Isolation this year, and apart from the padded runtime in the last few acts, I loved it.
Anyway, frustrating stealth aside, what part of the narrative's hooking you? I played the demo and I got a sense of ye ol' corporate capitalist critique from it, combined with being stranded/alone and starving to death, which seems a potent combination regardless of the surrealness (which these days I'm starting to see in games as an excuse for simply being bizarre for the coolness factor and not as a comment on anything in particular).
It's been a couple days since I've played it, and in retrospect not much hooked me, to be honest. It had some good lines about the burdens of command and what it means to be a leader, and its depiction of trauma and addiction felt nuanced and sensitive. But it was also something of a semiotic soup, with its dream sequences and flashing words, the endless overt reminders that terrible things have happened. People on Reddit who enjoy discussing what the horse represents might find some meat here. I found it tedious and overwrought, and it undermined the good storytelling. That being said, I missed a whole plot point involving a character's implied sexual assault, so maybe I'm the one who needs better media literacy.
I appreciate knowing why it's not working for you. Subtlety certainly isn't its strong suit, from what I saw in the demo, and that's borne out by what you're saying, too. Seems a shame, but I'm interested in seeing where it takes all of its setup nevertheless. At the very least, their vision for the game was executed with a certain boldness and/or confidence, and there's something to be said for that.
Finally playing Cyberpunk 2077 now that it seems to have reached peak patch and am actually really enjoying it.
I think I even prefer it to the Eidos Montreal Deus Ex games. Scratches the same itch, with a decent open world and really good missions and characters.
There are still some quirks which shouldn't be in a AAA game, and I hate the driving physics so far, but overlooking that, one of the best games I've played in a long time.
Well I done it. I played the first quarter of Daikatana.
THOUGHTS:
I kinda enjoyed playing this because it evoked a lot of nostalgia for late 90's FPSes and this is one I haven't played yet, so it was all fresh. But no, it's no underappreciated classic or anything. Right out the gate you see why it got a bad rep, starting off with a boring ass 10 minute cutscene (I timed it) before throwing you into the first level, which is a swamp full of frogs and mosqitoes. They're tiny, hard to hit, annoying as hell. It's a swamp level! And, like, I get it. I get the mood they were going for. Swamp mood. It's SUPPOSED to be annoying and gross, but this is a hell of a way to start off a game. Imagine if Dark Souls started with Blighttown, and you had to get through that before you got to experience the rest of the game? I don't think it'd be the revered classic it is today. The tutorializing is almost non existant. Guess they expected folks to read the manual? I went like 1.5 hours before I realized there's a USE button. That swamp was difficult as hell, but TURNS OUT that you can USE the numerous berry-bushes scattered throughout it to replenish your health. I didn't know that! I also didn't know how to spend my leveling up points before I googled it. Ya gotta press K and L on the keyboard to switch through skill categories and then ; to level up. What da fuck.
ANYWAY
Once you get out of the swamp things get better but not much. Hitscan enemies that shoot you the instant you open a door. Oh but don't linger in that doorway for TOO LONG. I died from getting crushed by closing doors so many times.
It all looks cool at least. I got a lot of nostalgia for this aesthetic. I played with the unofficial 1.3 Patch btw, which improves certain aspects, like letting you give your NPC buddies way more health.
It's not all bad. Quite often I felt like elements of this game danced on the edge between Bold Design and Terrible Idea. Mostly they fall over into the latter side, but not always!
Things I liked about Daikatana:
-your default gun. The "green snot gun" as it was described to me by the internet long ago. It's pretty good! That green snot bounces off walls you see, and I got really into the habit of bouncing shots around corners to hit enemies out of sight.
-all the weapons are pretty weird actually, and I appreciated that. There's a shotgun, but it's one that blasts off like 6 rounds in a row every time you press the fire button. Wasting an insane amount of ammo, but it's a good way of clearing a room. The grenade launcher has such a wide damage radius that you're as likely to injure yourself as you are your enemies. The rocket launcher is solid.
-your first companion, Superfly Johnson, has some really funny lines and insane line readings. I guess they just told this voiceactor to GO WILD in the booth and man, it shows. I love you, Superfly.
-the level design is fun, in a Quake 2 kinda way. I liked exploring these levels and finding secrets.
At the end of Ep 1 you get the titular Daikatana and get sent to a desert world. You'd THINK that if someone names an entire game after a weapon they'd try to make that weapon fun to use? Folks, this is probably the worst sword in all of videogamedom. Just garbage. I'm done with Daikatana.
I appreciate knowing why it's not working for you. Subtlety certainly isn't its strong suit, from what I saw in the demo, and that's borne out by what you're saying, too. Seems a shame, but I'm interested in seeing where it takes all of its setup nevertheless. At the very least, their vision for the game was executed with a certain boldness and/or confidence, and there's something to be said for that.
Indeed. It's worth playing if you want to know where it goes, and it does do a lot of things right. For my money, though (which is actually half of the money required to buy Mouthwashing), Anthology of the Killer is better in pretty much every way. Not that they're directly comparable, but they are both narrative-driven weirdo satirical art games. I'm tempted to buy AOTK for everyone in my Steam friend list just so I have someone to talk to about it.
I set myself a goal to complete 12 games in 2024, one game for every month and each for a different platform. Most of the games I selected were on the shorter side, otherwise I would not have been able to complete the challenge. I tried to cover a variety of genres but at the same time stick to genres that are fun for me personally.
The biggest difficulty was the limited time I had between work and other personal commitments. I remember struggling to fit the February game into the stressful final phase of a project at work, completing it during the night. For the May game, I used an old savegame of mine from years ago and still had to invest about a week of a holiday to complete it. The August game I rushed through in three hours on the easiest difficulty while liberally abusing save states, barely completing it before midnight of the last day. In July and September, I deliberately chose very short games because I did not have more than a couple of hours for gaming each weekend.
I enjoyed doing this challenge. Next year, I will not set myself any goals other than to play games I really want to play and to play them in the time I need to complete them at a leisurely pace.
Deus Ex: The Fall
Release year: 2014
Platform: Google Android
Developer: N-Fusion Interactive
Genre: Action Role-Playing
Date completed: 20.01.24
Emulated: yes
140 characters review: Perfect start to the challenge. Had just the right length and I enjoyed the game much more than bad reviews had led me to believe.
Game rating: 3/5
Personal enjoyment: 5/5
Mario Party 2
Release year: 2000
Platform: Nintendo 64
Developer: Hudson Soft
Genre: Boardgame / Minigames
Date completed: 26.02.24
Emulated: no
140 characters review: Even better than the first game in the series. Even solo, it motivated me to keep playing until the end of the driving school bonus game.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 5/5
Simon the Sorcerer
Release year: 1994
Platform: Commodore Amiga CD32
Developer: Adventure Soft
Genre: Point & Click Adventure
Date completed: 24.03.24
Emulated: no
140 characters review: I frequently had to consult a walkthrough and felt a little bored. I recognize it is a classic, but just not my taste.
Game rating: 4/5
Personal enjoyment: 2/5
MediEvil
Release year: 1998
Platform: Sony PlayStation
Developer: SCE Studio Cambridge
Genre: Hack & Slash / Platform
Date completed: 03.04.24
Emulated: no
140 characters review: Lovely design, gameplay, and humor. From the many PS1 top sellers I have yet to play, I am glad I chose this one for the challenge.
Game rating: 4/5
Personal enjoyment: 4/5
Minecraft (Vanilla 1.20.6)
Release year: 2011
Platform: Oracle Java
Developer: Mojang
Genre: Sandbox / Survival
Date completed: 20.05.2024
Emulated: no
140 characters review: My old savegame I started with already had an Eye of Ender completed, but it was still a brutal grind to the defeat of the Ender Dragon.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 3/5
Streets of Rage 2
Release year: 1992
Platform: Sega Genesis
Developer: Sega
Genre: Beat `Em Up
Date completed: 09.06.24
Emulated: yes
140 characters review: Reached the second to last stage normally, then restarted and completed the game with the help of save states. Excellent brawler.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 4/5
Passage
Release year: 2016
Platform: Emscripten
Developer: toolness
Genre: Memento Mori
Date completed: 31.07.24
Emulated: no
140 characters review: From all games I played over the course of my life, this five-minute game had the biggest emotional impact. It is an ingenious work of art.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 5/5
Star Fox
Release year: 1993
Platform: Super Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Rail Shooter
Date completed: 31.08.2024
Emulated: yes
140 characters review: Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite games. Playing the original, I finally realized it is a remake. Both original and remake are fantastic.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 4/5
Marie’s Room
Release year: 2018
Platform: Microsoft Windows
Developer: like Charlie
Genre: First-Person Adventure
Date completed: 28.09.24
Emulated: no
140 characters review: Picked it based on recommendations online and because it is very short. It is okay. The big exposition dump at the end did not impress me.
Game rating: 3/5
Personal enjoyment: 3/5
Metroid Fusion
Release year: 2002
Platform: GameBoy Advance
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Action-Adventure / Platform
Date completed: 13.10.2024
Emulated: no
140 characters review: Struggled with certain bosses and hidden passages, but loved everything else. I have been listening to the OST a lot since I completed it.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 4/5
Forbidden Forest
Release year: 1983
Platform: Commodore 64
Developer: Cosmi
Genre: Shoot'em Up
Date completed: 30.11.24
Emulated: yes
140 characters review: Surprisingly epic considering the limitations of the hardware it is running on. I got lucky when I hit the Demogorgon with my second arrow.
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 3/5
Rescue on Fractalus!
Release year: 1984
Platform: Atari 5200
Developer: Lucasfilm Games
Genre: Space Combat
Date completed: 23.12.24
Emulated: yes
140 characters review: Had never heard of this game. Only chose it because I wanted to have an Atari game in the challenge. Ended the year on an absolute banger!
Game rating: 5/5
Personal enjoyment: 5/5
Sovereign Syndicate has potential, but it squanders much of it for these reasons: it suggests that it is about player choice and agency, but it really isn't, not even on a character level (to compare: you can't really change the plot much in The Walking Dead, but you can change who your Lee is), and while the worldbuilding is solid and interesting, the characters are underdeveloped and the plot is a shapeless mess. I came away thinking that they should have made this a point & click adventure rather than something that looks and plays but doesn't behave like a RPG. They raise expectations with the stuff they borrowed from Disco Elysium and with what seems to be choices, but the game doesn't fulfil any of these expectations, so I think they would've been better off dropping the hints at a game that is better overall but that is vastly better at being that kind of game in particular. At the same time, I do think their world has potential, even if the game goes from wanting to be about themes to a rather tacky steampunk Avengers Initiative ripoff in the last half hour or so. But if they do continue this, they'll have to decide what game and what kind of story they want to make, because right now Sovereign Syndicate is pulled in two different directions and it fails to decide for either of these, suffering in the process.
Kingdom Eighties - The 80's theme is a pretty unexpected turn for this series, but it kinda works, in a contrived way. This is a more linear, story focused game than the earlier entries. Perhaps a bit easier too, and definitely shorter. It was alright tho!
Forspoken - It's in PS+ so I played the first 4 hours. Story-wise it starts out good and I was hooked on Frey's journey, but as soon as she gets the magical Cuff they quickly start competing in who can spout the most annoying Whedonesque quips. From there on the story is... ok, but there's too much of it. The first 3 hours are thick with cutscenes and tutorialization. Once that clears up and you're set free in the world you find out that the gameplay really isn't that great. The movement feels fast and fluid, very Prototype or Infamous: Second Son-ish, but I think what made movement so fun in those games was the city setting. When you're just zooming along over mostly flat terrain it's just not as much fun. Overall the open world is full of collectibles and stuff to find. This combined with the magic attacks reminds me a lot of Ghostwire Tokyo actually, a game I liked. But there again, the Tokyo setting was a large part of what made it good. Forspoken just offers drab landscapes, and 4 hours in I'm kinda bored of it.
Sly Cooper 2 - I'm not into mascot platformers so I'd written this off as another one of those, but the stealth and heist focus does give this one something extra. Developed by Sucker Punch who later went to make the Infamouses, the movement in this feels very slick, but there's also a bit of early 2000's jank. And while the missions offer a good bit of variety, I'm also starting to feel some repetition after a few hours. A nice game, but I don't think I'll play past the first 2 episodes.
I've been playing Chinese chess , Xiangqi. For some reason in the past couple of years there's been increased interest in it in the West. An accessible high quality computer version has appeared as well as a few book in English. Older than Western chess, maybe not quite as deep, but it's frenetic and exciting to play
And I also finished American McGee's Alice again for the 4th time in 20 years. Awesome atmosphere and music but gawd those boss battles are tedious.
Last edited by LordBooford; 27th Dec 2024 at 16:42.
I remember playing that a long time ago. I remember there's a river that runs through the centre of the board and your elephants can't cross it. Cannons take pieces like in checkers by hopping over, and the king is confined to the 3x3 castle and can't have direct line of sight to the other king (which gives you some fun options for mating).
I remember playing that a long time ago. I remember there's a river that runs through the centre of the board and your elephants can't cross it. Cannons take pieces like in checkers by hopping over, and the king is confined to the 3x3 castle and can't have direct line of sight to the other king (which gives you some fun options for mating).
Yes! I'm surprised you've played, it's hugely popular in China and Vietnam yet hardly anyone in the West has heard of it. I've played Western chess for years and due to reading numerous books and playing regularly I've attained reasonable level. But when it comes to Xiangqi I still feel like a beginner. I've no idea why the recent mini surge in interest in the West- perhaps the Covid lockdown had people looking for new interests
I don't think it's really that good, but i keep playing it because it's kind of addicting, it has solid mechancics. I feel for it similarly to games like Vampire Survivors. I really don't think that's a good game either. I highly doubt its games i will remember with warm and fuzzy feelings in the future, more like games i'll remember as "i can't believe i spent so much time on that repetitive shit".
I somehow picked up Ghostwire: Tokyo as an Epic freebie ages ago, and on a whim decided to give it a shot. I was surprised it turned out to be my favorite game I played this year.
There's a ton of Ubisoft-esque BS collectibles I found surprisingly addictive to gather (particularly the souls and yokai) - the setting is just SO well realized, and traversal feels fun (starting with running on streets to later jumping from rooftop to rooftop and flying around the city). I think what really sucked me in, are the vibes and sense of space. The whole city feels very realistic, it's densely packed with tiny details, and the graphics look gorgeous with all the dark, wet, reflective puddles. I have a bit soft spot for this vibe since I lived in Japan for a few months years ago and also enjoyed my time in Korea and Hong Kong, so I found the feeling of just walking down these street very familiar and nostalgic. There's busy downtown streets, there's quieter suburban neighborhoods, a giant mall, a cemetery, etc. a pretty decent variety of spaces (even if, at times, feeling kinda same-y)
Another thing that really shines here, is all the "Japanese Horror Spooky Shit" that keeps happening. There's a lot of subtle stuff, from all street lights turning red when enemies get aggroed, road painting suddenly detatching and floating in the wind, or objects suddenly fluttering around. Then, there's sequences where entire streets or rooms will seamlessly turn into Silent Hill-esque hellscapes, or space will invert and bend on itself like you're traversing and MC Escher painting. It's just done so incredibly well - the art and shader team did a phenomenal job there.
The story itself is fine, nothing spectacular, but the side quests, while often short, are pretty lore-heavy and interesting to learn about (and that haunted School mission with the mannequin was probably one of the best horror levels I've played since Vampire Bloodlines hotel). The combat is... Ok. it does the trick but gets repetitive halfway thru, and is really more "means to an end". Which is fine because I was really driven to find all the stupid yokai and just soak in the whole vibe of the place. The whole ending sequence where you go from room to room re-living your entire life and sad story was also surprisingly well done and emotional.
Now I'm onto Metaphor: Refantazio and, uuuh, having a lot more mixed feelings about that one......
PC Gamering Smartey Man I <3 consoles and gamepads
Registered: Aug 2007
Location: New Zealand
Finished Diassblo IV about a week ago. The end game content seems even more boring than the story campaign. Uninstalled the shit out of that POS. Blizztard still belongs on the great shit list of developers.
My new MS point grinding game will be The Division 1. That game on Xbox Series X is beautiful, running at native 4k/60fps. I already know that it's a solid title, having put 20ish hours into the PC version some years ago.
Started replaying Gears of War 5, this time in co-op. Surprised by how unwoke the game is, despite coming out in 2019. Kait is very feminine, still looking like and moving like a woman. They didn't copy-paste the male animations and call it a day. (They censored smoking, I recall.)
Great game, a huge improvement over the fairly roughly designed campaign Gears 4. It's a beautiful, well optimised game. The Dolby Atmos sound is truly outstanding. We just finished the assault on the Outsider village by the Swarm. Felt like I was personally on the battlefield with the sound scape all around me, super immersive.
I just finished replaying Gears 4 and the forced tower defense horde segments remain awful. The PC port has this issue where with multiple monitors the mouse cursor would keep travelling to the other screen and clicking would steal focus from the game. Playing with gamepad was the workaround, sadly. An exclusive fullscreen mode would've fixed it, but sadly this was one of the earliest DX12 only games, so only borderless window was available.
Just played through Driver 1's Miami missions in the very good fan remake The Driver Syndicate. Man, what a blast from the past. I loved this game so much back in the day.
I've been playing Chinese chess , Xiangqi. For some reason in the past couple of years there's been increased interest in it in the West. An accessible high quality computer version has appeared as well as a few book in English. Older than Western chess, maybe not quite as deep, but it's frenetic and exciting to play
And I also finished American McGee's Alice again for the 4th time in 20 years. Awesome atmosphere and music but gawd those boss battles are tedious.
I remember my friend who can play mahjong(well Considering me and some of my friends from my junior - high school days are mostly of Chinese descent or just say it half chinese(chinees indonesisch) ) , it seems that xiangqi is also interesting.
Last edited by taffernicus; 5th Jan 2025 at 06:33.
Time to wrap up this 2024 thread and start a new one for the new year, methinks? With 770 posts - and all of premium quality of course - this thread has been the second busiest of the yearly WAYP? threads (since 2020). Nice!
Someone else should start the 2025 thread though, because according to an ancient legend, a terrible curse falls upon those who start two WAYP threads in a row, or post in an old WAYP thread after the first full week of January. And we don't want curses or any negative stuff in here, right?
So long 2024! You were a pretty good gaming year, and I'm even more excited about 2025.
Been playing 7 Days to Die recently, and it's surprisingly addictive. It's a survival game with solid mechanics—tons of crafting, exploration, and the usual zombie chaos.
My friends and I grabbed a private server for $6/month from 7d2d.net for the commodity of having faster speed, and it's been smooth sailing with no lag. It's not a game I expected to play this much, but here we are.
I FINALLY played through Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. I dunno why it took me this long - I suppose it was the controls, but it ended up being quite straightforward and easy to learn the interface. It's really cool to see where Neurath, Spector, and Church properly started their whole thing. Still an insanely fun game that was truly, staggeringly ahead of its time, both technologically and with a simulation deeper than most imsims today. It feels quite unsung to me, really, at least in terms of mainstream appreciation - every fantasy RPG that followed was heavily indebted, at the very least.
I jumped from there right into Arx Fatalis, which I'd try to play a few times in the past and always bounced off (it's the only Arkane title besides Karmastar, Cyberpilot, and Redfall that I'd yet to tackle). Now I'm glad I waited - it's much better having just played UU. It was clearly designed as UU3 in every way, licensing and title aside, and really set the precedent for Arkane's love letters to LGS. In fact, it is SO similar, with its 8 levels, rats, spiders, goblins, trolls, etc. (the snake ladies even speak the lizard people language) that it's the differences that stand out more. I often found myself wanting to sleep in the game - your character even yawns, and there's apparently an unused bedroll model - but the feature was ultimately not included. There are no dialogue trees - and to be fair, these mostly made little difference in The Stygian Abyss, serving mostly as a puzzle to find the right dialogue choices.
Indeed, it's clear there was much they didn't have time to finish - an evil alignment option that the game hints at, perhaps sewers until the first level, properly fleshing out projectiles, etc. And, of course, it released with tons of bugs, which Libertatis has fixed. The game world feels a bit smaller than UU, despite mirroring it in multiple ways, but it really makes the best of that space. I will always prefer a small and tight, throughly fleshed out game world to a really big one, so it's nice to have an RPG in this style that isn't massive. People always compare it to Morrowind, and I see why - they came out the same year, after all - but while Morrowind's art design is a bit more creative, I very much prefer everything else about the design of AF. I'm not quite finished - I just made it to the Dwarven mines on the game's final level - but I am finding it addictively atmospheric. The ambient sound is great. It's quite an impressive first title from a then-new developer!
I also started playing UU2, which is interesting. The design seems to be a bit more metroidvania than the prior title. It's also not standalone on the story front - The Stygian Abyss wasn't initially developed as an Ultima title, apparently taking on the name late in development (and thus making almost no sense with the other Ultimas of the time from a story perspective - not that it does of its own accord, either). UU2, on the other hand, was indeed developed as an Ultima game from the start, and so it serves as an interquel between the two parts of Ultima 7, which I do not have. As such, I initially considered waiting to play it until I acquired U7, as the game begins with conversations with a whole host of conversations with characters from U7 (hence my jump straight to AF), but upon scrounging around it seems that the story stand alone well enough for me to proceed. While AF seems more indebted to The Stygian Abyss, it's fun to see what it drew from Labyrinth of Worlds, as well, like the key ring (big QOL improvement!!) and a central castle with a king who gives you a room. I've made my way through the sewers and the first couple worlds, and now I'm in the Ice Caves. The design feels more inconsistent to me than UU1 - level 4 of the sewers in particular seems overly sprawling and difficult to navigate for no reason at all, particularly given that it's most just a big pool of water. I know, like Thief 2, they had a bit more pressure and time crunch, and I guess it shows. Still, it's fun to see the improved graphics with actual 3D models for some things!
Better late than never! Soon the question will be - is it worth giving Ascendant another go?
In the past couple months, I've been doing a major backlog clearing / revisiting things i bounced off / etc. I have finished all of the following:
Layers of Fear 2
Blair Witch
Observer Redux
P.T. Emulation
Shadow Warrior 2
Scorn
Stanley Parable
Dead Space & Remake
Dead Space Mobile
Dead Space 2
Wolfenstein 2009
F.E.A.R (+ expansions)
F.E.A.R. 2 (+ Reborn)
Chronicles of Riddick: Butcher Bay & Dark Athena
Amnesia Rebirth
Amnesia: The Bunker
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Arx Fatalis
~10 Dark Mod levels
Currently in progress:
UT2004
Thief: The Black Parade
Ultima Underworld 2: Labyrinth of Worlds
Underworld Ascendant
Quite the marathon. Probably forgetting something.
@ froghawk:
Regarding Riddick, were you playing the Steam version or installing from disk?
I've tried the Steam version recently, and it's borked by defunct DRM for me >:E
I was using the GOG version (DRM free!), but it's been taken off both Steam and GOG for quite a while now. Here's what I wrote about it elsewhere:
'Continuing my trend of returning to and properly finishing things I started and bounced off of... Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is perhaps the most celebrated game by Starbreeze. Once the studio got too big, the people who made that game (and The Darkness) went off to found MachineGames, where they made the Wolfenstein reboots and the new Indiana Jones games.
Despite being a licensed title, it's easy to see why it's so highly regarded. It's a brief and simple but very fun story about a comedically stoic and badass antihero trying to break free from a sci fi alcatraz equivalent, and it tells that story in the most interactively varied way it can. The gameplay ranges from RPG-esque talking to the other inmates and gathering sidequests to well executed thief-esque light-based stealth to hitman-esque social stealth to first person shooter action segments (including mech suit battles) to horror sequences. It covers a p unbelievable amount in its brief duration and does all of it surprisingly well. A great title that deserves its rep and has stood the test of time. I was dumb to initially bounce off of it in 30min because it seemed like too much of a shooter. It really isn't.
As is the concensus, Dark Athena is not on the level of Butcher Bay. Most say it's cuz there's too much action, but I don't think that's it exactly? Still opens with a lot of stealth and talking and there's even a tomb raider esque climbing segment. It's more that the back half of the game feels really weird - almost unfinished, somehow? And it's all designed around a mechanic that's really annoying to use. Plus the story just isn't as fun, though there are some surprisingly good one liners.'
Originally Posted by Aja
Reply With Quote
