Be Excellent To Each Other

Watched kettle, and all that.

Anyone need a copy? £27? Played thru, inc online code.

£27 for polo mints? Too spensive.

Throw in the the ps3 and you've got yourself a deal.

Just finished this. Wow.

Might be the best game I've ever played. Maybe.

Better than 'Try Not To Fart?'!?!?!

I did say maybe.

Spoilz dude. But yeah.

Cracked this open this afternoon. The production values are certainly as high as everyone says and the intro was excellent. Having just got to the bit where you meet the kid for the first time though I'm a bit worried about the actual game part of the game. Thus far it's really just been 'generic stealth' and coming off the back of Dishonored that really doesn't cut it. I tried the first proper encounter a few times after continually getting spotted and eventually got through it purely because all the bad guys rushed me at once in a shipping container and I smacked them around hand-to-hand without really knowing what I was doing. Maybe I'm doing it wrong by just automatically playing it like I was plying Splinter Cell or something but it's just so much clunkier than other games with the same mechanics. Obviously my guy isn't a black ops specialist dripping with tech or a steampunk ninja magician, but the point of making games with guys like that as the protagonist is that it lets you have more fun tools for this kind of thing. I could just drop all that and get into a shoot-out but you get fuck all ammo and the game seems to signpost the fact that you should be doing this stuff by stealth so I'm assuming that's the way to go. I'm sure it'll pick up as I get further in but certainly at the moment it's disappointing me a bit.

Heh...

I inevitably await posts of "really not liking this" and "very disappointing" and so on for a little while and then, around about the time you meet the character Bill suddenly changing to "okay, this is starting to improve", to "I may have been wrong about this game", to "this might actually be the best game I've ever played!".

It has a bit of a ropey start, largely to introduce the mechanics of the game. You are, to all intents and purposes, playing through an extended tutorial right now. Give it a chance and trust me, it'll all fall into place.

I need to get back to this, I gave up at 50% and I know the final half has to be a lot better than the first half or everyone wouldn't be loving it so much!

Mechanically, it's a clunky stealth game, with on rails environments that go on for too long in a lot of places. The characterisation and feel of the game is great though, and I expect the story to get much better. It seems to be the best game ever, despite many parts of the actual game elements themselves rather than because of it, which is quite an achievement

You really suck, and you Bamba. It's mechanically robust - easily on par with Resi 4 - I've got no complaints whatsoever; otherwise I'd have been in here moaning.

I thought Resi 4 was crap too.

Ruh-roh.

<ducks>

'A'

All the RE games are mechanically god-awful, please stop using them as an example of anything except Resident Evil games.

It's an example of a third-person survival horror game.

Like The Last of Us.

With clunky controls.

Perfect analogy I thought

It's nowhere near as clunky as Dead Rising or Resident Evil. Unless you mean that the character isn't massively overpowered and you have to aim properly.

It's actually pretty varied so if you find yourself underwhelmed by a particular section press on and don't despair. The next chapter will be quite different. It deserves all the bumming it gets and more.

I haven't heard of anyone being less than amazed by the Winter section.

Substitute Resi 4 for Dead Space then.

Plus, I never said "all" Resi games. Just the best one. Yknow, the one that's lauded by gamers and critics alike.

You're using the example of two games I don't like to convince me there's nothing wrong with a third game. This might work for the gamers and critics who lauded these other games but it's not doing much for me as an argument. Mostly though I don't understand why you keep bringing up these other games when I'm trying to talk about this one; y'know, the actual game the thread is about.

I'm a gamer.

It's crap.

Also, having reminded myself of what's been posted recently, none of the games you keep trying to compare it to are actually stealth games at all which, despite what myp thinks, make them really weird comparisons that I just don't get at all.

The Last of Us isn't a stealth game. It's a third person shooter slash survival horror with an added basic stealth mechanic. If you can't see the similarities with the games I've mentioned then, well, I'm not going to ram it down your throat. It'll be obvious to lots of others though. I hope you enjoy the game notwithstanding those stark similarities to games you don't like.

Speaking of The Last of Us, I've started Survival Mode. It's interesting to follow the dialogue knowing the people that you've yet to meet; the fire fly posters and some collectibles I missed the first time and doing things differently . Plus hits whip off your health now. Much more than hard did as far as I can tell. And you're free to notice more like the tears on the opening sequence, the quality voice acting and incidental details. I'm constantly amazed at the amount of rooms with masses of detail with no purpose or items inside; it's like they want you to just look at this world they've made. Great stuff. Again.

I think I'll just stay out of this thread entirely until I've played more of the game. Right now it is a stealth game absolutely because that's what its giving me to do, but it sounds like that focus changes so let's see what I think once I've had a better view of what its got to offer. Until then I can't really have a meaningful conversation with you about it because you know what it'll be and I only know what it is right now.

No, no, no. Feel free to talk about it! It'd make a change for The Last of Us discussion in The Last of Us thread. I wasn't picking a fight - I don't know how far you're into it actually. Whereabouts are you in it? You been past Robert at the docks yet?

Yeah, good idea to just play the game. Like markg said, if you're not enjoying a section, it changes to something completely different in the next area, and then again in the one after that...

That sounds good and I'm sure I'll enjoy it once it gets going. In the meantime I'm off to Berlin to drink nice beer in the sun for a few days. Smell you later bitches.

Finished. Outrageously good. Perfect ending.

Right?

I don't know what I can possibly play next that won't be an outrageous anticlimax by comparison.

It has ruined gaming for me. I started InFamous a couple of days ago. I'm sure it's a decent game, but the voice acting is dreadful and graphics look like something from a PS2 in comparison.

The Walking Dead, if you've not already done so.

Fack me, this is bleeding difficult on Survivor. I've barely found any bullets, bits or bobs, or junk. I went about 30 minutes of hell with one bullet in the hunting rifle and nowt else. Now I'm in the town with Bill creeping through the, er, town and I'm getting love bites no end. It's sort of frustrating now I've done the run through once and I know what's coming up (sort of, it's easy to forget parts with a decent run time init) and I sort of would have liked the opportunity for mega difficulty to have been my primary go at the campaign.

Anyhoo, I do like the Bill character. Knowing what happens is much sweeter now you can have a look around his bedroom and such...

So I'm in the school after the buses. In the first section you go down a long corridor turn left and through some labs. Thing is, when I reach the left turn there's a zombie upstairs but no way to get upstairs as the stairs are blocked off. Anyone get up there somehow?

Played a few more hours of this and am quite far through the Bill section; right after the point we get to the bus he's been looking for with the thing we need. I'm thoroughly engaged with the world and it's characters but am still really just tolerating the game itself. Solider guys on their own are fine as you can stealth or shoot them up. Clickers on their own are fine and indeed there's some satisfaction to be had from creeping blithely around them. Infected on their own are also fine as you can just smack them around until they're dead. It's the point when the game mixes clickers and infected that just make my heart sink and I've just switched it off in annoyance at one such part. You can't creep round the clickers as the infected spot you and start fucking screeching like bitches; but if you try and take the infected on you inevitably get eaten by a clicker. You just end up sort of running around the place shooting wildly and desperately hoping you get through it all, and the game's not good enough at what it does to make that anything other than an ordeal to be endured. I even tried actually sprinting through the school corridors just avoiding everyone which turned into an amusingly fun sort of racing game (with the odd shotgun blast thrown in) but, of course, you eventually just hit a door which has a triangle symbol but won't activate while you're being chased or whatever. At which point you get eaten. Again.

I really want to enjoy this and the story/setting/characters are absolutely excellent but, at the risk of getting told I'm doing it wrong again, I'm seriously struggling with it. 'Clunky' is the word I keep coming back to and it's really sapping my enjoyment.

Oh, I did want to mention though the music which is fucking fantastic. It pops up very rarely but always just when you've been given a few minutes to appreciate the world they've built and it's that wonderful mournful evocative 'soundtrack to the end of the apocalypse' stuff that Godspeed You Black Emperor do so well; indeed it always puts me in mind of GYBE when it strikes up. Lovely stuff.

Indeed.

I got a tiny bit frustrated in the school corridor. It's only a short part, mind, but I found it easy enough dealing with the runner/clicker mix in the first section by throwing a bottle to lure them together and then pulverising them all with a nail bomb/bottle of flaming moe's. If you've got any left, that is. Once you get used to pushing danger away with bottles/bricks you can often clear a simple route through.

The next bit is quite good by the way. Stick with it though as it gets increasingly betterer. Rer.

I've also started playing this recently. It's very good I'm enjoying it much better than the uncharted games I feel.

Preparation, preparation, preparation.

The first time I came across clickers and infected together I died A LOT. I realised eventually you have to plan your approach carefully. If you can entice someone into a room on their own and strangle them, do this. If you're running around like a headless chicken and manage to fluke it, you're using the wrong approach. Use the bricks and bottles to your advantage. You will not win against a room with three clickers and two infected! If you can avoid fighting at all, more's the better.

I don't think I'll be able to avoid the fight entirely in this one, there's just too many fuckers in very close proximity. I'll try luring some of them away with bottles and bricks to see what that does for me but I suspect it's Saturnalian's approach that'll be needed here of just twatting them with bombs and molotovs. Luckily I've got loads of them both because I'm the kind of tit that hoards these more powerful weapons right up until I finish a game and realise I barely used them. Bill is quite handy at times so I could rouse the fuckers then back off and see what kind of damage he does. Which is actually possibly why they give you this situation at this point in the game; precisely because you've got the extra firepower he provides.

On an unrelated note, it's very amusing (and slightly atmosphere breaking) in the clicker heavy sections when you see your allies actually push clickers out of the way to get into cover. And I really wish Bill was lighter on his feet as hearing him thunder around behind you when you're trying to creep though a section is pretty fucking unnerving!

Yes, but the sneaky approach, followed by a few seconds of violence, is hampered by moderately clunky controls. Even halfway through the game I still stopping to wonder how to work out if i'm carrying a brick or a bomb and what button it is to switch that, or god forbid swap a weapon from my backpack. And I didn't actually want to shiv that infected, I wanted to strangle him, thanks for putting grab and shiv on the same button and wasting my precious shivs.

The controls pull me out of the game too often, I find.

I can't say I struggled at all with the controls. The only finicky thing is changing your weapons in the slots, but that's obviously not meant to be done instantly, as you have to get your backpack out.

Aye

It took me a couple of hours to really warm to it but I think if you are still having such a horrible time then you should just stop playing it. Different people like different things.