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Firewatch |OT| With Me

E

E-flux

Member
Comrade Crunch said:
I think this comes down to the game being different from what you're looking for. Henry simply isn't a hero, he's a selfish person who has a good heart, he's flawed, like all of the games characters. You have choices, but they're choices that Henry would make, not yourself.

I was reading an article earlier (on Polygon I think) that describes it perfectly, "You are Henry but Henry is not you," which is pretty jarring when it comes to games. It was a concept I came to wrap my head around while playing it.

As for your second Spoiler, that also comes from you trying to play Henry as yourself, which is not what the game is about.
The "crime scenes" turned out to not really be crime scenes at all, except for maybe Brian, though it's hard to know if Ned did it or if it truly was an accident, another thing from which to draw your own conclusions.

I really think if you can put yourself in a different mindset, you'll enjoy the way the game ended more, or maybe not, I can't know for sure.
Click to expand...

I get that Henry is his own character and i have only a minor impact on how he turns out in the end, but there are essentially two henries, one who is trying to solve what's happening and one that doesn't really care. There are many points in the story where you can choose dialog options that reinforce that side of him trying to solve what's happening and even D encourages you to take pictures at the campsite of those teenagers. Even if the mystery was a fairly mundane thing they didn't wrap it well enough in the end, which i feel could have been solved with few more minutes of dialogue or a few choose your own text fields.

And i agree that if a person who is playing the game isn't looking to solve what's happening and cares mainly about Henry and D you will get a lot more out of the game in the end, but for a player like me who got intrigued by the mystery, the ending was just lackluster, they wrapped relationship of Henry and D but everything else was kinda left hanging in the air.
 
S

serenewarfare

Banned
Just finished it.
Even as someone who didn't care all that much about the conspiracy and did not expect the ending to revolve around that, I was still left very unfulfilled by the ending. I was extremely invested in the relationship between the two characters, and I felt like the ending given was not nearly a suitable climax for the dialogue and storytelling even disregarding all the conspiracy stuff. Just the basic relationship between Henry and D felt like it had too abrupt a halt. And even if that's the point, it's a shitty point. Just because it's intentional or "realistic" doesn't make it good storytelling.
 
B

Bobby Roberts

Banned
I'm gonna have to play through this again. There's a lot of stuff I didn't trigger, apparently, and I played this run through sorta/kinda taciturn. Curious to see how things would play out if I'd indulged in the more... free-spirited of options.

Really, really enjoyed my time with the game though.
 
ToyMachine228

ToyMachine228

Member
While there were a lot of well done elements of the game...the scenery, music, voice acting, etc...I felt that the story overall just didn't really go anywhere. It wasn't very fulfilling.

I hate comparing games but as someone who absolutely loved Gone Home, Firewatch feels like a well done but shell of a clone of that formula with some different elements.
 
G

Google

Member
serenewarfare said:
Just finished it.
Even as someone who didn't care all that much about the conspiracy and did not expect the ending to revolve around that, I was still left very unfulfilled by the ending. I was extremely invested in the relationship between the two characters, and I felt like the ending given was not nearly a suitable climax for the dialogue and storytelling even disregarding all the conspiracy stuff. Just the basic relationship between Henry and D felt like it had too abrupt a halt. And even if that's the point, it's a shitty point. Just because it's intentional or "realistic" doesn't make it good storytelling.
Click to expand...

Just finished it 5 minutes ago and completely agree with this sentiment.

I was fully invested after the first 90-120 minutes and the last third just felt let down.
 
M

matthewrex

Member
Had to pop in to compliment the thread title. Bravo.

Finished the game last night pretty underwhelmed, I have tons of thoughts and will probably be writing them down.
 
2

23qwerty

Member
Just finished the game, incredible experience. Took about 6-7 hours. I don't understand how people are claiming to have finished this in ~3 hours unless they're rushing like a bat out of hell through the game which would be a bit odd to do.

Reckless Onion said:
i just got to the part where i
found a key to the cave and now i'm on my way there
how much longer do i have?
Click to expand...

About another hour I think
 
J

Jintor

Member
12718177_10153924563646419_4241080337869546997_n.jpg


lol wat a twit
 
kriskrosbbk

kriskrosbbk

Member
Quote said:
Looks like progress is being made with the PS4 performance. - https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698228565490315264


And maybe as soon as next week? - https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698233925047619584


Graphical improvement as well? - https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698232666387312640


Upgrading to Unity 5.4 - https://twitter.com/thatJaneNg/status/698232908016979970
Click to expand...

I don't know for you guys but I am frustrated with this game.
They had plenty of time and still they released a pile of shit on PS4.One week later we get these tweets.Well fuck off.
 
R

RageWaffles

Member
I wish PS4 users could at least see our screenshots on the firewatch.camera site. I was using the camera instead of the screenshot button, and I really liked the ones I took. :(


Love the game, thought the ending was perfect and the dialogue and voice acting were top notch.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Amir0x said:
Man I am so glad they have the option to turn off location on map. They nailed the orienting yourself by landmark/compass/map aspect hardcore when you turn that shit off. They should make a hiking game like this with slightly more mechanical depth. Makes the experience really immersive.
Click to expand...
Miasmata
I'm not going to lie, the navigation stuff is quite complex in that game because you have to do actual triangulation. Has other survival mechanics too that are in-depth. If you're into hands on maps like Far Cry 2 and Firewatch and can get past the dingy graphics, give it a few hours.
321cd244b55ac01cbc4e4f82453665a2b5d8a6da7c4d05062cee201a3c14739a.jpg

2012-11-30_00010.jpg
 
R

Ravensmash

Member
Bah....

So I was really enjoying this on PS4, although the performance was irritating me a bit.

Turned off autosave in the hope that it may improve something, but then it crashed whilst loading a new day.

Haven't gone back into the game yet as I just know I'll have to re-do loads.

Bit of a downer!
 
N

Nappuccino

Member
Ravensmash said:
Bah....

So I was really enjoying this on PS4, although the performance was irritating me a bit.

Turned off autosave in the hope that it may improve something, but then it crashed whilst loading a new day.

Haven't gone back into the game yet as I just know I'll have to re-do loads.

Bit of a downer!
Click to expand...

The game doesn't auto-save that much, imo. I'd be surprised if that was causing you performance issues. Loading and unloading zones seems like the bigger issue, at least for me on PC (I'm rolling with a GTX 660--not even a ti).
 
G

Glass

Member
Apologies if this has been posted before, but Markiplier's Firewatch Lets Play is really good. The intro with Julia hits him hard, he gets super absorbed, and he has waaay too much fun with Forest Byrnes. Don't watch most of his videos but for me this was the perfect game to watch him enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyKg7xmVIKw
 
JimmyJones

JimmyJones

Banned
seat said:
Why did you expect a horror game? Where did you ever get that impression that this game would be one? It's a shame you didn't continue playing, this game is a wonderful experience.
Click to expand...

I didn't read anything about the game going in and just assumed it would be a horror/thriller. I had something like the movie 'Wrong Turn' in my head. It would have been way better if they went that route IMO.
 
C

Chabbles

Member
Ravensmash said:
Bah....

So I was really enjoying this on PS4, although the performance was irritating me a bit.

Turned off autosave in the hope that it may improve something, but then it crashed whilst loading a new day.

Haven't gone back into the game yet as I just know I'll have to re-do loads.

Bit of a downer!
Click to expand...

That sucks, just save regularly. Thankfully its very fast at saving manually.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Messofanego said:
Miasmata
I'm not going to lie, the navigation stuff is quite complex in that game because you have to do actual triangulation. Has other survival mechanics too that are in-depth. If you're into hands on maps like Far Cry 2 and Firewatch and can get past the dingy graphics, give it a few hours.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/32/321cd244b55ac01cbc4e4f82453665a2b5d8a6da7c4d05062cee201a3c14739a.jpg[/IM]
[IMG]http://www.dadsgamingaddiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-11-30_00010.jpg[/IM][/QUOTE]

Man, I haven't thought of Miasmata in years. Great game.
Click to expand...
 
B

benicillin

Banned
Fantastic game. Can't say enough good things about it. I know some people out there might disagree, but I couldn't be happier with the way the story went beginning to end. Amazing performances by the two main characters and overall a great effort by Campo Santo. No idea how people were finishing this sub-4 hours, I clocked in 7 hrs and 13 minutes of playtime on my first playthrough but I tend to take my time with these sorts of games. Playing without the map marker makes a huge difference btw.
 
O

OrlanisWorks

Banned
benicillin said:
Fantastic game. Can't say enough good things about it. I know some people out there might disagree, but I couldn't be happier with the way the story went beginning to end. Amazing performances by the two main characters and overall a great effort by Campo Santo. No idea how people were finishing this sub-4 hours, I clocked in 7 hrs and 13 minutes of playtime on my first playthrough but I tend to take my time with these sorts of games. Playing without the map marker makes a huge difference btw.
Click to expand...

I feel like the only way you could have spent more than four hours in the game is by simply exploring wherever you could with each day you had access to. The world felt so empty to me, I couldn't justify going off exploring too far without feeling like I'm wasting my time looking for something that the game doesn't have. That was a real bummer: thet each day had specific objectives but I didn't perceive any activities aside from those set in front of me. I tried to do some running around to other places, but I couldn't find anything, so I simply gave up.

Navigating without an indicator on the map was really cool. I did feel like I got to know a couple landmarks that helped me from place to place.
 
K

kenta

Has no PEINS
Just wanted to chime in and say I also loved it. I wasn't a fan of The Walking Dead so I was a little unsure of what to expect but I really don't have any major complaints. Would love to play more games like this
 
M

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I think you might've missed the point about the story not going anywhere. It was explicitly designed to do the stuff it did.

I just heard Rich Sommer on the Giant Bomb podcast, and now that I hear he was a huge Sierra adventure game fan, and has 1000+ board games, he's beyond awesome.
 
I

Incendiary

Banned
Played through the first two chapters tonight - really enjoying it so far. Pretty much what I expected - a slight adventure with a bit of mystery and gorgeous scenery.

Really looking forward to finding out how the story plays out.
 
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