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STEAM | February 2015 - Steam GOTY results still delayed

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Teppic

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header.jpg

http://store.steampowered.com/app/269790

Alright, so I have internet back, here's my full thoughts on DreadOut Act 2, will write my thoughts on the game as a whole a bit later:

DreadOut Act 2 is the second half of DreadOut, released almost a year after the first Act, which concludes the story of DreadOut and brings a number of new scenarios, locations, enemies, and mechanics to DreadOut. Comparatively to the first Act, it is a bit longer (though may take about the same amount of time as the puzzles, while still a few tricky ones, aren't nearly as tricky and if you managed to get past the first Act's puzzles, you can handle the ones here), it should take someone probably around 2-4 hours to get through Act 2.

A lot of the major strengths and weaknesses of DreadOut Act 1 carry over to Act 2. The audio design is still fantastic, the atmosphere is still great, it can get under your skin and somewhat calls back to the weirdness and feelings of horror games of old while not specifically being archaic in design. However, it also still is no looker graphically and its low-budget is still on display for all to see, low-quality textures in places and things like grass and trees clipping through things.



The pacing of the game is different though. While in Act 1 you spent a lot of time exploring locations and staying in one place, Act 2 follows much more of a 'path' structure. There's still moments you're stopped in one place and have a few side areas to visit, but I would say the game is much more linear this time around. While some aspects of the exploration is missed, this does benefit the pacing of the game and allows them to be more experimental in its encounters and gameplay scenarios.

And this in my opinion is one of the strongest aspects of DreadOut's second act. It has a number of stand-out moments, I haven't felt this level of intrigue come from a horror game in a long time. Something I've felt newer horror games have been missing compared to old horror games are those moments, the ones that stand-out and linger in your mind either in how creepy, beautiful, weird, or unsettling it is, many games in the horror genre are one or two trick ponies that are pretty much the same game at the end as it was at the beginning,.and misses out on really scenes, scenarios that stick in the mind and strike with you while playing, or escalate its ideas and explore new possibilities as the game progresses. Various examples exist through horror games, no one will ever forget the 'Itchy/Tasty' note in Resident Evil, or the first time you see Pyramid Head through the bars in Silent Hill 2, or the scene where you lose your camera and Sae chases you in Fatal Frame 2. These are just small examples of a number of stand-out scenes that exist in these games, and something that's mostly been absent in most recent horror games, those moments of intrigue, creepiness, and interesting imagery. DreadOut manages to have a number of these moments stuffed into its second act, and while I don't want to spoil them, I think the sit-down with Ira, several moments in the mansion, and the finale of DreadOut Act 2 will stick with people for a while after beating the game.



Another area of praise I have to give goes to the boss battles. There's more of them this time around, and all of them are pretty different to each other and all were pretty well handled, the fights were fun and required some observation and strategy to take care of, while none of them being overly complex.

As of the time of writing, the game needs a little bit more polish, the English needs to be fixed up as it has a few misspellings and grammar issues, though understandable due to the Indonesian heritage, I think this will be worked out in future patches. A few minor bugs exist, one game-breaking which I didn't encounter, but will be important to fix (saving and quitting in the afterlife makes it so you cannot continue and have to start all over), but I have faith the developers will patch it out due to support for the first Act.

I do think a few moments are maybe a little bit too tricky with what you have to do for your own good and aren't made clear by the game, the moment that stands out most in my mind being what you have to do to beat the first real boss in Act 2, which had me stumped as everything I would try to do would kill me.
Turned out, to beat the boss, you had to do nothing and just let go of the controls and let it die, but the visual cue made it look like you had to take a last snapshot of the Boss before it died.



The narrative ends on a note that may leave room for a sequel, and raises a lot of questions and things to observe through the game that I'm sure some will analyze, and I think I have a few theories myself, and if they decide to make a sequel, I'll be there. I'd at least be very interested to see where they go if the developers decide to try and developer further DreadOut games, and where they go with it.

While there are a few things I enjoyed more in Act 1 (exploring was more fun in Act 1, I think in the end I found the puzzles more enjoyable in Act 1), Act 2 makes up for it in-stand out moments and boss battles, and together with Act 0 and 1, make a nice package and a horror game I would recommend to anyone who likes the horror games of yesteryear, and are not bothered by some low-budget indie aspects and cryptic puzzles. If you play the demo from the game's main site (or Steam), and end up liking it, I would recommend getting the whole game, as it really fleshes out what made the demo enjoyable into a whole experience. It's distinctively Indonesian influence of its culture and myths does bring some unique flavor to the game, but even without it, the game itself is a solid and enjoyable horror game that deserves attention from lovers of the genre, and anyone who wants one of the most well realized indie 3D horror games to be made yet.
Thanks for the impressions. I'll be on the lookout for the game during the sales.
 

dk_

Member
Everytime I restart Steam I have Serious Sam 2 on top in my recently played list (right click on the Steam taskbar icon). But I don't have it installed. How can I get rid of that?
 

Catshade

Member
Just a reminder that the Star Wars Humble Bundle will end in 4-ish hours, so grab them KOTORs and Jedi Knights while you still can.
 

derExperte

Member
Everytime I restart Steam I have Serious Sam 2 on top in my recently played list (right click on the Steam taskbar icon). But I don't have it installed. How can I get rid of that?

Why would you want to? It belongs on the top.





The last few Steam betas had some fixes regarding the 'recently played' list, guess it's just a bug that they need to correct.
 

FloatOn

Member
I may or may not become single again this week. Which is relevant to this thread because I may take solace in the escapism that is video games this weekend.

Since I gave up on MGR I'm kind of at a loss for what to play. I have some B-Tier games kicking around like:

Alice: Madness Returns
Deadly Premonition
Enslaved

and about a 100 other games in that category on my backlog but then I have season 2 of the walking dead I've yet to go through so I don't know....

edit: also you can probably look forward to me drunk posting in this thread more as well!
 
Everytime I restart Steam I have Serious Sam 2 on top in my recently played list (right click on the Steam taskbar icon). But I don't have it installed. How can I get rid of that?

same thing with me, only lately it shows DOTA2 on my list when i've never even installed the game. weird.

I may or may not become single again this week. Which is relevant to this thread because I may take solace in the escapism that is video games this weekend.

Since I gave up on MGR I'm kind of at a loss for what to play. I have some B-Tier games kicking around like:

Alice: Madness Returns
Deadly Premonition
Enslaved

and about a 100 other games in that category on my backlog but then I have season 2 of the walking dead I've yet to go through so I don't know....

Enslaved is a gem of a game. Just make sure to read up on how to adjust the game's res as the in-game settings do not work. Other than that, it's a fine port of an overlooked game.
 

Knurek

Member
Since I gave up on MGR I'm kind of at a loss for what to play. I have some B-Tier games kicking around like:

Alice: Madness Returns
Deadly Premonition
Enslaved

Alice is so, so not worth of your time...
Deadly Premonition is a broken port, not even Durante could fix it.
Enslaved is fun, but is one of the worst UE3 ports available on PC.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I wouldn't have bought the bloody disguise skill in Unity if its description mentioned the fact that it can't be used in restricted areas. Bah.

Turns out it does work in restricted areas; the mission I was completing just disallowed it because reasons.
 
same thing with me, only lately it shows DOTA2 on my list when i've never even installed the game. weird.



Enslaved is a gem of a game. Just make sure to read up on how to adjust the game's res as the in-game settings do not work. Other than that, it's a fine port of an overlooked game.

I didn't get very far in Enslaved before putting it down. I don't remember doing anything special for the resolution though. Maybe I was playing a crippled version and didn't realize it.
 
Hey the DLC browser is kinda swanky for Sega Genesis & MD Classics

TTmx9gj.png


Like a mini something. Would be cool if you could launch the game directly from there

edit: hmmm I am missing 6 games out of Collection 5

edit2:
Enslaved is a gem of a game. Just make sure to read up on how to adjust the game's res as the in-game settings do not work. Other than that, it's a fine port of an overlooked game.

Enslaved is an awful port. It's unbeatable if your settings are low, because some in-game stuff like walls breaking never happen on lower settings, which means that you can't get past certain parts at all. Sure it's no problem if your rig can run it, but if you have to drop your settings, don't even bother.
 

Copons

Member
0e3.png


It's unironically one of the best games I have ever played. After I got into it I really didn't want to play anything else in a long while. The game was so good I wasn't even bothered by the constant crashing and other problems, not even the slightest bit.

Well, I can't say I wasn't bothered by the constant crashing (and by "constant" I actually mean "an average of one every dozen of minutes"), but I cannot stress it enough: DP really is god-tier and one of the greatest and most amazing games ever created.
 
Enslaved is an awful port. It's unbeatable if your settings are low, because some in-game stuff like walls breaking never happen on lower settings, which means that you can't get past certain parts at all. Sure it's no problem if your rig can run it, but if you have to drop your settings, don't even bother.

It's an Unreal engine game from last gen, though. I think i ran into a parking meter this morning that could run it at max settings.


we're a month and a half into 2015 and he's already crowning movies as the best of the year? dude is legit on some stuff.
 

Deques

Member
Are those two packs the same? do all of these go into one launcher? how is the emulation?

Hovering my mouse on the buy button for $4,88

Sega Collection 1-4 are the same in both packs, rest of the packs are different from each other
You'll get a launcher for the games
 
Well, I can't say I wasn't bothered by the constant crashing (and by "constant" I actually mean "an average of one every dozen of minutes"), but I cannot stress it enough: DP really is god-tier and one of the greatest and most amazing games ever created.

The hell? That's worse than New Vegas.
 
It's an Unreal engine game from last gen, though. I think i ran into a parking meter this morning that could run it at max settings.

I was playing it on my laptop last year, GT630M and a dual core i3 and it couldn't hold 30 at lowests settings at 720p (while I could could play something like Dark Souls 2 at bit higher than med at 60fps at 900p, which was my native resolution and generally could play UE3 games with decent performance). Oh yeah wait lowering the settings didn't do anything to help the FPS, just broke the game. What a quality port^TM.
 

Parsnip

Member
I don't if this was posted here but...


First Eidos IPs made available via Square Enix Collective

It’s been almost a year since we fully launched Collective, and one of the headline announcements back then was the prospect of allowing developers to create games based in some of the old Eidos IPs. But it wasn’t something I wanted to open up right away, in case it overshadowed the original games that developers submitted to the platform.

Well, now the platform is established and we’ve more experience in supporting projects (both in Feedback and through crowdfunding) so it feels like the right time to live up to that early promise – which means that from now on, we’re going to allow developers to pitch game ideas based on the following IPs:

Gex
Fear Effect
Anachronox

So, Square does in fact own Fear Effect IP, and not just the publishing rights to existing games. Apparently the Kronos guys were shopping that around when Eidos pulled the funding on FE3, so I always wondered where it ended up when Kronos folded.
 
I was playing it on my laptop last year, GT630M and a dual core i3 and it couldn't hold 30 at lowests settings at 720p (while I could could play something like Dark Souls 2 at bit higher than med at 60fps at 900p, which was my native resolution and generally could play UE3 games with decent performance). Oh yeah wait lowering the settings didn't do anything to help the FPS, just broke the game. What a quality port^TM.

That sounds like it might be an issue where it's not leveraging the right GPU on your laptop. Sorry it was busted for ya because it really is a fun treat of a game.

Whiplash came out beginning of 2014.

He's talking about Best Picture for Oscars.

You're legit on some stuff.

well he did say it was the best of 2015. Perhaps he meant 2014 but since it's Kojima i'm going to assume that anything is possible.
 
Surviving 22 years in this world ☑
Happy birthday young one ;)
I want to change things up. How did all of you get into PC gaming and/or steamGaf?
It was in 1994 when my awesome pops bought us an Amiga 500 with tons of disks. What a great introduction :)
I used it actually like a game console even though it was a full-fledged PC!

After two years we sold our Amiga (I regret that so, so much) and got us our first PC. I even remember the specs. Been counting them on the way home in the car like a chant, haha. Pentium 166MHz with SSE !! Very important ;)

Man the initial dissapointment when realizing that my Amiga was waaaay better in games department was crushing. Spent lots of time in paint until my dad bought us games bundles from a supermarket. Jack Orlando, Megarace 2, Pod and others.

After that it has been PC all the way. Not out of choice mind you but I couldn't afford a PS2. Was sometimes stupid at school but gladly lots of friends played PC as well mainly.


This might be fun to mess around in.
Very relevant. Mister Mosquito
Its time.

B-Cl2p7CcAIxoSL.jpg:medium
So jelly. Game looks really cool.
I laugh at the face of the haters :p
 

Ban Puncher

Member
Dear Future Man Puncher,

Remember that time you went to McDonalds at 2am and got those terrible, cold nuggets and fries? Don't do that again. You could of spent that ten bucks on a Steam game.

Love,

Past Man Puncher
 
That sounds like it might be an issue where it's not leveraging the right GPU on your laptop. Sorry it was busted for ya because it really is a fun treat of a game.

Well yeah, screw nVidia Optimus, I'll give you that. I am just really salty because I really wanted to enjoy the game :p Now that I have a PC that can run 12 of those at the same time, I don't even want to touch it. :(
 
Bought Teslagrad last week when it was a weekly and starting playing it last night. So good. Really good metroidvania/puzzle hybrid! Well worth the 2.50 I paid.
 
Harold might honestly be one of the best looking, best animated games on Steam. It looks like a damn 2D animated movie in motion.

That said, from what I've seen of the actual gameplay, it seems to be an endless runner designed for mobile and touch controls first and foremost. Fairly involved compared to others I've seen. But just the way it looks and moves is highly impressive.
.
While the trailer does make it look like a touch game, Harold really has nothing to do with touch controls - it's very firmly designed for gamepad control. The game requires such fast switching from action to action, I don't think touchscreen would even be possible without making the game a lot easier. As for the animations, the company actually had an artist who worked for both Pixar and Studio Ghibli on the project!

(I work for the company that made Harold, Moon Spider Studio, though I didn't actually work on the game).
 
Enslaved is an awful port. It's unbeatable if your settings are low, because some in-game stuff like walls breaking never happen on lower settings, which means that you can't get past certain parts at all. Sure it's no problem if your rig can run it, but if you have to drop your settings, don't even bother.

What?
If anything, you have to tweak the settings to actually get higher resolutions.
 

_hekk05

Banned
Dear Future Man Puncher,

Remember that time you went to McDonalds at 2am and got those terrible, cold nuggets and fries? Don't do that again. You could of spent that ten bucks on a Steam game.

Love,

Past Man Puncher

Nuggets are fleeting, steam games are eternal.
 
How much new content does the main DLC add to Crusader Kings 2? I have 3 or 4 of them in my cart right now...

You might be surprised at the time it takes for some films take to get wide international releases. Seems like technically it's still not out in Japan, since Kojima saw it in a screening. Supposedly its wide release is in April.

I couldn't believe it came out that early as well. Hasn't been released on disc or anything yet either.

As someone who played the drums in the past, this movie interests me.
 
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