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Screenshot thread
- Thread starter potatojohn
- Start date
Pretty bingeable, mechanics are so simple by now.
I more mean in the pacing sense than the mechanics sense, like how classic FPS games are just pure flow.
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PoMo Video
I more mean in the pacing sense than the mechanics sense, like how classic FPS games are just pure flow.
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PoMo Video
Yeah in that sense too, much better than nu-shooters
Mikeal
Arcane
When you really need Imperial Authority.
Ivan
Arcane
I'm lmaoing at the funny sounds these creatures make when they die XDD
A horse of course
Guest
The Elder Scrolls: Arena
I’ve tried playing through the original Elder Scrolls something like five or six times since the early 2000’s, always losing interest within a few hours and dropping my playthrough in favour of something more engaging. But I finally honoured my commitment to…whichever 80’s bombshell they traced over for the cover art, and knocked it off my backlog.
There’s not much point summarizing the title for anyone here, since most people have probably either played it already or know everything worth knowing vis-à-vis the general mechanics. I made the error of going in expecting a sort of quick taste of proto-Daggerfall, which was a terrible mistake. There’s a sense of everything being far too simplistic to be interesting from a character building or roleplaying perspective compared to the party-based blobbers of the era, but also too plodding and grindy to excite anyone looking for a quick dungeon romp. By the tenth level, I was already tired of the arbitrary design of the randomly generated dungeons and had started edging through the main quest. It was a stroke of luck the first random artifact quest I received was for Auriel’s Shield, which instantly breaks the game and lets you flail blindly through most of the main dungeons with minimal downtime.
In fairness, there’s the faintest outline of the “fantasy roleplaying simulator” experience in Arena - blundering around the city pestering random citizens for the nearest temple, cowled strangers sidling up to you in the inn, random quests to rescue imperiled daughters from fearful beasts, chasing rumours of legendary artifacts and the like. But most of these adventures are fetch quests, inconsequential and inefficient uses of the player’s time compared to the main quest. Meanwhile, core gameplay is just a joyless labour of shuffling through grey corridors devoid of anything unique or surprising, dutifully wobbling your weapon around as the same two sound clips of weakly clashing metal or dull thudding wear you down with their repetition.
About halfway through the game I tried breaking up the monotony by watching scenes from acclaimed machinima artist 26regionsfm. Unfortunately, this just left me feeling a sense of intense existential myopia and made DOSBOX more likely to lock up when alt-tabbing. For this reason I can’t in good conscience recommend either The Elder Scrolls: Arena, or the consumption of pornographic media as a whole.
I’ve tried playing through the original Elder Scrolls something like five or six times since the early 2000’s, always losing interest within a few hours and dropping my playthrough in favour of something more engaging. But I finally honoured my commitment to…whichever 80’s bombshell they traced over for the cover art, and knocked it off my backlog.
There’s not much point summarizing the title for anyone here, since most people have probably either played it already or know everything worth knowing vis-à-vis the general mechanics. I made the error of going in expecting a sort of quick taste of proto-Daggerfall, which was a terrible mistake. There’s a sense of everything being far too simplistic to be interesting from a character building or roleplaying perspective compared to the party-based blobbers of the era, but also too plodding and grindy to excite anyone looking for a quick dungeon romp. By the tenth level, I was already tired of the arbitrary design of the randomly generated dungeons and had started edging through the main quest. It was a stroke of luck the first random artifact quest I received was for Auriel’s Shield, which instantly breaks the game and lets you flail blindly through most of the main dungeons with minimal downtime.
In fairness, there’s the faintest outline of the “fantasy roleplaying simulator” experience in Arena - blundering around the city pestering random citizens for the nearest temple, cowled strangers sidling up to you in the inn, random quests to rescue imperiled daughters from fearful beasts, chasing rumours of legendary artifacts and the like. But most of these adventures are fetch quests, inconsequential and inefficient uses of the player’s time compared to the main quest. Meanwhile, core gameplay is just a joyless labour of shuffling through grey corridors devoid of anything unique or surprising, dutifully wobbling your weapon around as the same two sound clips of weakly clashing metal or dull thudding wear you down with their repetition.
About halfway through the game I tried breaking up the monotony by watching scenes from acclaimed machinima artist 26regionsfm. Unfortunately, this just left me feeling a sense of intense existential myopia and made DOSBOX more likely to lock up when alt-tabbing. For this reason I can’t in good conscience recommend either The Elder Scrolls: Arena, or the consumption of pornographic media as a whole.
A horse of course
Guest
Fear Effect (Minor spoilers)
Often wrongly categorized as part of the Survival Horror genre due to it's use of fixed camera angles, wonky controls and dark, supernatural themes, Fear Effect is a rather unpleasant hybrid of action-adventure shooters and FMV narrative-driven CYOA puzzlers like Dragon's Lair that blew its way onto the PS1 in February 2000. Set in a near-future Hong Kong where conflict between organized crime, amoral mercenaries and brutal military enforcers frequently turns explosive, the story follows three guns-for-hire led by prostitute-turned-killer Hana who are tipped off about the daughter of an untouchable Triad boss going AWOL. Hoping to pluck the naive Wee Ming off the streets and ransom her back to her father, their plans are complicated when the situation turns bloody and the dead begin to rise, leading them on a chase through urban sprawl, rural villages turned charnal houses, deadly brothels and even into Hell itself.
Somewhat unusually for PS1 titles, where each cutscene might be separated by hours of uninterrupted gameplay, Fear Effect is a linear, heavily narrative-driven experience in which the player is never more than a minute or two away from a new FMV to prod the story along. Visually, the most obvious appeal of the game is the use of looping fully-animated video in place of pre-rendered backgrounds. Rather than having too choose between static 2d landscapes or simplistic polygonal scenary, this approach allows for both subtle and stunning environmental backdrops that can range from moody corridors soaked in lantern light to burning junks being swarmed by ravenous zombies. Whilst these obviously don't scale well with today's displays, they're still impressive, if overly busy and uncordinated in some areas. What haven't aged badly at all are the stylized cartoon 3d models, which look both detailed and characterful even blown up to modern resolutions. Voice acting is very strong by the standards of the PS1 era, and sound design usually provides unambiguous combat feedback and clear tells for AI reactions, or simply sets the tone for each scene with bubbling rivers or chattering street life. Music is difficult to evaluate on its own as it's primarily in the form of short, scripted jingles rather than looping gameplay ambience, though the score will definitely let you know when you've been dropped into a boss fight.
Unfortunately, where Fear Effect crashes and burns is actual gameplay. The control scheme is roughly approximate to the average survival horror, but the actual button layout is baffling, and the use of a real-time inventory in such an unforgiving, action-heavy experience is in no way mitigated by the game's autoaim - not to mention the live combat scenarios during which the beleaguered player tries to wrestle some key item out of their pockets and into the right spot between enemy respawns. Even the basic structure of the map and level layout is heavily flawed, where each "scene" constitutes multiple (often overlapping) screens stiched together with little attention paid to gameplay logic, not uncommonly leading to enemies spawning right in the player's face as they transition from one half of a room to the next, or vanishing entirely from the world when the player reaches the end of a corridor that clearly reveals the same area in which the AI was present and active only a few moments ago. The game strongly encourages stealth kills where possible, though inconsistent AI behaviour and patrol routes that may only trigger the first time you "enter" the screen make these situations fodder for emulator savescumming (or comical abuse of the roll move, which makes the player immune to regular attacks). Nowhere is the necessity of metagaming more nakedly evident than the frequent scripted sequences during which the correct course of action is not immediately obvious and failure is punished with instant death. Reading player reviews is illustrative of this issue, where there is not always a single common point of complaint but a consensus that the game as a whole is usually cheap and unfair - perhaps to justify the cost of creating unique FMV clips for almost every possible Game Over.
In any case, it's obvious that many contemporary reviewers were too spellbound by Kronos' remarkable talent for cinematic storytelling to provide a sober analysis of the game, and Fear Effect falls flat on its face in 2019, where mechnically unsound titles of the era can no longer cloak their failures with technological innovations. Definitely one for most players to avoid since there's virtually nothing to recommend as an interactive experience, and the game's strengths are just as potent in the form of a youtube longplay.
Often wrongly categorized as part of the Survival Horror genre due to it's use of fixed camera angles, wonky controls and dark, supernatural themes, Fear Effect is a rather unpleasant hybrid of action-adventure shooters and FMV narrative-driven CYOA puzzlers like Dragon's Lair that blew its way onto the PS1 in February 2000. Set in a near-future Hong Kong where conflict between organized crime, amoral mercenaries and brutal military enforcers frequently turns explosive, the story follows three guns-for-hire led by prostitute-turned-killer Hana who are tipped off about the daughter of an untouchable Triad boss going AWOL. Hoping to pluck the naive Wee Ming off the streets and ransom her back to her father, their plans are complicated when the situation turns bloody and the dead begin to rise, leading them on a chase through urban sprawl, rural villages turned charnal houses, deadly brothels and even into Hell itself.
Somewhat unusually for PS1 titles, where each cutscene might be separated by hours of uninterrupted gameplay, Fear Effect is a linear, heavily narrative-driven experience in which the player is never more than a minute or two away from a new FMV to prod the story along. Visually, the most obvious appeal of the game is the use of looping fully-animated video in place of pre-rendered backgrounds. Rather than having too choose between static 2d landscapes or simplistic polygonal scenary, this approach allows for both subtle and stunning environmental backdrops that can range from moody corridors soaked in lantern light to burning junks being swarmed by ravenous zombies. Whilst these obviously don't scale well with today's displays, they're still impressive, if overly busy and uncordinated in some areas. What haven't aged badly at all are the stylized cartoon 3d models, which look both detailed and characterful even blown up to modern resolutions. Voice acting is very strong by the standards of the PS1 era, and sound design usually provides unambiguous combat feedback and clear tells for AI reactions, or simply sets the tone for each scene with bubbling rivers or chattering street life. Music is difficult to evaluate on its own as it's primarily in the form of short, scripted jingles rather than looping gameplay ambience, though the score will definitely let you know when you've been dropped into a boss fight.
Unfortunately, where Fear Effect crashes and burns is actual gameplay. The control scheme is roughly approximate to the average survival horror, but the actual button layout is baffling, and the use of a real-time inventory in such an unforgiving, action-heavy experience is in no way mitigated by the game's autoaim - not to mention the live combat scenarios during which the beleaguered player tries to wrestle some key item out of their pockets and into the right spot between enemy respawns. Even the basic structure of the map and level layout is heavily flawed, where each "scene" constitutes multiple (often overlapping) screens stiched together with little attention paid to gameplay logic, not uncommonly leading to enemies spawning right in the player's face as they transition from one half of a room to the next, or vanishing entirely from the world when the player reaches the end of a corridor that clearly reveals the same area in which the AI was present and active only a few moments ago. The game strongly encourages stealth kills where possible, though inconsistent AI behaviour and patrol routes that may only trigger the first time you "enter" the screen make these situations fodder for emulator savescumming (or comical abuse of the roll move, which makes the player immune to regular attacks). Nowhere is the necessity of metagaming more nakedly evident than the frequent scripted sequences during which the correct course of action is not immediately obvious and failure is punished with instant death. Reading player reviews is illustrative of this issue, where there is not always a single common point of complaint but a consensus that the game as a whole is usually cheap and unfair - perhaps to justify the cost of creating unique FMV clips for almost every possible Game Over.
In any case, it's obvious that many contemporary reviewers were too spellbound by Kronos' remarkable talent for cinematic storytelling to provide a sober analysis of the game, and Fear Effect falls flat on its face in 2019, where mechnically unsound titles of the era can no longer cloak their failures with technological innovations. Definitely one for most players to avoid since there's virtually nothing to recommend as an interactive experience, and the game's strengths are just as potent in the form of a youtube longplay.
A horse of course
Guest
Martian Gothic: Unification - PS1 port (Mild Spoilers)
Released in 2000 for PC and Playstation 1 by Creative Reality, Martian Gothic is a survival-horror title in which you control a three-person team sent to investigate a distress signal from a scientific research base that had been set up to discover the origins of life on Mars. Stranded and separated on arrival, medical specialist Diane Matlock, security officer Martin Karne, and “info-mesh” prodigy Kenzo Uji discover that Vita Base’s inhabitants have been butchered and raised as monsters by some dark force from beneath the planet. Worse, the new arrivals are now infected by a virus that will cause them to merge into a Frankensteinian “Trimorph” if they venture too close to each other, and must battle through mutants and “Nondead” to uncover the truth and escape Mars.
Although technically falling into the category of PS1 survival horror, with the usual tank controls, awkward shooting, puzzles, inventory busywork and limited resources, Martian Gothic suffers heavily from its origins as a non-linear point-and-click adventure game. Writer and designer Stephen Marley admits Creative Reality simply ran out of time and resources half-way through converting the game into a more action- and horror-oriented experience. There are dozens upon dozens of puzzles to muddle through - many of them requiring co-operation between two or three of the characters on the team – which usually involve the player stuffing their limited inventory slots with literally hundreds of items on top of their weapons, ammo, healing and accessories. A great number of these items serve no purpose whatsoever beyond flavour and realism, some have a single use, and some are required multiple times throughout the game. Items cannot be discarded, only stashed in specific containers, and these containers are often arbitrary (some desks count as containers, some don’t, some lockers can be used as stashes, some can’t), too limited (sometimes with only one or two slots) or simply too far apart.
On top of having to run back and forth between item storage, vacuum tubes and working computers with limited save slots, you’ll have to mow down the same enemies over and over again each time you pass a room, as the two basic enemies types – zombified “Nondead” and scuttling crab-like “Extrudes” - are either deathless or endlessly respawn. Navigating around these enemies can be frustrating, as the game’s grapple system is far less polished than that of other survival horror games, with humanoid enemies lacking the telltale, avoidable “lurches” that players could take advantage of in the Resident Evil titles, often merely phasing straight into attacks even with their backs turned to the player.
You can expect to run headfirst into these enemies’ attacks more than a few times in a playthrough, partly due to weak sound design but mostly due to the awful camera angles, which have a knack for transitioning between scenes at the worst possible moment. This becomes particularly irritating once you gain access to the Martian excavation site, where deadly falls are often concealed by the choice of camera perspective.
At least the environments themselves are one of the game’s few strong points. Marley states that he wanted to avoid the cliché of derelict industrial bases and have the settlement feel more like “a haunted house on Mars”. Though he admits they didn’t quite succeed due to technical restraints, there are a number of interiors that make great use of the 2d prerendered backgrounds, with stately doors framed by oaken panels and varnished desks threaded with gold trim, as if the team has been transported to some sepulchral baroque mansion. There are the usual high-tech medical centers and laboratories, of course, plus somewhat more unearthly scenes later in the game. Although Marley notes that the team had strict instructions to enforce technical parity between the PC and PS1 version of the game, the PC version clearly shines here, with the 2d art assets in particular obviously rendered at a much higher original resolution than my emulated PS1 copy was able to match. Particle effects, sound quality (and quantity – PS1 is missing a lot of sound effects), music score, and general level of detail are also obviously superior on PC, though the PS1 version has the benefit of being far less buggy and increasing the number of possible saves at each save point (assuming you have better self-control than me and don’t abuse emulator savestates).
The game’s script and dialogue were handled well by Marley, only brought down by a few unnecessary twists involving the base’s connection to the tyrannical “Earth Control” and the resistance group opposing it. MOOD, the AI overlord of the base, has a couple of great monologues and some amusing lines, but is sadly underutilized, whilst Kenzo’s bargain-bin Japanese VA can’t do much with a character that was explicitly written as being a - and I quote - “severely autistic genius techno-hippy”.
Had the game remained a traditional point-and-click adventure, or, alternatively, completed its transformation into a survival-horror action game, I imagine I’d be able to recommend it. Sadly, as it stands the game’s good points are drowned in hours of tedium and the odd moment of teeth-clenching frustration, perhaps making it more suited for lengthy retrospective articles than actually being played.
I also found very little to masturbate to in this game. Disappointing.
Released in 2000 for PC and Playstation 1 by Creative Reality, Martian Gothic is a survival-horror title in which you control a three-person team sent to investigate a distress signal from a scientific research base that had been set up to discover the origins of life on Mars. Stranded and separated on arrival, medical specialist Diane Matlock, security officer Martin Karne, and “info-mesh” prodigy Kenzo Uji discover that Vita Base’s inhabitants have been butchered and raised as monsters by some dark force from beneath the planet. Worse, the new arrivals are now infected by a virus that will cause them to merge into a Frankensteinian “Trimorph” if they venture too close to each other, and must battle through mutants and “Nondead” to uncover the truth and escape Mars.
Although technically falling into the category of PS1 survival horror, with the usual tank controls, awkward shooting, puzzles, inventory busywork and limited resources, Martian Gothic suffers heavily from its origins as a non-linear point-and-click adventure game. Writer and designer Stephen Marley admits Creative Reality simply ran out of time and resources half-way through converting the game into a more action- and horror-oriented experience. There are dozens upon dozens of puzzles to muddle through - many of them requiring co-operation between two or three of the characters on the team – which usually involve the player stuffing their limited inventory slots with literally hundreds of items on top of their weapons, ammo, healing and accessories. A great number of these items serve no purpose whatsoever beyond flavour and realism, some have a single use, and some are required multiple times throughout the game. Items cannot be discarded, only stashed in specific containers, and these containers are often arbitrary (some desks count as containers, some don’t, some lockers can be used as stashes, some can’t), too limited (sometimes with only one or two slots) or simply too far apart.
On top of having to run back and forth between item storage, vacuum tubes and working computers with limited save slots, you’ll have to mow down the same enemies over and over again each time you pass a room, as the two basic enemies types – zombified “Nondead” and scuttling crab-like “Extrudes” - are either deathless or endlessly respawn. Navigating around these enemies can be frustrating, as the game’s grapple system is far less polished than that of other survival horror games, with humanoid enemies lacking the telltale, avoidable “lurches” that players could take advantage of in the Resident Evil titles, often merely phasing straight into attacks even with their backs turned to the player.
You can expect to run headfirst into these enemies’ attacks more than a few times in a playthrough, partly due to weak sound design but mostly due to the awful camera angles, which have a knack for transitioning between scenes at the worst possible moment. This becomes particularly irritating once you gain access to the Martian excavation site, where deadly falls are often concealed by the choice of camera perspective.
At least the environments themselves are one of the game’s few strong points. Marley states that he wanted to avoid the cliché of derelict industrial bases and have the settlement feel more like “a haunted house on Mars”. Though he admits they didn’t quite succeed due to technical restraints, there are a number of interiors that make great use of the 2d prerendered backgrounds, with stately doors framed by oaken panels and varnished desks threaded with gold trim, as if the team has been transported to some sepulchral baroque mansion. There are the usual high-tech medical centers and laboratories, of course, plus somewhat more unearthly scenes later in the game. Although Marley notes that the team had strict instructions to enforce technical parity between the PC and PS1 version of the game, the PC version clearly shines here, with the 2d art assets in particular obviously rendered at a much higher original resolution than my emulated PS1 copy was able to match. Particle effects, sound quality (and quantity – PS1 is missing a lot of sound effects), music score, and general level of detail are also obviously superior on PC, though the PS1 version has the benefit of being far less buggy and increasing the number of possible saves at each save point (assuming you have better self-control than me and don’t abuse emulator savestates).
The game’s script and dialogue were handled well by Marley, only brought down by a few unnecessary twists involving the base’s connection to the tyrannical “Earth Control” and the resistance group opposing it. MOOD, the AI overlord of the base, has a couple of great monologues and some amusing lines, but is sadly underutilized, whilst Kenzo’s bargain-bin Japanese VA can’t do much with a character that was explicitly written as being a - and I quote - “severely autistic genius techno-hippy”.
Had the game remained a traditional point-and-click adventure, or, alternatively, completed its transformation into a survival-horror action game, I imagine I’d be able to recommend it. Sadly, as it stands the game’s good points are drowned in hours of tedium and the odd moment of teeth-clenching frustration, perhaps making it more suited for lengthy retrospective articles than actually being played.
I also found very little to masturbate to in this game. Disappointing.
A horse of course
Guest
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (emulated via pcsx2)
A competent but entirely unremarkable Diablo clone that pretty much set the standard for console hack-and-slash titles for a good decade. Dark Alliance seems to be regarded as something of a hidden gem from the ps2 era, though as far as I can tell much of that fondness is – as with titles like Goldeneye or Perfect Dark – more down to “comfy couch co-op” nostalgia and successfully porting a genre that had traditionally been regarded as more suited to a mouse and keyboard control scheme.
As a single player experience, it’s the usual completely linear dungeon crawl punctuated by brief trips back to a quest hub to sell off useless equipment and pick up the next quest. There are three characters to choose from – a human ranger (too white) a Dwarf warrior (too short) and an elf sorceress with big cans (just right). As you’d expect, these “classes” loosely correspond to their gameplay style, with the dwarf focusing on melee combat and survivability, for example. Finishing the game unlocks a gauntlet mode as the (in)famous Drizzt Do’Urden, completion of which will then let you use Drizzt or your previous character in “Extreme” campaign mode.
As an RPG, there’s virtually nothing worth considering in any great detail – there’s no roleplaying via dialogue or quest choices, stats and levelling are only vaguely based around traditional D&D numbers (simplified and adjusted for clearer iteration as you improve your character’s gear and abilities), and every character is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and will end up in very similar equipment, for the most part. As sorceress, the only real decisions of consequence you’ll make are over which armours do a better job of accentuating your cleavage. Speaking of the sorceress, I felt a somewhat underpowered in combat for most of the game and spent a lot of downtime waiting for health and mana to regenerate. It wasn’t until around Act III I enjoyed the destructive power of the higher-level spells, by which point there are some enemies who can practically one-shot you.
Visuals are pretty good for a launch-era PS2 game, with some nice water distortion effects and reasonably detailed character models, though lighting and shadows are a bit flat in the later, outdoor acts’ environments. Jeremy Soule’s score doesn’t disappoint (the combat tracks are unusually good considering Soule’s weakness in this area), if suspiciously similar to the later Neverwinter Nights OST. The story is typical high fantasy fare with no twists or moments of drama, and the lack of exploration, secrets or interesting hubs won’t help with the player’s attachment to this world.
If you’re just looking to relax and butcher trash mobs for a while, Dark Alliance will fit the bill, though the game is surpassed by plenty of other hack-and-slash titles in pacing, loot whoring, atmosphere and general enjoyment.
A competent but entirely unremarkable Diablo clone that pretty much set the standard for console hack-and-slash titles for a good decade. Dark Alliance seems to be regarded as something of a hidden gem from the ps2 era, though as far as I can tell much of that fondness is – as with titles like Goldeneye or Perfect Dark – more down to “comfy couch co-op” nostalgia and successfully porting a genre that had traditionally been regarded as more suited to a mouse and keyboard control scheme.
As a single player experience, it’s the usual completely linear dungeon crawl punctuated by brief trips back to a quest hub to sell off useless equipment and pick up the next quest. There are three characters to choose from – a human ranger (too white) a Dwarf warrior (too short) and an elf sorceress with big cans (just right). As you’d expect, these “classes” loosely correspond to their gameplay style, with the dwarf focusing on melee combat and survivability, for example. Finishing the game unlocks a gauntlet mode as the (in)famous Drizzt Do’Urden, completion of which will then let you use Drizzt or your previous character in “Extreme” campaign mode.
As an RPG, there’s virtually nothing worth considering in any great detail – there’s no roleplaying via dialogue or quest choices, stats and levelling are only vaguely based around traditional D&D numbers (simplified and adjusted for clearer iteration as you improve your character’s gear and abilities), and every character is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and will end up in very similar equipment, for the most part. As sorceress, the only real decisions of consequence you’ll make are over which armours do a better job of accentuating your cleavage. Speaking of the sorceress, I felt a somewhat underpowered in combat for most of the game and spent a lot of downtime waiting for health and mana to regenerate. It wasn’t until around Act III I enjoyed the destructive power of the higher-level spells, by which point there are some enemies who can practically one-shot you.
Visuals are pretty good for a launch-era PS2 game, with some nice water distortion effects and reasonably detailed character models, though lighting and shadows are a bit flat in the later, outdoor acts’ environments. Jeremy Soule’s score doesn’t disappoint (the combat tracks are unusually good considering Soule’s weakness in this area), if suspiciously similar to the later Neverwinter Nights OST. The story is typical high fantasy fare with no twists or moments of drama, and the lack of exploration, secrets or interesting hubs won’t help with the player’s attachment to this world.
If you’re just looking to relax and butcher trash mobs for a while, Dark Alliance will fit the bill, though the game is surpassed by plenty of other hack-and-slash titles in pacing, loot whoring, atmosphere and general enjoyment.
A horse of course
Guest
Blade Runner
Another one of the classics I skipped back in the day and then kept putting off. I’d read some interesting interviews about how the game originally came about, and was reminded of it again by a video about the game’s proprietary rendering techniques, but there always seemed to be issues with getting the damn thing running outside of a VM environment. Finally - DECADES later – it popped up on MaGoG with no apparent fanfare, and I decided that with Cyberkrunk on the way now was a better time than any.
Westwood originally won the rights to the title with a pitch that promised an unprecedented level of narrative flexibility as a means of capturing some of the core themes of the movie. Developed amidst the death throes of the classic point-and-click adventure, it’s an extremely accessible title with very simple and intuitive controls mixed in with some simplistic action sequences. Most of your time will be spent with good old-fashioned detective work – interviewing witnesses, interrogating suspects, combing crime scenes for clues, and shooting the homeless. There’s some minor variation in how you can speak to NPCs – polite, surly, erratic and so on – but this isn’t particularly critical. More important is checking your “KIA” database for clues, which you can then use to open up more dialogue options. The iconic ESPER analysis machine and Voigt-Kompf tests from the movie are also present as interactive gameplay mechanics, letting the player manually scan images for important evidence and expose skinjobs with provocative questions, respectively. What I particularly enjoyed about the detective work was that everything seemed to follow logically – you don’t need a quest log or waypoints to tell you which clues to follow up on – you just need to pay attention, go with your instinct, and you’ll usually end up in the right place. Out of the entire playthrough I only got stuck once - figuring out how to get past a nightclub bouncer, which I assumed involved a nearby phone and an animal vendor but turned out to have a far more mundane solution.
What truly marks the game out as a unique experience is how fluid many elements of the game’s story are. Events might trigger in a different order, most of the cast (including the player) are randomly assigned as human or replicant, and sometimes certain situations will just occur for no apparent reason in one playthrough but not the other. There’s a good deal of conscious player agency involved in these as well, giving you a lot of freedom to manipulate the fates of various character right from the start of the game. You can murder or backstab a variety of NPCs – including plot-critical ones. You can stick to your role as a Blade Runner or turn against the department and fake VK test results, warn replicants about other hunters or even save them yourself. Some of these choices have slightly “gamey” effects on the plot – one romanceable character being exposed as a replicant can automatically lock out another character who plays a similar role – but for the most part it feels wholly organic and drives the player towards making decisions for personal reasons rather than trying to predict the “correct” path. Obviously, there’s still a core, five-act narrative that all playthroughs will follow, but it’s definitely far beyond any other story-driven game that comes to mind, including those with far less actual gameplay to pad out their pretenses of “non-linear” storytelling.
Aside from the game’s short length, which can be forgiven for encouraging experimentation with repeat playthroughs, my main complaint is that the story and setting are actually a little too faithful to the source material. Whilst the game’s protagonist and central cast are all original characters, the majority of them play extremely similar roles to those of their cinematic counterparts, and on top of this, you’re constantly visiting the exact same locations – and indeed interacting with many of the same iconic characters – as the 1984 movie. I understand was probably very welcome to fans who played the game in the 90s, being the first big-budget videogame depiction of the already decade-old movie (in fact I believe at the time fans didn’t even have the laserdisc “director’s cut”, let alone the definitive steelbox DVD release). But it does feel like the game’s story is jockeying for attention with that of the original, and doesn’t really come into its own until the final couple of Acts, at which point you’re racing for the finish line.
Even if, like me, you don’t have a whole lot of patience for adventure games these days (nobody wants to end up like the kind of losers who post in the Adventure Game subforum), there’s really no major complaint I can make against Blade Runner. If you haven’t played it yet, grab it now and set aside a quiet evening or three. Watch the Ars Technica War Stories video on the game, and if you have a VR headset, I also recommend this Deckard’s apartment Unity demo for chilling out on the balcony: https://br9732.quentinlengele.com/.
Another one of the classics I skipped back in the day and then kept putting off. I’d read some interesting interviews about how the game originally came about, and was reminded of it again by a video about the game’s proprietary rendering techniques, but there always seemed to be issues with getting the damn thing running outside of a VM environment. Finally - DECADES later – it popped up on MaGoG with no apparent fanfare, and I decided that with Cyberkrunk on the way now was a better time than any.
Westwood originally won the rights to the title with a pitch that promised an unprecedented level of narrative flexibility as a means of capturing some of the core themes of the movie. Developed amidst the death throes of the classic point-and-click adventure, it’s an extremely accessible title with very simple and intuitive controls mixed in with some simplistic action sequences. Most of your time will be spent with good old-fashioned detective work – interviewing witnesses, interrogating suspects, combing crime scenes for clues, and shooting the homeless. There’s some minor variation in how you can speak to NPCs – polite, surly, erratic and so on – but this isn’t particularly critical. More important is checking your “KIA” database for clues, which you can then use to open up more dialogue options. The iconic ESPER analysis machine and Voigt-Kompf tests from the movie are also present as interactive gameplay mechanics, letting the player manually scan images for important evidence and expose skinjobs with provocative questions, respectively. What I particularly enjoyed about the detective work was that everything seemed to follow logically – you don’t need a quest log or waypoints to tell you which clues to follow up on – you just need to pay attention, go with your instinct, and you’ll usually end up in the right place. Out of the entire playthrough I only got stuck once - figuring out how to get past a nightclub bouncer, which I assumed involved a nearby phone and an animal vendor but turned out to have a far more mundane solution.
What truly marks the game out as a unique experience is how fluid many elements of the game’s story are. Events might trigger in a different order, most of the cast (including the player) are randomly assigned as human or replicant, and sometimes certain situations will just occur for no apparent reason in one playthrough but not the other. There’s a good deal of conscious player agency involved in these as well, giving you a lot of freedom to manipulate the fates of various character right from the start of the game. You can murder or backstab a variety of NPCs – including plot-critical ones. You can stick to your role as a Blade Runner or turn against the department and fake VK test results, warn replicants about other hunters or even save them yourself. Some of these choices have slightly “gamey” effects on the plot – one romanceable character being exposed as a replicant can automatically lock out another character who plays a similar role – but for the most part it feels wholly organic and drives the player towards making decisions for personal reasons rather than trying to predict the “correct” path. Obviously, there’s still a core, five-act narrative that all playthroughs will follow, but it’s definitely far beyond any other story-driven game that comes to mind, including those with far less actual gameplay to pad out their pretenses of “non-linear” storytelling.
Aside from the game’s short length, which can be forgiven for encouraging experimentation with repeat playthroughs, my main complaint is that the story and setting are actually a little too faithful to the source material. Whilst the game’s protagonist and central cast are all original characters, the majority of them play extremely similar roles to those of their cinematic counterparts, and on top of this, you’re constantly visiting the exact same locations – and indeed interacting with many of the same iconic characters – as the 1984 movie. I understand was probably very welcome to fans who played the game in the 90s, being the first big-budget videogame depiction of the already decade-old movie (in fact I believe at the time fans didn’t even have the laserdisc “director’s cut”, let alone the definitive steelbox DVD release). But it does feel like the game’s story is jockeying for attention with that of the original, and doesn’t really come into its own until the final couple of Acts, at which point you’re racing for the finish line.
Even if, like me, you don’t have a whole lot of patience for adventure games these days (nobody wants to end up like the kind of losers who post in the Adventure Game subforum), there’s really no major complaint I can make against Blade Runner. If you haven’t played it yet, grab it now and set aside a quiet evening or three. Watch the Ars Technica War Stories video on the game, and if you have a VR headset, I also recommend this Deckard’s apartment Unity demo for chilling out on the balcony: https://br9732.quentinlengele.com/.
Heroic Liberator
Arcane
He was banned for one year. Lad had the time to expand his video game palette.
A horse of course
Guest
Actually a couple of these were ready to upload the day I was stabbed in the back by Infinitroon. I put a lot of work into the Martian Gothic review and then noticed one of you cunts already posted it whilst I was banned. 
A horse of course
Guest
I've got a lot more but I'll take a break for now. Just finished SHOGO and gotta write a quick review of that.
Wunderbar
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2015
- Messages
- 8,817
he was banned for only a few days, but wasn't notified that his ban was over.
A horse of course
Guest
I knew the ban was temporary, but it was important to take a principled stand on the issue. Yes, some might call this kind of behaviour characteristic of severe mental illness, but I'm not afraid to call it what it really is: Courage.
Heroic Liberator
Arcane
A 'dex detox every now and then is healthy anyhow.
Martian Gothic: Unification - PS1 port (Mild Spoilers)
Released in 2000 for PC and Playstation 1 by Creative Reality, Martian Gothic is a survival-horror title in which you control a three-person team sent to investigate a distress signal from a scientific research base that had been set up to discover the origins of life on Mars. Stranded and separated on arrival, medical specialist Diane Matlock, security officer Martin Karne, and “info-mesh” prodigy Kenzo Uji discover that Vita Base’s inhabitants have been butchered and raised as monsters by some dark force from beneath the planet. Worse, the new arrivals are now infected by a virus that will cause them to merge into a Frankensteinian “Trimorph” if they venture too close to each other, and must battle through mutants and “Nondead” to uncover the truth and escape Mars.
Although technically falling into the category of PS1 survival horror, with the usual tank controls, awkward shooting, puzzles, inventory busywork and limited resources, Martian Gothic suffers heavily from its origins as a non-linear point-and-click adventure game. Writer and designer Stephen Marley admits Creative Reality simply ran out of time and resources half-way through converting the game into a more action- and horror-oriented experience. There are dozens upon dozens of puzzles to muddle through - many of them requiring co-operation between two or three of the characters on the team – which usually involve the player stuffing their limited inventory slots with literally hundreds of items on top of their weapons, ammo, healing and accessories. A great number of these items serve no purpose whatsoever beyond flavour and realism, some have a single use, and some are required multiple times throughout the game. Items cannot be discarded, only stashed in specific containers, and these containers are often arbitrary (some desks count as containers, some don’t, some lockers can be used as stashes, some can’t), too limited (sometimes with only one or two slots) or simply too far apart.
On top of having to run back and forth between item storage, vacuum tubes and working computers with limited save slots, you’ll have to mow down the same enemies over and over again each time you pass a room, as the two basic enemies types – zombified “Nondead” and scuttling crab-like “Extrudes” - are either deathless or endlessly respawn. Navigating around these enemies can be frustrating, as the game’s grapple system is far less polished than that of other survival horror games, with humanoid enemies lacking the telltale, avoidable “lurches” that players could take advantage of in the Resident Evil titles, often merely phasing straight into attacks even with their backs turned to the player.
You can expect to run headfirst into these enemies’ attacks more than a few times in a playthrough, partly due to weak sound design but mostly due to the awful camera angles, which have a knack for transitioning between scenes at the worst possible moment. This becomes particularly irritating once you gain access to the Martian excavation site, where deadly falls are often concealed by the choice of camera perspective.
At least the environments themselves are one of the game’s few strong points. Marley states that he wanted to avoid the cliché of derelict industrial bases and have the settlement feel more like “a haunted house on Mars”. Though he admits they didn’t quite succeed due to technical restraints, there are a number of interiors that make great use of the 2d prerendered backgrounds, with stately doors framed by oaken panels and varnished desks threaded with gold trim, as if the team has been transported to some sepulchral baroque mansion. There are the usual high-tech medical centers and laboratories, of course, plus somewhat more unearthly scenes later in the game. Although Marley notes that the team had strict instructions to enforce technical parity between the PC and PS1 version of the game, the PC version clearly shines here, with the 2d art assets in particular obviously rendered at a much higher original resolution than my emulated PS1 copy was able to match. Particle effects, sound quality (and quantity – PS1 is missing a lot of sound effects), music score, and general level of detail are also obviously superior on PC, though the PS1 version has the benefit of being far less buggy and increasing the number of possible saves at each save point (assuming you have better self-control than me and don’t abuse emulator savestates).
The game’s script and dialogue were handled well by Marley, only brought down by a few unnecessary twists involving the base’s connection to the tyrannical “Earth Control” and the resistance group opposing it. MOOD, the AI overlord of the base, has a couple of great monologues and some amusing lines, but is sadly underutilized, whilst Kenzo’s bargain-bin Japanese VA can’t do much with a character that was explicitly written as being a - and I quote - “severely autistic genius techno-hippy”.
Had the game remained a traditional point-and-click adventure, or, alternatively, completed its transformation into a survival-horror action game, I imagine I’d be able to recommend it. Sadly, as it stands the game’s good points are drowned in hours of tedium and the odd moment of teeth-clenching frustration, perhaps making it more suited for lengthy retrospective articles than actually being played.
I also found very little to masturbate to in this game. Disappointing.
Their previous (i guess the guys made only 2 games) title, Dreamweb 1994 was surprisingly complex and disturbing. I remember even Gnostic quotations.
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Love
Cipher
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2013
- Messages
- 371
So what's the explanation for the wood?
A horse of course
Guest
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
This is a really weird one. Whilst I was initially quite excited about the prospect of an open-world fantasy RPG with actually good combat, I must’ve uninstalled the game two or three times during my playthrough of the main quest. The plot was excruciating. NPCs were flatter than my ex-wife. The sidequests were interminable fetch-and-farm endeavors. Traversal between different areas of the map is soul-crushingly tedious. Enemy variety is absolutely pathetic, and I probably made a horrible mistake by ignoring warnings about not playing a standard melee class. Environments are ugly as sin and have little of interest to uncover via exploration. The soundtrack was entirely forgettable. Then, strangely, the game seems to improve right as it’s ending. The narrative and dialogue start to hint at more intriguing subplots and background lore. The final dungeon is moodier and more challenging, and the music takes on an ethereal but material, otherworldly but homely air. Then it’s over. What happened? Did they run out of time, hack the game to pieces, and just push It out the door?
I didn’t even really intend to go through the DLC dungeon, Bitterblack Isle, since I’d read it was basically a high-level postgame challenge and I hadn’t even enjoyed the main game, but thought what the hell - might as well take some screenshots. I entered and almost got one-shotted by some palette-swapped goblins. But the combat was intense, the loot was actually quite good, the music was better, and just the general feeling of hacking through the dungeon reminded me of old fantasy art of a party of adventurers braving the depths of ancient ruins – you know the stuff I mean. So I kept at it. The monsters got bigger, scarier, and more varied, the loot kept getting better, and the stakes got higher as you got farther and farther from safe havens. It reminded me a lot of Souls games, but without so much of the frustration I associated with that series. You started thinking carefully about how far you could push the party and its resources, and how much loot you could carry back. You looked for alternate routes and hedged your bets against random invasions from high-level monsters. The route to the final boss is dripping with atmosphere and after dying two or three times with a comically underpowered character I finally got his damn attack pattern down and beat him. At this point I’d completely reversed my opinion of the game and wished the entire vanilla map had been built around this carefully curated dungeon crawling.
Beating the DLC once opens up a second run of the entire area - locking everything behind you, flooding the area with even worse minibosses, and spawning an upgraded version of the final DLC boss. I didn’t enjoy this run as much as the first since, depending on your build, you really need a character of roughly double the level and equipment of what you need for the first run. This makes grinding the same areas over and over again 100% mandatory, though the second run triggers a flood of new sidequests for the best weapons and armor, which gives you a real target beyond watching the XP meter rise. My other complaint goes back to playing a standard melee class - which was even more frustrating in the DLC due to the necessity of relying on AI ranged and magic classes for most of the harder enemies. Spending every fight running around waiting for your pet mage to use the correct spell or your archer to hit the right target is maddening. Still, you do get that tiny ego boost when you finish everything after so much effort.
I honestly can’t say for sure whether I can recommend Dragon’s Dogma or not. Based on the main game I’d probably say no. It’s one of those games that doesn’t outright fail at anything in particular, but it’s so uncompromisingly mediocre that it ends up even less than the sum of its parts. From a gameplay perspective the DLC area really clicked for me, though. It’s so very tightly designed, with the interconnected map, encounter design, loot progression and general challenge scaling coming together almost perfectly. Unfortunately, if you’re interested in roleplaying, story, dialogue, characters or interesting quests then there’s not much for you anywhere in the game. Also, never forgive Pearl Harbor.
This is a really weird one. Whilst I was initially quite excited about the prospect of an open-world fantasy RPG with actually good combat, I must’ve uninstalled the game two or three times during my playthrough of the main quest. The plot was excruciating. NPCs were flatter than my ex-wife. The sidequests were interminable fetch-and-farm endeavors. Traversal between different areas of the map is soul-crushingly tedious. Enemy variety is absolutely pathetic, and I probably made a horrible mistake by ignoring warnings about not playing a standard melee class. Environments are ugly as sin and have little of interest to uncover via exploration. The soundtrack was entirely forgettable. Then, strangely, the game seems to improve right as it’s ending. The narrative and dialogue start to hint at more intriguing subplots and background lore. The final dungeon is moodier and more challenging, and the music takes on an ethereal but material, otherworldly but homely air. Then it’s over. What happened? Did they run out of time, hack the game to pieces, and just push It out the door?
I didn’t even really intend to go through the DLC dungeon, Bitterblack Isle, since I’d read it was basically a high-level postgame challenge and I hadn’t even enjoyed the main game, but thought what the hell - might as well take some screenshots. I entered and almost got one-shotted by some palette-swapped goblins. But the combat was intense, the loot was actually quite good, the music was better, and just the general feeling of hacking through the dungeon reminded me of old fantasy art of a party of adventurers braving the depths of ancient ruins – you know the stuff I mean. So I kept at it. The monsters got bigger, scarier, and more varied, the loot kept getting better, and the stakes got higher as you got farther and farther from safe havens. It reminded me a lot of Souls games, but without so much of the frustration I associated with that series. You started thinking carefully about how far you could push the party and its resources, and how much loot you could carry back. You looked for alternate routes and hedged your bets against random invasions from high-level monsters. The route to the final boss is dripping with atmosphere and after dying two or three times with a comically underpowered character I finally got his damn attack pattern down and beat him. At this point I’d completely reversed my opinion of the game and wished the entire vanilla map had been built around this carefully curated dungeon crawling.
Beating the DLC once opens up a second run of the entire area - locking everything behind you, flooding the area with even worse minibosses, and spawning an upgraded version of the final DLC boss. I didn’t enjoy this run as much as the first since, depending on your build, you really need a character of roughly double the level and equipment of what you need for the first run. This makes grinding the same areas over and over again 100% mandatory, though the second run triggers a flood of new sidequests for the best weapons and armor, which gives you a real target beyond watching the XP meter rise. My other complaint goes back to playing a standard melee class - which was even more frustrating in the DLC due to the necessity of relying on AI ranged and magic classes for most of the harder enemies. Spending every fight running around waiting for your pet mage to use the correct spell or your archer to hit the right target is maddening. Still, you do get that tiny ego boost when you finish everything after so much effort.
I honestly can’t say for sure whether I can recommend Dragon’s Dogma or not. Based on the main game I’d probably say no. It’s one of those games that doesn’t outright fail at anything in particular, but it’s so uncompromisingly mediocre that it ends up even less than the sum of its parts. From a gameplay perspective the DLC area really clicked for me, though. It’s so very tightly designed, with the interconnected map, encounter design, loot progression and general challenge scaling coming together almost perfectly. Unfortunately, if you’re interested in roleplaying, story, dialogue, characters or interesting quests then there’s not much for you anywhere in the game. Also, never forgive Pearl Harbor.
A horse of course
Guest
G-Police 2: Weapons of Justice (mild spoilers)
I have some good memories of playing through the original G-Police on the PSX as a wee tyke, and I can’t recall exactly why I never got around to playing the sequel. I think I was under the misapprehension that it was actually a prequel, and disliked stories that were set in a definitive, set point in the past. I had some weird hangups when I was younger.
Like G-Police, Weapons of Justice is a sci-fi aerial shooter focusing on piloting heavily armed gunships through a cyberpunk megacity. WoJ tries to mix up gameplay from the first game with a greater emphasis on hybrid ground/aerial missions, even heading into space on a marine fighter craft for the final stretch. Broadly speaking, the experience is mostly the same as the original, though there are a couple of other notable changes. Visuals have been adjusted to show a wireframe image beyond the laughable draw distance (which just makes the game uglier) and the story is much weaker than the first game, now told via in-game graphics rather than CGI movies and ending with a cheap, unsatisfying sequel hook for a third game that never materialized. The music is great, and really sets the tone for both patrolling the city and intense urban combat.
Maybe it's rose-tinted glasses talking, but I’d probably recommend the first G-Police for its atmosphere and superior narrative over WoP. Either way, it’s only a few hours long if you want to give it a shot.
I have some good memories of playing through the original G-Police on the PSX as a wee tyke, and I can’t recall exactly why I never got around to playing the sequel. I think I was under the misapprehension that it was actually a prequel, and disliked stories that were set in a definitive, set point in the past. I had some weird hangups when I was younger.
Like G-Police, Weapons of Justice is a sci-fi aerial shooter focusing on piloting heavily armed gunships through a cyberpunk megacity. WoJ tries to mix up gameplay from the first game with a greater emphasis on hybrid ground/aerial missions, even heading into space on a marine fighter craft for the final stretch. Broadly speaking, the experience is mostly the same as the original, though there are a couple of other notable changes. Visuals have been adjusted to show a wireframe image beyond the laughable draw distance (which just makes the game uglier) and the story is much weaker than the first game, now told via in-game graphics rather than CGI movies and ending with a cheap, unsatisfying sequel hook for a third game that never materialized. The music is great, and really sets the tone for both patrolling the city and intense urban combat.
Maybe it's rose-tinted glasses talking, but I’d probably recommend the first G-Police for its atmosphere and superior narrative over WoP. Either way, it’s only a few hours long if you want to give it a shot.
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