Screenshot thread

[Mikeal]

 

[octavius]

No One Lives Forever

Spoiler

 

[Konjad]

 

[Danikas]

Worth a purchase in its current state?

 

[Konjad]

Worth a purchase in its current state?

For multiplayer definitely yes.

Didn't play singleplayer much though, but feels barebones. Less stuff to do at the moment than in Warband and Viking Conquest, so I'd wait.

Therefore, if you want MP then buy it, if SP then wait (and play Viking Conquest if you haven't).

 

[Scarlet Lilith]

If you play the steam version of Thief then the default key to quickload is the same one that steam uses to take a screenshot. I never changed either. What follows is the adventures of Gorret, the worst thief the world has ever seen. I might have done some pruning of closeup shots of floors and the bottoms of dark pits, but I assure you there weren't many of them.

Spoiler

Having only played the original release of The Dark Project way back there are two things that stand out to me, firstly that the Gold version is pretty different to the original, and secondly that the common notion of what Thief is, basically a heist simulator, is not what the first game was. It's more like an action-adventure game with sneaking in it, featuring a couple of heists but also tomb raiding and a lot of other antics. I haven't yet finished the game, but here are some of my impressions of the levels I have played through. Do note that I played it all on expert, I don't know how much of an impact that had on my impression of the game.

A Keeper's Training
This training mission is a classic, it doesn't go overboard like some overly nursing nanny but teaches you the basics that you need to know. The perfect balance between kicking you right out of the nest and keeping the training wheels on forever. I wish all tutorials were like this, breezy, getting down the essentials and tying it into the story. Even though I already know how to play the game I still liked going through it.

Lord Bafford's Manor
This is a level I have played a bunch of times, it's memorable, has a good progression from linear to the more open style you find in the rest of the game. I think this is what many remember Thief being like, the core of the game, but it really isn't representative of the rest of the game at all, it's just one aspect of it.

Break from Cragscleft Prison
Breaking into a prison inside of a mine system, it's a cool idea, but those zombies always spooked me too hard at first and it took me several attempts to get over it. Once you have gotten used to the terribly creepy audio design then this mission is great, big and open, the cave system is labyrinthine and you can go in circles for a while until you get your grips on the place. Great level, making my way out with Basso over the shoulder after escaping the guards and going down a waterfall felt more cinematic than any cutscene could ever have.

Down in the Bonehoard
This is where the fun begins, we had two heist missions so far, one having a couple of zombies in it probably to make the shift to this mission smoother, because now we go tomb raiding. It's like Indiana Jones but way spookier. This is the kind of thing that got lost in the sequel and in later entries and that came as a bit of a surprise to me upon this replay of the game. This is also when it hit me just how big these levels are, because this is absolutely enormous and with no loading screens beside the one at the start. It's crazy.

Assassins
Yet again we switch gears, this time you stalk assassins through the city streets, which are really easy to get lost in. It ends with a smaller heist mission, which I enjoyed, but the alarm went off without me hearing it and that was kind of annoying, which meant the way back was full of guards. It's a nice detail, that you can't just get out into the street if you have triggered the alarm, but I wish it was more noticeable. Overall it's a decent mission that does a great job of keeping you on your toes.

Thieves' Guild
Huge mission, but I didn't like it very much. Too many samey sewers and you have to backtrack a lot, it doesn't offer a change of pace or something really unique, it's just the designated sewer level. This level also wasn't in the game before the Gold version, so it was the first time for me playing it. It's not terrible or anything, but it's just kind of there, it just adds length to the game, not quality.

The Sword

This level blew my mind multiple times and it's even crazier in the Gold version than it was initially. You think you're getting into yet another heist when you have gotten tired of them already but it completely blows you away once you're inside the mansion. Easily the best level in the game. If there was a peak in the series then this mission must have been it.

The Haunted Cathedral
Second best level in the game so far. Super creepy ambience in this abandoned part of the city and the streets are full of the walking dead, spiders and other beasts. It's a crumbling and decaying place full of terrors and you have so much freedom in where to go, it's all so interconnected, yet it isn't as annoying as caverns and sewers since you have landmarks and stuff. 10/10 mission and it isn't a heist level.

The Mage Towers
This one is new to the Gold version, it was alright but I feel like how everything was divided up was kind of like filler. Four towers, four courtyards with samey content. The central building and tower were neat, but the four elemental towers were just sloppy and formulaic. I wish the mission threw you a curveball at some point.

The Lost City
I used to like this almost as much as The Haunted Cathedral, but the Gold version has ruined it by putting the lame mages from the previous mission in this one. It's so dumb, because the entire appeal here is venturing into the long lost ancient ruins where almost nobody has ever been. The original level was so eerie and haunting but now it's like the lameness of The Mage Towers has also seeped into this one.

Song of the Caverns
With this mission the Gold version is trying to redeem itself, you're thinking you're going into another ancient cavern with ruins and stuff but the game completely changes direction early on, catching you completely off-guard and throwing you an opera house heist. Top notch mission, very open, tons of hidden pathways and stuff, it's huge and the setting is great. Loved the little storylines going on in it too.

Undercover
As with many of the levels of the original game this is concerned with keeping things fresh and to that end it works. The level itself isn't great, you basically just have to go around without sneaking and bonking hammerites on the head when they are alone because there is an alarm going off when you take the elemental zeal thingy and I don't think you can turn it off. So it's like some kind of bizarre variant of your regular Thief mission where you don't have to sneak. Dishonored did this better with Lady Boyle's Last Party. But again, it's a welcome change of pace when you look at the game as a whole, something new to do.

Return to the Cathedral
This mission is way too scary initially, but when I learned you can just bonk most of the haunts with the sword to instakill them then it became bearable. Even now the game isn't content with just giving you the same old, so you're going on an adventure to help out a ghost. It's super fun and while the level is large this isn't one you get lost in, so despite going on hunts of items and stuff it never becomes frustrating or dull.

Escape!
I'm still in the middle of this one, but it's both bad and good. I like how weird it is and stuff, but I simply have come to dislike labyrinth caverns that have nothing even close to a map. The mission is also novel in that you're trying to find your way out of a place rather than into it.

 

[A horse of course]

Daymare: 1998 (Fitgirl edition)

Originally an RE2 fan remake that fan afoul of Capcom's legal team, Invader Studios’ debut title Daymare: 1998 proclaims itself to be paying tribute to the original Resident Evil trilogy via the 3rd-person perspective of contemporary titles. Alternating between forlorn mercenaries contracted to the nefarious Hexacore Corporation and a park ranger tortured by psychotic breaks, players risk life and limb to escape the viral apocalypse visited upon the remote settlement of Keen Sight. In their path stand the typical shambling zombies, hulking mutants, and abecedarian puzzle-solving of the PlayStation classics.

The game controls very much like a modern third-person shooter, though the sluggish movement and lack of evasive manoeuvres mean players must rely on good positioning and careful aim to headshot foes before they can get too close. Once in melee range, zombies effortlessly grab your character and vomit corrosive slime all over them until you mash the spacebar enough times, whilst more heavily mutated enemies can slap or stab at victims with their elongated limbs, so trying to line up punches and stun enemies for a good shot is not recommended unless you're extremely confident in your ability to read animation cues. Speaking of which, player animations in progress seem to cancel out input for far longer than visual feedback suggests, leading to serious frustration when switching between weapons in a pinch or unholstering them after a boss cutscene.

The weapons themselves can be counted on the fingers of one human hand - the deuteragonists have access to a pistol and shotgun with regular and armour-piercing ammo types, plus a powerful magnum that requires more careful resource conservation. A third character can also make use of a machine gun, though you'll only control them for a couple of hours at most. Like in other over-the-shoulder survival horror games, many foes will shudder and spasm and rock their heads to and fro as they approach, daring you to waste precious bullets as you lose your cool and unload a full magazine into thin air. After over ten hours of play, I still can't determine whether hit boxes are completely broken or simply utilize unforgiving per-pixel hit detection - sometimes I would line up perfect shots but whiff, other times I'd fire and seemingly miss, only for a bullet to teleport into a zombie's cranium a split-second after the sound of the gunshot. In the combat space, Daymare's twist on the formula is that bullets are not simply stored in the inventory and automatically added to the gun when the player reloads. Rather, bullets must be either manually inserted into the gun in the real-time PDA or placed into individual magazines. If the player has a spare, loaded magazine in their inventory, pressing reload will either eject the one currently in the gun (along with any remaining bullets) and drop it to the floor for later retrieval, or if the reload button is held down, limit the player's mobility as they exchange the two and place the used magazine back in their inventory. In practice, the player is unlikely to be so pressed as to leave an area entirely and sacrifice the errant ammunition, though it can certainly make you do panic reloads in the heat of urgency. Where this system injures the experience is the constant micromanagement of bullets in the inventory, especially when you also have secondary bullet types to mess about with. It also makes shotguns and the classic version of the magnum more enjoyable and convenient to use, as they simply load individual bullets one at a time. Unfortunately, there are no other means of damaging enemies aside from a few environmental hazards in later boss fights, and no special weapons to unlock after beating the campaign.

Said campaign is split into five chapters, with the first a very lengthy, thoroughly inflexible tutorial that features one or two optional rooms (closets, really) unlocked by a hacking minigame. The second, in which the other main character is introduced, starts off as more of the same. The game finally teases the classic survival horror experience it promised when, several hours into the experience, the player arrives at a large hospital. Several new mechanics are introduced, such as hidden closets, a manual save station that lets you trade items and redeem electronic dog tags for minor rewards, and the ability to choose between more than one fucking corridor at a time. Sadly, this apparent non-linearity turns out to be an illusion, as you'll find most areas are blocked off until you trigger specific conditions by following the developers' intended path. Similarly, save stations are less like mini-hubs or safe rooms, and more like refreshment stops along a highway (much like the weapons dealer from Resident Evil 4). In any case, Chapters 3 and 4, set mostly in the streets, shops and sewers of the town, again leave little room for deviation, with most backtracking mandated by scripted sequences as opposed to player agency. Chapter 5, set entirely in a secret base, follows a similar philosophy.

Something all these chapters share is a love for lengthy cutscenes that perfectly illustrate why, as a general rule, indie studios should never try to match the already low standards of "cinematic" gaming. Being Italian, Invader Studios are incapable of reading or writing with any degree of competency, let alone in a more sophisticated language like English. Voice actors are obviously reading verbatim from the script regardless of how unnatural or borderline nonsensical. Both subtitles and written materials in the environment are lousy with spelling and grammatical errors, and clearly haven't been subject to any sort of proofreading. This might be acceptable in a late-night review in the screenshot thread, but certainly not a fully-fledged steam release that I almost faced the indignity of paying for. As far as production values go, the rest of the package isn't too bad, with the Unreal Engine 4-powered visuals looking quite good in darker areas with stark contrasts of shadow and light, though visual artifacts abound, especially in screenshots where motion blur and post-processing AA can't hide it so well. Zombies and mutants look fine, but many human facial models well below par. The soundtrack is also a bit mixed, and I honestly didn't even notice it at all outside boss fights until the final area. Even at their worst, none of these elements are so bad as to sabotage the overall experience - it's the writing and cutscenes that cause the real damage. They just fall on the wrong side of "so bad it's good", without the B-movie charm of Resident Evil 1. Much of what occurs is too predictable to be engaging and too badly told for what it does have to be entertaining, probably because it relies on a somewhat telegraphed and entirely uninteresting twist in the game's epilogue.

Besides, getting that far in the first place can be quite a challenge. Invader Studios have given extremely inconsistent signals regarding the recommended difficulty - I started on "Daymare" mode as the menu claimed it was the way the game was meant to be played, with the only other option being "Beginner" (a later patch added an even easier "Story" mode), but lost my temper and quit around two hours in. Conversely, in the steam forums the developers have explicitly stated that Daymare mode is "not intended for a first playthrough" and is instead reliant on pre-existing knowledge of enemy placement, campaign progress and so on. This makes a lot more sense, as even for a first-time player I was finding Daymare mode very much doable (with some screaming) but it required a fair bit of reloading checkpoints to figure out the optimal approach. I restarted on Beginner and had a lot less trouble (aside from an endgame chase sequence that almost drove me to uninstall). Just be aware that if I'd actually bought the game, I would've refunded it at that point rather than restart.

But putting aside developer miscommunication, this problem with challenge stems from the deal-breaking fallacy at the core of Daymare's problems - that it's a tribute to classic Survival Horror. It is not. There are plenty of flaws with the game that can be attributed to reviewers looking back at PS1 horror titles through a haze of nostalgia - the awkward controls, the bad writing, the sometimes overly abstractified mechanics of certain boss fights. But, fundamentally, Daymare is simply too linear. The player is not placed in a semi-open environment and given broad direction for their exploration, but instead ferried through individual scenes as if taking part in a tour of haunted houses. Daymare is more akin to a "grounded" version of Resident Evil 4 or the Revelations spinoffs. It would be virtually impossible to feature an alternate campaign or "reshuffle" in the style of Resident Evil 1-3 because it would simply break everything – why bother to move a puzzle item from one room to another when the player cannot access more than a handful of rooms in the first place? Players don't make risk-reward calculations about health items or ammo left in previously-visited areas, as even when you have to return to a location, it's usually either too small to avoid enemies reliably, or scripted to spawn enemies that block corridors anyway. You either succeed with minimal losses, or you reload. It's certainly possible with foreknowledge - and often necessary on “Daymare” mode - to temporarily disable enemies and skip items that aren't critical to your progress, but this is a level of metagaming that was only really relevant to second or third playthroughs of classic survival horror campaigns.

There are always ardent defenders of any title that claims to champion the supposed "hardcore" or "old-school" values of gaming-gone-by, particularly in endangered genres like Survival Horror. But Daymare: 1998 is not worthy of comparisons to the Resident Evil trilogy, and not only because it lacks the polish or production values, but because it doesn't seem to realize that it's not even trying to do so. It's ironic that the game was released around the same time as the RE2 remake - that Crapcom of all people managed to make a more faithful tribute to the PS1 classics. Daymare isn't a diamond in the rough, but merely a low budget, badly made version of a PS2 action game. Skip it and don't look back.

Spoiler

 

[Wunderbar]

Replayed Alien Isolation, both to refresh my memories and to collect remaining Nostromo logs. Now that i knew how alien AI operates, i was able to pull an ironman playthrough.

The story is an asspull, characters are bland, 80% of what you're doing in the game is "go there and pull that lever", stealth is mediocre, Sevastopol station reminds you of Metroid at first but then you realize that the game is absolutely linear, alien's AI is squandered on unmemorable map layouts, crafting and resource management don't really work because resources are distributed randomly and most of your gadgets are useless, and the game becomes a repetitive slog after culminating only halfway through (during a 10th mission where you jettison a science module).

Yet I loved the game back in 2014, and still think of it highly solely because of its outstanding presentation. I mean look at the screenshots, so much love and care were put into recreating 70s retrofuturistic scifi environments and the sound design. Those clicks of punchcard-based computers booting up, working joe's creepy voices, that beeping sound when you craft an item, Jerry Goldsmith's music. I've spent more time walking around admiring props and listening to ambience, than hiding from alien.

I believe every remotely interested codexer have already played Isolation, but in case you liked the original film and haven't played the game yet - do it now. It's probably second best video game that features Alien, and one of the best things that happened with the franchise in general. Too bad the refined sequel/successor is most likely dead, thanks to randy pitchfork (and now thanks to Gisnep too).

Spoiler

 

[Konjad]

 

[janior]

fortnite did not age well :/

 

[Danikas]

fortnite did not age well :/

Lol that's Arma 3.

 

[someone else]

Project Zomboid

scavenging for food

running over zombies with cars is OP

shotguns are cool

driving at night is cool, you can also turn on the aircon to make it cooler.

 

[Reinhardt]

Being westerner in JAPAN is hard...

 

[PulsatingBrain]

New Xen is pretty

 

[Scarlet Lilith]

So my play-through of Thief Gold ends.

Spoiler

A continuation of my impressions follows.

Escape!
Those caves were even more annoying than I thought they would be since I explored just about every inch of them except that one area that was critical and had the expert mission objective. What the hell, Randy Smith? Even so the mission becomes cool again when you return to the mansion ground floor and it's completely changed from when you were there last. Super conflicted about this map, it would have been fine on the lower difficulties, but hiding that one spider cave that led to the objective? Why not just make it as interconnected as the rest of the level?

Strange Bedfellows
A return to the same map from Undercover, you might like think it is lazy or something, but it's actually perfect at this stage of the game. Since you know the place it's pretty effective to then see it trashed, ups the stakes and stuff. Then you get access to a new area and go on a rescue mission. Garrett being heroic, I like the role reversal here.

Into the Maw of Chaos
The final map is one last trip and I'm really happy that they didn't make it like the biggest and most complex heist ever or something along those lines. Instead it is one of the shortest missions in the game and it's completely dialed into adventure mode, being a hectic last race to set things right before that trickster guy sends the entire city back to the stone age. The only flaw here is that the climax was lame, once you finally get to him there should be more to it than just replacing the eye and waiting forever for him to finish the ritual. The game should put your skills to the test under the pressure of being timed here, but instead that big oaf just turns his back to you and you do the deed, super lame.

Overall it was a truly great game and when you look at it as a whole you can see why they added the heist missions in Thief Gold, they balance the game by letting you spend more time sneaking up on normal human beings, pilfering keys from pockets and such. While I initially wrote that there's much more to the game than that I can now also see why the developers thought there was too little of that in the first release and spent their time putting more of it in the game rather than making the trickster more tricky or whatever. If I were to guess then that's probably also why they made The Lost City worse unintentionally. Don't have much else to say about it, other than that the audio design is 10/10 for the entirety of the game and that if you haven't played it already for some reason then you should do it. Now. Right now, and wear headphones.

 

[someone else]

Enter The Gungeon

Lays mines.

Dr Wolf's monster looks familiar.

 

[Icewater]

someone else what game? looks cool.

 

[someone else]

someone else what game? looks cool.

Enter The Gungeon

Maybe I should change & put the name after the screenshots instead of in front.

 

[someone else]

Isn't it better to put the game name in front so we can tell what game it is from before looking at pics?
Wunderbar

 

[Modron]

Maybe I should change & put the name after the screenshots instead of in front.

Name first is superior in my opinion, if someone can't remember 10 seconds ago or is too lazy to scroll up it's not your fault.

 

[DraQ]

New Xen is pretty

Yes. In before Interloper rage.

Nu-hilanth is back in cool land, though.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Fallout Tactics - PART III

10. Jefferson (We need to destroy 4 generators. Seems easy enough, but the place is crawling with super mutants, and many of them are situated on the roofs. The best strategy is to move carefully through the western side, and sneak on them to gain upper hand. There are also some mines and booby traps, so it's best to be careful and send one person to detect them. Billy disarmed them, and I sold them with a nice profit. The economy works similar like in original FT. The more you are selling the same thing, the less it is worth to the buyer. Some enemies are hiding in the buildings as well, waiting for the perfect shot. It's best to flank or go from behind, if possible. This mission takes a lot of patience, but with good coordination and with methodical approach it's still more forgiving than St. Lois).

11. Kansas City (Instead of pushing forward while doing the mission objectives, we now have to defend a group of religious ghouls being led by their leader calling himself Bishop Defcon. Another favorite of mine, due to the sheer amount of mutants that is so overwhelming and at first it feels like line of defence can break easily. There are 3 points of entry, the north west is easiest one. There are mines and the ghouls can defend themselves, even if we need to concentrate elsewhere our efforts. I used Fleetfoot, which became a total beast with high stealth and ripper+grenades (many mutants have up to 20 each on them!) helped to soften the center group before they've started their attack. But the east flank, damn, it's like a total Zerg rush. Buffed commanders with soldiers wielding heavy guns and some HTH warriors. No to mention roofs and buildings hiding some of them as well. It's a total hell, where one critical hit can eviscerate our team. After defending ghouls, with a minimum casualties on their side I've killed the rest, adding the remaining commanders to my hit list. After that mission, I had so much ammo that I would start using shop for some extra stimpaks and armor. Sometimes the new weapons are unlocked earlier, so it's good to check on them as well.)

12. Osceolla (We need to kill Gammorin, and for some extra XP - find out what happened to General Barnaky who was taken prisoner by super mutants. The part on the surface is the mix of the previous missions, so it should not be a big problem for anyone. We also can meet a legendary Roshambo from NMA, as he is sitting next to the fire near the gigantic destroyed airship. The big problem comes at the end, where the romm with Gammorin has only one entrance and he is really good with his Tommy Gun, not to mention his guards helping him out during his last stand. Don't forget to take briefcase, holodisk and Barnaky's letter from there, which will provide some additional experience for the team)

13. Junction City (Finding four robot parts sounds easy enough, but here FT feels more like original Fallout, where we need to find person of interest who have them, and somehow obtain them. I could use stealing easily, but I choose to play nicely to refresh my memories. Except that asshole Chuck, that will offer a fake robot part that I robbed without hesitation. Also, we need to confront reavers who have the last part that we need. First, it's best to visit the shack that is on the south in the desert. There we will be ambushed by a small group, who killed a guy named Hank who found a torso of a robot. The reavers are techno-freaks and took them to their base in the far northern east corner, outside the gates of the city. Also inside the shack, you can pick up a plasma rifle from the floor and a 7.62 FN fal from the shelves, which is a good compensation for helping poor Martha not sharing the same fate as her husband. With all team members have small guns maxed out, and energy weapons as well fighting was really not hard. Sure, the reavers have the big numbers, but with all critical perks going for the eyes and balls will just decimate them. The only problem are the rocks, where some of them can hide, if we are not careful, and the upper floor of their base with the huge balcony). Be sure to grab all the ammo and energy weapons to the APC.

14. Great Bend (Main and only objective : destroy all the robots. From here the energy weapons are a must, plasma and laser rifles plus pulse grenades. We can't use APC, and our synthetic enemies have huge advantage, when it comes to positioning their troops. Luckily, we won't be forced to fight bigger groups during this mission, so cleaning up the whole map shouldn't be a problem.)

Spoiler

 

[Strange Fellow]

X-COM spoilers below.

Spoiler

Twenty-six soldiers enter, only one lone squaddie still lives.

One man, one grenade, one shot.

Nailed it.

 

[Cryomancer]

Re playing BG2

 

[Psquit]

Post theme

Spoiler

PTSD dude wants to kill his daughter, Barret ain't having none of that.

Hojo getting mad pussy.