Screenshot thread

[Niektory]

Nah, that's fine. What I didn't like about the one I commented on (and Eirin has a similar one as well) is that it's difficult to see what the boundaries of everything are, which is kinda important given that you basically have to go into the bullet sprites in order to get through these patterns. Dying because you didn't see the small green bullet inside the big green bullet sucks, and you don't see them in motion long enough to extrapolate based on that.

I understand, but somehow they never bothered me that much. My nemesis are the long needle bullets (Shou, Nitori). I just can't handle them.

I always thought the easymode character was SakuyA though.

She's good too, but I found Reimu's long deathbomb window very helpful when I was starting out.

I'm trying to do the Extra Stage in PCB (my first )at the moment, and Ran seems pretty doable. The stage istelf, though, is a huge pile of frustrating shit. Maybe I'll just say fuck it to item collection and survival mode it, but I feel like I need the extra lives. Also, fuck Chen.

Don't worry too much about point items, you only need 250-ish before Ran to reach the 500 threshold, I don't think 800 is reachable. Aim to reach the boss without losing a life, I didn't beat her until I could do that. I found Chen to be pretty fun, I guess you haven't figured out her last attack yet.

 

[balmorar]

Risen 2 - Dark Waters

 

[racofer]

He's not sitting. I'm disappoint.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Nah, that's fine. What I didn't like about the one I commented on (and Eirin has a similar one as well) is that it's difficult to see what the boundaries of everything are, which is kinda important given that you basically have to go into the bullet sprites in order to get through these patterns. Dying because you didn't see the small green bullet inside the big green bullet sucks, and you don't see them in motion long enough to extrapolate based on that.

I understand, but somehow they never bothered me that much. My nemesis are the long needle bullets (Shou, Nitori). I just can't handle them.

My bane are multilayered criss-crossing patterns. My capture rate on Apollo 13 is below 5%, and I practiced that a lot.

I always thought the easymode character was SakuyA though.

She's good too, but I found Reimu's long deathbomb window very helpful when I was starting out.

I feel like that deathbomb window creates bad habits in new players. On the other hand, Sakuya gets 4 bombs, which encourages their liberal use - a very good habit, and not so easy to get into for some people (like myself). Also, a lot of the more difficult stuff in PCB becomes even more so when you add the requirement of actually staying under the boss in order to damage it. New players will have their hands full just dodging.

I'm trying to do the Extra Stage in PCB (my first )at the moment, and Ran seems pretty doable. The stage istelf, though, is a huge pile of frustrating shit. Maybe I'll just say fuck it to item collection and survival mode it, but I feel like I need the extra lives. Also, fuck Chen.

Don't worry too much about point items, you only need 250-ish before Ran to reach the 500 threshold, I don't think 800 is reachable. Aim to reach the boss without losing a life, I didn't beat her until I could do that. I found Chen to be pretty fun, I guess you haven't figured out her last attack yet.

You can actually reach over 800 if you gather everything, but fuck me if I'm going to do that in the second part of that stage. All those asshole aimed-bullet fairies can go to hell. For Chen, it's her nonspell that's actually difficult for me, I have trouble moving through fast, small bullets for whatever reason. Her first spell is kind of misleading as well, spent some time dying stupidly before I got over just trying to stream it mindlessly.

We should actually move this discussion to its own thread in the weaboo forum, I think.

 

[Zetor]

Great moments in Wiz8: the group taking fall damage after they abruptly drop to the floor of the Cosmic Circle during the endsequence (twice actually -- I forgot to screenshot the second one). "Ascension"... pfft.

is a screenshot from Wiz8's endsequence really a spoiler?

backstory: I found SAVES.ARJ while doing some housekeeping on my old HDs... and it happened to include my very first party that managed to beat W7. I decided to keep the ~awesome~ character names intact (monk, especially), because otherwise I would be dishonoring my middle school self... and that just won't do!

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Playing for the first time. I accidentaly destroyed Earth. It was a mistake, honest. I can't stop cyber-dungeon crawling.

Shodan really likes to put the player in dangerous situation and sending "I'm watching you, meatbag!" messages.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I accidentaly destroyed Earth. It was a mistake, honest.

Reminds me of that time when I accidentally destroyed the rebel base in JK2: Mysteries of the Sith

 

[Cazzeris]

Ninja Destroyer what a coincidence, I've just finished it for the first time a couple of hours ago

F. good game.

 

[Hellraiser]

Fight green robots with more green robots, shooting green lazors.

Pew pew overdose is lethal.

Tactical defensive use of nuclear weapons.

Spoiler: it didn't work, had to drop another one that landed closer to the front of the attacking wave. That also didn't work. But my only Galactic Colossus killed the three slightly damaged monkeylords and the assault bot escort alone, barely surviving.

Also SupCom hard isn't so hard in the campaign. Queue unit patrol directly from factories into enemy base, infinite repeat queue of combined arms. Overwhelm AI with attrition. Just focus on getting that econ up to support churning out units.

Genealogy, you too can uncover your 'thal heritage in the colonies!

I don't like his smile, it looks too rural, stahlmarkian and overall un-monocled. Also this is what I get for accepting free shipments of criminals. I hope they make criminals likely to desert the colony and join or form bandit gangs when unhappy. Also most outlaw colonist shipments come with a vicar of the Church of the Holy Cog who is of criminal background, not sure if bug or feature.

Since colonists already spontaneously form cults, no reason why they shouldn't do that with bandit gangs as well. Cult etiquette is serious business. Also knowledge of differential equations is necessary if one wishes to pursue the wisdom of maddening knowledge bestowed upon by Quaggaroth, the elder squid.

 

[Alienman]

Barrack style housing. I also built it like that
Not the most private, but better than sleeping in the kitchen.

 

[DraQ]

Playing for the first time. I accidentaly destroyed Earth. It was a mistake, honest. I can't stop cyber-dungeon crawling.

Shodan really likes to put the player in dangerous situation and sending "I'm watching you, meatbag!" messages.

SS1 is such an awesome and ambitious game.

Most of the period's shooters look like high school programming projects in comparison and yes, that includes both DOOMs.

It also smashes the living fuck out of its sequel in most areas with notable exceptions of item scarcity and atmosphere.

I've done near complete playthrough of SS1 recently.
Near, because that final cyberspace battle is just HNNNNGGG

 

[skacky]

The final battle is nigh impossible if you have high framerate.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Every time I did the final battle in SS1, my screen was pretty much 97% SHODAN and I couldn't even see what I was shooting at. I just kept shooting and somehow won.

Haven't tried it recently though.

Meanwhile, a thought occurred to me in regards to Clockwork Empires. Anyone here played a game called Town of Salem? Those two would meld together perfectly, you build up the town in Clockwork Empires, then whizz over to Town of Salem to lynch your townsfolk and root out the undesirables.

 

[DraQ]

Cyberspace in general is just PITA too - I'm glad it wasn't present in SS2.

 

[skacky]

I love Cyberspace and was disappointed it wasn't in SS2. :p

 

[Gord]

I should really replay SS1. I played it back when it was semi-new but could never complete it because of some strange bug that prevented progression.

 

[DraQ]

I should really replay SS1. I played it back when it was semi-new but could never complete it because of some strange bug that prevented progression.

You should. SS Portable makes controls more or less usable, and the only remaining bad things are rather formulaic combat (hide behind corner, lean and popamole) without much enemy diversity, rez chambers (durrr), cyberspace (hurr) and relative lack of atmosphere (compared to SS2).
Other than that it's engrossing and fun to play, has deep mechanics and generally uses it much smarter than the sequel (take use of lighting and enemy placement, for example).
Also, guns are fun to shoot.

 

[balmorar]

Batman: Arkham Origins

 

[Peter]

It also smashes the living fuck out of its sequel in most areas with notable exceptions of item scarcity and atmosphere.

I guess I'm one of the few to find SS1 a lot more atmospheric and scary. I think it's mostly down to the sound. The enemies make genuinely bizzare and alien noises (as opposed to the written lines or generic animal soundsof SS2) and the volume levels are all over the place, always making you wonder how close or far and from what direction a noise is coming from. Combine that with the music, which, when not in techno mode, is composed of grating industrial and electronic noises (whereas SS2 goes for the much more typical and easier to ignore ambient drones), and you get a soundscape that's completely relentless. You never feel totally safe and alone in a quiet corner, as you often do in SS2.

The bigger and more abstract (yet still semi-realistic) level design helps as well, I think.

SS2 is almost too clear-cut and relatable to be scary. SS1 really makes you feel like a tiny insect crawling through SHODAN's massive, completely hostile domain.

 

[pippin]

Game of Thrones rpg

Spoiler

Inside Castle Black

The Throne

Arryns gonna Arryn. smh

Tommen is still not a fat baby like he's supposed to be

 

[DraQ]

I guess I'm one of the few to find SS1 a lot more atmospheric and scary. I think it's mostly down to the sound. The enemies make genuinely bizzare and alien noises (as opposed to the written lines or generic animal soundsof SS2)

The thing is that pretty much abstract sounds don't really convey much of anything.

and the volume levels are all over the place, always making you wonder how close or far and from what direction a noise is coming from.

I'd call that inferior audio system. Good audio lets you judge direction from which a sound is coming quite precisely.

Combine that with the music, which, when not in techno mode, is composed of grating industrial and electronic noises (whereas SS2 goes for the much more typical and easier to ignore ambient drones), and you get a soundscape that's completely relentless.

SS1 music never clicked with me. It just doesn't work together with the in-game situation of being alone with an army of murderbots and bloodthirsty mutants in a corpse-littered station governed by an insane AI. It doesn't help create the atmosphere.

You never feel totally safe and alone in a quiet corner, as you often do in SS2.

Actually, you generally feel safer in SS1. There is no such horrible resource attrition in SS1, most enemies drop ammo and combat has good chances of being a net gain rather than net loss.
Enemies respawn patrol around in both games, but in SS1 they generally less likely to just spontaneously walk into you, they also don't respawn in certain areas at certain stages of the game.
The only place in SS1 that felt close to SS2 was that virus filled grove.

The bigger and more abstract (yet still semi-realistic) level design helps as well, I think.

I wouldn't call SS1 level design universally better, but there are places where it clearly does a much better job than SS2 - Level 3 with it's use of darkness comes to mind, so do a few other places that have things like cyborg assassins placed in dark niches positioned out of sight or alcoves above and behind emerging player. Use of darkness is also a sort of forced resource attrition as it needs lantern or NV to mitigate, and they consume energy.
OTOH more abstract design = worse and there are quite a few rather abstract arrangements in SS1.

SS2 is almost too clear-cut and relatable to be scary. SS1 really makes you feel like a tiny insect crawling through SHODAN's massive, completely hostile domain.

Actually, it's the other way around. SS1 is just abstractly hostile and Shodan isn't much of a character there - just another AI with god complex. When she/it is a character it doesn't really chime well with everything else - would Shodan really address her individual cyborgs and robots like persons?
SS2, OTOH isn't just scary, it evokes genuine dread.
It isn't about mutants/murderbots killing everyone because an AI thought itself god, it's mostly about people killing each other and siren song that compelled them.

SS2 is a much better experience, despite technically being a much worse game.

 

[Gentle Player]

It also smashes the living fuck out of its sequel in most areas with notable exceptions of item scarcity and atmosphere.

I guess I'm one of the few to find SS1 a lot more atmospheric and scary. I think it's mostly down to the sound. The enemies make genuinely bizzare and alien noises (as opposed to the written lines or generic animal soundsof SS2) and the volume levels are all over the place, always making you wonder how close or far and from what direction a noise is coming from. Combine that with the music, which, when not in techno mode, is composed of grating industrial and electronic noises (whereas SS2 goes for the much more typical and easier to ignore ambient drones), and you get a soundscape that's completely relentless. You never feel totally safe and alone in a quiet corner, as you often do in SS2.

The bigger and more abstract (yet still semi-realistic) level design helps as well, I think.

SS2 is almost too clear-cut and relatable to be scary. SS1 really makes you feel like a tiny insect crawling through SHODAN's massive, completely hostile domain.

Agreed entirely. Also, they completely ruined SHODAN in SS2, turning it into little more than a glorified quest compass whereas in the first it was truly menacing, frequently taunting and setting traps for the player. The less said about the abominable ending and nonsensical end battle the better. In SS2's defence Xerxes and the Many were great, but don't quite make up for that horrible, horrible ending.

 

[JarlFrank]

So, Book of Unwritten Tales 2 makes fun of DRM. Translation: "Once, a merchant wanted to sell me the license for an apple. The apple wasn't supposed to belong to me. Only the right to eat it."

 

[Peter]

The thing is that pretty much abstract sounds don't really convey much of anything.

Well, they don't convey a specific meaning, no, but the beauty of those sounds in SS1 is that pretty much any sound you hear is bad news, and you have no way to make sense of them. Lets your imagination do the work as to what might be making a specific sound and what that sound even is and what the fuck is going on with the enemy making it. It holds up a lot better over time than the (very neat, well written) few lines the hybrids keep repeating. Enemies in SS2 are conceptually interesting, but the weirdness of SS1 I find creepier.

I'd call that inferior audio system. Good audio lets you judge direction from which a sound is coming quite precisely.

I agree, it's technically inferior, and not at all realistic. Just saying that the uncertainty and 'wrongness' (ie, your brain understands this isn't how sound works and doesn't like it) added to the odd vibe.

SS1 music never clicked with me. It just doesn't work together with the in-game situation of being alone with an army of murderbots and bloodthirsty mutants in a corpse-littered station governed by an insane AI. It doesn't help create the atmosphere.

I like the music in both games, but you could say the same for a lot of the music in SS2, if you're not into the beat-heavy electronic music. I was referring to the more abstract/ambient moments in both soundtracks, which in SS2 are a lot more pretty than the grating noises of SS1. Again, that feeling of hostility is reinforced.

There is no such horrible resource attrition in SS1

Idk if I'm just super conservative with how I spend resources in games, but come on, SS2 is pretty much a cakewalk in this regard as well once you get a feel for the melee.

Not quoting your other point since I don't really disagree with most of them and think that some of them are just completely subjective and down to our personal experiences with the games. I wasn't arguing that SS1 is objectively better at horror than SS2, just that the more abstract aspects (which you see as a detriment, and that's totally fair) creeped me out more than the much more understandable SS2. The sequel may be the better thought out game with more horrific (often tragic) undertones, and the horror feel is a much more clear goal that has been carefully considered and mostly achieved, but I find myself filling the blanks in more with the first game, and it ends up a creepier experience for me. It's an example of abstractness and primitive technology working to create a weird alien feeling. Kinda like how some people find Silent Hill 1 the scariest in the series because of the strange low-poly graphics.

Also, they completely ruined SHODAN in SS2, turning it into little more than a glorified quest compass whereas in the first it was truly menacing, frequently taunting and setting traps for the player.

And yeah, SHODAN was imo better written in the first one. The way she actively antagonizes the player is wonderful, and, again, gives this feeling that you are stuck inside the belly of your enemy (yeah yeah, this literally happens towards the end of SS2 as well, but you get what I'm saying).

 

[balmorar]

Teddy Floppy Ear - Mountain Adventure