2 Likes
I trust Arkane with my life but they sure waited a long time to release a video explaining what Deathloop even is.
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it looks like the deathproof font but its NOT about chasing down murderous perverts in your car with all your girlfriends in a universe without guns at all, what the fuck were they thinkinggg???
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September 21st.
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sorry i kind of had this on in the background and maybe i misheard but does this have dark souls player invasions wtf
Thinking of this as an iteration on Mooncrash gets me so excited to play it. And then you’re telling me I can just use the cool powers from Dishonored without concern for morality sliders?? Unleashed??! Yes. I am down with Deathloop.
4 Likes
oh damn i might have to play this
it has everything
I posted about it in games you played today last night but it’s like a considered response to a dozen AAA concepts that you don’t really see iterated or cross-pollinated all that often
anyway I have successfully taken down 2 megaman bosses so far (only enough to get the first tier of their respective robot master powers, to beat the game I would obviously have to do it all on the same loop) and am having a ball. just a really well-constructed game. like they actually assembled it entirely out of spare parts on purpose in order to make something very comprehensively fun.
3 Likes
deathloop seems to me like what people were praising hades for – this very successful well-rounded videogame that has all the videogame stuff in it and structures it very deliberately and says here you go, have fun, yum yum. hades felt too pat to me in a lot of ways but this one does not!
the enemy AI is absolutely intentionally and somewhat needlessly bad, is my only complaint so far
4 Likes
Has anything made you burst out laughing? I’m trying to judge the camp value from afar and can’t get a read on it.
it’s marginal – the individual personalities, monologues, etc, are all genuinely well-drawn and engaging but very little actually rises to the level of being funny
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Checking it out - “what if an immersive sim character talked to themself like Nathan Drake Alan Wake” is pretty funny
I did not know the code, though I thought I did
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one way I think this redeems dishonored in particular is how the boss characters are all only marginally more durable than regular humans and can even be disposed of with silent takedowns if contextually successful – at that time it felt like an unfortunately faithful callback to western RPGs having basically no inclination or idea how to design a bossfight and was inevitably anticlimactic because the engine didn’t let them create symmetrical challenges and you could always more or less bruteforce your way through. here though, the (quasi-)permadeath loop means that the real risk is of them getting a few lucky shots off on you, and the real challenge is in consistently making your way to them and getting them into the right place at the right time. it’s one of the more hitman-esque aspects of this (after some of the abilities in the later dishonored games already made overtures in that direction) and it’s a very elegant move.
dishonored, much like new xcom and new doom, famously refused to actually address any of its more egregious design problems in its sequel, and though death of the outsider actually got partway there and didn’t get enough credit for it, this one is way better-considered all around.
4 Likes
The bright white text on critical objectives feels like someone is finally taking the piss out of BioShock’s glowing golden levers.
ironically this is something that arkane’s prey also gestured towards but imo didn’t really get close enough to until now
I’m so happy they finally made a real original game, even though in another context I’ve never seen a studio be more aggressively derivative of their own contemporary work
3 Likes
Prey was too sincere about the player’s agency right up until the end. This is overtly hostile from the get go and I love it. Play your way — but don’t look at the back of that postcard yet.
2 Likes
I started this too, on PS5. I just finished the first day, which was pretty much a tutorial. I’m pretty psyched to get into this game! It makes a great first impression. The only real critiques I have of it so far are:
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It not only uses L3, it uses it for two functions! Running and dodging. It uses R3 too. And you can’t remap the controls. Combine all this with the giant PS5 controller and it’s probably gonna be RSI city for me.
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The writing is not terrible but it’s definitely videogame writing. Colt and Juliana’s jabs at each other occasionally veer just slightly close to “cromulent fuckcrustable chumpfuckery” territory… Stop writing people like they’re trying to do snark on twitter! Nobody talks like that! And it doesn’t even fit into the whole 60’s/70’s pulp vibe either. But it’s a testament to how extremely good the voice acting is that the actors even manage to sell the worst lines hard enough that you can mostly ignore them. And despite the occasionally bum line I really like these two characters so far!
On the whole though I am really digging this. Love that mix of like mod and blaxploitation aesthetics.
4 Likes
it is maybe like 25% too easy though, once you get a couple upgraded guns the crowd control is a little too trivial
that is my only serious complaint after 4 hours