Would you like System Shock 2 better if you could ignore the voices on the radio and roam the ship as you pleased with tools to help you sequence break?
If you don’t want to play read emails or craft items or put points into skill trees it’s impossible to recommend.
Re: save scumming you can play on easy with no consequences.
it’s not that I don’t want to do those things, it’s that they never seem to come together for me and I get less out of these games than I put in
despite the obvious commitment to the level design and the prose and the aesthetics
this definitely isn’t what I’m after, a big part of what keeps me from embracing these is the general brokenness of anything intended to be challenging
Hmm. I have found it very rewarding of my curiosity. For example, I went back to the first area as soon as I got enough skills to get to an inaccessible floor and found two very cool areas with little stories that appear to be optional. Each area gave me a big mechanical leg up as well.
whoa yeah I don’t like this at all!
it’s very bioshocky but with the dishonored slide for no reason and the core enemy type is a massive nuisance
oh well, I’m sure it’s quite good, but it’s also immediately a lot of canonical late 90s PC game things I’ve never cared for
speaking of the late 90s PC canon have I mentioned enough times yet that new torment is actually fantastic and way better than the original
So I just got around to trying the first hour demo as I am as always timely and… is the combat always like that? I may just simply be terrible at FPS but those little things jumping around were beyond my ability to even keep in front of me half of the time. Even when I eventually got a gun I could barely manage to hit the darn things, so I spent most encounters mashing the wrench button while spinning.
Basically I don’t think I’d play a game that was all that.
This is the PS4 demo, right? I doubt they’ve patched it but it has floaty control issues.
This was my experience with the demo exactly, and that relegated the game to my maybe-try-it-one-day-when-it’s-really-cheap list. But since it seems to be somewhat along the lines of SOMA and Dead Space, I would like to eventually give it a chance. I’ll probably just have to use the easiest difficulty option.
At some point I’ll write up something longer but I can quickly say that this is the best *-Shock game since the original Deus Ex; it’s incredibly reverent to the traditions of the archetype, tries to place Half-Life 1 in its canon (the basic headcrab enemy, the energy gun introduction), and it even attempts the heroic task of repairing BioShock (a much more interesting frame of BioShock’s themes of guilt and responsibility).
The horror is lighter than in a normal *-Shock game and it has the traditional back-third slump, but
up until Zelda, this was the most enjoyable game I’d played in several years.
yeah, I’m also in the “found the basic enemy type so miserable that I put it down immediately” camp, but I think it’s safe to say we’re missing out
Seems to play the same as Half-Life headcrabs, so, panic-inducing, melee-preferenced, and you always leave feeling like you could have done it better.
I like how they are procedural jumpscare creators, it’s such a trolling move and I loved it every time.
(note: I’m not great at shooters but I eventually cranked this up to the hardest difficulty; no attack ever landed more than 40% HP and if you’re thorough you still have plenty of healing resources)
Are they the dominant enemy type throughout the game, or do things shift to another type before too long?
Also I only played Half-Life 1, but I do not recall any enemy there being nearly that fast/erratic. I also didn’t really care much for it beyond the first few hours, but that is a separate discussion…
I don’t know anything about Prey but HL1 headcrabs had totally predictable behavior and were only a pain to deal with when distracted.
A similar ratio as Half-Life 2; always present to some degree, eventually trivialized as you upgrade weapons (but here still available as jump scares); bipeds are the prime enemy type.
If you’re having trouble, I’d suggest equipping the wrench, dodging the jump (or taking it in the face), then whacking them as they recover from landing (same as Half-Life). Should go down in two whacks.
Or, the gloo gun is extremely effective against them – that you can spray and pray and mop up afterwards, one-shotting any mimics.
You can eventually take an upgrade to a piece of equipment you get that will let you spot mimics before they can surprise you. You can usually just walk right up to the coffee cup or whatever they’re mimicking and get the drop on them.
I need to replay this.
I avoided that upgrade because I liked giggling after the damn things got me. The audio cue when you’re nearby is strong but if you are looking at an object, trying to decide if you should shoot it – the timer is ticking and the answer is, yeah, you’re gonna get mugged. Again.
And it was always – wait, that stool is in the middle of the hallway, that’s an odd place for a stool. I’d better pull out my pistol just in–dammit
This is probably the best sci-fi-themed immersion sim I’ve played since, I don’t know, the original System Shock or Deus Ex? Haven’t checked out Consortium yet.
A lot has been made about the post-credits sequence but it honestly worked a lot better within the context of the game proper, wherein during this invasion by aliens that devour consciousness, you’re confronted with various iterations of yourself at different points in time and so your identity at present is constantly in question which obviously informs your decisions and playstyle as a player. Despite keeping track of your Empathy Quotient, it’s not interested in the morality of your actions so much as it is what those actions say about this "version"of your character at present. And of course you can totally ignore any input from other characters and their image of you (of note is your brother’s and Mikhaila’s reactions as the game progress), even going down the Video Game Mass Murderer route is read by the context of the game’s story as strongly identifying with the Typhon.
Sure some of the pieces that make up the story are cliché but it’s got some good ideas floating around and I like that it’s constantly putting into question who your character is and how that impacts your own playstyle. Aesthetically it’s really strong too, it reminded me of a French BD.
Also I loved just how versatile the replicators are. Once you find plans, you can straight up build as many turrets as you can afford to and even Neuromods and weapon kits!
Really, between this and Death of the Outsider, I get the feeling that Arkane should really drop any morality system wholesale. Their games are stronger in their design without it and there’s clearly more interesting and subtle ways to have that level of reactivity present in their worlds. This game is fairly high concept in its delivery of more nuanced and unsettling ideas along the lines of consciousness horror, but it was really the identity question that kept me hooked.
so what you’re saying is Bottom Line: Prey is a flashback to a quest for identity.