Community MetaSteam | January 2022 - With a new year comes great responsibility, BOY!

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d00d3n

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Jan 26, 2019
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I wrote some impressions about Supraland Six Inches Under:

The original Supraland game was a slow burner for me. The generic graphics and music, the confusing or maybe even non-existent story setup and the grindy and repetitive combat made a bad first impression. As I continued to play the game, the kind of original attempt to fuse puzzle gameplay, combat and exploration in a sort of 3d metroidvania space grew on me. The puzzles seemed really fitting for a metroidvania type experience, with their focus on understanding the exact properties of your ever expanding gear and objects in the world. Other 3d puzzle games sometimes make me feel like a menial worker in a Rube Goldberg machine factory, but Supraland did not. It was my game of the year back in 2018.

The 2020 DLC Supraland Crash in was entertaining, but a bit disappointing compared to the original. The world felt more linear and smaller. I didn’t get into the addictive groove of jumping between puzzles, combat and exploration like I did with the first game, but instead spent a lot of time being stuck and frustrated.

Now we have the standalone game Supraland Six Inches Under, which for me came out of nowhere. It is clearly denoted as not being a full sequel (that would be the upcoming game Supraworld ), but it feels like a major improvement compared to the original game in most ways. The story has gone from being throwaway or non-existent to being pretty good for an indie game. The introduction is short and sweet, and the big settlement that the game is centered around has a fun plot about class struggles and trickle-down economics! The graphics and music continue with the same themes as in the original game, but there is more attention to detail, and the results feel more aesthetically pleasing. I really have to applaud how much the pacing has improved compared with the original, because the repetitive stuff is pretty much gone and the puzzles on the main path feel luxuriously play-tested. The main puzzle path has lost some of the eureka moments from the original due to including more simple challenges, but there is plenty of optional content that has all the brain teasers that you may or may not need.

I loved this game. I completed 100% of the content in two intense sittings and would warmly recommend the game to people who like 3d puzzle games and/or 3d exploration games.
 

fspm

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Nov 1, 2018
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A lot of half life 2 mentions suddenly, all right then.

The hype was unreal, there were not so many games those days, especially well known ones. This month alone is like 5 years of AAA stuff in that era.
Weeks before release it was like: half life 2 this, hl2 that: it will be best visuals for decades, best physics, greatest story eva, there's gonna be nothing better than it - just accept it, hl2 will just crush everything, can't wait, please give me a time machine, I need it nao, and so on and on and on .. and on.
Never played hl1 so who cares right.

What I got: poor gunplay, 20 minute jogging sessions of real time in game, just walking or driving a boat for ages, annoying enemies - all of them. What about a story: given the choice describe what the story of hl2 is or die it would be certain death. Even the most die hard hl2 fans probably learned what's going on from some scientific journal right after relativity theory passage.

So
was hl2 mediocre?
Don't know, but I sure AS FUCK wasn't impressed.
(did you notice that as fuck is all caps there? - it is for a very good reason)
 

PARANOiA

Junior Member
Dec 4, 2018
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I'm playing this after the glowing RPS review and the fact it's recommended as a detective game - one of my favourite genres that rarely has great games.

I'm only on day 3 so far but I'm digging it - recommend you put this on your radar.
 

Bonfires Down

Junior Member
Nov 18, 2019
258
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A lot of half life 2 mentions suddenly, all right then.

The hype was unreal, there were not so many games those days, especially well known ones. This month alone is like 5 years of AAA stuff in that era.
Weeks before release it was like: half life 2 this, hl2 that: it will be best visuals for decades, best physics, greatest story eva, there's gonna be nothing better than it - just accept it, hl2 will just crush everything, can't wait, please give me a time machine, I need it nao, and so on and on and on .. and on.
Never played hl1 so who cares right.

What I got: poor gunplay, 20 minute jogging sessions of real time in game, just walking or driving a boat for ages, annoying enemies - all of them. What about a story: given the choice describe what the story of hl2 is or die it would be certain death. Even the most die hard hl2 fans probably learned what's going on from some scientific journal right after relativity theory passage.

So
was hl2 mediocre?
Don't know, but I sure AS FUCK wasn't impressed.
(did you notice that as fuck is all caps there? - it is for a very good reason)
Yep, agree with most of your criticisms. Particularly that the gunplay is mediocre which is pretty damning for a shooter. The SMG is just ugh. Gravity gun? Cool idea, but it's kind of hard to use properly when there's a large ass crate blocking 50% of your vision. Rarely makes sense vs using normal weapons. Story? Not my idea of good storytelling at least.

I still like the game, but it's a 7 or 8 out of 10. Gotta say the atmosphere is still unique and excellent. They do switch up the gameplay at regular intervals. And I love pretty much everything about the highway section. So it's good, just overrated.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
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I still don't know what people even mean when they say "gunplay". Or I guess by now I do have some abstract concept of it, I just cannot for the life of me imagine caring about it.

Then again, I generally don't really like games with realistic guns much in the first place.
 

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
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I still don't know what people even mean when they say "gunplay". Or I guess by now I do have some abstract concept of it, I just cannot for the life of me imagine caring about it.

Then again, I generally don't really like games with realistic guns much in the first place.
Gunplay for me just means "the shootybang feels good". It's not really about realism as it is about game feel, like comparing something like say Killzone to Halo.
 
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Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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For what it's worth, Half Life 1 and 2, and its episodes, to me are still brilliant experiences, that I'm glad I got to experience. I never found its story hard to follow, honestly, though I do agree that the overall plot of Half Life is pretty Zen (the philosophy, I mean, not the alien world), in the sense that the journey is more important than the overall goal. I can see how that lends itself to criticism, as it's not focusing on making sure you understand everything that happens along the way, with nice cutscenes that tell you nicely what happened to whom, when and why.

Half-Life 2 has a gravity gun, that alone makes the game awesome!
You know what else had gravity? The universe. Therefore, the gravity gun was clearly just derivative. I expect my games to be actually innovative, thankyouverymuch.
 

「Echo」

鈴鹿御前。
Nov 1, 2018
2,661
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Mt. Whatever
Naughty Dog has yet to make a good shooter. Cool set pieces. Nice graphics given their hardware restraints. ... but that's about it.

It's unfortunate TPS is kinda a dying breed among AAA and AA even. 😓

Edit: That said, "innovation" means literally zero to me. I just want fun things also and good stories. The types of stories I like though... Seem a bit rare among games.
 

pinson

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2021
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Naughty Dog has yet to make a good shooter. Cool set pieces. Nice graphics given their hardware restraints. ... but that's about it.

It's unfortunate TPS is kinda a dying breed among AAA and AA even. 😓

Edit: That said, "innovation" means literally zero to me. I just want fun things also and good stories. The types of stories I like though... Seem a bit rare among games.
Naughty Dog's best game is the original Jak & Daxter, don't @ me
 

Cacher

Romantic Storm
Jun 3, 2020
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I started playing Virgo Versus The Zodiac today. This game is surprisingly hard to get into. The world and premise is interesting and original, but the game just throws players into it without any explanation. Stats management is also confusing because there is a whole bunch of parameter. The combat being difficult certainly does not help either. Going to take some time to learn everything as I see real potential here.
 

PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
3,500
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California
Just reading further down that thread, he says this:


Hard to take anything this guy says seriously if he thinks Half Life 2 was mediocre, or didn't inspire a ton of games. Hell, I can't even list the number of mods for HL2 that become their own games.
This rando just comes across as a pretty mindless contrarian.
Yeah that just bad


Even Jon Romero himself has said that every FPS game that released after HL2 was inspired in some shape by it.

I guess people don't look at game interviews. I was looking at this one interview and the head of Guerilla said that the biggest influence for Killzone 3 was Half Life 2 (Uncharted 2 being the second biggest influence for that game)


There are a lot of fps devs that will say that Half Life was an inspiration. From my understanding Doc is a game dev but I don't think Doc has made FPS games?

So I guess part of it really comes down to what genre of games you make/play.
------
I played uncharted 1-3 and the gunplay was okay. I did find myself playing different between the 3 games which is good. In Uncharted 2 I think I spent a lot of time just finishing off people by beating them up with melee. In Uncharted 1 it was just shooting people from behind cover and someone behind able to hit them. But by uncharted 2 they changed that and shooting behind cover doesn't do jack squat. In Uncharted 3 I liked how you can use the environment as "a melee weapon" so you can push your enemy into certain object and do extra damage to them. Do that's cool to do, since the melee attacks have unique finishers from what I remember.
 
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ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
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Yeah, I could understand an argument that Half-Life 1 was far more influential than Half-Life 2 (and would likely agree with that argument), but to go as far as to say Half-Life 2 influenced only a couple of titles (like somehow Resistance 3, but not 1&2? :thinking-face: I guess to be fair I only played 1&2) and that it is otherwise mediocre? It just feels like the opinion of someone who only played it more recently and/or is judging it in the context of modern standards. Which to be fair, you can absolutely do, but then it is important to frame your thoughts around that, otherwise you sound akin to someone who writes off a film from the 1950s for not using the standards of today and fails to acknowledge the limitations of the time and the ways we only get the standards of today from the lessons of the past (sometimes very subtly, which is also telling that the only two games picked as being directly influenced by HL2 are FPS games and no games from other genres).

I think that a lot about HL1 (which I actually only ever beat on Ps2 back in the day :lampblob: don't revoke my PC gamer card), but it is one of those games that folks playing for the first time are increasingly likely to think , "is that it?" not appreciating the context of when it came out and how it influenced games in ways that you cannot easily look at, especially when the genre is not FPS.
I still don't know what people even mean when they say "gunplay". Or I guess by now I do have some abstract concept of it, I just cannot for the life of me imagine caring about it.

Then again, I generally don't really like games with realistic guns much in the first place.
I am not sure what others mean, but for me it is everything in-between when I press the button and my shot misses hits the target. In that sense, for me, it is just the combination of visuals, sounds, shots registering, shots missing :surrenderblob:, and the overall feedback. On one extreme bad gunplay is feeling like there is an inexplicable delay from when I use weapon, no firing sound, no muzzle flash and/or visible projectile, and nothing to indicate my shot hit (ping, sound, object/enemy reaction, etc.). The other extreme with good gunplay is feeling the responsiveness, hearing a firing sound, seeing my weapon react, and having some sort of sight/sound visual when my shot connects. For me, none of this has to be realistic per se, it can be highly stylized, but I like it to feel satisfying, which is definitely extremely subjective! (Like the TF2 Scout's Sandman alt-fire attack is a perfect example of a stylized "gunplay" that is satisfying when you pull it off, even though it just hitting a baseball at an opponent from as far away as possible).

Granted, it is not super duper high on my list of cares, but it is something I notice when I play a shooter.
 
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FunnyJay

Powered by the Cloud
Apr 6, 2019
1,458
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Sweden
I still don't know what people even mean when they say "gunplay".
For me, I think it has always been about enemy reactions. If you fire a gun at an enemy and there is no visible reaction AT ALL that the enmy is being hit, that's bad. A lot of older games had that, and then suddenly the enemy toppled over. Impossible to gauge what was happening really.

In my opinion, one of the best modern games when it comes to enemy reactions to gunfire, is.... Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
If you make a headshot on an enemy, they go down in one hit, regardless of what weapon you used.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,127
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Crusader Kings 3 introduces Gay Marriage:
Assholes on Era: "Hurr durr, the fanbase is probably going bonkers, muh historic accuracy!" "You know how the fanbase of those types of games is."

fucking hell, Crusader kings had ahistorical womens rights and gay traits for decades.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
2,170
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Damn, La Mulana 2 is so good it's making me sad these games aren't more popular :crying-face:
The world is a cold and cruel place!!

I'm seeing it on a lot of familiar faces' wishlists so please consider it! :blobmorning2:
You don't have to have finished the original imo, and the second is a little more accessible than the PC version of the first game.
 
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Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
2,417
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Do you think with more Sony games coming to Steam there will be a push for more Dualsense controller support and PS icons in games?
Always annoys me. If there isn't native DS support at least they could include an option to pick which button icons you want. When i see some small indie game offering it i cheer a little. Why dont the bigger budget games have this (i assume) simple option?

Im hoping more Sony means they will work on native drivers etc.
 

Cacher

Romantic Storm
Jun 3, 2020
4,133
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Damn, La Mulana 2 is so good it's making me sad these games aren't more popular :crying-face:
The world is a cold and cruel place!!

I'm seeing it on a lot of familiar faces' wishlists so please consider it! :blobmorning2:
You don't have to have finished the original imo, and the second is a little more accessible than the PC version of the first game.
I have heard of it before but never paid attention until now. Just got the first game after watching the trailer. ;)
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Im hoping more Sony means they will work on native drivers etc.
Would love for Sony to release an adapter to get haptics and things on PC wirelessly without needing to connect via USB. Would also enable audio output on the controller. It's strange they released it for the DS4, which arguably didn't really need it, and yet nothing so far for DS5.
 

Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
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Would love for Sony to release an adapter to get haptics and things on PC wirelessly without needing to connect via USB. Would also enable audio output on the controller. It's strange they released it for the DS4, which arguably didn't really need it, and yet nothing so far for DS5.
I forgot about the haptics! only game ive played where they worked was Metro. Felt weird at first but yeah, pretty good.
 
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thekeats1999

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Dec 10, 2018
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I hope Sony have the forsight to make PSVR2 PC Friendly. Doesn't hurt to have more options for when I can finally avoid that. I also hope Valve are working on a Quest like VR system as well (I believe there was a rumour to this effect a while back).

I had my best run Vampire Survivors. 29.57 minutes on the forest with 4 fully ascended weapons. Also unlocking the Hyper version of the first level. I am now starting to work on the Library level. While the enemies appear a bit tougher I find that the stage is a bit easier to handle as stuff only seems to spawn left or right.
 

LEANIJA

MetaMember
May 5, 2019
2,949
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Austria
Looks nice.

EA should re-release NHL95-99 and put them to Steam.
everyone should release everything on Steam :p

having all the old FIFAs and NHLs and whatnot would be cool. im guessing the oldest isometric ones have probably aged better than the early 3D ones
I hope Sony have the forsight to make PSVR2 PC Friendly. Doesn't hurt to have more options for when I can finally avoid that. I also hope Valve are working on a Quest like VR system as well (I believe there was a rumour to this effect a while back).

I had my best run Vampire Survivors. 29.57 minutes on the forest with 4 fully ascended weapons. Also unlocking the Hyper version of the first level. I am now starting to work on the Library level. While the enemies appear a bit tougher I find that the stage is a bit easier to handle as stuff only seems to spawn left or right.
I think my best time was about 28 minutes
I'm curious if there's a hard limit?
Either way, the library seems indeed easier!
 
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jmga

Junior Member
Sep 20, 2018
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They have heard my prayers.


 
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