Interesting, the S&S games have been on my list for a while but I’ve never gotten around to them. I got Salt and Sacrifice with a Humble Bundle last year but didn’t play it because o figured I should play the first game first. Looks like I got the worse one then?

Immersion is tricky, because it is an incredibly subjective thing. At the end of the day, what immersion means (I think) is that the “veil” separating you from the game is incredibly thin and transparent. Think of it as wearing glasses: if a game is un-immersive the lenses are dirty and scratched. You can still see whatever is in front of you, but you’re constantly aware of the fact that you’re wearing glasses. An immersive game is like wearing perfectly pristine glasses: you forget you’re wearing glasses at all and can just take in what’s in front of you.

An immersive game to me is something that successfully manages to both suspend disbelief and sustain the illusion of a living world, letting you mostly forget that it’s a pre-programmed game you’re interacting with. I always found something like the STALKER games great for this, with their dynamic A-life AI scheduling really selling the whole living world feeling.

I’ve had less time than I’d hoped, but I have started to play The Last Express. So far it’s a really beautiful, fascinating experience - although somewhat daunting.

Unlike a traditional point-and-click adventure, The Last Express plays out in real time: the train you’re on is constantly moving and the other passengers are too, doing things around the train and having conversations. This is not just an old fashioned classic adventure game or solving puzzles, but actually puts a major emphasis on time and timing. You find a dead body in a compartment? You gotta deal with it somehow, and when and how you do so seem to actually matter, creating some either fully or partly branching narratives (haven’t finished it yet). There is no quick save, but there is a “rewind” function if you’ve messed something up irrevocably, although there are also apparently also multiple endings depending on how you do things. For a game this old, the game world actually feels much more alive and vibrant than many newer titles. I think the nature of the limited scope of a confined space of a train, combined with the smart use of basically overlayed 2D rotoscoped film clips, allowed them to create this truly immersive experience where it really feels like you’re actively participating in a movie playing out in real time, not interacting with static NPCs in a video game.

Finally, I need to pour heaps of praise over the art direction and graphics. Using rotoscoping over live action footage and fully voice acting everything makes this game hold up visually in such a remarkable way for a 1997 release. It’s also good phenomenal voice acting - especially for the time - with some really good voice directing. I was incredibly impressed when eavesdropping on a conversation between two women early on, one french and the other English. They would both switch languages occasionally in a natural way, and both use the appropriate accent when speaking their non-native language.

Absolutely recommend this game to anyone who appreciates games as an art form.

They’ve done it forever, it’s been part of their initial concept for ages. Lots of the actual old games on there (as the name Good Old Games is derived from) are pre-patched to work on modern machines without setup, often also including community patches if there are any.

I mean, I agree with you in principle - domain names can matter. I remember people were similarly concerned about lemmy.zip back when it launched since .zip links on the internet can be… not so great.

In this case though I don’t see it, I think indie-ver.se is a great name and super fitting.

No idea, but regardless that is an Epic-problem and not a Remedy problem. Remedy only cares about whether or not they made a profit. Yes, perhaps sales figures on PC/EGS would be of concern to them if they were still partnered with Epic for future releases, but as they’ve already moved on to self publishing I don’t think they care anymore from where the money has come, as long as it is coming. And Alan Wake 2 has been profitable for over a year now.

Alan Wake 1 was a commercial flop. Other publishers thought the IP was a one-way ticket to losses. The Epic deal wasn’t the first time Remedy tried making AW2, they tried to talk Microsoft into it at first but they refused to touch the IP which led to Quantum Break instead.

It’s not that publishers didn’t trust Remedy so much as they wanted them to do other IPs instead of wasting money on a passion project like Alan Wake.

That article is almost two years old. They broke even on AW2 around a year ago, and are now making profits. Would they have sold more if Epic would have magically agreed on both financing the whole game and not having it be an exclusive? Probably. But that wasn’t ever going to happen. Remedy got to make the game they wanted to make and didn’t even end up losing money on it, and from the way they talk about it they sound satisfied with that.

I mean, both statements in this “argument” are true. Alan Wake 2 would have sold more copies if it was also on Steam in its current form. But its current form wouldn’t exist without Epic, so the argument is kind of moot. No other publisher would touch the IP with a ten-foot pole and Remedy really wanted to make it. I’m not surprised Remedy have a positive opinion of Epic after they were willing to fund their super ambitious passion project.

I don’t know if it’s exactly what you’re looking for (and it might have a little too much gameplay) but I just finished the Banner Saga (first part of the trilogy) and it at least offers what you’re looking for in terms of choices mattering and branching storylines - especially going into game 2 and three apparently.

What mods did you go for? I should make another attempt to finish RDR2 at some point and diving into some more mods might inspire me to actually do so…

I think an exception is okay every now and then, I personally just like this community the most so I also broke the rules last year and talked about playing Blue Prince and E33 on release last year. Sometimes you can’t actually wait to play a game, you know? I felt both of those merited it, especially Blue Prince as participating in the zeitgeist of that and being part of discovering the game at a point where the community hadn’t even discovered all the secrets yet was amazing.

But yes, in general this is for the more patient kind of gaming.

Not the most patient of gaming, but I don’t blame you as it looks drop dead gorgeous! I was also enticed when I saw it release but as always with the genre I have to hesitate a bit since I both such at and don’t particularly enjoy platforming and will easily get frustrated and not enjoy it if there is too much difficult precision platforming.

Will be interested to hear your thoughts on it regardless, I did still wishlist it purely because of the art.

I finished the Banner Saga. I really wish I enjoyed the combat in it, as I’m sadly probably not going to find it in me to finish the trilogy. Which is a huge shame, because the rest of the game I really loved. Art was beautiful, music gorgeous, world building interesting and the story and characters were well written. I really do recommend the game, especially if you can grab it on sale. I love a game that doesn’t shy away from tragedy, that allows characters to die and that lets your actions actually have consequences. The tone and style felt really distinctive and just… refreshing compared to a lot of recent RPGs I’ve played. It’s slow, melancholic and somber. I really liked it for that.

Next up I’m probably tackling The Last Express, a game I picked up on sale a while ago and have been really keen to experience ever since randomly stumbling upon a video essay about it some months back and stopping the video about 15 minutes in with the realization that this is a game I need to experience.

I hope the move goes well!

Finished the Alan Wake 2 DLCs. Enjoyed them very much. The first two Night Springs episodes I thought were kind of so-so, but the third one was great and really had Remedy stretch their creative legs and both flex some mixed media usage and fully signal that Quantum Break is a part of the Remedyverse, at least in spirit. The Lake House DLC was just an excellent little horror episode, amazing atmosphere and gameplay while also being a very sharp criticism of AI art, which while perhaps not subtle I can still agree with and appreciate.

I also played through about 70% of the first Banner Saga. I have very mixed feelings about this game. The art, music, story, writing and world building are all excellent. It’s a very pretty game. I just… I don’t really vibe with the combat. The way the turn based system works and the way the damage stat and HP stat being unified plays out just makes fights end up kind of… weird. It’s very different from most games and I’m not really finding it that enjoyable. I haven’t played it in a few days now but I might just turn it down to Easy and breeze through it so I can see how the story goes.

Ah, now I remember your username from a Deadlock thread the other day. Yeah if you vehemently hate third-person perspective in a shooter then there is no saving it, I guess.

I mean, I don’t know. You have to watch it with 2013 eyes. Sure, if you only look at it like “oh, cover-based shooting” then sure. But what’s suggested by the trailer (seamless world, PvE and PvP simultaneously in the open world, proximity-based voice, some kind of mobile-app integration for drone support, faithfully rendered New York environment, extraction shooter gameplay YEARS before it was cool or even a thing…) still kind of looks like an appealing package imo and back then it truly did look mind blowing.

Of course I’m well aware of how it turned out, but I even watching it back I get why I was so hyped for it once.

I remember watching one of the early gameplay trailers for the first Division and thinking it looked like the coolest game ever. Wonder if third time is the charm for the series.

EDIT: trailer I was thinking about for those who haven’t seen it, E3 2013 trailer.. 13 years ago, fuck me.

Alan Wake 2 is the only title I ever bought on Epic too. Do not regret it, despite my dislike of Epic and EGS. My desire to support Remedy was magnitudes larger than any desire to protest Tim Sweeny.

Yes, this is it right here. The whole point of art is communication and connection with another human being.

If you can’t find an invite there I can probably sort you out.

I thought so too at first, but I actually don’t think the movement aspect of Deadlock would feel as good in first person.

Interesting failure states has to be one of the most difficult things to implement in game design. To this day I struggle to think of many examples besides Disco Elysium that manage to discourage save scumming purely by virtue of having failed rolls often lead to equally or more beneficial and interesting results as successful rolls.

That’s part of it sure, but it just… doesn’t feel right. Someone else pointed out how it is almost an “alternate universe Max Payne 2” with how it feels narratively like a more follow-up to the first game than the second. It also just has a very different tone and style in the writing. It doesn’t have that Remedy vibe. Everything from the characters and main story to the TV bits, which feel very different compared to Lords and Ladies and Adress Unknown.

It’s by no means a bad game, and the action bits are awesome. It just doesn’t feel like a Max Payne game to me.

Ah, that makes sense! Damn I wish Itagaki was still with us. That might make me actually wishlist this game, though. I played Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time recently (also by Soleil, the last game Itagaki was involved in) and was pretty positively surprised by it.

Gives me Ninja Gaiden 2 vibes, only with less aggressive enemies.

Remedy are doing a connected universe, kind of like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. People are calling it the Remedyverse. They’ve started blending their IPs into each other, even IPs they no longer own like Max Payne and Quantum Break (where they just change the names pretty much so “Alex Casey” becomes “legally distinct Max Payne”). It’s very cool and really comes to its head in Alan Wake 2, which really is enhanced quite a bit by playing the other Remedy games in order first.

Max Payne 3 isn’t bad at all - it’s a very tight 3rd person shooter. It’s just that it was made by Rockstar and not Remedy (Rockstar had bought the IP after Max Payne 2). So Max Payne 3 doesn’t really “feel” like a Max Payne game. It’s still a good game though, I just kind of wish it was independent of the Max Payne franchise.

Man, old paper magazine PC Gamer… Strong nostalgia overload. Getting a copy was always the highlight of the month, that era of like 1995-2009 was really the golden age of PC gaming.

It definitely is time for Max Payne! Well, unless you want to wait for the RTC Remix mod. And it’s the first step into the wonderful Remedyverse too, culminating in the fantastic Alan Wake 2!

Both MP 1&2 are honestly amazing, and they are very short games too so not really a huge commitment compared to some modern titles. The comic book style slideshow used instead of cutscenes was also ingenious as it has let the game age incredibly gracefully.

I think TALKER Expanded is in a stable and decent enough state to take a little break, which I sorely need honestly. Been burning out a bit on it lately. So this week I will finally be playing some games.

First on the docket is the Lake House DLC for Alan Wake 2. I was in the middle of playing the DLCs when I got sidetracked into this project. After that I’ll get into one of my Christmas games, either Chrono Ark or The Banner Saga. Might play both depending on how long they are and how much of a break I need. Leaning on starting with the Banner Saga.

Do it! The story and writing is still great and the gameplay holds up surprisingly well for such an old game (not that it will feel modern, but it’s not a chore to play).

While it win the Indie Award, I wonder?

Dark Souls will probably be great, and I’m also very curious about Pokémon HGSS as that has a special place in my heart.

Well… kinda but not really. The room-placement is only a small part of Blue Prince though and I think turning it into a roguelite was pretty innovative.

Funny story, Tonda Ros actually hadn’t heard of Betrayal until Blue Prince was well into beta testing. These things happen. The true inspiration for it was a choose-your-own-adventure/puzzle book by Christopher Manson called “The Maze”. Manson actually contributed with the art for the paintings in the Gallery in Blue Prince.

Okay listen. I know I haven’t played it myself but… Isn’t Arc Raiders just another fucking extraction shooter? How the fuck does it beat Blue Prince for most innovative gameplay?

It’s your funeral, pretty sure the Steam version still comes with SecuROM DRM - if it even launches. No clue how that DRM plays with Linux, either tbh.

Get it from GOG, download the Echo Patch and make sure to play the first expansion too (which is included), called Extraction Point. I think it’s even better than the base game actually. Definitely DON’T play the second expansion, and in fact probably just pretend the series ended after Extraction Point.

The game absolutely holds up, still plays like a dream. One of the best FPSes of all time for sure, great combat with good AI and fantastic gunplay from most of the arsenal (apart from a strangely anemic assault rifle). Also looks remarkably good for its age - some of the distortion effects especially like bullet traces during Bullet Time or shockwave ripples from explosions look surprisingly good for a 2005 release.

You can also jump through some extra hoops to make EAX audio work but it’s a bit of a headache.

“Spiritual successor to F.E.A.R.” was all they had to say to get me on board, but my backlog is still too large to pick it up unless on deep sale.

Ooh, I haven’t watched a Christopher Odd LP in a while! That’s nice and short too I think I’ll watch that today. Thanks for the suggestion!

Trepang2 is high on my wishlist, but that’s about all I’m familiar with on this list. Anyone else can comment on any of the rest of the games? Is this worthwhile?