They'd have to REALLY screw up this remaster for people to want to go back to the original. That was an awful port. So many issues with it. I remember I (and many others) had a weird bug where I couldn't get any audio unless I plugged in my microphone port.
I finished my first spooky game for October last night, Until Dawn. I'll just start by saying that I highly recommend playing this game if you are a fan of horror/slasher movies. The basic idea behind Until Dawn is that it's a teen slasher movie where you are put in charge of making all the dumb decisions that people make in those movies. Depending on what you choose to do throughout the game some, all, or none of the characters will survive until rescue comes at dawn.
The actual gameplay is simple enough that just about anyone should be able to pick it up and play. The gameplay consists of making decisions, quick time events, and holding the controller still when you are trying to hide. There is no way to lose. If you fail a quick time event or move the controller when you are trying to hide, a character might die but instead of taking you back to a previous check point to try again the story just continues without them. I've also heard that Until Dawn makes for a great party game even with people who don't typically play games. You either pass the controller around with your friends or just have one person hold the controller and everyone else shout out what they think should be done. I'd like to show it to my friends some time and see what they think.
I am a big fan of horror movies and I try to watch as many of them as I can every October in addition to scary games, although I don't always handle scary games as well as I do with movies. Until Dawn did a great job of putting me in the shoes of people in these movies and making me want to keep them alive even if I didn't actually like some of them (Emily, Jessica). They were able to pull this off because of they paired good writing and atmosphere that felt true to the genre of movie they were imitating with a great cast of actors with very good facial animation from TV/Movies.
For me, the game did a much better job of keeping me creeped out until it was revealed that
Josh was pranking them and there really wasn't a psycho killer. The Windigos were more goofy than scary to me especially after seeing them up close and personal so many times when Mike was making his way though the sanatorium. All I could think about was that I was shooting Jack Skellington with a shotgun over and over again.
This was actually okay with me since I don't do as well with pure horror in games as I do in movies. It was just a pretty significant change in tone for me.
In my playtrhough everyone except for Josh survived. That was mostly due to my decisions but I was also accidentally spoiled when I read a tweet about the game that said
whenever you are givin a choice to run or hide from a windigo hide or you will die and ignore the screams that sound like Jessica calling for help in the mines near the end of the game or Ashley will die.
I did make the rest of the correct decisions on my own though. I do recommend going in for your first playthrough knowing as little as possible because I feel slightly robbed by the fact that I don't know whether I would have made the right decision for those characters every time if I didn't read that Tweet.
In the end I liked the game a lot and I would like to see more games like this. I have heard it described it as an improved version of Heavy Rain adapted to teen horror and I can agree with that. I would like to see Supermassive make more of this kind of game with the same level of acting whether it is Until Dawn 2 or a completely different genre. It's definitely an underrated exclusive for PS4.
Yeah I lost that person too. The way it was presented to me though was that I didn't get enough information from clue searching to save them, as opposed to what you mentioned above. They got killed by something that wasn't that thing you mentioned near the very end of the game. I also think that I lost Matt, but I'm not sure if that was in my real playthrough or sometime when I went back to play a chapter. I just remember seeing him dead on a hook (that's not a spoiler as that can be avoided.)
But yes I agree that Until Dawn is an underappreciated gem in the PS4 library. It was one of my GOTY games last year and I encourage anyone with even a passing interest in it to give it a shot.
Yeah I lost that person too. The way it was presented to me though was that I didn't get enough information from clue searching to save them, as opposed to what you mentioned above. They got killed by something that wasn't that thing you mentioned near the very end of the game. I also think that I lost Matt, but I'm not sure if that was in my real playthrough or sometime when I went back to play a chapter. I just remember seeing him dead on a hook (that's not a spoiler as that can be avoided.)
But yes I agree that Until Dawn is an underappreciated gem in the PS4 library. It was one of my GOTY games last year and I encourage anyone with even a passing interest in it to give it a shot.
Yeah, I didn't mean that the choice between hiding and running is what got Josh killed. Knowing that hiding from the windigos was the correct answer did save Matt and Jessica for me though.
I looked it up after I finished the game and the only way to save Josh was to find every clue regarding his twin sisters and find out that Hannah actually survived the fall at the beginning of the game and ate her twin sister's dead body in the cave because she was starving and possessed by the spirit on the mountain. Once a person who is possessed by this spirit turns to cannibalism they turn into a windigo. This is why the stranger tells them he tries to capture the windigos instead of killing them. When you kill them the spirit goes into the air and can possess other people. If you find all these clues Josh recognizes that the Windigo trying to kill him is his sister and some how escapes from her. Unfortunately for him he ends up getting possessed by one of the spirits in the cave and starts eating the stranger's decapitated body. To wrap up a long explanation, even if you save Josh he still gets left behind in the cave and turns into a windigo.
After finishing the game I looked up what decides whether each character lives or dies and it turns out that some are pretty arbitrary. I just happened to pick the right choices but there really is no way to know whether you are doing it right or wrong. That's actually okay with me because some people just die in horror movies even when they try to do everything right. Here a couple that stick out to me.
For Matt to survive he has to be on good terms with his evil girlfriend Emily but then choose to disagree with her when she wants to go to the radio tower. If Matt is on bad terms with her she won't give him the flare gun. If he is on good terms with her but agrees that they should go to the radio tower he will shoot the flare into the air and waste it. If Matt does not have the flare gun with a flare still in it when he falls into the mine a windigo will drag him to a hook on the wall and kill him with it. He has to shoot the windigo with a flare to survive. This one feels completely arbitrary to me but I managed to stumble into it correctly by pure luck.
For Jessica to survive Mike has to take the fast, dangerous option every time he is given the choice when he is chasing after her when she is pulled through the window. If you take the safe choice a single time or fail any of the QTEs she will be decapitated before he gets to her. If you make it in time to scare the windigo off she still falls down the elevator shaft into the mine and then has to choose to hide rather than run every time she is given the choice.
For Chris to survive he has to choose to shoot himself or do nothing when the saws are slowly coming down on their heads and he is asked to pick one of them to survive. I did nothing because I knew there had to be a way for each character to survive but it turns out that the bullets are blanks planted by Josh and no one was actually in danger. If you made the decision for Chris to shoot Ashley to save himself she kills him later in the game by not unlocking the door and letting him back into the lodge when a windigo is chasing him.
For Ashley to survive you have to choose to ignore a voice that is clearly Jessica's calling for help in the mines near the end of the game. If you open the door to try to help her you find out that it was a windigo mimicking Jessica's voice and Ashley is decapitated. Here you are basically punished for trying to do the right thing to save another one of the characters. Every other time you are given the choice between saving yourself or one of your friends you have to save your friend or they die. This is the one I think I would have messed up if I didn't accidentally see the tweet that spoiled it for me.
Wow... I did NOT know that part about the twins.... gross.. ;p
(I really hope no one reads the spoiler tag explaining that reference and they just let their morbid imaginations run wild.)
So I tried about a half hour worth of Gears 4 Horde mode this morning. I originally just wanted to benchmark the game (and my card did quite well) but I saw I had some time and nothing better to do so at 5:30 am I jumped into a game. Had no problem finding a game and I was matched with One and PC players, all of who were much higher rank than me. I wish I could have played until the match ended but I had to leave early, mainly because I didn't think work would accept my answer of "I was fighting off the Hordes" as an excuse for my tardiness, nor would my wife accept that as the answer to why the kids' breakfasts weren't made and lunches weren't packed (I'm a busy beaver in the morning.)
I'm not going to get into all the specifics of the Horde mode, but one major difference is that unlike that of Gears 2, you actually have to protect a stationary "Payload" that acts as a cache and equipment center. When you kill guys they drop "credits" that then need to be deposited to help fund all the new equipment, like spikes, guns, decoys, etc. This means that survival is not the main goal like it's been in the past. When you die, your COG tags can be picked up by teammates and you can be revived at the base.
As far as the action goes, it's still fun us against the world gameplay, and doing it at 60 FPS I think really is going to stop me from going back to Gears 2 with it's sub-30 frame rate when things got hectic. I wasn't tracking the FPS but I didn't notice any slowdown while playing. I'm also not sure how the points you earn from playing will affect things. One of the complaints I've read is that you need a LOT of grinding to unlock good stuff, but quite frankly unlike Overwatch I don't feel compelled to go above and beyond to try and get better skins. I don't care if my Marcus Fenix character just runs around in a shirt and jeans. It actually helps IMO because it means I stand out more to my teammates and I don't just look like another generic COG fighter (which sometimes blend in with the enemies.)
Overall I did have fun playing and I like to think that once I learn the classes I think it'll improve even more. It'll be nice to have another game that king3pj and I can play, and hopefully some of my Xbox One friends will pick this up and we can do some major Horde games like I've always wanted to do since Gears 2. My dream may FINALLY become a reality!
I'm also psyched to play through the campaign since I've seen how well my machine runs the game, although sadly I can't do it tonight because I will be attending an exclusive opening night showing of a limited theatrical release starring one of the most iconic movie characters of all time. Oh, and it looks like Overwatch will be getting some attention since apparently the Halloween Games start tonight.
Looks like I'll be doing a lot of gaming tonight. I planned to try and finish the Modern Warfare remastered campaign tonight but I know I'm going to want to play some Gears 4 Horde and maybe unlock a Halloween loot box or two in Overwatch.
One of the complaints I've read is that you need a LOT of grinding to unlock good stuff, but quite frankly unlike Overwatch I don't feel compelled to go above and beyond to try and get better skins.
So I tried about a half hour worth of Gears 4 Horde mode this morning. I originally just wanted to benchmark the game (and my card did quite well) but I saw I had some time and nothing better to do so at 5:30 am I jumped into a game. Had no problem finding a game and I was matched with One and PC players, all of who were much higher rank than me. I wish I could have played until the match ended but I had to leave early, mainly because I didn't think work would accept my answer of "I was fighting off the Hordes" as an excuse for my tardiness, nor would my wife accept that as the answer to why the kids' breakfasts weren't made and lunches weren't packed (I'm a busy beaver in the morning.)
I ended up playing about a half hour of Horde mode over my lunch break since I'm working from home today. Three people died near the end of the 4th round and they were mad that me and the other survivor didn't take their tags back to the base to revive them. The reason we didn't do that is because there were only 3 enemies left and reviving a dead teammate costs resources. We chose to save those resources to buy more defenses instead of wasting them on a revive when everyone comes back at the end of each round anyways.
I got a message that said I was removed from the game right after I finished this round. It wasn't clear from the wording on the message whether the game leader kicked me because he was mad I didn't revive him or if it was simply a disconnect because the servers are overloaded.
I'm really hoping it wasn't the former because hosts being in charge of horde mode was one of the few things that hurt my enjoyment of it in Gears 2. If the host left in Gears 2 everyone else was kicked. This happened to me one night when I was in the 40s and the game ends at round 50 and it was infuriating. I have still never completed all 50 rounds in Gears 2. The host could also kick you at any time for any reason. I'm not sure why the concept of a "game leader" even exists in Gears 4 Horde now that we are in an era of dedicated servers. If one player still has the ability to kick whoever they want from public matchmaking horde games I think they made a big mistake.
Again, I don't know if this is what actually happened or if the game fell apart because of server overload. The wording in the message was unclear. First it said that I was removed from the game and then it said I was disconnected.
The Fourth Round? Either they absolutely suck or they had awful lag. It really doesn't pick up until Round 7, and as long as you know to keep your head down when bullets come your way. I got to level 15 when I had to quit, but the way things were going I didn't see any reason why I couldn't have reached 20, and I had no idea how to fight the new enemies or use the new weapons.
The Fourth Round? Either they absolutely suck or they had awful lag. It really doesn't pick up until Round 7, and as long as you know to keep your head down when bullets come your way. I got to level 15 when I had to quit, but the way things were going I didn't see any reason why I couldn't have reached 20, and I had no idea how to fight the new enemies or use the new weapons.
Yeah, it was pretty bad. The only explanation I can come up with is that 2 of the 3 players who died were playing on PC. Maybe they have never played a Gears game before and don't understand the way cover works in these games. Either way, I don't think we were going to make it very far even if I hadn't been disconnected. I needed to get back to work anyways so it's probably a good thing that it happened.
To be honest, I'm going to have a hard time keeping myself from jumping into the campaign tonight when I know it's sitting on my PC waiting for me. I complained about the Overwatch event starting on the same day as the Gears 4 launch earlier but now my quest for Halloween skins along with Gears Horde/multiplayer might be the only thing that keeps the game fresh for when we start our co-op campaign tomorrow night.
Me and yourbeliefs finished up the Gears of War 4 campaign last night. Overall, I'd say that it was a very good Gears game. By that I mean this is a refined version of the games we have already played. If you liked the previous games you are probably going to like this one too. If you didn't there isn't much here that is going to change your mind. I will say that they learned from the frustrating vehicle sections in the previous games. When vehicles are involved in this game they are more fun and there is much less chance that you will fail those segments and repeat them several times.
The new characters are likeable and their dialog is pretty good but the story is just okay. I heard Jeff Gerstmann compare the ending to Halo 2 on the Giant Bombcast last week. I don't think it's quite as bad as it was in that game. We aren't ending right in the middle of the game's climax where the hero jumps out of ship while holding on to a bomb only to be told to buy Halo 3 to see what happens.
Gears 4 does end with a big boss fight even if it isn't all that memorable. There is a conclusion to the story even if that entire story consists of chasing after the main characters' family members. The early part of the game sets up some interesting conflict between the COG and outsider settlements but doesn't really do much with that conflict from there. You also don't get much detail about where the new enemy came from and you aren't doing all that much to stop them even by the end of the game. It's a more personal story about trying to save these characters' family and not so much about actually taking care of the enemy.
I really did like the game but Gears of War has been one of my favorite franchises since the first game came out. This is another very good game in that series. It is very clear that they knew going in that this would be a trilogy though. In a lot of ways this feels like setup for Gears 5 and 6. Gears 1 didn't have this same problem because sequels to that game weren't a sure thing. They had to make the conflict feel somewhat complete in one game. Gears 4 needs those sequels to wrap up the conflict.
Our office was shutdown yesterday for PC upgrades. This meant that I had plenty of time for gaming and spooky movies on Halloween. I grabbed Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare DLC for $5 on sale but after doing some reading I found out that there were some spoilers in it for the main game so I decided to hold off until I finish that.
Next, I looked through my Steam library and saw lots of choices including Soma, Dead Space, Resident Evil Remastered/RE4, and Oxenfree but I decided I wanted something I could finish while it was still Halloween. I was leaning towards Oxenfree at first but it the end I decided to go with Costume Quest.
Costume Quest is not a horror game in any way. It is a RPG with turn based combat that takes place on Halloween. You control a group of kids who go out trick or treating but end up fighting monsters who are trying to steal all the candy. When the battle sequences start the kids transform into a giant version of whatever they are dressed up as and they have powers and combat skills to fight the monsters.
You are constantly building new costumes as the game progresses and you can put each member of your party into any of those costumes at any time outside of combat. Each costume comes with different abilities and there are 11 of them so there is a surprising amount of depth to the combat, even if it is designed to be easy enough for kids to beat it. Even with that in mind I did fail the combat sections a few times so you do need to use some strategy.
I should also point out that this game comes from Tim Shaffer's Double Fine Studios. That means it comes with the cute art style and writing that their games are known for. It did a nice job of getting me in the Halloween mood even if it doesn't have any horror elements to it. It's too bad that they don't let each member of your party be controlled cooperatively like the Lego games. If they did I think parents with younger kids could have fun with this game.
It's currently on sale on Steam for $0.99 but that runs out in about an hour so it's probably too late to recommend that deal. I do know that Costume Quest 2 has been offered free on both PS4 and Xbox One and it is currently being offered free on PS3 so you may just want to start there if you miss the sale.
Costume Quest and Costume Quest 2 are a lot of fun. But the Costume Quest 2 story, which is structured around a time-travel element, will probably make a lot more sense (and you'll understand a lot more of the humor) if you play them in order since CQ2 picks up the same story with the same group of kids.
I agree that co-op would've been nice since you always have multiple kids in your party and the games are very kid friendly.
Oh, and it looks like Overwatch will be getting some attention since apparently the Halloween Games start tonight.
