New Testingstan

That's the one. It'll make most anybody at least a little uncomfortable.

Why's that?

I loved Spec Ops too. A lot. Even read a book someone had written about it.

In my gaming news, wrapped up Absolution last night with a less than subtle run through the cemetery. Now onto Binary Domain, which I got for five bucks. I figure it'll totally be worth that.

how would you rate absolution? I'm thinking about getting it now that it's dropping to below half-price in the second-hand shops

RyanThunder wrote:Why's that?

White phosphorous.

The character you play, his arc is brutally well done. You see him become a monster, to the point where he executes wounded enemies by caving their skull in with his rifle butt.

Absolution is a game with issues. They divert pretty hard from the classic Hitman formula and sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. There are some critical mechanics which you'll accidentally learn because the explanations of them only appear on loading screens and you might not get those.

At times I was immensely frustrated, but then it would feed me a new scenario that was fun and interesting. Hell, even when I was frustrated, it was because they'd fumbled the implementation of something more ambitious than just another Hitman level.

It's also fucking long - I put in maybe 20 hours on the campaign. For the twenty bucks it is on Steam or wherever else, I recommend it.

groovy, I might pick it up when I'm next in town

Aaron wrote:

RyanThunder wrote:Why's that?

White phosphorous.

The character you play, his arc is brutally well done. You see him become a monster, to the point where he executes wounded enemies by caving their skull in with his rifle butt.

How is that good?

Because the whole point of the game is to show how people SHOULD be reacting to the kinds of prolonged, insane violence that other military shooters have. The characters start losing their minds, become monsters and can't understand how they started doing such terrible things.

Seriously, get it and play it. It's regularly under 10 bucks and you can finish it in 2 or 3 short sittings.

RyanThunder wrote:How is that good?

It's confrontational, it's powerful, it's thought-provoking.

Absolution was boring as hell and one of the rare games I just got fed up with and quit.

why did you find it boring? Too many cutscenes, QTEs, gimpy controls, poor level design, or what?

weemadando wrote:Because the whole point of the game is to show how people SHOULD be reacting to the kinds of prolonged, insane violence that other military shooters have. The characters start losing their minds, become monsters and can't understand how they started doing such terrible things.

tbh it sounds like six hours of patronizing

"Well this is what'd really happen "

Seriously, get it and play it. It's regularly under 10 bucks and you can finish it in 2 or 3 short sittings.

Eh, may as well. I hope I'm wrong.

It's not patronising. It's telling a story as it goes, not always shoving it down your throat (except for one REALLY lingering shot). Plenty of people have missed it entirely in favour of engaging further dudebro-ism.

evilsoup wrote:why did you find it boring? Too many cutscenes, QTEs, gimpy controls, poor level design, or what?

The controls have issues (button swapping when using some items/weapons) and the QTEs can suck (fucking wrasslin).

But if you have a problem with too many cutscenes? There's not that many of them.

The most common complaint I've heard is people hating the pure traversal/evasion/stealth levels. Not that you have to stealth it.

RyanThunder wrote:

weemadando wrote:Because the whole point of the game is to show how people SHOULD be reacting to the kinds of prolonged, insane violence that other military shooters have. The characters start losing their minds, become monsters and can't understand how they started doing such terrible things.

tbh it sounds like six hours of patronizing

"Well this is what'd really happen "

Seriously, get it and play it. It's regularly under 10 bucks and you can finish it in 2 or 3 short sittings.

Eh, may as well. I hope I'm wrong.

Dude, it gives me nightmares and triggered me so bad I had to trafe it. it's not patronizing or any of the other shit we commonly think of with shooters.

its one of the best games I've ever played.

I think one of Spec Op's strongest aspects is how the pacing of each scene is timed very well with the music. Even on my second time through I felt the same tension with all the same parts where Walker starts to cross the line. The game pretty much makes you want to keep pressing on to see how it ends.

If you really liked that aspect Veef, then read this: http://stolenprojects.com/

It does a great job of breaking down a lot of those art, sound and design decisions.

Yeah someone tweeted that at me when I mentioned I was playing it but I couldn't figure out to pay for it with paypal.

evilsoup wrote:why did you find it boring? Too many cutscenes, QTEs, gimpy controls, poor level design, or what?

Cutscenes didn't bother me, no. The gameplay was just janky as hell. It's not good at being a stealth game, it's a pretty awful shooter, it's a game about being an assassin that punishes you incessantly for killing people, and the part that killed it completely was when you're strangling the slutty nuns in some cornfield. As an added bonus, Rhea told me it was boring to watch.

Veef wrote:Yeah someone tweeted that at me when I mentioned I was playing it but I couldn't figure out to pay for it with paypal.

That would've been me. Couldn't remember if I'd recommended it.

Oh. I think that might have been you. I dunno this technological world with all the cyborgs and sentient robot dogs with chainsaws is getting cra- SLICE EVERYTHING!

los, for reference, how do you rate the previous hitman games? Because most of what you wrote can be applied to them.

I only played Blood Money and thought it was pretty fun.

with Absolution, I heard that the guards were able to spot 47 as a fake too easily / form too far away - is that what you mean by it failing as a stealth game? Or was it something more fundamental?