Deathloop - Round and round we go - The Bear and Badger

JonB

I think the real quality of it comes through in the loop structure. At first it's good solid Arkane stuff, slightly more fun because it's less fussy and lets you get away with more. 8/10.

But get used to it and start to repeat with different powers, different objectives, find more routes, hidden layers, and then start to connect it all together and it should feel like something much smarter.

I liked Dishonored but was always slowed down by trying to play it full stealth mode. Get spotted, reload the last save, learn, try again. In Deathloop, that process is built into the structure more organically and with less frustration. Get spotted this time and bumble your way through noisily, but then you'll learn from that and do it better next time. Until you eventually have to do it better and find you've picked up the knowledge and the skills naturally along the way.

And also, it's fun. Try running up and kicking someone off a cliff.

mistercrayon

I think I like how few “collectibles” there are. They don’t seem to want to encourage you to snaffle everything in every nook pit cranny.

FranticPea

No shitting here. I don't play COD either.

Just underwhelmed so far but I'll be the first to change my tune if it all starts to get funky and cool. Just not there yet.

Officer_V

This should arrive today, hope in the least its a short fun campaign. I'll be able to deal with the A.I etc looking daft if its a good shooty bang for a few hours.

FranticPea

I've read it's 20 to 30, and it encourages you to not shoot.

Dark Soldier

Apparently it's preference is stealth, but it's not like Dishonored where you're punished for aggression. Just go guns out.

Officer_V

FranticPea wrote:

I've read it's 20 to 30, and it encourages you to not shoot.

20-30 hours? It'll have to be incredible in some way for me to even think about completing it.

mistercrayon

So far I’ve stealthed until it went tits up but then went bananas to recover. It doesn’t punish you for either other than going all guns is the slightly harder way to win.

For me this is the ideal form of this genre. You should just play it and it should feel normal - but if you looked at different people playing they would say the same thing even though they are playing differently.

It’s also worth remembering baked into the design is the idea that a real life person is intended to invade your game and fuck your shit up. So a slight blandness in the AI is the counterweight against a clever ruiner

drumbeg

FranticPea wrote:

The AI is hilarious. Two enemies were both clipping through one another running on the spot against a door I had closed last night. Easy stealth kills.

My copy arrived today and I've spent around an hour with it. Have already seen an NPC walking into a brick wall. Does using the reprise ability send them a bit gaga? Seems to.

FranticPea

I've had them spot me through a wall too when I'm stealthing but whatever, happens in alot of games.

drumbeg

So, what makes this an "immersive sim" then? Not sure I understand the term.

Silke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_sim

mistercrayon

I’m not convinced it’s an immersive sim because 0451 doesn’t work for the first door.

Paul the sparky

Immersive sim is a canny shite term

drumbeg

Silke wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_sim

Thanks. It sounds a bit emperor's new clothes to me. Hoping to be amazed though.

Bob

Paul the sparky wrote:

Have you played it Bob?

No but i don’t like CoD and played through dishonoured twice second time with a guide giving me some idea of the depth it’s possible to
Miss the first time playing it like a regular game

mrsmr2

Colt's victory animations after completing a mission are the least immersive sim thing ever. So this fails the immersive sim test.

yourfavouriteuncle

A further 80 mins or so have confirmed that this is brilliant and just my kind of thing. The guns feel brilliant and I like the lady talking through my pad. 11 out of 10 just for the fact my daughter thought I had a 1960’s American lady on speaker phone.

Escape

drumbeg wrote:

Does using the reprise ability send them a bit gaga?

drumbeg wrote:

Silke wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_sim

Thanks. It sounds a bit emperor's new clothes to me. Hoping to be amazed though.

Describes the gameplay strengths of the older GTAs, funnily enough.

drumbeg

I think I'm at the point where most of the early exposition is out of the way. There's a lot of it and I'll be glad when I can just let rip. Still trying to get the sense of how to engage the enemies. It seems like when there are just a couple, just wading in will get the job done. Not much creativity to my play yet, but I'm guessing that will come with additional powers.

FranticPea

I'm enjoying this a little more now, but some of the side puzzles are annoying the shit out of me. I spent forever last night on a map looking for a wheel to open a safe and gave up eventually. No idea if it exists in another time of day or what, but I can't be arsed scouring the map 4 times. Maybe its obvious and shows up during a particular story beat? Who knows. I don't even know if what's in the safe is worth bothering doing it all for.

I did get an awesome gold weapon last night from an arsenal lead mission thing, and that puzzle was quite cool.

Listened to the Nextlander podcast this morning and by the sounds of it the guy that had completed the game didn't bother with most of the obscure side stuff. Like those delivery station things that exist on each map. I can't work them out either, and the fact he didn't means it's probably not story related. It's probably something obscure like looking at a certain place at a certain time or you've no chance.

acemuzzy

Would I like this?

yourfavouriteuncle

Perhaps?

drumbeg

Have lots of discoveries appearing in my knowledge base at the moment, but half the time I don't know why I discovered something. Perhaps overheard snippets of NPC conversation that I didn't even realise I was eavesdropping on. Still getting a feel for every thing and not really sticking to the objectives.

I'm easily distracted by any opportunity to knock someone off a cliff.

Syph79

It’s mostly from listening to the dictaphone thingies and using the computers to read emails.

FranticPea

I wish they hadn't scattered the maps with clipboards and other papers that you can't interact with. I'm spending half the time hovering the crosshair over them thinking it might be some code I'm going to miss. This is one game where I'm wishing for huge glowing lines around items you can interact with.

yourfavouriteuncle

Yeah, I thought exactly that last night.

Syph79

FranticPea wrote:

I wish they hadn't scattered the maps with clipboards and other papers that you can't interact with. I'm spending half the time hovering the crosshair over them thinking it might be some code I'm going to miss. This is one game where I'm wishing for huge glowing lines around items you can interact with.

There's a thin white line around the key items. It's subtle, but it's there.

JonB

drumbeg wrote:

Have lots of discoveries appearing in my knowledge base at the moment, but half the time I don't know why I discovered something. Perhaps overheard snippets of NPC conversation that I didn't even realise I was eavesdropping on. Still getting a feel for every thing and not really sticking to the objectives. I'm easily distracted by any opportunity to knock someone off a cliff.

Yeah, it comes from NPC conversations quite often. It'll put any side quests or things of interest in the menu as you discover them, and you can choose to track them.

mistercrayon

Yep.

I for one am glad of the reduced interactables and the way it implies you paid attention

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