Also for anyone interested in it, but don't want to waste your money the game was originally a Source mod, which is free.
First released in June 2008 as a free mod for the Source engine, the game was completely remade between 2009 and 2011 for a commercial release in February 2012.
Dear Esther is a bit of an oddity. It sprang to life in 2008 as a Source mod and was reborn yesterday as a longer and far more detailed stand-alone "game."
Why would you not agree? If you play the mod for 5 minutes and say to yourself "this is a cool concept, if only this was more fleshed out and looked better I would love to play it" then you should get it. It would save you from playing the actual game and realizing that its basically just a virtual short story.
Picked up Analogue: A Hate Story during the Steam sale (it's $5,) and just finished it. I'd played the designer's previous game/visual novel don't take it personally, babe, this just ain't your story (which is a fantastic game, and also free.)
So I was looking forward to playing this new one and it doesn't disappoint. It is possibly the perfect interactive visual novel. Not because of the story (which is really good,) but for just how perfectly the whole thing is structured. It's just smart; really really smart.
I can't really say more without spoiling things, because I think just learning how everything is set up and presented is an important part of the experience.
Picked up Analogue: A Hate Story during the Steam sale (it's $5,) and just finished it. I'd played the designer's previous game/visual novel don't take it personally, babe, this just ain't your story (which is a fantastic game, and also free.)
So I was looking forward to playing this new one and it doesn't disappoint. It is possibly the perfect interactive visual novel. Not because of the story (which is really good,) but for just how perfectly the whole thing is structured. It's just smart; really really smart.
I can't really say more without spoiling things, because I think just learning how everything is set up and presented is an important part of the experience.
I'm pretty sure they also had "Digital: A love story", too, which was by all reports pretty decent.
Picked up Analogue: A Hate Story during the Steam sale (it's $5,) and just finished it. I'd played the designer's previous game/visual novel don't take it personally, babe, this just ain't your story (which is a fantastic game, and also free.)
So I was looking forward to playing this new one and it doesn't disappoint. It is possibly the perfect interactive visual novel. Not because of the story (which is really good,) but for just how perfectly the whole thing is structured. It's just smart; really really smart.
I can't really say more without spoiling things, because I think just learning how everything is set up and presented is an important part of the experience.
I'm pretty sure they also had "Digital: A love story", too, which was by all reports pretty decent.
Yeah, that one is also for free on her site. I plan to play it one of these days.
New Vegas is the same engine as Fallout 3, but the game itself is really sort of thrown together. Going to play until I actually get to Vegas to see if there is some magic there.
I love New Vegas' items and a lot of its plot, and while it's a little thrown together, I think it tells a better story than Fallout 3 in the long-run (and provides for more freedom of actual choice). I just felt like I was actually in control.
The way I describe it to people is that Fallout 3 lacked a little in the plot department and was more linear, but boy did the developers know how to tell a story with the environment. You found a skeleton in the bathtub with a toaster, that sort of thing. How cool was that? The placement of items in the environment mattered and you could find quite a bit of implied plot and quite a bit of humor.
The devs who did FNV were handed a resource kit and didn't seem to know what to do with it. Certain assets were used incorrectly (like the radioactive pools in FO3 that were simply rusty water puddles in FNV and threw you off at first) and the environment may as well have been randomly populated most of the time. BUT, the story had way more branching and options and your actions actually changed the gameworld noticably far more than in FO3. Still, the NPR plot line was really the only fully fleshed out one.
I feel like the Brotherhood story and several of the followers are great, and a lot of small plots are super interesting. New Vegas' DLC is also better.
New Vegas is the same engine as Fallout 3, but the game itself is really sort of thrown together. Going to play until I actually get to Vegas to see if there is some magic there.
My friend beat the game in a couple hours, he just wandered around and happened to head into Vegas. Then just god in a giant shoot out and killed the guy he was supposed to kill.
The devs who did FNV were handed a resource kit and didn't seem to know what to do with it. Certain assets were used incorrectly (like the radioactive pools in FO3 that were simply rusty water puddles in FNV and threw you off at first) and the environment may as well have been randomly populated most of the time. BUT, the story had way more branching and options and your actions actually changed the gameworld noticably far more than in FO3. Still, the NPR plot line was really the only fully fleshed out one.
I think the developers, Obsidian Entertainment, is made up of people that used to be part of Black Isle which worked on the first two games which I thought was interesting. The game kinda reminds me a bit more of the Fallout 1 and 2 but also sort of as buggy.
I'm enjoying Arkham City as pretty much more of the same. The free-roaming element is ok, but I don't think excites me as much as most people since I generally don't enjoy sandbox games. The side-quests I've encountered so far have been fairly uninteresting to me and had me quickly dropping them in favor of the main story. I am mostly ignoring the Riddler trophies too, as I did in the first game. So I suppose this game only feels like more of the same to me because I am not really touching the parts that are actually different about it.
I totally agree that FNV feels more like Fallout 1 and 2. Here you are, WTF are you supposed to be doing? Just go around doing shit! Fallout 3 started you off with a reason for things.
Pressing the "random subreddit" button repeatedly (that's one of the best buttons on the internet, and how I found things like /r/fifthworldproblems, /r/awwwgonewild, and /r/explainlikeimjive) I encountered something called Civcraft. Could someone explain to me what this is? From what I can tell, it's a bunch of servers who have linked themselves to extreme political ideologies -- there's a group called the RSSR, "Reunion of Soviet Socialist Republics" -- and they keep fighting each other and fucking up each others shit.
I just played Thirty Flights of Loving, which is kind of the sequel to Gravity Bone. It doesn't disappoint, but I definitely need to play through it a few more times to wrap my head around it.
I totally agree that FNV feels more like Fallout 1 and 2. Here you are, WTF are you supposed to be doing? Just go around doing shit! Fallout 3 started you off with a reason for things.
Finding the guys that shot you, or not. Your choice. Head towards Primm to get more plot.
I totally agree that FNV feels more like Fallout 1 and 2. Here you are, WTF are you supposed to be doing? Just go around doing shit! Fallout 3 started you off with a reason for things.
Finding the guys that shot you, or not. Your choice. Head towards Primm to get more plot.
Played the first episode of Telltale Games' Back to the Future series today. It was a solid effort. Had a couple of bugs, but its a solid game and a good adaptation. Probably one of the easier point-and-click adventure games out there. Best part of the game is definitely the voice acting. They couldn't get Michael J. Fox, but the guy they got to replace him sounds almost identical, and I hear Fox does voice other McFlys in other episodes. They do have Christopher Lloyd though. The Stylized graphics are also fine.
Comments
Also for anyone interested in it, but don't want to waste your money the game was originally a Source mod, which is free.
http://www.moddb.com/members/chineseroom/downloads/dear-esther-original-2009
So I was looking forward to playing this new one and it doesn't disappoint. It is possibly the perfect interactive visual novel. Not because of the story (which is really good,) but for just how perfectly the whole thing is structured. It's just smart; really really smart.
I can't really say more without spoiling things, because I think just learning how everything is set up and presented is an important part of the experience.
The devs who did FNV were handed a resource kit and didn't seem to know what to do with it. Certain assets were used incorrectly (like the radioactive pools in FO3 that were simply rusty water puddles in FNV and threw you off at first) and the environment may as well have been randomly populated most of the time. BUT, the story had way more branching and options and your actions actually changed the gameworld noticably far more than in FO3. Still, the NPR plot line was really the only fully fleshed out one.
New Vegas' DLC is also better.
It also comes to a very entertaining end when you get all of them.
Wait, I think this might be hippies, not just girls without makeup.
146 hours.
Beautiful game.