knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
I actually figured it out, but before I did I spend at least an hour of playtime dicking around in the first room because I never saw the damned open window.
And then I got into the second bit and couldn't see a damned thing even with the brightness all the way up.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I actually figured it out, but before I did I spend at least an hour of playtime dicking around in the first room because I never saw the damned open window.
And then I got into the second bit and couldn't see a damned thing even with the brightness all the way up.
Yeah, that room gets stupidly dark. Not sure what's up with that. Glad you got it solved!
I really like the gameplay (even if I think the Spiderman rope is a bit antithetical to the spirit of the game), and combat is much more enjoyable after you invest pretty heavily into the combat tree.
But man, this story is painfully dumb, and the city is a huge disappointment. I'll take the bare plot of the first over this one any day of the week. Same with the much more realistic city. The only area I've been to in the new one that feels mostly like a real place so far has been the construction site. Everything else is a bit too glossy to feel real.
The first game's themes worked because it felt (mostly) like a plausible near future dystopia. Yeah, the runner conceit was kind of silly, same with Project Icarus, but the plot starting with a murder in the mayor's office and having the city feel more or less like a normal city with a clear, realistic problem of corrupted public officials is something we can all understand and somewhat relate to. This city, with a family-run Conglomerate, a bunch of unnecessary lingo, and no real political structure outside of a generic "We're in charge, obey us" military force, and no indication of how people live is just... hollow.
Where's the malls? The last city had a mall. Where's the nightclubs? Or any indication that these people live and work and have fun and are willingly complicit in this futile future they live in because they're distracted by the pleasures of the future along with the fear of disrupting the status quo?
I can't help but compare it to DX:HR, because that seems to be where DICE took a lot of their inspiration, but the aesthetic isn't the entire story. DX works because we see people in logical places rather than rooftops (it's really jarring to see non-mission NPCs just hanging out near a roof vent for no reason). It works because there are newspapers and news reports we can actually read/watch that aren't just background noise. It works because there are emails that are strikingly normal, which ground the fantastic into the mundane. And it works because the megacorps allow a facade of actual governance (which is what the first Mirror's Edge had).
I feel like, with more care for the details, that this could've been a great game. Something to make me give a shit about these characters. Something that makes the non-Kruger corporations mean more than just a name. Something that illustrates what life on the ground is actually like (there's this sort of weird wage slave vibe they hint at, but we don't see it... at least, not in the part of the game I'm at).
I'm going to finish it, but I think it'll be a title I remember more for missing out on a ton of potential than anything else. For those curious, I'm at:
The part where Dogen (a guy we've met once) tells you Noah (a guy we've been in the same room with maybe 3 or 4 times) may still be alive. And they've done a really bad job hiding the fact that Kruger's daughter is actually Faith's sister. I suspect it's not going to get any better.
I remember reading in all the reviews that the story was terrible and I was playing and like "It's not amazing, but I feel like it's okay," but then around the halfway point it starts sliding real fast and does not improve from there.
Looking at the Divisions, if each division is of equal "size" then I *should* be able to hit Red 1. 5 colors with 5 ranks = 25 divisions = 4% per division. I feel like I can hit Top 4% on each Dash.
That's a sweet run, I hadn't considering springboarding off that exhaust pipe! I've spent the last couple days improving all my existing times to top 1-2% and then doing "Consumer Mayhem" and "Take Me to the Gridnode." Managed to get rank 23 on the former and 36 on the latter.
EDIT: I'm already worried about some of the longer dashes. The best time in "Scenic Route" is 1:15.88 and "Heading Home" is 1:38.50! I'm not sure I can keep up a perfect run for that long. So much can go wrong.
Ok, you guys are totally selling me on this game with all the vids after the reviews put me off.
Is the combat THAT bad? I'll be honest, I didn't care at all for the plot in the original, I just skipped every cut scene but I loved the gameplay so much.
I was going to wait for a price drop but really tempted now...
The combat isn't particularly fun but it's been a non-issue for me so far. Although I don't think I've got to any of the fabled "locked in a room with 50 dudes, kill them to escape" parts yet.
I've only hit the first one of those, and honestly, I found it funner than the random "chase in the open world" fights, since there was a ton of geometry to do spring jump and wallrun kicks on the enemies.
The combat isn't particularly fun but it's been a non-issue for me so far. Although I don't think I've got to any of the fabled "locked in a room with 50 dudes, kill them to escape" parts yet.
The encounter that's mentioned in the negative reviews I've read involves a bunch of dudes waiting for an elevator... and (now that I've finished the story) that fabled moment turned out to be exactly that: a fable. I had to take out, like, two out of the lot of them and then a route opened for me to escape. Whole thing lasted twenty seconds, thirty tops.
+2
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
I don't find the combat bad at all, it just feels unnecessary and it's unfortunate whenever the game locks you in a room and makes you do it. Once you've got the tricks down, combat is very straightforward; pretty much every enemy falls victim to circle strafing them and a heavy kick to the face. If you decide to keep running during a fight, you can jump off walls or over a desk or whatever to knock out all but the toughest opponents in one hit (and like 75% of the tough guy's health)
If it's the one thing making you apprehensive, I say disregard and go for it!
The worst part of the combat across the whole experience was, for me, the speed bump you hit whenever you hit a new type of enemy for the first time, I think. But that's probably just a learning curve thing... it's easier in those instances to fall into the trap of just shift-circling around each guy and kicking them over and over. In these instances combat is still winnable (which I think has had the unfortunate side effect of making people who do this think that they're doing it the way the game wants them to, resulting in negative impressions), but it's slower and less fun to approach enemies that way. Make no mistake, bouncing off of walls and desks and rails and whatnot is both a much faster way to take out enemies and far more satisfying to actually do.
I finished and wrapped up the game a couple days ago.
I wasn't surprised the story was terrible because, frankly, that's what I expect from every DICE game these days but I was a bit disappointed. I think a big problem was that there were just 15 story missions, which is on the very short side for an open world game and I feel like that was one of the reasons why the story was so bad, because it all felt so crammed together.
My biggest problem was the level design. Part of this is just because of the differences between linear and open world design but still, the linear levels in the original felt tightly crafted, which really shined once you started doing the speed runs because you not only had to find a good path but you had to be near perfect while doing it. But in Catalyst, that didn't feel like the case most of the time and on top of that, like Nightslyr pointed out, the open world doesn't really feel like an actual world. It's very bland and hollow.
Thankfully, the gameplay is still there and it's definitely more Mirror's Edge. It's still an incredibly fun game to play once you really get into the platforming and path finding. I'm not a big fan of the grappling hook, especially the reliance on it in dashes, but I can understand that with an open world, it's a bit of a necessary evil. Combat wasn't too bad, I grew to enjoy it once I got used to it but then again, I liked the hand-to-hand combat in the original anyway, so I'm probably not one to ask about that.
I probably complained more than I intended to but I'm a bit disappointed. I still like the game and would buy the shit out of any DLC (though I don't see it happening), I just wish they'd really nailed this one.
Agreed on the combat speed bumps every time they introduce a new kind of enemy. I actually suggest investing heavily in the combat tree once you unlock a few of the basic movement upgrades. The "Increased damage vs. X" abilities are a must, IMO. They really speed up combat because they greatly reduce the number of hits it takes to defeat each enemy.
Something that doesn't make sense to me: the whole point of runners is to send information and packages literally off-grid. Yet, all the runners use a gridLink. I know that they hand wave it away, but it just strikes me as though the game isn't confident in its own premise. I'd much rather have a situation where you're told as much intel as possible in the lair, then you're left to your own devices. That would play much better with the lone wolf reputation Faith is said to have.
After a ton of attempts, I finally managed to beat those times on "Take me to the gridnode" and "Consumer Mayhem". That consumer mayhem one was especially hard to beat, I had to do this to pass it:
Still trying to beat your time on "Allcom Shuffle", but your run is insanely fast. It's such a short dash that I'm not sure where I can improve my route either.
Agreed with all the talk about the combat system, it plays way better/smoother when you use traversal attacks instead of regular kicks/punches. Once you get most of the combat upgrades a traversal attack will one-shot everything except the highest tier of enemies.
I just beat the game and definitely agree with some of the above criticisms. I really wish this was a continuation of the first game's setting, or at least wasn't set so far in the future.
The story is awful. The first game had a throwaway story, but at least it was grounded in a sense of realism. Here, there's a bunch of nonsense sci-fi terminology and the main plot is ridiculous. I also disliked pretty much every character in the game except Plastic.
The city itself is nonsensical. I get that there need to be conceits for gameplay and spectacle, but nothing in the city feels real. Buildings don't make sense. It looks great, sure, but I don't think any of the designers gave a second thought to how anyone would actually live in the city. The open world is a cool idea and fun to explore, but it's too abstract, too form over function. There's also so much glass. I've run into so many windows I didn't think were windows.
It's not the Mirror's Edge I wanted, but that said, it's more Mirror's Edge, and it's still fun.
+2
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
My biggest disappointment is we never got to see the Grey Lands everyone was referencing.
That's where I want to play, in the real world. Not some ivory tower made of glass and white plastic.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
You're not supposed to be able to run up that incline, it's supposed to trigger a slide. My guess is that pausing somehow interrupts this allowing you to make forward progress.
Ohh so that's why all the top times on that dash are ludicrously fast.
I figured out the run along the side of the bridge thing, but after that part I run through the path you're supposed to follow.
That seems really bullshit, I'm okay with not getting a good time on that one if that's what you have to do.
Beat L.E. #9: Haha yeah that one is weirdly annoying. The jumps themselves aren't too hard, but the game really doesn't want to grab some of those ledges in that area for no particular reason.
Ohh so that's why all the top times on that dash are ludicrously fast.
I figured out the run along the side of the bridge thing, but after that part I run through the path you're supposed to follow.
That seems really bullshit, I'm okay with not getting a good time on that one if that's what you have to do.
Beat L.E. #9: Haha yeah that one is weirdly annoying. The jumps themselves aren't too hard, but the game really doesn't want to grab some of those ledges in that area for no particular reason.
I think I must have came at it at a different angle than you.
I came up the water tower (?) and hand to do some crazy wallruns against out-of-bounds territory to get up there.
EDIT: From the right in that pic I posted. I figure you came from the left?
Ohh so that's why all the top times on that dash are ludicrously fast.
I figured out the run along the side of the bridge thing, but after that part I run through the path you're supposed to follow.
That seems really bullshit, I'm okay with not getting a good time on that one if that's what you have to do.
Beat L.E. #9: Haha yeah that one is weirdly annoying. The jumps themselves aren't too hard, but the game really doesn't want to grab some of those ledges in that area for no particular reason.
I think I must have came at it at a different angle than you.
I came up the water tower (?) and hand to do some crazy wallruns against out-of-bounds territory to get up there.
EDIT: From the right in that pic I posted. I figure you came from the left?
Yep I got up there from the left side.
I actually looked up there when I got back down and wondered if it was possible to get there from the other side, it's cool that you managed it that way.
I've been plateau-ing a bit for dash times, so I've been going through and clearing out side stuff on the map.
I've just been going for Beat L.E.s that are close to the gridnodes/missions, but you and Arteen have gotten so good at hiding the damn things that I still end up spending most of my time trying to figure them out.
Ohh so that's why all the top times on that dash are ludicrously fast.
I figured out the run along the side of the bridge thing, but after that part I run through the path you're supposed to follow.
That seems really bullshit, I'm okay with not getting a good time on that one if that's what you have to do.
Beat L.E. #9: Haha yeah that one is weirdly annoying. The jumps themselves aren't too hard, but the game really doesn't want to grab some of those ledges in that area for no particular reason.
I think I must have came at it at a different angle than you.
I came up the water tower (?) and hand to do some crazy wallruns against out-of-bounds territory to get up there.
EDIT: From the right in that pic I posted. I figure you came from the left?
Yep I got up there from the left side.
I actually looked up there when I got back down and wondered if it was possible to get there from the other side, it's cool that you managed it that way.
I've been plateau-ing a bit for dash times, so I've been going through and clearing out side stuff on the map.
I've just been going for Beat L.E.s that are close to the gridnodes/missions, but you and Arteen have gotten so good at hiding the damn things that I still end up spending most of my time trying to figure them out.
Fun fact: Arteen created one like right next to one of mine but didn't actually touch it!
Finally caved and managed to snag this on ebay today for £30, looking forward to playing it soon! Anyone setting times on PS4 I could add to my friend's list?
I'm loving this game, I've only managed to put in about 90 mins but I've barely progressed the plot, I'm just enjoying running and leaping! Combat doesn't seem as bad as I'd been led to believe from the outset, I'm actually quite enjoying it, does it get worse or something?
Posts
And then I got into the second bit and couldn't see a damned thing even with the brightness all the way up.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Yeah, that room gets stupidly dark. Not sure what's up with that. Glad you got it solved!
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
But man, this story is painfully dumb, and the city is a huge disappointment. I'll take the bare plot of the first over this one any day of the week. Same with the much more realistic city. The only area I've been to in the new one that feels mostly like a real place so far has been the construction site. Everything else is a bit too glossy to feel real.
The first game's themes worked because it felt (mostly) like a plausible near future dystopia. Yeah, the runner conceit was kind of silly, same with Project Icarus, but the plot starting with a murder in the mayor's office and having the city feel more or less like a normal city with a clear, realistic problem of corrupted public officials is something we can all understand and somewhat relate to. This city, with a family-run Conglomerate, a bunch of unnecessary lingo, and no real political structure outside of a generic "We're in charge, obey us" military force, and no indication of how people live is just... hollow.
Where's the malls? The last city had a mall. Where's the nightclubs? Or any indication that these people live and work and have fun and are willingly complicit in this futile future they live in because they're distracted by the pleasures of the future along with the fear of disrupting the status quo?
I can't help but compare it to DX:HR, because that seems to be where DICE took a lot of their inspiration, but the aesthetic isn't the entire story. DX works because we see people in logical places rather than rooftops (it's really jarring to see non-mission NPCs just hanging out near a roof vent for no reason). It works because there are newspapers and news reports we can actually read/watch that aren't just background noise. It works because there are emails that are strikingly normal, which ground the fantastic into the mundane. And it works because the megacorps allow a facade of actual governance (which is what the first Mirror's Edge had).
I feel like, with more care for the details, that this could've been a great game. Something to make me give a shit about these characters. Something that makes the non-Kruger corporations mean more than just a name. Something that illustrates what life on the ground is actually like (there's this sort of weird wage slave vibe they hint at, but we don't see it... at least, not in the part of the game I'm at).
I'm going to finish it, but I think it'll be a title I remember more for missing out on a ton of potential than anything else. For those curious, I'm at:
@dinoarus back to High Roller Avenue
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
I even remembered to record some of my attempts: xboxdvr.com/gamer/OGSTudbone/video/18639622#t=96
Not sure if I can get any faster, I think that time was #20 on Xbox when I got it.
Your turn.
That's a sweet run, I hadn't considering springboarding off that exhaust pipe! I've spent the last couple days improving all my existing times to top 1-2% and then doing "Consumer Mayhem" and "Take Me to the Gridnode." Managed to get rank 23 on the former and 36 on the latter.
EDIT: I'm already worried about some of the longer dashes. The best time in "Scenic Route" is 1:15.88 and "Heading Home" is 1:38.50! I'm not sure I can keep up a perfect run for that long. So much can go wrong.
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
Is the combat THAT bad? I'll be honest, I didn't care at all for the plot in the original, I just skipped every cut scene but I loved the gameplay so much.
I was going to wait for a price drop but really tempted now...
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
The encounter that's mentioned in the negative reviews I've read involves a bunch of dudes waiting for an elevator... and (now that I've finished the story) that fabled moment turned out to be exactly that: a fable. I had to take out, like, two out of the lot of them and then a route opened for me to escape. Whole thing lasted twenty seconds, thirty tops.
If it's the one thing making you apprehensive, I say disregard and go for it!
I wasn't surprised the story was terrible because, frankly, that's what I expect from every DICE game these days but I was a bit disappointed. I think a big problem was that there were just 15 story missions, which is on the very short side for an open world game and I feel like that was one of the reasons why the story was so bad, because it all felt so crammed together.
My biggest problem was the level design. Part of this is just because of the differences between linear and open world design but still, the linear levels in the original felt tightly crafted, which really shined once you started doing the speed runs because you not only had to find a good path but you had to be near perfect while doing it. But in Catalyst, that didn't feel like the case most of the time and on top of that, like Nightslyr pointed out, the open world doesn't really feel like an actual world. It's very bland and hollow.
Thankfully, the gameplay is still there and it's definitely more Mirror's Edge. It's still an incredibly fun game to play once you really get into the platforming and path finding. I'm not a big fan of the grappling hook, especially the reliance on it in dashes, but I can understand that with an open world, it's a bit of a necessary evil. Combat wasn't too bad, I grew to enjoy it once I got used to it but then again, I liked the hand-to-hand combat in the original anyway, so I'm probably not one to ask about that.
I probably complained more than I intended to but I'm a bit disappointed. I still like the game and would buy the shit out of any DLC (though I don't see it happening), I just wish they'd really nailed this one.
Something that doesn't make sense to me: the whole point of runners is to send information and packages literally off-grid. Yet, all the runners use a gridLink. I know that they hand wave it away, but it just strikes me as though the game isn't confident in its own premise. I'd much rather have a situation where you're told as much intel as possible in the lair, then you're left to your own devices. That would play much better with the lone wolf reputation Faith is said to have.
That, but also the headset communication.
Still trying to beat your time on "Allcom Shuffle", but your run is insanely fast. It's such a short dash that I'm not sure where I can improve my route either.
Agreed with all the talk about the combat system, it plays way better/smoother when you use traversal attacks instead of regular kicks/punches. Once you get most of the combat upgrades a traversal attack will one-shot everything except the highest tier of enemies.
edit: recorded the consumer mayhem run
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
I really like this dash.
EDIT: Also you're history's greatest monster:
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
The story is awful. The first game had a throwaway story, but at least it was grounded in a sense of realism. Here, there's a bunch of nonsense sci-fi terminology and the main plot is ridiculous. I also disliked pretty much every character in the game except Plastic.
The city itself is nonsensical. I get that there need to be conceits for gameplay and spectacle, but nothing in the city feels real. Buildings don't make sense. It looks great, sure, but I don't think any of the designers gave a second thought to how anyone would actually live in the city. The open world is a cool idea and fun to explore, but it's too abstract, too form over function. There's also so much glass. I've run into so many windows I didn't think were windows.
It's not the Mirror's Edge I wanted, but that said, it's more Mirror's Edge, and it's still fun.
That's where I want to play, in the real world. Not some ivory tower made of glass and white plastic.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
So I looked up some fast times.
That is some hoooooooooot bullshit.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
You're not supposed to be able to run up that incline, it's supposed to trigger a slide. My guess is that pausing somehow interrupts this allowing you to make forward progress.
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
I figured out the run along the side of the bridge thing, but after that part I run through the path you're supposed to follow.
That seems really bullshit, I'm okay with not getting a good time on that one if that's what you have to do.
Beat L.E. #9: Haha yeah that one is weirdly annoying. The jumps themselves aren't too hard, but the game really doesn't want to grab some of those ledges in that area for no particular reason.
I think I must have came at it at a different angle than you.
EDIT: From the right in that pic I posted. I figure you came from the left?
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
I actually looked up there when I got back down and wondered if it was possible to get there from the other side, it's cool that you managed it that way.
I've been plateau-ing a bit for dash times, so I've been going through and clearing out side stuff on the map.
I've just been going for Beat L.E.s that are close to the gridnodes/missions, but you and Arteen have gotten so good at hiding the damn things that I still end up spending most of my time trying to figure them out.
Damn this game is awesome.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Fun fact: Arteen created one like right next to one of mine but didn't actually touch it!
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
Better late than never? The invisible walls all around the city are the real monster!
I fixed that unsightly billboard in the back, too.
Anyway, can't wait to put more time in.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch