[Steam] Thread: Halfway through the year already? Backlog down or growing?

Big Classy

I've got something we could all B Positive about. I think I might be done with Watch_Dogs. Stupid T-Bone finale at his base is frustrating.

azith28

JaysonFour wrote: »

My mother asked me if I had every heard of this game on Steam that had made the news on her phone.

"It's called 'Agony', and it sounds absolutely terrible and awful. You're not into that kind of thing, are you?"

I had to reassure her that I wasn't, I was mostly into RPGs and MMOs and stuff like that, and there's no way I'd ever play such a thing. Then I did a little digging, and apparently it came out what they had to cut in order to avoid getting an AO rating from the ESRB (AO meaning Sony and Microsoft won't touch it). I'll hide a list of stuff that's been cut and a list of stuff that's still in under a spoiler, and with fair warning- this stuff is pretty goddamn nasty (I had to watch a fucking cutscene of all of this stuff, can someone please please please invent brain bleach yet plzkthks?):

Things that had to be cut:

-A scene of the PC stomping on babies to kill them, complete with wailing.
-Graphically raping a succubus.
-A physics-driven jiggling rump on a demon queen.

Things the developers are bragging their game still contains:

-Gore
-Brutal sex scenes
-Lesbian and Gay sex scenes (...if you think this is edgy, boy do I have news for you, friends...)
-Genital Physics
-Eye Gouging
-Heart Plucking
-Childrens' Heads Exploding
-Setting Fire to Martyrs and Demons
-Intense Violence
-Strong Language
-Drug Use

Generally, everything you might expect from "Edgelord: The Game".

I'm just kind of disgusted and grumpy about the fact that people think that leaning further into edginess is the best way to go about advertising their games at the moment, especially on Steam. I mean, let's look at the last couple of things that have catapulted Steam into the news, yes?

- A hyper-conservative bunch damn near purging Steam of anything recognizably anime and even the littlest bit explicit.
- A game featuring the ability to portray yourself as a mass shooter, complete with scoreboard as to how many civilians and police officers you shot.

One little spot of sunlight amongst all of this is that people are panning the game. But the sheer fact that this is making the news on services that have people who don't game, well... if all you knew of Steam was what had been reported on national news services, well, what would you think of the platform? I'm having early-90s flashbacks, guys- this kind of crap is what brought us the first go-round with people trying to censor and restrict games, and with the way things are going and given the current situation in Washington, I fully expect someone to try and blame games yet again for all sorts of terrible things, using games like Active Shooter and Agony as examples as to why restrictions are needed.

This is the reason Valve needs actual human beings involved in releasing new games instead of just being a machine where you put in whatever dreck you call a game and a hundred bucks and watch the profits roll in. They need fucking standards and lines that shouldn't be crossed, because otherwise those lines are going to be set for us, and a hell of a lot more conservatively than we'd prefer. I mean, if this makes the news service on my sixty-six year-old mother's iPhone, how long will it be before it's splashed on some news channel's page as some sort of child murder simulator, with people pointing at this and screaming about how this is the reason we need restrictions on content, because gamers can't be trusted to police themselves?

Also, Valve? Stop letting goddamn edgelords from overseas release this kind of shit on your platform, it's making us all look like a bunch of freaks.

EDIT: I also guarantee these silly geese will happily link a patch to restore the cut content.

While I'm all for standards, I think taking into account the theme and content of a game is important since you seem to be ignoring that aspect, and focusing on bulletpoints.

Agony is a game where you are a damned soul in Hell. Literal Hell where people are suppose to be in eternal pain and suffering.
Most of the violent things in your bullet list could be applied to Doom, or all manner of games already in existence.

Active Shooter is obviously more falling into your 'edgelord' category since its blatently focused on a real life situation that is in the headlines and screams for attention based on that.

I've not played either. But games like Postal or this Active Shooter game are obviously intended for shock value, and I've always considered them as stupid. It's the same kind of thing as Horror Movies like Friday the 13th, which i have never cared to see.

I think Agony is no worse off than a Resident Evil/The Evil Within/Many others kind of game. Nudity and sex doesn't bother me. I don't go out of my way for super violent games but I enjoy good ones that involve violence (Like God of war, or the above mentioned Horror games...I enjoy Good games that involve suspense and horror, but not movies). Agony billed itself as a game like these but with the restraints taken off. It obviously turned more into a shock value kind of game, and then irritated its backers by not fufilling one of its main selling points. Even if the very few seconds of AO content were blocked, they waited until release day to tell the backers that it was changed, and if that was changed, I'm very sure other things were changed that were not explained.

Iolo

LD50 wrote: »

Elvenshae wrote: »

Iolo wrote: »

Fallout 3 was weirdly predictive of 2018 Washington DC.

The Metro system in that game is literally one of my favorite things to see in a video game, ever.

Just ask TJ Oshie.

this so so much!

HiT BiT

New Daedalic 2018 Bundle:

$1:
Memoria
Caravan
Deponia: The Complete Journey
Anna's Quest

BTA:
Witch It
Silence
Deponia Doomsday

$12:
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
The Long Journey Home
Bounty Train

Also, for Warframe players you can get this for free:
Foxglove Syandana cosmetic item
200,000 Credits (in-game currency)
3-Day Affinity + Resource Boosters

Stabbity Style

Hmm, do I want to spend $12 to get another copy of Shadow Tactics just to have it on Steam

Probably not.

Steel Angel

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

That sounds...a bit niche for me. I'd rather it be like old school Syndicate where you zapped people and they'd start following you around.

It depends a bit on how much you can get into CCGs and digital card games. But it's also a really distilled strategy game that just uses cards instead of the usual imagery. Instead of watching building construction tick down in a city builder you watch an icon for Exploration combined with a card for a rumor about a potential recruit you encountered in a dreamscape count down to finding a potential new recruit.

In a way, it has a lot of the same appeal of Crusader Kings 2 without as steep of a learning curve. It's rife with story enabling events like how I got so engrossed with summoning eldritch horrors once I figured out how to use the Rite system that I almost ran into financial troubles due to not regularly working.

A lot of the current fun is from discussing the many mechanics though. A lot of stuff isn't straight forward so discussions often feel like actual occult gatherings where we share information on things like best practices for securing prisoners for the Way of Spiders in the Mansus we visit in collective dreams.

Donnicton

azith28 wrote: »

While I'm all for standards, I think taking into account the theme and content of a game is important since you seem to be ignoring that aspect, and focusing on bulletpoints.

Agony is a game where you are a damned soul in Hell. Literal Hell where people are suppose to be in eternal pain and suffering.
Most of the violent things in your bullet list could be applied to Doom, or all manner of games already in existence.

Active Shooter is obviously more falling into your 'edgelord' category since its blatently focused on a real life situation that is in the headlines and screams for attention based on that.

I've not played either. But games like Postal or this Active Shooter game are obviously intended for shock value, and I've always considered them as stupid. It's the same kind of thing as Horror Movies like Friday the 13th, which i have never cared to see.

I think Agony is no worse off than a Resident Evil/The Evil Within/Many others kind of game. Nudity and sex doesn't bother me. I don't go out of my way for super violent games but I enjoy good ones that involve violence (Like God of war, or the above mentioned Horror games...I enjoy Good games that involve suspense and horror, but not movies). Agony billed itself as a game like these but with the restraints taken off. It obviously turned more into a shock value kind of game, and then irritated its backers by not fufilling one of its main selling points. Even if the very few seconds of AO content were blocked, they waited until release day to tell the backers that it was changed, and if that was changed, I'm very sure other things were changed that were not explained.

I do think experiencing proper context is required in these situations - to do otherwise is some Joe Leiberman-esque Night Trap panic that does nobody any favors.

That being said, there were two more scenes than what was listed there, and I won't link them here but they were definitely the most extreme portions of the game. Nothing that made it into the game is quite comparable, and it's a small wonder it would have been slammed with AO if that made it in. (the total runtime of the cut content video is actually almost 5 minutes)

That also being said, the cut content is all based on weird sexual stuff that really only seems designed for western shock value. Bobs and vagene stuff that they knew US audiences would react to the hardest. They also stopped one step short of depicting actual babies - they're actually these weird old man heads on infant bodies, though they screech like babies all the same. (for what they left out, they still left in scenes of a deranged old man using these oldbabies as live braces for bricks)

Shock value games tend to be pretty low quality as far as being an actual game, and Agony was no exception. Lots of bugs and crashes and AI weirdness and tedious unrewarding gameplay that was clear they spent most of the time on demon boob/ass jiggle physics and shock value content aimed for the general public(where the type of person who wanted the game based on the original depiction will actually find it pretty rote). It's also actually kind of disappointing that the worst depiction of hell they could think to come up with was some demon T&A, sexual violence and crushing oldbabies on a constant backdrop of drab gray and bones with red colored water that I guess is supposed to be blood but is very clearly just red water from a physics perspective. But, I suppose there's no incentive to be inventive when you pivot your development into just going for some cheap shock value shlock - which seems to still be accomplishing its goal plenty if Jayson's mother is calling him up worried that he's falling under the influence of the satans and the rock musics and the comic books.

Shade

SURROUNDED BY MONSTERS! @EvmaAlsar

Gear Girl

Witch It
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Santa Claustrophobia

Steel Angel wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

That sounds...a bit niche for me. I'd rather it be like old school Syndicate where you zapped people and they'd start following you around.

It depends a bit on how much you can get into CCGs and digital card games. But it's also a really distilled strategy game that just uses cards instead of the usual imagery. Instead of watching building construction tick down in a city builder you watch an icon for Exploration combined with a card for a rumor about a potential recruit you encountered in a dreamscape count down to finding a potential new recruit.

In a way, it has a lot of the same appeal of Crusader Kings 2 without as steep of a learning curve. It's rife with story enabling events like how I got so engrossed with summoning eldritch horrors once I figured out how to use the Rite system that I almost ran into financial troubles due to not regularly working.

A lot of the current fun is from discussing the many mechanics though. A lot of stuff isn't straight forward so discussions often feel like actual occult gatherings where we share information on things like best practices for securing prisoners for the Way of Spiders in the Mansus we visit in collective dreams.

I make no judgement on anybody who likes it. It sounds like fun. But, no. Not into card based gameplay.

McMoogle

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

Steel Angel wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

That sounds...a bit niche for me. I'd rather it be like old school Syndicate where you zapped people and they'd start following you around.

It depends a bit on how much you can get into CCGs and digital card games. But it's also a really distilled strategy game that just uses cards instead of the usual imagery. Instead of watching building construction tick down in a city builder you watch an icon for Exploration combined with a card for a rumor about a potential recruit you encountered in a dreamscape count down to finding a potential new recruit.

In a way, it has a lot of the same appeal of Crusader Kings 2 without as steep of a learning curve. It's rife with story enabling events like how I got so engrossed with summoning eldritch horrors once I figured out how to use the Rite system that I almost ran into financial troubles due to not regularly working.

A lot of the current fun is from discussing the many mechanics though. A lot of stuff isn't straight forward so discussions often feel like actual occult gatherings where we share information on things like best practices for securing prisoners for the Way of Spiders in the Mansus we visit in collective dreams.

I make no judgement on anybody who likes it. It sounds like fun. But, no. Not into card based gameplay.

Isn't judging something close to 50% of what Santa is known for? With the other 50% being forcing others to make toys for him so that he can take all the credit?

Santa Claustrophobia

McMoogle wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

Steel Angel wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

That sounds...a bit niche for me. I'd rather it be like old school Syndicate where you zapped people and they'd start following you around.

It depends a bit on how much you can get into CCGs and digital card games. But it's also a really distilled strategy game that just uses cards instead of the usual imagery. Instead of watching building construction tick down in a city builder you watch an icon for Exploration combined with a card for a rumor about a potential recruit you encountered in a dreamscape count down to finding a potential new recruit.

In a way, it has a lot of the same appeal of Crusader Kings 2 without as steep of a learning curve. It's rife with story enabling events like how I got so engrossed with summoning eldritch horrors once I figured out how to use the Rite system that I almost ran into financial troubles due to not regularly working.

A lot of the current fun is from discussing the many mechanics though. A lot of stuff isn't straight forward so discussions often feel like actual occult gatherings where we share information on things like best practices for securing prisoners for the Way of Spiders in the Mansus we visit in collective dreams.

I make no judgement on anybody who likes it. It sounds like fun. But, no. Not into card based gameplay.

Is judging something close to 50% of what Santa is known for? With the other 50% being forcing others to make toys for him so that he can take all the credit?

Merry Christmas!

Madican

The elves keep trying to unionize but Santa hired Pinkertons.

McMoogle

Sorry had to make the "is" "isn't" there. Also, hooray finally a gift as black as my heart!

Steel Angel

Cultist Simulator: A game where my chosen approach to a late game goal is to repeatedly send out a seer to hire ne'er-do-wells off the street so that I can imprison them and feed them to a dream spider in hopes of uncovering a specific influence for use in a ritual to summon an eldritch linguist I likely will also sacrifice in another ritual.

JaysonFour

So I logged on to check a couple of things, when I was suddenly bombed with a couple of codes from @Gear Girl!

They turned out to be good for Memoria and its soundtrack! Many thanks!

Big Classy

G&T chat dedded

RoyceSraphim

I dreamed about watching a new gundam where everyone was brown-skinned, and by the end I started recognizing people from my own life. Including an amazing friend, rapper, poet, and lawyer in training who I purged from my life because his presence rubbed salt into every wound I had.

I'm downloading into the breach because I need mech stomping action now.

Desy

Big Classy wrote: »

G&T chat dedded

And is ded again.

Jazz

RoyceSraphim wrote: »

I dreamed about watching a new gundam where everyone was brown-skinned, and by the end I started recognizing people from my own life. Including an amazing friend, rapper, poet, and lawyer in training who I purged from my life because his presence rubbed salt into every wound I had.

I'm downloading into the breach because I need mech stomping action now.

GOG still doesn't have MechWarrior 2 and that makes me sad.

cooljammer00

destroyah87 wrote: »

Big Classy wrote: »

G&T chat dedded

And is ded again.

Isn't it Tuesday?

Big Classy

I got past the part of been stuck on in Watch_Dogs! Stupid combat encounter had me stumped on both the PC and PS4 versions of the game since its release, years ago! Feels so good to kill that annoying prick!

anoffday

I thought the old mech warrior games were released as free awhile ago? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

LD50

Mechwarrior 4 was for a while, but I don't think it's available anymore (the company that was distributing it doesn't have the license anymore; the license running out was one of the reasons they were offering it for free).

Older MW games unfortunately occupy the "old but not old enough" era of retro games in that they don't work well on modern PCs. MW3 can install and run on windows 7+, but with tons of graphical corruption to the point that the game was unplayable for me. MW2 works in DOSbox, but only the dos version; the upgraded windows 95 version doesn't work. The dos version of 2 in dosbox is pretty flakey too when it comes to controller support and setup, and I eventually gave up trying to play it.

Madican

Lovely to come home and find that the electrical outlet my computer and consoles are plugged into is dead. Which probably means a breaker is tripped and I have to go find the box in this apartment complex.

Syngyne

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Oh... Vampyr pyns.

a vampyr ynce byt my syster

Mudzgut

99 pages and time to sleep like the dead.

A new thread has arisen...

NEW THREAD!!!
NEW THREAD!!!
NEW THREAD!!!

@Echo can you put this one to rest? Thank you kindly.

Coffey

The sheer speed the Steam thread reaches 100 pages always astonishes me.

DarkPrimus

Coffey wrote: »

The sheer speed the Steam thread reaches 100 pages always astonishes me.

That's what happens when the speed is set to "full Steama thread"