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[Xbox] Next Developer Direct, 23 January at 10 AM PST/1 PM EST!
As a reminder, Carrion is the interesting-looking Metroidvania that has no map.
A Meroidvania with no map.
Because, the justification goes, "Murderous alien meat monsters don't use maps."
I'm still angry about it, though that didn't keep me from 1000/1000 it.
(And on a completely different note, I did finish Little Big Adventure: Twinsen's Quest, which does feature a very barebones map, though the progress tracking is fairly rudimentary at best.)
Synthesis on
+1
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
I was playing Cyberpunk yesterday and discovered the starting car parked in an alley. I think it's been sitting there for two years when I last did a mission nearby. So, that's a thing.
Dunno if I'm going to get to re-up my Game Pass Ultimate before it lapses at the start of the new year.
My Rewards Points will still be safe, though, right?
As noted, Rewards Points are not dependent on Game Pass, or any other subscription. Game Pass gives you other opportunities to earn the, in a specific "Hey, do this thing," way and a nonspecific "There are a bunch of games here," kind of way, but it is not a requirement.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft reward points (that you can get via using the browser Edge) are part of the same pool (they use the same rewards store too), and you can do that without ever playing a video game anywhere.
I decided to try out Indiana Jones and the Great Circle or whatnot off Gamepass today. Fired it up on my Series X and....
barely made it an hour! The motion sickness headache snuck right up on me and really knocked me out. Quit the game and about 10 minutes later I'm 80-90% recovered.
Head bob! WHY!? Haven't we learned this lesson a million times?
I'm gonna ramble about Indiana Jones for a bit. It's glitched up on me and I can't access the final area, and Machine Games/Bethesda can't do anything to help until they patch some kind of hack in to fully restart an area.
The game is certainly very nice-looking, but I think that's about all it has going for it. For a collect-a-thon game, traversing the areas is tedious (that damn boat!), and process of using the maps can charitably called annoying.
The reliance on "the feeling of playing one of the movies" falls flat. Troy Baker's a lovely person, but his Harrison Ford impression has zero range; he's got "Indy mumbling to himself" mastered, and this works when you're on your own, thumbing through journals and taking pictures, but when he's having conversations the delivery feels all wrong. I really would have enjoyed it more if they hadn't kept hammering on about their perfect recreation of Ford.
I really enjoyed Indy going undercover in the first open area, but making it so that you can only experience the action set pieces once per save file is a...curious choice. You're supposed to revisit these areas to hunt down collectables, and the smaller ones become sterile, enemy-less areas to wander around in looking at a piece of paper in your hands. They don't even bother to close them off properly; one door that opened to a cutscene remains open, leading to a black void. The stealth was enjoyable, and bonking fascists over the head with anything close at hand was entertaining during the first traversal of an area, but backtracking all over in Siam wore that out very quickly.
For a "free" game that I'm getting through Game Pass, I was happy enough to play it until I got that progress-stopping bug, but if I had paid the US$70 they're asking for this I would be extremely frustrated. It's okay. It's not great. It doesn't live up to its promises of MS's big game of the season, and I don't feel the urge to slog through what I've done again in the hopes it doesn't glitch out a second time.
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
The surprise to me about the Indy game was that it was... Fun? It had satisfying combat and not-too-hard puzzles and I felt like the "hard" mode was pitch perfect, I could wallop on enemies but still had to think sometimes about what I wanted to do
I'll take a janky, ambitious game over a well polished turd any day
You can go back to the old areas if that's what you mean. There's a new option when you are looking at your journal that says Travel and then you can revisit old places to get things you missed.
I do agree with you about Siam though. Fuck the boat. I loved Gizah and the Vatican very much though.
You can go back to the old areas if that's what you mean. There's a new option when you are looking at your journal that says Travel and then you can revisit old places to get things you missed.
I do agree with you about Siam though. Fuck the boat. I loved Gizah and the Vatican very much though.
That's not what I mean. Gina is stuck trying to run through a door that needs to be opened by her, so it never opens and I can't proceed. Using the journal to go to a different area and back puts her into the same position. I've 100% cleared every part of the game before this and don't have a save to roll back to where she isn't doing that, so my only option now is to start the game over. Restarting the current chapter to get her out of whatever pathing error she's caught in isn't an option.
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I tried again after messing with some accessibility settings in Indiana Jones.
I don't think the camera stabilization actually does anything. I did some testing and there's no discernible change in anything that I can find. The first person head bob is just awful, and it gets way worse and more noticeable if you're not looking straight ahead, so you know, anytime you looking at the ground for traps or tables or whatnot for collectibles. So crippling headache almost immediately that was completely gone within 10 minutes of quitting.
I have to say the wavy mirage effect in the Giza level looks ridiculous. It also triggers at a specific close distance so you can be backing up or walking towards a tent and then suddenly everything gets wavy like 10 feet in front of you. It’s way over tuned and just ruins the looks of the whole level honestly
I’ll post a screenshot of what I mean, but it’s like seriously the mirage wavy effect does not look that strong ten feet in front of you, it makes it look like the whole level has a gas leak
I have to assume sometimes it’s triggering incorrectly, because sometimes it’s super far away, other times it’s literally 5feet in front of you down the street, causing the whole scene to be wavy. It’s definitely gotta be a glitch cos it’s all over the place
Also why the hell did they make it so awkward to hit locks off chests. Half the time when I do it the animation just flies over the little lockbox and hits a wall or something, it should basically trigger a locked on hit but half the time it doesn’t
I’m enjoying the game but there’s just a lot of rough edges
I also don’t trust the save system, there’s no manual save, but when I’m fooling around in the larger levels I’ll often get a “last checkpoint was 25 minutes ago” note in the menu, which isn’t very comforting
I know I’m all complaints but I’m generally enjoying it, even if the gameplay isn’t totally grabbing me.
2 other minor issues that still nag at me. One is a personal preference, I hate when games do that “dark edges on the corners of your vision to indicate you being in stealth” thing. I get they’re going for immersion but just have a little icon on the bottom of my screen or something. It looks ugly, and makes me squint and feel like it’s harder to see precisely when I most want to be aware of my surroundings. It also seems to put you in crouch automatically after climbing a lot, and it just makes the screen look like it’s constantly dimming
The other thing is so much dialogue gets interrupted when you’re with a companion, especially when taking photos. This normally doesn’t bother me too much in games but it happens so damn much here, I’ll often wait just to see if there’s dialogue before taking a photo, and then take the photo as the companion starts talking, interrupting their line. It’s hilariously frustrating
Mine is Balatro, with Marvel Rivals and Indy close behind. I didn't play any other games last year, other than Pokemon Go lmao oh and the final death throes of destiny
localhjay on
0
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Unicorn Overlord is my GOTY for being simple and fun and the best minmaxing in terms of budget and gameplay. Plus, all the quality waifus you can ask for in a game.
Marvel Rivals definitely is 2nd or 3rd, Erdtree and it are fighting it out. Would like to play Wukong some day, in the next century....
During the Holiday forum craze it seems like the Black Series X (i.e. with a disc drive) has vanished from US retailers. Amazon briefly had some S&S MSRP stock in the new year and I snagged one, but its gone now (although maybe its still trickling out and being snatched up.) Saw MS was also selling some direct and it quickly disappeared. MS still has the Galaxy variant for order, but not shipping till feb.
They are still semi-findable used at reasonable prices so I don't think raw demand just cleared them out or something. More like MS is maybe phasing out disc consoles, which makes me wonder about discs.
GOTY over at Eurogamer. So some folks seem to like it well enough.
I’m glad people do and it’s enjoyable as an Indiana game experience, I just felt like they should’ve done more with the genre they chose. They didn’t do the uncharted route, and that’s probably for the best because the production value wouldn’t have matched, but they also didn’t take advantage of the genre they’re in.
I found myself comparing it to games like dishonoured and such, there was basically no real depth to the locations. Now I didn’t expect it to be as deep or extensive as dishonoured, but it was basically completely lacking any kind of this aspect of the genre it’s in.
You couldn’t really tackle objectives in multiple ways, or like sabotage things with scenarios like “poison the nazis cafeteria food” etc, there wasn’t really a point to it being open areas. There was no real reason to listen to conversations by npcs, other than flavour, because they didn’t reveal anything or suggest optional paths or ways to progress.
You basically went to objective markers either via stealth or punching, it kind of makes no difference which, and then had either a puzzle or cutscene. That’s fine! But it’s not utilising the genre as well as other games I’ve played, so there wasn’t really much to be wowed by or engrossed by for me
The combat was also kind of dull, enjoyable the first few times but nothing really to it. I wanted to be able to interact with the environment more, knock over pillars onto enemies, use your whip to collapse tents, set fires so that vehicles explode, etc. something more than just throwing bottles. It would be been cool if different objects you picked up could do different things, like a wrench could loosen scaffolding, or a sledge hammer knock down a pillar onto an enemy, etc. it just was quite limited and unimaginative in its actual core gameplay for me.
There were some one off moments kind of like this, but just as unique things that happen in a mission, not as actual broader gameplay structures
I didn’t feel it used it’s open areas effectively, and its set pieces are fun but have been done way better by plenty of other games. It essentially wisely avoided trying to be uncharted, but it kind of didn’t really take advantage of the genre it did choose to use either.
See I went in with 0 expectations, not even a huge Indy fan, but I came away pretty impressed with what they managed to do. I like the Uncharted games but they pretty much play themselves half the time.
The combat in Indy reminds me more like, Dead Island or Dying Light with some satisfying, weighty hits. I could've done with slightly smarter AI so the stealth was a bit better but I think my take away was I'm glad it wasn't just another Tomb Raider or Uncharted type thing and they tried to do something a bit more unique
GOTY over at Eurogamer. So some folks seem to like it well enough.
I’m glad people do and it’s enjoyable as an Indiana game experience, I just felt like they should’ve done more with the genre they chose. They didn’t do the uncharted route, and that’s probably for the best because the production value wouldn’t have matched, but they also didn’t take advantage of the genre they’re in.
I found myself comparing it to games like dishonoured and such, there was basically no real depth to the locations. Now I didn’t expect it to be as deep or extensive as dishonoured, but it was basically completely lacking any kind of this aspect of the genre it’s in.
You couldn’t really tackle objectives in multiple ways, or like sabotage things with scenarios like “poison the nazis cafeteria food” etc, there wasn’t really a point to it being open areas. There was no real reason to listen to conversations by npcs, other than flavour, because they didn’t reveal anything or suggest optional paths or ways to progress.
You basically went to objective markers either via stealth or punching, it kind of makes no difference which, and then had either a puzzle or cutscene. That’s fine! But it’s not utilising the genre as well as other games I’ve played, so there wasn’t really much to be wowed by or engrossed by for me
The combat was also kind of dull, enjoyable the first few times but nothing really to it. I wanted to be able to interact with the environment more, knock over pillars onto enemies, use your whip to collapse tents, set fires so that vehicles explode, etc. something more than just throwing bottles. It would be been cool if different objects you picked up could do different things, like a wrench could loosen scaffolding, or a sledge hammer knock down a pillar onto an enemy, etc. it just was quite limited and unimaginative in its actual core gameplay for me.
There were some one off moments kind of like this, but just as unique things that happen in a mission, not as actual broader gameplay structures
I didn’t feel it used it’s open areas effectively, and its set pieces are fun but have been done way better by plenty of other games. It essentially wisely avoided trying to be uncharted, but it kind of didn’t really take advantage of the genre it did choose to use either.
Having open areas doesn't make it an immersive sim, you're disappointing yourself with a comparison they didn't suggest or encourage. I'm curious what genre you think it was, because they were clearly going for "Wolfenstein, but with the priority between puzzles and shooting inverted."
It doesn’t make it an immersive sim, but there isn’t anything it replaces with it and it feels like it shouldve at least borrowed some things to do from immersive sims based on how it laid everything out. To say that is not suggesting an immersive sim feels like a copout, I’m not saying it’s promising a fully in depth one, but it suggests in its layout and structure that it’s going to at least have some elements of that genre, and it just doesn’t. There are missions that feel like you’re being set up for a kind of multiple solutions immersive sim approach, and then it’s just notthing. The locations feel ripe for “scenarios” that just aren’t there. It feels like a waste, you have essentially static locations with npcs wandering about. That’s it. And that’s fine if your game is a really amazing version of that, but it just isn’t, there’s plenty of games that make better use of a lack of depth to polish the presentation or feel, but this is just kind of average at everything it does include. I don’t mean that as a negative just how I feel, it’s a fine puzzle game, a fine first person melee combat experience, and an ok to average stealth experience
If it’s wolfenstien with puzzles instead of combat ephasis, then the puzzles aren’t as interesting as the shooting was in wolfenstien for me, and they weren’t as well presented or remarkable as many other examples in the genre that focus on puzzles.
Like my issue is that there just isn’t much to what’s there, and that can be fine if what’s there is super high quality in terms of presentation or feel, but I just found the presentation and feel here serviceable. The combat is fine but nothing spectacular, and it’s pretty much the same thing from beginning to end.
I’m not expecting a full immersive sim like dishonoured, it’s just an example of a style or approach that would’ve suited the way they’ve laid things out here. When you present a structure like this one, ie open area with multiple locations and side missions, and then basically do nothing with that area and missions, it stands out compared to similar games. The puzzles weren’t anything more deep or well crafted than you can find in a million other games, so it felt like a waste of space and potential
I’m not expecting the full depth of a dishonoured game, but it basically didn’t have anything for me to do in those areas that felt substantial, and it just felt like what was there wasn’t all that amazing
Also is it just me or do headshot sometimes not kill? I feel like that kind of icks me, the way the game is in terms of recreatinf the vibe of the movies a shot to the head not killing enemies feels odd
Also is it just me or do headshot sometimes not kill? I feel like that kind of icks me, the way the game is in terms of recreatinf the vibe of the movies a shot to the head not killing enemies feels odd
Headshots do nothing more than any other body part.
And Indy, a movie character, isn't known for them either.
I know but that still feels off. Like Indy isn’t a headshot guy, but it feels like guns if they can be aimed at the head then the effect should be an instant kill, if they don’t want people playing like cod just decrease the ammo you get or something or provide more Indy like options, ie shooting non lethally, shooting the environment, holding up people to get them to surrender for a knockout punch, etc . It just looks super dumb but more crucially feels like another aspect of the game that they’re using “Indy doesn’t do that” as an excuse to just not do anything at all with it
Like yeah I get it, this isn’t a shooter, but if you’re going to have shooting then the fact that it looks and feels worse than games that have it is going to feel bad. Like if they don’t want Indy shooting people in the head, then have feet shots cause them to double over incapacitated, etc. don’t just make the whole system suck and feel bad. Discourage headshots by I dunno have guns instant kill in the chest but be much rarer or attract a lot more attention, instead it’s just “headshots look dumb because you shouldn’t be doing them”, ok but they still look dumb!
Also another reason I feel like it does lend itself comparisons to games like dishonoured and hitman etc is the disguise system. Like I get it, it’s not the focus, so it’s not going to be super in-depth, but it’s still setting up a structure that other games have done better for a long time, and providing nothing really instead. Puzzles could have existed alongside immersive sim light elements, combat doesn’t have to focus on guns, in fact I don’t want it to, but then do something with the guns that feels different or just don’t give them to us at all if you’re going to have them feel worse
During the Holiday forum craze it seems like the Black Series X (i.e. with a disc drive) has vanished from US retailers. Amazon briefly had some S&S MSRP stock in the new year and I snagged one, but its gone now (although maybe its still trickling out and being snatched up.) Saw MS was also selling some direct and it quickly disappeared. MS still has the Galaxy variant for order, but not shipping till feb.
They are still semi-findable used at reasonable prices so I don't think raw demand just cleared them out or something. More like MS is maybe phasing out disc consoles, which makes me wonder about discs.
I know it’s easy to get all gloom and doom on things, but it’s only a few days after Christmas and we’ve had New Year’s causing some slow down. Likely the sold quite a lot of stock and, since they weren’t selling well beforehand, there hadn’t out a ton into the market. I’m pretty sure that later in the month, more will show up. In fact, Target right now has brand new ones for sale. If we hit February or March and we still don’t see any, then in May be time to start thinking along those lines.
Yeah I guess I went in with almost no expectations. I haven't enjoyed an Indiana Jones movie since the 80s and I also thought the Uncharted games were horribly unfun. Then they said it was first person and at that point I figured it would be DOA for me. But I'm so happy to be wrong.
I know it’s easy to get all gloom and doom on things, but it’s only a few days after Christmas and we’ve had New Year’s causing some slow down. Likely the sold quite a lot of stock and, since they weren’t selling well beforehand, there hadn’t out a ton into the market. I’m pretty sure that later in the month, more will show up. In fact, Target right now has brand new ones for sale. If we hit February or March and we still don’t see any, then in May be time to start thinking along those lines.
Target is not selling them online right now. They have an entry but there is zero availability.
Best Buy just plain deleted their entry, even though they have a bunch of defunct/unavailable/overpriced Series X bundles still posted.
Posts
its actually a rerun list! I mentioned it before lol
found it:
A Meroidvania with no map.
Because, the justification goes, "Murderous alien meat monsters don't use maps."
I'm still angry about it, though that didn't keep me from 1000/1000 it.
(And on a completely different note, I did finish Little Big Adventure: Twinsen's Quest, which does feature a very barebones map, though the progress tracking is fairly rudimentary at best.)
Physics engine goes brrrr...
Do not engage the Watermelons.
My Rewards Points will still be safe, though, right?
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
Do not engage the Watermelons.
You can get points whether you have GamePass or not. Just certain tasks are unavailable to you. Other than that, your points won’t be affected.
As noted, Rewards Points are not dependent on Game Pass, or any other subscription. Game Pass gives you other opportunities to earn the, in a specific "Hey, do this thing," way and a nonspecific "There are a bunch of games here," kind of way, but it is not a requirement.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft reward points (that you can get via using the browser Edge) are part of the same pool (they use the same rewards store too), and you can do that without ever playing a video game anywhere.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
barely made it an hour! The motion sickness headache snuck right up on me and really knocked me out. Quit the game and about 10 minutes later I'm 80-90% recovered.
Head bob! WHY!? Haven't we learned this lesson a million times?
There's no option for cloud play and the app is telling me to go to a browser.
Steam ID: Good Life
Is it working now?
Maybe whatever caused a bunch of people to get banned from MS Rewards did something to that, too?
Fortunately, Rewards is fixed now, hence my asking.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
The game is certainly very nice-looking, but I think that's about all it has going for it. For a collect-a-thon game, traversing the areas is tedious (that damn boat!), and process of using the maps can charitably called annoying.
The reliance on "the feeling of playing one of the movies" falls flat. Troy Baker's a lovely person, but his Harrison Ford impression has zero range; he's got "Indy mumbling to himself" mastered, and this works when you're on your own, thumbing through journals and taking pictures, but when he's having conversations the delivery feels all wrong. I really would have enjoyed it more if they hadn't kept hammering on about their perfect recreation of Ford.
I really enjoyed Indy going undercover in the first open area, but making it so that you can only experience the action set pieces once per save file is a...curious choice. You're supposed to revisit these areas to hunt down collectables, and the smaller ones become sterile, enemy-less areas to wander around in looking at a piece of paper in your hands. They don't even bother to close them off properly; one door that opened to a cutscene remains open, leading to a black void. The stealth was enjoyable, and bonking fascists over the head with anything close at hand was entertaining during the first traversal of an area, but backtracking all over in Siam wore that out very quickly.
For a "free" game that I'm getting through Game Pass, I was happy enough to play it until I got that progress-stopping bug, but if I had paid the US$70 they're asking for this I would be extremely frustrated. It's okay. It's not great. It doesn't live up to its promises of MS's big game of the season, and I don't feel the urge to slog through what I've done again in the hopes it doesn't glitch out a second time.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I'll take a janky, ambitious game over a well polished turd any day
I do agree with you about Siam though. Fuck the boat. I loved Gizah and the Vatican very much though.
Nope. Cloud option is still gone from the app.
Fortunately I can still do remote play on my home console with touch controls through the app.
Steam ID: Good Life
But I did go from level 23 to 30 doing scanner hustles. So, that's nice.
Still don't like the skill leveling balance.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
That's not what I mean. Gina is stuck trying to run through a door that needs to be opened by her, so it never opens and I can't proceed. Using the journal to go to a different area and back puts her into the same position. I've 100% cleared every part of the game before this and don't have a save to roll back to where she isn't doing that, so my only option now is to start the game over. Restarting the current chapter to get her out of whatever pathing error she's caught in isn't an option.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I don't think the camera stabilization actually does anything. I did some testing and there's no discernible change in anything that I can find. The first person head bob is just awful, and it gets way worse and more noticeable if you're not looking straight ahead, so you know, anytime you looking at the ground for traps or tables or whatnot for collectibles. So crippling headache almost immediately that was completely gone within 10 minutes of quitting.
Gonna have to wait to see if they patch it.
I’ll post a screenshot of what I mean, but it’s like seriously the mirage wavy effect does not look that strong ten feet in front of you, it makes it look like the whole level has a gas leak
I have to assume sometimes it’s triggering incorrectly, because sometimes it’s super far away, other times it’s literally 5feet in front of you down the street, causing the whole scene to be wavy. It’s definitely gotta be a glitch cos it’s all over the place
Also why the hell did they make it so awkward to hit locks off chests. Half the time when I do it the animation just flies over the little lockbox and hits a wall or something, it should basically trigger a locked on hit but half the time it doesn’t
I’m enjoying the game but there’s just a lot of rough edges
I also don’t trust the save system, there’s no manual save, but when I’m fooling around in the larger levels I’ll often get a “last checkpoint was 25 minutes ago” note in the menu, which isn’t very comforting
I know I’m all complaints but I’m generally enjoying it, even if the gameplay isn’t totally grabbing me.
2 other minor issues that still nag at me. One is a personal preference, I hate when games do that “dark edges on the corners of your vision to indicate you being in stealth” thing. I get they’re going for immersion but just have a little icon on the bottom of my screen or something. It looks ugly, and makes me squint and feel like it’s harder to see precisely when I most want to be aware of my surroundings. It also seems to put you in crouch automatically after climbing a lot, and it just makes the screen look like it’s constantly dimming
The other thing is so much dialogue gets interrupted when you’re with a companion, especially when taking photos. This normally doesn’t bother me too much in games but it happens so damn much here, I’ll often wait just to see if there’s dialogue before taking a photo, and then take the photo as the companion starts talking, interrupting their line. It’s hilariously frustrating
Marvel Rivals definitely is 2nd or 3rd, Erdtree and it are fighting it out. Would like to play Wukong some day, in the next century....
They are still semi-findable used at reasonable prices so I don't think raw demand just cleared them out or something. More like MS is maybe phasing out disc consoles, which makes me wonder about discs.
I’m glad people do and it’s enjoyable as an Indiana game experience, I just felt like they should’ve done more with the genre they chose. They didn’t do the uncharted route, and that’s probably for the best because the production value wouldn’t have matched, but they also didn’t take advantage of the genre they’re in.
I found myself comparing it to games like dishonoured and such, there was basically no real depth to the locations. Now I didn’t expect it to be as deep or extensive as dishonoured, but it was basically completely lacking any kind of this aspect of the genre it’s in.
You couldn’t really tackle objectives in multiple ways, or like sabotage things with scenarios like “poison the nazis cafeteria food” etc, there wasn’t really a point to it being open areas. There was no real reason to listen to conversations by npcs, other than flavour, because they didn’t reveal anything or suggest optional paths or ways to progress.
You basically went to objective markers either via stealth or punching, it kind of makes no difference which, and then had either a puzzle or cutscene. That’s fine! But it’s not utilising the genre as well as other games I’ve played, so there wasn’t really much to be wowed by or engrossed by for me
The combat was also kind of dull, enjoyable the first few times but nothing really to it. I wanted to be able to interact with the environment more, knock over pillars onto enemies, use your whip to collapse tents, set fires so that vehicles explode, etc. something more than just throwing bottles. It would be been cool if different objects you picked up could do different things, like a wrench could loosen scaffolding, or a sledge hammer knock down a pillar onto an enemy, etc. it just was quite limited and unimaginative in its actual core gameplay for me.
There were some one off moments kind of like this, but just as unique things that happen in a mission, not as actual broader gameplay structures
I didn’t feel it used it’s open areas effectively, and its set pieces are fun but have been done way better by plenty of other games. It essentially wisely avoided trying to be uncharted, but it kind of didn’t really take advantage of the genre it did choose to use either.
The combat in Indy reminds me more like, Dead Island or Dying Light with some satisfying, weighty hits. I could've done with slightly smarter AI so the stealth was a bit better but I think my take away was I'm glad it wasn't just another Tomb Raider or Uncharted type thing and they tried to do something a bit more unique
Having open areas doesn't make it an immersive sim, you're disappointing yourself with a comparison they didn't suggest or encourage. I'm curious what genre you think it was, because they were clearly going for "Wolfenstein, but with the priority between puzzles and shooting inverted."
If it’s wolfenstien with puzzles instead of combat ephasis, then the puzzles aren’t as interesting as the shooting was in wolfenstien for me, and they weren’t as well presented or remarkable as many other examples in the genre that focus on puzzles.
Like my issue is that there just isn’t much to what’s there, and that can be fine if what’s there is super high quality in terms of presentation or feel, but I just found the presentation and feel here serviceable. The combat is fine but nothing spectacular, and it’s pretty much the same thing from beginning to end.
I’m not expecting a full immersive sim like dishonoured, it’s just an example of a style or approach that would’ve suited the way they’ve laid things out here. When you present a structure like this one, ie open area with multiple locations and side missions, and then basically do nothing with that area and missions, it stands out compared to similar games. The puzzles weren’t anything more deep or well crafted than you can find in a million other games, so it felt like a waste of space and potential
I’m not expecting the full depth of a dishonoured game, but it basically didn’t have anything for me to do in those areas that felt substantial, and it just felt like what was there wasn’t all that amazing
Heck, I remember announcements, but I don't feel like I remember a whole lot coming out of Xbox Studios in 2024...
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Seems people did really enjoy the BLOPS campaign?
Headshots do nothing more than any other body part.
And Indy, a movie character, isn't known for them either.
Like yeah I get it, this isn’t a shooter, but if you’re going to have shooting then the fact that it looks and feels worse than games that have it is going to feel bad. Like if they don’t want Indy shooting people in the head, then have feet shots cause them to double over incapacitated, etc. don’t just make the whole system suck and feel bad. Discourage headshots by I dunno have guns instant kill in the chest but be much rarer or attract a lot more attention, instead it’s just “headshots look dumb because you shouldn’t be doing them”, ok but they still look dumb!
Also another reason I feel like it does lend itself comparisons to games like dishonoured and hitman etc is the disguise system. Like I get it, it’s not the focus, so it’s not going to be super in-depth, but it’s still setting up a structure that other games have done better for a long time, and providing nothing really instead. Puzzles could have existed alongside immersive sim light elements, combat doesn’t have to focus on guns, in fact I don’t want it to, but then do something with the guns that feels different or just don’t give them to us at all if you’re going to have them feel worse
I know it’s easy to get all gloom and doom on things, but it’s only a few days after Christmas and we’ve had New Year’s causing some slow down. Likely the sold quite a lot of stock and, since they weren’t selling well beforehand, there hadn’t out a ton into the market. I’m pretty sure that later in the month, more will show up. In fact, Target right now has brand new ones for sale. If we hit February or March and we still don’t see any, then in May be time to start thinking along those lines.
Target is not selling them online right now. They have an entry but there is zero availability.
Best Buy just plain deleted their entry, even though they have a bunch of defunct/unavailable/overpriced Series X bundles still posted.