See, cuz Remedy’s last two games were Quantum Break and Alan Wake, and in this game the world changes and manipulates at, like, a quantum level, and you pick up stuff with your mind and throw it, leaving a wake behind it…
(Anyway, I figure this game needs a thread, but mods can feel free to kill it if/when a thread for Rob’s review goes live.)
I am seriously excited to get started on this when I get off work tonight. Two things from reviews so far that have been surprising to me:
For the first time I can remember, I saw a gameplay mechanic in a review and thought “oh… I wish I hadn’t seen that, it would’ve been cool to discover it in the game.” I always thought it was ludicrous to consider mechanics to be spoilers, but I might be a bit more sympathetic to that argument in the future.
The most surprising thing I’ve read in reviews so far is that protagonist Jesse Faden is not played by Lauren Cohan. I just assumed it was from the first time I saw a screenshot. I don’t even think Cohan and the actual actress, Courtney Hope, look that much alike. Am I crazy?
We just had a short chat about them in the “What are you reading?” endless thread. I was reminded of the Laundry files too when listening to the podcast.
I am so extraordinarily excited for this game, I even broke my “don’t pre-order stuff, you fool” rule for it. This game, with this setting, these powers, a cool lady protagonist…hook it to me directly, pls
Skipped QB as well, the show tie-in stuff and the general presentation did not interest me, Control however, especially after WP-Radio has me very intrigued.
For people playing it on the PC, do you know if it has any Dualshock 4 support? I can’t seem to find any info on it and it definitely looks like a controller game.
I’m about 4-ish hours in so far, which probably equates to, like, 1 or 2 for a lot of people since this game is chock full of non-fiction documents to read that for once are genuinely gripping. Probably also because that plus the nature of the level design has, similar to Sekiro earlier this year, activated the part of my brain that makes me backtrack and circle each room or area multiple times to make sure I’m not missing anything (which I definitely still am missing things).
And it’s great so far! I didn’t really have this on my radar the way a lot of folks did, I kind of impulse bought it based on Cameron Kunzelman’s praise and my general desire for something a little more actiony, but now I’ve fallen hard. The combat is so far just simple enough for me to grasp and just dynamic enough to feel good that it’s really hitting the spot. The little bit of psychic junk I can do so far is also just terrifically fun even.
And importantly, despite the fact that this story’s sort of ambiguity and inscrutability can usually just frustrate me, there’s enough real worldbuilding behind the bureau to sink my teeth into that I feel grounded enough to enjoy the mystery. Like, enough so that I feel like I can make real guesses. It also helps that the characters, especially Jesse, are just so charismatic that it’s fun to watch them even when I have no clue what they’re talking about.
Edit: I also wanted to mention, I’ve been playing on ps4 pro and haven’t had any of the issues I’ve seen plaguing people on launch ps4s. Closest thing I’ve seen to slowdown is a slight hitch when coming out of the options menu. Still very early though, so grain of salt.
I'll be honest, Rob and Patrick were so giddy about this game on the podcast that I found it unlistenable. Maybe I'll go back and listen to it after I've finished and I don't mind that they're like a couple over-stimulated toddlers that can't keep a train of thought for more than two sentences.
(Don’t get me wrong, they were fun to listen to, but let’s just say it wasn’t the most efficient way of communicating information.)
So what’s the jump scare situation in this game like? I really enjoy creepy, paranormal stuff, but jump scares can often be an anxiety trigger for me, so I try to avoid them if possible. After listening to Rob and Patrick talk on the podcast, I am really interested in trying this game out, but I’m worried it will just get added to the long list of games that I have bought and played like 30 minutes of before getting to a room where I am sure there is something waiting to jump out at me around the next corner, so I quit and never play again.
I super relate to this! The first couple hours I played I had no clue what was going on, but that was okay, because the little breadcrumbs of info I got from documents and tapes are so dang neat!
I’m using mouse + keyboard, but there’s a section in the options menu on PC that lets you pick XBox or PlayStation style button prompts, so they’ve definitely accounted for playing with a Dualshock on PC
I ended up literally not getting past the opening credits because of a minor pup emergency, and I still had at least two “wait… what?” moments in just that first five minutes.
Am I allowed to declare a game GOTY after five minutes when I haven’t even seen a single gameplay mechanic yet? I kinda want to.
I don’t think it ever really approaches what I’d call real horror game levels, but they definitely exist, unfortunately. It’s always been pretty clear when there are enemies around, but they’ve still managed to make me jump occasionally by popping out from unexpected directions or by more than I expected. The imo bigger deal though is that there have been several pretty significant jump scares in the vein of sudden environment changes during tense, relatively quiet stretches of exploration. At least one of these genuinely got me.
The complete lack of sound for switching pistol modes (when not aiming especially) in a game of otherwise ludicrously intricate sound design is vexing me more severely than it should.
I’m also already bummed at Remedy sayin pre-launch that they can’t fit new game plus in the budget, because I know I’ll want to experience the first hours again but will miss a lot of the tools it maybe takes a bit too long to introduce. At least there’s a mission select, but damn if that’s not even more of a tease.
I finished it. I adore this game. That said I’m probably incapable of being objective now that I know it is in the same universe as Alan Wake and the FBC and Bright Falls are heavily linked
