I've been looking forward to this one since I heard about it last year. It's out in June if there are no delays.
www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/still-wakes-the-deep-is-the-game-i-joined-the-chinese-room-to-make-a-new-release-date-trailer-gives-us-another-look-at-the-horrifying-beira-d-oil-rig
#StillWakesTheDeep #news
A place I can share my thoughts on old/new games and the odd bit of tech.
Sometimes injected with a healthy dose of sarcasm for those who like things a little less serious.
Like + share my articles if you please. Or don't. I'm not your father. XD
This page is managed by Allan Walsh from Scotland.
Morsels of the Mind
There was pleasant news yesterday in that Stalker: Legends of the Zone Trilogy has had a surprise drop on both the Xbox and PlayStation stores!
Stalker: Legends of the Zone Trilogy comes with Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat.
All three games have been improved to run well on the consoles (I can vouch for them running beautifully on the PS5) and have had the controls and menus adapted for play with controllers.
Personally, I feel I'll have to tweak the sensitivity for aiming because… See More
when I aim down the sights of my weapons movement is painfully slow. That's not a big issue though; there is a slider in the options for it!
Releasing these games on console is a good move considering S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will be released on console as well as PC.
I know some console owners will approach these games like traditional shooters and then hate them because they are not. They take patience and skill (and at times a good bit of luck) because you are not a superhero and your weapons (especially in the beginning) and woefully inadequate. The atmosphere though - it always sucks me in.
I work with a guy from the Ukraine, and he says they nailed the look of it. There are parts that look like the place he grew up, so it's good to know you are getting an authentic look and feel.
I really should go through and play these. Games. I haven't played any of them
2 Likes
Another game completed today.
Exo One, from Exbleative (an Australian developer I believe) is a trippy, relaxing and fun glider game in the vein of Journey, but on a bigger scale, across very different alien planets, with some of the best volumetric clouds I have ever seen. And you'll be seeing a lot of this tech during your short journey. I finished the game in 90 minutes, smashing the trophy for completing it in 180 minutes.
You'll need a controller to get the best out of… See More
this game, and it's so smooth to control. Everything you do just feels right as you turn into a ball, pressing a button to increase your gravity by ten, accelerate down a slope (or giant wave, or jump from one asteroid to another), let go of the button, and shoot up into the sky like a rocket, pressing another button to flatten out and become aerodynamic.
There are slipstreams, weird alien boosters, and friction caused by your interaction with clouds and water to keep you powered up. You can also dive into huge clouds to get struck by lightning to give you an extra boost.
It's all very simple, but it looks stunning and the chilled-out music suits it all perfectly.
It's the sort of game you could go back to over and over just to relax.
There is a story to it, but it's rather ambiguous, as seems to be the way of these types of games.
If you think this game will rock your boat, go out and buy it. I'm glad I did.
#ExoOne #review #screenshot
Last night I started Martha is Dead, streaming some of it on BEAM. Today, I had a feeling that it wasn't the best sort of game to stream, due to the subject matter: Mental health.
Today I finished it, and I have to say that I am glad I didn't stream the rest. It covered some horrific issues and didn't shy away from any of them.
Martha is Dead is a walking simulator with some simple exploration puzzles, but nothing that proves too difficult.
Everything in the game is designed to push the… See More
story forward, allowing you to make certain choices (most of which still push you into the direction of the main plot) that range from the banal chores of everyday life, to the gruesome triggering horror that seems all the more disturbing because it's based around the mental health of the main character.
After you find your twin sister Martha dead in a local lake you are taken on a trip in a stunning Italian landscape in the grip of World War II. Your family tries to carry on as the world around falls apart and as you progress through the story you get hit with one shocking twist after another.
I thought I had the story figured out pretty quickly, but as is the case with well-told tales, I was wrong. The darkest thoughts in my head - the ones that should never see the light of day - are what this tale is about. The taboo of a person's mental health deteriorating at a drastic pace, when it was probably never great to begin with.
I've played a lot of harrowing tales, but this is only the second time that I felt horrified at the things that can happen to people (the first being another Italian game called The Town of Light) when they really have nowhere to turn for help.
All of this torment is covered with a veneer of a stunningly realised rural Italy, with a soundtrack and environmental audio to match. Walking in the woods, you could close your eyes and swear you were there. Walking through their rustic home, you can hear clocks in another room and floorboards creaking as your weight bears down on them.
Little touches like realistic fabric physics on your character's clothes are something you rarely see, but if you look at her shadow whilst walking, you can see the flow of the material. There is so much love poured into this game.
But there is one caveat to all this.
There are performance issues galore in Martha is Dead. The longer you play, the worse they get, leading me to think there are memory bleed issues (and I had one crash with an error code that said as much). The odd thing is that whilst in the dense woodlands, the frame-rate was better than inside the house.
If you can persevere, it's a tale worth being part of.
Another word of warning though. There are scenes of graphic self-harm and stuff that is much darker, so if you are in a fragile state of mind, you may find it hard to stomach.
If you are okay with that, and the performance drops, I'd say give it a go. It's not happy, but it's a story that has a lot of heart and hard work behind it.
#MarthaIsDead #review #screenshot
I started playing Ghost on the Shore today and finished in twice in that time.
You play a young woman called Riley (voiced by Nola Klop) who, whilst trying to escape from her life, ends up on a group of islands, where a strange voice known as Josh (voiced by Phillip Sacramento) starts talking to her.
Whilst exploring the Island, Riley starts to piece together the long, sad history of the place, dating back to the early 1800s and as far as the late 1900s.
It's a walking simulator done in a painterly style… See More
which honestly could've been done better to give the game more of a distinct look that I feel it needed to do it justice. Especially since the older buildings didn't really scream of history from an architectural standpoint, but that could've been a side effect of the simplistic art style.
Visually it may have been lacking, but the story kept me going, and that's the most important part in a game like this.
Whilst the game is not long (about 4-5 hours at most) the voice acting is solid. Josh is very well done, almost as good as some of the best voice acting I've listened to recently (Deliver Us Mars and Chernobylite in particular) it was emotional enough to have me reaching for the hankies on more than one occasion.
Incidentally, Nola Klop was also very good as a side character in Deliver Us Mars...
Overall , Ghost on the Shore is a nice game and well worth a play, especially if you want something shorter than the ubiquitous open world adventures for a change.
Apart from the slightly generic graphics, the only other negative I could possibly give this game is an odd plot twist near the end that didn't make sense to me (hence my second playthrough, which did nothing to explain the issue).
It's on sale fairly often on Steam, so if you want a good cry (I find it very therapeutic) then do yourself a favour and add it to your game library.
#GhostOnTheShore #review #screenshot
If this is the first date announcement, it is almost certainly wrong.
2 Likes