Octopus Overlords

Picked this up last night for the PS4 and after it unlocked, only had time for a minimal spin before I crapped out after a long day. I'm not sure how much "game" there is here per se and how much is more story and experience, right now it's making me think of things like Until Dawn in that regard. They also recommend headphones for the best experience and boy, they're not kidding. We'll see how much this persists (I assume it will) but there are many voices in her head, constantly whispering, one more dominant than the others but all commenting on what she's doing. Or not doing. Or should be doing. Then there's the 'ghost' / memory that's popped up which is probably connected to the skull she has on her belt. Which she talks to and is looking for... "I will find you".

Anyone else pick this up?

Wishlisted on Steam

I'm playing through it on steam. The sound design is astounding, and I like that they're directly trying to address mental illness. It's very not the strict character action game that the studio's previous work or the title would have you believe.

Also nice that they're playing with both celtic and Norse mythology. Well worth the thirty bucks so far.

(crossposted from GT)

I thought this was a full priced $60 game. Found out it wasn't (it's only $30), so I grabbed it this afternoon and played the first couple hours. The animations, mocap, voice work, and graphics are all incredible, and the setting and story are intriguing. However, there are two rather significant issues:

1. I'm sure the whole "multiple voices in my head" thing is really cool when you have a good surround sound system or headphones. Unfortunately, I've got neither. When you only have basic TV speakers like I've got, the simultaneous voices all talking at once just end up sounding...jumbled. I can usually only make out about half of what they're saying, have no idea which direction they're coming from, and they have drowned out what appears to be more important story-related dialog on more than one occasion.

2. I died in the second battle because I somehow got stuck behind a beam, the camera completely freaked out, and I couldn't move. In a normal game, I'd chalk that up to an annoying minor bug and just replay from the last checkpoint. But in a game where I have a finite amount of lives and one of them just got used up on a bug? That's unacceptable.

I died a second time because the game wasn't particularly clear about an objective. It vaguely hinted that I was supposed to run a certain way, but there was nothing that indicated that there was a time limit that I had to escape within. I apparently ran out of time and died. Again, just something I'd chalk up to trial and error in any other game, but that stupid death limit thing makes it feel like a far bigger deal than it should.

I'm enjoying it, but those two issues are looming rather large in the early game. Keeping my fingers crossed that they're not deal breakers.

Skinypupy wrote:(crossposted from GT)

I thought this was a full priced $60 game. Found out it wasn't (it's only $30), so I grabbed it this afternoon and played the first couple hours. The animations, mocap, voice work, and graphics are all incredible, and the setting and story are intriguing. However, there are two rather significant issues:

1. I'm sure the whole "multiple voices in my head" thing is really cool when you have a good surround sound system or headphones. Unfortunately, I've got neither. When you only have basic TV speakers like I've got, the simultaneous voices all talking at once just end up sounding...jumbled. I can usually only make out about half of what they're saying, have no idea which direction they're coming from, and they have drowned out what appears to be more important story-related dialog on more than one occasion.

2. I died in the second battle because I somehow got stuck behind a beam, the camera completely freaked out, and I couldn't move. In a normal game, I'd chalk that up to an annoying minor bug and just replay from the last checkpoint. But in a game where I have a finite amount of lives and one of them just got used up on a bug? That's unacceptable.

I died a second time because the game wasn't particularly clear about an objective. It vaguely hinted that I was supposed to run a certain way, but there was nothing that indicated that there was a time limit that I had to escape within. I apparently ran out of time and died. Again, just something I'd chalk up to trial and error in any other game, but that stupid death limit thing makes it feel like a far bigger deal than it should.

I'm enjoying it, but those two issues are looming rather large in the early game. Keeping my fingers crossed that they're not deal breakers.

The limited death thing is not that big a thing. It's more like you get say 5 deaths per section not whole game and after completing a section lives lost reset to zero for the next section. I think you may need to die like 50 times before it really kicks in. Dying twice so far sounds like you should just ignore it.

Ninja Theory made a short documentary highlighting the process they used of including mental health professionals and patients to ensure they were not misrepresenting the issue of psychosis.

Senua's Psychosis

I took a break from this when I got to about the halfway mark, and discovered that there was a widespread issue with AMD cards getting mild to severe framerate loss from the halfway point through the end of the game. Fortunately, a patch released earlier this week fixed that problem, so I'm working through to the end.

It stays really good. They do stuff with non-combat portions that I really like, and the environment and atmosphere stays off the chart great.

Skinnypuppy, sorry to hear the audio isn't good through just the TV. I've been playing with headphones the whole way, and if you can somehow get that to happen, I strongly recommend it. The game's notice during startup that headphones really enhance the experience is spot on. With those, the voices get a lot of spatial separation, and I haven't had any trouble hearing what they're saying. I can easily see that being completely lost if you're just listening through the TV speakers.

Well, assuming Skiny is on PS4, you can just plug headphones right into the controller.

RuperT wrote:Well, assuming Skiny is on PS4, you can just plug headphones right into the controller.

I actually forgot you could do that. Thanks for the reminder.

Just started this yesterday. With headphones alone in a dark room at night. Ermagherd it's intense. I'm a very casual gamer who enjoys moderate challenge and I'm a little intimidated by this game, I think from investing in the story. Every word, every hint of sound or movement is something to be prepared for. I love the use of broken movement at the edges of of you're vision. I may even be looking too much into it but it's immersive.

Moresore than alien isolation which was flawd but I loved.

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