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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2019 14:42:06 GMT
I haven't seen a thread for this yet and I think it's worth noting this new series from Supermassive Games and Bandai. If you are familiar with Until Dawn, this a new anthology series from those creators. They are horror/survival games that play very similar to the Telltale Games (i.e. decisions, QTE, consequences for each action, perma-death). The series is going to eventually have 8 games in it, each loosely connected to each other (similar to American Horror Stories, but without returning characters). There's a "Curator" who acts as the narrator for each game, but the settings and characters are all different. It can be played solo or multiplayer. And the multiplayer can be online where each player gets different characters to play or local (called "Movie Night Mode") where you pass the controller to play as different characters. It's super fun. The first game was released this week. It's called Man of Medan. The setting is around four young Americans who are adventure diving in the South China Sea on a chartered boat. The characters are Alex, a med student; Julia, his sarcastic girlfriend; Brad, his nerdy brother; Conrad, Julia's cocky brother; and Fliss, the young captain of the charter. Through a series of events, the group ends up with an antagonistic group on a long-abandoned WW2 air craft carrier. And that's where the horror begins. This game feels alot like the movie Ghost Ship or Event Horizon. There are hundreds of ways that the story can play out, based on the decisions you make. You can have every character survive; none of them survive; or any combination between. It's short -- only about 4 hours per playthrough, so there's ton of replayability.  (l to r) Brad, Julia, Alex, Fliss, and Conrad The next game in the series is called Little Hope and is set to come out in early 2020. There's a teaser for it at the end of this game and it looks like it's more of a Blair Witch meets Silent Hill type setting. Spoilers for my first playthrough: So in my first playthrough, I did solo mode. Each character has a malleable starting personality, so I tried to play them each along their individual traits. I immediately took a dislike to Alex, Julia, and Conrad. Too cocky and spoiled. Although Alex wasn't too bad the further I played with him. I very much liked Brad (the nerdy brother) and Fliss (the guarded and capable captain).
I figured out what was happening pretty quickly and deduced that it wasn't actually supernatural at all but instead based on chemical warfare. The issue was that I needed to find the right clues in game so that the characters figured it out too. But I did that and was able to both call the military for rescue (giving them the correct ship name and the coordinates) and also finding the distributer cap for our boat so that we could escape on our own.
Fliss and Alex ended up being the main characters on my playthrough. They had the most scenes and did the most work. Including leaving the others to stay behind in the radio room so that they could find the generator. Fliss had "Final Girl" written all over in my playthrough.
I did a pretty good job of not losing any of my characters. Until, that is, the final scenes. In my game, Conrad went looking for Alex and Fliss. Somehow, Alex went "missing" (it wasn't mentioned at all so I think it was actually a glitch where he was supposed to be there but he wasn't), so the final confrontation ended up being Conrad and Fliss. Conrad was fighting the "final boss" and I failed a QTE and he ended up getting sliced in half with a bulkhead door, which also killed the final boss guy. Then, with a total surprise, in a post-credits scene, as the group is escaping on the boat, Julia is mourning her brother and ended up dying from decompression sickness. MUCH earlier in the game, I had her recklessly resurface too quickly and then ignore Alex's advice to drink a beer afterwards. Literally hours later, these decisions came back and Julia died from them in a shocking final death. Which was cool because I had thought that there was not really a consequence from them.
So, in my playthrough, Fliss, Alex, and Brad (who had the smallest role, despite me really liking him) survived and escaped. I'm going to do another playthrough using the "Curator's Cut", where you can play from different characters' perspectives. And I'm even going to get the hubby to do a "Movie Night" playthrough with me. Overall, I think this is a pretty solid series so far. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next few games give us. Anyone else playing? I'd love to hear about how your stories went! |
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Post by dgcatanisiri on Sept 1, 2019 16:49:13 GMT
It’s on my list, though my backlog is already pretty extensive. Still, I love Until Dawn, so this earned a spot on that basis.
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Ark
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Post by Ark on Sept 2, 2019 6:11:25 GMT
Thanks for making the thread! I am definitely planning to buy the anthology. I never got to play Until Dawn, but I absolutely love watching lets plays of it.
Purchased Man of Medan on Friday. My first playthrough was pretty disastrous, but even if I don't do a completionist run, I'm still having a blast watching it on youtube.
I decided it was a bad idea to let Conrad try to use the escape boat after the premonition, and I feel like I was rewarded pretty well with one of the freakiest sequences in the game.
I'm actually a bit irritated by how easy it is to completely miss all of Conrad's content. I'd say 80% of the people I normally watch Let's Plays of send him off in the boat.
Also for those who haven't seen it, the 2nd installment (which should be out in roughly 6 months) has a trailer up on youtube. This looks to be a LOT more up my alley. Really really can't wait for chapter 2!
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Ark
The Beastmaster
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Post by Ark on Sept 2, 2019 7:24:32 GMT
Also in regards to the 1st Installment, it's based around an actual Ghost Story. I linked this video months ago when the game was first announced, but for those who would like to hear the story before (or after) jumping into the game, here's a channel that does a really good job of telling it.
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benamin
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Post by benamin on Sept 4, 2019 3:15:32 GMT
Any gay charcter on this game?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2019 13:23:33 GMT
Any gay charcter on this game? No gay characters in this one. Although it seems like Fliss, the captain, is bisexual. Conrad flirts with her pretty relentlessly and you can either reciprocate or shoot him down. If you reciprocate, they can end up making out. And, in one of the scenarios, Brad (the insecure nerd) asks ‘What’s the big deal with girls anyway?’ and she responds, ‘Well they are pretty good in bed....’. But, because it’s basically a choose your own adventure and some playthroughs have different scenes than others, it’s definitely possible to miss this. I did on my first playthrough. Unfortunately, you can’t romance the other girl, Julia, because she’s implied straight and is in a committed relationship with Alex. And they are literally the only two female characters in the game. Brad’s sexuality is less clear. I’m not sure if there’s any combination of scenes/responses that confirm. In all of my playthroughs, I don’t think he ever shows definitive interest either way. One thing of note for some thirstier members here, there’s a pretty long scene where Alex is in his underwear (tight boxer briefs) and they did not skimp on his assets, if you get my drift. Someone clearly designed his character model to be packing a little heat. LOL.  |
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Post by Davrin's boobs on Jun 8, 2020 21:41:08 GMT
My sister and I went throught hell to save Junior, even though he is not a main character just because he is hot    We have restarted the game like 4 times lmao now we are taken the saves into a pendrive to not lose any progress, this game is a fucking nightmare lol stupid stay calm QTEs  I hope we can finish it today. I'm not impress about the non-supernatural story, I really hope they dont pull that shit anymore in future stories, I like my supernatural horror movies. Also, gays and lesbians please?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2020 15:45:21 GMT
Been doing a lot of reading on the new story, Little Hope, which releases soon (summer but no date yet). This one follows a group of four college students and their professor who are on a research trip to the town of Little Hope (a stand in for a colonial New England village a la Salem). Their bus breaks down and they end up stranded in the abandoned town when spookiness and death starts happening. It’s definitely giving off Silent Hill meets Blair Witch vibes. The game will have five playable characters: Andrew (played by Will Poulter), Angela (a ‘mature’ i.e. older student), Daniel (who looks like a snack), Taylor (a bland white girl), and John (the professor). Andrew seems to be the main character this time around. There is apparently a new approach where the game is playable in multiple time periods with the main characters being connected in the 1600’s, 1970’s, and present time. Not sure how that will work but I’m intrigued. A few new features: there’s not a locked camera system anymore so you can rotate and move camera angles; and it now gives you a warning before the QTE happen so that you can better prepare. I’m excited. I enjoyed both Until Dawn and Man of Medan, so I’m hopeful that this series stays solid. Protags (l to r): Taylor, Daniel, John, Andrew, & Angela  And a better/more recent picture of Daniel: |
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Post by disgustednoise on Jun 12, 2020 2:01:51 GMT
I just watched Man of Medan instead of playing it myself, but I'll have to get this one. I've always been fascinated by Puritan New England for some reason.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2020 2:24:05 GMT
Ugh. Delayed until the fall. But here's an 8 minute gameplay trailer. Spooooooky!
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Joey
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Post by Joey on Jul 4, 2020 4:50:29 GMT
Hmm this gameplay is pretty empty. We've seen some snippets of this multiple times and now seeing longer gameplay I feel I saw nothing much, really, just characters wandering around mainly. And the ending of the gameplay was pretty anti-climatic. Also, I really, really hate those "in your face" jumpscares. Subtle stuff usually scares me more, I hate when they have to add those loud sound effects to make sure you're scared.
Also, I hate design of most people from the cast here. Main two characters here are fine, but others... there's something off with their faces, not every face translates well into the game. I had the same issue with Man of Medan. Weird thing is, Detroit never had such issue.
Or maybe that's not the issue with the faces, but the character design itself. IMO that's the case, even the hairstyle and facial hair can change the character drastically (can confirm fist-hand, we changed the hair of one character who was a scanned actor, slightly lovered his eyebrows and he looks 10000000 times better, like a different person essentially) and I see that it could be done waaay better with that guy with the red shirt and the lady with purple hair. It's a shame some companies are just scanning some actors 1:1 instead of doing some tweaks, like Naughty Dog.
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Post by turianlannister on Jul 6, 2020 0:09:08 GMT
Protags (l to r): Taylor, Daniel, John, Andrew, & Angela One on the left reminds me of Justin Bieber |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 23:55:26 GMT
Finally got around to getting Man of Medan. Felt it was too short and not as good as Until Dawn, still it was pretty enjoyable. I unfortunately got Fliss and Conrad killed  . Fliss was shot by Junior (wanted to save him with the re-breather but screwed up the heartbeat bit, and I chose the option where Brad says that they did breathe in the mist). For Conrad, he got away on the speedboat and showed back up with the coastguard to investigate the Medan. Since Alex, Julia, and Brad got the distributor cap and got away, Conrad died from the Manchurian Gold. Kinda sad that the survivors didn't care about Fliss being killed, since Julia only worried about Conrad at the end. Pretty spooky seeing the Curator in the background occasionally, and I got a good laugh out of the rock cover of O Death. Looking forward to Little Hope. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2020 23:34:10 GMT
A new gameplay trailer for Little Hope. This one is of the prologue. It's set in the 70's with a family, all of whom are played by the same actors as the protagonists with the little girl being played by the same actress as the creepy puritan girl. Seems like it's confirmed that there's more to it than just randomness that the protags end up in Little Hope.
My friend from the ESRB just played part of it for the ratings review. She said it's really good. Better than Man of Medan (she came over after it first came out and we all played the "Movie Night" version of it). Very tense and scary. Will Poulter is great in it. I'm definitely excited. Halloween is so far away!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2020 21:33:55 GMT
20 more mins of gameplay. The game is available for pre-order now. I think I'm going to enjoy Angela as a character. How much do you want to bet that the "dark spirits" that the witches are seen talking to are just the protags during these flashbacks? But then the question is who was that demon-y looking thing in the prologue and how do these flashbacks actually work? Can you change the past? And what's the relationship between the same character from each time period (like how are Amy, Anne, and Angela all connected beyond just having the same face)? |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2020 3:56:52 GMT
Just noticed that Daniel(?) is played by one of the army guys in Man of Medan's prologue. How much do you want to bet that the "dark spirits" that the witches are seen talking to are just the protags during these flashbacks? But then the question is who was that demon-y looking thing in the prologue and how do these flashbacks actually work? Can you change the past? And what's the relationship between the same character from each time period (like how are Amy, Anne, and Angela all connected beyond just having the same face)? That seems a pretty reasonable bet. Maybe the Demon is the big bad, or a representation of the town? Maybe the Demon cursed these people and made it so that their lives would be connected even through time itself. My guess is that the flashbacks don't change how the past plays out, but maybe gives insight on who to save, I dunno. A let's player I watch played through a demo of it (same demo from @daveliam post). |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2020 16:43:46 GMT
Just played Little Hope. Pretty interesting story. I've only done one playthrough so far so there are a lot of secrets that I either missed in the main story or haven't accessed yet through Curator's Cut. But I liked the multiple time periods. I'm always into anything that is inspired by the Salem Witch Trials, so I enjoyed that aspect. The acting was better in this one. Will Poulter was great. But I didn't really like any of the characters the way that I did in Man of Medan. Still, I'm looking forward to several playthroughs to see how it branches differently. I did like that the QTE seemed to be quicker this time. I actually missed a few and it led to several deaths. One thing that I HATED? The new feature where you can unlock personality traits in the characters which impacts gameplay. It feels like it shoehorns you into playing the characters in a particular way. And I like getting to pick that myself. Hopefully that was this game only. Final thought? Another very hetero game. Not a single queer character that I could find in this first playthrough. The only romantic dialogue in the current time period are with Taylor and Daniel (I wasn't feel them as a couple, but I could see it). Andrew had one dialogue option where Angela said something about how Andrew would hook up with Taylor if given an option. And his only options were: "girls don't like me" or "we need to focus on the danger", which implies that he's straight too. And it's mentioned that Angela has an ex-husband. So John is the only one who doesn't seem to have any forced opposite sex interest/relationship included. Hopefully they give us a queer character in the next game. Fliss is the only one so far and her bisexuality is a blink and miss it comment. My first outcome (minor spoilers)
Andrew lived and seemed to come to terms with his past
John had his neck broken in the Clarke House by Joseph's ghost
Angela got suffocated and dragged away by Amy's ghost right before entering the Clarke House
Taylor had her neck broken by Tabitha's "Hanging Lady" ghost (since I had Tanya try to climb down from the fire)
Daniel got stabbed in the chest and eye by David's ghost pretty early on
My thoughts [with major plotline spoilers]
I didn't love that this was an "all in his head" twist. That's now 2/2 Dark Pictures games where the "danger" never existed in the first place.
I HATED that because I didn't play the characters with the traits from their 70's counterparts, they weren't able to escape their ghosts. That's nonsense because it means that I need to play them a certain way which reduces the playthrough options.
The third game has a preview video now too. It's called House of Ashes and takes place in the Arabian desert. Looks like it's a reporter or scientist being helicoptered into the desert by some Marines. Likely it's connected to the Hodgson Expedition (teased in Man of Medan). And it will be focused on demons since Pazuzu shows up in the trailer. And so does Ashley Tisdale who is the celebrity "face" of the game this time (after Rami Malek & Hayden Panetiere from Until Dawn; Katie Cassidy from Hidden Agenda; Shawn Ashmore from Man of Medan; and now Will Poulter from Little Hope). Not going to lie, I'm in and will buy it. The fourth game still doesn't have a title or info released yet, but the collector's edition of Little Hope had a map with symbols from the curator's books on them. The symbol for the 4th game is a compass (mechanical) and appears to be located in the Great Lakes region in the U.S. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2020 2:13:00 GMT
It looks good, although I'll probably wait for a sale to get Little Hope. I did spoil myself since I watched 2 finished playthroughs. Shame that there's no supernatural horror again. From what I saw, I like John the most cause I found it hilarious that he zoomed off twice at the first sign of trouble. Funny thing is that the ending variants I saw (Anthony makes it back to the diner, and gets arrested) got me emotional, so I guess having a character dealing with their grief/guilt is an easy way to get me.
Wondering if they'll go 3 for 3 on the no supernatural horror for House of Ashes. |
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Joey
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Post by Joey on Jan 26, 2021 22:56:38 GMT
I watched Little Hope on youtube (don't have time to play games sadly) and it was quite good, although I'm baffled it's not something the person above me hoped it to be.
Oh and I'm really annoyed with those heap jumpscares. Jumpscare after jumpscare. What works for me isn't jumpscare, it's more like something we have in Silent Hill 2- subtle sound cues that make you realize something isn't right. But here, we have loud sound effects whatever something happens. It's... tiring.
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I hope we can finish it today. 
. Fliss was shot by Junior (wanted to save him with the re-breather but screwed up the heartbeat bit, and I chose the option where Brad says that they did breathe in the mist). For Conrad, he got away on the speedboat and showed back up with the coastguard to investigate the Medan. Since Alex, Julia, and Brad got the distributor cap and got away, Conrad died from the Manchurian Gold. Kinda sad that the survivors didn't care about Fliss being killed, since Julia only worried about Conrad at the end.
Much love right back at ya!
