Thursday Next Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 Love everything about this game. From the art style, to the proceduralness, to the gameplay. It's brilliantly executed and only £9.99 (£7.99 if you're on plus) for all three versions Cross-Buy and Cross-Save. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielpholt Posted August 21, 2014 Report Share Posted August 21, 2014 I'll be buying this tomorrow morning. I've heard mechanically it's a little basic, how are you finding it (i assume you deeper into the game?), does it get any more challenging? I can't wait to play it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted August 22, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2014 (edited) It's essentially a stealthy actiony roguelike. There's 4 basic enemy types. Standard mooks with pistols, machine guns, rocketlaunchers etc. Helmeted mooks as before, but take two headshots to drop, elite soldiers who take three headshots to drop and commanders who you shouldn't kill as they can be made to surrender. Of these, the elites are annoying as they cannot be one-shotted even if you are upgraded so killing one with a weapon means blowing your stealth streak. You start off with a basic, noisy, handgun. As you go through you get a silenced pistol, a tranq gun and a persuader gun that open up gameplay. You also get shotguns, machine guns etc that are more destructive. These weapons can dramatically change the way you approach the game. Either running and gunning dropping everyone in the room before someone raises your defcon level, or more tactically stealthily killing/tranquing enemies or luring them toward you to give them a beating. In addition to weapons, you also get formulas. These are consumable and you can choose up to three, you have things like being harder for cameras to spot you, being more of a bullet sponge or silent footsteps, allowing you to tailor your spy to your playstyle. The procedural level generation keeps the challenge up as you can't learn the levels, but like with all roguelikes, if you don't enjoy the core gameplay to begin with, you likely never will and will find it repetitive. Additional challenge comes from trying to beat high scores of other players. You are given the id and score of an enemy spy at the start of a mission. If you beat their score you can locate their body in the next mission for a bonus cash payout. Cash is used to purchase ammo and formulas. I'm not sure if weapons unlocked carry from one playthrough to the next. I'll check this tonight. Normal playthrough took a few hours, each mission takes about 10-15 minutes which makes it ideal for Vita. Oh one more thing, each playthrough unlocks another difficulty tier (up to three Normal Hard Elite). Edited August 22, 2014 by Thursday Next 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Connorrrr Posted August 23, 2014 Report Share Posted August 23, 2014 It's a neat little game for sure. The art style is fantastic. The gameplay is indeed very basic, but pretty fun for the most part. As Thursday says, it is more or less perfect for cross-save because of the short missions.. I'll find myself running one or two before bed, but the load times and frame rate can be a bit janky on the Vita, I've found. (gen 1, dunno if that matters). Looks great on the PS4. The game has a decent sense of humour and style. I wish the stealth was a bit more robust. Maybe I'm being stupid but it seems hard to get through without killing anyone and it's kinda beneficial to do so anyway... They should've given you scores for bypassing guards undisturbed ala Mark of the Ninja. I will continue to play for some time yet though, I imagine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielpholt Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 I believe I'm coming up on the end of play-through 1, and I'm enjoying myself. Like Connorrrr say's it's got some really short missions going for it, I can play a few before bed and then forget about it. It looks great, and I kind of love the noise the gun makes when it's reloading. The shooting mechanics can be a bit hit and miss, especially in cover-mode, and that's caused me some frustration, but all-in-all I'm really enjoying it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielpholt Posted August 26, 2014 Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 Finished my 1st play-through. I spent 2 hours trying to get my Defcon level's down, before deciding to fuck it all and go ahead with the final mission. It's easier that way, just play smart and you'll be fine. Probably going to attempt a second go around, as I want some more of those sexy weapons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted August 26, 2014 Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 Im a giant fan of stealth games and a big fat fan of roguelikes. Recommend this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted August 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 Im a giant fan of stealth games and a big fat fan of roguelikes. Recommend this? Yup. Especially if you like your gameplay bite sized. It's great for quick plays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted August 26, 2014 Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 Hmm. I tend to prefer slightly longer form gameplay. Mark of the Ninja, imho, was the perfect blend of pick-up-and-play and through-composed-adventure. Halfway between quick-stage-based and Metroidvania. Not sure how I feel about tiny stages generally, but some games fucking perfect it. Eg Hotline Miami. Others not so much, like Stealth Inc. I get the feeling Counterspy might be PS+ free in the next month or two, though? I'm getting a 'wait and see' vibe. I'll wait and see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielpholt Posted August 26, 2014 Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 Hmm. I tend to prefer slightly longer form gameplay. Mark of the Ninja, imho, was the perfect blend of pick-up-and-play and through-composed-adventure. Halfway between quick-stage-based and Metroidvania. Not sure how I feel about tiny stages generally, but some games fucking perfect it. Eg Hotline Miami. Others not so much, like Stealth Inc. I get the feeling Counterspy might be PS+ free in the next month or two, though? I'm getting a 'wait and see' vibe. I'll wait and see. Tbh, I'm not even sure I'd qualify it as a stealth game. I don't believe I ever got through a stage without murdering everyone. It's not that sort of game. You want to avoid being seen for the purpose of murdering the bad guys in a more efficient manner; not to avoid them altogether. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted August 26, 2014 Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 (edited) That can be okay. TLoU is entirely that and has some of the best stealth around. Edit: wait I've got to fix that statement. I'm doing my Grounded playthrough right now, and a seriously large amount of encounters are not about killing everyone, haha. Often it comes down to taking out the bare minimum of guys and moving right along. Like the bookstore checkpoint bit. Christ I killed like 5 of the 11 guys, and just crept on past. My first 4-6 playthroughs of the game, I took out everyone I could. Now the risk/reward ratio is just too dodgy. The bits when it forces you to fight/ confront are horrific. So much more real on Grounded. Edit 2: also I really like Splinter Cell Conviction for what it was, and indeed that was literally 100% killing everyone. Edited August 27, 2014 by kenshi_ryden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 Wait, what? Procedural? Roguelike?! I had the completely wrong idea about this game, then. I thought it more of an action/metroidvania, the kind with designed levels. That's simultaneously disappointing while making it equally interesting, just for different reasons. I might grab it soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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