Resident Evil 7

[MetalCaveman]

[MetalCaveman]

[toxicitizen]

Finally some proper gameplay trailers! These show some new enemies and locations (at least, they were new to me), so that's your spoiler warning.

 

 

 

 

I think that's about all I want to see before release but I don't know if I'll be able to help myself lol. I'm avoiding all press gameplay demos, though. Watching a montage of short clips like these is one thing, most of it is completely lacking context. But a continuous 10mins section like some sites and channels were posting recently is definitely more than I wanna see.

[toxicitizen]

Demo's finally live on Steam. 

 

Well, maybe not "live" since nobody seems to be able to download it just yet. Gonna give it a whirl as soon as they fix that.

[toxicitizen]

Just put 3 hours into the game, although some of it was spent wandering around aimlessly and being chased without being sure how to lose my pursuer. So, I probably have less than 3 hours in terms of actual game progress. Anyway, so far I'm really enjoying it. It definitely feels like a true return to the series' roots. I kind of understand why they were only showing very short clips for the marketing now. I have a feeling the game is going to be very small in terms of scale. I'm still in the same general area I started in and it feels very similar to the first game in how you're exploring this one big place and constantly backtracking through rooms and unlocking new doors. 

 

One thing worth mentioning is that the game isn't scary at all so far. And keep in mind this is coming from someone who's admittedly a giant wuss when it comes to horror games. Resident Evil has never been a very scary series but I would at least feel some base level of stress while playing. Here, not so much. The bit I mentioned where I was being chased and had trouble figuring out how to lose the guy, the entire time I was just thinking to myself "lmao fuck off dude" while dodging his blows and trying not to get killed. It was intense but not stressful, if that makes any sense.

 

I'm heading to bed for now but I can't wait to play more tomorrow and see what else the game has in store.

[Mal]

Give it enough time you'll be like this:

Except Nemesis, William and Mr. X scared the shit out of little me. Luckily, we're adults and we can laugh at zombies and the like (Thanks RE4-6).

[toxicitizen]

Lol, yeah, I remember renting RE2 and loading up an existing scenario B save that was already on the N64 game cart. I didn't know anything different would be going on, so imagine my surprise when I'm just going through a section I've done before but this happens out of nowhere

 

 

RE has only ever truly been scary as a kid. The last time I remember being scared by the series is on my first playthrough of RE4 when it first came out on GCN and it was only during one section. The boss fight in the sewer-like tunnel against Salazar's right hand. Everything else is just way too cheesy and dumb to be anything more than stressful.

[deanb]

 

May amuse.

[Mal]

Why isn't there more VR games like that with traditional movement? It seems viable. Probably not marathon-a-whole-game viable but viable.

 

Anyhow, I really do like what I'm seeing from above and from the limited streams I've seen (late-game with some monsters somewhere dark and rocky). The restrictiveness of first-person view and commitment to movement works well together (think Alien Isolation). It kind of mimics the tank controllers with fixed third-person angles of RE1-3. RE7 also seems to have some jankiness to the enemies as well (in the above, monster guy misses twice with a shovel when it really seemed like it should've found its mark). Perhaps shenanigans like the video I posted is possible.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Mal

[Mister Jack]

It seems like they really took the risk of motion sickness into consideration with the VR mode.  Crouching in the normal gameplay has camera movement, but is instantaneous here.  Same goes for when he gets up from the floor after he falls onto his side.  There's a wobbly camera transition normally, but in VR mode it just briefly fades to black and then puts him upright.  I hope we start getting more AAA games that put this much thought into VR mode.  It would make me actually take the VR plunge.

[MetalCaveman]

Someone spoiled the ending for me, and suddenly I'm really interested in this game, unfortunately, I don't have room in my budget for it.

[CorgiShinobi]

I held off because I was pessimistic this would be a good enough game. Not to mention it's the closest thing we'll get to a Silent Hills game. Reviews and some of the footage I've seen lead me to believe I'll enjoy it.

 

Got the Amazon Prime discount, but it seems I ordered a little late as Amazon sold out this evening. No big deal as I'll get it Tuesday. I've got some things to finish up.

[toxicitizen]

Hmm, I started a new game and was going for a collectibles run at first but at some point I guess it turned into a speed run lol. Now I'm a little over halfway through with only 1h left on the 4h limit. Don't think it'll be possible, so I'm kinda tempted to just say fuck it and start over on easy just to get the unlockables done.
 

I held off because I was pessimistic this would be a good enough game. Not to mention it's the closest thing we'll get to a Silent Hills game. Reviews and some of the footage I've seen lead me to believe I'll enjoy it.

If you love the old-school gameplay style like in REmake and don't mind the switch to a first-person perspective, then you're pretty much guaranteed to love it. It's a fantastic game!

[Mister Jack]

I think, I THINK the unlockables work like this.  This is currently unconfirmed but it's what I infer from my own experience.

 

 

 

Beat the game in under 4 hours to unlock the circular saw and X-ray glasses. I'm pretty confident in this one because I didn't do anything else special in that run.

Break all the Mr. Everywhere bobbleheads to unlock the Essence of Defense and the Walking Shoes. I'm fairly confident about this one because I did a run where I got all the files and all the coins but missed one bobblehead and didn't unlock anything. I've also heard people saying they got these items even after passing the four hour mark, so I don't think speed running is involved here.

 

 

 

If you want some speedrun tips, I can give you the following pieces of advice that shaved off a lot of time for me.

 

 

 

- Don't go around picking up everything. It's a waste of time. If you're doing the speed run on easy, which you should, you can run past a lot of enemies anyway so you shouldn't need a whole lot of ammo. You already beat the game once so you should have the Albert-R01 handgun, which is a lot better than the standard one.  Also, screw the antique coins.  You don't need them.

- When you fight Jack in the garage, grab the car key and circle around the front of the car to the passenger side. When he follows you and smashes the table, use that window to jump in the driver seat and run him over. It ends the fight a lot faster than if he gets in the car himself.

- Don't bother getting the shotgun in the bust's hands. Get the broken shotgun out of grandma's room, then go outside and check the space in between the two porch staircases to find a metal grate. You can pry the grate off and find a repair kit in the crawlspace that will repair the broken shotgun and turn it into a very powerful double barrel.

 

- You can skip several phone calls in the game.  You have to answer in the guest house and in the trailer, but I don't think you're ever required to answer the phone that's by the front door of the main house.  Just ignore it.  You can skip every video tape except the first and last one, too.

 

- Don't bother picking up the grenade launcher in the main house or the machine gun on the ship.  You don't need them and you get the launcher later anyway.  Do get the backpack upgrades, though, as it will cut down on the time you spend in the item box.

 

[Mal]

Honestly, part of me don't want to believe that RE7 is good.

[toxicitizen]

I think, I THINK the unlockables work like this.  This is currently unconfirmed but it's what I infer from my own experience.

 

 

 

Beat the game in under 4 hours to unlock the circular saw and X-ray glasses. I'm pretty confident in this one because I didn't do anything else special in that run.

 

Break all the Mr. Everywhere bobbleheads to unlock the Essence of Defense and the Walking Shoes. I'm fairly confident about this one because I did a run where I got all the files and all the coins but missed one bobblehead and didn't unlock anything. I've also heard people saying they got these items even after passing the four hour mark, so I don't think speed running is involved here.

 

 

 

Did you also avoid using healing items? I read somewhere that you need to use 3 or less to get the x-ray glasses

 

 

There's an achievement for it anyway, so I figure I might as well go for it while I'm on easy since there's more health regen. Then I'll do another normal run where I go for all the files, coins and Mr. Everywhere so I'll have all the good unlockables for when I do Madhouse. 

 

Have you done the "don't open the item box more than 3 times" one, too? I imagine it's probably a good idea to do it on easy, as well.

 

If you want some speedrun tips, I can give you the following pieces of advice that shaved off a lot of time for me.

 

 

 

- Don't go around picking up everything. It's a waste of time. If you're doing the speed run on easy, which you should, you can run past a lot of enemies anyway so you shouldn't need a whole lot of ammo. You already beat the game once so you should have the Albert-R01 handgun, which is a lot better than the standard one.  Also, screw the antique coins.  You don't need them.

 

- When you fight Jack in the garage, grab the car key and circle around the front of the car to the passenger side. When he follows you and smashes the table, use that window to jump in the driver seat and run him over. It ends the fight a lot faster than if he gets in the car himself.

 

- Don't bother getting the shotgun in the bust's hands. Get the broken shotgun out of grandma's room, then go outside and check the space in between the two porch staircases to find a metal grate. You can pry the grate off and find a repair kit in the crawlspace that will repair the broken shotgun and turn it into a very powerful double barrel.

 

- You can skip several phone calls in the game.  You have to answer in the guest house and in the trailer, but I don't think you're ever required to answer the phone that's by the front door of the main house.  Just ignore it.  You can skip every video tape except the first and last one, too.

 

- Don't bother picking up the grenade launcher in the main house or the machine gun on the ship.  You don't need them and you get the launcher later anyway.  Do get the backpack upgrades, though, as it will cut down on the time you spend in the item box.

 

 

 

 

Ah, thanks. Completely missed the repair kit on my first run so it's good to know where it is. I just finished the car fight and alt-tabbed out for a bit, so some of those tips are just in time. Pretty sure you can skip the first tape, too, since I didn't do it just now. What I'm wondering is this, though. Since I know the door code for Lucas' happy birthday puzzle room  from my previous run, can I just punch it in right away and skip the whole barn section altogether?

 

 

[Mister Jack]

 

Unfortunately, no. The code changes every time to ensure you can't do that. However, the Happy Birthday passwords are always the same, so you can just go right to the room with the valve wheel and put in that same password every time.

The four hour speed run unlocks both the glasses and the saw at the same time. Doing the three healing items run is just for the trophy. I should mention that the steroids don't count toward your three medkits, so if you get all the steroids, you can actually heal yourself up to six times and still get it. I ended up healing myself four times.

 

I personally would recommend doing the "no item boxes" run after doing madhouse.  There's nothing to unlock from it other than the trophy, and beating madhouse gets you infinite ammo.  You're allowed to use the item box three times, but considering Lucas makes you use it twice for his stupid Jigsaw room and then you have to use it again to get all of Mia's items near the end, you really don't have any free uses of it at all.

 

One other thing.  That toy axe in the attic above Lucas' room?  You can take it outside.  If you look to the left of the door that requires the red and blue keycards, there's a space behind some bushes that has another shadow puzzle.  If you use the toy axe to solve it, you get a free stabilizer.

 

 

Edited January 27, 2017 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

 

 

Ah, bummer about the door code but that was to be expected. 

 

And yeah, good point, ammo does take a lot of needless space. Hadn't thought about that. Plus it gives you an excuse to replay with infinite ammo. Shit, I could've been using the Albert all this time lol. Oh well, at least I'll have it going forward. Just made it out of the main house with just under an hour on the clock. It was so fucking satisfying to absolutely destroy Jack in seconds in the chainsaw fight. That was seriously the part that gave me the most trouble out of the entire game.

 

 

[Mister Jack]

 

 

Ah, bummer about the door code but that was to be expected. 

 

And yeah, good point, ammo does take a lot of needless space. Hadn't thought about that. Plus it gives you an excuse to replay with infinite ammo. Shit, I could've been using the Albert all this time lol. Oh well, at least I'll have it going forward. Just made it out of the main house with just under an hour on the clock. It was so fucking satisfying to absolutely destroy Jack in seconds in the chainsaw fight. That was seriously the part that gave me the most trouble out of the entire game.

 

 

 

You and me both. I spent about a good forty minutes trying to beat him the first time I did it.

 

Then I learned after the fact that you can duck under his attacks. SON OF A--

 

[toxicitizen]

Speedrun complete! How the fuck did you do it in 2h35m, Jack?! It took me like 3h20m and there isn't any particular section I feel I could've done significantly faster. Actually, I was kinda shocked by how insanely fast you can clear

 

 

the ship. I got out of the VHS around 2h50 and was back in control of Ethan before the 3h mark. I spent easily over an hour slowly exploring it the first time but if you just beeline for the fuse and power cable it's over in less than 10mins lol.

 

 

 

I kinda want to jump right back in and do my normal collectibles run right away but I don't know if I want to go through that intro for a fourth time just yet. Shit's getting tedious. Really wish you could skip cutscenes or start NG+ at the dinner table scene. :/

Edited January 28, 2017 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

I dunno.  I never died, I ran past any non-key items that weren't directly in front of me, I barely touched the item box, I used shortcuts whenever possible, I ran past most enemies, and I killed the bosses really fast.  I can't say I did anything else particularly special.  I also charted a path so that I went directly from point A to point B with minimal wandering around.  I also didn't spend much time getting chased around.  I ran right past them for the most part and ate some damage if I had to.  I only bothered fighting enemies if they were blocking my path and I couldn't go around them.

[toxicitizen]

I see. I guess all the minutes wasted going for an item, or hesitating on where to go next added up after a while.

 

On another note, holy shit!

 

 

 

So, after the dinner table scene, turns out there's a completely missable sequence with Jack similar to the car thing. He caught me, fucking cut my leg off with his shovel and it's not even a death sequence. You crawl and grab your leg while he teases you with some first aid. Then you can grab the first aid  and reattach your leg and the chase is back on. That's some strong fucking first aid. It just happened to me for the first time like literally minutes after I read about it on NeoGAF. Now I kinda wish I hadn't stumbled across that post lol. Would've been such a wtf moment to see it for the first time on my third run.

 

I wonder how many optional little bits like that there are throughout the game. So far the only two I'm aware of are both related to Jack in the early game. This and when he gets in the car during the garage boss fight. On my very first run, I never even realized it was possible for me to actually drive the car. I thought him dragging me out and getting behind the wheel was a scripted, unavoidable thing.

 

 

 

This game, man! This fucking game!

Edited January 28, 2017 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

 

That happened to me the first time I played and I figured it was a scripted event, but when I died and redid that part I managed to avoid him, bypassing the leg amputation entirely.

On another funny note, I went at Jack in the hallway with the circular saw just to see if I could temporarily disable him, and it worked. After he took enough damage, he fell to the ground and stopped moving. I got down and sawed him a few more times for good measure, then out of nowhere he yells "CUT THAT OUT!" and gets back up to beat on me.

 

[toxicitizen]

Hahahaha, nice. But yeah, you can take him out temporarily. I never bothered trying because it seemed like a complete waste of ammo but the launch trailer showed him falling down and getting back up.

 

Speaking of which, that was one stupid fucking launch trailer. Pretty much shows everything, including a bit of the fucking ending. Avoid at all cost if you haven't played the game yet and don't want to get spoiled! I was warned off so I only checked it out after finishing the game but man, I would've been kinda pissed if I had watched it earlier. Don't know wtf they were thinking.

[toxicitizen]

You know what, Capcom? If you're gonna have fucking collectibles, how about not putting them in sections you can't go back to, you dumb fucks? Having points of no return and entire levels you can't go back to is one thing, but if I miss a fucking coin in a goddamn air vent and then you lock me from going back into said vent WHILE I'M STILL IN THE SAME DAMN LEVEL, then you're just being an asshole.

 

Thank fucking God for cloud saves. I was able to disable Steam Cloud before quitting the game, delete my current save and revert to my save from last night. Really glad I thought to try that because holy shit, I was so fucking pissed. I did not feel like restarting my entire collectibles run just because of a single goddamn fucking coin. I lost all the progress I had done this afternoon but I don't even give a shit right now.

 

Also, I couldn't help but notice that RE7 has 1.99GB of cloud space available lmao. I mean, what? My save barely takes 10MB. I can't imagine anyone ever needing that much space. Whenever I need to mess around with Steam Cloud, I always end up wishing Valve would improve the feature a bit. Space clearly isn't an issue, so it would be nice to have some kind of version control feature where reverting to a previous version of a save isn't so clunky. And don't even get me started on when you actually want to delete what's in the cloud. That process is just convoluted as fuck and only works like half the time.