Brackstone

@brick_shithouse: For context, I played Doom 2016 again, my second playthrough of the game, right before Eternal. I still agree with all the criticisms about the story in this thread, the game couldn't be fresher in my mind. There is a stark, stark difference between how the games handle their writing, most obvious to is how terrible the new corporate hologram is compared to the one from 2016. Doom 2016 is a tight, lean story, Eternal is bloated with so much backstory and lore and none of it is very well written, but damn is there a lot of it. Each game has about the same amount of actual plot, as in the main story, but eternal goes hard on the lore and that's what bogs it down so hard.

Yeah, the Doom Eternal writing and lore is very, very bad. When it isn't just lame and boring, it's internally inconsistent, makes no damn sense, and honestly the game barely fits in with the previous one. Simplicity is best. It's a problem I have with lots of things that get popular and have sequels, everything needs to be explained, every little detail, one off joke, whatever, needs lore behind it and Doom Eternal does exactly that.

Add to that the Doom Slayer's characterization being so much worse, the corporate hologram being lame has hell compared to 2016 (especially performance wise, it's like they missed the joke entirely), and the Samuel Hayden lore making no sense, the story side of things really is a complete and total regression.

The problem isn't just that the writing, story, characterization and so on is bad, it's that there's so much of it too. It's everywhere, there's a level that's basically just a linear corridor with lore entries and no combat, enemies or even gameplay until you reach the boss. They really, really want to make Doom's lore a thing but it sucks so bad. If you're gonna put this much effort in, go for quality of story not quantity.

If the gameplay weren't so damn good, and such an improvement over the already stellar Doom 2016, I'd be very disappointed in the game.

I have fallen to sleep listening to the Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery soundtrack several times.

1. Bloodborne
2. Dark Souls
3. Sekiro
4. Dark Souls 3
5. Demon's Souls
6. Dark Souls 2

Bloodborne has the best combo of great combat/bosses and great world design. Dark Souls 1 still has mindblowing world design, and excellent enemy encounters, but while it has some real classic boss fights, they don't quite reach the heights of other games on the list.

Sekiro has fantastic boss fights through and through, the best From has made, and was refreshing for how different it was, but the world doesn't quite give the same feeling of grandeur and mystery that you get from the exploration in the other games, it's a bit closer to a typical action game. But by being less RPG, more action game, they solve most of the issues that being an RPG cause in the previous games. I will gladly give up build diversity for more tightly tuned encounters.

In general, Dark Souls is peak From world design, Sekiro is peak From boss design, and Bloodborne is right in the middle, not quite as good at either, but damn close.

Dark Souls 3 is a fantastic game, but doesn't feel special the way the previous 3 do. It has some of the best boss fights in the series, decent enemy encounters, but world wise it relies on the familiar just enough to not feel as mysterious and the focus point system could have used some more work. Demon's Souls has a great world, but the variety of enemy encounters and boss fights isn't quite there, and the basic gameplay definitely feels unrefined compared to later titles.

Dark Souls 2 is still a great game, but it just does everything worse than every other game in the series, not many memorable bosses, not many memorable enemy encounters, the world and story is fine but not amazing.

Haven't played the Surge games, but I plan to eventually, they seem really neat. I really got sick of Nioh 1 by the end, don't plan on ever going back to that series. Lords of the Fallen sucks.

It's good. Weirdly, I think it's given them the excuse to do something I wish they did more often before all this happened, cross coast content, especially when a multiplayer game is involved.

I find the solo streams less interesting because I think the beauty of GB is the crew interacting with each other, but I feel like some of the videos with multiple people have been just as good, if not better than, the stuff they were putting out before the quarantine. Also, the increase is community interaction is very welcome.

Overall, I think they're actually making something great out of a shitty situation.

Back in I think February, maybe the end of January, they released a separate thing that attaches to the DS4 and adds 2 programmable back buttons. All they do is emulate a pre-existing button (I usually set mine to the sticks or X and O). Since it came out I've used it constantly and I can never go back.

The lack of paddles or back buttons completely kills the thing for me. If the DS4 works on the PS5 (can't see a reason it wouldn't) I'll stick with that and the back buttons over all the fancy new tech in this thing.

Back buttons really, really should have been standard. Modern shooters are just so, so much better with them and if devs had the opportunity to design their controls around 2 extra inputs it would be huge. If they offer a premium version with back buttons (attachment seems unlikely to me) that's fine, but again, it should be standard. Also any back button option on PS5 should be within the price range of what they cost on PS4 because if it's not going to be standard, it should at least be accessible and not require a $100 or more investment.

It's hard to describe what the HD collection would be like for a newcomer, but with how poor the graphics are, I think the best way to describe it is that it looks unfinished. The fog effects are so much worse, it feels like a build of the game that was several months out from release, and as a fan, the fog being worse really does bring the entire product down. You can see things you aren't meant to see, and the game's atmosphere just isn't nearly as oppressive. If you played Silent Hill 1, imagine that game, but you've got like 20-30 feet of extra visibility in the fog, and the fog might as well not exist in most cutscenes. I'd really just tell you to skip it.

Silent Hill 3 is in much, much better shape graphically, but doesn't have the option for the old voice acting. For Silent HIll 2, I think the old voice acting is more important because frankly, it's weird, and it kinda suits the game better than the more professional VO of the new voices. There's a point at which VO can sound so professional that it takes you out of the experience because it feels too artificial and the new voices for the HD Collection reach that point for me. With 3 the difference isn't quite as stark, but I do think Heather (the protagonist of 3) seems more like an actual teenage girl in the original VO.

Overall, if you really wanted to, Silent Hill 3 is probably fine to play through in the HD Collection, but I'd absolutely skip 2 because it's a very compromised experience. Overall I'd recommend either finding a copy of the original games on PS2/Xbox, or tracking down a PC copy since there's been a lot of great modding work to get that version up to snuff.

Also, even among the console releases, there's no ideal version of Silent Hill 2. PS2 has better audio, but Xbox runs at a higher resolution. For me, I notice the graphics more than the audio. I believe the modders are trying to integrate it all into the PC version, but I'm not sure where it's at right now, and I'm not sure if PC is an option for you.

Have to agree that I hope the formula has evolved past "hide/sneak past insta-kill monsters". That style of horror is always diminished, for me at least, by the fact that it's so easy to see all the seams, to figure out how the simple AI works, and to see the clear path forward in the linear environments. Since it's usually a "figure out the solution or die" situation with no room for experimentation, having to repeat encounters just makes you see the seams and limitations of the game even faster.

My hope is that the game has more mechanical complexity than most of it's kind, or at least isn't overlong like many of these kinds of horror games are. The original Amnesia isn't a long game, but still feels about twice as long as it needed to be.

Given that Amnesia popularized this kind of horror game, it'll be interesting to see how the devs evolve the style.

On the English vs Japanese thing, I'm actually more bothered by the lip syncing. It's clear the mocap and performances were by the english actors, so that's what I'll probably stick with. Which is a shame, because I would have preferred it have been made in Japanese from the get go.

Game looks good though.