Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Pringle said:
watched a few people play this walking sim. It's gorgeous. Incredibly interesting story too.
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Is it really a walking sim? I thought it had some combat...or no?

I agree though, this game from the trailers and screenshots looks beautiful. Kind of caught me by surprise, I had honestly never heard of it and then I saw it on the popular list on Steam.
 
MavericK said:
Is it really a walking sim? I thought it had some combat...or no?
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Most (like 80%) of what I watched was just walking around and interacting with the environment and story. It did have some combat, but I don't think this game is going to be known for it.
 
Pringle said:
Most (like 80%) of what I watched was just walking around and interacting with the environment and story. It did have some combat, but I don't think this game is going to be known for it.
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Fair enough. My guess is, in that case, it's either going to flop as being boring, or be one of those games that you "just have to experience" because of the story. I'll wait and see what people say about it first.
 
MavericK said:
Fair enough. My guess is, in that case, it's either going to flop as being boring, or be one of those games that you "just have to experience" because of the story. I'll wait and see what people say about it first.
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I certainly wouldn't consider "Walking sim" as a knock on the game, if the story and visuals hold it up (which it certainly seemed to be doing). If I had the rig or console to run it, I definitely would be one to buy it.
 
From what I've seen, it looks and sounds like it would be quite fun. There are plenty of games that do things differently. Some have more involved combat. Some have more intricate puzzles. Etc. etc. This one looks like it does exactly what it set out to do perfectly. It's reasonably priced to match the shorter length that it seems to provide as well. Can't really go wrong there. It looks like a game that if you enjoy it for what it is, and not think about what it isn't, then you'll have a good time with it. I will know for sure in the next couple of days. Definitely picking it up. Just want to finish my first playthrough of Sundered first.
 
I have played a bit but not very far into it. It is fairly close to a walking sim with some puzzles. Not a bad thing though. It feels like a trip into her mind. It is not something where you create your own story, instead you are following her story. The permadeath thing, I suppose that may change with difficulty. Right now it is on auto. The combat, just at the first battle, stunlock, kill them to death :) Will see how that goes.

The model... an employee who temporarily then permanently took that role. I kind of wish they did something a bit different. She seems kind of awkward. Maybe they were going for that though.
 
jiminator said:
The model... an employee who temporarily then permanently took that role. I kind of wish they did something a bit different. She seems kind of awkward. Maybe they were going for that though.
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I thought the same thing at first. (granted I've yet to actually play the game) However, the more footage I see, the more I've sort of felt the tone of the game, she does seem like a better fit than I originally thought. Kind of the unsuspecting hero type, being thrust into a situation and having to deal with it. We'll see how accurate that actually is, but that's the feel I get so far. Shit, maybe I just better pick it up today. :D Kinda want to play it now.
 
Really cool game marred by bullshit consolitis type settings IMO. Motion blur, fuzzy textures, can't turn them off, locked @ 1080p regardless of resolution, super shitty blurry ass AA that you can't change.. What pisses me off the most is that the setting and atmosphere is off the charts good.
 
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Apparently the permadeath is in, but it is triggered by dying a lot at different save points. in other words one particular boss should not tank your game
 
TheToE! said:
Really cool game marred by bullshit consolitis type settings IMO. Motion blur, fuzzy textures, can't turn them off, locked @ 1080p regardless of resolution, super shitty blurry ass AA that you can't change.. What pisses me off the most is that the setting and atmosphere is off the charts good.
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I don't see it. Are you running full screen or windowed/borderless windowed? I'm running full screen at 2560x1440 and the game looks clean and crisp to me. It's usually pretty obvious if they're upscaling.
 
Armenius said:
I don't see it. Are you running full screen or windowed/borderless windowed? I'm running full screen at 2560x1440 and the game looks clean and crisp to me. It's usually pretty obvious if they're upscaling.
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I see it too, it has everything depth of field, chromatic aberration, motion blur, bloom, everything what's wrong with gaming these days. If the screen was any more blurry than it is it would be a single smudge. You can't even turn off the effects, all you can do is set them to low, which makes it look even worse. Then blur becomes like you have double vision.
The comparison between development videos from 1 year ago to now is worth looking at, it looked so much better then, crisp, no hazy blurred lines, clear textures. Now all textures seem like 256x256. It doesn't even have detail textures that I could see anywhere.

The gameplay is a let down as well. The "scares" are predictable, the puzzles even more, the combat is locked in to obvious "arena" type areas. You know from a mile away when you walk into these rooms that now there will be a fight. The camera is terrible. Your field of vision is so limited that you can't see anything. And to top it off the camera is so close that the character covers about a third of your already limited fov. In combat all you can relay on is the voice cues for when you need to worry about attacks from behind. I just rage quit because the camera completely fucked up I couldn't see what I was doing so I died. And when I try to press the button to focus on another enemy it just doesn't work senua just keeps hacking away at the same old enemy when I'm bashing the next enemy button. Which is curious becaue in a previous combat sequence it worked, I could switch focus to another enemy.

Oh the game desperately needs an auto walk button, because my fingers hurt from pressing shift and w all the time. About 90% of the game is just a walking simulator. You will be walking aimlessly a lot until you find the way forward. Not that the maps are big, or open, but the walking speed is extremely slow. Running feels like walking in other games. But the maps are about as open as in TR, maybe slightly less.

It's not a bad game, but definitely not that big of a deal as I had hoped.
 
I literally never heard of this game until earlier today when one of my friends told me to buy it...it's also getting excellent reviews for its graphics and story...gameplay mechanics sound a bit weak but everything else sounds excellent...I think I'm going to pick it up...in a way it sounds somewhat similar in terms of gameplay style and presentation to the Vanishing of Ethan Carter (a game I liked a lot)
 
no one is playing this?...the only thing that is giving me pause is that the gameplay sounds very boring...but the overall audio, video and atmosphere sounds excellent...

can the OP change the title of the thread to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
 
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polonyc2 said:
no one is playing this?...the only thing that is giving me pause is that the gameplay sounds very boring...but the overall audio, video and atmosphere sounds excellent...

can the OP change the title of the thread to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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I'm 100% going to grab this. I'm just totally into Sundered right now (kind of similar in some ways actually though a complete different type of game,) and since that NMS Patch hit today, I'm going to play it tomorrow, and report back to the people wondering how it is. THEN I think I'm going to grab this, and start playing it next week. I'm pretty excited to play it actually. The combat does sound a bit simplistic, but that won't bother me if the rest is decent. Some games are like that, but still manage to be good experiences. From everything I've read and seen, it looks like I will enjoy it.
 
polonyc2 said:
no one is playing this?...the only thing that is giving me pause is that the gameplay sounds very boring...but the overall audio, video and atmosphere sounds excellent...

can the OP change the title of the thread to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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To me it feels like crisis 2.0... they spent all their time and money making a beautiful looking benchmark and forgot it was actually suppose to be a game.
 
Anyone else getting massive amounts of stutter? Any reported fixes?

1080 Ti, latest drivers, G-SYNC monitor... I long for the day where this crap is no longer an issue. :(
 
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polonyc2 said:
she looks like a 'he' in those face pics...
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I never thought this when watching the videos, but in those stills... I agree completely :D

Incidentally, still plan to grab this, but now it's on hold for another round of No Man's Sky.
 
It is a great game once you get in to it.Some more screens.As far as the man look I think they done that on purpose.






















 
Senua's Sacrifice Patch 1.01 Released

today we’re happy to release a bug fixing patch for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice that resolves a range of issues reported since launch...the patch includes fixes across potential progression stopping issues, audio, localisation, combat, gameplay and photo mode...in addition to bug fixes we have also made some small combat gameplay tweaks and added Russian subtitles to the Hellblade feature...

http://steamcommunity.com/games/414340/announcements/detail/2311890222387714575
 
I'm going to probably pick this up after my customary 3-6 month cooling off period. I don't touch games their first 3-6 months just to give it time for a more bug free experience. Also waiting to see if they make a Linux version in that time. Overall i'm pumped for it, looks like my kind of game.
 
Looks like a great game play straight through super baked, that's gonna be my plan anyway.
 
is Senua's Sacrifice the first game (or one of the very few) to use that binaural (or whatever it's called) audio...that could be considered a major evolution in gaming...the audio experience is like going from stereo to Dolby Atmos...anyone have a list of games that use that type of audio?...why don't more developers use it?
 
polonyc2 said:
is Senua's Sacrifice the first game (or one of the very few) to use that binaural (or whatever it's called) audio...that could be considered a major evolution in gaming...the audio experience is like going from stereo to Dolby Atmos...anyone have a list of games that use that type of audio?...why don't more developers use it?
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After playing through about 5 hours, I can say that the binaural audio in this game isn't anything spectacular. It is better sounding through headphones than through a good set of monitors or speakers but the overall sense of 3D positional audio you'd expect isn't mind blowing. Rather than sounding like true 3D, it just sounds like really good stereo. The downside to using headphones is that, at times, the compression artifacts are definitely noticeable and the silent cuts/ins are more than audible for some voices, though it is only really apparent during cinematics. (And I say this putting my PC through a decent USB DAC, a Yamaha receiver, and a pair of Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones)

I'd definitely still recommend this game even though I've yet to finish it.

It's got a good set of decent, yet overall simple, puzzles and while the combat isn't breaking any new ground, the story/experience, visuals, and audio are all brought together as a whole that I have never yet experienced in a game. It's fantastic to witness and play through for sure.
 
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This is on sale for $20 right now. Not sure how much longer. It seems like they deserved full price, but since I haven't had time to play pretty much ANY game lately, I could pass up the price to play it sometime in the future.
 
Free VR update coming to PC July 31. Supports both Rift and Vive.
 
I'm still not quite sure how VR would really "work" for this game, but cool that it's a free addon. I might give it a try. Very good game for a reasonable price.
 
MavericK said:
I'm still not quite sure how VR would really "work" for this game, but cool that it's a free addon. I might give it a try. Very good game for a reasonable price.
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I'm probably in the vast, VAST, minority, and I've yet to try a modern headset, but how I envision myself playing VR games is just playing the styles of games I already enjoy with traditional control methods. I've heard this makes some people sick, so not sure. I typically adapt very well to anything like this though. I can also easily suspend disbelief using a game-pad, or other interface enough for just the display and head tracking to be attractive for me.

Maybe I've got it all wrong (like I said, I still need to actually try it) but currently, I don't find the whole "room based experience" very attractive. I also don't want a "treadmill" or other weird and bulky things to play. I just want to be able to look around, and play a game like a game.

If that's what's on offer here, assuming I picked up a set, I think I'd really like it.

Once again, I'm probably "doing it wrong" :D I'm sure some of the designed for VR, somewhat stationary experiences can be fun, but in my mind they seem like VR versions of mobile games. I want full-blown DOOM 2016 VR using traditional controls. Or maybe the hand controllers, as that would make looking and aiming work nicely. I'd still be happy with a stick for movement.

I guess what I'm saying is it's probably time for me to buy a damned headset :D

(because I won't know what I'm talking about until I try it :p )
 
J3RK said:
I'm probably in the vast, VAST, minority, and I've yet to try a modern headset, but how I envision myself playing VR games is just playing the styles of games I already enjoy with traditional control methods. I've heard this makes some people sick, so not sure. I typically adapt very well to anything like this though. I can also easily suspend disbelief using a game-pad, or other interface enough for just the display and head tracking to be attractive for me.
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I think it's just a matter of the way this game plays, and the video I've seen so far. Seated VR experiences are fine, and make sense for games like Project Cars or Elite: Dangerous in that you're in a first-person view inside of a vehicle, and you can look around. Works great.

Here, it kinda seems like you are still playing a third-person game, but rotating your head just rotates the camera? I don't know, in theory it seems weird to me but I'd have to try it in-practice, which I will at some point since I own the game and a Vive.
 
MavericK said:
I think it's just a matter of the way this game plays, and the video I've seen so far. Seated VR experiences are fine, and make sense for games like Project Cars or Elite: Dangerous in that you're in a first-person view inside of a vehicle, and you can look around. Works great.

Here, it kinda seems like you are still playing a third-person game, but rotating your head just rotates the camera? I don't know, in theory it seems weird to me but I'd have to try it in-practice, which I will at some point since I own the game and a Vive.
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Duh, I didn't even think about the 3rd person aspect. (had a late night last night :D )
 
J3RK said:
I'm probably in the vast, VAST, minority, and I've yet to try a modern headset, but how I envision myself playing VR games is just playing the styles of games I already enjoy with traditional control methods. I've heard this makes some people sick, so not sure. I typically adapt very well to anything like this though. I can also easily suspend disbelief using a game-pad, or other interface enough for just the display and head tracking to be attractive for me.

Maybe I've got it all wrong (like I said, I still need to actually try it) but currently, I don't find the whole "room based experience" very attractive. I also don't want a "treadmill" or other weird and bulky things to play. I just want to be able to look around, and play a game like a game.

If that's what's on offer here, assuming I picked up a set, I think I'd really like it.

Once again, I'm probably "doing it wrong" :D I'm sure some of the designed for VR, somewhat stationary experiences can be fun, but in my mind they seem like VR versions of mobile games. I want full-blown DOOM 2016 VR using traditional controls. Or maybe the hand controllers, as that would make looking and aiming work nicely. I'd still be happy with a stick for movement.

I guess what I'm saying is it's probably time for me to buy a damned headset :D

(because I won't know what I'm talking about until I try it :p )
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I'm with you. I'm not all that interested in "room scale." Just give me infinite 3D FOV and I'm good no matter what the game.

In this case, it's the same game just updated to project in 3D and control the camera with your head.

I have a feeling that this was in development for the PSVR, but the Microsoft deal put that one in the ground. Shame, really, as I'm not yet ready to invest in a PC headset.
 
I still think vr is nothing but a gimmick that will go out of style in 1-2 years. Like stereoscopic glasses. We thought those were the future in the early 2000s.
 
M76 said:
I still think vr is nothing but a gimmick that will go out of style in 1-2 years. Like stereoscopic glasses. We thought those were the future in the early 2000s.
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I think the room oriented games are for sure. I said mobile games earlier, but it more reminds me of the Wii games that weren't "REAL" video games. (or at least the classic non-casual games) That's it, casual. I see this type of VR game as casual.

As just a method for visual-directional tracking and personal display, I think it will continue to improve now. The headsets now are nothing like the older iterations. The smaller, lighter, and less ridiculous they get, as well as maybe non-gaming applications start catching up more, I think they'll become fairly ubiquitous. We're starting to see more advanced versions hitting, and prices on the first generation of what is considered by many to be useful (in an entertainment sense) sets, it'll catch on more and more.

There may be flaws, but the groundwork is solid this time around. Not like in the late 90s / early 00s where you'd read on the box "Create the experience of a 10 foot screen." or some goofy single screen implementation with cheap plastic lenses, or badly implemented LCD shutters.

I was never curious back then. This generation actually has me wanting to try it for the first time. Just haven't gotten around to it yet, and haven't researched whether the games I want to play are all supported.
 
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