Topic: Days Gone - OT

Am I wrong if I say this looks like a third person Dying Light?

@andreoni79 I'm a big fan of Dying Light and this doesn't look like it. This video is interesting and the more I see the more I like this game!

@NecuVise I think Dying Light is the best zombies game out there and The Following has a setting similar to what we've seen so far in Days Gone. Will stealth be important in this game or will we have just to play hide and seek?

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-05-21-days-gones-e3-d...

A negative report, but pretty much mirrors my expectations of what this game will be upon release.

It all looks a bit meh.

Here's some footage from the TGS demo. I can't be the only one who thinks the voice acting is... off? He sounds like a narrator, it doesn't sound like Deacon is talking. All I'm hearing is a person talking to a microphone. And his acting... It sounds like Troy Baker on a bad day trying to do a cool and edgy voice. But maybe that's just me!

@Octane It almost sounds like he is streaming this game. So strange.

It might be that all voice work was recorded really close to the microphone. As a result the sound is not 'spacious' enough, to make it sound like it is outside. It's clearly awkward in those first moments, but the indoor scene at 5:15 sounds a lot better.

Would be such a shame if the recordings aren't top notch quality. They might add some reverb to the voices, to make it sound a little bit more distant. Hm.

@Kidfried haha it's indeed like you're listening to a streamer

@Kidfried Yeah, it's weird. I do agree that the indoor scene sounds a lot better; but I also think the lines are delivered much better in that instance. The very first dialogue between Boozer (on the radio) and Deacon is just... bad; the writing, the delivery, the sound, everything kinda. I really hope they re-record some lines for the final version or something like that.

And the HUD. I know there's a 99% chance they're going to change it, but the blue and green bars in the lower left are something you'd expect in a cheap asset-flip Steam game.

Here's a preview by the BBC. It's done a better job at PR than last year's rubbish running around in a circle for sure.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-47372217/post-apocal...

@Cpt_Price I have enough games to play and less time to play them right now.

Depending on the reviews I might pick it up.

@Cpt_Price This is a single player only game.

So Bend removed the players choice from Days Gone. They found out they didn't need them and that made the story and character stronger. They want players to care about Deacon s personality. It's a shame because it was a cool option but I can definitely understand focusing on the story they want to tell.
https://www.gameinformer.com/preview/2019/03/06/whats-changed...

Player's choice is a bit of a silly term anyway. I couldn't decide to dump Atreus in the beginning of God of War and climb that mountain myself. It's just part of the game; I'm sure people will complain about it though

I don't care about the 'player choice' in Days Gone. I still have 'choice' with it being an Open World game. I always think that people should give the Devs a bit of leeway on a 'design' choice as they no doubt have made a conscious decision to 'change' the game for whatever reason. In this case, maybe it does make the story and characters stronger.

At the end of the day, we as gamers won't know whether the decision to change a game was actually beneficial for us or not. Its not like we get to play the version with player choice to decide which we think works best. We can make up 'vision' of how we might have wanted it to play with choice but that may not be close to how choice worked in the game before it was removed.

There are numerous games that change from the original concepts to the final release. We hear a lot about 'visual' downgrades - like 'puddlegate' for example or games like Watchdogs or the Division. Talking about the Division, the original concept had players able to join from a PC as a 'drone' and help - the map function was a LOT cooler looking too so its not just 'visual changes but even game-play changes too.

The changes may well be over ambition for the hardware they are aiming to release on, maybe running out of time to get things working, not as focused as they hoped etc. If you listened to Cory Barlog on the development of God of War, they cut quite a bit out, shortened some things etc to get the pacing right, to get the Story right without over bloating it. It obviously worked as it became the Game of the Year. I don't think any Developer wants to release a bad game - Publishers may well put pressure on Devs and happy to release a 'mess', just as long as it releases in a certain window - and yes I am referring to EA. I also think that sometimes the Devs, particularly 3rd Party and very rarely 1st party, get a hard time for issues when a lot of it comes down to the limitations of hardware. Making a CPU intensive game that works perfectly with a great CPU on PC but porting it down for the consoles becomes a 'difficult' task to keep the game the same because console CPU's are not up to the task - a classic example is Assassin's Creed: Unity.

I tend to give Developers the benefit of doubt over changes made during development. If they decide that their game works better without player choice in the story, then so be it. Even if the real reason is maybe different, like 'artistic' choice over changes to the puddles which may of been simplified because it was 'easier' to keep all the roof top puddles using the same cube map rather than everyone needing unique cube maps to reflect more of the area around them which may take too much time, money or even disc space to do. Not saying it wasn't a purely artistic reason in this case but that other reasons may be a factor in this or other games and they can't say they run out of money, had deadlines to meet and would of taken to much time and man-power for example.

Anyway, the point is people really can't complain about something they never actually had. You can't complain about these design choices as you never played the game and can compare the two different versions. Its the same with 'visual' downgrades to, you never played the game on the hardware you own an see how 'badly' it runs whilst looking better. We only see a 'slice' of the game in these trailers and not the whole thing. People can moan all they like but at the end of the day, its the decision of the devs, its 'their' game. Its like complaining that Picasso's artwork looks awful compared to Constable or Cameron's Aliens was not like Ridley Scotts Alien. They decided to make their art the way they wanted and we either accept their decision or just not go and see it. I would rather watch Alien Resurrection than Prometheus or the last Alien film (was it Covenant - I can't remember) but the point is that the Director decided that was the film, the story they wanted to tell and its their decision at the end of the day. Its their choice and its their name on the box. If the majority love it, then they are the ones who reap the rewards and if people don't like it, its their name on the box, their reputation etc. Its this aspect that I think is hurting BioWare at the moment - more so than EA. Maybe Bioware should have made a 'better' game in the timescale and budget they had, but I also think EA should have given them more time to finish both Mass Effect and now Anthem. ME:A wasn't a 'terrible' game but wasn't ready to release. I haven't started Anthem yet but I get the impression that wasn't ready to release too...

I am looking forward to Days Gone. It will be interesting to see how well it holds up as I am hearing a few kind of 'meh' impressions so far. If I play Anthem before I play this, it should make Days Gone look excellent ...

I was over zombie games 100 zombie games ago, but this seems like the sort of game I might get for my birthday or Christmas. I can wait to play this.

An interesting vid Sam Witwer

I'm pretty far along now I unlocked the third settlement camp. I'm pretty much in agreement with @get2sammyb review. I don't think it's going to win many GOTY awards but it's a real solid game. I really hope they get to make another because I think if they took what they learned from this one it could be something special.

@Frigate uggh really? That would annoy me too.

This is one good looking game. I wouldn't put it on the level of GOW,Horizon,Uncharted ect but it's not far off either.

I'm trying really, really hard to like this game. I'm plodding along but at the moment, the cons outweigh the pros...