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The Newly Regenerated Doctor Who Thread

posted by Friar on - last edited - Viewed by 32.3K users




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  • @FitzoliverJ said: And those rubbishy Adventure Games are coming to Steam -

    Will they (or IT, rather, since there's only one mentioned) be free to British users? Will I care? Survey says...


    Oh, and remember I said I was getting PS3 version of The Eternity Clock as a rental? Well, it's arrived, and I was going to play it. But then it said it needed a patch. "Fine", thinks I, "I gather it needed one anyway".


    So I'll actually be able to start playing it in about three hours. Jesus Christ... Bad omen or what?

  • @Darth Marsden said:



    A gigabtye!? But how!? that game makes TTG games look like Quantic Dream ones!

  • I genuinely don't know how the patch can be so big. Maybe I'm actually downloading the game itself? Who knows. It certainly doesn't inspire much confidence when the first thing I have to do is sit on my arse for three hours.

    God I miss the days when console games didn't have patches.

  • OK, so here we go. Finally. Jotting down notes as I go.

    - Taking a long time to get to the main menu. As in, a good 10 seconds of black screen in between the logos.
    - I don't think there's drop-in drop-out co-op - you have to select it when starting / continuing a game.
    - You can adjust puzzle difficulty? How's that work then? Oh well, I guess we'll see.
    - OK, plot. The TARDIS has just gone nuts and landed somewhere. I have to walk outside and... my God, is that the walk animation? Why do Matt's shoulders seem so stiff? That's just embarrassing.
    - LOADING.
    - I'm in the Bank of England, apparently. And the TARDIS has vanished. How's that work? I can use the Sonic Screwdriver to scan stuff by just aiming it with the right control stick, which is very Doctor-y. Wonder how long it'll take to become annoying.
    - In order to open a locked door, I have to aim with the right control stick, hold R2 to initiate a minigame and then use the right control stick again to alter the pattern of a waveform to match one already displayed. I'm surprised how clunky this feels.
    - To reach the first collectable hat, I had to clamber along a pipe. Once again, the animations looks terrible. Poor Matt Smith... His arms will never look right in these games, will they?
    - OK, the music's starting to annoy me now. It's that theme that plays when Matt Smith does something particularly awesome (Every Star, Every Planet)... and it's all throughout this first level. I know it's a good theme, but really?
    - RE: Character animations. You do know that when a character runs, their coat does tend to billow behind them if it's undone? Hell, even I knew that when I did my Prince of Persia mod. Why is it so hard for professional developers to get this right?
    runleft.gif (see?)
    - Ooo, I got a trophy for scanning a bunch of objects with the Sonic. I like that.
    - A nice bit of puzzling here with crates. I don't normally like crate puzzles, but it was tricky without needing me to move the crates too much so it was well within acceptable limits.
    - The Doctor's quips are actually quite nice. Very Doctor-y.
    - There's a few mysteries strewn around here and there, including a crypt with an energy signature - the Doctor's, in fact. He's been here before, apparently. The plot has me intrigued.
    - ...and we're with River now. Oh dear. I've never been the biggest fan of Alex Kingston as River Song, and I wasn't looking forward to her sections. Is she... is she trying to be sexy? Oh dear.
    - Sneaking behind guards? Ducking into doorways? Oh DEAR.
    - So to take out a guard, you sneak up behind them and... kiss them. Well, it's in character, I suppose...
    - Why are the guards Scottish? Seriously, they have a Scottish lilt! It's weird!
    - This sneaking mechanic is very frustrating. Once you kiss someone, they do something, usually open a door. But the second time you do this, there's another guard patrolling, and it's hard to tell when the patrolling guard can see you and when he can't, and there's no nearby cover to duck behind while you're waiting for the kissable guard to open the door for you, so there's a damn good chance you'll get caught before you get the chance to escape. The checkpoints aren't far apart, but it's still a pain.
    - Being able to move the camera left or right would be a massive help in these stealth sections. But then, not being forced to do stealth sections at all would be even better. OH WELL.
    - Waugh! That camera shift as I change corridors was NOT smooth.
    - OK, there's a puzzle that's basically Domino's. Only they don't explain it very well, and the puzzle's not very well designed. Grr.
    - ...and apparently I've missed two of River's Diary pages. Have to replay the level to find them.
    - NON-SKIPPABLE CUTSCENES ARE BULLSHIT. Someday developers will learn this.
    - Yep, replaying that Domino minigame just re-established how frustrating it is.
    - So, the Doctor and River are met and are having an in-level conversation, and the lines appear to have been recorded at different times, because they don't seem to flow together that well, especially when River has two and they don't mesh at ALL. Kinda annoying, but not a gamebreaker or anything.
    - Ah, but this is! There's a two-person pushable object that River and the Doctor need to push in tandem, and once you push the block all the way to one side, the AI controlled partner just stands there and won't let you pull it back. So if you push it the wrong way in hopes of finding a hidden hat, then you've fucked the game up and you need to quit and reload your game to fix it. Outstanding.
    - Blimey, it takes forever to climb up a ladder.
    - CYBERMEN! They were always my favourite monster. But that is NOT the right voice! Oof.
    - Another minigame. I won it somehow, but buggered if I know HOW. I wish the explanations of these things were automatic rather than needing you to actually prompt them, given how convoluted they are.
    - REALLY liking these quips. They've gotten that right, if nothing else.
    - Did... did the Doctor just mention the Yeti Intelligence? Oh, be still my beating heart!
    - Right, so as you may have guessed, I'm in the Underground, and I'm running from Cybermen. So I have to complete a puzzle I don't quite understand, climb across a pipe (three times) and then have River shoot a door open, all while the Cybermen are marching. And guess what? The game doesn't tell you how to get River to shoot things! So if you can't figure it out in the 10 seconds or so you get via a flawless run, then you have to do it all over again. FUCK YOU GAME.
    - Oh, for fuck's sake, now the AI partner's fucking up and not crossing the pipe. Which means I'll have to do the section AGAIN. How the fuck does a game this buggy get released? GOD!
    - Ah. Apparently River fires whenever the hell she feels like it. GRR...
    - Oh, and one more minigame to boot. This one's self-explanatory, but there's not enough time in each round to actually do it half the time, which is VERY frustrating.

    I kind of stopped playing around this point.

    It's an interesting game, but deeply, DEEPLY flawed in its execution, with a large focus on stealth gameplay and minigames that aren't properly explained, as well as glitchy AI and frustrating timed elements. I'll keep at it if only to see how completely insane the plot gets, but I probably won't enjoy it.

  • Solomon could have ejected the object being tracked. But essentially, yes. The Doctor effectively killed a very nasty person who not only wounded one of his 'gang' but also committed mass murder.

    Same old argument about it being too short, but otherwise absolutely fantastic. Brilliant episode.

  • I see what you're saying. It's like what Donna said. The Doctor needs someone to stop him, and without the Ponds around, he doesn't have anyone to do that, so he tends to end up being rather dark as a result. I'm guessing the new companion will help reverse that, however she comes into being.

    Also a plus, I could understand most of the dialogue this time round! Huzzah!

  • They were also hardly in it, which is a shame. But they were fun incidental characters, I agree.

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