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[Folly]

Icarus

First of all, they've produced a pretty cool little video that explains some of the story behind the game. Definitely recommend checking it out.
https://youtu.be/aZyd1e51YMo

Icarus is yet another survival game; thankfully, not another attempt to make the genre PvP. Icarus is PvE, with a fairly large array of missions, each of which constitutes an isolated game instance. So you drop down with almost nothing, craft your tools and build up a base and technology until you feel ready to venture out and tackle your quest objective, then leave behind everything you made before preparing for the next quest. You keep your character level and the various blueprints and talents you've unlocked. You can also spend resources earned from these quests to unlock and build 'Workshop Items', which you can take with you between missions and really help save time on new missions by basically skipping the first few tech tiers.

Playing with friends is strongly recommended. Death comes with a harsh xp penalty, which can be avoided by simply having a friend come revive you. And the talent tree offers a lot of opportunity for specialization, so it's nice having different people who can excel at gathering different resources.

I really like the feel of combat. Every other survival game I've tried has really janky feeling PvE; monsters who get stuck on terrain, or can't run as fast as the player, or are otherwise extremely easy to cheat. None of those issues are present in Icarus; enemies can climb anything you can climb, and will tear through buildings at a speed that is not too quick or too slow. And enemies will run faster than a player, though players may have some limited success weaving through trees and tall rocks to get some distance.
And these other games usually have no 'right way' to do PvE, just button mashing the monsters as they hit back and hoping their health bar empties first. Icarus PvE is not super complicated, but it gets the job done. Stealth attacks give a healthy burst of damage, as do headshots. Precise but timely aiming at these moving targets will be rewarded far more than button mashing. And simply picking the right time and place to fight so you don't get overwhelmed when your target calls all of it's friends over to play with you.

Steam reviews are currently 'Mixed', which is pretty bad in a market where even mediocre games usually end up with 'Very Positive' ratings. Indeed, the only reason I gave Icarus a chance is because a friend wanted someone to play with an offered to buy it for me. If I'd known how much fun I would have, I would not have hesitated to pay for it myself. There are a few bugs, but none game-breaking. Development is still ongoing, but plenty of game elements have already been implemented for a full experience. Icarus easily deserves better ratings than it's getting imo.

[Iduno]

Icarus

First of all, they've produced a pretty cool little video that explains some of the story behind the game. Definitely recommend checking it out.
https://youtu.be/aZyd1e51YMo

Icarus is yet another survival game; thankfully, not another attempt to make the genre PvP. Icarus is PvE, with a fairly large array of missions, each of which constitutes an isolated game instance. So you drop down with almost nothing, craft your tools and build up a base and technology until you feel ready to venture out and tackle your quest objective, then leave behind everything you made before preparing for the next quest. You keep your character level and the various blueprints and talents you've unlocked. You can also spend resources earned from these quests to unlock and build 'Workshop Items', which you can take with you between missions and really help save time on new missions by basically skipping the first few tech tiers.

Playing with friends is strongly recommended. Death comes with a harsh xp penalty, which can be avoided by simply having a friend come revive you. And the talent tree offers a lot of opportunity for specialization, so it's nice having different people who can excel at gathering different resources.

I really like the feel of combat. Every other survival game I've tried has really janky feeling PvE; monsters who get stuck on terrain, or can't run as fast as the player, or are otherwise extremely easy to cheat. None of those issues are present in Icarus; enemies can climb anything you can climb, and will tear through buildings at a speed that is not too quick or too slow. And enemies will run faster than a player, though players may have some limited success weaving through trees and tall rocks to get some distance.
And these other games usually have no 'right way' to do PvE, just button mashing the monsters as they hit back and hoping their health bar empties first. Icarus PvE is not super complicated, but it gets the job done. Stealth attacks give a healthy burst of damage, as do headshots. Precise but timely aiming at these moving targets will be rewarded far more than button mashing. And simply picking the right time and place to fight so you don't get overwhelmed when your target calls all of it's friends over to play with you.

Steam reviews are currently 'Mixed', which is pretty bad in a market where even mediocre games usually end up with 'Very Positive' ratings. Indeed, the only reason I gave Icarus a chance is because a friend wanted someone to play with an offered to buy it for me. If I'd known how much fun I would have, I would not have hesitated to pay for it myself. There are a few bugs, but none game-breaking. Development is still ongoing, but plenty of game elements have already been implemented for a full experience. Icarus easily deserves better ratings than it's getting imo.

A survival game balanced for co-op? That's a thing I've been looking for.

Edit: Aw, too bad it's Steam-only. I'll keep looking.

[Niveras]

Icarus

First of all, they've produced a pretty cool little video that explains some of the story behind the game. Definitely recommend checking it out.
https://youtu.be/aZyd1e51YMo

Icarus is yet another survival game; thankfully, not another attempt to make the genre PvP. Icarus is PvE, with a fairly large array of missions, each of which constitutes an isolated game instance. So you drop down with almost nothing, craft your tools and build up a base and technology until you feel ready to venture out and tackle your quest objective, then leave behind everything you made before preparing for the next quest. You keep your character level and the various blueprints and talents you've unlocked. You can also spend resources earned from these quests to unlock and build 'Workshop Items', which you can take with you between missions and really help save time on new missions by basically skipping the first few tech tiers.

Playing with friends is strongly recommended. Death comes with a harsh xp penalty, which can be avoided by simply having a friend come revive you. And the talent tree offers a lot of opportunity for specialization, so it's nice having different people who can excel at gathering different resources.

I really like the feel of combat. Every other survival game I've tried has really janky feeling PvE; monsters who get stuck on terrain, or can't run as fast as the player, or are otherwise extremely easy to cheat. None of those issues are present in Icarus; enemies can climb anything you can climb, and will tear through buildings at a speed that is not too quick or too slow. And enemies will run faster than a player, though players may have some limited success weaving through trees and tall rocks to get some distance.
And these other games usually have no 'right way' to do PvE, just button mashing the monsters as they hit back and hoping their health bar empties first. Icarus PvE is not super complicated, but it gets the job done. Stealth attacks give a healthy burst of damage, as do headshots. Precise but timely aiming at these moving targets will be rewarded far more than button mashing. And simply picking the right time and place to fight so you don't get overwhelmed when your target calls all of it's friends over to play with you.

Steam reviews are currently 'Mixed', which is pretty bad in a market where even mediocre games usually end up with 'Very Positive' ratings. Indeed, the only reason I gave Icarus a chance is because a friend wanted someone to play with an offered to buy it for me. If I'd known how much fun I would have, I would not have hesitated to pay for it myself. There are a few bugs, but none game-breaking. Development is still ongoing, but plenty of game elements have already been implemented for a full experience. Icarus easily deserves better ratings than it's getting imo.

Based on the video and what I can infer from gameplay, I like the concept as a new spin on survival/crafting, but I need to try a uhhhh demo before I drop money on it. There's a lot of leeway in terms of whether the execution and mechanical gameplay is enjoyable.

[dragdeler]

So the first tomb raider... IDK. Those quicktime events are atrocious, stop making up the rules, what the fuck is "hand", what the fuck is "hand" after two times circle once leftrightleftright quickly  can you at least make all commands as explicit as leftrightleftright quickly? I swear even the first quicktime event I died a bunch of times trying a different button each time, and once I made it the game told me the button during the success animation. It doesn't help that it's buggy either: it doesn't allways register touch, and it doesn't like being pushed too early, you can spam the button multiple times just fine though. Maybe it's 72 fps on 144hz settings, maybe it works better in 60? Wouldn't be unheard of. God this made me angry.



edit: OK GAME ILL JUST SPAM A-D-E-F ALL AT ONCE, YOU DISRESPECT ME I DISRESPECT YOU, HOW ABOUT THAT HUH?!

[Frumple]

The first tomb raider's controls were so staggeringly ass I've never played a game from the series since, for what it's worth. Something about the original 90s PC/DOS implementation was just wildly shit. Don't even remember the details because I've intentionally memory holed it, but good gods did whatever the hell they did sour me hard to every part of the series that came after.

... resident evil has a similar non-place in my heart, though it was the PSX controls instead of PC that did it for me, there. Moral of the story, don't be the poor bastard playing or implementing early PSX era 3D games.

[King Zultan]

I also gave up trying to play early Resident Evil games because of their crap controls, also the terrible fixed camera angles also turned me off of them.

[Robsoie]

So the first tomb raider... IDK. Those quicktime events are atrocious, stop making up the rules, what the fuck is "hand", what the fuck is "hand" after two times circle once leftrightleftright quickly  can you at least make all commands as explicit as leftrightleftright quickly? I swear even the first quicktime event I died a bunch of times trying a different button each time, and once I made it the game told me the button during the success animation. It doesn't help that it's buggy either: it doesn't allways register touch, and it doesn't like being pushed too early, you can spam the button multiple times just fine though. Maybe it's 72 fps on 144hz settings, maybe it works better in 60? Wouldn't be unheard of. God this made me angry.



edit: OK GAME ILL JUST SPAM A-D-E-F ALL AT ONCE, YOU DISRESPECT ME I DISRESPECT YOU, HOW ABOUT THAT HUH?!

My experience in the beginning exactly, took me so many tries to figure out what was the exact key i have that correspond to that stupid icon the game is displaying.
Fortunately after failing so much i finally got to the point my mind finally had imprinted those, so it started "oh that icon again, easy it's that key"  and the game finally started to be great. But the beginning of the game was atrocious when the first qte started to appear and got me puzzled on what the hell was the key the game wanted me to press.

But keep at it, once you finally got the icon->that key automatism starting to take over in your brain, the game is fantastic.

The first tomb raider's controls were so staggeringly ass I've never played a game from the series since, for what it's worth. Something about the original 90s PC/DOS implementation was just wildly shit. Don't even remember the details because I've intentionally memory holed it, but good gods did whatever the hell they did sour me hard to every part of the series that came after.

Ha, the famous "tank controls" , i liked a lot the previous gen Tomb Raider 1 & 2 , but i liked them -despite- the controls.
I remember there was a specific set of move you always had to do to manage most jumps : walk to the exact border of the platform, then move back (lara make a small jump back) , then run forward and jump immediately.

Failing to do that, probably 80% of the platforming would lead to your death because platform distance were exactly made for this exact jumping timing.

In modern gaming you may think "bah i'll just try again", but you simply then never played the original TR games with their "crystal" save that were often put far from the area that would kill you, so you often had to get through a lots of stuff to finally reach your dying point again.

That's something they changed completely (along with the controls fortunately) in the modern reboot of the TR serie, as it seems every dangerous spot has your progression saved so you can restart from your fail nearly immediately.

[scriver]

I also gave up trying to play early Resident Evil games because of their crap controls, also the terrible fixed camera angles also turned me off of them.

The camera angles are the best part!

[delphonso]

Tank controls are the only thing that kept those survival horror games scary!

[Frumple]

They actively made it less scary, for me. Too busy fighting the bloody controls to be jittery about whatever the hell was on the screen

[n9103]

The only implementation of tank controls that I didn't hate has to be Parasite Eve.
The camera wasn't completely fixed, and would pivot or pan to your position, and you didn't have to tell it which direction to attack, just what to attack.
Those, paired with the fact it was semi turn-based, made the less than ideal movement much more forgiving.

Every single other time I've run into tank controls after 2000 has been an instant uninstall for me.

[Robsoie]

For the anecdote, the n64 version of Resident Evil 2 (and only this version) included a non-tank control alternative control scheme .
Never played this version so i can't say if it worked great.

[AzyWng]

Every single other time I've run into tank controls after 2000 has been an instant uninstall for me.

Even Brigador? Or Resident Evil 4?

But yeah, I can understand the sentiment. If one is operating a literal tank (like in Brigador), it's more understandable, but... people generally don't move like that, and it can take one out of the experience to a degree.

[Frumple]

If the game's designed around tank controls well, it can be alright, especially if there's thematic reasoning for it (i.e. actual tanks) -- brigador, ferex, doesn't exactly have a lot of really fiddly corridors and tables and shit you need to (fail to) navigate around, at least what's I've played of it. _{also it's, y'know, top down/isometric 2D, which is a pretty different design schema to begin with}

It was generally goddamn miserable getting around in the intial forays into that kind of design. Those old early 3D games were not designed around that sort of control scheme well :V Maybe it got better as the series in question iterated, couldn't say. Haven't played them and probably won't, heh.

[Aoi]

One thing that's always driven me mad about fixed camera is how controls will sometimes snap around-- for example you're holding up to move away from the camera... Then the angle shifts to a sideways view, but as long as you hold up, you keep moving forward. And as soon as you get go, 'up' reverts to up-from-current-camera, and you need to press right to get moving again.

And more related to just camera angles but-- I really liked the execution of this kind of quirky puzzle game called The Experiment, or Experiment 221, or something like that, where you wake up in a control room of some kind, and somebody else wakes up in some building, and you're trying to navigate them out, mostly by toggling room lights. Because you're going through camera feeds, there are things you can see that they can't  and vice versa... The camera limits become an integral mechanic, not a practicality of gameplay.