Huge fan of TNO, but TOB feels disappointing

[himmatsj]

Make no mistake...TNO was my GOTY for 2014. Such an amazing and well-balanced game. A shooter that had it all - fast-paced gameplay, superbly satisfying gunplay, well-integrated (if basic) stealth, unique setting, good story and decent visuals.

But TOB doesn't innovate anything (I know, it's not supposed to), but rather takes out the setting and story, two things without which TNO wouldn't be as great as it was. It just felt like an "empty" game. Yes, the gameplay is there, but it is still highly repetitive and heavily padded up.

I would have rather them made a smaller game instead, but with the same production values as TNO.

What are your opinions on this?

[Sire Reap-A-Lot]

What do you expect, it was already a downscaled team and supposed to be a classical "Addon". But I get what you mean, e.g. StarCraft2 - Heart Of The Sswarm, I was dissapointed even HotS was a awesome game, but it's also an Addon and no full game.

[Schroff]

I find it annoying. Oh well.

[DogMeat]

TOB is what I wanted TNO to be. If TOB is 'padded' with gameplay (what have we become as gamers when we get 'too much' gameplay and call it 'padded) then TNO is 'padded' with cutscenes and dialogue.

[himmatsj]

Postat inițial de DogMeat:

TOB is what I wanted TNO to be. If TOB is 'padded' with gameplay (what have we become as gamers when we get 'too much' gameplay and call it 'padded) then TNO is 'padded' with cutscenes and dialogue.

I'd take the latter over the former any day of the week!!!

[Sweetz]

I felt the same and then I lowered the difficulty and found myself enjoying it a lot more more - but yeah it's still just a shadow of The New Order.

I think at the default difficult level the game is a tad too difficult - not too difficult to beat, but too difficult to be really fun. The game is at it's best when your blasting away with dual guns, mowing down enemies. At the default difficulty, there too much ducking behind cover required, and not enough crazy blasting. This also makes the game far more drawn out and contributes to the repetitive feeling.

Other than that, it's lacks the excellent pacing and variety of TNO. Too much "gameplay" in a shooter, which are repetitive by their very nature, can actually be a bad thing. Standards change, no one wants to play 10+ hours of Doom anymore, they'd probably get bored 2 hours in (I know I would despite having played a ton of it back in the day). TNO was brilliantly paced, with the segments where you go back to the base and do the little fetch tasks providing a nice mental break from shooting. The stealth segments were also better built, and again they seemed a bit easier in that game, which was to it's benefit, since I liked the stealth but in TNO and stealth in FPS's sucks more often than not..

I don't regret buying it, and I don't think it's bad - it just doesn't hold a candle to TNO. In any case, I'm still happy to support the developers again because TNO was also my personal GOTY for 2014 (and I loved Riddick too).

[Lu2]

its just datadisk with more action less talking so far for me. gameplay is same

[Winston Enjoyer | Razec Razputin]

Postat inițial de himmatsj:

highly repetitive and heavily padded up.

I would have rather them made a smaller game instead, but with the same production values as TNO.

What are your opinions on this?

I believe this is what we got in essence. Smaller game, same production value, as it the same game. Yes, you are a bit forced to go purely stealth in the beginning, but thats about it from what I've played so far. I'm on Chapter 4, and I've been doing some running and gunning.

Playing on the hardest difficulty, to me, makes the game even better. I have to be quick, with good aim, and use the game mechanics.

Just like TNO, TOB, is great.

[Panzer Grenadier]

Postat inițial de DogMeat:

TOB is what I wanted TNO to be. If TOB is 'padded' with gameplay (what have we become as gamers when we get 'too much' gameplay and call it 'padded) then TNO is 'padded' with cutscenes and dialogue.

Same here, I like this one much better than TNO, This one reminds me alot of Return to Wolfenstein.

[Hawk]

Yeah sorry this is by far a sub par experience compared to what it SHOLD have been, the difficulty has been jacked up completely on just NORMAL difficulty once the shooting really starts, have fun with that bs. What a joke, I despise when companies completely double back on what made their previous title good and fun; this is indeed padding in one of the most shameful ways.

Considering the range is far more close quarters then the previous, at least consistently, the enemy pixel hunting is painfully apparent which I'm sure helps the artificial difficulty. It was bad in New Order but this is just awful now that the levels are so claustrophobic.

[Lu2]

lol did you just complained about game being hard?when game is actualy easy compared to other harder fps

[Winston Enjoyer | Razec Razputin]

Postat inițial de Lu2:

lol did you just complained about game being hard?when game is actualy easy compared to other harder fps

Yea I'm playing on I'm Death Incarnate, and while yes I may have to re-do a scenario once or twice, its not that bad.

The best thing about this game is that, while you can be killed relatively easy, you can kill quickly as well. It doesn't take 5 clips to kill a rat. A few bullets and the enemy is down, a headshot and he's done in one bullet.

[Hawk]

Wow and the hits just keep on coming with this title, so I've just found out through dying in a completely and utterly BS manner (spawning enemies right behind me again one of the WORST hit directionals in any game I see that didn't fix that).
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=473524693

After completely clearing out the forbidden graveyard or whatever it is after you leave the excavation bot, I hooked a right trying to find loot on my map. Low and behold despite going into an apparent whole other area the game, being on a PC does not automatically save, and since much like New Order has seen fit to take this "feature" which is a STAPLE of PC gaming. After getting beaten down to gray I trying to retreat from the seemingly unkillable German solders another wave spawned in and I had no chance to run to cover. After dying I thought well it'll just spawn me back after I cleared the zone, NOPE big fat middle finger from the devs to that because I'm looking at a screen full of enemies who are not dead thanks to the game not having a proper save function. What a JOKE of a title. This is Beyond punishing. There's even a "map updating" message that flashes on the screen but no actual save which makes the message pointless. Even after I clear it, still no save, why was this so poorly implemented? How could your formula for a game change from the larger one to this small side project and for that matter why would you change it? The game worked, this is just a mess, I enjoyed 98% of New Order (some sections just infuriated me) yet this prequel is just giving me nothing but problems.

I really am finding it very hard to drive myself to go back to that... I really just want to dump the game much like the developers have done to me because taking the time to stealth an area and now thanks to their half baked "not game" I get to do that trash all over again and who knows if I die I may have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. This is not how you create a challenge Machinegames, ever. The lack of a BASIC quicksave function makes this game all the more painful to play, no one who paid money should be forced to replay an area AFTER they've cleaned the area to have to redo it because the devs are too inept to program.

Well at least the ending wasn't bad, though that end boss fight, slightly more simple then I had originally thought and at least the end credit song wasn't as bad as New Order. Still though given the odd difficulty that I had on just normal I have to wonder if I should even bother with Uber or lower, beat NO just fine on Death In carnet (didn’t' bother with Uber felt no need to sour my good times with the game).

[Lu2]

i understand why are you frustated but remeber quick saving make games only easier and its extremly exploitable if you want

[Hawk]

Postat inițial de Lu2:

i understand why are you frustated but remeber quick saving make games only easier and its extremly exploitable if you want

So every game within the past ohhh 20 or 30 year that has had a "quick save" "feature" has been easy and exploitable because of just That? The most basic PC feature is somehow rendered, by you, an exploitable feature? In my entire life I have never heard of such a pathetic excuse in an attempt to defend the developer.

So because I actually want to Progress rather then stay put for an arbitrary amount of time you say that I want an exploitable "feature" in order to save my progress when I, the user who paid money for this product, want rather then when the developers and their title say I can? So you want less options in your games, is that how I'm reading your response?

Also after looking around in your profile, don't bother answering, be sure to actually put more then a couple of hours into this title before you try and tell ME what features should and should not be in PC games.

[Maximum Sloth]

I agree. I was disappointed with this game. It was super short too.