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Topic: Stealth Inc 2

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Emblem

Providing the price is right this is a day 1 for me, unfortunately its release date is the 23rd October so its likely i'll play it on release and then not again for a long while unless its super addictive. Reason being is that the 24th October see's 3 of my hotly anticipated 2014 games arrive (Bayonetta 1&2, Samurai Warriors 4 & Civilisation Beyond Earth).

Emblem

DefHalan

I loved the first one, on steam, I don't know if I will be getting it day 1 just because of the amount of releases coming

People keep saying the Xbox One doesn't have Backwards Compatibility.
I don't think they know what Backwards Compatibility means...

3DS Friend Code: 2621-2786-9784 | Nintendo Network ID: DefHalan

jariw

Nintendo has released a trailer of it now, but it's gameplay only. No coverage of the editor.

jariw

Aviator

Pahvi wrote:

Eurogame wasn't too impressed by this: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-28-stealth-inc-2-a-...

Their main gameplay issue, as I read it, was dying due to what didn't feel like the player's fault.

The controls do bring it down, but the puzzles are really enjoyable I didn't notice the problems that often.

Also, death brings no punishment. Your time resets to just before you die, and checkpoints are generous.

QUEEN OF SASS

It's like, I just love a cowboy
You know
I'm just like, I just, I know, it's bad
But I'm just like
Can I just like, hang off the back of your horse
And can you go a little faster?!

Aviator

Review code.

QUEEN OF SASS

It's like, I just love a cowboy
You know
I'm just like, I just, I know, it's bad
But I'm just like
Can I just like, hang off the back of your horse
And can you go a little faster?!

jariw

Pahvi wrote:

Eurogame wasn't too impressed by this: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-28-stealth-inc-2-a-...

Their main gameplay issue, as I read it, was dying due to what didn't feel like the player's fault.

Still no reviews of the co-op mode or the level editor. The ONM gave it 90%, had not much negative things to say, but they also didn't review the co-op or editor.
EDIT: The NL review covers the co-op and level editor.

Edited on by jariw

jariw

jariw

I have played a couple of hours now, and this is a brilliant game! It's really well crafted and brilliantly designed! I can partly agree to the part of the Eurogamer review which bunches this game with W101, Scram Kitty, Bayonetta 2, etc, regarding difficulty (although I think Stealth Inc 2 is easier). However, other parts of that review I can't agree with at all.

I have never had any issues with the game being unfair, and I really like the hub world you navigate around in to get to new test chambers. The instant kill "feature" is brilliant in this game, since it forces you to think before making an action, and the checkpoints are really generous as @Aviator mentioned.

The Gamepad and Miiverse integration is really implemented well in the game. Miiverse comments can be posted and read in the game. Each test chamber has its own high score list.

The only minor things I've found so far:

  • Moving between some screens can cause frame drops, just as it could do in Teslagrad. It doesn't affect gameplay though.
  • Although the level editor supports the Gamepad, it feels like a level editor made for a standard controller but with touchscreen support. The difference in design and efficiency becomes very apparent with the reveal of the SSB U stage editor.

jariw

jariw

Seems like I'm completely stuck on level 2-6. How do I get passed the small horizontal laser beam on the right side? I've tried for 2 days now, and starting to feel really stupid for not figuring it out.

jariw

jariw

Pahvi wrote:

If no one else answers before this evening, I'll try to check the level myself (I've cleared it, I just don't remember it). Was the 2-6 with Inflatamate or Jack Boy?

If the latter, then the usual tricks were jacking an enemy and having it walk through the beam to stand on a button or shooting a panel through the portal blocks. With the former, lifting the enemies up with the Inflatamate (or having them come down with it) to move them to stand on buttons were some frequent solution patterns.

Chances are, I still can't make spoiler tags...

The spoiler tag worked. It's a level with the Inflatamate, the level is called "Weight Gain".

There's a rotating laser beam that I crushed. But there are no enemies on the screen other than that small horizontal laser to the right (which I can't get passed) which doesn't seem possible to destroy. And when I put the Inflatamate in the right-most "hole", the laser stops but the jump seems to be too high high to perform without the Inflatamate. There's a button just above the laser, but using the Inflatamate there doesn't seem to help me. And there's a button very far up above the horizontal laser beam, which I don't see how I can reach without getting past the laser.

Edited on by jariw

jariw

jariw

FINALLY, after a bike ride from work, I solved the 2-6 problem. I had forgotten one key element:

When jumping at the same time as the Inflatamate expands, the clone can do a huge jump.

Edited on by jariw

jariw

spizzamarozzi

I've played this game for 9 hours now and it's a good game BUT I must admit I was expecting it to be waaay more based on actual stealth, given the title. So far is, say, 30% stealth and 70% using the gadgets go avoid traps.

Top-10 games I played in 2017: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (WiiU) - Rogue Legacy (PS3) - Fallout 3 (PS3) - Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - Guns of Boom (MP) - Sky Force Reloaded (MP) - ...

3DS Friend Code: 0104-0649-7464 | Nintendo Network ID: spizzamarozzi

spizzamarozzi

That's not to say the game isn't good though - it's very good and, at the moment, is probably the single eShop game that offers more content in terms of longevity (and in terms of quality it can easily rival any other game, Guacamelee, Shovel Knight et similia). I'm 15 hours in and I've finished the main story and going for the missing extra chambers now. I've read some reviewer complaining because "you die a lot"...well, excuuuse me, this is not Metroid - this is a Super Meat Boy (or VVVVVV, whatever) in a Metroid environment.
I haven't played the co-op mode, but the video clearly shows that it is probably the most advanced co-op we have seen on the eShop so far - sort of like NSMBU but done well, with the player holding the gamepad actually having fun and with gadgets that alter your 2-player experience. And I didn't even venture into the user created levels yet - only tried @SKTTR's level but that was a bit too hardcore for me ehe!!)

The review over at Eurogamer ([Link) is rather surprising because the game gets bashed for the frustrating deaths (while of course Hotline Miami, where an average playthrough counts 3.000+ deaths, gets a 10/10) and the steep challenge in the environmental puzzles (while Limbo, which is entirely made of puzzles that most players solve just by coincidence while they try to shuffle around endlessly the elements onscreen, gets a 9/10). Granted, reviewers are entitled to their opinions, but why does a great WiiU exclusive (and a great piece of european software) get an incompetent reviewer?!
Bottom line - get this game.

Edited on by spizzamarozzi

Top-10 games I played in 2017: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (WiiU) - Rogue Legacy (PS3) - Fallout 3 (PS3) - Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - Guns of Boom (MP) - Sky Force Reloaded (MP) - ...

3DS Friend Code: 0104-0649-7464 | Nintendo Network ID: spizzamarozzi

Sparx

So far I have died a bunch but most of the time I felt it was my fault

Community levels are great so far and recommend 4 playrooms despite check points being finicky

My avatar is from here

spizzamarozzi

Pahvi wrote:

I still see the point in EG's review. Getting killed because an opening wall had a laser beam you didn't know of until it killed you isn't the fault of the player. But I think they overstated this aspect... "half the time" is an exaggeration.

This doesn't happen enough to be a problem, or to be frustrating. The few times it happens, the game always makes a sarky comment on the walls - you know, after all it's part of the plot that you're venturing into this incredibly dangerous place without knowing what's ahead. I don't remember many instances and again, this is canon in trial and error games. How many times you die in Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV or Hotline Miami because you don't entirely understand what to do until you jump in the middle of it and die?! This is exactly the same thing. In Hotline Miami you can see something just before you enter, but there's no way you're going to get an idea of what to do just by looking alone. Some enemies are out of sight, some are behind glass walls that you don't know are see-through unless you die once. In all those game, you learn exclusively through the experience of dying multiple times, so Stealth Inc. 2 is not different at all from all the games I mentioned before.

So, unless there's some kind of weird and unjustified "gamer's pride" in never dying if not strictly because of your fault, I don't see a problem if, at the end of the game, out of 1000 times you have died, 30 times have been because of little "surprises" the developers have included to spice things up. So who cares if, once in a blue moon, a door opens and a laser comes out - it's not that you lose anything or get punished, because there's no penality if you die more or less times, the clock resets, and most of the times you respawn in the exact same location a blink of an eye later with no loading time.

on a NL scale, if Ducktales Remastered and Giana Sisters were an 8, this game would be a 27.

Edited on by spizzamarozzi

Top-10 games I played in 2017: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (WiiU) - Rogue Legacy (PS3) - Fallout 3 (PS3) - Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - Guns of Boom (MP) - Sky Force Reloaded (MP) - ...

3DS Friend Code: 0104-0649-7464 | Nintendo Network ID: spizzamarozzi

spizzamarozzi

I named Hotline Miami not because it's a game I liked (I didn't like it btw) but because it's a very popular, critically acclaimed indie game where you die every other second for a number of reason (from enemies that you can't see to the poor controls of the console version) and yet nobody complained about that.
Dying for bad controls or poor level design is bad - that's a fact, and that can kill a game, especially if it sends you back to the beginning of a stage. But dying for something that takes you by surprise and doesn't give you enough time to react, in a game where you die constantly and you respawn half a second later in the same location - it's not something I would consider a problem, especially if it happens only from time to time like in Stealth Inc.2.

Pahvi wrote:

And in the end do we come to the conclusion that review scores are arbitrary and should be done away with? (I'm inclined to think so.)

In a perfect world we wouldn't need scores, but reviews have to be a compact, sellable product, and 90% of the readers have zero attention span, making the numerical score and the last paragraph in the review the only things most people read.
The problem is not in the scores themself, but in the fact that reviewers have to pump out reviews in short spans of time, and usually rush through a game and never play it enough to give a honest rating. The Eurogamer review is a perfect example: out of 1100 words, they couldn't spend a few to talk about the co-op mode and the level editor (two big things in this game, if you ask me).

Top-10 games I played in 2017: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (WiiU) - Rogue Legacy (PS3) - Fallout 3 (PS3) - Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - Guns of Boom (MP) - Sky Force Reloaded (MP) - ...

3DS Friend Code: 0104-0649-7464 | Nintendo Network ID: spizzamarozzi

jariw

spizzamarozzi wrote:

That's not to say the game isn't good though - it's very good and, at the moment, is probably the single eShop game that offers more content in terms of longevity (and in terms of quality it can easily rival any other game, Guacamelee, Shovel Knight et similia).

I just quote this, but I agree with everything you say about this game, since I've also become a big fan of it. There's no doubt that this is a really masterly crafted Wii U game.

The co-op mode is brilliant. I'm replaying the game in co-op on a different user account, and it's almost like playing a completely different game. To be able to solve a level, everything has to really be handled as a team and the co-op is truly asynchronous.

Regarding the Eurogamer review and the instant-kill restore points, I actually doubt the reviewer. At some locations I got a restore point where I was killed half a second later, but those restore points were all quite easily handled once I got the timing right and acted fast. Also, it seems (to me at least, I haven't tested it extensively) like the restore points put things in a "solvable position". Sometimes when I got killed, the gimmick to test was put back at a position that was different than where I remembered to have put it. Sometimes, the placement itself gave me feedback on how to solve the passage.

But the "Me Too" test chambers became difficult in a surprising way to me. During the whole previous part of the game, the purpose had been to stay alive. And all of a sudden, I must sacrifice clones. The change in mindset needed a bit of time to get used to, for me at least.

Edited on by jariw

jariw

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