TychoCelchuuu

David Lynch's Josh Brolin's Campo Santo's Fire Watch With Me: A Motion Picture Event

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Soundtrack is now on sale at Bandcamp:

https://camposantogames.bandcamp.com/album/firewatch-original-score

 

Just look at that album art...

 

a1759159423_16.jpg

This obviously needs a vinyl release so it can be framed. Get the Merch Manager on it! Disappointed there's no tie-in FireWatch either. And no amiibo line - Pine Tree, Firey Pine Tree, Burnt Husk, Tortoise...missed opportunities, guys. You're giving money to etsy  ;)

 

Seriously though, a limited run vinyl may be doable, no?

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Well, there at least is a DRM free Firewatch digital publication I can buy, and I even have enough RAM for it. :eyebrow:

 

Will one of you guys spoil me rotten on the Ornate Box Turtle baby options please?

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I was actually planning to save fire watching for the weekend but after the Steam servers went down for their usual weekly maintenance I changed my mind.  I've only finished Day One and if the rest of the game is broken into segments like that I'm probably going to keep to one a day.  Normally I'm the kind of person who would blow through a game right away but with this one I want to take my time.  I'm purposely avoiding running unless I feel that the situation calls for it.  Instead I'm marveling at the amazing art and looking at everything.  My radio is constantly being clicked.  I also love little touches in games and this one is full of it.  I probably spent about 5 minutes rearranging the books on the shelf inside the tower.

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A little disappointed with PS4 performance, lots of little hitches as I move through areas and whenever it quicksaves. After seeing the Giant Bomb video I loved the way the game hard cuts at the end of each day, but on PS4 the game judders momentarily before each one of those happens, and the loading of the new day is long enough for the cut to lose its effect.

 

I dislike the camera turning accelerating as well. It seems to step from speed a up to speed b if I am doing camera moves over 90 degrees. I find that I have to look after the camera and move it a bit slower that I'd naturally like to.

 

But I am liking what I see so far! The filmic editing in the opening sequence is very effective and an excellent way to understand both Henry's default state of mind and why he has chosen to isolate himself for a time.

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The game froze on a loading screen for me last night. Just as I was really getting into it! Was a real heart-breaker! I'll get back to it tonight, but yeah. Bummer.

 

More proof I should've gone with the PC version. ):

 

Of course then I'd have to deal with my case fan being really loud 'cause it's loose on the bearings. And my speakers keep buzzing really loudly, intermittently. I think I just need a new cable (it's like... at least a decade old...), but I don't want to deal with the hassle, sooo.

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I think I'm with Tom Chick on this one, sadly. Still, gorgeous.

 

I'm looking forward to reading that piece.  I've seen it described in Slack chat, but if I'm understanding his argument well (and I may not be), I think he's done a disservice to the collective work of the team at Campo Santo and full range the game has. 

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I'm looking forward to reading that piece.  I've seen it described in Slack chat, but if I'm understanding his argument well (and I may not be), I think he's done a disservice to the collective work of the team at Campo Santo and full range the game has. 

I disagree, obviously. It's a honest review, and I agree to some extent with most of what he says.  I've posted my own take in the other thread.

 

His final score is much harsher than my mild dissatisfaction, but then he's got more confidence in his opinions than I do in my own.

 

PS Sean loved it

https://twitter.com/vanaman/status/696828893475573761

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My internet provider decided to do some work yesterday and knocked out my internet so I can't play.

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Trucking along just fine on my PC, which is reaching the age where it generally can't run the newest games on high anymore. Looks fabulous and I have it set to Ultra.

I got to the end of Day 2 and called it quits for the night. The lady was starting to doze off watching me play and she wanted to see the rest of it.

My favorite little touch so far in the game is just how it loads. Boom, title screen. No logos, no lawyer print, no bullshit. It's classy in a way that I didn't know starting a game for the first time could be.

I think you are also me. PC is starting to show it's age, played up to the end of day 2 with a steam controller and stopped because gf was nodding off.

Also seconding the "you all should put that soundtrack on wax with that album art" because holy moly I would buy that so fast.

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I disagree, obviously. It's a honest review, and I agree to some extent with most of what he says.  I've posted my own take in the other thread.

 

His final score is much harsher than my mild dissatisfaction, but then he's got more confidence in his opinions than I do in my own.

 

PS Sean loved it

https://twitter.com/vanaman/status/696828893475573761

 

Yeah, I'm waiting to finish it before I read it so I can really dig into what he has to say.  I mainly say it is a disservice over the comment about "it would be better as a novel, or movie, or play or radio drama", but I want to see more of his reasoning first.

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Wow this runs like warmed up shit :tup: I guess that explains the lower than expected price point.

Sounds like unity couldn't contain campo santos ambition.

And what's with the turning acceleration speed. It feels broken. It accelerates smoothly then maintaines a steady comfortable pace for a second... then instantly jumps to lightspeed. It can do entirely without that final speed adjust.

I feel harsh saying it, but I'd say the same if it is any other game. Hopefully it doesn't detract from the experience too much, I've only just reached the tower :) the little twine narrative has already given me a gut punch, sat wondering for a couple minutes...

if I'd put my wife in a home. That shits real

Also, wasn't Jake saying on the podcast not that long ago about how all games should have the "it's been 3 minutes since your last save" when quitting, and how easy it must be to implement ;P

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If anyone having performance issues is on a laptop with one of them optimus integrated/discrete gpu switching thingies, fyi my computer didn't autodetect that firewatch needed the gpu and was trying to run it with the integrated and I was wondering why i was getting sluggish performance on low (at 1366 x 768 like a savage!) until I closed the game and used my nvidia control panel to force discrete gpu use.

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I just finished it.

 

I think I would have preferred this as a novel than a video game. Although it's very beautiful, I didn't feel like I was going to discover anything that I wouldn't eventually be pointed towards anyway. I also felt that I didn't really have much effect on the relationship between Henry and Delilah. I think the dialogue tree is supposed to be expressive rather than actually changing the story, but I never felt those little deviations amounted to anything. Delilah would change tone between snippets of conversation no matter what I chose to do or say.

It was probably exacerbated by some of the performance issues on PS4, but it felt like a poor use of my time in wandering about and traversing from A to B when the game is supposed to be about these two characters.
 

These aren't considered opinions, more of an initial reaction. Right now though, I can say I enjoyed it. However, I think Gone Home did some aspects better, I think Last of Us did some aspects better, I think the Walking Dead S1 did some aspects better.

 

EDIT: I had a look at Tom Chick's review and I apparently agree with it.

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Hm... I think Tom Chick may have a point, but I don't entirely agree. Just finished and as soon as the credits rolled, I did in fact think "this would have been good as a movie", but then it transformed into "hey, this was a pretty good format for a video game similar to a 2 hour movie, just a bit longer because it's a game.". I think this is actually a perfect format for story-based video games. It was long enough to tell this interesting story (maybe could have been somewhat shorter, but that's very subjective) and have some video-gamey things going on. For me exploration is motivation enough to have a game instead of a movie, but I can understand that for some people it might not be. Firewatch is really gorgeous for exploration, though. I guess the dialogue choices did feel a bit like they wouldn't really affect anything, but it was fine. I think the weakest point of the game is actually controls. I was using the Steam controller and also published "Villane's Binds" which slightly modify the defaults, but overall it felt like there were way way way too many buttons in use for the relatively simple game that it is.

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Yeah, I take a little umbrage with the "could have been a short story, radio play, novel" idea.  I really dislike the idea that strong, physical causation is the only significant choice we have in games, and that somehow makes framing choices totally non significant.

The ability to influence the tone of a relationship and a character's reactions to a series of events felt as strong or stronger an experience than uncovering the story in Gone Home by tinkering around.  Despite some jarring in certain transitions, I really did feel like I was influencing and creating a relationship between these two characters in a way that very, very few games ever give me the capacity to do. 

And for me it reflects how often relationships are like that in life.  I am probably never going to choose to skip out on work, bail on my responsibilities, not do the thing that I "should", but I frame how my life relates to those actions, and how I respond to others and let them in or close them out from my life.  That is an entirely different experience from observing an author's singular version of a series of events, i.e. a novel or play.

This didn't feel particularly spoiler-y to me, but if someone feels it is, I'll move it to the other thread, it seemed like there was more talk of the Tom Chick review happening here.

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im on day 3 and managed to sneak through some invisible walls. now i enter the true wilderness

 

DHaVyIR.jpg

 

edit: aah woah there's supply caches out here. conflicted between cracking them open to see how much i can tear this game up and not spoiling myself

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3Gvn9sb.gif

 

This was a strange thing to greet me on the second morning as I left the tower. 

 

"Desynchronizing...Altair didn't kill innocent turtles."

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"Desynchronizing...Altair didn't kill innocent turtles."

Hahahaha this got me. Good. :tup:

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3Gvn9sb.gif

 

This was a strange thing to greet me on the second morning as I left the tower. 

 

This is some frog fractions 2 shit

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The ability to influence the tone of a relationship and a character's reactions to a series of events felt as strong or stronger an experience than uncovering the story in Gone Home by tinkering around.  Despite some jarring in certain transitions, I really did feel like I was influencing and creating a relationship between these two characters in a way that very, very few games ever give me the capacity to do.

I feel exactly the opposite (explained further in the spoiler thread). I'm glad the game's hitting for a lot of people!

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I finished it last night, and hugely enjoyed it. My photos were lovely, but I had so many blanks! I'll definitely do another run and use them up, it felt very authentic.

I apologise if this sounds unkind (it's really not meant to), but Firewatch seemed to me like a lush, first person visual novel, with richly characterful radio dialogue. So... not very similar really, but there is the same sense of progression; inevitable, but with opportunities for light exploration and choices in character interaction.

I got stuck for a few minutes a couple of times, then realised that I probably needed some new equipment each time; in total, I probably finished in 5 hours or so and consider it time well spent. I can see why some people would prefer it as a short story or movie, but I have seen plenty of movies where I would love to explore that world, and was really glad of the opportunity here.

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Finally got some solid play time into this; I'm kinda taking it slow/I don't like to binge on games so I'm only about 2 hours in and called it a night. I was accidentally an asshole so many times, oh man. Not even just during the radio conversations, man. I thought I was being helpful/doing what I thought I was meant to be doing, but no, I just turned out to be an asshole.

 

Funny thing is, I tweeted something along those lines just yesterday. https://twitter.com/eRonin/status/697406214125125633

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