Styx: the age of Asylum style video games?

[twmac]

I am starting to enjoy the fact that things seem to be focusing on digital releases in this generation of consoles. It means that I login this morning and all of a sudden Divekick is available.

 

Alongside that, is a pseudo-sequel to 'Of Orcs and Men' - Styx: Master of Shadows. A game that is £23:99 and has a name a bit like Shadow of Mordor.

 

Anyway it looks quite pretty in screenshots but it is made by Cyanide (a company that almost managed to fuck up Bloodbowl) so it is most likely going to be terrible.

 

This does not stop me from wanting to buy it (I played Ride to Hell: Retribution from beginning to end).

 

Oh, and for reference - The Asylum are responsible for churning out films that sound like other films to con people into buying them (Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, Atlantic Rim).

 

This is the Bone site post:

 

https://store.xbox.com/en-GB/Xbox-One/Games/Styx-Master-of-Shadows/10e11b31-9367-427f-9191-68fbcd793424

[njoos]

Is it actually terrible? plz anyone confirm, it looks cool

[Roderick]

The analogy is a little off though, since I heard about Styx wayyyy before I heard about Shadows of Mordor. I think it's legit. May still be terrible, but it looks pretty fun at the very least!

[twmac]

Well, for ages it was just Styx, the suffix of the name seems to be a more recent thing.

 

I need to resist downloading it, I have Forza Horizon 2, Alien: Isolation right now and I will have Evil Within, Sunset Overdrive and Lords of the Fallen.

 

nj00s, the link I sent you has a twitch stream of the game, might be worth checking out.

 

Regardless, I will buy this, just not now.

[twmac]

Hmmmm.

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/styx-master-of-shadows/critic-reviews

 

That means that it is not bad.

[Twig]

I'm going to take the hit and buy/play this this weekend over other guaranteed good games.

 

WE'LL SEE HOW IT GOES!

[Justin Leego]

Yeah I don't know if they should have changed the name or not but for many (ie. me) it wasn't obvious that Master of sorry, Shadow of Mordor was going to be massive until juuuust before it hit so....

 

....apparently this one is actually alright, especially if you like Thief and remakes of Thief that don't share the same color palette as Thief? Twig are you going to stream your findings for the good of society?

 

Anyway there were certainly enough comedy British and American accents in yon trailer to keep me amused

[Twig]

Uhhhh I suppose I could??

I'm not a good talking-to-myself kind of person (unless I'm actually literally talking to myself!) but I could at least stream me playing it even if I have nothing to say, I guess.

 

Also FWIW I've never played a Thief game, but that's definitely why I want to play this. RPS describes it as a stealth game where breaking stealth is actually a bad thing, instead of an excuse to enter crappy rhythm-based combat or whatever, and that appeals to me.

[sclpls]

Oh man, the concluding bit of the review on RPS:

 

You’re not going to love Styx. It’s not the kind of game you’re going to be itching for a sequel to. It seems kind of unfortunate that it was released within a week of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Alien: Isolation. But sometime five or ten years from now you’ll be talking about stealth games with a friend and you’ll go, “Oh, hey, remember Styx? That was pretty good.”

Your friend probably won’t have played it, but that just means you get to feel smarter than them.

[Twig]

Heh yeah. I would be that guy. Except I wouldn't feel smarter just sad because nobody else knows what I'm talking about. ):

[Roderick]

At the same time, I watched that 4 minute video and it was over before I knew it, so apparently they're doing something right. I like the animation of the little dude, though I can already see how the moves might be a little gimmicky and repetitive. My biggest fear would be that the environments are elaborate parkour test courses rather than areas that feel real and purposeful.

[Erkki]

I was just coming here to post a thread about it. PS somewhy the forum search didn't find Styx... (maybe I searched wrongwhere).

 

Looks interesting but I'm a little hesitant. It seems somehow related to Of Orcs and Men, which also looks cool and is way cheap right now. Anyone played that?

[Erkki]

From the gameplay trailer it seems that it might be a bit on the easy side and the demonstrator is choosing more roundabout solutions to problems. Wish they would show what happens when the player gets caught. Found an example:

 

(3:00)

[twmac]

I've played Of Orcs and Men and it is very average; it uses the combat system from the Game of Thrones game and it is not implemented well.

[Twig]

Of Orcs and Men has always looked interesting, pretty much solely based on the premise, but I've heard such middling things that I never gave it a shot. The goblin in that is Styx, from this game.

 

Anyway I bought Styx and will be playing it 2maro.

 

Who needs Shadow of Mordor, anyway? More like Shadow of BOREDOR.

[tegan]

The aesthetics of this game look like a really modern version of a third-party Gamecube game. Like that long lost middle tier between indie games and AAA games.

[Roderick]

Yes, now that you mention it! It reminds me of Goblin Commander on the Gamecube. I love that games like these are still made, after all the reports of games either having to be AAA or small indie.

[Architecture]

I had two reactions when I booted up Steam on Wednesday to play some more of Mordor:

 

-Whoa, Styx is out already? And

-It's a budget title?

 

The lower price definitely has me curious.

[Twig]

Well I'm streaming it right now because Justin asked me if I would.

 

http://www.hitbox.tv/togglesworlh

 

I'll probably not talk much, if at all, unless I see chat words??, and probably be bad at it, too, who knows.

[Twig]

I've learned several things from this experience.

 

1) I probably don't have the patience to stream anything long-form. I tend to play games (with some exceptions) in short bursts, like half an hour to an hour at a time, before taking a break and coming back in fifteen minutes and doing it again.

1a) I would almost certainly feel differently and play longer if I actually had people watching me and communicating with me as I played. I sort of wish I was good at this. X:

2) If I'm going to try to talk I should probably set u my mic properly as I kept pressing my usual Mumble mic button before realizing near the end that I hadn't set that up for OBS...

3) No one watched me!! This is a load off my back because it was embarrassing how bad I was.

4) This game has a completely awful story so far, and not even in the enjoyable kind of way.

5) SEE BELOW:

 

Not sure how I feel the actual game, yet. tegan nailed it on the head when she said it was like a long lost Gamecube game. Aesthetically, of course, as she mentioned, but it even feels like it when you're playing it. Mechanics that from a AAA studio would be super high fidelity (e.g., Assassin's Creed, climbing on walls and stuff) are just super simple jump into it to hang, jump again to jump off, or hit cancel to fall down. It's all quick, no need to wait. You get the same jump height off wall-hooks as you would off the ground. Feels weird to play a game like this, honestly. Been a long time. The best analog I can come up with is probably the massive amount of second-tier (i.e., not Mario!) 3D platformers during the GC/PS2 era. Just that Instant Jump feeling, with relatively low falling speed, everything feels kinda floaty, and you just have a lot of instant control. Feels like there's no delay when turning directions on a dime, etc.

 

Anyway that's enough incoherent rambling about the platforming/movement.

 

As far as the stealth mechanics go, it feels like it's all fairly logical. You have a number of tools at your disposal, and you pick them up pretty quickly. I'm sure there are more later on. Sand to put out torches from a distance. Life/amber potions to refill. (Amber is magic.) Throwing knives to kill from a distance. That kind of stuff. I was clumsy and somewhat reckless so I was discovered a number of times. The duels are... not difficult, but you're clearly not meant to be fighting people all the time. You get into a sort of rhythm/reaction minigame (all within the confines of the engine, it's not like a separate things) and have to time parries until eventually a KILL prompt appears, at which point you can kill them. Most guards take one parry, so far, but the heavily armored ones I think take three, but it might just be two. Fail to parry and you take lots of damage.

 

I played on normal difficulty and everything felt pretty forgiving, but obviously difficulty ramps up later on. I'm not sure if I should increase difficulty or not.

 

Also I was completely surprised by how deep Styx's voice is. Also he has an American accent, as opposed to cockney, which is what I was expecting for some reason.

 

Anyway so there's my initial impressions.

[Merus]

I think your experience here is why I don't stream; no-one will show up, and I get weird when I realise I have an audience.

[Twig]

Yeah. I think it would be fun if I ever got used to the weirdness but of course no one will watch anyway.

[Architecture]

I think I would prefer to watch Idle Thumbs forum members stream than most of the idiots who rack up huge viewerships, honestly.

[Bjorn]

Yeah, me too.  I've watched Cine one time.  Unfortunately, usually every time someone says they're going to stream something, it's inevitably when I'm not available to watch. 

[Twig]

You say that but I would really probably be just as dumb as those idiots who rack up huge viewerships. ):

I rarely have anything insightful to say about video games on a moment to moment basis. Everything I said today (which wasn't recorded because I actually am an idiot) was just making fun of the dumb story and laughing at my own deaths.