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Betrayer (17th century FPS from Ex-Monolith devs)

Ivan

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Yeah. By the time you get to the third map you realize, "oh, it's pretty much the same thing. now, where are the key destinations so I can warp around using fast travel."
 

Konjad

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One of those games that seem rather boring before you actually play them, and when you play them they become one of those unique experiences you don't forget for a long time. While not a great game, Betrayer is a decent somewhat open-world game where you wander through land and find out what happened to those who were before you. In addition, you get to fight some enemies that are not easily taken down unless by a surprise attack, so you are mostly sneaking around and taking them from afar. The difficulty is challenging at times, the atmosphere and audiovisuals are unsettling, and the graphics are very unique and beautiful. Albeit short, it was a very enjoyable experience, and I recommend it very much.
 

Puukko

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I got fairly far into it but unfortunately my save got corrupted so I dropped it. It was good fun though.
 

Beastro

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Messages
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Bought into EA for it and had a good impression from what I saw. Somehow fell off my radar until recently.

Still early in, but, love the use of sound in the game and the look of the skeletons, which when combined as one sneaks up from the side as you hear it getting closer until you turn to get a face full of skellie is really nice, organic jump scare.

Another thing that caught me right off was how the game resists what so many horror games/movies do and that is to fight the urge to shove scary things in your face. Instead it lets them sit until you notice them that can make even the quest NPCs freak you out when you're wandering around and then realize some being has been standing near you the entire time looking at you. First time I played years ago I wound up attacking the first wraith I found because I simply didn't know wtf he was.

I wish games would incorporate that wariness into the gameplay and story. Too often it's hammered on in RPG stories about people attacking others because they're afraid and how foolish it is to hate and fear those you don't know, but to actually be placed into the same position, nervous and feeling vulnerable until you find someone you're not sure is a friend or foe and unwilling to risk getting noticed and too close results in you attacking a possible friendly... or just another enemy, would be a nice lesson in what fear does and some good organic C&C.

I've always thought that same fear of strangers situation would work in a survival game about being something like a Mountain Man encountering someone else and having to decide to reveal yourself and interact with the person unable to tel if they're nice or a bandit hiding from the law deep on the frontier would be a nice idea. Sounds like a good combination with horror gameplay.
 

Metro

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Beg Auditor
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Aug 27, 2009
Messages
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Not sure if I said this earlier in the thread years ago but I got bored and uninstalled after a couple of hours.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Hm, so after getting a gift copy a while back I decided to finally try this.

Not what I expected somehow. After two hours I'm having a hard time with initial motivation. OK, I'm on an island, OK, I guess there are ghosts and so forth, but why do I care? Does any of this involve me? Why am I not just holing up in the fort?

It seems that the whole story is going to be told on scraps of paper lying around, while what I'm actually doing is popping moles shooting zombie conquistadors (that only exist to kill me) who run at me in a straight line and that I can't escape and hide from once they're triggered. Why is this a game? Wouldn't it have made more sense for the actual story to be a book or something? Is there some awesome meta realization coming up that makes the protagonist matter in some way?

I do think the art style is beautiful. The default black and white looks great, fuck the hate. Sound is brilliant too.

Part of my problem is I want the atmosphere unspoiled so I turned off all the HUD elements. No compass for finding POIs, no crosshair to make shooting less annoying, no health and ammo meters to make combat more convenient. This all makes the game a bit grating to play. But if I turn that crap back on I can't take good screenshots, which would annoy me even more.
 

Master

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Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
Hm, so after getting a gift copy a while back I decided to finally try this.

Not what I expected somehow. After two hours I'm having a hard time with initial motivation. OK, I'm on an island, OK, I guess there are ghosts and so forth, but why do I care? Does any of this involve me? Why am I not just holing up in the fort?

It seems that the whole story is going to be told on scraps of paper lying around, while what I'm actually doing is popping moles shooting zombie conquistadors (that only exist to kill me) who run at me in a straight line and that I can't escape and hide from once they're triggered. Why is this a game? Wouldn't it have made more sense for the actual story to be a book or something? Is there some awesome meta realization coming up that makes the protagonist matter in some way?
The almost COMPLETE silence in the game kinda works for the story being told. And it is the 16th century, they havent invented audio logs yet.
 

DalekFlay

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Yeah my memory of this game was waiting for it to develop into something real and it never doing so. Wonderful vibes and design, but just never got turned into a real game.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Another thing that caught me right off was how the game resists what so many horror games/movies do and that is to fight the urge to shove scary things in your face. Instead it lets them sit until you notice them that can make even the quest NPCs freak you out when you're wandering around and then realize some being has been standing near you the entire time looking at you. First time I played years ago I wound up attacking the first wraith I found because I simply didn't know wtf he was.
I was disappointed how Betrayer handles this. In the tutorial zone, you find a sign left behind by the merchant advising you that attacking by surprise will do more damage. I mean ... duh. Then 50 feet away is an unidentified form with his back to you. Literal signposting that you should just start killing every dood you see. I didn't like it so I creeped close until the guy saw me and attacked, then defended myself. Would have been much more effective for me to learn on my own that conquistadors etc. are bad news. Later on I didn't need a sign telling me that screaming skeletons should be treated with caution.

Think I'm going to go ahead and bail on this one.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I like you Zombra but that's what tutorials are by definition
But it's not a proper tutorial. It's the first zone of the actual game.
It's a picky complaint but it's disappointing for the first thing to happen in a supposedly good story to be a voice telling you:
BY THE WAY THIS IS NOT REAL, YOU ARE A FLOATING CAMERA IN A VIDEO GAME, ACT ACCORDINGLY
 
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Deathsquid

Learned
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
382
Another thing that caught me right off was how the game resists what so many horror games/movies do and that is to fight the urge to shove scary things in your face. Instead it lets them sit until you notice them that can make even the quest NPCs freak you out when you're wandering around and then realize some being has been standing near you the entire time looking at you. First time I played years ago I wound up attacking the first wraith I found because I simply didn't know wtf he was.
I was disappointed how Betrayer handles this. In the tutorial zone, you find a sign left behind by the merchant advising you that attacking by surprise will do more damage. I mean ... duh. Then 50 feet away is an unidentified form with his back to you. Literal signposting that you should just start killing every dood you see. I didn't like it so I creeped close until the guy saw me and attacked, then defended myself. Would have been much more effective for me to learn on my own that conquistadors etc. are bad news. Later on I didn't need a sign telling me that screaming skeletons should be treated with caution.

Think I'm going to go ahead and bail on this one.
I'm not sure you're playing this on default settings or not, but if you are, then the default "You should probably kill this or avoid it" stuff is telegraphed in such a major way that you probably need to be colorblind to miss it. I mean, the bad guys are all in bright fuck-off red while everything else is monochrome. What do you think that red stands for, lipstick? They will give you kisses and valentine cards? Nah man, that's THE COLOR OF BLOOD and also the game tries to be a horror game so like yeah well um, I dunno, I can see what you mean but also, I dunno. Unless you mean the black shapes, but then those should be "memories", no?

Anyway, I found the game falling apart in a major way after about 3/4th in simply because the formula that is set up in the first couple of levels never really gets refined, shaken up or subverted, it's essentially the same gameplay loop throughout the whole game. It's not very long, but still, I think it got a major pass from everyone, including myself, because it was one of the first of its type, and generally competently made. Were it to be released in 2018, with better graphics, but the same gameplay loop, I think it would seriously flop.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I'm not sure you're playing this on default settings or not, but if you are, then the default "You should probably kill this or avoid it" stuff is telegraphed in such a major way that you probably need to be colorblind to miss it. I mean, the bad guys are all in bright fuck-off red while everything else is monochrome. What do you think that red stands for, lipstick? They will give you kisses and valentine cards? Nah man, that's THE COLOR OF BLOOD and also the game tries to be a horror game so like yeah well um, I dunno, I can see what you mean but also, I dunno. Unless you mean the black shapes, but then those should be "memories", no?
1) I'd be delighted if it was merely "telegraphed", but no, there's literally a sign that some dood in the game world put up that instructs you how to kill bad guys. With a bad guy conveniently standing 50 feet away with his back to you.
2) According to you I should also immediately be trying to kill the woman in red.
3) THIS IS A HORROR GAME YO SO PLAY IT THAT WAY is not good storytelling either.
 
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Deathsquid

Learned
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
382
I'm not sure you're playing this on default settings or not, but if you are, then the default "You should probably kill this or avoid it" stuff is telegraphed in such a major way that you probably need to be colorblind to miss it. I mean, the bad guys are all in bright fuck-off red while everything else is monochrome. What do you think that red stands for, lipstick? They will give you kisses and valentine cards? Nah man, that's THE COLOR OF BLOOD and also the game tries to be a horror game so like yeah well um, I dunno, I can see what you mean but also, I dunno. Unless you mean the black shapes, but then those should be "memories", no?
1) I'd be delighted if it was merely "telegraphed", but no, there's literally a sign that some dood in the game world put up that instructs you how to kill bad guys. With a bad guy conveniently standing 50 feet away with his back to you.
2) According to you I should also immediately be trying to kill the woman in red.
3) THIS IS A HORROR GAME YO SO PLAY IT THAT WAY is not good storytelling either.
1) So the game tells you to kill dudes, you don't kill dude, dude attacks you. Which part of this sequence is the biggest offender? I'm actually confused. You didn't follow the obvious SIGNPOSTED instruction and the thing attacked you. I mean yeah, they could've not had the sign there at all, agreed, AND they could've had a more competently programmed AI, but like, if this is what it takes to dissuade you from playing a game, then well, there's a lot of games with shitty first levels you probably should skip. There's also absolutely no chance they might get better later, either. :roll:
2) Why not? Not like the game punishes you for it in any way.
3) Will you play an RTS like a point-and-click adventure game? Or maybe Doom like a walking simulator? There are genre conventions. It's a game, not a multiverse simulator. No, that dark evil red thing won't turn green and tell you about its terrible past and abusive parents and let you hug it and make it all better. It's a 6-year-old horror game that combines a modern walking sim and a survival horror, made by an unseasoned team. It had a couple of great ideas but overall it's just that.

Bottomline is, I don't really get your complaints besides that you probably expected a more complex experience. It isn't. It does get better, but just as Deadly Premonition, the combat aspect of the game is not only its worst part, it's the part that undermines the rest of the game. However, take it away, and it's a walking sim. I guess they tried to avoid it, but didn't quite succeed.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't really get your complaints
You really don't. At no time did I say the problem was that the game was hard or that I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. (In fact, the opposite is true.) If you're interested, start over from the top and read what I actually wrote.

As to your general impressions of the game, that's interesting and thanks for your thoughts.
 
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Deathsquid

Learned
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Jan 18, 2018
Messages
382
I don't really get your complaints
You really don't. At no time did I say the problem was that the game was hard or that I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. (In fact, the opposite is true.) If you're interested, start over from the top and read what I actually wrote.

As to your general impressions of the game, that's interesting and thanks for your thoughts.
I actually did, and though I had a bit to drink yesterday, and am sober today, I still think that it's put in a confusing way, something to do with sentence juxtaposition or whatnot.

I guess you meant it in the sense of "Either let me sneak up on the guy and do the crit damage LIKE THE GAME TELLS ME TO or DON'T put that signpost there at all to ruin the suspense or maybe even both"? In that case yeah. I recall one of the issues I had with the game AI was that you couldn't ever properly sneak up on it. I mean you could sneak outside of its view and avoid some fights, but the whole "Sneak up and stab it in the back" I possibly succeeded a half dozen times and generally stopped bothering with STEALTH TAKEDOWN approach.

Overall the first map is, strangely enough, one of the weakest because they tried to insert the tutorial and kinda sorta hold your hand, which breaks both the exploration and the atmosphere to a degree, and then it also kinda sorta fails as a tutorial except you learn to ring the bell I guess.
 

Beastro

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Messages
7,941
I'm not sure you're playing this on default settings or not, but if you are, then the default "You should probably kill this or avoid it" stuff is telegraphed in such a major way that you probably need to be colorblind to miss it. I mean, the bad guys are all in bright fuck-off red while everything else is monochrome. What do you think that red stands for, lipstick? They will give you kisses and valentine cards? Nah man, that's THE COLOR OF BLOOD and also the game tries to be a horror game so like yeah well um, I dunno, I can see what you mean but also, I dunno. Unless you mean the black shapes, but then those should be "memories", no?

Anyway, I found the game falling apart in a major way after about 3/4th in simply because the formula that is set up in the first couple of levels never really gets refined, shaken up or subverted, it's essentially the same gameplay loop throughout the whole game. It's not very long, but still, I think it got a major pass from everyone, including myself, because it was one of the first of its type, and generally competently made. Were it to be released in 2018, with better graphics, but the same gameplay loop, I think it would seriously flop.

I played it around when it first came out with Greenlight and only a partial bit of the first area was open. IIRC back then, everyone was monochrome.

I got around to replaying it and I agree with the last paragraph. By the time I got halfway through the second or third area I realized it was going to be just a repetition until the end and that killed my desire to keep playing.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Think I'm going to go ahead and bail on this one.

Just played Firewatch. Couldn't put it down. Super engaging story, sympathetic characters, and a nice mystery that never devolves into science fiction or the supernatural. Conversation options are very organic and there are some fascinating repercussions to certain choices, despite naysayers' claims that nothing means anything. Minimal gameplay mostly related to navigation. On Steam sale for $5 right now - if you're at all interested, grab it.

:hmmm:
 

Farewell into the night

Guest
I didn't know about this game. I'm going to check it out, thanks rpgcodex.
 
Joined
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Betrayer is great. I went into it not knowing that it was made up of ex-NOLF-era-Monolith devs and after I found that out, it made a lot more sense. Is this dev team still making games?
 

Deathsquid

Learned
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Jan 18, 2018
Messages
382
I played it around when it first came out with Greenlight and only a partial bit of the first area was open. IIRC back then, everyone was monochrome.
Almost. The world was monochrome, the enemies were monochrome with red tint, plus the black specter and the red lady. It was really a pain to play it for an extended period of time though, as it was too much for the eyes, so in either the first or the second patch they added an option to scale the filter from default full-out b/w/r and all the way to Oblivion levels of fauna saturation that made it look ridiculous and also once again impossible to play because you couldn't see the enemies in all the color. There was a happy medium though, and it is also amazing in terms of dissonance to have a beautiful vibrant island full of dead stuff and grimdark stories.
 

TedNugent

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2013
Messages
6,329
Is dis game gud

Aliens vs Predator 2 was fucking dope. FEAR was okay. Haven't played a Monolith game since but I know they made some gud shit back in the day. Curious about this.
 

Deathsquid

Learned
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
382
I kept playing it monochrome when I gave it a try last.
I tuned it to slight levels of green so it wouldn't kill my old eyes, but would tune it to monochrome or all-out full saturation for fun and profit on occasion too.

Is dis game gud

Aliens vs Predator 2 was fucking dope. FEAR was okay. Haven't played a Monolith game since but I know they made some gud shit back in the day. Curious about this.
If you're looking for great gameplay loop, this isn't that game, no. The action part is incredibly basic and underwhelming and honestly shouldn't have been there. They should've done the supernatural similarly to how STALKER handles anomalies and poltergeists and such, it would've been so much better.
 

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