Quick Look: The Technomancer

I keep thinking this doesn't look worth 60$. Will this change my mind?

I have played this to completion. It's basically the textbook definition of "Eh... it's pretty okay I guess."

Technomancer sounds like it's a wizard of techno music, like a nickname for Carl Cox or someone alike.

Anyway, this seems to be like an AA game and I'm just happy that there's still some AA games out there. Not everything needs to be a big AAA franchise or some indie.

The image looks like some Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy type of stuff.

The voice acting seems not terrible...I'm disappointed, but only because that won't offer any laughs during the QL.

A mediocre game from Spiders.....say it isn't so. Spiders and Cyanide may just be the most mediocre studios out there.

Someone bought me this game before it came out because it was on my steam wish list. I had it there because I was going to wait to see if it was any good. So, anyway, I got to play it before the release date (because it was available to play on steam a couple days before release).

This game visually looks like it may be alright, but it turns out it's really boring mechanically and the writing is awful. The acting is hilarious. Put that together and you have performances worthy of a very easily funny riff. Unfortunately the game not being fun to play makes it very difficult to want to go back to it to finish it when you have a huge backlog. Since I didn't buy this game I don't feel bad about not finishing it.

This game is awful.

I got this game for about $25 and man that was still not worth it. Not only did I have a lot of technical issues: VO not working correctly and the HUD disappearing constantly but even when the game worked properly it wasn't that much fun. The upgrade path for your character doesn't seem that in depth or diverse. I see what they were trying to do but man they did not deliver, I guess I can only expect so much from spiders that evolved to learn how to develop games.

That looks like the Infamous guy shocking Solid Snake.

Yeaaaa new content :D

I picked up Mars War Logs cheap and been playing it now. Wonder how it stacks up to this one. MWL is like a c game but i'm enjoying it for what it is.

Like Hyper Light Drifter, music can definitely make a game for me. And from what I am hearing with this game, I'm in. I kinda want to play another Mass Effect-like game again.

Mance like nobody's watching.

I actually really enjoyed this game. I played it all the way through which I do with very few games these days.

Even though it may not be "the next great game" I thought it really made a case for budget games again. It's only $45 new, and if you got it on sale (which I did) it was less than $40. And no "season pass" trying to suck money out of you for the end of the game.

"Maybe the hotdog is where you sleep..."

This looks right up my ally, but at the same time, I don't think I have any desire to actually play it.

@alex What is the name of that UE4 trailer your talking about, I wanna check it out.

Edit:

I think I found it here!

This game actually already is on PS4 and Xbox One. I've been waiting for it to go on sale since it came out.

Hah, I just got to that part of the video and was about to post the same thing. :)

Having played a good chunk of this game at release, my opinion would be that it falls somewhere in the bottom half of a list like this:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/04/best-average-action-games-on-pc/

I'm here for Skrillex.

Man, that game looks to be right up my alley. The One is my platform of choice though, I'd have no qualms about getting it on there day one if such a thing was to happen. Thanks for linking the trailer.

As someone who enjoyed Mars: War Logs for what it was, I really want to play this game. I love me a good/decent sci-fi RPG and can look past some rough edges. It's a full price game on consoles though, if it was just about twenty dollars cheaper I'd be more willing to jump in. Maybe sometime this holiday.

I think I might eventually get this game, but my PC is just a little under the minimum settings. I've been keeping an eye on it on the PS4, and I'll buy it if it ever drops down from $80 (CAN).

Thank the lord for this being a Vinny QL

@engineno9: Is there really room for budget games in the modern market though? We're literally suffused with high-quality games, you could buy a new game every two weeks and they'd pretty much all be really good. Who has time in their schedule where they 'need' mediocre budget games to fill in the spaces? Seems to me like right now if you like games, your time is worth more than your actual money when it comes to deciding what to play (and I say this as an extremely poor grad student who can't afford to buy even like 1/4 of the games I want to play - even if I could buy them I don't know when I'd play them all). Go click through your steam queue and you'll find several games better than this one, and probably cheaper.

This is a full AAA price in Canada.

Technomansky

I really love games like this. The B-Tier titles. Bound By Flame was a great example of B-Tier, and it seems like Spiders has another great one with Technomancer. I won't have time to play it over the next few months, but this is definitely something I'll pick up during the Winter Sale on Steam

I picked up Spiders last game (Bound By Flame) simply because it was the first RPG to come out on the PS4; ended up being my favorite non-Bioware RPG.

Technomancer hasn't hooked me yet, but I've only played about 2 hours of it. I remember not liking their other games at first, either - hopefully this one gets better after the first act as well.

mance technorayder

This game seems to be on the same level as an RPG like alpha protocol, a fun mid-teir game, with some points of brilliance (I.e. The combat switching viability seems interesting). I may pick it up when it is on sale, and probably even really like it. As for now it seems too pricey to commit too.

those people were fucking in a vent. not very hygienic.

@ethanielrain: For me the game got much better after the first few hours. I don't remember exactly when/where, but definitely after that first boss.

Also, remember that if you are having trouble with a specific combat encounter you can lower the difficulty at any point and they did patch the balance so Easy is actually easier with all hits interrupting enemy attacks and such.

Nothing about fucking is hygienic.

@njn: There is definitely room in my gaming time and library for mid tier games like this. Yeah, I have a ton of games on Steam, many of which had a budget 10-100x what The Technomancer did, but for me this was the thing I was most interested in playing for the weeks that I did and I was happy to spend that time on it.

There are much bigger new releases like Overwatch that came out during the same time, but to be honest I tired of that game fairly quickly and regretted spending $60 on another multiplayer shooter that doesn't do much new for me.

As far as I know, there are no other action RPG games out this summer, and haven't been for a while. This one has a charm that appeals to me, and I chose to spend my time with it despite it's mid tier-ness.

You can feel free to stick to only big budget stuff that costs more or whatever appeals to you, I'll have fun with these quirky European RPGs or other mid tier flawed gems and we can all be happy.

Vinny's technomancer sure looks like Cheapy D.

Mars: War Logs is a heck of a QL, if you haven't seen it.

I remember quite enjoying Bound By Flame, that game had a lot of heart. I feel like this developer has a lot of heart but maybe not the means to live up to their vision.

Problem is that some people are talking about it as a mid/B tier game. I'd just call it a bad game. It's mid tier budget, but not the resulting product. I've tried these Spider/Cyanide rpgs time and again. They were bad before. The problem is that these guys just refuse to improve. As @njn mentioned these days that kind of lack of progress doesn't cut it anymore. Even low-mid budget games can continue to evolve and improve and non AAA studios keep creating small-midscale games of good quality now.

Contrast it to something like the Witcher 1, it was a super niche RPG with tons of quirkiness and yet charm that only got a small but passionate following, a cult classic if you will, 2 was a massive upgrade in terms of visuals, polish and accessibility while remaining true to form, then we got 3 that went open world and blew peoples minds and is now a new high watermark for it's pool. Yea not every studio can be CD Project Red, but i'm just using it as one example. Or we can take Hairbrained studios, who made a kickstarted new Shadowrun on spit and duct tape. It had tons of problems but it was a foundation. Then they kept working at it and improved a ton in followups like Dragonfall that was warmly recieved. Spiders have been cranking these out for a while now with no sunlight in sight.

A flawed gem is one thing (that's Witcher 1 or Alpha Protocol or Dragons Dogma). But I fail to see any shine in Spider games. Except for maybe endearing badness, but that only stretches so far. These are just flawed bricks now. With bad writing, bad combat, boring leveling systems, no depth, super limited environments, repetitive gameplay thankfully with a short duration, buginess is the least of their problems by far.

If people are calling something a flawed gem, you gotta show the gem part under the grime and not a dull copper shine.

I almost forgot about this. I'ma gonna get it.

nudge, nudge

defn. techromancer : someone who attempts to impress sexual prospects using technology.

Yuri Lowenthal seems to voice 75% of this game.

Too much Mancer, not enough Techno.

You forget that many people don't work as hard as those of us with multiple degrees. Not sure what your graduate degree is in but when I was working on my biochem degree and then my law degree the world load was insane and now as a lawyer definitely not less. Not everyone works the amount we do - which is why I am a capitalist but that goes into areas not fit for this forum.

Wow..

The character menu looks very much like Witcher 2.

This looks like the kinda game I'd watch a few episodes of Vinny playing.

crossing fingers for an evil vinny appearance in this quicklook, its been too long.