Klopek

I played the Steep Slope Sliders demo countless times on Sega Saturn. The irony is that I never actually bought it. I think it was too rare and expensive at the time and the moment simply passed.

I also played The Indiana Jones (Emperor's Tomb) demo for the first Xbox endlessly. There was a competition in the Xbox magazine to record yourself finishing the demo as quickly as possible. I streamlined everything with no unnecessary actions. I finally got the perfect run recorded and submitted (on VHS) but when the winner was announced it was some dude swinging with the whip and glitching over a wall, skipping the majority of the level. I'm still wondering now whether my time was a winner for the 'non-bullshit' entries.

@bisonhero: When you strip Outlast to the core like that then I suppose they are similar as all of those points are in part true. I never really directly associated the two while playing though.

The Agony possession mechanic is moderately interesting, as the martyrs that you discover around the level effectively become your lives. You are able to possess demons later on which creates a risk/reward scenario where you can clear the path of other demons but to maintain that form for any significant period of time you to have execute martyrs, effectively draining your own lives. You are unable to pick up items or progress past certain level points so you will ultimately always need to return to the martyr form. It honestly sounds more interesting on paper than its execution in game as you can always fall back to the checkpoints which they've now patched to be persistent on the standard difficulty, as before you could only use them three times before they deactivated.

Looking past the visuals and the theme, I suppose the main enjoyment I found was the secrets and collectables. Quite a number of the levels feel large and aren't particularly linear in the way you approach many parts of them. This exploration and discovery element of the game felt quite old school in nature, which I mean in a good way.

I don't remember much about the story beyond trying to find the red goddess although my memory is awful. She has quite a few voice-over parts which reminded me of Jennifer Beals' character in Vampire's Kiss (which I mean as a really campy positive). I didn't take it seriously at all so really cannot relate to any of the points Patrick is surfacing in his review.

I would have been perfectly satisfied with this as a walking simulator, as the best part really is the environments and graphics. I'd recommend it to anybody (on PC) who is intrigued by the visual design and is adept at tolerating some jank. I spent my first hour dying repeatedly in a dark maze (that they've since patched in some lighting changes to) so even I'm somewhat surprised that I came around on it. I perfectly understand people who have written this off as total shite though.

I finished this and like it quite a bit. It manages to be both graphically gorgeous but also at times dated. I was most impressed with the environments and sheer variety of assets. I found it engaging, with vast levels and a stack of collectables but equally frustrating due to its sometimes questionable AI and check pointing.

This feels like a low-key gem coated in a big dollop of janky shit. They've been pretty good at rolling out patches so hopefully soon enough you might be able to realistically recommend it to somebody without suffixing it with a bunch of caveats.

I played on PC. I understand the console versions were released in a less than stellar shape. The damage is done. The reviews are pretty nasty.

@generalbison: Bumping this. No sign of the GB West studio footage from Extra Life 2017?

I thought Hydrophobia generally did a good job with the water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFgp1EcPm7Q

@JoeyRavn:

Yep. Be careful since I'm pretty certain it also destroys your save game. Thankfully I had a backup but I'm sure lots of new game-pad using, recent Windows 8 adopters went to play episode 5 only to have a nasty surprise.

The voice-over for Scoot in Hydrophobia was pretty grating. I have to agree though, the children in Heavy Rain were awful!

I loved the first one. If this turns out playable I'll certainly buy it in hope that a real sequel is made.
 
Edit: This isn't even developed by Terminal Reality.

I'm pretty sure the suited actor used to work on Scare Tactics.