Quick Look: Styx: Shards of Darkness

@artisanbreads: The East office has definitely been doing a better job of "let's make content about the stuff we like / find intriguing" overall, as of late.

It sometimes seems like Giant Bomb has a bit of an identity crisis and cannot commit to either being a "cover everything" site or a "boutique, niche entertainment video content" site. The result is often a flurry of content that has a small percentage of not-great content (which really stands out as being poor vs. all the great stuff that's coming out alongside it).

@whitegreyblack: Yup. I so wish they would move over to being way more feature/show/pre-recorded whatever based than bothering with reviews at all or Quick Looks much at all, especially for games they aren't interested in.

I cannot sit around and not defend the movie ELLE while people here call it terrible. That film is a work for pure art, and easily one of the best movies of 2016.

Soooo is this the game they produce in the movie Elle? Is the insane tentacle rape scene in the finished game?

I kind of feel like this video was a waste in terms of what to think about this game. But it was amusing to watch some content by these guys so meh.

The "You can turn invisible?" "Yes." "Fuck, man." exchange certainly sums up this Quick Look nicely, and I feel like Jeff kind of felt the same way there.

Why Brad why? I love the site but it's like he has never played a video game before.

Why try to throw something when someone is standing 5 feet away looking right in your direction.

Like just look at the guards and try to wait for an opening when they aren't looking. It's so agrivating.

I agree with some of the sentiments here. The only person left on the west that has any enthusiasm is Jason.

I really miss Drew at this point. I am starting to feel like the only reason to come to this site anymore is for GBeast.

Vinny is really good at giving the site direction.

There is too much of a jaded feeling on the West. Brad is just bad at being intuitive.

If you like oldschool stealth games like say the earlier Splinter Cell games, you'll be right at home with this game.

It takes the route of not offering you "play how you want" design. It's stealth all the way, though there certainly are skills, items and such that can make you a stealth killing machine. Emphasis on the stealth.

What I liked most about the first game was the level design. It's definitely not without flaws, but the huge open levels with multi-leveled, climbable indoor buildings and basically town sized maps made for some awesome exploration. To an extent, the rigid nature of the stealth only becomes a problem when you happened to be going through a hastily designed claustrophobic portion of a level. Like say if you have no choice but to go through a set of rooms and hallways and that's the only way through... it gets a bit trial-and-error-y. Also, the high-fantasy art design is beautiful even though it's not as impressive graphically.

The real question is why is Styx so weak in Of Orcs and Men when he's clearly an unstoppable stealth killing machine in these prequels.

I miss Dave. Remember Flight Club, Random PC Game and Load Our Last Save? Ah, good times...

This wasn't the best of Quick Looks, Brad is as bad at stealth as me, but those who claim that Brad and Jeff never likes anything have a short memory.

Snake Pass anyone?

That stream "joke" was bad enough to turn me off of this game.

@jeff and Brad is not a good pick for this quick look, and they come out as old, grumpy men playing a video game they could not care less for. They usually expect "something new" and are pretty lazy in terms of game mechanics (low or no observation, no orientation examination, mapping guard paths etc.) and have played so many games that have "held their hand", they're at a loss when a hardcore game comes along that does none of that. At some point in this video @brad isn't even trying to be stealthy and doesn't understand that Styx is a no-mercy game that require you to be just that. In summary this quick look does the game a dis-service, and that's unfortunate.

Instead: If you like stealth, here's some recap from someone who actually plays and adheres them:

If you appreciate old school stealth, the predecessor, Styx: Master of Shadows is worth playing. I gave it a 7.5 out of 10 in my review and it took ~50 hours to complete (excluding the optionals like "mercy" and "speedrunning").

Judging from trailers and gameplay videos of Shards of Darkness, it follows the same trend and should be a no-brainer for fans of the series or hardcore stealth in general.

Nothing wrong with the way they conduct this quick look. They make it clear that, apart from the writing (which is plain stupid) the game is not necessarily bad, THEY are bad at it and it is just not their cup of tea.

"It looks like a stealth game from the dark era of stealth games when i really hated stealth games"

The era when stealth games were actually about stealth and not just "i'll sneak until i get spotted and then i'll just shoot/stab everyone cause combat is just as effective.

Stealth games have always been quickly dismissed or ignored on this site. A highly praised game like Shadow Tactics comes out and doesn't get a quick look for 4 months and only does because Rorie liked it.

That said, i didn't think the first Styx game was very good and this one looks about the same. Those Batman ripoff death scenes seem really dumb.

Hopefully the west side crew hires someone with different tastes cause at this point between Brad, Jeff and Jason it's turning into a bit of an echo chamber.

I rarely comment, but that was painful to watch...

Brad: "I'm afraid to even put that torch out.
Me: "Don't do it."
*Brad puts the torch out, all guards chase him down and kill him.*

@bats: I agree 100%. I love Jeff & Brad but the West is in desperate need of some energy. I can't even watch UPF anymore. It has become so boring. I feel like they should have brought someone in months ago. Its been like 6 to 7 months since Dan announced he was moving to New York and even longer since Austin left. I just don't understand. Obviously they work for a large company and I am sure there is a ton of red tape when hiring but it kinda feels like they really don't care that much. It's like
"we'll bring someone in at some point, you know when we feel like it." Also, the Bombcast has been my favorite podcast for years and now I hardly listen to it.

That being said, Jeff is far and away my favorite person in video games. He has been for years. I will support him and his site for as long as it is around.

This is not a Quick Look of this game. This is a quick look of running around in a stealth game. Do not judge this game on this Quick Look at all.

ok, let's try to stay sharp

The effort level of GBW seems to be at an all time low...

Can't think of anything I would like to play less than a game like this right about now. Also, those death scenes are obnoxious.

I want to see other video game characters do post-death schtick.

"Mama mia! Did you leave-ah your brain in another castle?"

Ooof.. This was one of the roughest quick looks i can remember. Jeff was trying to make Brad at least showcase some of the abilities that you would get later on to discover if the possibilities of being stealthy / distracting / killing guys would get better , but Brad just wouldn't take a look around the skill menu for some weird reason. Especially that clone seems like an ability that you can bolt abilities on over time until he's as powerful or even more powerful than your own character. But i guess i don't know.

There are definitely some rough things about this game from watching this quick look, like the arkham asylum death screens & shadow system, but it's really hard to get a good view of the game from this vid. The music seems pretty good, and i like the sandboxy nature of the level.

I get that Jeff dislikes these types of games and therefore felt like Brad did a good job of showing off why the genre can suck, but there's not much to be learned about this particular game from this quicklook. At least the comments cleared up a bit more about how it relates to Styx 1, which looked very cool when Jason showed it off.

The previous Styx game was great if you like fairly hardcore (by which I mean, you *really* need to stealth through this) stealth game. If this is more of the same, and it seems to be, I'll be getting it, and I'd recommend to stealth fans. For me, the movement played just right to enable you to jump, climb, evade, stealth kill, and feel cool doing it. All due respect to Brad, but I don't think this was a particularly good representation of that. "Sometimes you get caught, sometimes you don't" makes it sound like a game of chance. To me it just depends heavily on paying attention to your surroundings, and even the densely packed areas in the previous Styx game were doable with sufficient care. I think you could Quick Look one of these but you'd have to be prepared to take your time.

What is this? Gex?

There needs to be a concept page for "Games that complain to the player".

This might be one of the roughest QL's I've ever tried to sit through. I understand the appeal of "sight-unseen" hot takes, but this was a disservice to the title. And I don't even have any interest in playing it, but I was eye rolling fierce throughout. And the whole "oh yeah I can turn invisible" part I had to pause and walk away for a minute.

This is EXACTLY what I expected a Brad-driven Quick Look of a stealth game to go like.

"What are your meters over there?"

"Ahhhh... Health.... ... and aahhh... I forget."

I don't get it. This is supposed to be their job, right?

I don't need them to be MLG Pro level players but wouldn't mind them taking their work a little more seriously.

I have the first game of this series on my XB1 and I don't even know how. Was it a GwG at some point?

This quick look was a mistake.

GBW is only in a wee bit of a rough patch, give them some time 'til the new hires come along. When you've been going for this long I can cut them plenty of slack when the occasional bit of content is 'just OK', I don't expect anyone to be at the top of their game 24/7 365 days a year.

Funny, Stealth Goblin is also the name of my prog rock band.

The first game (well, first Styx only game) was PS+ and I do mean to maybe get to it eventually. Maybe.

Bad is Brad at stealth.

It's technically the third Styx game...