Topic: Push Square Game Club Spooktacular: Resident Evil 4

Right, since Kratos seems to have deleted his account, I thought I’d try to revive this thread. It was a great idea and we’ve started Bioshock so no need to let it go to waste, eh? I would tag everyone that’s playing Bioshock but the thread’s gone and I apologise but I really can’t remember everyone that’s taking part!

I won’t try and set checkpoints or whatever, I’ve not played the game before so if anyone that’s played it before wants to chip in and suggest whereabouts we should be getting weekly then feel free. Just as long as we share our thoughts weekly and maybe finish it up in the next 3 weeks roughly? I’ll try to run it as democratically as possible, if you need a bit more time or have a suggestion for a game, just drop it in here and we can decide the way forward together!

@nessisonett I've not played it since 2008 or so, so maybe I'm not the best source of info, but I think you could probably reasonably set checkpoints up as such:

Get to Neptune's Bounty - Week 1 goal
Get to Farmer's Market - Week 2 goal
Get to Olympus Heights - Week 3 goal
Finish game - Week 4 goal

I'm tagging @ralphdibny and @phil_j as I know they were playing Bioshock.

Nice one for the new thread. I'm still in the medical bay, though I have the required plasmid power to progress I believe.

I'm also playing Bioshock, and have reached Neptune's Bounty. My favourite plasmid type so far is the fire one, it's rather fun to use. Also, I'm getting good at the hacking mini-game after practising a lot. With the turrets and cameras on my side, I'll be unstoppable.

@Ralizah @JohnnyShoulder Cheers you two, it’s too good an idea to let die so hopefully we can all pull together to help get it up and running!

@nessisonett I haven't really joined in so far, but I'm hoping REmake 2 stays the October game. I've been meaning to replay it as Claire forever now, but I never get around to it.

@JohnnyShoulder cheers for the tag! I was hoping somebody would make another thread so thank you @nessisonett for doing so. I considered doing it myself but I am really bad at organising things like this due to lack of time and poor memory of what everyone has said individually. I know you are picking up the remnants of this so hopefully those who notice this thread pop up decide to chime in and get back on the horse so to speak. With regards to what you said in the other thread, next month was DmC5 (which I was gonna sit out) and I think Halloween was a toss up between Alien Isolation and Resi 2, sounds like that's a while away anyway tho.

Also KratosMD, if you are reading this, thanks for starting this in the first place. It's a great idea and hopefully you come back some day. Gotta hear what you think of bioshock!

I think I'm at the end of Neptune's bounty as of today. It feels like I'm not very far in it at all but I have been exploring a fair bit. Kratos did mention something about levels or parts or chapters and that there were 16 of them. I don't know how that ties up really, I'm guessing Welcome to Rapture was level 1 and Neptune's Bay level 2 but it does seem like there might be some back tracking because of inaccessible areas so idk really

@ralphdibny From what I can see, there are 15 chapters according to the game’s files, including the lighthouse at the beginning. So Neptune’s Bounty is the 4th which I think is a good point to aim for this week, absolutely @Ralizah. Once we get into the swing of things, we’ll probably get through levels a bit quicker. There’s not really any strict rules though, if you’re enjoying it and want to keep playing then go ahead, as long as you don’t spoil us all in the discussion!

@nessisonett @ralphdibny No worries! Although I've not joined in yet it's been really interesting finding out how newcomers experience these games I've already played, so it would be a shame if that was lost.

@nessisonett Thanks for picking up the torch on this, buddy. I’m still abstaining this month as far as BioShock, since I’ve played it and I want to spend time elsewhere gaming-wise, but I’m enjoying reading everyone’s impressions.

As for the upcoming months, I am on the fence about DMC5. I’ll need to buy it if I’m to join in and I need to find it cheaper (I think $40 is too steep right now), but I’ll be happy to just read along again next month too and just enjoy the banter.

As for the October plans — I do like the idea of Resident Evil 2 Remake, since I quite enjoyed RE1 Remake last month. It’s on sale for $20 right now so if that’s where we’re leaning then I’ll pick it up now.

Since there’s a bit of apprehension about DmC V, I think it’s probably a good idea just to gather numbers for those willing to play it after Bioshock. I’ll be honest, I’ve played roughly the first 7 hours of it and was planning to go back rather than start all over again! There has to be enough people playing at once or there’s no point so if you aren’t interested/it’s too expensive, maybe you could nominate a game instead? This applies to everyone, if you’ve joined in before or not, just drop in a suggestion or put your vote towards an already nominated game that either you own or are willing to buy.

@nessisonett thank god I am almost a third of the way through, the atmosphere in the game is so moody that it scares me and freaks me out 😅

That being said, the game is a lot easier than it looked when my friend played it back when it came out. I remember him struggling to fight big daddies and while they are challenging and require a few health packs, they're certainly doable. Maybe he was on a harder difficulty, I am just playing it on normal.

Still though, I am saving almost after every few baddies I beat/small amounts of progress I make. I can't be dealing with vita chambers unless it was after I had done something I hadn't saved. I think the only time I continued was after beating the main "boss" of Neptune's bounty as I didn't realise I'd beaten them until Atlas mentioned it over the radio and then I died immediately. I seem to have max cash/ammo most of the time but this could be due to me doing my Doom style of playing - gather resources/save a lot. Or maybe there is no correlation at all, Kratos was saying he was inundated with cash/ammo too!

But yeah, freaky game. I seem to be taking the path of the righteous so far with regards to harvesting Adam.

@ralphdibny The Vita Chambers are weird, I’m playing on hard and the Big Daddies annihilate me regularly so you can just keep respawning and whittle down their health. I’m sorta enjoying it, the plot does nothing for me but the gameplay’s mostly fun. I had to crank up the sensitivity though, the right stick was so stiff when I booted it up.

@ralphdibny I'm also saving very regularly, even though the game on Normal hasn't been too difficult so far. It doesn't help that I'm playing on PC, so saving is as easy as pressing the F8 key. With these kinds of games I always get paranoid that I'm going to run out of resources and get stuck (saved a lot in Half-Life as well). So I'm regularly saving before and after groups of enemies and tricky hacks.

But yeah, I might try to save a little less often. The game is not particularly hard on Normal, and getting sent to a Vita Chamber isn't that big of a penalty for dying.

@crimsontadpoles I think I'm spending more time in the save screen than in the game 😂 takes a few seconds to do it every time. I'm like that on most games that allow it. I've already said about Doom's quicksave making the game much easier just because it's quicker than going through all the menus to get to save and load, though in that game sometimes im hitting quickload instead of quicksave in the confusion and losing precious seconds of progress haha.

The only real penalty for the vita chambers is losing your health items/ammo that you've already used but if what @nessisonett says is true then it acts more as a respawn point than a checkpoint. I suppose if you had a vita chamber next to a big daddy, you wouldn't have to use any health items or even your good ammo if they don't get healed, just die and pop out of the vita chamber and keep going.

I think I agree with you though Ness about the story and I'd probably say the same about the gameplay. It's the setting that is the real character in the game, almost steampunk. I'm not sure what you'd call it, biopunk, waterpunk? I have to say I was more interested in these kind of alternate histories when the game came out way back when and since then TV, games and to an extent film has become saturated with these various somethingorotherpunk aesthetics since then. That's not to say I don't like it any more. I watched through both versions of Fullmetal alchemist a couple of years ago and lost my mind at how good/emotional it was within that kind of setting!

I don't know if it will be better but I think the more traditional steampunk look of bioshock infinite looks really cool so I'm quite looking forward to getting through this game and bioshock 2 so I can play that one.

I have carried on a bit through Smugglers Run and now I'm in Arcadia just so I don't lose my momentum. I won't post spoilers but I will say that I just blew like 500 Adam on plasmids I don't have slots for amongst other things, though I did get a third slot. I know it's a bit boring but I've kept the electricity one on hand because it seems to be always used and alternated between fire and telekinesis for number 2 because they're the second most used and I'll probably just keep both of them equipped now I have an extra slot. Function over fashion I guess!

@ralphdibny I’ve also been using electricity, fire and telekinesis, they’re really useful for environmental puzzles and the electricity is a must for those bloody turrets and cameras. I reckon I’ve spent more time hacking than actually playing the game 😂😂

@nessisonett and all the locked doors!

I think the hacking was other thing I was apprehensive about before playing. It looked really hard when I watched my mate play it but it really hasn't been too bad. There's been a few safes that have first slots that just lead into nowhere and I've not been able to swap them out in time but a few health packs later and the slots are in my favour again 🤷‍♂️

@ralphdibny Glad you’re mostly enjoying the game. I remember the setting being the best part of it. Just some really cool atmosphere. But yes — Columbia in BioShock Infinite is almost as cool. The gameplay and the story is significantly better in Infinite imo, even if Columbia doesn’t quite reach the level of impact as Rapture.

Personally, I skipped BioShock 2. It is generally held as the lowest rated of the series, although still quite well received. Ken Levine was only peripherally involved and I thought I heard once that he had some disparaging things to say about it, but I can’t remember. Anyways, I was completely fine story-wise in skipping 2 and still adored Infinite. That said, if you end up really enjoying your time in Rapture then BioShock 2 might be worthwhile. I have it buried deep in my backlog and perhaps would give it a go if Game Club chose to include it one month.

@Th3solution I’ve played Infinite and it’s right up there with my least favourite games of all time. I remember playing it after all the hype on Mac, which was great that it had a Mac port all the way back then. The plot did my head in and it was very very short. From what I’ve played of Bioshock and having beaten Infinite, I probably won’t bother with 2 if it’s considered the worst in the series. System Shock 2 is 100% the best game in the wider Shock series and I also love Ken Levine’s work on the original Thief so it’s a shame that I really can’t click with the plot in these ones.