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by defen
5009 days ago
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What exactly do you mean by sparse and minimal? Thief I can see, but Deus Ex had 11 different skill areas; nanoaugmentations; weapon upgrades; a well written, branching storyline that incorporated every conspiracy theory known to man; multiple ways to complete missions; etc. It's funny that you mention Halo 4 - I thought the original Halo had some of the best atmosphere of any FPS game ever, especially the Flood levels (people seem to be split on whether they loved or hated them). I thought it did a fantastic job of conveying the sense of a desperate fight for survival, and the final escape was just incredibly thrilling, especially in co-op. Halo 2 and 3 didn't come anywhere close to that. I haven't played ODST or Reach, so I'm curious if anyone agrees with me about Halo 1 and would recommend either of those. As far recent games - if you want a sparse, minimal, terrifying game, try Amnesia: Dark Descent. It's so minimal that you don't get any weapons. There's also an XBox game called Alan Wake that was superb. Going back a little farther, there's an older Russian horror game called Pathologic that's terrifying, if you can find it and get past the bad translation and voice acting. They're anything but sparse and minimal, but the recent Fallout games (3 and New Vegas) are full of atmosphere and character. Red Dead Redemption has some of the most beautiful and emotionally charged uses of plot + visuals + music I've ever experienced in a game. |
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But yeah, I agree--DX was a mishmash of a game. I liked how it experimented with some FPS conventions, though--it was very cutting-edge from a gameplay standpoint.
Agreed on the Flood levels in Halo--those are excellent, and arguably unparalleled in any other Halo game. I'm looking for stuff like that, to be honest! If I can man up I'll give Amnesia a shot, and what I've seen of Pathologic on YT looks very atmospheric.
I think that's actually a good list moving forward: Amnesia, Red Dead Redemption to cleanse the palette, then Pathologic. Maybe I'll finally get to Thief: Deadly Shadows after that.
Thanks!