Half-Life 2 - after nearly 17 years - is no longer the PC game with the highest Metascore!

Question

Some of us did sense that something strange was happening...

- and these did look kinda high-ish 😮

- and this happened, Disco Elysium:

I guess that "Out of the Park Baseball 2007" is what physicists refer to as an anomaly 🤔 😂

Back to the Disco - the trailer does look ... interesting, but probably not something that'll make the RTX 3090 sweat 🤣

Game is 35% off on Steam until July 8:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/632470/Disco_Elysium__The_Final_Cut/

In fact, Elysium runs great on my office PC - with Q6600 (2.4 GHz quad-core), GTX 680 2GB and 8GB ram, and that's using 2048x1536 res with 2xMSAA on my dear old Sony F520 21" CRT (love the CRT colors, can't help it, Sony said the Trinitron tube should last 25 years, I'm counting on it, lol). Have dual monitor setup for the office rig - also have a Samsung 27" lcd, but I greatly prefer the Trinitron for old-school gaming. Might move the game to the SSD, HDD is a bit slow. Game is 20GB. Thus Elysium should run fine most modern laptops... Devs do recommend GTX 1060, but I'm not sure you need to go that ... *cough!* ... high 🙂

I guess Disco Elysium could be the last great job for my aging GTX 680 🤔 🤓

Spoiler

RuneSR2 · Answer

Played the game for 100 minutes, and while it was extremely slow, I did enjoy the dialogue. Game felt more like reading a book, and more like a point and click adventure for adults.

Unfortunately I got struck by the sudden "low morale instant death" after 100 minutes - and the devs are forcing me to start all over again - this design choice is described here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/632470/discussions/0/1609400247627447749/

Personally I'm not going to do that - I'm seriously not going to repeat the first 100 minutes, this is like the worst and most annoying game design I can think of - it's an instant refund to me, sadly. I have so many games in my backlog, I do not give games providing me with a very negative experience a second chance. At least not right now. No way this game is better than Half-Life 2 to me - and better than Alyx?

If Alyx is 93%, then this game is like 3% (ok, maybe I'm being too hard right now being angry at the game design - so let's say 13% then 😇). Maybe the content in Disco Elysium is great, but firing up Alyx using the RTX 3090 there is simply no competition at all with a 2D game using an engine like in Baldur's Gate 2 etc. It's like comparing an elephant to an insect. And yes, do quote me for that, lol.

Guess I've done my pancake duty now, let's get back into VR 🙂

Zenbane · Answer

RuneSR2&nbsp;wrote:&nbsp;Back to the Disco - the trailer does look ... interesting, but probably not something that'll make the RTX 3090 sweat&nbsp;&nbsp;Yup, proving once again that graphics have next to nothing to do with creating a great game or a great experience.&nbsp;A good discussion on reddit about how good Disco is for gamers:Elysium ruined games for me, it’s that good.https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/lf1kwq/disco_elysium_ruined_games_for_me_its_that_good/&nbsp;This game is so well written, everything you do feels meaningful and like it actually has a purpose. I never felt like my time was being wasted and this game taught me so much, the story, the dialogue, I’ve never played anything like it.&nbsp;It is rare to describe games in this way. For example, Half-Life 2 and Alyx are great games, but they are not depicted in such high regard. The HL franchise is great for different reasons, falling in to the realm of Shooter with Puzzle Solving (e.g. Tomb Raider). Alyx is great 'for a VR game,' but as a pancake game it is rather luckluster compared to the rest of that market.&nbsp;For me, the closest VR Game where everything felt meaningful with an actual purpose (with next to zero time wasted) was Lone Echo.&nbsp;Looks like I will be picking up Disco from the Steam Summer Sale to see what all the rage is about.

Nekto2 · Answer

&gt; The HL franchise is great for different reasons, falling in to the realm of Shooter with Puzzle Solving (e.g. Tomb Raider).&nbsp;It has a story which is still a mystery after all those years. Not many shooters with puzzles has those type of stories.

TheCornslop · Answer

at this point they can put state of survival on there.&nbsp;

Zenbane · Answer

Nekto2&nbsp;wrote:&nbsp;How about G-man? Who is he?Story with a mystery is multi layered. Some layers are simple, some hidden.&nbsp;&nbsp;I see what you are getting at, but I don't really consider that a proper mystery or true multi-layer; it is simply an unanswered question.&nbsp;Mystery involves intrigue and puzzle solving elements. Something that requires depth to understand. Merely hiding the backstory of a character doesn't make it a mystery.&nbsp;Imagine if I said, "I am about to present a grand mystery... prepare yourselves...."&nbsp;And then I ask you to name the object that I am holding in my hand right now.&nbsp;&nbsp;Is that a grand mystery? If I hold some random object in my hand, and put my hand behind my back, then do we now have a multilayered approach to story telling?&nbsp;I would say, no. Introducing a character in a game and then intentionally "avoiding" any backstory or reveal about the character is the metaphorical "holding a random object in your enclosed hand."&nbsp;Games like Myst and Riven have true mystery, and that mystery is unraveled as the player unlocks the story. Myst and Riven have a multi-layered approach:&nbsp;Solving individual puzzles.Unlocking puzzles that are linked across multiple regions.Unlocking the grand mystery of an entire civilization.Unlocking the mystery of the universe in which multiple civilizations reside.Unlocking the mystery of your characters role.Unlocking the mystery of the characters you encounter.Revealing the over-arching story.It's not just about "hiding something in your hand and not telling the player what it is."&nbsp;I would say that so far, after completing Half-Life 1, that it is about as mysterious and multi-layered as Doom. The stories are actually quite similar. Both start with the hero shooting demons on Earth and you end up shooting demons in another dimension.Both Half-Life and Doom have unanswered questions.

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Half-Life 2 - after nearly 17 years - is no longer the PC game with the highest Metascore!

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