Transistor

[Skyblade]

Man I loved this game until it ended because god damn was that an abrupt ending that left you with damn near zero answers.

I feel like Supergiant was trying to do two things, one to create an atmosphere (and my god did they succeed) and one to tell a story, but the latter just didn't come together in the end.

e; That was too harshly phrased. I still love this game. I'm just disappointed that there were so many ideas never explored and so many questions never answered, unless you want to take the most oblique of hints and extrapolate hugely from them.

Honestly, I kind of expected that from fairly early on. From how much they were revealing, and what sort of information they were choosing to tell us, I sort of got the feeling that we were going to have a lot of unused potential in things like the world and setting. Which sucks, because I doubt we'll see it expanded upon in a sequel or anything.


I'd probably have finished by now if I wasn't trying my utmost to complete all the challenges as I go. Stupid things restricting your abilities and giving you timers. Planning challenges are by far the best.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Just finished downloading the game. I should be playing it a bit after work today!

[Mirage]

The people in the comments section on Polygon's review were saying a potato could run the game. I never bothered to check to specs to see. Though my computer runs pretty hot while playing it, I imagine the inclination was that it didn't take much. Unless you just have an intel integrated GPU or something. Then I could understand. Otherwise you may be able to run it and the recommended specs might be off. Who knows. Supposedly the developers have also said the game runs better offline so that could boost something too if anyone is having chugging issues. The first time I ran it, I used my Game Booster software, but it still kinda chugged here and there. The last few times I've played, I let all the Windows systems stay on and it's been running fine. Still makes my system hot for some reason though

My surface pro 2's integrated graphics can run FF14 and portal 2, so idk lol. Maybe I'll get this game and play it there.

-edit-
According to Steam:

OS: Windows 7 32-bit
Processor: Dual Core CPU - 2.6ghz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 1GB of VRAM: Intel HD 3000 GPU / AMD HD 5450 / Nvidia 9400 GT
Hard Drive: 3 GB available space

An i5 at 2 or 2.2 GHz is probably enough, though. I'm kind of guessing that they're just saying 2.6 in case you have some sort of old architecture or an AMD processor that is a bit less efficient per cycle.

And Vyk: Systems kind of do get hot if you're using all of the available power . My PC does even if I run 5 year old games as long as i turn up some of the image quality settings.

[Vyk]

Well I mean I run a modded Skyrim and it barely gets warm. The system-intensive games run it hot, but if its not very intensive my laptop barely shrugs for some game and doesn't consider it any harsher than watching videos on YouTube while other games are apparently insane. Though it's likely it was just optimized for nVidia and I have ATI or something like that. It obviously uses a wider range of resources. But it still runs pretty damn great

As for the aburptness, or the vagueness of the plot (disclaimer - I have not beaten it yet), I sorta took to be like something like Shadow of the Colossus or Ico, where you kinda just get thrown in, do your thing, and then its over. And you can extrapolate what you want from the setting and environment. I actually love games where you're only given part of the story and the rest is left up to interpretation. It sorta fits for a noir game especially. But my impression may be misguided since I have not beaten the game just yet

[Mirage]

Sounds like one of your components can't keep up with the others when you are running Skyrim, so that just one of your CPU or GPU goes at full speed, which would generate less heat in total than if you did something that maxed out both at the same time.

If your CPU can't feed the GPU fast enough, the GPU won't get very hot. If the GPU can't deal with stuff as fast as the CPU can send it to it, the CPU won't run very hot either. If both manage to finish their respective tasks at exactly the same rate, however, both will max out and it'd get pretty warm in there.

From the specs listed on Steam, it does look like it demands more of the CPU compared to the GPU than many other games. It wants a mid-end CPU but only an entry level GPU. Often times, games can deal with an low-mid end CPU as long as you have a mid-high end GPU, which means it would max out your video card long before it would max out your CPU.

-edit-
also, maybe you know this already. in either case, i guess someone else could get something from it

[Vyk]

I understand bits and pieces of computer processing stuff, but nothing like that, so it was definitely news not wasted on me. And it may help someone else's understanding as well. Didn't intend to hijack the thread, but thanks for humoring the topic none-the-less. Probably still mildly relevant for anyone interested in playing the game. And almost in-topic since the game takes place in a computer related world

[Skyblade]

And almost in-topic since the game takes place in a computer related world

I saw this right as I was trying to formulate a way to convert all of this into a meta-discussion about how the actual events of the game's world play out when viewed from outside the computer shell they live in.

[Skyblade]

Forgive the double post, but I've beaten it now. I kind of have to agree with Rock, Paper, Shotgun's review. Overall, it's an outstanding game, there is a huge tonal clash between the setting and the gameplay.

The gameplay is itself pretty good. It progresses you at a decent rate, and it constantly keeps you pushing yourself. The Limiters are a fairly reasonable way to implement difficulty into the system. I'm currently playing with all of them on. All off is way too easy by this point, as I just waltz straight through fights. Once I hit the max level (if 24 is indeed the max and not just an achievement point), I think I'm going to turn off the ones which limit my own abilities (less memory and the inability to swap functions freely is not ideal), but leave on the ones which buff the Process.

If I had a criticism of the gameplay, it's that it doesn't work well early on. You are way too limited in the beginning, and it makes the combat unnecessarily difficult. The difficulty curve is massively warped because of this. An easy mode or functions similar to Limiters but working for you would be very welcome.

The world is similarly excellent. The structure of it is phenomenal, the discovery of new information is incredibly well designed, and the interaction you have with the world is very charming. It develops a personality for Red, and an identity for the world.

The big problem, though, is that the world is dead. Granted, this is a side effect of the story, to a degree. Within the first few minutes, you see a handful of people's bodies (and you claim abilities from them), but you never see any others except for the Camerata members. No people running, no clusters of survivors holing up for refuge. The world is sterile, even before you reach the sections where the Process has taken over completely. So much potential is lost here, and it shatters what would otherwise be a near flawless setting. We see the city: it's shops, theatres, and taverns, but never the people.

Also, I think the ending was missing one small addition which would have made it perfect. The way it's presented, I actually kind of hate it, but since the addition is easy enough to imagine into the game, and could technically fit in with what we've seen, I can headcanon it easily enough to avoid hating the ending.

Still, a fantastic little netpunk foray, and well worth the entry fee.


EDIT: I should also point out that I have no idea how you could insert other characters without fracturing the loneliness and isolation that is such a core part of the mood. But I still think it would have served the game to have some life in this world.

[Vyk]

Level 24 or Memory 24? Because I have 24 memory, but I'm only level 11. I get the feeling I'm extremely close to the end however, and I've been playing for about 10 - 12 hours. I really haven't been paying much attention to achievements though..

[Skyblade]

Level 24 or Memory 24? Because I have 24 memory, but I'm only level 11. I get the feeling I'm extremely close to the end however, and I've been playing for about 10 - 12 hours. I really haven't been paying much attention to achievements though..

Level 24. Memory caps at 32.

I'm almost 22 right now. But Steam crashed, so I have to reboot before I play more (I hate rebooting).

[Vyk]

So I get to enjoy this game for a bit longer. How the hell are people saying they beat it in 6 hours though. Wtf

[Skyblade]

So I get to enjoy this game for a bit longer. How the hell are people saying they beat it in 6 hours though. Wtf

I played with Limiters constantly, completed all Challenges I could, and I was only about Level 13 when I beat it, I think (hard to track or remember). Currently playing through Recursion, the game's New Game+.


For those interested, the absolute level cap is 30. Reaching that point will give you two of every Function, and access to all passives, along with a 32 Memory limit.

Also, word of advice: While the final boss uses a fairly radical strategy compared to any of the others, make sure you are capable of taking on normal foes with whatever setup you use to defeat him. Because it's going to be a while before you get access to an Access Point when you start a New Game+, and enemies get harder on Recursion as well.

[Dat Matt]

I would be more excited if I could get bastion to work on my PC. It just won't work.

[Vyk]

I'd give you my experiences with it if I could. I didn't really enjoy it the way everyone else seems to have. Transistor has struck way more chords with me than Bastion ever did. Though it always struck me as very low resource. I did have trouble getting Super Meat Boy up and running, but that was strictly a controller issue, which was fixed with a dll file

[Jiro]

I did a thing where I talked about some stuff.