Enter the Gungeon (Bullet Hell/Rogue-like)

[Mánagarmr]

It's not so much that it's offensive. More that it's juvenile and silly. I tend to not really appreciate that but instead just roll my eyes.

[mrhanman]

That's pretty much how I feel about BoI.  It just looks ugly to me.  Not in the low quality sense of the word, but actually hard to look at.  I still played it a good bit, and I like the mechanics.  I didn't know there were graphics mods, but I may check those out.

[Misery]

It's not so much that it's offensive. More that it's juvenile and silly. I tend to not really appreciate that but instead just roll my eyes.

Eh, to be honest, this is how I feel about most "gritty" and "mature" games these days.  All those violent shooters that are oh-so-mature.  It's like little kids trying too hard to be adults.

With Isaac I don't mind so much, partly as if you've seen ANY of that developer's games, well... they pretty much all look something like that.  I always say Isaac is the Ren & Stimpy of game design, but really, his entire selection is (mostly).  Those games don't even TRY to be "mature" at least. 

If there's going to be blood/gore/whatever in a game, I personally would much rather it be in there just for the hell of it and part of someone's warped sense of humor, than out of some developer's 3052175th attempt at being genuinely "mature", because that's gotten.... more than a bit old by now.  Granted in most cases I'd find those games outright boring regardless, they're all the same hide-n-snipe FPS half the time to begin with...

[Wingflier]

In terms of enemies, the game features a built-in Encyclopedia of sorts (the Ammonomicon) which lists all the potential bad guys you can run into, and there are probably somewhere close to 80 (I haven't unlocked most of them yet). That's pretty good considering that the game also features around 25 bosses as well.

Also, if you're growing tired of running through the same lower levels over and over (a fundamental character flaw of any roguelike after a period of time), the game features a way to skip those early levels through a series of quests, allowing you to earn the harder areas instantly.

I really don't feel that it's lacking in this regard.

I found a gun today called "The Danger Zone". According to the description it was an alien jet engine converted into weapon form. What it does is shoot a powerful, short ranged burst of blue flame (like something you would see coming out the engine of a jet), which shoots you backwards at rapid speed, but which burns everything it touches alive. It was hilarious to say the least.

[Misery]

Eh, I personally am already completely bored of the game.

Not even close to enough going on, hyper-annoying drop rates, and that accursed reload thing.  Among other issues.

Normally games of this type manage to grab me right away; typically, if they cant, I don't bother with them, but that's very rare.  This is the first one to NOT do it in a long time.  It's also the first that quickly made me uninterested in the exploration aspect of it.

Overall, too slow and just tests my nearly non-existent patience way too much.

[Pepisolo]

I found a gun today called "The Danger Zone". According to the description it was an alien jet engine converted into weapon form. What it does is shoot a powerful, short ranged burst of blue flame (like something you would see coming out the engine of a jet), which shoots you backwards at rapid speed, but which burns everything it touches alive. It was hilarious to say the least.

Sounds like a weapon I was messing around with for SR. If you create a high fire rate weapon with kickback, when you hold the button, you can sort of jetpack around. I'll keep experimenting!

[ptarth]

And if you set the knockback too high, you can teleport through walls! Although I think keith was a stick in the mud and fixed that.

[Logorouge]

Ooh. I was keeping an eye on Gungeon, but this thread combined with a quick visit to their steam forums definitely convinced me to stay far far away for now. Droprate issues, bullet sponge enemies, generally slow pace and chances of getting stuck with the starter weapons for long periods of time are big turnoff for me.

Maybe once a few updates roll in. Just yesterday they released one to improve key drops, so there might be hope.

[Wingflier]

I would highly recommend that anybody with even a marginal interest in this game give it a try before letting one or two bad reviews steer you away. Take full advantage of Steam's refund system because within 2 hours you should definitely know whether it fits your style or not.

Remember that the game has a 91% approval rating on Steam, and being the third top seller for over a week now, that's pretty impressive given how much attention and exposure it has received. That essentially means that the amount of people who don't like the game is less than 10%, and if you're basing the decision of whether you should try it on that alone, it seems a little illogical to say the least.

There's been nearly a dozen of people who have posted their opinions in this thread, but so far it seems only Misery and I have actually tried it, so I'm starting to detect the faint smell of cow manure emanating from my monitor.

[ptarth]

A Steam approval rating of 91% means that, of the people who cared enough to post a review, 91% thought it was good (on a scale of good or bad). We have no idea how many people think it is mediocre. A better measure is the median play time, which is 4 hours per person and steadily going up so far (given it hasn't been out long). For gamers, you'll get a few days of play out of it and be roughly satisfied. There isn't enough data to make claims about long term merit. My guess is that it will have little impact, but will be a pleasant enough experience for a while.

[Draco18s]

That's where SteamSpy comes in
http://steamspy.com/app/311690

(If you remember the articles talking about "Steam Guage", that's essentially what Steam Spy is).  There isn't, however, a whole lot of data on the game yet.

[Wingflier]

A Steam approval rating of 91% means that, of the people who cared enough to post a review, 91% thought it was good (on a scale of good or bad). We have no idea how many people think it is mediocre. A better measure is the median play time, which is 4 hours per person and steadily going up so far (given it hasn't been out long). For gamers, you'll get a few days of play out of it and be roughly satisfied. There isn't enough data to make claims about long term merit. My guess is that it will have little impact, but will be a pleasant enough experience for a while.

I'm not sure median play time is the best gauge of the game's quality either. In general MMOs will probably have a much higher playtime than bullethells, the likes of which can be played for a few minutes at a time and still allow the player to walk away having accomplished something.

I've also seen examples on Steam with several thousand hours of playtime in which a player gave a bad review because:

A) Most of the playtime had been expended during Alpha waiting for promises and features that never came.

B) The reviewer originally liked the game but the developers changed some fundamental aspect of the game later on that ruined it for everybody (Payday 2 comes to mind).

C) It's an MMO or other time-consuming game in which it may take thousands of hours to develop an accurate opinion after trying out all the end-game content.

---------

You'll never know for certain why a game has say, a 91% approval rating, but it should give you a good incentive to at least try it out. Every game, no matter how polished or spectacular will have its detractors because everybody likes different things.

I would hope, for example, that when people see that Starward Rogue has a 98% approval rating on Steam they'd be interested in trying it out instead of instantly dismissing it because the graphics look second rate or they saw a bad review in the Steam forums. But maybe that's just wishful thinking.

[crazyroosterman]

I would highly recommend that anybody with even a marginal interest in this game give it a try before letting one or two bad reviews steer you away. Take full advantage of Steam's refund system because within 2 hours you should definitely know whether it fits your style or not.

Remember that the game has a 91% approval rating on Steam, and being the third top seller for over a week now, that's pretty impressive given how much attention and exposure it has received. That essentially means that the amount of people who don't like the game is less than 10%, and if you're basing the decision of whether you should try it on that alone, it seems a little illogical to say the least.

There's been nearly a dozen of people who have posted their opinions in this thread, but so far it seems only Misery and I have actually tried it, so I'm starting to detect the faint smell of cow manure emanating from my monitor.

I intend to do just that tomorrow I've been a bit slow to it mainly because to me I cant help but think looking at how much Id rather play starward really but again ill try it tomorrow it may just surprise me.

[Misery]

I would say, just go watch videos of it.   You can get enough info that way.


Other than that, yeah, only a couple of us here have actually tried it, and I suppose it depends on if your own tastes are similar to that person.

My own tastes/interests seem to very rarely match that of anyone else, so my own thoughts aren't usually very useful on matters like this.

That being said... yeah, I really cant over-exaggerate my hatred for this game.  I did in fact refund it.  First time I've ever done that.  Good riddance.

And that's my opinion of THAT one.


I will say this:  If you don't already have something like, say, Nuclear Throne instead.... go buy that.  There's that game, and plenty of others, that do all the things in this one, but better than this one does. 

...except the fast travel system.  That was the ONE thing I thought this game got right.  Too bad it's the most useless though.

Though, Nuclear Throne doesn't NEED a fast travel system...



As for Steam's approval ratings, well... I personally always ignore them.  People rate AAA games super highly, so... yeah, I ignore them.  Really, videos (not video REVIEWS) are probably the best way to see how a game really plays, rather than just looking at Steam reviews or Steam's super-arbitrary rating thing.

[Logorouge]

Really, videos (not video REVIEWS) are probably the best way to see how a game really plays, rather than just looking at Steam reviews or Steam's super-arbitrary rating thing.

Speaking of which, for anyone that didn't know, WindlessZephyr currently has a running series for Gungeon. His Starward Rogue vids are pretty good, so that series should be an entertaining preview for those curious about the game.