I admit I didn’t realize the sequel even came out yet, but it has an 88/9.0 on Metacritic. Overlooked maybe, but underrated?
His metric of underrated seems to be comparing the artistic quality of a game with its sales numbers, and I guess Talos II was a poor seller.
Bought it when it came out! Great game. The antialiasing is really funky, though. There’s a lot of ghosting no matter what antialiasing option you use. I suspect it’s probably a software bug. It does kind of detract from the visual quality aspect of its marketing.
Regardless, I don’t think puzzles sell well in general - bit of a niche genre
That’s our hated TAA for you. It’s always on. And its especially bad in this title unfortunately. As talos1 was really great and I asked for talos2 to the devs for not forced TAA.
Rather have jaggies than being blurred out.
That’s “hidden gem” rather than “underrated.”
But I agree with others that are saying it’s just niche. It’s a pure puzzle game. There’s no exploration, crafting, combat, survival, etc. You have to really like puzzles to play a pure puzzle game.
I do, and I’ve still been struggling to make it all the way through. I’m just starting on the last of the first 12 sections, and some of them have kind of been a slog rather than a joy.
I can’t even give any particular complaint, though. Each puzzle really is different from the others, so they aren’t duplicated in any way that was obvious to me. It’s just a lot, I guess.
I honestly have no clue what it’s even about or what kind of game it is. I’ve seen it on steam regularly, but it never interested me to investigate.
Mechanically - both games are puzzle games in the same rough 3d-platform-puzzler vein as Portal. Instead of solving puzzles with teleportation however, you’ve got laser beams and force fields.
On a more metaphysical level, the first game is a philosophical investigation of what it means to be human - to be alive and an individual.
The sequel is a meditation on what makes societies succeed or die.
Both games are fun, the puzzles are just hard enough to be interesting with a sprinkling of well-hidden secrets. But the real reason to play The Talos Principle is if you’ve got an interest in philosophy - the storylines are deeply interested in asking some very big questions. … and they don’t provide answers either - the game poses questions and allows you to answer as you see fit.
The first was amazing as well, but I always figured its niche type of problem solving and philosophical subjects didn’t really appeal to a wide audience. When the second one was announced I immediately wanted to play it, but I think once again a small target audience is its crutch for mainstream success.
Didn’t this come out like last year or something? How can it be “game of the last decade” already if it came out this decade?
I hate hyperbolic shit like that.
It means in the last 10 years…
How could you fail to understand that?
“In the past decade” means “in the past 10 years from this point in time” so 2014 to now in this case.
It’s hilarious how you’ve become mad about something only because you’re so dumb you can’t comprehend super basic concepts.
The game is also only a few months old. Calling it “the most underrated game of the last decade” is still hyperbolic, and makes no sense.
It’s only a few months old, ffs.
I got overloaded by the puzzles in the first game, so I didn’t even consider the second. Yes, it iterated on interesting ideas around the blocks, but just after resolving one, I’d feel exhausted from the enormous sequence of movements and actions I’d need to do to get through the exit - and just be thrown into another mess of them. I really preferred something like Portal, where it’s just small executions of simple ideas that may require one act of ingenuity to use them right.
I also can’t really bring myself to care much about story in any game that’s so far post-apocalypse.
That’s fair, I got a little puzzle fatigue myself in the first game. I did find the story to be quite compelling, maybe it’s worth a watch instead of a play? Though I think that misses out on all the messages between other AI’s and terminals in the game, which add significant world building.
This is just my opinion and I don’t know if everyone will agree, but I found 2 significantly easier than 1. I 100%'d 2 and I think only one of the bonus puzzles really took me much time. I didn’t get the achievement for taking 20 or 30m, whatever it is, until one of the final bonus puzzles I was doing. You can play 2 without having completed 1 also, but knowing the story of 1 (and the DLC) does enrich 2. It might be worth a try.
(Your experience of 2 might be totally different. I love puzzle games and completed all of the bonus challenges of vanilla 1 and 2. I may have just thought 2 was easy from having experience or even that the puzzles clicked for me better. Just take any opinion of puzzle difficulties with a grain of salt. Everyone’s brain works differently.)
Both the original and this sequel are absolutely superb games. The first one has been in my top 5 games ever since it came out, and this sequel managed to go above and beyond my expectations! I did nothing but play it till I had completed everything and tried my hardest to find as many secrets etc. as I could with no looking up anything. Gonna do another run but let myself look up hints for secret things I couldn’t fully figure out the first time.
This sequel did the same that Portal 2 did, absolutely deliver well beyond any reasonable expectation.
I love this series. They are puzzle games, but I’d say the biggest draw (at least for me) is the philosophy. The puzzles give you something to do on your journey, but they aren’t the real thing you take away from the games when you’re done.
That said, I found 2 much easier than 1. If you want challenging puzzles, the DLC for 1 is really where you want to look. All of this series is worth playing though. My biggest disappointment is we probably won’t get a 3 if I had to guess. I do hope we get other games that ask the player to think outside of the game though. I love philosophy, and this series prompts the player to think about so many good topics.
I know the solution, I’m just too slow to not be blown up halfway through executing it
