The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

[Sprony]

How come there is no topic for this amazing game? It's by far one of the prettiest games I've ever played. The art design is ridiculous good, really top notch stuff. Also, it's one of the best narrative experiences I've had with a game. I know I'm a bit late to the party, but nobody should miss out on this little masterpiece. Posted for awareness.

[Radu]

Yeah, it's an interesting narrative experience, the visuals are great and it has a memorable soundtrack, but I think the game was more of a tech demo experiment on photogrammetry at the time.

Might as well post a link to this as well http://www.theastronauts.com/2014/03/visual-revolution-vanishing-ethan-carter/

[Sprony]

16 minutes ago, Radu said:

Yeah, it's an interesting narrative experience, the visuals are great and it has a memorable soundtrack, but I think the game was more of a tech demo experiment on photogrammetry at the time.

Might as well post a link to this as well http://www.theastronauts.com/2014/03/visual-revolution-vanishing-ethan-carter/

Yeah, I read that and based on their other blogs I purchased SOMA yesterday and started that.

[blackdog]

I have it in my library, I was almost going to install it not long ago. Was a bit confused by the fact that they released the remastered HD version and seems to take less disk than the standard, so is unclear if you can install just that, need the original anyway…

Just played Inside that was higher on the list, so I need to choose between this and Firewatch.

[Radu]

@blackdog go for Firewatch!

[Lajron]

I find it funny that i took a similar shoot while playing it

I hope i won't spoil the game for anyone but i had to share this beautiful scenes!

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[blackdog]

10 hours ago, Sprony said:

Yeah, I read that and based on their other blogs I purchased SOMA yesterday and started that.

Sorry what's the link between? I mean SOMA is by Frictional… 

[leplubodeslapin]

@blackdog Go either for Ethan Carter or Firewatch, but don't do them in a row if possible (similar games with different strenghts, both really great)

 

And the Redux version is an UE4 version (the original was on UE3). You only need to instal one (the redux, don't bother with the original). It's not really different visually, the changes are only slightly noticable (from what i remember i heard). The main difference is that the UE4 version doesn't have loadings while you play, it's seemless (the UE3 version did have loadings between areas).

Edited February 26, 2017 by leplubodeslapin

[blackdog]

NIce to know about the Redux, thanks @leplubodeslapin! My confusion came from the fact that the redux is indicated at much smaller size… i was just wondering if was an add-on like the HD pack for the original HL; if that's stand alone I just wonder how that can be true, but maybe there much better compression available through UE4

[Sprony]

On 2/26/2017 at 10:38 PM, blackdog said:

Sorry what's the link between? I mean SOMA is by Frictional… 

Because of this on their blog:

http://www.theastronauts.com/2015/09/soma-and-the-lost-layer-of-narrative-design/

[Mazy]

Played and completed it back in 2014. Absolutely gorgeous game, but in terms of gameplay and narrative I found it to be rather underwhelming. I'm all for games that emphasizes and rely more heavily on their story, but The Vanishing of Ethan Carter got progressively more uninteresting for me the closer it got to the end, with the conclusion being somewhat disappointing. The "figure out what the hell happened here" gameplay setups work quite well in the first few instances, but it feels like it's something that only got properly polished in the early parts of the game.

Still think it's worth trying for the visuals alone, which I bet still hold up quite well even today.

[Radu]

If you guys like Ethan Carter's atmosphere so much you should check the Syberia series. The third game is coming out in two months.