The Gallery - Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone

[h2][i]Versandeter[/i] Spielspaß[/h2] Heart of the Emberstone setzt unmittelbar nach dem Finale von Call of the Starseed an. Nach den Ereignissen in Episode 1 gelangen wir in der Haut von Alex auf einen fremden Sandplaneten, der im Sterben zu liegen scheint. Natürlich gilt es herauszufinden, was hier passiert ist und außerdem ist da noch unsere Zwillingsschwester Elsie, deren Spuren wir folgen. Die Geschichte wird großteils über holographische Rückblenden, Audiologs und Notizen erzählt und hat gerade gemessen an der Spielzeit von etwa vier bis fünf Stunden durchaus Tiefe. Elsies liebenswert lockerer Charakter kommt auch dank der gelungenen Synchro gut zur Geltung. Außerdem gibt es noch ein weiteres Geschwisterpaar, das in einer Geschichte rund um Macht und Führungsstile durchaus Ambivalenz zeigt. Weniger gut gefallen hat mir die Lösung, große Teile der Lore in Bücher zu verfrachten, die reichlich in der Spielwelt zu finden sind. In der VR macht das ständige Lesen meiner Meinung nach einfach wenig Spaß. Obwohl ich mir trotzdem alles Lesbare einverleibt hab, bin ich am Ende mit einigen Unklarheiten aus dem Spiel rausgegangen. In jedem Fall gibt es einen Cliffhanger und auch zentrale Fragen, die ich nach Beenden von Episode 1 hatte, wurden nicht beantwortet. Eine Fortsetzung der The Gallery-Reihe halte ich für unwahrscheinlich - auch weil das Studio Cloudhead Games nach Release der zweiten Episode mit Pistol Whip zu einem neuen, finanziell wohl deutlich erfolgreicheren VR-Projekt weitergezogen ist. Insgesamt hinterlässt die Story von Heart of the Emberstone bei mir also einen eher durchwachsenen Eindruck. [b]Hin und her, her und hin[/b] Auch spielmechanisch bin ich gespaltener Meinung. Wir haben eine richtig coole Kinetik-Fähigkeit, mit der wir wie in Star Wars Gegenstände durch die Luft schweben lassen können. Das ist natürlich auch für die Rätsel relevant, die von dem Feature immer wieder Gebrauch machen. Vermutlich wäre hier aber auch noch mehr drin gewesen. Zudem gibt es regelmäßig Geschicklichkeitsrätsel, die mich teilweise an das deutlich später erschienene Half-Life: Alyx erinnert haben. Generell setzt das Gameplay hauptsächlich auf Rätsel, gemischt mit Erkundung und Story. Und damit kommen wir zu meinem Hauptkritikpunkt am Spiel. Denn der Erkundungsfaktor nimmt nach der ersten Spielstunde rapide ab. Dann wird nämlich klar, dass der Großteil des folgenden Spiels in den immer gleichen drei Lokalitäten handeln wird. So müssen wir mehrere Maschinen reparieren und klappern dazu immer wieder die selben Räume ab. Die Teleportation ist etwas schwerfällig, die Türen öffnen sich echt langsam und es gibt viele Ladescreens (SSD-Nutzung stark empfohlen!). Und all das fällt einfach schwer ins Gewicht, wenn das Spiel uns ständig umherscheucht. Dazu kommt die sehr zurückhaltende Spielerführung, durch die man schnell nicht so recht weiß, was jetzt eigentlich das genaue Ziel ist. Daraus resultierende Irrläufe machen die gerade erwähnten Kritikpunkte natürlich nur umso nerviger. Als Belohnung gibt es einige gut inszenierten Sequenzen, die Rätsel selbst haben mich auf der anderen Seite auch immer wieder etwas enttäuscht. Immerhin bekommt das Auge was geboten, denn die Umgebungen sind echt hübsch und aufwändig gestaltet. Die Artdirection dieser kargen, von mechanischen Gerätschaften und einem industriellen Look dominierten Welt ist definitiv einzigartig und besonders das Licht sowie die Metalltexturen stechen da nochmal heraus. Insgesamt hat das für mich aber einfach nicht gereicht, um die genannten Schwächen in der Spielstruktur auszugleichen. [i]Persönliches Rating:[/i] [b]64[/b]/100 [i]Fazit[/i] [h3]Heart of the Emberstone gelingt es hinter der gelungenen optischen Fassade nicht so wirklich, gute Ansätze zu einem dauerhaft interessanten Spiel zu formen.[/h3] [i]Wenn dir meine Review gefallen hat, freue ich mich über eine Bewertung. Meine Review zu Episode 1 findet ihr hier: [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/VeryImpressed/recommended/270130/]The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed[/url][/i]

Once upon a time the gold age of VR gaming. It was in 2017-2020, a lot of good VR games with good graphics and interactivity were being developed and released for PC or PSVR quite frequently. The Gallery is one of them. Then came the Middle Age of Facebook/Meta and everything got worse and worse and worse. It was a regressive age, VR made several steps back. King Zuck and Prince John tried to convince consumers that you can play VR on a mobile chipset less powerful than actual Iphone chipset! They produced an ugly uncomfortable poor and cheap headset called Q2 that at best could be suitable for kids.... Well, if kids were allowed to play VR! They shouldn't be allowed! Nevertheless the King sold many headsets to kids bombarding families with commercials where the kids wanted nothing more than the Q2. Their goal was to create a new trend of mobile VR after the boom of smartphones. Do you believe it? Mobile VR is a paradoxical nonsense! Their real aim was to grab users data through social VR apps. Not by chance they forced the mandatory Facebook subscription, actually Meta Horizon subscription. They claimed that managing 3D geometry was enough for VR games! Ridiculous! They lied knowing they were lying. VR is a matter of perception engineering, it's a hot potato to handle! So a lot of ugly diminutive wii-like games were released and the good VR games as The Gallery disappeared. However after trying to push such a failed technology with aggressive marketing and manipulation through social networks for two years, the house of cards finally collapsed. 10 millions of devices sold were nothing in comparison to the hundreds millions of potential VR gamers and users. Most of disappointed Q2 users left it on some shelf to collect dust. The company was near to crash on the stock market. This was how a new era of VR revival began after the dark age, especcially thanks to the release of PSVR2. Many games as good as The Gallery or even better were released and everyone lived happily ever after. If you like my story, put thumb up, thanks! ;)

This game is actually quite good but I have to say not recommended because it appears there will never be a part 3 and without the next part there is no point in playing this. It's an intriguing story and world but releasing it in small parts seems to have been a mistake.

First off, to get a more modern smooth locomotion control scheme, look for these settings: Under Game Options: - Locomotion Type: Stickmove - Comfort Turns: On (The angle is under the Blink Options submenu, but I found the default 22.5 to be a good setting.) In the Stickmove Options submenu: - Axis Mapping: FwdBackStrafe - Movement anchor: Controller - (I also preferred the highest movement speed.) For controllers with separate Grip and Trigger controls, there is an option for using Grip to pick up objects. After playing, I noticed there are sections of the forums dedicated to getting the game to run on Oculus headsets, but I had no problems starting it on my Rift CV1 through SteamVR. The Gallery Episodes 1 and 2 are often discounted pretty deeply (I think I paid $8 for the pair), to the point where the question isn't if they're worth your money, but if they're worth your time. In short, I think they are, and that's largely down to Episode 2, even with the knowledge that Episode 3 may or may not ever be released. Episode 1 was released in 2016, and Episode 2 followed in 2017. One of the biggest improvements was the addition of smooth locomotion control options, which I sorely missed in Ep 1. Each game could be described as a "story-driven walking simulator with occasional puzzle elements", with most puzzles taking the form of mini-game style challenges, especially in Ep 2. Ep 1 was mostly linear, and takes around 1.5 - 2hrs to complete. Ep 2 manages to wring about 3-4 hrs of play from a similar number of environments because each area will need to be revisited at least once or twice - sometimes to use an item found elsewhere, and sometimes to explore previously-inaccessible parts of the level. That said, while there is a similar "volume" of world to explore in Ep 2, the areas are much more detailed and interesting than those in Ep 1 so I didn't find the backtracking particularly onerous. There were frequent loading screens, but they didn't last more than a few seconds each with the game installed on an SSD. While the dialogue can be a bit campy at times and story a bit vague, the performances are well delivered. If you can pick up Ep 1 and Ep 2 together for under $10-15, I think they're worth it. (Personally, I think they'd do well to give away Ep 1 for free, and sell Ep 2 for $10-12.) I hope that one day we'll see Episode 3 to close out the trilogy, but 5 years and counting since Episode 2, I won't be holding my breath.

Playing The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed did not prepare me for Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone. I almost want to go back and change that review to a Not Recommended because Episode 2 completely blows it out of the water. Episode 1 looks much worse now that I've seen what this development team was capable of. I'll leave that review alone and focus on Episode 2. https://store.steampowered.com/app/270130/The_Gallery__Episode_1_Call_of_the_Starseed/ Everything in Heart of the Emberstone is improved. While Call of the Starseed was a brief environmental narrative adventure game (walking simulator) this feels like a genuine, full-bodied adventure game. Even the controls are a big improvement. There's an "experimental" alternative to the teleportation variants that is basically smooth locomotion. At first, I was disappointed that I could only move forwards and backwards, but I went back to the menu and saw there was an option for "ForwardsBackStrafe" that allowed for full smooth locomotion. I don't think there was an option for smooth rotation, so I kept using snap turning. There are some cool interactions that take advantage of the unique possibilities from motion controllers as an input method. The lock openings were cool, and the backhand slingshot was awesome. The story is front-and-center in Emberstone. Though it's a typical solitary adventure game of exploring the lifeless remains of a former community, there are holograms of the past that constantly appear of the game's very small cast of characters. I was intrigued by the story and characters. There were layers of things going on that required me to think about what each character's experience and motivations were. The villain had been treated unfairly from birth, and he became nihilistic and a holder of grudges. It was interesting how he appealed to almost communistic ideals of equality and tearing down the existing social order, but this was all mostly coming from his personal grievances. His sister, the Queen, appears to be the sensible and compassionate 'good guy,' but there were dark secrets underlying the royalty and the economic order she worked to maintain. It's a fascinating game. I enjoyed it a lot. It's clear that it was made by a small team because there's quite a bit of backtracking and only a few small areas, but they were able to make these areas look fantastic. There's one hallway in the Tower of Cogs that took my breath away at how cool it looks in VR. Great game - highly recommended! [hr][/hr] I see that this is the same developer that went on to make Pistol Whip. I've never played it, but I added it to my wishlist a few years ago after seeing John Carmack remark about it. https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1196633985079791617 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079800/Pistol_Whip/

amazing but a bit tricky on some parts

Minor improvement from the first, but once again has only 1 puzzle. Some of the side activities are mildly more interesting, though there's still a major barrier of the VR interractions. The two side activities are the board game perfection about making shapes go on posts in time and threading a needle. There's some decent work at trying to use environmental/lore objects as hints towards what to do, but the story itself is painfully bad and you have to sit through so many random cutscenes. Otherwise, it's a very self-important mess that will make you face down the greatest fear in VR: Loading Screens. VR continues to emphasize that the game has to be designed not for spectacle but for gamefeel and the movement system is just painful throughout.

La suite directe du 1er épisode qui dévoile complètement son univers alien & mystique d'une civilisation éteinte façon Myst... De même, il reste encore à ce jour graphiquement absolument magnifique mais avec ses déplacements par téléportation un peu rigide. Il est plus immersif & riche que le 1er avec pas mal de scènes de dialogues en anglais (sous-titres anglais possibles) façon hologrammes. Ainsi que l'ajout d'un pouvoir de télékinésie pour jouer un peu avec la physique des objets. De même, il est un peu plus ouvert que le précèdent chapitre & on fera donc des allers/retours librement entre 3 petites zones différentes & avec nettement plus de puzzles, d'énigmes (au temps limité pour certains) & de jeux d'adresse à la Docteur Maboul.... Bien qu'il se suffisent à lui-même, il n'est pas trop long une fois qu'on le connaît si on va à l'essentiel (il y a un succès pour le finir en moins de 90mn...) mais nettement plus dense & intéressant que le 1er chapitre. Dommage que depuis tout ce temps, l'épisode 3 n'ai jamais vu le jour. (sous HTC Vive Pro 2)

5/10 loved episode 1, played it back in 2016, bought episode 2, played in 2021, /w meta 2 but was buggy couldn't finish. finished now in 2023. really tried to like it but I can't. pros, graphics still hold up nice. (played with quest 3) cons, short play time 3.5 hrs, blind play. puzzles are not good or satisfying, bugs, can't picking up flash light, red crystal from bag, (game restart or selecting other stuff, fixes it) the ugly, as for story wise, episode 2 is not the end, and no news of episode 3 at all, which may be a dead end, sad.

игры этого жанра для меня работа а не развлечение, поэтому в принципе не люблю, единственное что надо поощрить это графику, без неё игра с тем же сюжетом была бы не приметна, вообще я считаю глупо тратить силы на красивости если нет соответствующего сюжета сценария