Vanishing Ethan Carter -vs- Everybody's Gone 2 Rapture

All this talk of movie games but we have a new genre on the market dubbed Tech Demo games that usually last around 4-5 hours and consists of walking around richly rendered environments in first person.

So which tech demo game is better? We have Unreal Engine 3/4 with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter vs Cryengine 3 Everyone's Gone to Rapture. The latter seems to have more varied environments aside from just wooded areas but still I'm not paying $20 for either 4-5 hr experience.

A tech demo is a pretty stupid assessment of Ethan Carter considering the game isn't impressive from a tech point of view.

Everyone's Gone to Rapture isn't all that impressive because it only runs at 30fps and dips below that a lot. Kind of sad really. Hopefully they get to port it to PC at some point so that the game can actually run properly.

"Bu.. bu.. teh photogrammetry!"

...while ignoring the fact that most modern games going for a realistic aesthetic also employ photogrammetry in their pipeline. Yet somehow it became some buzzword attached to Ethan Carter.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Going outside for a walk is better

Both suck.

Haven't played either, but they are adventure games in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know why they need to be called tech demo or "nongame", that's just dumb. A lot of these minimal styled games are more or less a response to doing an adventure game without the obtuse puzzles that plagued older point and clicks, because actually making good puzzles would require them to do work.

That said Gone Home was an interesting concept and had neat ideas, better execution and I could have seen it actually deliver. Her Story is pretty unique and worth a spin, and Journey legitimately achieves all of its goals and is one of the better examples of a game telling its story via gameplay. So I don't inherently mind how Ethan Carter or Rapture do business. My beef with Rapture is taht Dear Esther grade A, bonafide, without a shadow of a doubt bullshit of the highest order, that doesn't achieve any of its goals. It's a terrible example of telling a story through gameplay. It has the same issue as Gone Home, only with shittier writing. And Machine for Pigs was a dramatic step down from how good The Dark Descent was.

Might give Ethan Carter a go one day, but otherwise I still will try a point and click like a book of unwritten tales or deponia. And really I am way more fond of artsy puzzle games, than these type of games.

Sterling made a good video on this (he didn't care for Rapture, but that's not the point)

I didnt think Vanishing of Ethan Carter was that great. It's worse than Gone Home. It has nice visuals, but other than the subtle details with the mine/dam owners, the world just seemed so uninteresting. The game also had me backtracking between lengthy walks through static scenery. The water scene in the mine was awesome and one moment in there absolutely petrified me despite how tedious the 'puzzle' related to that scene was.

It had some solid 'gameplay' content in the first 1/3rd (the train mystery and the house puzzle... uhh so that's 2?), but that's about it. The core mystery solving just seemed so underdeveloped with unrewarding results. Although I called the ending, I still thought it ended with a beautiful satisfying conclusion.

Edit: Oh silly me, didnt realise we were just talking about graphics. Yeah, call me stupid for expecting otherwise from System Wars.

There's a lot more game in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Everyone's gone to Rapture is way more comparable to Dear Esther.

I'll take neither for a thousand, Alex. :P

@BassMan: It needs those blistering frame rates to walk around?...... Herms keep grasping for straws.

@jg4xchamp: Nice to see some praise for the Stanley Parable from Jim. Game is fucking good.

Yeah, his criticisms are very good.

My only experience with these type of story-telling games are Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable. Played both the mods and standalone. And I really liked those.

But am I interested in The Vanisihing or Rapture ? I'm not entirely sure...

Yes, it does. The judder and blur from 30 fps is painful.

@BassMan: So you played it?

No, I have not played Everybody's Gone To The Rapture because it is only 30 fps and I am hoping for a PC version. Also, I was very disappointed how The Chinese Room fucked up Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs. So, I am hesitant to play their next game. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on PC is good though.

Since neither are on Xbox they must both be bad.

Not interested in these kinds of games.

@BassMan: So your talking about the games performance and how it's painful and you never played it? A steady 30fps isn't painful especially on a slow paced walking simulator.

I have seen videos of the gameplay and it is not even a steady 30fps from reports. 30 fps sucks in any game. Especially first person.

I wouldn't compare EGTR with EC. EC at least was simply a modernized point and click adventure game and it did it fairly ok. I would put EGTR alongside Dear Esther, overhyped hipster bullsh*t.

@BassMan: videos on YouTube? YouTube stutters regardless.

@AM-Gamer: YouTube runs fine for me. Gamespot's player on the other hand is terrible. Anyway... if you want quality footage you can even download the full 2 GB video......

http://www.gamersyde.com/hqstream_everybody_s_gone_to_the_rapture_first_10_minutes-35314_en.html

Ethan Carter looks better

Saves 20 dollars too.

You might even find 20 dollars.