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> Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
SubRosa
post Aug 15 2017, 01:07 AM
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Joined: 14-March 10
From: Between The Worlds



I started playing it today. So far it is alright. It has some utterly fantastic things. The story is simple, but draws you in from the start. Senua is journeying to Hel to get her dead boyfriend back. Or she is hallucinating because she is insane? She is clearly mad. Maybe it is both?

The game recommends you wear headphones when you play, which I agree with. The game uses binaural audio for the voices you constantly hear in your head. So one voice might speak in one ear, and the next in the other, or some in both. There are a lot of voices in Senua's head. The headphones really makes them come alive.

The voices are not just atmosphere either. They both tell the story, and give you hints on what to do next. There is no UI in the game. So the voices are your only guide. I am sure this is no accident. For the voices are Senua's only guide as well.

The creepiness really sucks you in. There is fighting, but the game is primarily story-driven. The combat is only secondary. At least so far. I have seen a lot of reviewers slam the combat for being simplistic. But I do not mind it at all. I have never been into fighting games that are all about mashing buttons in the right combinations like Mortal Kombat.

But there are some really simple things that really bring the game down. Most I think stem from being made with a console in mind. Most notable is that there is no manual saving, and no way to manually load a save. The game autosaves, and loads the last autosave when you restart it. If your save gets corrupted, I imagine you simply F'ed in the rear and have to start completely over. But we know that never happens right?

The graphics are mostly outstanding. But one issue I have is that the camera is too close to Senua's right shoulder, which makes the field of view really narrow. I found a fix for this:

The game's .ini files are found in Users\{Your Username}\AppData\Local\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

Open Engine.ini and add the following:

[/script/engine.localplayer]
AspectRatioAxisConstraint=AspectRatio_MaintainYFOV


There is also no way of turning off Motion Blur and Colorfringng in the game's options menu, but you can do it this way:

Open scaleability.ini and add:

[PostProcessQuality@3]
r.MotionBlurQuality=0
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0

NOTE: In the file scaleability.ini (the @3 is the quality setting you have it set to in gameusersettings.ini, 3 is the very high ingame setting. Set this number to match what you have in gameusersettings.ini)


Turn off Film Grain

Open Engine.ini file, find [SystemSettings], and make the following changes:
r.Tonemapper.GrainQuantization=0
r.Tonemapper.Quality=0



Skip Intro Videos

Go to to your Hellblade\HellbladeGame\Content\Movies and rename the following files:
NinjaTheory_Logo.bik
ThirdParty_Logo.bik
UE4_Logo.bik.


There is also a softness to the image. I am not sure what it is. I might be FXAA, or some other post-processing effect. I have seen some people say that turning Post-Processing down to Medium fixes this. But others say it made no difference for them. I will have to experiment.

The final thing that really gets to me is the camera always auto-centers itself, all the time. So if you look up, the camera automatically pulls down to center. The same if you look down. That gets really, really annoying.


Senua

Her BF

The gate to Hel looms

Really close up

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 19 2017, 02:00 AM


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Lopov
post Nov 4 2017, 03:26 PM
Post #41


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Joined: 11-February 13
From: Slovenia



How do you make Lopov shots in this game? Is it enough to rotate the camera around or must you pause the game and move around similar to the tfc command?


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SubRosa
post Nov 4 2017, 07:56 PM
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From: Between The Worlds



Acadian: They really did a spectacular job with painting a vivid setting in this game, and with the motion capture and voice acting of the actress who plays Senua. The funny thing is she was not even a professional actress. She is one of the behind the scenes people who works for the developer. They used her as a temporary stand in for Senua during the first days of development, before they could hire an actress. She was so good at it that they kept her as Senua.


Lopov: In the normal gameplay you cannot get your eponymous shots. She always looks away when you try to move the camera around to see her face. The only time you get the Lopov shots are during cinematics, which a lot of those are. There is no console, and so no console commands.


In the bowel's of Hela's palace

Recovering Dillion's head

A light shining through darkness

Deeper in Hela's hall

Senua presses on

Battle

End of the line



That is the end of the game this time around. It was still really good the second time around. One of the good things is that I still sort of remembered the really tricky puzzles, so they did not vex me so much. But the biggest bonus was understanding that I did not have to win the final battle. I really think this would make a great movie, or Netflix series.



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Acadian
post Nov 5 2017, 02:08 AM
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From: Las Vegas



Some more powerful shots. So glad you enjoyed your second play through! I recall seeing a short vid clip I think you linked featuring the young lady who did the acting/formed the basis for Senua. Very neat!


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Lopov
post Nov 5 2017, 07:20 PM
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From: Slovenia



The final battle looks quite gory.

I hope Senua finds peace at the end.


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SubRosa
post Dec 14 2017, 09:42 PM
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Gog now has Senua's Sacrifice on sale for $22.49. Go buy it!


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