This is one of the few games were the abundance of yellow paint is completely justified as Oil Rigs and other dangerous work sites are filled with bright paint markings to indicate environmental hazards.
I didn't even realize people were up in arms about the paint in this game. Like it didn't even faze me lol cause I was fully invested in this game for the story and experience. Doesn't surprise me though that people complain about the simplest things now.
I still have nightmares when I was gardening my plants at night when I lived in Edinburgh and a drunk Scottish man with a heavy accent told me he loved how good they looked. I could barely understand a word he said, and he probably meant no harm, but was so terrified at the strong and indecipherable English I sometimes wonder if it was true or a real nightmare
I am obsessed with this game, not because I love horror (I don't, really), or because I'm interested in playing it for that matter. But I could listen to that back and forth banter between the workers and Caz for hours and hours. It's like coming home. I'm Danish, but I grew up around some *deep* dockworker accents, and both the cadence and the free use of swears and benign threats over football and lunch meats takes me right back to some core memories. All the voice actors in this game should win awards. All of the awards. They feel R E A L.
Dane here to. Different background, but personal core memories or not I agree wholeheartedly. The writing and acting - the lyricism, really - is just spectacular.
This game was a shocker to me, it was such a good narrative game. The characters are so unique and loveable. The pain of the people around, it is realistic in most unrealistic way.
What I love about this game is the characters feel HUMAN and not like fictional individuals Like they actually talk, act, and react like how we probably would in situations like this And the models and animation add to that, the models move in a realistic non robotic way
As a Glaswegian (who also speaks gaelic so I was so elated by the inclusion of it), I was beyond impressed with the voice acting and dialogue. It really carried the game for me and felt so natural and unapologetically Scottish. The story and gameplay were also great, but the organic acting, diverse and REAL accents, and bloody dialogue just really made this so important for me. Bless this game. Instant classic for me.
it was sooooo refreshing to hear all this real, really nice voice acting when so many people are relying on speech to text trash. the VAs did a PHENOMENAL job
gotta say I love the sinewy look the flesh creatures have in this. it's unlike any other type of body horror commonly seen in horror media, and it communicates diseased flesh and corruption really well without relying on fungal aesthetics. it's icky, and gross, and wet and very well done.
7:50 Oh! Also these kinds of yellow paint markings are actually a part of this kind of derrick! I think its quite clever they used it here for this setting specifically.
I really hope the devs make an expansion story pack or light sequel about a rescue crew going out to check what the fuck went down. Oil rigs exploding are a massive deal (binged watched too many maritime accident reports vids on here), so sometime involving a salvage or S&R crew especially if the devs want to explore more of this 'entity'
As an Australian with a Scottish background, I love the little rant section about combating the stereotypes that accents come to follow in today’s modern media. I’ll tell you this, Australia’s culture rep is not far from what Scotland’s is, and we definitely lack some actual identity in media aside from having that one “bushranger” character with heavy emphasis on the accent, and constantly have to seem sorta cocky and “bogan like” as we call here, with the excessive use of Australian slang. I mean some characters that could come to mind is tf2’s sniper and mk’s kano. Your take on this representation is amazing, and I love your critique on breaking this archetype-cycle in representing a character’s nationality. Props to you, you earnt a like. Also little side note, I fucking adore this voice acting, it seems legitimately fluent and unscripted. It feels so casual and it’s really done so well.
i really appreciate how in depth the caracters in this game are, not only do they have actual personalities but they are actually competent and dont rely on you and only you to save them all which is a common trope. the banter also adds alot to it
I’m American but I collaborate with another Scottish RUclipsr and I played while she translated and man this game spoke to me. I’ve never felt so intensely captivated and immersed in a horror game. I cared far more than I ever have in any game in recent memory. And my collaborator agreed and said it was shocking how accurate this game was. Linear or not this game will stick with me. And replayable or not I will be replaying in the future just to revisit the amazing characters and story. It’s worth going back to just to feel it again.
I think it'd be really cool if the game did something like Little Nightmares, where they added DLCs where you could play as different characters. Even if all their fates are set and the game will always head down the same course, the dialogue Caz doesn't get to hear, and doing jobs to help out the rig that Caz doesn't have direct involvement in (i.e, doing Brodie's job and staying with him in his final moments when he makes the choice to stay behind in the Pontoons), and learning more about the characters (by playing through their perspective) that were lost while Caz was out doing the heavy lifting would be really cool. Like if we got to play as Finlay, we could hear her son's voice like she said, and we would be leaving notes around the rig. And through Brodie and Finlay's perspective, we could feel the grief when we 'lose' Caz, or even see Caz get smacked 'off the rig' and feel that tragedy with the characters, and the relief when he returns. In the beginning of the game, we could lower Raff's into the water ourselves, or fish Caz out after he hits the water, and feel the full force of losing and being unable to save the other guy (forgot his name sorry), and have new interactions with the other crew members, too. Following the other crew member's adventures through the rig would be pretty cool. And even playing Muir or Trots as they are transformed into monsters beyond their understanding, and hunt down people in their respective areas- intimately learnining what it's like to be possessed and understanding their suffering from a closer perspective... that'd be neat.
I keep trying to imagine this game with the mechanics and exploration of something like an Alien Isolation. My God, what this studio gets right it gets VERY right. The environments, attention to detail, audio, writing and story, characters, voice work, oh my days the quality of the voice acting! Now, if they could widen it out and make an actual GAME then we would have game of the year contenders. As is, it's still the best horror game so far this year but I still can't shake the thoughts of what it could have been.
Even though I considered cosmic horror a bit overused, this game was one that I genuinely liked cause it has so much more to it than just cosmic horror and it was used really well. + no jumpscare bs
I'm from the ni and to hear ANY northern irish accent in media (good or bad) is a pleasant surprise. glad to hear this game does us justice, even in a small way :)
I just wish people did more Lovecraft inspired stuff on oil rigs. Cause oil is a millenia long dead carcass, that can be related to ichor of the Earth.
It is an incredible feeling to see a video from you about a game I've never heard of, but immediately know is exactly up my alley. Your take on A Machine For Pigs was also very well stated, and I'm glad we can look back on that game now and realize that it suffered from following The Dark Descent more than anything else. I can't wait to play this for myself!
My first visit here, I think this review absolutely nails many points for SWTD which others thought were detriments. Very sound reasoning, keep up the good work! Subbed.
For me it's the moment they realized no one was getting out alive. That was the moment the game hit me in a way I forgot I was actually watching a game. The story lines to some of these gameplays are so good. They're better than movies
I lived in Scotland near Glasgow in the late 90s and my roommate was from the rougher part of Glasgow. I think it took me a month to finally understand him. Cazz reminds me so much of him it gives me chills. Even though I was only there for a few years it had a major impact on me. It’s coming up on 30 years ago and I still have many dreams, where I’m back at the facility I worked and lived at over there. Honestly, horror games really aren’t my thing, but I recognize so many things about it all it’s crazy nostalgic for me. They did a bang up job, no question.
Finished it yesterday, loved it. I'm not Scottish myself but I have 2 good friends that are and playing the game I felt like I was in the middle of one of our chats. Which made me feel like I was in that oil rig and when shite hit the fan and people started dying ( one death in particular) I teared up a bit... Felt too real. But you see, this nice feeling of being represented in something you love, I'm glad you felt like that and that's how some other people feel when they're represented. Media (movies, games, etc) will always be at least 99% white, straight etc, so it puzzles me when people have bitch fits online because or other ethnicity in their videogames... P.s.: you got a subscriber 🖤
The game is really good. Having played it, it got described as "70s sweary Scottish Oil Rig of death" I would also recommend getting a Gamepass subscription just to play it. At £8.99 for 4-6 hours that's great value. And I do believe that Xbox are doing another £1 a month promotion (I saw that in the credits too!)
14:00 legitimately had me bursting my sides for like a minute. By the time I recovered (and then went back a bit because I didn't pause) I got hit by the one two of 14:05 and needed to take another second to just breathe
still wakes the deep is so important to me because everyone in the cast feels like people i know, caz reminds me of my brother its like you say, scottish people in media are usually just stereotypes or a punchline which is completely fine, but theres just something amazing about looking at these characters who feel so human to the point they make you think of people you actually know i went in thinking this game was just the typical horror, i did not expect to be tearing up at the end but maybe thats because im one big cry baby, this game is absolutely amazing also, an oil rig is a very under-rated location for a horror game, idk why no ones not thought of that until now lol
I just wrapped the story this evening. I really agree that it was super refreshing to hear Scottish and British voice acting that wasn't just cartoonish parodies dialled up to 11. I really enjoyed the characters in this game and the acting and dialogue did a ton of heavy lifting to make me genuinely care about what I was doing and the world I was doing it in. I really hope we get to see more of this kind of down to earth casting and direction in future games.
CalMac mentioned!! Just finished playing this and my biggest surprise was how accurate and detailed the environments were. Although I was not around in the 70's the tartan carpets and teak furniture are still incredibly nostalgic to me.
Great video bro. I stumbled on this game release day with zero expectations. Loved it to death. Love the points you make man, and yes zombies was universal. You’ve got my subscription
I felt really stoked to find out that this game was made by The Chinese Room, and through playing it, the game feels like they really learned from their experience working on an Amnesia title. They evolved as developers and made a masterpiece with both stellar story and stellar gameplay. I am gonna sing this game's praises for a long time.
Usually I am not a fan of walking simulators, but this hits something akin to Stanley Parable where it knows it's nothing but a walking simulator and basically supercharges every other aspect about the game using that. Really feels like it yoinks Stanley Parable's charm and tries to fashion it into a horror scenario. And despite how ridiculous that sounds, it somehow works. Probably in some lovecraftian way. Also the main "monster" (if you can even call it that) really reminds me of SCP-610, a plague(?) that causes those infected to mutate into horrific beasts with some form of sentience still in there, their fate eventually turning into them just covering the surroundings with what used to be this person growing into and out of walls, forced now to do nothing but dedicate their deformed bodies to spreading the noxious fumes that will turn other unwilling people into more of them. Only unlike 610, which was a weapon used by a cult to amass an army of flesh beasts to fight in some war, this thing basically has no purpose. It just exists. And that probably makes it more terrifying.
I've finished the game just a few hours ago and I absolutely loved it. I wasn't expecting anything special, just saw good reviews on Steam and the lovecraftian aesthetics on an offshore oil platform. My experience was incredible. Yet, you have to consider this game more as a movie in which you dictate the pacing than an actual game, because it is entirely rail-roaded and there are no choices. But the story of the main character is really interesting. My best part was the death of Broddie, where he spoke about Skye and the still waters there, it bringed me to tears which games usually aren't able to do, so good point for this game. I might consider playing the other games from The Chinese Room, do you have any suggestions?
Honestly spot on. I have to say between the setting to the voice acting I was shocked as a Scottish person at how well they did. I do agree with you though once you've played it I don't think it has a lot of replayability. That being said, I can't wait to see what they do next!
Great little review! It's really nice to see Painticus' opinion of A machine for pigs and its creators develop over the years! It seems, if the game had taken place in Edinburgh, not London, it would have found a place in your heart sooner... ;D But considering you're THE self-proclaimed Lovecraft-expert on this platform, one question remains: When will you play the most accurate representation of cosmic horror in games: Sucker for Love?
One of the few games that does authentic accents especially Scottish. And scarily enough, other games that do Scottish accents authentically come from Gacha games as well. Like legit, There’s a character called Bagpipe in Arknights and she’s EXTREMELY Scottish.
Dear Esther is one of my most revisited experiences in gaming, and this studio made this game, a game that feels like it was made for me. I love nautical settings, Lovecraft, body horror, authentic Scottish accents! everything in this game feels like I asked someone to make a game only I would like. Can’t wait for their next game.
I really enjoyed Dear Esther, a great atmospheric experience, in my opinion. I've not got around to playing Still wakes the deep yet. As an ex fisherman this game looks like it could really resonate with me.The sea never leaves you once you have worked on it for some time!
this game really reminds me Deep Rising movie. Word "Deep" in title, an isolated sinking place with no communication for outside world, a monster with tentacles from the deep who wandering around and kill people one by one.
I got every achievement due to replaying (was amused to see the Mister Fit and Healthy line being transcribed in the Gaelic subtitles as Charlie-f__ing-Atlas). Is it on rails? Sure? Did I care? No. I had my heart broken twice by the story and I'd do it again.
I'm glad you talked about accent representation in the beginning. I'm from North East England and its so rare to have accents from the Tyne and Tees areas represented in media. Often "Northern English" accents are reduced to generic Yorkshire/Lancashire accent
I bit the bullet and bought it on Steam despite the price tag because I've loved The Chinese Room ever since I first played A Machine for Pigs and it did not dissapoint, I was sobbing by the end. I definitely love this game to bits. (May have also backed the art book, I shouldn't be trusted with money) :D
Personally, as a black guy from the U.S.A, its not about the quantity of the representation but the quality. You should be excited about having representation in a grounded and real way. People take crap way to seriously and need to take a joke every now and then but seeing characters that you can see as actual people is amazing. So it should be applauded when its done right. I think its awesome and what i want to see more off for everyone. Doubt anyone will see this or really care but hope you all have a good one, thanks for coming to my ted talk
Means a lot to me also. Played it on gamepass and ordered a physical copy from Best Buy for PS5. Just picked it up an hour ago. Now instead of saying can’t or cannot in my everyday language I say I canny!
the northern UK accents are actually accurate too and even in the fact a lot of northerners are seen on north sea oil rigs. i'm a geordie myself and really happy that we northerners finally get representation (with GREAT voice acting) in something
Don't stress your accent (I'm sure you don't), as another Scot I could hear it! We don't all have to sound like Rab C to be Scottish. Great review of a great game too! :)
Funnily enough, my gaming snobbiness, so to speak, lead me the other way. I was immediately intrigued by The Chinese Room’s output and wanted more. I didn’t get into _Amnesia_ before it’d already blown up and become almost synonymous with PewDi- actually, won’t say that name - and his imitators and their, to me, insufferableness. So _Amnesia_ was just too hyped for me to really get invested in to the degree so many others did. But I adored _A Machine for Pigs,_ not for its gameplay, but for its prose, music and voice acting. In a way it works better as an audiobook almost. Or a let’s play you have in the background. There’s something incredibly compelling about the writing and delivery, that very monied, old English tone. And similarly for the the anything-but ensemble of voices and accents in _Still Wakes the Deep._ I just want to listen to it
See that description of how people used to use the term walking simulator is somewhat inaccurate because those people did like niche games but only niche games they enjoyed (underrated masterpieces)
It's sad to see people still use that term, walking simulator, in a derogatory way. Man I fkn love 'walking simulator' games, I'm almost 40 years old, seeing that a game will be a chill narrative experience gets me super excited. And yeah this game was phenomenal, so damn good from beginning to end. Was worried it'd flop so I'm happy to see nothing but praise for it. Going on a week since finishing and I can't stop thinking about it, so that says something about the impact this game had on me.
Just finished playing Silent Hill 2 and me, being such a The Thing fan, bought the game yesterday, amazing game, as far as i am into the story. Also that joke at 4:05 made me crack up.
Say what you will about yellow paint but people like me are the reason it exists, i swear if the wheel in the re4 remakes ravine section didnt have yellow paint i wouldve never found it
accent seemed obviously scottish to me tbh. not a common one but its in the way you use your vowels. also "fucking yass man" made me choke on my dinner laughing
Honestly speaking- Chinese Room is the better side of walking sim games. A lot tried less- like Bloober Team, who use the walkin sim genre as a crutch for narratives that smell like badly copied homework. And I will shit on Bloober even tho I'm from the same country as them, we can and have done better and by now having a Polish gamedev appear worldwide is not a national holiday anymore And I am glad that the writer included relevant politics of the in the story- not in pandering way, but a worldbuilding way. It makes a historically anchored setting more real when you include these sorta things (In moderation and with so called grace- we don't want pandering or propaganda here mr /pol) Plus- good balls on the writer to constrain themselves from overexplaining and overexposing the terror from the deep. Afterall, even the Thing was not explain besides being from outer space, and The Thing (movie) is also character centric- mainly to get you in the brainspace of people who known each other for years now being pitted against each other because one of them is the impostor
7:40 Of all the places to have an issue with the so called yellow paint, industrial settings are usually not where that discussion belong unless it is done extremely poorly. That is a real life scenario where guilding paints and designs exist, and for multiple reasons including safety, and it should be piss easy for a game designer and level designers to integrate such things naturally into the game world. You want to mark places where people are supposed to walk, things that can and are likely to kill you unless handled expertly (and even then), what way to what part of the environment, etc. This is universal, just global best practices anyone with common sense will adopt, or anyone trying to minimize liability. There is a reason why in some places real life construction and demotion sites use paints to mark things, such as painting on the floor the path waterpipes and electric wiring goes, so your crew doesn't just dig through it and cause unecessary damages and issues, thus expenses. The problem is when you have unorganic "environmental" guidance like paints in isolated cliffs you decided to climb but it is not a path anyone would care to signal in-universe, debris with pristine yellow paint in places it wouldn't have had when it was not debris, that sorta lazy non diagetic guidance that is just a bandaid put on top of confusng design to mitgate its flaws. That is the problem.
Yeah, I've seen people complain about all the yellow paint in this game, but when I played it, I actually really liked their use of it because it made sense in an industrial setting and made it so there didn't need to be a lot of unnecessary video-gamey visual cues like having constant UI markers and a huge quest list on the side. The game had an optional UI marker for every mission with an optional hint and yellow objects around the rig. Even the yellow paint cans worked in my opinion because if some of the yellow objects/lines were a fresh bright yellow, maybe they had been repainted recently. It felt like a good balance of meeting the realistic and down to earth atmosphere of the game while making navigation easier, especially in the dark.
I think there's a comparison to be made between walking simulators and visual novels. A lot of visual novels and walking simulators aren't like, that great. There's a lot of stuff that is clearly quite amateur, or stuff that didn't have a lot of effort put in, and a lot of gamers say both "aren't even games" But there's a lot of examples of both of these genres being, really great! Pathologic does have some combat and resource management stuff, but 95% of your time is spent walking from A to B and talking to people. for Visual Novels, stories like the House in Fata Morgana, The Silver Case (Suda51 is the goat), Higurashi and the sequel, Umineko, don't follow the dating sim style that most people think of when they think about visual novels. Both of these are story focused games, and I think most gamers just, don't really want to engage with a story unless it gives them a lot to do.
still wakes the deep is going up in my list of 10/10 games, there are only 4 other games other than this i consider 10/10 and this is higher then a 10/10, this had been the best horror game iv ever played and it kinda saddens me considering how the horror genre is going its probably gonna take atleast 5-10 years until a new horror story game this good comes out again, it was a beautiful masterpiece
Had the pleasure of meeting a horror beyond my comprehension at a charity do once. It was surprisingly down to earth, and VERY funny.
This is one of the few games were the abundance of yellow paint is completely justified as Oil Rigs and other dangerous work sites are filled with bright paint markings to indicate environmental hazards.
now imagine if they didnt have the work unions
I didn't even realize people were up in arms about the paint in this game. Like it didn't even faze me lol cause I was fully invested in this game for the story and experience. Doesn't surprise me though that people complain about the simplest things now.
@@mdog86 I don't think they were upset about this game specifically having it but there has been a lot of yellow paint hate in general.
@@mdog86ill be honest i didnt even notice it 😭
The properly painted surfaces were justified. The weird paint splotches were pushing it tho 😅
Need a mod for Silent Hill 2 that replaces everyone with Scottish accents now
Tha ry? (that right?)
Naaaooowww!!!
Hiya, me name's James MacSunderland, I'm 'ere lookin for me lass Mary. Have ye seen 'er?
Scariest thing about the video was finding out Panticus is scottish.
Why is that a problem?
Scary?
I still have nightmares when I was gardening my plants at night when I lived in Edinburgh and a drunk Scottish man with a heavy accent told me he loved how good they looked. I could barely understand a word he said, and he probably meant no harm, but was so terrified at the strong and indecipherable English I sometimes wonder if it was true or a real nightmare
@@burningbronze7555 who said it was a problem?
So scottish makes you scare?
I am obsessed with this game, not because I love horror (I don't, really), or because I'm interested in playing it for that matter. But I could listen to that back and forth banter between the workers and Caz for hours and hours. It's like coming home. I'm Danish, but I grew up around some *deep* dockworker accents, and both the cadence and the free use of swears and benign threats over football and lunch meats takes me right back to some core memories. All the voice actors in this game should win awards. All of the awards. They feel R E A L.
Dane here to. Different background, but personal core memories or not I agree wholeheartedly. The writing and acting - the lyricism, really - is just spectacular.
This game was a shocker to me, it was such a good narrative game. The characters are so unique and loveable. The pain of the people around, it is realistic in most unrealistic way.
What I love about this game is the characters feel HUMAN and not like fictional individuals
Like they actually talk, act, and react like how we probably would in situations like this
And the models and animation add to that, the models move in a realistic non robotic way
As a Glaswegian (who also speaks gaelic so I was so elated by the inclusion of it), I was beyond impressed with the voice acting and dialogue. It really carried the game for me and felt so natural and unapologetically Scottish. The story and gameplay were also great, but the organic acting, diverse and REAL accents, and bloody dialogue just really made this so important for me. Bless this game. Instant classic for me.
it was sooooo refreshing to hear all this real, really nice voice acting when so many people are relying on speech to text trash. the VAs did a PHENOMENAL job
I’m American and can verify: any sort of scottish/english accent makes everything better, especially swearing. that’s all.
as a canadian, yep!! horror is much better with accents. the magnus archives is rooted very strongly in my brain. very much assisted by the accents.
Scottish swearing is the best swearing.
gotta say I love the sinewy look the flesh creatures have in this. it's unlike any other type of body horror commonly seen in horror media, and it communicates diseased flesh and corruption really well without relying on fungal aesthetics. it's icky, and gross, and wet and very well done.
julian would you eat the Still Wakes the Deep flesh for $10
@@Painticusmake it 50 and I'll think about it. I'm sure it'd be ok on like a stir-fry or somth
@@julian0451 I wonder if it'd make good jerky
@@julian0451 horrors beyond our comprehension are scary and all, but fifty bucks are fifty bucks!
Benny Harver. R.I.P Gone but not forgotten, miss you big man
Whatever the creature in the game is terrifies me, cause it looked at an oil rig full of Scotts and still decided to attack them
Purple. Burglar. Alarm.
SAY IT!
I wanted to add that the sanity effect looks alot like spilled oil or a burning film, I just thought that was really cool and fitting
7:50 Oh! Also these kinds of yellow paint markings are actually a part of this kind of derrick! I think its quite clever they used it here for this setting specifically.
I really hope the devs make an expansion story pack or light sequel about a rescue crew going out to check what the fuck went down. Oil rigs exploding are a massive deal (binged watched too many maritime accident reports vids on here), so sometime involving a salvage or S&R crew especially if the devs want to explore more of this 'entity'
The curse of yellow painticus
though it makes sense considering the setting is an oil rig
As an Australian with a Scottish background, I love the little rant section about combating the stereotypes that accents come to follow in today’s modern media. I’ll tell you this, Australia’s culture rep is not far from what Scotland’s is, and we definitely lack some actual identity in media aside from having that one “bushranger” character with heavy emphasis on the accent, and constantly have to seem sorta cocky and “bogan like” as we call here, with the excessive use of Australian slang. I mean some characters that could come to mind is tf2’s sniper and mk’s kano. Your take on this representation is amazing, and I love your critique on breaking this archetype-cycle in representing a character’s nationality. Props to you, you earnt a like.
Also little side note, I fucking adore this voice acting, it seems legitimately fluent and unscripted. It feels so casual and it’s really done so well.
"yer da mines avon" by J.D. Sportscraft
spectacular comment
i really appreciate how in depth the caracters in this game are, not only do they have actual personalities but they are actually competent and dont rely on you and only you to save them all which is a common trope. the banter also adds alot to it
I’m American but I collaborate with another Scottish RUclipsr and I played while she translated and man this game spoke to me. I’ve never felt so intensely captivated and immersed in a horror game. I cared far more than I ever have in any game in recent memory. And my collaborator agreed and said it was shocking how accurate this game was. Linear or not this game will stick with me. And replayable or not I will be replaying in the future just to revisit the amazing characters and story. It’s worth going back to just to feel it again.
I think it'd be really cool if the game did something like Little Nightmares, where they added DLCs where you could play as different characters. Even if all their fates are set and the game will always head down the same course, the dialogue Caz doesn't get to hear, and doing jobs to help out the rig that Caz doesn't have direct involvement in (i.e, doing Brodie's job and staying with him in his final moments when he makes the choice to stay behind in the Pontoons), and learning more about the characters (by playing through their perspective) that were lost while Caz was out doing the heavy lifting would be really cool. Like if we got to play as Finlay, we could hear her son's voice like she said, and we would be leaving notes around the rig. And through Brodie and Finlay's perspective, we could feel the grief when we 'lose' Caz, or even see Caz get smacked 'off the rig' and feel that tragedy with the characters, and the relief when he returns.
In the beginning of the game, we could lower Raff's into the water ourselves, or fish Caz out after he hits the water, and feel the full force of losing and being unable to save the other guy (forgot his name sorry), and have new interactions with the other crew members, too. Following the other crew member's adventures through the rig would be pretty cool. And even playing Muir or Trots as they are transformed into monsters beyond their understanding, and hunt down people in their respective areas- intimately learnining what it's like to be possessed and understanding their suffering from a closer perspective... that'd be neat.
you sound like your speaking with a scottish accent to me, maybe not super strong or anything, but I can definitely hear it in your voice
yeah I could definitely hear it in the previous videos, to the extent that i was taken aback when he said he didn't have an accent...
Alternate titel: SCOTLAND FOREEEVERRRRR!!
I keep trying to imagine this game with the mechanics and exploration of something like an Alien Isolation. My God, what this studio gets right it gets VERY right. The environments, attention to detail, audio, writing and story, characters, voice work, oh my days the quality of the voice acting! Now, if they could widen it out and make an actual GAME then we would have game of the year contenders. As is, it's still the best horror game so far this year but I still can't shake the thoughts of what it could have been.
Even though I considered cosmic horror a bit overused, this game was one that I genuinely liked cause it has so much more to it than just cosmic horror and it was used really well. + no jumpscare bs
this is seriously up there with my favourite horror games of all time
On the yellow paint thing, you can enable or disable that in the settings, but yes it feels very natural in this game.
I'm from the ni and to hear ANY northern irish accent in media (good or bad) is a pleasant surprise. glad to hear this game does us justice, even in a small way :)
I am curious, cause I can’t tell accents apart sometimes, which character is the Northern Irish character?
Like I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s O’Connor, but even that’s not exclusively gonna be an Irish name
I appreciate you being real about prices. These days too many people are ready to shill for $50+ games and it’s insanely depressing.
I just wish people did more Lovecraft inspired stuff on oil rigs.
Cause oil is a millenia long dead carcass, that can be related to ichor of the Earth.
funnily enough, dredge has a DLC with a rather similar premise
It is an incredible feeling to see a video from you about a game I've never heard of, but immediately know is exactly up my alley. Your take on A Machine For Pigs was also very well stated, and I'm glad we can look back on that game now and realize that it suffered from following The Dark Descent more than anything else. I can't wait to play this for myself!
I absolutely love the Drill scene its.....god its beautiful there is just a level of "fuck around find out" and just sheer beauty that that scene hits
My first visit here, I think this review absolutely nails many points for SWTD which others thought were detriments. Very sound reasoning, keep up the good work! Subbed.
For me it's the moment they realized no one was getting out alive. That was the moment the game hit me in a way I forgot I was actually watching a game. The story lines to some of these gameplays are so good. They're better than movies
David Tennant is a worldwide treasure and we thank you.
I lived in Scotland near Glasgow in the late 90s and my roommate was from the rougher part of Glasgow. I think it took me a month to finally understand him. Cazz reminds me so much of him it gives me chills.
Even though I was only there for a few years it had a major impact on me. It’s coming up on 30 years ago and I still have many dreams, where I’m back at the facility I worked and lived at over there. Honestly, horror games really aren’t my thing, but I recognize so many things about it all it’s crazy nostalgic for me. They did a bang up job, no question.
Also, you hit ALOT of Scottish people in space movies,as well as British.
That's very true! I think we hold the honour for the first people to swear in Star Wars. That was a bright moment for us
Finished it yesterday, loved it. I'm not Scottish myself but I have 2 good friends that are and playing the game I felt like I was in the middle of one of our chats. Which made me feel like I was in that oil rig and when shite hit the fan and people started dying ( one death in particular) I teared up a bit... Felt too real.
But you see, this nice feeling of being represented in something you love, I'm glad you felt like that and that's how some other people feel when they're represented. Media (movies, games, etc) will always be at least 99% white, straight etc, so it puzzles me when people have bitch fits online because or other ethnicity in their videogames...
P.s.: you got a subscriber 🖤
love the detail of the tentacles actually looking like oil mixed with blood
The game is really good.
Having played it, it got described as "70s sweary Scottish Oil Rig of death"
I would also recommend getting a Gamepass subscription just to play it. At £8.99 for 4-6 hours that's great value.
And I do believe that Xbox are doing another £1 a month promotion
(I saw that in the credits too!)
The Timesplitters FP music hit me right in the feels. Great video Painticus!
4:03 please dub over the entire game this is gold
Ending the video with a TimeSplitters ost almost killed me with nostalgia, brutal. Nice vid!
It's great having a game so close to home, especially when you understand every word spoken without needing translation
14:00 legitimately had me bursting my sides for like a minute. By the time I recovered (and then went back a bit because I didn't pause) I got hit by the one two of 14:05 and needed to take another second to just breathe
still wakes the deep is so important to me because everyone in the cast feels like people i know, caz reminds me of my brother
its like you say, scottish people in media are usually just stereotypes or a punchline which is completely fine, but theres just something amazing about looking at these characters who feel so human to the point they make you think of people you actually know
i went in thinking this game was just the typical horror, i did not expect to be tearing up at the end but maybe thats because im one big cry baby, this game is absolutely amazing
also, an oil rig is a very under-rated location for a horror game, idk why no ones not thought of that until now lol
I just wrapped the story this evening. I really agree that it was super refreshing to hear Scottish and British voice acting that wasn't just cartoonish parodies dialled up to 11. I really enjoyed the characters in this game and the acting and dialogue did a ton of heavy lifting to make me genuinely care about what I was doing and the world I was doing it in. I really hope we get to see more of this kind of down to earth casting and direction in future games.
3:25 Well those and a one-eyed demolition man.
CalMac mentioned!! Just finished playing this and my biggest surprise was how accurate and detailed the environments were. Although I was not around in the 70's the tartan carpets and teak furniture are still incredibly nostalgic to me.
Scottish people sound like us southerners when we're drunk
Great video bro. I stumbled on this game release day with zero expectations. Loved it to death. Love the points you make man, and yes zombies was universal. You’ve got my subscription
“I know I don’t have the accent”
I have some bad news for you, m8.
I felt really stoked to find out that this game was made by The Chinese Room, and through playing it, the game feels like they really learned from their experience working on an Amnesia title. They evolved as developers and made a masterpiece with both stellar story and stellar gameplay. I am gonna sing this game's praises for a long time.
Alright well now I'm just going to imagine you as Limmy forever, paint.
RIP Benny Harvey, miss you big guy 😔
Usually I am not a fan of walking simulators, but this hits something akin to Stanley Parable where it knows it's nothing but a walking simulator and basically supercharges every other aspect about the game using that. Really feels like it yoinks Stanley Parable's charm and tries to fashion it into a horror scenario. And despite how ridiculous that sounds, it somehow works. Probably in some lovecraftian way.
Also the main "monster" (if you can even call it that) really reminds me of SCP-610, a plague(?) that causes those infected to mutate into horrific beasts with some form of sentience still in there, their fate eventually turning into them just covering the surroundings with what used to be this person growing into and out of walls, forced now to do nothing but dedicate their deformed bodies to spreading the noxious fumes that will turn other unwilling people into more of them. Only unlike 610, which was a weapon used by a cult to amass an army of flesh beasts to fight in some war, this thing basically has no purpose. It just exists. And that probably makes it more terrifying.
I've finished the game just a few hours ago and I absolutely loved it. I wasn't expecting anything special, just saw good reviews on Steam and the lovecraftian aesthetics on an offshore oil platform. My experience was incredible. Yet, you have to consider this game more as a movie in which you dictate the pacing than an actual game, because it is entirely rail-roaded and there are no choices. But the story of the main character is really interesting.
My best part was the death of Broddie, where he spoke about Skye and the still waters there, it bringed me to tears which games usually aren't able to do, so good point for this game. I might consider playing the other games from The Chinese Room, do you have any suggestions?
Honestly spot on. I have to say between the setting to the voice acting I was shocked as a Scottish person at how well they did. I do agree with you though once you've played it I don't think it has a lot of replayability. That being said, I can't wait to see what they do next!
Great little review! It's really nice to see Painticus' opinion of A machine for pigs and its creators develop over the years! It seems, if the game had taken place in Edinburgh, not London, it would have found a place in your heart sooner... ;D
But considering you're THE self-proclaimed Lovecraft-expert on this platform, one question remains: When will you play the most accurate representation of cosmic horror in games: Sucker for Love?
The creature in the game is called "The Shape"
One of the few games that does authentic accents especially Scottish.
And scarily enough, other games that do Scottish accents authentically come from Gacha games as well.
Like legit, There’s a character called Bagpipe in Arknights and she’s EXTREMELY Scottish.
14:30 it's the difference between the characters just being _people,_ vs some stereotype in a setting of "normal people" (white USians)
Dear Esther is one of my most revisited experiences in gaming, and this studio made this game, a game that feels like it was made for me. I love nautical settings, Lovecraft, body horror, authentic Scottish accents! everything in this game feels like I asked someone to make a game only I would like. Can’t wait for their next game.
I really enjoyed Dear Esther, a great atmospheric experience, in my opinion. I've not got around to playing Still wakes the deep yet. As an ex fisherman this game looks like it could really resonate with me.The sea never leaves you once you have worked on it for some time!
this game really reminds me Deep Rising movie. Word "Deep" in title, an isolated sinking place with no communication for outside world, a monster with tentacles from the deep who wandering around and kill people one by one.
Reminds me of Leviathan starring Peter Weller
A walking sim is usually a calm experience
I got every achievement due to replaying (was amused to see the Mister Fit and Healthy line being transcribed in the Gaelic subtitles as Charlie-f__ing-Atlas). Is it on rails? Sure? Did I care? No. I had my heart broken twice by the story and I'd do it again.
Bro was seriously like “I know I don’t sound Scottish” with the most Scottish accent I’ve ever heard
Now I'm really curious. Have you played Disco Elysium yet?
I'm glad you talked about accent representation in the beginning. I'm from North East England and its so rare to have accents from the Tyne and Tees areas represented in media. Often "Northern English" accents are reduced to generic Yorkshire/Lancashire accent
I bit the bullet and bought it on Steam despite the price tag because I've loved The Chinese Room ever since I first played A Machine for Pigs and it did not dissapoint, I was sobbing by the end. I definitely love this game to bits. (May have also backed the art book, I shouldn't be trusted with money) :D
Personally, as a black guy from the U.S.A, its not about the quantity of the representation but the quality. You should be excited about having representation in a grounded and real way. People take crap way to seriously and need to take a joke every now and then but seeing characters that you can see as actual people is amazing. So it should be applauded when its done right. I think its awesome and what i want to see more off for everyone. Doubt anyone will see this or really care but hope you all have a good one, thanks for coming to my ted talk
Means a lot to me also. Played it on gamepass and ordered a physical copy from Best Buy for PS5. Just picked it up an hour ago. Now instead of saying can’t or cannot in my everyday language I say I canny!
the northern UK accents are actually accurate too and even in the fact a lot of northerners are seen on north sea oil rigs. i'm a geordie myself and really happy that we northerners finally get representation (with GREAT voice acting) in something
Don't stress your accent (I'm sure you don't), as another Scot I could hear it! We don't all have to sound like Rab C to be Scottish. Great review of a great game too! :)
Funnily enough, my gaming snobbiness, so to speak, lead me the other way. I was immediately intrigued by The Chinese Room’s output and wanted more. I didn’t get into _Amnesia_ before it’d already blown up and become almost synonymous with PewDi- actually, won’t say that name - and his imitators and their, to me, insufferableness. So _Amnesia_ was just too hyped for me to really get invested in to the degree so many others did. But I adored _A Machine for Pigs,_ not for its gameplay, but for its prose, music and voice acting. In a way it works better as an audiobook almost. Or a let’s play you have in the background. There’s something incredibly compelling about the writing and delivery, that very monied, old English tone. And similarly for the the anything-but ensemble of voices and accents in _Still Wakes the Deep._ I just want to listen to it
Wait, you hate elves TOO-
Subscribbled and added to highest tier of youtubber. Bless you for your good work
I will say the yellow paint work perfectly here. I’ve worked in a similar field and yeah all Important stuff is yellow
They also just added in a yellow paint remover option I think, so you can get rid of the environmental cues if you like.
The voice acting GODDAMN the voice acting in this game. Everything was stellar, but the voice acting made it all sound real to me
See that description of how people used to use the term walking simulator is somewhat inaccurate because those people did like niche games but only niche games they enjoyed (underrated masterpieces)
F.... RIP Benny Harvey, miss you big man.
It's sad to see people still use that term, walking simulator, in a derogatory way. Man I fkn love 'walking simulator' games, I'm almost 40 years old, seeing that a game will be a chill narrative experience gets me super excited. And yeah this game was phenomenal, so damn good from beginning to end. Was worried it'd flop so I'm happy to see nothing but praise for it. Going on a week since finishing and I can't stop thinking about it, so that says something about the impact this game had on me.
"i know i dont have the accent"
Yes you do. i can hear it anyway
Just finished playing Silent Hill 2 and me, being such a The Thing fan, bought the game yesterday, amazing game, as far as i am into the story. Also that joke at 4:05 made me crack up.
Say what you will about yellow paint but people like me are the reason it exists, i swear if the wheel in the re4 remakes ravine section didnt have yellow paint i wouldve never found it
> Brian Limond
I don't know why hearing Limmy's actual name caused me such upset, but it felt very wrong.
I just finished it last night, it was an awesome experience. Although not incredibly challenging, the story, setting, and lore is so good
accent seemed obviously scottish to me tbh. not a common one but its in the way you use your vowels. also "fucking yass man" made me choke on my dinner laughing
Honestly one of the best horror games we've had in a long time. Just finished it and already wish I could experience it for the first time again.
Honestly speaking- Chinese Room is the better side of walking sim games.
A lot tried less- like Bloober Team, who use the walkin sim genre as a crutch for narratives that smell like badly copied homework. And I will shit on Bloober even tho I'm from the same country as them, we can and have done better and by now having a Polish gamedev appear worldwide is not a national holiday anymore
And I am glad that the writer included relevant politics of the in the story- not in pandering way, but a worldbuilding way. It makes a historically anchored setting more real when you include these sorta things (In moderation and with so called grace- we don't want pandering or propaganda here mr /pol)
Plus- good balls on the writer to constrain themselves from overexplaining and overexposing the terror from the deep.
Afterall, even the Thing was not explain besides being from outer space, and The Thing (movie) is also character centric- mainly to get you in the brainspace of people who known each other for years now being pitted against each other because one of them is the impostor
Never heard of this game, but now damn right I'll try it out
Awesome review! Thank you!
finally someone mentioned annihilation in the references of the game I thought I was the only that think of it
7:40 Of all the places to have an issue with the so called yellow paint, industrial settings are usually not where that discussion belong unless it is done extremely poorly. That is a real life scenario where guilding paints and designs exist, and for multiple reasons including safety, and it should be piss easy for a game designer and level designers to integrate such things naturally into the game world. You want to mark places where people are supposed to walk, things that can and are likely to kill you unless handled expertly (and even then), what way to what part of the environment, etc. This is universal, just global best practices anyone with common sense will adopt, or anyone trying to minimize liability. There is a reason why in some places real life construction and demotion sites use paints to mark things, such as painting on the floor the path waterpipes and electric wiring goes, so your crew doesn't just dig through it and cause unecessary damages and issues, thus expenses.
The problem is when you have unorganic "environmental" guidance like paints in isolated cliffs you decided to climb but it is not a path anyone would care to signal in-universe, debris with pristine yellow paint in places it wouldn't have had when it was not debris, that sorta lazy non diagetic guidance that is just a bandaid put on top of confusng design to mitgate its flaws. That is the problem.
Yeah, I've seen people complain about all the yellow paint in this game, but when I played it, I actually really liked their use of it because it made sense in an industrial setting and made it so there didn't need to be a lot of unnecessary video-gamey visual cues like having constant UI markers and a huge quest list on the side. The game had an optional UI marker for every mission with an optional hint and yellow objects around the rig. Even the yellow paint cans worked in my opinion because if some of the yellow objects/lines were a fresh bright yellow, maybe they had been repainted recently. It felt like a good balance of meeting the realistic and down to earth atmosphere of the game while making navigation easier, especially in the dark.
SOMA is one of my favourite games ever, and I got heavy SOMA vibes here. I loved it.
I think there's a comparison to be made between walking simulators and visual novels.
A lot of visual novels and walking simulators aren't like, that great. There's a lot of stuff that is clearly quite amateur, or stuff that didn't have a lot of effort put in, and a lot of gamers say both "aren't even games"
But there's a lot of examples of both of these genres being, really great! Pathologic does have some combat and resource management stuff, but 95% of your time is spent walking from A to B and talking to people. for Visual Novels, stories like the House in Fata Morgana, The Silver Case (Suda51 is the goat), Higurashi and the sequel, Umineko, don't follow the dating sim style that most people think of when they think about visual novels.
Both of these are story focused games, and I think most gamers just, don't really want to engage with a story unless it gives them a lot to do.
still wakes the deep is going up in my list of 10/10 games, there are only 4 other games other than this i consider 10/10 and this is higher then a 10/10, this had been the best horror game iv ever played and it kinda saddens me considering how the horror genre is going its probably gonna take atleast 5-10 years until a new horror story game this good comes out again, it was a beautiful masterpiece