Correction: I called Mike Wilson (co-founder of Ion Storm and Devolver), Mark Wilson. His name is not Mark, it is in fact...Mike. I'll see you next year when I remake this video.
I wanted to say effectively the same. Like grim's videos have always been good but damnit they've gotten like WAY better in the last year or something. Always an event when a new grimbeard video comes out 🖤
The intro in which you play Darktide until it crashes and you move to something else is in fact the exact sequence of events that led me to watch this video.
You have successfully converted me from having no knowledge of this game to also being irritated that there hasn't been a sequel. Congratulations, I have joined you in this tar pit.
It hasn’t even been a month since I started watching your reviews, and I have been binge watching these. Your writing is so good and balanced with just the right amount of comedy. My favourite review is of Deus Ex. Thank you for the high quality content.
I've always liked the idea of worlds not having an overarching antagonist calling the shots. It's interesting to have a place where creatures are causing havoc simply because that's what they do. Thanks for the vid Grim Beard!
Ikr? They look even better on older hardware for some reason. You can get them to look a little better on newer systems by locking the framerate, but they look so much better on old hardware. Whoever saw this game back in the day must've done rapid spit-takes when they looked at the screen
@@RetroDeathReviews666 The thing that impressed me the most at the time was the realtime casting of shadows. I do not remember another game from that era that did them so, so well. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare tried its hand at it but really not as good.
@@forgot7en Right? In general even still imo, the game uses shadows to a genuine art form. It's up there with the likes of Thief Deadly Shadows, Doom 3, Blade of Darkness and some others that used some of the coolest looking shadows/lighting I've ever seen in games. Same with the blood, and the cloth physics (at least when they're not clipping and freaking out) I think Alone In The Dark NN looked great for the time too, but I agree, not quite as good as Nocturne.
@@RetroDeathReviews666 The thing that the Nocturne/Blair Witch trilogy engine does with its shadows looks so much more organic than TDS, D3 and BoD were rendering, and many other games In the next generation. Those games, while indeed dark and appealing, produced shadows that were too clean-cut. They generally also were, ironically, too dark, producing this harsh contrast, not just because they tended to be too dark and sometimes even pitch black, they also had very harsh edges. They looked like paper-cutouts of shadows, it's like the game is copying the original model and flattening it against surfaces to give the illusion of a shadow. But in the Nocturne engine, even though they are being rendered at a low resolution and appear pixelated, they seem so much more organic and dynamic. It really looks like there is a real light casting real shadows off of people, creatures, objects, etc, and the shadows themselves look soft and ethereal, as opposed to hard paper cutouts. It just feels so much more convincing and immersive to me. Those other games certainly still look fantastic in their own right, there's real artistry at work and I've always been someone who appreciates the artistry that goes into making dark environments look great. It's one of the reasons I love classic survival horror games, and it's so clear to me that Nocturne/Blair Witch games handled their visuals uniquely among their peers, and it took the industry quite some time to incorporate realtime shadows in the same way. Not that there weren't games that did it, for example Silent Hill 3 uses the same technique and does it even better. But looking at Resident Evil Code Veronica as a mainstream example, rendered shadows are limited. Often obvious light sources aren't even considered for rendering shadows at all. There could be huge fire next to you, and there's normal lighting, but a shadow of your character or enemies aren't being cast at all. Then there was RE4, which looked so flat even in its most eerie eras, and often the only shadows are literally blobs under their feet as if it's a PS1 game. Code Veronica actually looked so much better because it did have real time shadows, and it's one of the reasons the HD version looks so damn good, but it's a shame it wasn't universal or even consistent. You could walk into a brightly lit room, but shadows aren't being cast in the right direction. Sometimes a room or a hallway doesn't even appear to have any lamps or whatever, but it still looks relatively bright, and there's a cast shadow for no reason. Sometimes you're in a room with multiple obvious light sources but only one or two of them cast shadows. Sorry for rambling, I obviously pay way too much attention to this stuff lol
Thank you for all your hard work, dear GrimBeard. This one is close to my heart. Take good care, don't ever give up. Like your painted nails, they give character. From Corfu island, Greece, Merry Christmas.
This is genuinely the best written, funniest, most enjoyable video you've ever released, and I'm so looking forward to what you've got coming next. Keep up the great work Grim daddy!
Many years ago now, I discovered a goth gamer boy with a sleepy bird voice. He spoke very passionately about a game called Nocturne. It's been a while since then, and I've had a chance to watch this little goth gamer boy hone his craft. I can't wait to see what he does next.
Really glad to see a HD remake of this review!! Now an HD remake of the game itself wouldn't be *as* good, but still very welcome. I hope you'll look at the BWP game too :3
Dejavu.... I swear that Nocturne was the first Grimbeard review I ever watched. Its what put me onto this channel many YEARS ago! You had less than 5k subs and I remember being stoked when discovering such a super underrated quality gaming review channel.
@@GrimBeard I coulda swore a video on Nocturne was how I found your channel, but maybe it was a Strat-Edgy video and yours was in the suggested. Either way hell yea more GrimBeard
@@GrimBeard I'm also always discovering older reviews from you and then all of a sudden they're gone, you gotta be fuckin' with us. Either way, your vids and whole channel are one of a kind, keep it up!
I just had quadruple hernia surgery and am watching this from my hospital bed, wincing as my laughter pulls at my freshly-stitched wounds like a kid on Christmas. edit: it's great really. ty for this video grimbu
As someone who happened to have an embarrassingly long 1v1 struggle with a home invading bat, I appreciate Bat Round-ups. Because I discovered bat wrangling is it's own art form requiring more brain sweat than simple "shoo, go away!" tactics to be effective.
I checked to see if you made videos, I love seeing scientists showing their work & I hoped you had some bat videos. Just dropping this comment here in case you were thinking of making stuff for your channel. I'd love to see good bat content.
One game I hope you cover at some point is Urban Chaos, a 1999 proto GTA 3 Tomb Raider mix where you play a sassy black woman stereotype cop and a gruff middle aged vigilante trying to stop a gang connected to a cult led by an ancient warlock.
The story of Nocturne and the setting just sounds like such a good book idea, and it's so damn sad that there might never be a sequel. I've never heard about this game, nor played it, and yet the charm of the game is not lost on me. Great video!
I swear I have to be one of maybe two or three people that are still absolutely fascinated by the concepts brought forth by Nocturne and by extension the Blair Witch Volumes. A prohibition-era x-files-esque government department of monster hunters that work with monsters just SLAPS and I so freaking wish there were ways to dig into any old concepts that the devs surely left behind. Thank you for making this incredible video showcasing one of my faves
It's such a cool concept. The original FEAR game was supposed to follow up on a similar premise. Essentially a supernatural SWAT team that hunts down ghosts, vampires, and other crazy supernatural stuff. Like I know there plenty of works that establish this government sactioned organization, but I really want one that nails that "just another day on the job" vibe. No big bad guys, just a bunch of linked cases.
@@forgot7en Jumped the shark like so many other shows. Same problem Dragon Ball Z has. You start off with realistic enemies, but then your characters get too good at killing those and they wind up fighting stronger enemies, in the case of Supernatural it was full-on demons to angels, to archangels, Lucifer himself, then it just got worse from there. If they had shown that monsters were still a massive threat because of how numerous they were, I think they could have kept from escalating, but writers can't really do that. They need to one-up their last monster with something more dangerous.
I'm not prone to hyperbole, but that line "... with eyes that would soon have the power of one" at 18:10 made me actually spit out some of my coffee, and this coffee was expensive.
The cloth physics would've aged perfectly if there weren't any graphical/performance issues on current hardware. I never played Nocturne, but I played The Blair Witch Project Volumes 1-3 and everything stated here about the visuals is consistent in all four games, and to a certain extent BloodRayne too. The cloth physics and realtime rendered shadows were absolutely mind-blowing at the time! And the way the blood and gore are done, the way blood sprays and splatters and pools around is so god damn satisfying. It's one of those graphics engines that make you think "they were really ahead of its time" because a whole generation of gaming would go by before real time shadows became commonplace, and even then, most games' real time shadows still didn't look nearly as good as they did in TerminalReality title. And the cloth physics; oh my god. Footage recorded on current hardware really doesn't show how incredible they really are. Another feature which Grim Beard didn't mention here (maybe doesn't happen in Nocturne, but does in the Blair Witch trilogy) is how corpses will not only remain where you killed them, but also they will turn into 2D sprites when you go off-screen. When you come back you might not even notice it but even though they're 2D sprites THEY STILL CAST SHADOWS AS IF THEY WERE STILL 3D MODELS. It's like the game is turning corpses into objects dynamically just so it doesn't break continuity and immersion. They really didn't need to do that. I mean, compare it to Resident Evil 3, those graphics were so rudimentary and barebones, they didn't even bother with real time shadows. But TerminalReality were doing things that were not only graphically impressive for its time, it was absolutely perfectly suited for the genre, and as far as I can remember, there were no other games or series that put THIS MUCH attention to detail -- not in terms of models and textures, but the physics of how these graphics interacted with each other. Cloth physics interact almost perfectly with the character model, blood is so satisfyingly rendered, shadows are beautifully cast, lighting and lens flares perfectly emulating how flashlights look in dark and misty environments, holy balls. It's ridiculous to me that in the classic survival horror genre, everyone always talks about Resident Evil, Silent Hill, maybe Alone in the Dark and even Parasite Eve, but if there's another game that deserves just as much praise and appreciation is definitely The Blair Witch Project Volume I Rustin Parr, and arguably also Volume II The Legend of Coffin Rock. AMAZING horror games, man, with phenomenal voice acting and great storytelling. Volume III was not as good though. It was bad. Very bad. But that graphics engine, man. Oh man.
I fall asleep to your videos every night, but now I watch them during the day while gaming too because they've gotten so good. Eventually your voice will replace the voices of all the demons in my head!
I actually shouted at my TV when you said you were covering The Darkness next. I'm too cheap to be a Patreon and suggest that one myself, so I'm glad someone else did. But I will be sipping piss out of my fancy new Grimbeard mug while I watch the next review.
As always another video game immersive analysis (review just doesnt cut it) pouring with unique style and particular choice of topics that end up being highly entertaining. I might start painting my nails, black, just as a way to say you are doing a great job man!
This is one of those games that I always wanted to play. I had a demo of it, but at the time, my PC wasn't up to the task. The concept of it always sparked my imagination though in the same way that the SCP foundation and the Hellboy comics do now. Makes me want to build what would have been a top end PC for say 2000 just for this kind of thing without having to mess with VMs or weird arcane patches. As usual Grim, great editing, great humour, great music, great video!
Incredible video, my dude. The pace between "setups", substantial information, quick puns and "payouts" to more elaborate jokes is top tier. Your writing skills are through the roof. Really hope you are proud and accomplished, because you deserve to feel like so.
They are not almost completely separate from each other, Nocturne and Rustin Parr are literally in the same setting. BloodRayne is the only one that seems detached at first, but if you pay attention to dialog, both Rayne and Mynce literally work for Spookhouse, and to a point Rayne believes she's being helped by Darkman over radio transmissions.
@@forgot7en No, they work for the Brimstone Society, a different, more ''esoterical'' order of supernatural hunters, they do however go to Castle Gaustadt, seeking for the Yathgy stone, now revealed to be the heart of a very ancient and powerful devil, Hedrox steals the relic from the Mayor (Count Voicu) and kills him, also he wrongly uses the relic, maybe the same way the mayor expected his son to do (ressurrecting the devil and dying in the process). TLDR: it's in the same universe, different organization, same Castle, Vampire Lord and Relic from Nocturne's First Act.
Oh boy, another Grimbeard banger video to sit down and watch with tea and snacks. Legitimately one of my favorite content creators on the internet, and inspiring me to get off my ass and make stuff too. Let's go.
The old review of Nocturne was fine, but this new re-review of Nocturne is entirely justified by (if nothing else) the fact that it reveals the Wishbone - Nocturne connection. Is the hyper intelligent dog Wishbone some sort of paranormal creature that Spookhouse will someday hunt down, or is Spookhouse (and perhaps all of our reality) nothing more than the mental construct of a bookish Jack Russell Terrier? I hope Nightdive Studios insists that this key question is addressed when it bankrolls Nocturne 2.
You're one of my favourite game reviewers out there and I regularly re-watch your whole output. Thanks for all the work you do. I especially love the shift you've made over time to opening each video by exploring the history and previous works of the developers who created the game, and the initial pitch that led to it. A lot of gaming essays default to just explaining the context of the time and genre in which a game RELEASED, which is good for understanding how audiences reacted to it but IMO, is the wrong foot to start on when picking apart what the game is going for and the decisions that were made along the way. Starting out with that perspective, and then explaining fully what the story of a game is before diving into the gameplay or technical aspects, is what gives your videos a really unique perspective. Where, regardless of whether you end up liking a game, you give each one the chance to speak for itself and show off whatever creative spark is unique to it, rather than comparing it against our unspoken collective standards for whatever a game in its genre should be.
I haven't played most of these games, but this guy's work is top notch - the intros, music, commentary. Have this Content Creator of the Year award - 🏆
One of those games that lived in the imagination for years thanks to a guidebook I had for it found in an old gaming magazine, before I finally played it and it lived up to it perfectly. That we never got more will always be a shame.
Also the story of you finding the game in a store randomly as a child, not knowing anything about it before but being enthralled by it is both nostalgic and a bit sad, because I don't think that sort of thing is really possible these days. That sort of serendipitous find of stumbling on something that so nichely appeals to you in your average shop just seems impossible.
Whether I'm interested in the game being reviewed or not, I'm excited about every video you upload. I love your writing, enjoy your takes, and adore your sense of humour.
Nocturne was badass in its day.... Loved every minute of it.....for me at the time it was super cutting edge with how it played. Would be a perfect new redux for pc etc.
You deserve billions of views, naturally, but I love the cozy feeling of your videos and community. Its like that great local spot not many people know about.
Thank you for covering this game with such passion as mine for this game, R.I.P. Lynn Mathis, the voice of Stranger. Played back in 1999 when it wasw released, I was 23, there was no much coverage on UA-cam about this until I found your video :))
Such a gem of a game. So glad you decided to remake this review, even better than your original one. That one was what got me into the game. And inspired me to make my own review a few weeks ago ;P
I thought that was a weird coincidence. I think a collab is in order in the future :) Fan of both channels, looking forward to seeing more game vids buddy 🤘
Grim, I think you might enjoy the vibe of The Secret World/Legends. Very similar themes a secret society covertly working to thwart supernatural horrors, and it has some puzzle game elements. Great narrative and atmosphere, awful gameplay however. Anyway, if you're interested I'd recommend checking it out soon before it is inevitably shut down.
I really like this redux review, I'm all for you reviewing whatever the hell you want, but I just want to put out there that a ridiculously in depth Harvester redux review would be right up my alley. :D Keep on gothin', John Grimbeard.
I still remember both times I tried to run this game on a "modern" computer. There was a time I had to install it using safe mode, in another one I've used a virtual machine with WinXP, then moved the game folder out of the VM. The Blair Witch trilogy somehow is even worse to run.
I found this channel on the 6th of December and am convinced these here videos are my personal christmas gift. I hope Para-Pug remembers the memory of cold and that he gets a blanket.
Nitedive is one of those wishlist devs for a new Nocturne that I feel a sense of foreboding as much as excitement at the possibility. That developer always does such an incredible job with the games they somehow resurrect through whatever arcane dark magic that goes into making games. They also absolutely will not stop slamming their heads into a project for however long it might take until a game reaches a state they could deem as acceptable and ready for release. Likely some sort of possession going on there, I've seen it happen a million times. I'm still hopeful that their System Shock game will eventually see the light of day, and if that is a home run then perhaps we should all just hit them up on Twitter and beg as hard as possible as one gigantic, incessant gamer voice.
you've improved and honed your skill at making these videos that you've vaulted past 97% of other similar content creators. I mean you're up there with the big boys now, Sseth, Yahtzee and Action Button
1:13:55 In Batman Arkham Knight, the physics programmer apparently spent a LOT of time to get Batman's cape physics just right. It paid off! It acts great!
In my experience as a kid in the 90s, everyone hated tank controls and static cameras in all of these games. It was just something we put up with. Some people hated it more than others, but I never remember anyone actually saying these things were actually good back then.
Man, I love hearing Grim get excited about shit I never would have ever heard about without him. Also, I love how that "damn, he won't be in Rush Hour 3" blooper joke is just a thing that everyone of a certain age knows.
I was a young teen when this came out and my brother in law and I were absolutely blown away by the lighting physics in this. There was a time when that kind of shit was enough to blow you away... take it all for granted you Gen 💤
Had to come back here after Blair Witch. My god, the memories you brought back. I completely forget this gem existed!!! Also brought back memories of another game I liked very much. Any chance we can get your review on The Devil Inside?
12-year-old me got this game just based on how moody and creepy the cover art was. It ran like crap on my parents' PC but I was totally smitten with the idea of the Spookhouse and all their pulpy adventures. Nice to see such a well-done video essay on Nocturne.
Have you thought about diving into the HUNTER series from og xbox and playstation. CooP Horror I loved from my childhood of.. questionable quality at times emulated.
Grim (or someone knowledgeable) PLEASE tell me what song is playing at 40:00. It's so good, it lives rent free in my head. I checked both albums, bandcamp, soundcloud, can't find it. I NEED IT, please.
HOLY SSHIT!! I was trying to remember the name of this game, searching lists of every game eer released on PC between 98 and 99, never finding it! This as one of the first PC games I bought with my Voodoo3, alongside Unreal and Half Life. This game had realtime shadows and clothing physics, it was a huge deal lol. Ive wanted to replay this game for YEARS where the fuck is it?! I remember a friend who got me into Resident Evil, it was his favorite game. When we were 13 he helped me pick out the best graphics card and showed me how to install it. He once said that going home to play RE on PSX was jarring after playing nocturne lol
Hey @GrimBeard , I still have my copy for PC. I remember seeing it in my local Electronics Boutique when I was picking up a keyboard and mouse for my Dreamcasts webbrowser2.0. the box art was what sold me, so I sprang for the clams to try her out. I was 12, I believe.
Its so crazy I've played most of the games you've reviewed. These videos transport me back to my pc gamer days, couple friends and me staring at the glowing CRT, waiting to be amazed by that new game. I kept a pentium 4 with winxp and couple CRTs so I can relive all that, but its just not like that anymore. Shitty world has changed, music is crap, friends are now old geezers, i've got kids n stuff, no amount of blunts can change that. But yeah, watching these vids somehow does the trick, so TLDR, thanks for these.
Speaking of amazing licenses just wasting away, I would die for a Vampire Hunter D game with this sort of visual styling and episodic storytelling based on each of the novels.
Great content as always. Some of the best on UA-cam, and in general! I might have said it before. But you should check out Soul Reaver if you haven't played it before. Its kind of a sequel and part of the Legacy of Kain series. But it doesen't require to have played the previous game to understand the story. I think you'll like it, and the entire Legacy of kain series for that matter:)
So, is Clive Barker's Jericho on the table for a review? The D.O.W. was the modern (for the time) Spookhouse. He already made a joke about how he'd trade in life in exchange for a copy that has a dozen other retail chains' price tags on it!
This game deserves the Nightdive treatment with improved compatibility, polished gameplay, upresed Stranger's coat and hopefully lower fall damage. I mean Jesus, my grandma can survive higher jumps than that.
The song "Fading" in Act 3 was actually performed over the phone by Mary Beth Brooks. I don't know if that's an interesting fact but I know this is the only opportunity I'll ever have to share it.
Great video, but unfortunately you made the grave mistake of not calling it "Bat *Bound* Up" and making a poo-poo fart constipation joke, so I've been forced to permanently unsubscribe and report the channel for fraud. Good day.
Could I get some subtitles for Parapug? His audio's a bit too digitized for me to make it out clearly. Also I really hope you review the Blair Witch games at some point Grim Beard. I remember them being kinda interesting!
the "doing weird things to try and save scripted to die NPC's in 2000s games" is something i feel can bring generations together i remember i once figured out in the offical star wars episode III video game, in the mission when anakin goes to Mustafar, you can spare the techno union guy if you kill all the other seperatist leaders in a specific order, dor some reason it just skips to the cutscene as if you got them all
I was skeptical when I saw that you revisited one of my favorite reviews of yours, but I've got to say that this version is even better and more insightful than the last.
Correction: I called Mike Wilson (co-founder of Ion Storm and Devolver), Mark Wilson. His name is not Mark, it is in fact...Mike. I'll see you next year when I remake this video.
Merry Christmas, I hope your doing well.
Best Wishes to from germany in this dark time. Hope you have your stash of kickstart orange citrus and everything else you need.
Oh thank god.
I was wondering how I'd get my next Nocturne fix.
oh Hi Mark
Check The Devil Inside game. It's almost completely forgotten (only a few gameplays on yt) but I think you may like it in some weird way a lot
I don't know how you do it, but you consistently have some of the best writing anyone puts out on this strange platform. Editing always on point too.
Thanks hehe 👉👈
It's his giant... manhood
Came here to say the same just after the intro. Loved the "writing class" joke right after the awkward exposition/flashback dump. Slayed me.
Not to mention, just everything about Parapug speaks to some genius world building skills
I wanted to say effectively the same. Like grim's videos have always been good but damnit they've gotten like WAY better in the last year or something. Always an event when a new grimbeard video comes out 🖤
The intro in which you play Darktide until it crashes and you move to something else is in fact the exact sequence of events that led me to watch this video.
Karmic resolution
A common tale, I'm sure
You have successfully converted me from having no knowledge of this game to also being irritated that there hasn't been a sequel. Congratulations, I have joined you in this tar pit.
It hasn’t even been a month since I started watching your reviews, and I have been binge watching these. Your writing is so good and balanced with just the right amount of comedy. My favourite review is of Deus Ex. Thank you for the high quality content.
Yo me too! I love this guy.
same here ... but you know he is crazy no doubt about it, its not just an act ...
I've always liked the idea of worlds not having an overarching antagonist calling the shots. It's interesting to have a place where creatures are causing havoc simply because that's what they do.
Thanks for the vid Grim Beard!
Yeah, I like monsters that are just a part of the (super)natural world like they are sentient creatures with their own lives outside of the story.
Those cloth/trenchcoat physics have actually aged really well.
Ikr? They look even better on older hardware for some reason.
You can get them to look a little better on newer systems by locking the framerate, but they look so much better on old hardware. Whoever saw this game back in the day must've done rapid spit-takes when they looked at the screen
@@RetroDeathReviews666 The thing that impressed me the most at the time was the realtime casting of shadows. I do not remember another game from that era that did them so, so well. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare tried its hand at it but really not as good.
@@forgot7en Right? In general even still imo, the game uses shadows to a genuine art form. It's up there with the likes of Thief Deadly Shadows, Doom 3, Blade of Darkness and some others that used some of the coolest looking shadows/lighting I've ever seen in games. Same with the blood, and the cloth physics (at least when they're not clipping and freaking out)
I think Alone In The Dark NN looked great for the time too, but I agree, not quite as good as Nocturne.
@@RetroDeathReviews666 The thing that the Nocturne/Blair Witch trilogy engine does with its shadows looks so much more organic than TDS, D3 and BoD were rendering, and many other games In the next generation. Those games, while indeed dark and appealing, produced shadows that were too clean-cut. They generally also were, ironically, too dark, producing this harsh contrast, not just because they tended to be too dark and sometimes even pitch black, they also had very harsh edges. They looked like paper-cutouts of shadows, it's like the game is copying the original model and flattening it against surfaces to give the illusion of a shadow.
But in the Nocturne engine, even though they are being rendered at a low resolution and appear pixelated, they seem so much more organic and dynamic. It really looks like there is a real light casting real shadows off of people, creatures, objects, etc, and the shadows themselves look soft and ethereal, as opposed to hard paper cutouts. It just feels so much more convincing and immersive to me.
Those other games certainly still look fantastic in their own right, there's real artistry at work and I've always been someone who appreciates the artistry that goes into making dark environments look great. It's one of the reasons I love classic survival horror games, and it's so clear to me that Nocturne/Blair Witch games handled their visuals uniquely among their peers, and it took the industry quite some time to incorporate realtime shadows in the same way.
Not that there weren't games that did it, for example Silent Hill 3 uses the same technique and does it even better. But looking at Resident Evil Code Veronica as a mainstream example, rendered shadows are limited. Often obvious light sources aren't even considered for rendering shadows at all. There could be huge fire next to you, and there's normal lighting, but a shadow of your character or enemies aren't being cast at all. Then there was RE4, which looked so flat even in its most eerie eras, and often the only shadows are literally blobs under their feet as if it's a PS1 game. Code Veronica actually looked so much better because it did have real time shadows, and it's one of the reasons the HD version looks so damn good, but it's a shame it wasn't universal or even consistent. You could walk into a brightly lit room, but shadows aren't being cast in the right direction. Sometimes a room or a hallway doesn't even appear to have any lamps or whatever, but it still looks relatively bright, and there's a cast shadow for no reason. Sometimes you're in a room with multiple obvious light sources but only one or two of them cast shadows.
Sorry for rambling, I obviously pay way too much attention to this stuff lol
Yep, it was very close to what we're now accustomed to. Incredible work.
Thank you for all your hard work, dear GrimBeard. This one is close to my heart. Take good care, don't ever give up. Like your painted nails, they give character. From Corfu island, Greece, Merry Christmas.
We(the fans) are still watching for this game to come back :(.
This is genuinely the best written, funniest, most enjoyable video you've ever released, and I'm so looking forward to what you've got coming next. Keep up the great work Grim daddy!
Seconded. This vid was goddamn excellent.
ONFG.
This channel helps me remember why I love video games, in a era where it’s really easy to forget. Thanks Grim.
Excellent review man!
Ah, so it's going to be a *good* day
A damn Good Day!
always my reaction when I see
new hour long grim videos
Many years ago now, I discovered a goth gamer boy with a sleepy bird voice. He spoke very passionately about a game called Nocturne. It's been a while since then, and I've had a chance to watch this little goth gamer boy hone his craft. I can't wait to see what he does next.
That isn't a sleepy bird voice, that is a gay sassy autist voice.
this comment
Really glad to see a HD remake of this review!!
Now an HD remake of the game itself wouldn't be *as* good, but still very welcome. I hope you'll look at the BWP game too :3
Dejavu.... I swear that Nocturne was the first Grimbeard review I ever watched. Its what put me onto this channel many YEARS ago! You had less than 5k subs and I remember being stoked when discovering such a super underrated quality gaming review channel.
did I do this one before? 🤔
@@GrimBeard I coulda swore a video on Nocturne was how I found your channel, but maybe it was a Strat-Edgy video and yours was in the suggested.
Either way hell yea more GrimBeard
@@GrimBeard I'm also always discovering older reviews from you and then all of a sudden they're gone, you gotta be fuckin' with us.
Either way, your vids and whole channel are one of a kind, keep it up!
Ah man my first video of his was Bloodrayne, I remember it clearly. Good times.
He talked about it and showed some game play footage maybe that's what causes your deja vu.
I just had quadruple hernia surgery and am watching this from my hospital bed, wincing as my laughter pulls at my freshly-stitched wounds like a kid on Christmas.
edit: it's great really. ty for this video grimbu
As a wildlife biologist that studies bats, the bat roundup made me very pleased
As someone who happened to have an embarrassingly long 1v1 struggle with a home invading bat, I appreciate Bat Round-ups. Because I discovered bat wrangling is it's own art form requiring more brain sweat than simple "shoo, go away!" tactics to be effective.
As someone who once shat into a jar and then mixed it up with some sugar and vinegar I strongly recommend to all who would listen: don't try it.
That sounds like a cool job. I'd be so excited to say what my job is if that was my job
I checked to see if you made videos, I love seeing scientists showing their work & I hoped you had some bat videos. Just dropping this comment here in case you were thinking of making stuff for your channel. I'd love to see good bat content.
There's quite a bit of bat content if you like Rollercoasters of the suspended kind.
One game I hope you cover at some point is Urban Chaos, a 1999 proto GTA 3 Tomb Raider mix where you play a sassy black woman stereotype cop and a gruff middle aged vigilante trying to stop a gang connected to a cult led by an ancient warlock.
That sounds like madness, I'm in.
The history of that Roosevelt guy actually had me laughing out loud. Loved it
He would have been a doctor if he hadn't been dying of polio all the time.
@@Bhazor He stopped doing that in 1863
It makes me happy to see Nocturne still remembered even to this day. Well done Grim! Well done!
@GrimBeard12 Wow! Ok! Thanks!
The story of Nocturne and the setting just sounds like such a good book idea, and it's so damn sad that there might never be a sequel. I've never heard about this game, nor played it, and yet the charm of the game is not lost on me. Great video!
God, this game is sick as shit.
There’s GOTTA be some freak at Nightdive who wants to remaster this, right?
I swear I have to be one of maybe two or three people that are still absolutely fascinated by the concepts brought forth by Nocturne and by extension the Blair Witch Volumes. A prohibition-era x-files-esque government department of monster hunters that work with monsters just SLAPS and I so freaking wish there were ways to dig into any old concepts that the devs surely left behind. Thank you for making this incredible video showcasing one of my faves
It's absolutely criminal that this franchise died with a wimper. I want to see Spookhouse and Doc Holliday again, man.
It's such a cool concept. The original FEAR game was supposed to follow up on a similar premise. Essentially a supernatural SWAT team that hunts down ghosts, vampires, and other crazy supernatural stuff. Like I know there plenty of works that establish this government sactioned organization, but I really want one that nails that "just another day on the job" vibe. No big bad guys, just a bunch of linked cases.
@@combatbenyamin That kind of used to be Supernatural with the Winchester Brothers before the show went biblical.
@@forgot7en Jumped the shark like so many other shows. Same problem Dragon Ball Z has. You start off with realistic enemies, but then your characters get too good at killing those and they wind up fighting stronger enemies, in the case of Supernatural it was full-on demons to angels, to archangels, Lucifer himself, then it just got worse from there.
If they had shown that monsters were still a massive threat because of how numerous they were, I think they could have kept from escalating, but writers can't really do that. They need to one-up their last monster with something more dangerous.
I'm not prone to hyperbole, but that line "... with eyes that would soon have the power of one" at 18:10 made me actually spit out some of my coffee, and this coffee was expensive.
(villainous laughter)
I swear I remember this being one of the first videos I ever seen of yours. Thanks for the review!
I know. Maybe it was Civvi?
modelo effect
@@GrimBeard based beer
The cloth physics would've aged perfectly if there weren't any graphical/performance issues on current hardware. I never played Nocturne, but I played The Blair Witch Project Volumes 1-3 and everything stated here about the visuals is consistent in all four games, and to a certain extent BloodRayne too. The cloth physics and realtime rendered shadows were absolutely mind-blowing at the time! And the way the blood and gore are done, the way blood sprays and splatters and pools around is so god damn satisfying. It's one of those graphics engines that make you think "they were really ahead of its time" because a whole generation of gaming would go by before real time shadows became commonplace, and even then, most games' real time shadows still didn't look nearly as good as they did in TerminalReality title. And the cloth physics; oh my god. Footage recorded on current hardware really doesn't show how incredible they really are.
Another feature which Grim Beard didn't mention here (maybe doesn't happen in Nocturne, but does in the Blair Witch trilogy) is how corpses will not only remain where you killed them, but also they will turn into 2D sprites when you go off-screen. When you come back you might not even notice it but even though they're 2D sprites THEY STILL CAST SHADOWS AS IF THEY WERE STILL 3D MODELS. It's like the game is turning corpses into objects dynamically just so it doesn't break continuity and immersion. They really didn't need to do that. I mean, compare it to Resident Evil 3, those graphics were so rudimentary and barebones, they didn't even bother with real time shadows. But TerminalReality were doing things that were not only graphically impressive for its time, it was absolutely perfectly suited for the genre, and as far as I can remember, there were no other games or series that put THIS MUCH attention to detail -- not in terms of models and textures, but the physics of how these graphics interacted with each other. Cloth physics interact almost perfectly with the character model, blood is so satisfyingly rendered, shadows are beautifully cast, lighting and lens flares perfectly emulating how flashlights look in dark and misty environments, holy balls.
It's ridiculous to me that in the classic survival horror genre, everyone always talks about Resident Evil, Silent Hill, maybe Alone in the Dark and even Parasite Eve, but if there's another game that deserves just as much praise and appreciation is definitely The Blair Witch Project Volume I Rustin Parr, and arguably also Volume II The Legend of Coffin Rock. AMAZING horror games, man, with phenomenal voice acting and great storytelling.
Volume III was not as good though. It was bad. Very bad. But that graphics engine, man. Oh man.
I fall asleep to your videos every night, but now I watch them during the day while gaming too because they've gotten so good.
Eventually your voice will replace the voices of all the demons in my head!
I worked hard to emotionally prepare myself, but 24 seconds in I'm already having to pause cause I was laughing too hard.
I actually shouted at my TV when you said you were covering The Darkness next. I'm too cheap to be a Patreon and suggest that one myself, so I'm glad someone else did. But I will be sipping piss out of my fancy new Grimbeard mug while I watch the next review.
As always another video game immersive analysis (review just doesnt cut it) pouring with unique style and particular choice of topics that end up being highly entertaining.
I might start painting my nails, black, just as a way to say you are doing a great job man!
This is one of those games that I always wanted to play. I had a demo of it, but at the time, my PC wasn't up to the task. The concept of it always sparked my imagination though in the same way that the SCP foundation and the Hellboy comics do now. Makes me want to build what would have been a top end PC for say 2000 just for this kind of thing without having to mess with VMs or weird arcane patches. As usual Grim, great editing, great humour, great music, great video!
Incredible video, my dude. The pace between "setups", substantial information, quick puns and "payouts" to more elaborate jokes is top tier. Your writing skills are through the roof. Really hope you are proud and accomplished, because you deserve to feel like so.
The Goth Gamer himself comes at us with yet another masterpiece
I kinda love how TR stealthily built an interconnected universe over three different franchises almost completely separate from each other.
They are not almost completely separate from each other, Nocturne and Rustin Parr are literally in the same setting. BloodRayne is the only one that seems detached at first, but if you pay attention to dialog, both Rayne and Mynce literally work for Spookhouse, and to a point Rayne believes she's being helped by Darkman over radio transmissions.
@@forgot7en No, they work for the Brimstone Society, a different, more ''esoterical'' order of supernatural hunters, they do however go to Castle Gaustadt, seeking for the Yathgy stone, now revealed to be the heart of a very ancient and powerful devil, Hedrox steals the relic from the Mayor (Count Voicu) and kills him, also he wrongly uses the relic, maybe the same way the mayor expected his son to do (ressurrecting the devil and dying in the process).
TLDR: it's in the same universe, different organization, same Castle, Vampire Lord and Relic from Nocturne's First Act.
@@harbinger7115 There's so many layers!!
Oh boy, another Grimbeard banger video to sit down and watch with tea and snacks. Legitimately one of my favorite content creators on the internet, and inspiring me to get off my ass and make stuff too. Let's go.
The old review of Nocturne was fine, but this new re-review of Nocturne is entirely justified by (if nothing else) the fact that it reveals the Wishbone - Nocturne connection. Is the hyper intelligent dog Wishbone some sort of paranormal creature that Spookhouse will someday hunt down, or is Spookhouse (and perhaps all of our reality) nothing more than the mental construct of a bookish Jack Russell Terrier? I hope Nightdive Studios insists that this key question is addressed when it bankrolls Nocturne 2.
Warhammer 1 through 39,999 lmfao 😂
The gravity boss is BRUTAL in this game.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're going to fall off a ledge or not. The unusual camera angles can be a real pain in the ass.
You're one of my favourite game reviewers out there and I regularly re-watch your whole output. Thanks for all the work you do.
I especially love the shift you've made over time to opening each video by exploring the history and previous works of the developers who created the game, and the initial pitch that led to it. A lot of gaming essays default to just explaining the context of the time and genre in which a game RELEASED, which is good for understanding how audiences reacted to it but IMO, is the wrong foot to start on when picking apart what the game is going for and the decisions that were made along the way.
Starting out with that perspective, and then explaining fully what the story of a game is before diving into the gameplay or technical aspects, is what gives your videos a really unique perspective. Where, regardless of whether you end up liking a game, you give each one the chance to speak for itself and show off whatever creative spark is unique to it, rather than comparing it against our unspoken collective standards for whatever a game in its genre should be.
This games lore and story is so good in a weird way. I need more
I haven't played most of these games, but this guy's work is top notch - the intros, music, commentary. Have this Content Creator of the Year award - 🏆
One of those games that lived in the imagination for years thanks to a guidebook I had for it found in an old gaming magazine, before I finally played it and it lived up to it perfectly. That we never got more will always be a shame.
Also the story of you finding the game in a store randomly as a child, not knowing anything about it before but being enthralled by it is both nostalgic and a bit sad, because I don't think that sort of thing is really possible these days. That sort of serendipitous find of stumbling on something that so nichely appeals to you in your average shop just seems impossible.
Whether I'm interested in the game being reviewed or not, I'm excited about every video you upload. I love your writing, enjoy your takes, and adore your sense of humour.
I press button because there. Looking forward to the video.
To me this channel is what nocturne is to you, never found anything else with the same great vibes
Excellent way of putting it yeah
Based take
This video is singlehandedly getting me through my night shift, thank you for your hard work!
Daaaamn Nocturne. When I was a kid this game was like the peak realism in games.My PC barely run it but the mood and atmosphere were incredible
Nocturne was badass in its day.... Loved every minute of it.....for me at the time it was super cutting edge with how it played. Would be a perfect new redux for pc etc.
You deserve billions of views, naturally, but I love the cozy feeling of your videos and community. Its like that great local spot not many people know about.
Just imagine Nocturne remaster in the fashion how Resident Evil 2-3 were remastered... that'd be a dream
..and with stil no ending?
Thank you for covering this game with such passion as mine for this game, R.I.P. Lynn Mathis, the voice of Stranger.
Played back in 1999 when it wasw released, I was 23, there was no much coverage on UA-cam about this until I found your video :))
my favourite ytuber uploads and my birthday?? epic
Such a gem of a game. So glad you decided to remake this review, even better than your original one. That one was what got me into the game. And inspired me to make my own review a few weeks ago ;P
I thought that was a weird coincidence. I think a collab is in order in the future :) Fan of both channels, looking forward to seeing more game vids buddy 🤘
Only content producer that can hold a candle to Noah Caldwell's essays. Thank you for this marvelous video you beautiful human being
Grim you definitely have a talent for writing, thanks for making these.
Grim, I think you might enjoy the vibe of The Secret World/Legends. Very similar themes a secret society covertly working to thwart supernatural horrors, and it has some puzzle game elements. Great narrative and atmosphere, awful gameplay however.
Anyway, if you're interested I'd recommend checking it out soon before it is inevitably shut down.
I really like this redux review, I'm all for you reviewing whatever the hell you want, but I just want to put out there that a ridiculously in depth Harvester redux review would be right up my alley. :D Keep on gothin', John Grimbeard.
I still remember both times I tried to run this game on a "modern" computer. There was a time I had to install it using safe mode, in another one I've used a virtual machine with WinXP, then moved the game folder out of the VM.
The Blair Witch trilogy somehow is even worse to run.
The restraint it must have taken to not mention Twin Peaks when a military guy called Briggs showed up. Proud of you
Your oddball delivery is honestly super disarming and always gets a chuckle out of me
I'm glad ParaPug is doing... doing.
The Scully joke got you a sub, and I'm leaving a comment because I know that everyone takes my opinion very seriously.
I found this channel on the 6th of December and am convinced these here videos are my personal christmas gift.
I hope Para-Pug remembers the memory of cold and that he gets a blanket.
Thank you for featuring this game, thought I might have hallucinated it.
Nitedive is one of those wishlist devs for a new Nocturne that I feel a sense of foreboding as much as excitement at the possibility. That developer always does such an incredible job with the games they somehow resurrect through whatever arcane dark magic that goes into making games. They also absolutely will not stop slamming their heads into a project for however long it might take until a game reaches a state they could deem as acceptable and ready for release. Likely some sort of possession going on there, I've seen it happen a million times. I'm still hopeful that their System Shock game will eventually see the light of day, and if that is a home run then perhaps we should all just hit them up on Twitter and beg as hard as possible as one gigantic, incessant gamer voice.
True shame about Darktide, cuz that game is so funnnnnn!!! 💔
Raiders of the lost arc had a warehouse too, never has a warehouse been so intresting to a ten year old child, wierd
you've improved and honed your skill at making these videos that you've vaulted past 97% of other similar content creators. I mean you're up there with the big boys now, Sseth, Yahtzee and Action Button
1:13:55 In Batman Arkham Knight, the physics programmer apparently spent a LOT of time to get Batman's cape physics just right. It paid off! It acts great!
Interesting to see a more longer and deeper review of this game.
The italian voice acting of this game is nothing short of _legendary_
Vero, ero abbastanza estasiata dal doppiaggio dello Straniero. Un po' meno da alcuni personaggi secondari.
In my experience as a kid in the 90s, everyone hated tank controls and static cameras in all of these games. It was just something we put up with. Some people hated it more than others, but I never remember anyone actually saying these things were actually good back then.
These were the same people calling Wind Waker 'kiddy' because of the art style.
I definitely heard people saying that it made things more tense in Silent Hill and helped make Harry feel like he wasn't an action hero.
It's because you were a kid in the 90s and not in your 20s
Everything you described liking about this game's story is exactly what i love about the original Hellboy comics.
Was having a bummer of a birthday, this really made my day. Thanks, Grim
Happy Birthday!!!
Happy Birthday!!!
Man, I love hearing Grim get excited about shit I never would have ever heard about without him.
Also, I love how that "damn, he won't be in Rush Hour 3" blooper joke is just a thing that everyone of a certain age knows.
I was a young teen when this came out and my brother in law and I were absolutely blown away by the lighting physics in this. There was a time when that kind of shit was enough to blow you away... take it all for granted you Gen 💤
Had to come back here after Blair Witch. My god, the memories you brought back. I completely forget this gem existed!!! Also brought back memories of another game I liked very much. Any chance we can get your review on The Devil Inside?
Now this is my shit, thanks for the heads up I gotta play this game.
I haven't watched the whole video yet but seeing some coverage over Terminal Velocity makes me giggle. That game was very fun.
12-year-old me got this game just based on how moody and creepy the cover art was. It ran like crap on my parents' PC but I was totally smitten with the idea of the Spookhouse and all their pulpy adventures. Nice to see such a well-done video essay on Nocturne.
Have you thought about diving into the HUNTER series from og xbox and playstation. CooP Horror I loved from my childhood of.. questionable quality at times emulated.
Grim (or someone knowledgeable) PLEASE tell me what song is playing at 40:00. It's so good, it lives rent free in my head. I checked both albums, bandcamp, soundcloud, can't find it. I NEED IT, please.
HOLY SSHIT!! I was trying to remember the name of this game, searching lists of every game eer released on PC between 98 and 99, never finding it! This as one of the first PC games I bought with my Voodoo3, alongside Unreal and Half Life. This game had realtime shadows and clothing physics, it was a huge deal lol. Ive wanted to replay this game for YEARS where the fuck is it?!
I remember a friend who got me into Resident Evil, it was his favorite game. When we were 13 he helped me pick out the best graphics card and showed me how to install it. He once said that going home to play RE on PSX was jarring after playing nocturne lol
that intro with darktide is total mood, fatshark please fix
Hey @GrimBeard , I still have my copy for PC. I remember seeing it in my local Electronics Boutique when I was picking up a keyboard and mouse for my Dreamcasts webbrowser2.0. the box art was what sold me, so I sprang for the clams to try her out. I was 12, I believe.
Its so crazy I've played most of the games you've reviewed. These videos transport me back to my pc gamer days, couple friends and me staring at the glowing CRT, waiting to be amazed by that new game. I kept a pentium 4 with winxp and couple CRTs so I can relive all that, but its just not like that anymore. Shitty world has changed, music is crap, friends are now old geezers, i've got kids n stuff, no amount of blunts can change that. But yeah, watching these vids somehow does the trick, so TLDR, thanks for these.
"Much like the trunk of a Hollywood executive's car, it's just FULL of dead miners/minors" That shit killed me dude, I'm dead now, RIPperoni
Speaking of amazing licenses just wasting away, I would die for a Vampire Hunter D game with this sort of visual styling and episodic storytelling based on each of the novels.
Great content as always. Some of the best on UA-cam, and in general!
I might have said it before. But you should check out Soul Reaver if you haven't played it before. Its kind of a sequel and part of the Legacy of Kain series. But it doesen't require to have played the previous game to understand the story. I think you'll like it, and the entire Legacy of kain series for that matter:)
So, is Clive Barker's Jericho on the table for a review? The D.O.W. was the modern (for the time) Spookhouse.
He already made a joke about how he'd trade in life in exchange for a copy that has a dozen other retail chains' price tags on it!
This game deserves the Nightdive treatment with improved compatibility, polished gameplay, upresed Stranger's coat and hopefully lower fall damage. I mean Jesus, my grandma can survive higher jumps than that.
The song "Fading" in Act 3 was actually performed over the phone by Mary Beth Brooks. I don't know if that's an interesting fact but I know this is the only opportunity I'll ever have to share it.
Great video, but unfortunately you made the grave mistake of not calling it "Bat *Bound* Up" and making a poo-poo fart constipation joke, so I've been forced to permanently unsubscribe and report the channel for fraud. Good day.
Could I get some subtitles for Parapug? His audio's a bit too digitized for me to make it out clearly.
Also I really hope you review the Blair Witch games at some point Grim Beard. I remember them being kinda interesting!
I know your views are up and down but I love all your reviews apart from that vampire diaries one.
Grim... did youtube shut you down? I can't... I can't find the supernatural stuff. Did they find you? Did they get you?
the "doing weird things to try and save scripted to die NPC's in 2000s games" is something i feel can bring generations together
i remember i once figured out in the offical star wars episode III video game, in the mission when anakin goes to Mustafar, you can spare the techno union guy if you kill all the other seperatist leaders in a specific order, dor some reason it just skips to the cutscene as if you got them all
I was skeptical when I saw that you revisited one of my favorite reviews of yours, but I've got to say that this version is even better and more insightful than the last.
The true tragedy of 2001 was the canceling of Matt Stone and Trey Parker's show "That's My Bush!" Thanks a lot, Osama.
Grimbo, love the video. If you acknowledge me, I WILL find, and destroy BILLY IDOL for the honor of the Goth Gamer Nation.