Sublevel Zero Redux

The good: Good way to get nice and dizzy. 6 degrees of freedom means your mind had better be able to handle 3-space. Nice variety of enemies and weapons in different flavors. Graphics and sound go very well together. The bad: This game doesn't do 4:3 screen resolutions. Running at 1600x900 on a 1600x1200 screen means the Windows desktop will be peeking out at you the whole time. No multiplayer mode. Other: Don't let the graphics fool you. This is a hardcore game. *Restart the game after messing with the settings menu. Messing with settings and diving straight into the game will sometimes cause crash-to-desktop. The Logitech Extreme 3D Pro has a hat which is almost good for strafing. The game considers the 8 positions of the hat as 8 buttons. It won't consider the hat as two axes for me. It is a good controller for sniping, though. Maybe next bugfix? Random drops mean you occasionally get awesome things... and really weak versions of things, and it's usually a whole bunch of one or the other. The crafting system means all the hulls and recipes aren't immediately available when you start the game. These two put together mean you had better have a lot of time on your hands. The nanocart isn't guaranteed to give you anything useful at the end of the level. Often you'll find the choice isn't "Which of these helps me most?" but "Which of these won't mess up my build?" Occasionally you get to one of those poke-box-lock-doors-fight rooms and clear all the enemies, only to find that you're stuck without any enemies left. Maybe next bugfix? No difficulty slider or explore mode. If you don't have a proper controller (or are just slow and uncoordinated), this game is going to be insane (and insanely frustrating), as compared to simply hard. Tested on: Vista AMD Phenom II GTX 770 Patch 2.2.1.4

It had a nice concept: combining rogue-like procedural elements with Descent 6dof gameplay in maze-like levels. Unfortunately the game is quite unstable and prone to random crashes resulting in all your progress lost. Crafting mechanics is random and unpredictable, in my opinion it hasn't added anything beneficial to the gameplay, quite the opposite as sometimes you end up with unusable weapons, combined with very limited inventory. Ammo is scarce and ammo/nanites drops are on short timer making difficult areas shorter on reward lest you suicide run into the middle. Enemies are of limited variety as do environments, the game merely slightly randomizes layouts of levels. The good bits that made Descent great are either missing or severely limited here, forcing you to fight with arbitrary gameplay constraints and crafting system as opposed to being challenged by levels and enemies populating it. In short this isn't Descent, it tries to mimic some elements, but isn't worthy 'spiritual successor' in any sense. It looks interesting and flashy, but crashes and unpolished mechanics such as crafting deter from what could have been a really fun game.

Who makes a game like this where you can't save your progress? Or even if I beat a level I should beat it permanently if you don't want to give me the ability to save. Got past level 0 and 1, did the save and quit. Went back in to play some more. Ran out of time and had to go. When I came back I have to start at level 0 again. So you are gambling your progress every time you play. Speaking of gambling, the randomizer is horrible sometimes. Been more than one occasion I just get hulls, or engines and no weapons really to speak of. And twice already I have gotten where almost every treasure box was a trap on top of no weapons. Once I got 8 repair kits and sometimes I get 1 or none. You either die from no weapons, no ability to get health, or sheer lack of energy to power your weapon, or you get no ammo for the weapons you are using. I'm playing normal difficulty too. The game is over randomizing EVERYTHING, you also have to sit and wait while it does this. And with the lack of any ability to save your progress or permanently win an area it just leaves me to believe that there isn't much content. I see 5 levels, 4 including 0 and I really think that is it. Considering the length of each level your probably looking at a total span of 2 levels on decent. If you must use a randomizer, it is fine to use it for the tunnels and rooms, or enemy placement ( keeping a set amount) Or making "trip wires" in the code when you come to an area and the randomizer is the decision maker for the enemy. Randomizing as in...holding position, leaving and coming for you from behind, rushing you, and so on. You want the player to feel empowered, dying because the enemy was too smart. Dying because the randomizer made you a desert is not fun. Not being able to fire because you are getting ammo for weapons you don't have is not fun. Not being able to save in any way is not fun. It doesn't matter if there isn't much content. For a busy adult to sit and play something "fresh" each time with the ability to save their progress. Working toward eventually saving the galaxy would have been a priceless classic and a true ode to descent. Randomizing a little with not many levels is fine. But this seems like the programmer was scared someone would say it's too short because it doesn't have 30+ levels. But as it stands now you are fighting against the randomizer. With a player vs. house scenario. And we all know the House always wins...HA HA HA

Sublevel Zero Redux feels like a randomly generated Forsaken. The six degrees of movement of Forsaken and Descent are well executed. The neon lit graphics give Sublevel Zero its own identity in the genre. The weapon pickups build variety and encourage exploration. The enemies are varied and challenging without being cheap. The randomly generated stages' layouts are fun to navigate and encourage you to look around a bit for that next useful item. The controls, in both mouse and keyboard and XInput gamepad, are tight and smooth. Sublevel Zero Redux is pretty good at doing what it does. Linux Lite 2.8 Nvidia GT 710 Logitech F310 gamepad