Posted November 23, 2019
So after playing the game for 2 hours, here's a few thoughts on it:
-The game uses a similar style to System Shock 2/Bioshock with the usage of shrines. What it does different is that not only do they act as checkpoints but also regenerate your health fully the moment you use them. I don't know if you keep all your items after respawning in them since I am yet to die in the game. Thankfully, there aren't any respawning enemies like in SS/BS.
-The weapons feel good so far. I tested all five available in this stage of early access. They all have a secondary fire mode, but I need more time to get used to them and their alt fires before I can comment on how well implemented they are. I will say, however, that the shotgun feels beefy and powerful, so that makes me happy.
-I like the enemy design. They look cool, and killing them feels satisfying.
-The atmosphere feels right. It's a combination of horror, fantasy, wonder and the macabre. It isn't entirely nightmarish like Quake, but more undeadish and necromancey with an emphasis in tombs, crypts, graves... that sort of deal.
-Performance is OK, but it required some tweaking in the NVIDIA control panel to make it smooth and overall great.
-Mouse is somewhat off for me despite not having any mouse smoothing or acceleration enabled. It feels sluggish.
-The graphics are great, for a quake engine/darkplaces game. There are already many neat options to play around with for an Early Access game, but I'd like to see more options added in future updates. For instance, resolution support could definitely improve. You can have any resolution you want by messing around with cfg files, but some of these resolutions should be available in the in-game menu, such as 21:9.
-Melee enemies.... not really a fan. They can completely outrun you and their hitscan abilities ensure they can hit you even when you are not entirely in their range. This might be a matter of preference, I suppose, but something about a mob that I can't properly outrun or dodge makes me feel cheesed.
-Concerning soul tethers, I suspected that either there would be so many that you might as well have a regular save system, or so little that it would inconvenience the player. Well I think the former held true; there are so many soul tethers around that I always had them maxed out (and I'm playing on Hard, the highest difficulty level at the moment). However, there are only 2 levels available thus far, so maybe in the newer levels to be added in the future the difficulty will increase to the point where I would be forced to use them more. So far with shrines and so many soul tethers around, I only use a soul tether when I run across one that I can pick up and I'm at the item cap.
-Reload animations need work, particularly the shotgun's. You can't change weapons while the reload animation is taking place, and this can make it a problem to switch weapons on the fly. What's more, the shotgun reload animation takes a while to complete and it often makes me think it's done so I can switch, just to realize it's still going. This startled me a few times and made me commit more errors than I usually would otherwise. I think a good offset for this could be to cancel the reload animation to instantly switch to the weapon you want, and when switching back to the previous weapon the animation starts over again. Or something like that.
-Picking up items is a chore. The item pickup radius is low and you have to jerk about until the game decides to register the item pickup. Considering some of the items are quite small, you can miss them 2-3 times even when they are right in front of you.
-Ammo is abundant. I never felt like I was running short of anything. This is a double edged sword because it reduces frustration but it makes the game kind of easy, even on hard. Still, it was mostly on the fair side of things than on the easy side.
-The journal as it's implemented at the moment I can take it or leave it. It has potential, however. I'd like to see at least a paragraph of lore on locations and creatures, rather than just drawings and very basic information.
-Levels are large and open. The good side of this is that they are impressive to traverse and they can hold many enemies at once. The bad part of it is that there can be a lot of running around trying to find shit. To quote the AVGN, I would classify it as a "Where the fuck do I go?" kind of game. With the lack of any map in true Quake fashion, its easy to get lost. But at least the level design is not maze-like and you will eventually stumble upon wherever it is you need to go.
-The AI is not that good. It often gets stuck behind doorways, walls and other objects. Kind of hilarious to see this big, hulking monstrosity coming at you in full force to just stop dead on it's tracks because it hit a wall.
For now, those are my quick impressions. I'd say pretty solid for the first release of an Early Access game. Obviously it's still very rough around the edges, but its nowhere near DayZ or Ark levels of fuckery. There is a solid core in place to make this a great game with future polishing.
-The game uses a similar style to System Shock 2/Bioshock with the usage of shrines. What it does different is that not only do they act as checkpoints but also regenerate your health fully the moment you use them. I don't know if you keep all your items after respawning in them since I am yet to die in the game. Thankfully, there aren't any respawning enemies like in SS/BS.
-The weapons feel good so far. I tested all five available in this stage of early access. They all have a secondary fire mode, but I need more time to get used to them and their alt fires before I can comment on how well implemented they are. I will say, however, that the shotgun feels beefy and powerful, so that makes me happy.
-I like the enemy design. They look cool, and killing them feels satisfying.
-The atmosphere feels right. It's a combination of horror, fantasy, wonder and the macabre. It isn't entirely nightmarish like Quake, but more undeadish and necromancey with an emphasis in tombs, crypts, graves... that sort of deal.
-Performance is OK, but it required some tweaking in the NVIDIA control panel to make it smooth and overall great.
-Mouse is somewhat off for me despite not having any mouse smoothing or acceleration enabled. It feels sluggish.
-The graphics are great, for a quake engine/darkplaces game. There are already many neat options to play around with for an Early Access game, but I'd like to see more options added in future updates. For instance, resolution support could definitely improve. You can have any resolution you want by messing around with cfg files, but some of these resolutions should be available in the in-game menu, such as 21:9.
-Melee enemies.... not really a fan. They can completely outrun you and their hitscan abilities ensure they can hit you even when you are not entirely in their range. This might be a matter of preference, I suppose, but something about a mob that I can't properly outrun or dodge makes me feel cheesed.
-Concerning soul tethers, I suspected that either there would be so many that you might as well have a regular save system, or so little that it would inconvenience the player. Well I think the former held true; there are so many soul tethers around that I always had them maxed out (and I'm playing on Hard, the highest difficulty level at the moment). However, there are only 2 levels available thus far, so maybe in the newer levels to be added in the future the difficulty will increase to the point where I would be forced to use them more. So far with shrines and so many soul tethers around, I only use a soul tether when I run across one that I can pick up and I'm at the item cap.
-Reload animations need work, particularly the shotgun's. You can't change weapons while the reload animation is taking place, and this can make it a problem to switch weapons on the fly. What's more, the shotgun reload animation takes a while to complete and it often makes me think it's done so I can switch, just to realize it's still going. This startled me a few times and made me commit more errors than I usually would otherwise. I think a good offset for this could be to cancel the reload animation to instantly switch to the weapon you want, and when switching back to the previous weapon the animation starts over again. Or something like that.
-Picking up items is a chore. The item pickup radius is low and you have to jerk about until the game decides to register the item pickup. Considering some of the items are quite small, you can miss them 2-3 times even when they are right in front of you.
-Ammo is abundant. I never felt like I was running short of anything. This is a double edged sword because it reduces frustration but it makes the game kind of easy, even on hard. Still, it was mostly on the fair side of things than on the easy side.
-The journal as it's implemented at the moment I can take it or leave it. It has potential, however. I'd like to see at least a paragraph of lore on locations and creatures, rather than just drawings and very basic information.
-Levels are large and open. The good side of this is that they are impressive to traverse and they can hold many enemies at once. The bad part of it is that there can be a lot of running around trying to find shit. To quote the AVGN, I would classify it as a "Where the fuck do I go?" kind of game. With the lack of any map in true Quake fashion, its easy to get lost. But at least the level design is not maze-like and you will eventually stumble upon wherever it is you need to go.
-The AI is not that good. It often gets stuck behind doorways, walls and other objects. Kind of hilarious to see this big, hulking monstrosity coming at you in full force to just stop dead on it's tracks because it hit a wall.
For now, those are my quick impressions. I'd say pretty solid for the first release of an Early Access game. Obviously it's still very rough around the edges, but its nowhere near DayZ or Ark levels of fuckery. There is a solid core in place to make this a great game with future polishing.
