The longer ranged Cyclone helped me get past that part. I was patient and killed a few robots at a time and kept backing off and recharging, until only the newly generated autobots were left in that room. Then it was pretty easy at that point. Before, I was trying to do everything and get an autobot generator all in one run, which was probably impossible. Whittling them down slowly and backing off was the way to go.
This level is a LOT of fun so far. The new robot that use instant bullet ammo to shoot you always do some damage before you can kill them. It’s important to emphasis them in a crowd, even more so than missile dudes because at least missiles can be avoided if you dodge fast enough.
I actually managed to dig myself out of a health hole in Titan Collider. I’d saved my latest game with low health, going into a new area with a level 2 key. So for the last couple of weeks I’d just been trying and dying, trying and dying. But eventually I had a decent enough run that I saved and moved forward, saved and moved forward, all still with low health. And then eventually I got into this huge room with lots of enemies, and I used the driller to snipe long distance and cleaned the whole room that way. And then I went in and cleaned up and got lots of health. So now, going into the level 3 key area with the reactor, I have about 116 health again. Woo!
Except level 3 key area is crazy hard. I haven’t even found out how to undo the shield on the reactor yet, or where the heck the generators are that keeps spewing out enemies. This one will require some serious exploration.
I bought this game shortly after release, but I have to admit that I never even installed it yet, mostly because of this thread. You guys are giving me the impression that this game is tough as hell.
Now, I played both Descent 1 and 2, and part of 3 back in the day. And to me, those games were tough (especially 1 and 2), but tough in a way that I really enjoyed.
What’s the consensus here? Is Overload more difficult than those games, or roughly the same difficulty? Because if it’s roughly the same, I’ll go ahead and install it and dig out my joystick. However, if it’s a lot more difficult, I think I’m going to need to be in a very particular mood in order to enjoy it. I generally don’t enjoy games where I’m beating my head against my desk.
I am playing through on the default difficulty and I find it a perfect balance of fun, progress, and challenge. Even though the game does get harder and more lethal as I progress, I don’t consider it a hard game at this difficulty.
Fwiw, I use a wired 360 controller on PC and it seems perfect so far.
Okay. Yeah, I may just give it a shot now. If it plays anything like the old games, I’ll be very happy.
Also, back in the day, I used exclusively the joystick/keyboard combo, so I’ll probably stick with that. Twenty years later, I’m certain my muscle memory must still be there! :)
Also, I don’t even own a gamepad or controller, so even if I bought one, I’d have to get used to it. And I fear I’m getting too old to learn new tricks.
But if the joystick support is good, I should be good to go.
I’m serious when I tell you that I used to spend hours playing Descent (through Kali) with only a keyboard. It wasn’t until I asked the best player in a string of matches what joystick he used (wanted to upgrade, myself) that I was introduced to the world of mouse-look… although I’d been playing shooters for years at that point, this was the first 3d game I’d played with a mouse.
Wow. Things were sure different back in the day.
For years, I only used the arrow keys in FPS games, even after mouselook came along. Page Up/Page Down to look up and down. I was so stubborn, and somehow it worked well enough for me in SP.
Discovering WASD and mouselook was an absolute revelation to me when I finally took the plunge.
God, the driller is such a satisfying gun to use isn’t it? It’s good in small, medium and long range, except it’s a little bit of a waste of ammo if you’re using it in small or medium range, so that always nags at me if I’m in a situation where I’m forced to improvise with the driller equipped. I usually never change guns on the fly, only after combat is finished. But in long range it really is perfect. It’s like a sniper rifle. Since there’s no gravity, the bullet always fires straight and goes exactly where you aim. However, it’s not instantaneous. It seems instantaneous in medium range, but in really long range shots, it becomes pretty obvious that it takes a bit to travel that far, each bullet can still miss if the autobot moves out of the way in time.
I can’t remember anymore if previous Descent games were like that. From what I remember of Descent 3, I do remember that I believed the bullets to instantaneously hit the targets the moment they were fired in that game, even over super super long ranges.
Titan Collider down. The ending was sooooo much fun. I can’t believe they put a powerup that makes you fire faster right near the end, which meant that for the first time that power up was SUPER useful and helped me kill everything in sight, including the reactor.
Titan Harbour feels really different already. For one the little suicide robots are back. I’d forgotten about them, since there weren’t any in Titan Collider.
I haven’t been updating, but boy, Titan Harbour has some really fun areas. As these robots get better and better weapons, each encounter now is really tough. I have better weapons too, which helps, but it gets harder and harder to get through any encounter unscathed anymore, even while using lots of missiles. If enemies don’t drop health, it’s best just to reload a saved game even if I survive.
I finished Titan Harbor last week, and I finished it with 10 Super Upgrade points, and 7 regular upgrade points, which is more than I’ve ever had before, so all this week I’ve been just starting spending those points differently and starting Tethys Lab. I don’t know why I never thought of this before. This is a really great way to get a feel for the various upgrades. Do I want more powerful Impulse cannon that takes less energy, or an impulse cannon that fires four shots instead of 2? I thought the former sounded way better, but it turns out that in actual combat, I do much better with the four shots at once. I can kick much more ass that way.
The Reflex cannon can be upgraded to reflect up to 25% towards the enemy, and then the next upgrade to either do more damage or to turn up to 45% towards the enemy when it bounces. I thought 45% sounded great, and I chose that. But it turns out at the beginning of Tethys Lab, most of my Reflex shots just hit the wall and dissipate, because the Reflex guns are not very long range, so turning 45% wasn’t all that useful.
So right now I’m still experimenting with the various weapons. The biggest problem is these damned enemies that are ships that look like a flat X, and they fire machine guns at me that get to me almost instantly and are so hard to dodge. They usually kill me. I need some combination of weapons to take these guys out fast. Maybe good old fashion Reflex cannon needs to make a comeback instead of me trying all these other upgrades.
Ding. I just got my Kickstarter copy of the game via email a few minutes ago. Another successful Kickstarter. I have to admit, I was starting to worry the last couple of months, thinking I had chosen poorly by picking the Xbox version as my reward.
I’m not at home, but the code worked and the xbox website said it would be downloaded onto my home Xbox. So I should have it installed when I get home tonight. I’m guessing the kickstarter people get it before it’s available for sale. It should be soon though.
While sitting around waiting for this game to come out on Xbox already, I stumbled across this post from the developers.
It’s disheartening to hear that the game did so poorly saleswise and that the band probably won’t be getting back together. This was one of my top two favorite games from 2018.
It’s good to hear that several people ended up at Volition (Saints Row, Red Faction, Descent).
