Is there a point in killing enemies in the game? Do they drop health, ammo or other resources? do you win xp?
RPS review
I think this part is going to be key
I was worried for the first hour or two that the tools I was unlocking were not much altering how I approached each spaceship. Then I realised that I could mouse over the empty nodes on the crafting tree to reveal what lay ahead, and discovered half a dozen powers I wanted. I wanted to be able to turn turrets and enemies into allies, I wanted to be able to warp enemies into a void and then summon them where they didn’t want to be, I even wanted to take 50% less damage from fire, after having burnt a few characters to death already. These goals gave me motivation to board more ships – you can mark this junk on your starmap also, so you know where to go – and I spent a merry few evenings boarding, looting, and crafting.
Those worries eventually returned, however. No matter what ship I boarded or what item I was there to retrieve, I fell into a steady strategy. After boarding, head directly to the helm to use the ship’s computer to mark the locations of all loot on the map. Run away from Screws. Avoid turrets, and if that’s not possible, run towards turrets and press the button on their side to flip them to my side. Shoot everything else. Press ‘use’ on anything that’s green, and therefore lootable, till the map is clear. Leave.
For a strategy-shooter, I found very little reason to use any other strategy. The result is that the game’s systems are interesting on paper, but their impact on you during play isn’t always felt. For example, if the above pattern failed, and my character died, it hardly mattered: progress carries over to your next meatsack. I am ultimately grateful for this – true permadeath wouldn’t suit the game – but choices like whether to flee ships before they’re fully explored feel less meaningful when death is only a minor inconvenience.
On the other hand there are interesting comments on the Comment section on how the game works better at harder difficulties.
I started feeling this last night. It was fun but it feels like the player needs to force themselves to mix up tactics otherwise the repetition sets in.
It has it’s charm but I’m not entirely feeling the System Shock 2 comparisons; maybe later in the game(?).
I’m going to keep playing though, I like the sense of humor and overall tone of the game.
I’ve got a little of that going on, but the lower depths do add wrinkles- more weird modifiers, security bots that can open doors, etc. And since I’ve progressed a bit in the storyline, depth 2 is my minimum. I’ve unlocked a bunch of weapons, and so always change my loadout (and my tactics) based on the enemies. Sure, like the reviewer, I tend to make a beeline for the helm. What happens then is up in the air though.
What’s depth?
Also, how is the stealth experience?
Depth. Basically like ‘levels’ in a dungeon. Your space map is an interconnected series of ships to explore, one at a time. As I said above, there’s several different types of vessel, each with their own unique floorplan, types of room, common resources and unique ‘parts’ to build your tech with. All of this is shown when choosing where to go on the map, though each move takes fuel and food. So you can somewhat strategically hunt for what you need.
You start on the left edge of the map, and can only move on paths to the rightward direction (no backtracking at all). Paths also go toward the top and bottom of the screen (ever rightward), and you can go up or down freely. Heading down a few times takes you to a lower Depth, though- new floorplans, enemies, more resources and better parts, etc. The ships also get positive and negative ‘perks’, changing how they play.
Stealth is rudimentary. Mobs have facing. You make noise when you run (not on carpet), but not when you walk or crouch, no matter the surface. Mobs will hear gunshots and explosions nearby, etc. There’s no shadows or anything, though.
Rereading this I am worried my comments come across too negative which I don’t want. I am playing a little more today and getting a better feel for things. The very early game seems repetitive, but I think that quickly resolves itself the farther into this you go.
Another nice feature is you can adjust the difficulty at any time as I just pushed it up a notch in the middle of exploring a ship.
There is a very nice sense of exploration here, not just in terms of physical spaces, but in terms of tools, currencies/materials, systems, and little discoveries like void portals or tea stations.
Just a warning for a bug I have run into.
On the Xbox if you walk away and your controller turns off you get the controller disconnect screen.
That is all normal, but that actually freezes my game in a way. Turning your controller back on and pressing A won’t close the screen. Last night I fixed it by switching to a different controller and that let me get out of the menu screen. Today I am stuck on the ‘Controller Disconnect’ screen; even when trying a different controller. Some Googling has shown other people reporting that problem too.
I think I have to close the game and lose my in-mission progress.
I was about to say that I’ve let my controller disconnect and haven’t seen this problem, but then I saw you meant in-mission. All the times I’ve done it, it was between muffins. Thanks for the tip!
Yeah it was in-mission for me.
I just restarted the game to get around the bug and I guess since it was in-mission that game counted that as my Bastard dying and giving me a new dude to start over again, ugh.
Hope they can patch this soon.
It doens’t, from what I can tell. Granted I have never used to the toaster (the third “gun”). The gunplay has remained unchanged even with upgades (I mean, I kill some stuff more quickly sure).
The game not being combat focused doesn’t mean it can’t have good gunplay, so I don’t know why people are bringing up that point. The decision not to just try and kill stuff shouldn’t be based on “well the gunplay isn’t well designed”, but rather other in game reasons (some of which are present, certainly).
Overall I think this is decent, if repetitive and maybe a bit on the simplistic side (for all that bypassing enemies can be important, there’s not really very many tools to aid in it, and it’s not like there are a lot of options to take alternate routes or anything). It really makes me wish there was a proper *Shock game with these graphics, though. And better shooting.
The look is cool. The humor is reminiscent of Brazil sort of. The actual game loop is…well, I dunno.
Then it’s a shame the game doesn’t so anything to encourage being played at harder difficulty levels. Once again, a designer expects me to do their job by tuning the game myself.
-Tom
I bumped it up to Hard (one notch above Normal) and played like that for a while. I was doing so poorly that I dropped it back down to Normal and that has been giving me a very nice challenge where I can normally survive a ship exploration…but just barely. Usually I am panicking and hightailing it out of a ship with little health, little Oxygen, or being overwhelmed by enemies.
Not sure if I am just a poor player, but Normal has been just right for me at this point. Second Depth creatures will spike the challenge a bit not too far in.
I can also agree with all of the criticisms (Deus Ex like gunplay, a slight repetitiveness, etc.) but the gameplay loop really hooked me and I think I am going to stick with this for a while. I also wasn’t expecting id Software-like gunplay going into this…what they present is roughly what I expected. YMMV.
It’s a fun challenge trying to get through a ship with Screws and their Big Daddy-like stomping and the Second Depth citizens present a bunch of new twists.
I finally acquired and built my printer though! Now on to find a card to print out my ID. Loving the dry sense of humor throughout.
I’m curious, Tom. How far down did you get? Depth 2? 3? Have you confirmed that the difficulty is out of whack, or are you just going by random comments around? I, and several others in this thread, have said the difficulty is just fine.
If only there was some way to know what I was responding to! Like, say, a quote function!
I personally have no idea what’s going on with the difficulty level, because it’s not my job to do that part of the game design. As I’ll always do when a developer can’t be bothered and dumps that job into my lap before the gameplay even starts, I played on normal and I didn’t get very far at all, so you should take my comments as a very non-specific rant.
But it was pretty disheartening to see that it’s up to me to decide, without any incentive one way or the other, how many hit points dudes have, how much damage my weapon does, how much loot gets dropped, what supplies are available, etc. Of course, I have to do it all blindly because as near as I can tell, the effects of each difficulty level are entirely unexplained.
I have no problem with being able to choose a difficulty level! I have never had a problem with that. As I’ve said repeatedly, my problem is when the choice is dumped in my lap with no incentive one way or the other. I also get a bit peeved when I have no information about what effect the choices have. Void Bastards is guilty of both of those things.
-Tom
P.S. Oh, wait, hold the presses! It looks like there’s an achievement for getting through the nebula on the hard difficulty. All is forgiven!
The incentive of selecting the appropriate difficulty for you, the player, in most games, from Civilization to Doom to Total War to Bioshock, is to have a more enjoyable experience. Because experiences that are too hard or too easy aren’t as fun.
Though I really do find the style of the game appealing, I did refund it. I was hoping for something more, well, System Shock-y, and while the game does what it does pretty darn well, it just wasn’t working for me. The minute to minute gameplay was not engaging enough, and I have plenty of rogue-likes laying around. But I do like the humor and the aesthetic in general.
I don’t agree with that in the least.
And nobody is suggesting it has to have gunplay as good as an AAA game either.
I’m especially passionate about Void Bastards. I intend it’s a distinct intensely systems-driven FPS created by some of the people behind System Shock 2, Neptune’s Pride and Captain Forever. Of course, I’m thrilled. You play as a drastic crim boarding greatly hostile derelict spaceships to loot stuff.