Put a good amount of grind into the game this weekend so far and have had a ton of fun, at the final scenario currently. The premise is a post WW2 Britain taps into some super science and it backfires. What’s shocking and refreshing is the complete and utter lack of “diversity”. It’s a British game about 40s-50s Britain and the characters reflect as such. There’s no super abilities, just guns/melee/stealth/ grenades. Inventory is super limited and the guns are all WW2 level. That said I basically used the pistol/shotgun for the majority because ammo is scarce and a maxed out pistol can headshot most enemies from range. Some creatures/ enemies will fuck you up hard so you have to utilize some stealth on the big guys to shit out damage quickly before they one shot you. There’s crafting but it’s not tiered, one set of resources get you x. Guns can be upgraded a little and there’s some custom guns if you scavenger right (there’s a random cave I popped in which had the best rifle Im using). There’s no deep crafting mechanic, just like the “leveling” is pretty plain, you obtain books to open new skills to invest points you get from BARD caches and random locations. The Game doesn’t have fast travel from anything I’ve seen, but they do hub the map together fairly well so it’s not the worst. The gameplay at its core is a scavenger hunt with puzzles and combat thrown in. You find notes, they give you clues, you figure out clues, the chain moves on. What’s extremely refreshing is the game doesn’t hold your hand, the items you need at said to be at x zone, not marked constantly on the hud, you can set objectives but they don’t “guide” you, they remind you of the location to go to. There’s competing storylines which interact with each other to create multiple endings and again, the game doesn’t hold your hand, I came across a route purely by exploring curiosity and reading notes. In fact I did almost everything “out of order” just exploring and enjoying the game, the game doesn’t punish you for this or constrain you for it either. It’s not a grand length game or overtly genre defining. It’s a fun, unique story with some pretty good graphics and way better writing than any other game in recent memory. Well worth a play, especially considering the lack of new content in that genre currently, playing through I kept getting flashbacks of Bioshock Infinite with some fallout esque enemies. I would say an 8/10 overall
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I think so far at 4 hours in, the only thing I disliked big enough to bitch about for this game was ... the marketing. Let me explain.
The way it felt to play was more of a puzzle game like Myst. You find a note that leads to a specific area. Then you find the [thing] mentioned in the note, which leads to [other thing] and at no point is there hand holding.
It's like in Morrowind where you're given an idea of where to go and where the item will be to find. When you look at your journal it's just a location and a vague area to search. But not specifically such as right there on this shelf in this room of this place.
But you can approach it in almost any order. There are a few areas that seem to be off limits for now. Difficulty not withstanding. If you still have a rusty shotgun and a hand axe, but you go wandering into difficult areas looking for better stuff, you'll probably die quick. I sure did.
There's plenty of action, though. Not as much as I expected, but less than anticipated is about as best as I can describe it.
But so far it feels like a puzzle game with action elements, whereas the marketing made it sound vaguely like Fallout in a different english countryside time line. Which is more background dressing compared to what you're actually doing moment to moment.
It'd be like calling Fallout 4 a son finding game because that is the bulk of the story, but it's not what you do, and that's not what the game is about from moment to moment.
Anyway, it's pretty good overall. Considering the last game by Rebellion I played was Strange Brigade. And it could not be any different from that if they tried.
Are you absolutely sure it lacks diversity? I've seen some footage and it comes off as Dishonored 2 tier where they put both blacks and women as generic enemies to fill a quota
However, most of the important NPC's are indeed White
Speaking of which, is the story decent or is it far cry tier?
so far I have noticed the odd asian (as in chinese/japanese/korean asian not middle eastern) among the soldiers that are probably just there to only just about satisfy the UKs draconian "representation" laws
everyone else is various shades of native english
edit: nevermind I have seen two sub-saharan african soldiers, unnamed ones mind there has yet to be a main character who isn't native english
None that I came across or remembered. There’s female npcs throughout, but none of the townspeople or anyone you talk to are black, if there were enemies who are black it was very unnoticeable and extremely minor.
Are the female enemy NPC's weaker than male enemy NPC's or do they have the same stats?
They all died with the same headshot. There’s only male heavy melee units from what I could tell. No bulky/ built women at all or Mary sues.
If I'm honest, for generic no-name fodder enemies, I think it doesn't bother me if this is the case where it's just generally the same stats. I do agree if it's for an enemy that's meant to be noticed though, where it's something significant.
I wouldn't say they're unnoticable, the amount female black mob enemies i've seen in the forest has completely shattered my immersion
not to mention that some foid NPC in the city look like literal trannies
gameplay wise, the game is solid, its like stalker where every bullet is precious and stealth is greatly encouraged
I haven't played the game, but there's definitely black guys in the trailer. It's the "pre-launch cinematic" on Steam, and here are the ones I noticed:
Definite:
On the right of the group of five guards that's visible at 0:18.
By the fire barrel on the right of the screen at 0:32
Possible:
The rightmost figure, on top of the checkpoint at 0:29
In fairness, they do look like very minor NPC or enemies though, rather characters. I wouldn't even expect them to have speaking lines from looking at them, aside from maybe using the generic enemy barks.
Thanks, I got the game based on your review.
I've heard that many gamers are frustrated by how the re-spawning works. Load from a saved game? Enemies respawn. Move to a different zone? Enemies respawn. So you'd better not clear out a nest of enemies and then save and quit, because the next time you come back to the game, all the enemies will be back and ready to kill you.
I haven't run into this yet, but it seems frustrating. It can be avoided with a little planning, though.
Also, there is a console in the game, which is neat. Games don't do that anymore.
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I'll give it a shot, for 10 euros (gamepass) it can't be that bad can it?
Hm, interesting. Definitely sounds like something I would enjoy. Thanks for the review.