Neue Rezensionen von _UsUrPeR_

I'm not too far in. The concepts work, and I'm enjoying what I've gotten to thus far. I need to get proper starting ratios down so I don't screw up the beginning of the game, causing some major problems about an hour in. I've restarted four times, and do not regret it or feel like I'm wasting my time.

Overall, if this is the alpha, this is going to be a spectacular game. I'm happy to get in on the ground floor.

I bought the game, played it for an hour, then returned it.

I don't really like RTS games, so bear that in mind. I thought this was going to be some form of tower defense game, but it's just an RTS, and I just really don't feel like that right now. Game mechanics are pretty much exactly the same. The train coming is an interesting mechanic, the zombies are an interesting enemy, I definitely didn't put a lot of time into this game.

Ooooookay...

I've played my fill of this game after two hours. That's not where a roguelike should put me. The fact that this game could be played indefinitely is, to be frank, frightening.

I'm going to ruminate on this, and finish this review in a bit. Probably tomorrow. For first impressions though: don't bother. Especially at this price.

Addendum: I've thought about this. Here’s a review.

To start, the most glaring issue: the AI. The fact that I can have a gun battle in one room, with individuals unaware of this gun battle in the next room is a leap of logic which I found difficult to make. I was left to assume: "Maybe it's because bulkhead doors are a lot thicker than normal, and wouldn't transfer sound as well. But that means that this place doesn't have an intruder alarm? How are people not aware that I am killing EVERYONE in this base?!?" The character movement aspects are something which definitely points out how unaware my AI opponents were: after I killed everyone in a room, I could move at twice the normal speed due to the fact that no one knew I was there. I appreciate this from a “okay, come on, let’s get to the action” perspective, but at the same time, that means that no one alive in the building I just broke into, guns ablaze, is aware of the fact that I am here. I am left to assume this game is set in an alternate future where living in submarines for long periods of time is possible, while handheld radio transmitters are some sort of unattainable technology.

A suggestion to the dev: I don’t want the games I play to be prescriptive. I want to feel challenged. In the two hours I’d played, I went from a fear of being flanked or surrounded to the absolute knowledge that being flanked was impossible because no one in the base I was raiding was aware of the fact that I was raiding. I am not sure how you do this, but I’d suggest that you allow enemies to approach from the rear of an advancing party. At least have ambushes set in a room. Perhaps make use of some sort of lighting aspect for vision/accuracy? A little more realism

Further in the AI/design space: okay, so I am killing everyone in a base like a finely-oiled death machine. Fine. This brings to light the prescriptive room battles in which I found myself. Upon discovery of the aforementioned lack of radios in the universe this game is based, and I am stuck in this repetitive cycle of room clearing.

Step 1: Open door and immediately find cover for the person who opened the door
Step 2: Attempt to move in the rest of my team to cover in the room
Step 3: Start killing bad dudes
Step 4: Move forward under cover and kill the rest of the dudes in the room
Step 5: Loot corpses and stuff
Step 6: Reload, and line up in front of the next door
Step 7: If there are rooms left, goto "Step 1" else "become magically aware of the fact that I've cleared the base" goto Step 8.
Step 8: You've been magically made aware of the fact that you killed everyone in here. Congratulations. Do you want to leave without checking all the dropped loot?
Step 9: Accidentally click "yeah, I want to leave without collecting everything here."
Step 10: Curse your own existence.

About looting: Every enemy who was holding a weapon when they died is no longer holding a weapon. Instead, they are holding about $4. Everyone. I don’t remember pulling anything but money off dead folks, and that bummed me out. From what I saw, there was no rare loot, nothing useful like grenades, medical packs, ammunition (though I don’t think ammo was of limited supply), baseball bats, clothing, armor, nothing. Wait! I take that back! I killed a dude with a mask, and he left his mask. Maybe that was rare? Still, not satisfying at all.

To the AI from a humanist perspective. Perhaps I hadn't played long enough, but I imagine that everyone I run into in this vast environment is interested in self-preservation. As a criminal in the Depth of Extinction world, when you are being approached by “those guys you heard about” who have been KILLING EVERYONE THEY COME ACROSS WHO IS OF A CRIMINAL ELEMENT, maybe you’d want to avoid a conflict. Maybe send your least tweaked-out raider outside to calmly discuss a way to avoid violence. Instead, I kept running into mindless criminals bent on throwing themselves into the whirling meat grinder which my team had become. No attempts at self-preservation. No immediate surrender.

I’d realized that this game wasn’t for me when I started to believe that the AI wasn’t going to attempt to flank my positions. I became more critical as the loot system was uncovered by my experiences.

To the Dev(s) again: You’ve put a lot of work into this. I understand that this is a lot of time and energy expended, and I appreciate your effort. The sound design seemed to be alright, there was music, and the game didn’t crash at all. Kudos. I would suggest looking at the AI, and re-investigating some of the strategic models currently utilized. Further, I absolutely am a gigantic fan of both of the games is appears that you’ve used as base models for your creation.

X-COM: UFO Defense by Microprose was my absolute favorite DOS game. Aspects of tactical base building, planetary defense from a fighter plane aspect, destroying alien craft over water so you didn’t have to go clean them up, R&D of alien technology removed from the corpses of grays, weapons manufacturing, the game was a gold mine. FTL was also spectacular: destroying a would-be pirate, only to discover that they left you a *gasp* gatling laser?!? Man, now I need to figure out how I’m going to work this into my system build! Real-time management of your own crew to fight fires while simultaneously trying to knock out an enemy’s engine so they don’t escape? It’s an amazing experience. Depth of Extinction lacks anything substantive in comparison. No strategic decisions, no tough choices, no regretful moments.

The ironic part about this game which is lacking: Depth. I want more. For $20 on a non-pre-released, non-beta game, I want a thousand times more. I want to make tough decisions, I want to care about the characters I hire and work with. I want a challenge. You can see what I am talking about with X-COM: multiple facets added up to create a memorable experience. To draw parallels from the original aspects of X-COM and this game, the battles are turn-based, and your characters stand on squares, and hide behind objects. Cool. In the original X-COM, my favorite thing to do was throw dynamite into a barn at an alien crash site. That’s because sometimes, when you walk in front of a window, an alien hiding inside will take a potshot at Danielle’s head, killing her immediately. You had no chance of avoiding death, short of planning out the safest approach to a building. Instead, just throw dynamite in, and level the place. All the walls collapse, the hay’s on fire, and there’s a dead gray in the corner! :V Meanwhile, in Depth of Extinction, You go through the steps above: no one is waiting to ambush. They are all flinging themselves at you like inhuman, soulless, suicidal robots. You can do better.

Perhaps this game can be massaged to become something which is fun. At the moment, I see this as a game which adopted some visual aspects of really great games as a gimmick. I see some of the team members who have worked REALLY HARD at aspects of this game - artwork, overall menu design, sound design, storyline, UI, character/class concepts, multi-platform porting and development (kudos on your Linux release, btw) and it sucks that all of this is is being held back by the rest as described above. I do not want games to feel like a chore. I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting my time playing battles out to the end, especially when battles are a core aspect and component of gameplay.

To be clear about why I am writing this: if you are going to borrow elements from some of the most influential and successful games in existence, you had better have an amazing experience lined up.

This game could be spectacular fun. As other individuals have stated, this is a tutorial. I am gutted that I finished this game in 66 minutes. I am stating that you should purchase this game, and it's spectacular fun, but that's contingent on if you are willing to purchase this prior to the actual game existing.

If I were to market this as the producer right now, I would definitely start with something like this as a demo, then proceed to create a 120-level masterpiece.

To the producer of this game: Finish this game as soon as you possibly can. Don't keep me waiting. Please.

This is a great device, and works well for me.

Key words in that sentence above: "for me".

At first, when I purchased the Link, I attempted to utilize its wireless connection to play. That didn't work out well at all. I noticed lag, sound issues, and artifacting on the screen from high compression. I was kind of bummed, but was convinced that Valve wouldn't release a product which would produce a substandard experience.

In order to fix the lag issues, I ran CAT5 to my television. Man, what a difference. It behaves EXACTLY like it's advertised. This is highly recommended if you want to have a PC gaming experience in front of your television.

Edit: One thing that I was frustrated by was the requirement for VirtualHere in order to use my Saitek X52 flight stick with the Link. Without VirtualHere, the joystick wasn't properly identified by my computer. It still kind of worked, but not like it was intended by the manufacturer.

EDIT: I have added further comments below.

This game isn't particularly fun or difficult. To clarify:

Yes. It's a roguelike. You start out without any passive or active abilities, and you have to "learn" them as you re-live your life.

I started the game in normal mode, and made it down to floor 59. That's almost half way to the bottom on my first go-around. That's unheard of in most roguelikes.

The battle system and enemies lack any particular flair. Called shots make things interesting, but there's not really a point if there's no advantage in hitting a specific area. Yes, striking a monster in the head will cause more damage than the torso, but why not have a chance to stun or blind? The same goes for limbs: why not a chance to decrease enemy strength or cause accuracy to fall?

Missing the ability to equip your character with any sort of armor was confusing. It definitely made things less interesting when it came to decisions about what I would attempt to upgrade.

Finding food and health objects is not necessarily difficult. The first time I decided to head back to the VIP room was because I wanted to see about crafting a weapon. I didn't even know that you could use the bed to rest and trade food for health. Strangely, sleeping off your injuries isn't really a great deal compared to just exploring a few floors to find some more health items.

The crafting system is more interesting for sure. As you progress in the weapons you can make, things get even easier.

The mechanic of entering a room and clicking on objects became boring and repetative. Coming upon a locked door didn't really make me frustrated, because I knew I was only missing out on the contents of a single room.

Control boxes found on some floors require tampering to ensure that power goes to the floors below. I found this the most interesting aspect because it was the only challenging question I had to deal with: do I want to try fixing this thing? The answer was always "yes", and it felt like 50% of the time I could do it on the first shot. I never attempted to use an item to fix the panel. It seemed like a waste of time.

Item drops are notably sparse aside from basics like food and health. A weapon above a basic killing implement was never dropped during my game. That is to say - I had a few weapons drop, but they were far surpassed by the things I had already created for myself.

No, I did not give this a whole shake. Yes, I only played for about two hours. No, I don't want to continue playing - the game is boring, and I have better things to do with my time.

Oh, a few positives - the voice acting in memoirs left behind seemed to be mildly engaging. Unfortunately, grasping the full scope of the situation was not something I really felt was necessary. Especially since your character doesn't really have a dog in the fight besides "I am in the top floor of a tower. I would like to leave this tower."

The crafting system is interesting. I could see it going far, but armor would be a welcome addition. Further, the ability to create almost anything required with wood, rags and scrap metal is kind of odd.

There's also some flavor text notes left on walls and corpses which seem to hint at a greater story arch.

This game seems like it would be better suited on my phone, and played specifically while taking a long dump. Paying rapt attention to the goings-on are not necessary, and there's not really much of a decision-making process when it comes to playing the game. Will I explore both rooms on this floor? Yes. Will I continue down to the next floor? Yes. Rinse - repeat.

If I were to recommend something to the developers, I would recommend somehow increasing the size of the floors beyond two rooms. Missing out on a room due to a lock is a non-issue. I have no idea what I missed by not entering those rooms, and even after I found keys to go back and find out later, I didn't. Finally, I am not sure if I missed it, but a map would be useful - something to see if I can get back to a locked room.


**ADDENDUM**

A note to the dev team: dive deeper guys. This game was on training wheels, and I can tell that you definitely tried. I did not experience a single bug. The art work was great. The animation was smooth. The sound and set design were great. The concept was engaging, and I am a HUGE sucker for rogue-likes. This concept pushed all the right buttons.

Yes, I was disappointed, but that's alright. I want bigger, better, more complicated stuff from you in the future. I want you to succeed. This was a good idea. THIS GAME WAS A GOOD IDEA! I swear to god, if you create an R-rated version of this with more complicated features, I will be back.

**SUPER ADDENDUM**

This is addressed to Broshan:

Making the game more difficult would have made it more of a challenge, but it wouldn't have changed the fact that traversing floors was more of a chore than it needed to be. A quick way to improve this specific game would be to at least speed everything up - have a keyboard command to just retrieve all items in a room. At least then you can get done with everything immediately instead of going through the chore of clicking on separate room components.

Because of the floor construction, there was no complexity. There are almost no choices to be made in a direction of travel. There isn't even an inventory system - your character has pockets that can hold everything, and there's no need to leave behind some items in order to store or keep others. Again - no choice to be made; just take everything you can click on. You can't save inventory items on the top floor because there's no need to. It would be logical for a game like this given you have a safe room which you can effectively return to at almost any point.

Roguelikes in particular suffer when you lack the ability to make informed decisions. It feels really good when you make the right choice, and are duly rewarded by the game's mechanics. On the contrary, it feels like you are on rails when nothing you do necessarily affects how the game progresses. No one wants to feel like that when playing a roguelike.

Yes, tweaking aspects of the game are necessary pertaining to item drops, but that is a drop in the bucket. The issue I am attempting to indicate is more systemic. This game needs an adult version. One with real choices, massive rewards, and crushing defeats.

I sincerely dislike this game. I wanted to like it as a reboot of the franchise, but it pulls only mild strategy elements from the older games. The problem is that when I think X-Com, I think pure strategy from every aspect. Base placement, radar coverage and range management on a planetary scale, full building demolition, proper incindiary characteristics from a battle perspective, using your engineers to provide saleable components to the world market at a profit. All of these things have just gone away, and been replaced by a simplistic interface, with a story line pushed ahead like it's on rails.

Soldier classifications was a waste of effort on the developer's part. In previous X-Com games, there was no specialization. People don't operate that way. They are all soldiers, mostly equally capable of doing the same things. Some have faster reaction or aim scores, but all of them can weild a rocket launcher or shotgun.

The true successor to the Xcom series is Xenonauts, and even that missed the mark.

If someone were to look for an uncomplicated game in the genre, I would point them towards the new Shadowrun series. It has most of the same elements, but doesn't adulterate any old franchises by removing much of the complexity of the system originally created.

I realize that I will never see a better version of X-Com: Apocalypse, and that really disappoints me.

Alright! I just finished everything this game had to offer. I have completed 100% of the steam trophies, and this is the first time I have ever done that with any game. I am not a completionist by nature.

The game is quite fun. There's an element of luck and strategy which I found entertaining. Further, nothing is more enjoyable than totally wiping the floor with your opponent. Unfortunately, I think the game may have been too easy from the onset. The AI seems to only have a couple of tactics in its arsenal, and none of them make any sense compared to what you can do as a player. For instance, if I want to destroy an ironcast, I start by destroying his shields, then destroying his drive, then proceeding on to any weapon that would cause me problems. Enemies just choose a system at random every time they fire.

As for game length, there's not a lot of content. The story mode can be completed in under 3 hours. Not to say it's not fun, and completing the story mode is relatively difficult, but I feel like the story was truncated in order to create demand for some form of DLC addon. That really left a bad taste in my mouth.

I recommend the game. It WAS fun, but it's fleeting, and it really didn't have to be over so quickly.

I have an SLI system, and this game has an inherent problem with that. There's this frame glitch which causes the entire game to look like its running at 15 FPS regardless of how powerful the cards I am rendering with are. This is something that is a known issue, and the company has not resolved it with bug updates.

This game is dead to me. Sega as a producer of games may also be dead to me. I have played this for 5 minutes, realized how terrible the game looked, and became very sad when I realized that I could not return it.

What a great game. It starts out rough until you can create a team you're comfortable with, and I have had to restart a few times after inadvetrantly bankrupting myself. Still, a high learning curve is part of the fun, right?