With all the talk the guys do about only reviewing the final build of the game, not pre-release, it's too bad Austin dinged this one for technical issues that were fixed by the launch v1.03 patch.
Game is better than most PC releases have ever been, as far as performance and stability go for me personally. I would give it 5 stars hands-down, but this is my favorite series of all time possibly and I was extremely happy to have a follow up that is the best among the series by far...
EDIT: So, I've combed around some forums, and it appears the issues Austin and GBeast had were exclusive to their setup, IF HE ACTUALLY REVIEWED FINAL CODE, which it's pretty obvious he did not. Even without the final code, the issues they had were not the common experience.
Not only are you completely wrong about this, you're being an ass about it. I mean this in the nicest way possible but this post makes you sound like a lunatic.
My favourite part was Brad in one breath saying he never played League and in the next saying anyone who disagreed with his opinion on it were not worth engaging with. The Internet™ ladies and gentlemen.
I said I don't play it regularly, not that I've never played it, but of course it sounds shitty when you put words in my mouth. Quick Look Comments™ ladies and gentlemen.
Wait, there's progression elements wherein a hero you play for the first time will not be nearly as good as your main even if they were perfectly balanced? Wow. I forget how shit other MOBAs are sometimes, I heard League had a similar thing in like Runes or something. Glad Blizzard didn't go down that road, it's a shit road to go down.
HotS already has something similar. You don't have all of your skill upgrades unlocked until you reach a certain character level, IIRC. Also, you can't use the heroes in HotS at all unless they are in the free rotation or you've bought them with whatever they call the points in HotS.
Dota 2 is the only Lords Management game I know of with monetization that doesn't have an effect on the actual gameplay... and, thus, the only one I can tolerate.
I agree with you guys in principle, though the biggest buff you're going to get on a character with maxed mastery (+10% match XP) doesn't seem completely game-breaking. It's a fairly benign tradeoff for making all the heroes free, but yeah, any imbalance in a game with such dense competitive mechanics is a bummer by default. Dota is the one true game etc. etc.
Looks gooood. I think I'm now bummed over the episodic part just because it won't allow for a "Dan & Brad play Hitman" feature. Well, this particular Hitman at least.
I'd tentatively be interested in coming back and QLing the subsequent maps as they're released. Definitely gonna play all of them one way or the other, this game is good.
It is disheartening to see so many comments completely dismissing this game based on Brad's off the bat mention of survival games and saying things like "well guess it's just another one of those with nothing new, I'm done."
From what we've already seen it's far more than "just a survival game". What do you do in games like Day Z and Rust, gather things to survive on one map and generally don't see any variety after a while. The fact that No Man's Sky is a near infinite universe that you can find entire planets to explore and quickly change scenery to another is a huge difference that makes me excited compared to my aversion to those others. Plus we know there will be discovering new plant and animal life, trading with NPCs, finding ongoing battles between alien races and factions, avoiding the robo-cops because you're smuggling space cocaine, making a hacking chip to sneak in an alien base to steal valuable resources (like more space cocaine!), learning alien language, and more.
This is why I'm excited about No Man's Sky, the possibilities and exploration. Striking out into the unknown to discover what's out there on different worlds and solar systems, making myself and my ship better for exploring instead of gathering resources into a fort I built in the corner of a map, and maybe taking some space cocaine along the way.
End of rant. Great write up Brad, may we cross paths among the stars!
I'm pretty disappointed by those responses as well. Maybe those were gut reactions from people who didn't keep reading?
Not to cannibalize something I said on the Beastcast this morning, but the difference between the dime-a-dozen survival games on Steam and NMS is that in the former, your crafting output includes mundane shit like stone tools and a lean-to. In this game you're crafting a new goddamn faster-than-light personal spaceship. It's a difference of scale that I thought would be self-evident but maybe should have spelled out more thoroughly in this article. I only wanted to write about things I personally saw and did in my short demo, though, which was too short to accommodate any interstellar travel.
@ralphmoustaccio: My understanding is there is no individual seed per player, but rather the same seed for all players. I am also assuming here at this point, that a hyperdrive is more for going very long distances, and that you'll be able to jump to close planets without one, otherwise you could truly get an awful spawn and be stuck. That, or they bias spawns to be on planets that have the materials needed, it might just be that some planets have scarcer resources so you have to farm a little bit more than other players. Tough to really say at this point.
That's correct, you can point your ship at any planet in a system and just fly to it at sublight speeds. You only need a hyperdrive to jump star to star. In the demo I saw a planet I wanted to go check out, but it was going to take 23 minutes to fly to it.
This gives me a lot more optimism than the video that went up. Not that I think it looked bad from the video but getting a better idea of the upgrades and progression dispels a lot of concerns I had about the game, mostly that you would be wandering around doing nothing.
Yeah, I really wish the b-roll they gave us had shown more of the mechanics I was messing with (crafting, NPCs) rather than just environmental footage. They're still working on the UI for those systems though so I understand why they're reluctant to show them.
@brad, could you do my ears a flavor and have some tissues on hand this time of year? Sniffling into a mic (or otherwise) is really, really unpleasant to listen to. I know most people don't seem to mind, but it's like nails on a chalkboard for me.
My allergies flared up after the dog sat on my lap, tissues wouldn't have helped anything.
This game has surpassed my expectations in almost every way. Yes, there are still some lingering issues from the first game, and are definitely balance issues, but my god... there is SO MUCH CONTENT in this game. Take it one more step and you have a 2-faction MMORPG on your hands haha.
Speaking of MMOs, I was surprised at the raid boss-style mechanics that come in towards the end of the plant missions.
Brad wants to use the bullet-stream to deal with the spiders. Sure, the shotgun is easier to hit but takes a lot more time. You want to burst the skeleton down as fast as possible before it can shield it's face.
Agreed, but that thing is dark enough that I can't pinpoint its weak spot consistently every time. At least with the shotgun spread I'm doing some damage even if I'm not quite on target.
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