Quick Look: The Long Dark

Feels like this QL only showed the tip of the iceberg. Can't wait to dive into the depths of this amazing game.

The combination of snapping a rabbit's neck and the incredibly low FOV makes my head swim a little.

After reading the comments i just want to hit on some points.

I first should say i have about 50 hrs in the sandbox before i started the episode so i know the basics fairly well but haven't played in a while so there was a few new systems that i had to understand.

Yes, there is some maintaining of meters but its not very hard to do while progressing thru the story. I have played the first episode now and i never had to stop my progression to meter manage. If you think a bit ahead and think smart, there is no problem constantly moving forward with the story.

If you are left in the middle of nowhere without supplies, no amount of meter management will save you. The game world is supposed to be harsh and brutal for someone that is not prepared but a little bit of forethought and thinking ahead makes it not bad at all.

I am not big into survival games but i just love the setting and the atmosphere in this game so i kinda tolerate it to see the great game it brings. I find a survival game that is not about a zombie outbreak refreshing, even though this game has been in early access for way to long.

On the one hand this seems neat but on the other it's so much management of meters. But that is part and parcel of what this game is really.

@bisonhero: I too would like to play that game, but I don't agree that BotW should have done it.

Wild is pretty radical for Zelda as it is, I think pushing it to be more survivalist takes away from Link as a Heroic character.

As for the Why - Temperature is one of the few in-world explanations which can be used to gate content. Requiring either region specific resources or exploration/progress based gear. To toss out another couple of examples - Radiation in Fallout, or Depth in Subnautica.

Really interesting how different games elicit different reactions from people... Rapid-firing arrows into an unaware tiger until it turns into a pincushion or putting a high caliber bullet through a friendly herbivore's head in Far Cry does nothing for anyone, nor either of the many variations of stabbing people in the face and/or neck from an intimate first person view. But wringing a cartoonishly low-poly rabbit's neck (the exact moment of which actually does happen off-screen)? Totally gruesome and unnecessary! Somehow.

i have to ask is Jason no longer with GiantBomb? what is all this shit production from Ben?

@deanoxd: Ben's mentioned a few times that Jason has been showing him how to do some production stuff lately and it's safe to assume that Jason is probably just taking time off. To be honest I think all the goofs have been kind of funny.

@smurf_in_a_blender: i see, i guess i must have missed him talking about it. My comment was probably a little harsh, i just like Jason and was concerned something happened that i didn't hear about.

My soul won't allow me to kill bunnies

I don't know why, but I'm still giggling over "slept yourself to death." :) :) :)

I might be wrong, but wasn't David Hayter (Solid Snake) supposed to be a voice in this game? Or was that a Kickstarter tier that was never reached?

This is one of those games you either love or hate because it requires a lot of patience.

As gamers we've been conditioned to sprint everywhere in games, The Long Dark throws a wrench into that notion because sprinting burns calories faster, so if you want to travel long distances you don't sprint, you take your time and walk.

Coupled with the nice thick atmosphere and art style of the game this can be a really calming and relaxing experience, interrupted by moments of intense action (fighting off wild life) and desperation (getting lost in a blizzard, freezing to death while looking for shelter).

If you ever wanted to have that "wilderness vacation", without actually heading into the wilderness, The Long Dark is pretty much the next best thing in a digital format that gets you as close as you can get without actually going there.

Tho in EA survival mode the default difficulty was way too easy, I restarted on Stalker difficulty and that one gave me a good challenge.

Indeed, the game even simulates different types of woods/burning materials, some burn hotter/longer but are harder to ignite, others are easy to ignite but give barely any heat/burning time. Later in the game you even use forges to craft improvised metal tools, for that you need to collect coal so you can get the fire up to a high enough temperature.

The game is full of systems like that like if you carry around fresh intestines from wild game you just harvested, wolves/bears are far more likely to go after you, even accounting for wind direction where it takes the smell.

A lot of it is actually quite intuitive to a degree one wouldn't expect, like storing your food in the outside cold keeps it fresh longer compared to storing it in the warmer indoors.

@nethlem: Putting it that way, it's the kind of game I would've loved to see Drew Quick Look. He always seemed like the most patient player on staff.

@bisonhero: Good point, he also has a bit of survival experience trough Metal Gear Scanlon and all his traveling. Oh Drew where art thou? Probably doing something awesome at the other end of the world.

Seems to match up to my day to day life in Canada

That's exactly why it's hypocritical. Same thing with '~animal luvers~'. Neck Breakin' Sim '17, yo.

This seemed cool but no co-op, like ever (according to devs), means I'll be skipping it entirely. It could be fun but I want to game with my friends!

I can't find any screenshots of it anymore but I recall when this first got released you could press something to just see a wall of white text on the side with counters and percentages for everything and it looked like a nightmare of managing stats and meters and just trying to keep the numbers from getting bad.

It's still got a lot of meter management but the cleaner UI makes that stuff much more digestible.