Quick Look: The Surge: A Walk in the Park DLC

Chief Beef is BACK and he's PISSED

The more I see of this game, the more tempted I am to buy it.

I had a good time with this game. Hope there's a sequel someday.

DONUT CREATE PUSH

This game was available really cheap at christmas, which isn't a great sign. Never expected them to support it with DLC.

These framerate dip is gonna make me barf.

The Surge was my fourth favourite game last year (although I never got around to formalising my list here on Giant Bomb). I fucking loved this game so much. I always like Souls-likes, and although this one's not perfect, the uniquely sci-fi B-game atmosphere really did it for me, which is why it's weird I didn't even know this DLC existed. Bet your butt I'll be looking into downloading it tomorrow, though (just got back from the pub, so it mayyy not be the best time to try to tackle it). Thanks for the heads up, Brad!

Oh, and normally I'm with Jeff on the whole weapons-that-do-less-damage-but-are-fucking-fast-so-yes-please thing, but the large, lumbering blade from the first boss that Brad's sporting here was the weapon I used for nearly all of my time on the way to the Platinum. Once you lock into the cadence of the game's combat and enemy movement, that thing's a beast.

Fuck this game rules.

I'll have to get this one day when it's on a big sale. I think I've had enough of a break from one of these where I wouldn't mind dipping back in.

And he's brought his assistant Deputy Donut with him

This game looks fucking sick. I liked the look of it last year but I think this has also convinced me to pick it up when it's all on sale.

Brad said this game drops the ball by being too linear, I'd actually say it has the exact opposite problem. It introduces so many samey-looking service tunnel shortcuts back to the save points that you end up just getting lost.

I have this game. I haven't played it yet. Basically I am saving it for this summer.

I loved the 'The Staff is happy to see you!' while donut man is busy trying to whack your head off.

Wait, there's DLC for The Surge?

The level design in this DLC looks better than the main game. On the wishlist it goes.

I almost bought this game a handful of times. But after Dark Souls 2, I think I am quite burnt out of the style.

nearly every non-nintendo game that comes out hits $30 at literally the first chance a big sale happens. every triple a game in 2017 not named yakuza 0 all did.

I beat this game it was really good, also take alot of what brad says with a grain of salt because alot of it is wrong he has only beat the first boss.

I got this game on sale in October for half off on steam and blazed through it. I mostly had a good time and played with a controller although there were a few jumps where i had to switch to the mouse and keyboard since the controller didn't seem responsive enough. I also had a graphical glitch on the last level witch froze my game a bunch of times and had to nerf some settings to keep playing. I used to twin blades mostly to the end. My normal strategy in souls games is to go slow with a medium sized weapon and block and dodge but in this game i just tore through the enemies as quickly as possible. The various mods you can equip led to a lot of experimentation until i found i good setup of being able to gain a lot of energy from attacking, reducing energy use and the amount of energy needed to perform finishing moves and gaining health back when using a finishing move. i also found some armor that gave me health for killing enemies making it even easier to just run up on them and pummel them to death. The drone that Brad has that shoots doesn't require energy to use but does only one damage per shot if you dont have enough of the energy bar filled for a higher damage shot and can be used like the bow in Dark Souls to lure single enemies that are in groups to you. By the time i got to the end it was clear that i had done the thing i do in all these games which is grind and over level to the point where the bosses got too easy.

The Surge had a lot of promise but it seemed very formulaic after the opening section. Last game I expected to get a DLC add on.

I meant linear in that you move from one discrete map to the next rather than a big contiguous world with no loading screens a la Dark Souls.

I agree that the area I was in when I put the game down (the one that leads into this DLC) has a pretty confusing and aimless set of pathways that kinda feel like they go all over the place.

I normally hate Soulsborne games, never liked a Dark Souls and Bloodborne is maybe one of the few video game purchases I regret.

Despite that, somehow this game has always looked interesting to me. I don't know if I am just a sucker for the dystopian corporate atmosphere or what, but this just looks kind of cool. I feel like I would be in it more for the story and world building than the actual gameplay though.

I thought The Surge was just okay. Too many one-shot oppurtunities from normal enemies was a big complaint of mine. Overall, it was too much of the same the entire game, and there needed to be more boss battles. I didn't finish it, because when I got to the elite soldier boss who spawns multiple mechs I just quit because the boss was such garbage. I was teetering on the game being good or bad for a while, but that boss battle just put me over the edge and I put it away and never played it again. Had some fun moments, though.

The can mascot actually cracking himself open (with sound effect) to shoot lasers was amazing. I sort of want to play this game now.

I guess I'll finally have to get this game now, this DLC just looks like too much fun.

I really enjoyed this game. While playing it, though, I definitely went back and forth between loving and hating it. I can only recommend it to those who really enjoy souls-like games and can overlook it's many faults. However, keep in mind that it's NOT DARK SOULS. I feel like too many souls-likes get knocked for not doing this or that the way FromSoftware would have done it.

Also, it's well worth noting that this game has been patched a bunch since release. Many Let's Plays, etc. will be playing on early versions. I did not experience many of the problems that people who played the game early on did. For example, the armor that looks like it should protect you from poison, totally did that in my game. Apparently, at launch, it did not. Just saying, don't be put off by that if you watch an older video of the game.

Pretty sure I've seen this game go on sale a few times recently. If you think you'd be interested in it, you should definitely grab it. The DLC was pretty fun, but in a kinda goofy sort of way. Totally different from the main game. I was overleveled when I played it (literally had a save outside of the last boss fight). I just blasted through everything, but I could definitely see how a few areas would be really tough, especially the last boss. Don't rush in with an early build unless you want the extra challenge!

@subscryber: The boss that spawns mechs is a puzzle boss and the game does a poor job of telling that to the player. There are two white fuel towers in opposite corners of the boss room, you are supposed to stand near a tower when a mech is using its missile attack and then dodge out of the way to let the missile destroy the tower. Once both towers are out of commission the boss cannot spawn any more mechs. Then when you take out the current mech the boss is forced to fight you one on one.

I enjoyed the DLC, but I’m kinda disappointed that Brad hadn’t played further into it. As you play through the game you can access the Creo world park from two different locations, you can actually ride the park’s rollercoaster once you access the park from the second location (however you need to have completed the first two missions the guy in the medbay area gives you before the rollercoaster unlocks, riding the rollercoaster how you access the third mission)

This game looks interesting, too bad its a Souls-like game, since I can't stand those. Wish that aesthetic and that design element, where you take enemies of their equipment once you killed them, made it to a different game.

@ninnyjams: Yakuza 0 was 50% on the PSN Black Friday sale, that's how I got it (but just so anyone knows, it is well worth its full price).

@faridmon: Depends on why you dislike souls-like games, because I don't like the souls games or bloodborne but I did like this one.

I really enjoyed this game but I find it hard to recommend due to coming across a game-breaking bug. There is an elevator that won't come down and will lock you out of progressing forward, near the end of the game. I looked it up and it's still a known bug that people come across. Developer hasn't fixed it and no one knows what causes it (though it does seem rare). Even if it's not a common bug, it shouldn't be acceptable to have a game on the market that can't be finished by part of the player base (nearly a year after release!)

People hate on Lords of the Fallen but I enjoyed that a lot more. The presence of a projectile attack made the Dark Souls formula feel fresh.

This seems like a really strong contender for a Humble Monthly. Hope so as I'd like to give it a go but don't know whether I'd play it for 20 minutes or 20 hours.

DON HACKETT! 5/5.

I'm still not sure I'd call it linear. It all loops back around the Central Processing area and I found it pretty impressive in the end (if you do continue on past the DLC, once you kill the next boss or two you'll find it all ties back together nicely). I know that in DS3 there are flying mobs that carry you to a different location, but isn't it the same in the first game with Anor Londo? I'm not sure I see the distinction between those and the trains in The Surge.

I also think that saying it's linear implies you just go from point A to B to C, which isn't really fair. There are plenty of branching paths across both the main game and the DLC. It's easy to get lost and wonder which path is the "right" path. It all leads to the same place but you're not just going down a straight corridor.

The performance also seems a lot better on the Xbox One X. I played it at launch on a PS4 Pro and I remember it chugging fairly often, but I recently re bought it (Amazon had a great deal for the complete version for £12 digitally), and I'm enjoying playing it again to see the DLC. I never finished it the first time because I found it a bit too frustrating (and I wanted to sell it before the value dropped), but with tempered expectations and a much lower asking price (plus the fun DLC theme), I'm enjoying it a lot more.

Randomly as I'm writing this Deck13 just announced The Surge 2 for 2019!

Boys in the Bomb ordered boat drinks