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Author Topic: Satellite Reign  (Read 18986 times)

nenjin

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #45 on: July 12, 2015, 05:56:42 pm »

Huh.  I'd have assumed there was at least a year of dev time left.

You'd think, but these guys moved very quickly. I've only seen 1.10 of districts though, so I can't comment on the quality of a lot of what is there.

If I'm honest some of the game content does feel of the "quick" variety. Nothing especially deep, just a lot of it.

Also, turns out your handler "Tag" is going to get a voice. I correctly pegged the tone as female. It will be interesting to see if her dialog matches the tone of the writing (which, as I've said, tends toward the helpful and friendly.)
« Last Edit: July 13, 2015, 09:12:58 am by nenjin »
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dennislp3

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #46 on: July 12, 2015, 08:15:13 pm »

Wouldn't be surprised if it was modeled as an AI either, á la Cortana
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Retropunch

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #47 on: July 13, 2015, 05:24:04 pm »

PTW. This looked great but it's definitely something that I need to wait till others report in before I shell out.
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

Gabeux

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #48 on: August 28, 2015, 02:36:06 pm »

Did this just release today?
I'm confused. I was expecting it to be release next year or something. Weird.
It's currently 20% off on Steam.

I'm not going to buy it for a while, as I have spent too much money in games this year.  :'(
But if anyone get to play the full version, let me know what you think!

--
EDIT: Forget I said anything.
Love the presentation. Controls are intuitive. No bugs so far. Love the open world. Love how this is a 2015 Syndicate-inspired game with comprehensible UI and controls.

Also: You can Hijack (mind control) random people on the street then send them back for cloning, which enables you to turn anyone you see into whatever class you want? Wow, that's new to me.
In case it sounded weird: Whatever character you get, you can turn him into whatever role you want. Different characters (clones) have different atrributes.
Need a healthier soldier and a faster hacker? Done. Prefer the other way around? Done.
It DOES feel weird in the sense that characters are just skins for your roles (character classes). But I kind of like it.

Also, I believe the items you find become blueprints, so you can then buy it for the whole team for money (not 100% yet) - so this makes inventory management and team management straightforward.
I still only played for an hour, so I'm not sure if about the game as a whole. But I haven't bumped into anything that annoys me, yet.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2015, 03:54:11 pm by Gabeux »
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It honestly feels like a lot of their problems came from the fact that their entire team was composed of cats, and the people who were supposed to be herding them were also cats.

thegoatgod_pan

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #49 on: August 28, 2015, 09:24:55 pm »

How fast paced is it?  I've never played Syndicate and I am more used to turn-based games.

I haven't played a real time strategy game since the second Starcraft came out, so I am skeptical as to whether this is the kind of game that demands micromanagy, hyperclick twitch skills, of if it is "real time" the way Baldur's Gate/Fallout etc (as in, barely real time at all)

Is there a dynamic pause option where you can give out orders, or is it rts style?
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Gabeux

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #50 on: August 28, 2015, 09:47:20 pm »

It's completely RTS with no Dynamic pause. There's a "slowdown time" sort of skill that helps a LOT with that.
It is fast-paced, but isn't overwhelming. Since you're the one initiating combat the majority of times, that allows you to play as slow or as fast as you like. You can be really stealthy and silent, or always position yourself for taking on the whole block/facility guns blazing, or mix both strategies.

In the beggining, it's pretty hard since you have 0 skills and basic weapons. But as you get more gear, augments, weapons and skills, it really brings that Syndicate vibe of "I was dying for a dude, now I can kill groups of 10". Still, if you make a bad mistake, you can lose a battle just by poor positioning or poor tactics.

What I think's most weird, is that there isn't a whole lot of damage you do to the factions (corporations) by attacking their units and bases. Visually, in the game universe, that is.
You can infiltrate enemy bases, and after you get one of your guys inside the building, he'll get loot and money. Money regenerates on the buildings over time, so you can keep attacking previous places to get more money out of them. But they seem to be guarded the same way, always - with guards in different positions.
So..this kind of system reminds me of Saints Row IV for some reason. You're not changing the world - you're syphoning from it - and it keeps respawning stuff. Well, in a universe where everyone is a clone, and every clone is worth less than a dollar, I guess that's alright.
And the first time you hit a base, you get some bonus out of it. For instance, infiltrating the Surveillance base will make cameras detect you 50% slower. Hitting the nearby Guard Base will make the enemy call reinforcements 50% slower (which is great!).

In the end, what I miss is some sort of actual conquest, I'm not sure if that's available in the game. But, again, this being a game about people rebelling against insane MegaCorporations who have armies of clones and infinite resources, I guess that makes sense.

Small annoyances I bumped into is that controls to rotate the camera are pretty poor, and there should be more info displayed about the buildings and districts. For instance, how many bonuses are being granted after infiltrating the bases, how well the factions are faring (but I think the game doesn't have such a faction system in play), or the status of the bases you can raid - that way you can know which ones are ready to be raided again.

All in all, it's pretty fun and straightforward. I'm not in the mood for overly complex or too fast-paced stuff either, and I'm liking it so far.
I think I finished the first district (the first game area), so what I'm worries me is if the other districts present more of the same. That would make the game rather shallow, albeit very enjoyable - especially for those who really like tactical shooters and Syndicate.

In other words, they really should release a demo. And I haven't seen enough of it yet to guarantee it caters all audiences, since I'm not sure how deep the mechanics and features go yet.
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It honestly feels like a lot of their problems came from the fact that their entire team was composed of cats, and the people who were supposed to be herding them were also cats.

thegoatgod_pan

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #51 on: August 29, 2015, 12:00:52 am »

Thanks! That really helps get the sense of it.
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BuriBuriZaemon

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #52 on: August 29, 2015, 02:34:07 am »

Can you continue playing after the ending?
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #53 on: August 29, 2015, 12:34:00 pm »

How openended is it? I am considering getting it, but only if its a procedurally generated enough sandbox. Xcom like at least
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nenjin

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #54 on: August 29, 2015, 12:49:40 pm »

It's a very open ended sandbox, but it is not procedurally generated to any extent that matters. The map and its features are pretty much hard coded.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

ChairmanPoo

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #55 on: August 29, 2015, 12:54:51 pm »

And the enemies and their behavior?
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Gabeux

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #56 on: August 29, 2015, 01:57:04 pm »

But someone writing thinks it needs to be funny. For example, a lot of weapon/item descriptions are actually pop culture references. Like the XL12 Boomstick's text is literally the Army of Darkness quote about S-Mart's shotgun. An otherwise thematically awesome game for some reason is fucking it up with humor. And not just a little humor. Quite a bit. And the friendliness of your handler continues with mission completion texts being like "Good job!" and "Great work!" and "That showed 'em!"

Again, the entire rest of the game is in lockstep with the Cyberpunk theme from top to bottom.....except whoever is doing the writing.

Hah, I had forgotten you said this, nenjin. I even saw a mission named "Papers, Please.". The humor didn't bother me a lot, because I assume Tag (the female handler) writes all of the descriptions and all that, and for some reason that character is very positive and "funny". Probably because she's stuck in an underground bunker looking at screens and watching movies all day somewhere, so she doesn't see all these murders and crimes on the streets.  :P

Can you continue playing after the ending?
No idea. But I'd expect that.

How openended is it? I am considering getting it, but only if its a procedurally generated enough sandbox. Xcom like at least
And the enemies and their behavior?

Nothing like XCOM (except the Research, which reminds me of XCOM: find a prototype, research it, then you're free to mass-produce it).
It's a MegaCity divided by districts (maps), and there's no loading times to move between them.
But the whole map is hand-made (unless it rebuilds the map on every save, which I doubt), and everything's static.
Some missions will give you bonuses like "Enemies take 50% longer to call reinforcements" or "Enemies from this faction will deal 10% less damage", but I still see no effect of your actions in-game. So people keep spawning and their behavior is always the same: patrol until it sees something ilegal, an alert happens or noise is heard.

So whoever's looking for a deep sandbox experience, in which you can assassinate procedurally generated high-profile targets, or fight a war against factions, or explode a base so it stops churning out drones and clones..that's not the game you're looking for.
I myself expected some sort of complexity in this regard, because when you look at a beautiful huge-ass map like this, some sort of faction system would make sense.
Unless this sort of thing happens in the end, I don't expect any of that.

It can be really fun, though. Even though enemies have the same behavior, you find ways to troll them differently every time. And as you unlock more skills and gear, you find ways to troll them further, which lets you advance even faster towards the end of the game.
The way each base has different entry and exit points, with different strategies that can be used to get in and out, is also really cool.

I'm not sure if it's worth 20USD though. Because, as I said in other threads, in my mind it doesn't make sense to have a sandbox game with static mechanics and world.
So here's when I realize this isn't a sandbox game. It's an open-world game. You're free to pursue the objectives whenever/however you like, but saying it's sandbox or open-ended give a complete wrong impression that I had about it too.

That's sad.

So to summarize: I really love the visuals, audio, controls, interface (could be improved, but it's good enough) and the map design, but it could have been insanely good if it was an actual open-ended, sandbox game with procedurally generated missions, bounties, stuff, and a faction system.
Is it good enough (or worth 20 USD) without all these complex and sandbox mechanics? That's hard to say, because I bet a lot of people would love it.
I saw someone say "The game's really fun, but doesn't give you too many reasons to play it" - so if Tactical Shooters and Syndicate is your thing, you'd probably like it for the fun itself.
For reference, I haven't liked/been interested in games without such sandboxy mechanics for a while now, yet I'm playing just for the fun of it. And also steamrolling and exploding unsuspecting guards.  :P

--
Oh, the cars and traffic also look good. Stand in the middle of the road on The Grid for a traffic jam.
I wish we could drive cars. Or that cars would explode people when running over them..but they just insta-break.
You know a game could have been further developed when cars don't explode people in such a dystopian universe.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2015, 02:07:43 pm by Gabeux »
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It honestly feels like a lot of their problems came from the fact that their entire team was composed of cats, and the people who were supposed to be herding them were also cats.

Knave

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #57 on: August 29, 2015, 08:32:05 pm »

My understanding is that the devs are working, or going to work on getting cars drivable for your agents, they just wanted to focus on getting the game released before they got bogged down with it. I believe they said that it was implemented in early builds, but disabled because it needed a lot of work.
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nenjin

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #58 on: August 30, 2015, 05:13:18 am »

I think, pound for pound, it's the equal of Syndicate, mechanically. Syndicate wasn't some super deep, procedurally generated sand box with the kind of interactions you get out of, say, Shadow of Mordor. You're right that calling it an open-ended game is misleading though. What it really offers is an environment with multiple ways to achieve goals, manipulate the AI and cause mayhem. And I think it does that pretty well, and justifies the sales price. It's gorgeous, huge and glowy to boot. What really strikes me is how fast it was completed: just two years in actual production and it looks great in that sense. It shows a lot of technical expertise.

One might be tempted to wonder though how much better it could be if they put in the amount of time most Kickstarter games do, with the skill they've demonstrated. The push to release wasn't unseemly. But it kinda feels like they quit while they were ahead. That said, it remains to be seen what post-release support looks like.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Gabeux

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Re: Satellite Reign
« Reply #59 on: August 30, 2015, 07:37:50 pm »

Wow, thanks nenjin. I really needed help there - I was really over the fence in regards to my final opinion about it, and it seriously annoys me to death when that happens. Talk about compulsive thoughts.  :P

I do agree that it is worth the price, but I do hope they make some changes, at least to the spawning of enemies. That would make things so much more interesting, alive and natural.
And I like how when you get more gear slots, you can try different tactics. Like everyone being able to cloak, or able to use ziplines, or able to use vents and all that.
I seriously like this level of "tailoring your team" in games, especially in a open-world game full of entry and exit points. You can go for full mobility, full offense, full stealth, or mixed tactics.

What makes thing harder on me, but more fun, is having a mixed team. Some people are more mobile, some people are more tanky and aggressive, so I can deal with all the sorts of engagements that might come up.
And I LOVE this sort of tactical craziness and types of engagements (or terrible messes) you can get into. Close Range, Medium Range, Long-Range, Firing Line, multi-front, flanking attacks..

These days I made half of a mission stealthy, then went out with a bang. It was one of the most intense, ridiculous moments in a Tactical Shooter I ever had, which could have been avoided if I didn't try to assert my power over the AI. I got flanked by both Uzy Korp and Dracogenics, who deployed an insane amount of people, and I got out of it by exploding everything and using every single grenade, skill and tactic I had. I only lost a unit (the derpy infiltrator who decided to get out of cover and dance in the middle of a 5v12+ firefight).

It has been a while that I had a "Holy fucking shit, how the hell did I get out of that" moment in a videogame. And I probably just got out of it because there was a relay (aka spawn point/sanctuary place) nearby. Spawn points drop Alert Level (or Wanted Level) quickly, otherwise I just couldn't handle more fighting. Even though my units had full health, I was actually too tense and sort of tired to concentrate in the fight.

I love this kind of thing, and I hope to see more of it in more games, of whatever genres.

So, in the end, I just wish spawns were more varied. I still haven't finished it, though.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2015, 07:41:02 pm by Gabeux »
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It honestly feels like a lot of their problems came from the fact that their entire team was composed of cats, and the people who were supposed to be herding them were also cats.
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