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[SquatchHammer]

So apparently you guys have not really seen this, like seriously.

As said in the title there is a MASSIVE ENERGY AXE. Also it is a Dark Souls alike. It is coming out in two days and its 10% off for pre-ordering it.

I watched both Total Biscut's and Jim Sterling's reveiws on it as well seeing the company's combat video. I am rarely sold on games before they are released and I had to buy this one before it was released.

Spoiler: For those who didn't see the release trailer yet don't click. (click to show/hide)

As seen on the release trailer, there is an indication that there was a ghost in the machine scenario, including building it's own devices and possibly humans. I think it is very interesting just how much they are releasing without spoiling the entire story but enough to entice my sci-fi appetite.

As for the game itself, it has a combat system very much like Dark Souls and as the two reviewers mentioned above said as much. It does have an interesting way of targeting and taking off limbs in order to get scrap to upgrade your equipment. From that you can customize your loadout to the combat style of your choice and then tweak it from there. As stated above there is a MASSIVE ENERGY AXE. That is all.

[Retropunch]

I was pretty dubious, as the whole 'souls-like' genre tends to just come down to 'make game hard and a bit tedious', but this one looks pretty good from the gameplay videos. I liked the customisation - one of the things I was never a fan of with the souls series was the pretty basic but also opaque customisation and character building - whereas this one seems a lot more fun.

It's also by the same people as Lords of the Fallen which was pretty good, if a bit too much of a souls rip off. Hopefully though it means they've managed to build on the formula.

Anyway, it's out tomorrow so I guess we'll soon see!

[NullForceOmega]

I've never played any of the Souls games (tho' I've played the hell out of King's Field), so I can't make any comparisons, but almost everything in this game just feels good.

I've made it through the first two areas, and am currently stopped in the third (damned robo-hounds).  So far I've acquired four complete sets of armor (still using the Lynx gear I started with tho', it has a very nice attack speed bonus), and eleven weapons, the vibro-cutter is by far my favorite so far, but I'm looking for a single-hand weapon with better scaling (I'm up to 15 proficiency with one-handers).

So far I'd recommend it on its own merits, but it seems to be putting some Souls players off for some reason.

Edit: Also, there isn't any option to modify the MC's appearance, you're playing Warren, and that is all there is to it.

[Retropunch]

I've never played any of the Souls games (tho' I've played the hell out of King's Field), so I can't make any comparisons, but almost everything in this game just feels good.

I've made it through the first two areas, and am currently stopped in the third (damned robo-hounds).  So far I've acquired four complete sets of armor (still using the Lynx gear I started with tho', it has a very nice attack speed bonus), and eleven weapons, the vibro-cutter is by far my favorite so far, but I'm looking for a single-hand weapon with better scaling (I'm up to 15 proficiency with one-handers).

So far I'd recommend it on its own merits, but it seems to be putting some Souls players off for some reason.

Edit: Also, there isn't any option to modify the MC's appearance, you're playing Warren, and that is all there is to it.

Thanks for letting us know how it is - always good to hear a B12's opinion.

The PC Gamer review was absolute rubbish - the reviewer obviously was not in a good frame of mind, and had a big problem with the game before they started. Also, starting off with a needlessly whiny the 'protagonist is a generic white male which is annoying herp derp' doesn't really help. Really feel they were a bit unfair with it.

All the other review sites make it sound great though, so I think I'll pick it up. That said, I'm right in the middle of DS2:SotfS so might leave it a while if it's very similar.

[askovdk]

I have it PS4(pro) version, like it  , but have only played about 4 hours yet.

I'm a huge fan of the Souls series, and I have no problem with this game using the same mechanics.
The best thing is the feel of the combat, as the animations and slowness makes the armor and weapons feel heavy in a correct way.

One warning, - the 'value for money' may be a lot less than in the real souls games. I've heard talk about finishing in 20-30 hours and most (all?) of that time is spent in a quite similar environment.
(I don't have a problem with that.)

Eurogamer was not impressed with the repetition:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-05-16-the-surge-review

but TotalBiscuit was happy with the feel (as I):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HSwrq8z9Es
<edit: Ahh, same as in OP>

[NullForceOmega]

Thanks for letting us know how it is - always good to hear a B12's opinion.

The PC Gamer review was absolute rubbish - the reviewer obviously was not in a good frame of mind, and had a big problem with the game before they started. Also, starting off with a needlessly whiny the 'protagonist is a generic white male which is annoying herp derp' doesn't really help. Really feel they were a bit unfair with it.

All the other review sites make it sound great though, so I think I'll pick it up. That said, I'm right in the middle of DS2:SotfS so might leave it a while if it's very similar.

Regarding the 'white male protag' controversy, one of the things I really don't get is that they completely ignore that Warren is disabled, before the ATLAS is attached to him he is completely wheelchair-bound.  To be fair, that lasts through all of like five minutes, then he's moving like a power-armored war-machine, but I felt that it was a nice change of pace (certainly far better than F4's intro for example.)

[Sirian]

Thanks for letting us know how it is - always good to hear a B12's opinion.

The PC Gamer review was absolute rubbish - the reviewer obviously was not in a good frame of mind, and had a big problem with the game before they started. Also, starting off with a needlessly whiny the 'protagonist is a generic white male which is annoying herp derp' doesn't really help. Really feel they were a bit unfair with it.

All the other review sites make it sound great though, so I think I'll pick it up. That said, I'm right in the middle of DS2:SotfS so might leave it a while if it's very similar.

Regarding the 'white male protag' controversy, one of the things I really don't get is that they completely ignore that Warren is disabled, before the ATLAS is attached to him he is completely wheelchair-bound.  To be fair, that lasts through all of like five minutes, then he's moving like a power-armored war-machine, but I felt that it was a nice change of pace (certainly far better than F4's intro for example.)

Have you actually read the review ? Here's the part that you mention :

a brown-haired white male straight out of every video game, heads to his first day of work [...] realize Warren's not as generic as I thought. He's in a wheelchair.

[Retropunch]

Regarding the 'white male protag' controversy, one of the things I really don't get is that they completely ignore that Warren is disabled, before the ATLAS is attached to him he is completely wheelchair-bound.  To be fair, that lasts through all of like five minutes, then he's moving like a power-armored war-machine, but I felt that it was a nice change of pace (certainly far better than F4's intro for example.)

Yeah, from watching an early lets play it seemed like an interesting character back story (a WHY he ended up there, instead of the usual 'I decided to do this just cos I did'). As Sirian said, it is pointed out, however the reviewer STILL feels the need to prefix it with a lot of 'generic white male' bit. It's why it rubbed me up the wrong way so much - he obviously wanted to make a politicised point, even if it isn't there for him to make.

Whilst the people who bang on about how 'the world hates standard white males' are stupid, I do think it's a bit ridiculous that people are using having a white male protag as a reason to dislike something or that something is somehow less good because the character is a standard white male, which seems to be what the PC Gamer article is saying.

Representation is important, but sometimes it doesn't fit the creators vision for whatever reason.

[Sirian]

Yeah, from watching an early lets play it seemed like an interesting character back story (a WHY he ended up there, instead of the usual 'I decided to do this just cos I did'). As Sirian said, it is pointed out, however the reviewer STILL feels the need to prefix it with a lot of 'generic white male' bit. It's why it rubbed me up the wrong way so much - he obviously wanted to make a politicised point, even if it isn't there for him to make.

Whilst the people who bang on about how 'the world hates standard white males' are stupid, I do think it's a bit ridiculous that people are using having a white male protag as a reason to dislike something or that something is somehow less good because the character is a standard white male, which seems to be what the PC Gamer article is saying.

Representation is important, but sometimes it doesn't fit the creators vision for whatever reason.

Oh yea I totally agree that "diversity" for it's own sake is just as stupid as people who think that white males are evil, but I didn't feel like the PC Gamer article was making that sort of point at all.

It seems to me that they mentioned his skin color as one of the neutral generic elements that contrast with the surprise of discovering that he's disabled. Reading more into it seems far fetched, unless you're already brainwashed to read "white" with a negative connotation.
---

Moving on : about the game, what do you guys think about it ? Good or bad ? I'm considering buying it but I'm still on the fence.

[nenjin]

Maybe that's the new frontline in the video games identity politics war. Just give the white male protag a physical or mental disability and you're good to go

[NullForceOmega]

Have you actually read the review ? Here's the part that you mention :

a brown-haired white male straight out of every video game, heads to his first day of work [...] realize Warren's not as generic as I thought. He's in a wheelchair.

Actually, no, I haven't read any reviews, and I've only watched TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling's videos, I was basing my statement off of the vitriolic crap spewed across Steam's forums and the comments for said videos.

As for the game, I'm mostly enjoying it, tho' I have a series of complaints against the third boss 'Big Sister 1/3'.  For brevity's sake I'll leave it at: "Why does The Surge need a traditional three-stage boss battle?  Isn't the game deadly enough without this shit?""

Edit: There's a fairly large selection of weapons, and though they are grouped into just five categories, different weapons have different move sets, and sometimes different combos.  The visual diversity of items is great, all the armor and weapons I've seen so far are distinct from each other.

Armor has set bonuses when you equip all six pieces, some are really nice (Lynx) some are a bit meh (Rhino),  but they have very distinct stats too, so that can make up for a weak bonus.

When you defeat enemies you get tech scrap, the more enemies you beat before returning to the Ops center the higher the multiplier for scrap earned becomes, I had one very tense run that ended with around 27,000 scrap, which I lost to Big Sister.  If you are quick you can regain lost scrap, defeating enemies extends the recovery timer (and nets more scrap.)

The aesthetics will probably be a love it/hate it for most people, if you like sci-fi industrial you'll probably like what you see, if not you'll probably hate it.  I'm fairly partial to it myself, but MASSIVE ENERGY AXE and power armor are very good ways to get my attention.

Additional Edit:  Killed the Big Sister, now I'm getting completely wrecked in the fourth area.  I'm feel like I might be hitting my physical limits trying to keep up here, incredibly tight timing and judgment for almost everything, and now there are asinine little shield drones all over the place, making difficult enemies almost unreasonable.  Got a new set of armor tho', good stats, bad bonus, it's keeping me in the fight longer, but the density of hostiles is getting a bit ridiculous.

Augmented Edit:  Barely scraped my way through the fourth section, now getting completely torn up in the fifth.  I hope the difficulty doesn't escalate any further, as at the current level I am just not able to stay on top of it.  Went from asshole enemies with ranged weapons and shield drones to asshole enemies who are fast moving, extremely heavy-hitting, and armored to a slightly idiotic degree, and while I can't prove it, I think their AI may actually be cheating.  I've seen dead opponents' bodies continue moving as if to attack, as well as very unnatural 'sticking' to my hitbox (like, teleporting or dragging).  And the current boss has a really nasty gimmick, when you've reduced his health part-way, he calls in a PAX robot that I so far can't kill.

[Cthulhu]

It looks okay, but I'm of the above opinion that "Souls" is just an excuse to make your game ugly and frustrating and call it difficulty.  The Souls series is the veganism of video games and I'm sick of hearing about it.

[NullForceOmega]

Managed to figure out how to take down the armored assholes, but the boss and his pet 'mech are still giving me hell.  Also figured out exactly how the 'scrap multiplier' works, it increments based on the number of executions you perform.  Still pretty sure those armored guys are cheating, watched very carefully and they've got some 'stickiness' factor to them, they'll latch onto the MC like a magnet until they decide to execute their animation, most notable with their 'counter kick'.

Edit:  Well, I can beat the first PAX, but once the second rolls out I'm out of healing and I can't hang.

[Viken]

@NullForceOmega: The entire drive of the game isn't to complete it fast, but to basically grind and gather all the mecha parts and then upgrade them to get through an area.  To put it in the perspective of a rogue-like: LOOT!  CRAFT!  UPGRADE!  LOOT SOME MORE!!  REPEAT!!!

You are supposed to find the enemies weaknesses and then bash them as you can.  For strong enemies, go with speed.  For fast enemies, go with stability and strength.  The weapons too also have their damage types which you need to look at closely.  Some with high elemental damage will actually 'shock' an enemy and cause them to stall for a moment or two.  Perfect for executions and combos.  Heavy bashing weapons can even break an armored segment of a mecha as well, even without an execution if you give it enough damage.

I didn't even leave the first area until I cleared up and gathered everything and got my power supply to 25. >.>''  Not to mention finding the hidden kick-ass weapons scattered around and hidden.

[NullForceOmega]

Yah, I've been grinding, I have most of the loot, I'm well upgraded, and Cerberus and his boy PAX are still tearing me to pieces (well, not so much Cerberus, but PAX is an asshole).  I know how to play, and I'm actually pretty good at it, once I learn an enemy's pattern I can usually kill an arbitrary number of them without difficulty.  But some of these guys are straight up unfair, like anyone with a drone shield, or twin rigged enemies in full armor (hint: Rhino is goliath class, and has high stability and the highest impact of any set, guess why they put the butterfly on them).

The problem with the fully-functional PAX units is knocking them down, I can almost kill them with a single combo, but knocking them down is proving to be incredibly difficult.  And they have entirely too much reach with their blades.