Didn't see a thread for this game (although after playing it, im not sure if it deserves one...).
Anyone else play this? It's a Russian game from now apparently defunct developer Deep Shadows. Recently an English version was released (which is, quite frankly, one of the worst translation jobs I've ever heard of - they simply stripped all the Russian dialog, which bugs the game to not play any audio at all most of the time, and made a really crappy effort at translating the text - luckily a fan made translation patch is better and doesn't screw up the audio). The funny thing is apparently the GamersGate version (which costs $30) is a cracked unpatched version, which you can't patch because that will remove the crack and thus you can't play your legitimately purchased game. To get the GamersGate version working with the patch you have to download a keygen, lol. I bought the russian version from yuplay.ru for $8 and downloaded the unofficial translation patch (which translated the text better, and still included the cutscenes from the english version). The translated cutscenes are laughable - every single character is voiced by the same guy, including the woman. The funny thing is the guy tries to change his voice on some of the chars, with a really creepy soft voice for the woman. But at least you can get the gist of whats going on in the cutscene, even if its difficult to figure out who is saying what sometimes.
It was a fun game, but it ended really unexpectedly - and I never did see some of the features the game was supposed to have. I'm not sure if I took the wrong path and missed a bunch of the content or what, but it was super short. Supposedly you can board ships in the game, but I never found a way to do that - all the space fighting I got to do in the main mission was shooting a few little fighters down and a couple freighters, which provided absolutely no challenge.
I'll describe my playthrough just to see if I can get anyone else's opinion who has played it to see if maybe I missed some of the content.
Finished tutorial and started on the first planet, Goldin.
On Goldin I had a choice of going against the bandits, or working with them - I worked against them and shot them all up. Few hours I was done with all the missions I could find here and was sent to do a few simple space missions. Somewhere along here I went to another planet via cutscene (didn't have my ship yet), but it was a thoroughly linear fetch mission. Then I got my ship, and after helping an imperial ship fight a freighter and spying on a ship smuggling explosives I found out that my home planet (which I never saw or heard of before that...) blew up.
I then went to Gli. Here I was presented with the choice of helping the democratic union kill off the local alien race, or help the local alien race stop the civil war and foil the democratic union's plans. I picked the aliens. All I wound up doing was a few fetch quests and a little sneaking into the democratic union's base. The only bullet I fired was the sniper rifle round I put in the head of the rebel leader's head from a few hundred meters away, which still somehow made the rebels and the democratic union pissed at me even though nobody saw me do it. I then met the elder guy I was sent there to talk to, and he told me the planet blew up because of an experiment run by the empire scientists and told me where to find the scientist. This whole planet didn't take near as long as the first one.
I then went to the planet in question, working for the empire (which, in retrospect, was probably the wrong choice, since I think they're the guys who caused the planet to blow up in the first place). I did some more fetch missions, killed loads of free trader guys (mostly with the stolen vehicles from the empire base, that mech thing was fun - if only it had more ammo). I then was offered the choice of staying and working there, or going into space. I stayed there, since the whole goal was just getting close enough to them to get to the scientist - which I assumed would be better served if I stayed there. This may have been a bad choice too, perhaps I missed the special space stuff by not going into space? Anyway, a few more simple missions and a 60,000 credit bribe later I get the key card to get into the lab. The empire folks decide they dont want me there, so I massacre them and go in anyway (huzzah, now everyone hates me! - the democratic union from my missions on Gli, the free traders because I massacred them for the Empire, and the Empire because I massacred them to get into the lab). Inside, I'm presented with a cutscene where my ship comes and we get onboard and the scientist tells me something along the lines of "You can't kill me, you need me to solve the riddle of the precursors!"
Aaand fade to credits. Huh? Thats it? It was just getting good!
I visted four planets, one of which only took like 5 minutes on a fetch quest. I never visited most of the systems in the game. What exactly were they there for, anyway? Just to trade? I got a few hundred thousand credits trading for 20 minutes, enough to buy everything in the game, right after Goldin just by buying alcohol from the station there and selling it to a Gli station and then coming back with something else (fruit I think? I forget). I just don't understand why the game has all these systems and planets and stuff if its just going to end after the third major planet, and after only probably 8 or so hours of playing (and I did every single side quest I could find, too).
It feels like I was reading a book and halfway through when the story is actually starting to come together and the plot is actually getting interesting I find out the rest of the pages are blank.
I guess at $8 it wasn't so bad, I got about 8 hours of enjoyment out of it. But if I had purchased it from GamersGate for $30 I'd be pretty annoyed.
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Topic: Precursors (Read 1790 times)