Zombies, Zombies Everywhere....

So the Steam summer sale is an evil, evil…glorious thing. Thus far I have managed to only buy one game, but boy what a game it is. I picked up State of Decay on impulse, seeing the description mention a blend of third person zombie shooter and resource and team management, and I have already put 7 hours into it this past weekend. Considering this was not a gaming binge weekend and I have been fairly busy away from my computer, that’s a good chunk of my at desk time. Going to be a bit vague on the story points, even though in my opinion the overall story isn’t the big driver of this game, but the small character stories and the game-play itself.

You start off with a buddy coming back from a camping trip, secluded on your own little island away from the world for two weeks. In those two weeks, as it usually goes in zombie stories, the world has gone to hell and you return to a, well, State of Decay. This epidemic seems to have struck hard and fast, because most of the places you go have much more dead than living. The introductory area introduces you to a basic home base, little more than a space where you have storage space, as your character can only carry what their backpack allows, 8 for a small and 10 for a large (that’s all I have found so far). This storage space works off a sort of currency you need to earn. By completing missions and adding to the stockpiles you earn reputation with that group of survivors. You then can spend this reputation to take things out of storage. So if you have a gun that you toss into storage, it may earn you 50 reputation, which you can then use to get some food, medicine, and a couple rounds of ammunition. 

So in this first area, you mop up the campsites, and the story then brings you to the local town. Here you meet a group of survivors that take you in, some more grudgingly than others, and you are introduced to a true home base. At your home base, you are allotted a set number of expansion points in which you can build a garden, an infirmary, a workshop, a lookout tower and more. You need to balance the needs of the group with the allotted space of your base, which can be a bit tricky at times. The base is also where your supplies are kept and managed, and where you will find your fellow survivors with which you can readily interact. Some of these interactions get a bit heated, as it is a post-apocalyptic setting, and not everyone (read no one) is thrilled with it. Mini missions with different group mates increase your reputation with them and can settle some short fuses in a less explosive manner. 

The supplies your party relies on are found through scavenging, rightfully one of the largest parts of the game. You get to scout from house to house, garage to shed, seeking anything and everything you can use to survive. These items range from the all hallowed Twinkie, a snack that can quickly boost your stamina in a pinch, to guns, various melee weapons and painkillers for a quick healing boost. The more vital supplies, medicine for your infirmary, substantial food for your group, lots of ammo, building supplies for home base expansion and fuel are found in these scavenging runs too. Unlike normal supplies you can fit in your pack, these vital supplies are carried as rucksacks. They are heavy, slow you down significantly and you can only carry one at a time. Bringing these back, as well as adding any of the smaller items to the stockpiles, earns you reputation with your party, as well as a boost to morale.

In addition to growing the group as a whole, skill management comes down to the character by character level as well. Each character gets four basic skills: Cardio, Wits, Fighting and Shooting; and an assortment of specialized and joke skills as well. By using these skills, such as beating zombies up for fighting, or shooting zombies in the face for shooting, they level up and are then allowed to take specializations to further customize them. Something I need to work on in my gameplay is spreading my gameplay out amongst the playable characters. You need to get to a certain reputation level on a character level to unlock them as playable, but it seems like most, if not all, characters are playable. I keep thinking of the starting character of Marcus as my player character, and the rest as alternates I can play when Marcus needs a rest, but this has lopsided their skill-sets greatly.

Part of the game plays a bit in the GTA line of thinking; that is there is a main storyline to follow with main quests, but there are multiple side quests that pop up seeking my attention. They usually win in my gameplay. 

State of Decay is definitely a surprising favorite in my books, with a great mix of action gameplay and team and resource management. I know it’s only a matter of time before I screw up and one of my team members who I have come to know and love will up and die, and the anxiety of that draws me into the game even further. I just moved my base from the initial church to a large warehouse to allow expansion of my survival group, and I look forward to the new challenges the game has to offer.

The game isn’t without its faults, of course. The AI is decent, though sometimes your team members refuse to move out of your way and stand blocking a doorway as you try to toss a firebomb through. Luckily there seems to be no friendly fire, or I’d be a lone survivor. I’ve noticed at times the controls get a bit wonky, but that could just be my G13 keypad not playing nicely, either way, it’s minor and usually is fixed by letting the game have a second and then continuing on. The zombies will shift around a bit, sometimes sitting, then suddenly standing, or halfway through a fence to suddenly on top, but they are very minor things that have yet to hinder my enjoyment. 

State of Decay can be found here or on Steam for $9.99

There are 2 DLC packs available as well:

Breakdown adds a true open world, infinite survival setup with a fully unlocked map.  Your survival earns you points which you can then compare to players around the world.

Lifeline adds a new map to the game, as well as new players and a game-play mode where you need to defend your base using all the best military equipment available.

If you need me, I’ll be in State of Decay……

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter to keep on top of updates!

-Mac

Sociopathic Score

 The game is about surviving, but there is plenty of potential for Sociopathic tendencies, such as throwing members of your group out for no reason, or getting in a loud car PURELY to lure zombies towards you to run over, then back up over, and run over again....

Sophomoric Score

I've yet to see any real indication of immaturity programmed in. I'm sure you can find or add your own....

Strategic Score

You are leading a band of survivors in an attempt to stay alive in an ongoing zombie apocalypse, in charge of keeping on hand food, medicine, building supplies while making sure everyone is getting along and not suffering from depression or getting too trigger happy. I'd say this defines strategy.

Ultra Drop!

Looks like Carbine Studios is setting up some high expectations for its players by announcing a massive content patch due out before the end of the month.  This begins a trend Carbine hopes to continue, dropping in a “huge amount of gameplay” each month, according to executive producer Jeremy Gaffney. These content updates are called “drops” by the team, and will vary in size from Ultra Drops, such as this one, to Epic Drops to Regular Drops.

The update is called “The Strain”, themed around an alien infestation that will mutate existing creatures in game and add two new zones to explore. Blighthaven is a level 50 zone, starting a solo area and progressing into group content. It ends with an open-world, multi-wing dungeon, the last boss of which will evolve based on how much of the dungeon has been cleared to that point. The second zone, Northern Wastes, will be a re-skinned and updated version of the Northern Wilds tutorial zone, with tougher enemies, quests and challenges aimed at end game players.

According to Gaffney, at any given time one-thirds of the team is working updates such as this while two-thirds are working bug stomping, reactive changing and tweaking. We can expect new gear, mounts and player housing options from this drop as well, with housing a key point for a June 26^th patch.

“The Strain” hits nexus on June 24^th, ideally (testing may change this), and though I won’t be ready to tackle it now, I look forward to seeing more about the drop. The goal is to build in elements for all player types, solo, group, raid and PvP with these drops. July’s will contain content design for PvP, so keep your eyes open for it!

Thanks for following! 

-Mac

If Mac played WildStar, turn to page 32....

Ok – E3 is over, I didn’t get as much of it covered last week as I would have liked, but it gives me something to strive to improve on next year. I will get at least a wrap-up done within the next week with games that sparked my interest most. For now back to my usual ramblings.

WildStar

I am taking my time with WildStar, partly due to a busy life lately and partly so I don’t burn out on it in one binge. Made it to level 15 over the weekend and after getting my skills settled, buying my mount, and exploring my housing a bit…I went to bed. The next day however, I set myself up for a bit of game time and entered the queue for my first adventure – The Hycrest Insurrection. Adventures are instances for 5 group members that follow a “choose your own adventure” format. At each junction, you are given three paths to choose from, and the choice that obtains the highest number of votes wins for the group’s choice. There is a final boss to fight, and everyone gets rewarded for their efforts, plus reputation to spend at the vender at the instance entrance. A major difference between this and a dungeon is the lack of exp awarded for monster kills here. And that I have heard dungeons are far more difficult.

The fact that dungeons are more difficult both excites and scares me, because the adventure wasn’t a walk in the park. Starting off in a hover-copter, we listened to a briefing and then jet-packed down to Hycrest, a territory currently heavily under Dominion control. Our job was to help them successfully rebel and throw out the oppressing forces. We hunkered down with a leader of the insurgency and were presented with our first choice. The choices range from outright rebellion and target elimination to collection and destruction of resources.

My group went with the latter, and we set out killing the guards and destroying their property as smooth as can be. The only stumbling blocks we came upon were the constant artillery barrage as a group member carelessly stepped into the warning reticules scattered about and the annoyance of the snipers knocking us down as we ran around.

At our next juncture, we set out to free some prisoners, and were presented with some heftier enemies to take down. At this point I let my enthusiasm get the better of me, forgot to watch my threat level, and bit the dust. Up on my feet again, we pressed on and finished the objective smoothly. We did encounter a bug of not being able to see one another until we met at the rendezvous point, but it cleared itself up. We finished our last mini quest and went on to tackle the adventure boss. Here we wiped a few times, all new to the experience and not knowing the tactics. These aren’t the hardest bosses in the world, but they still require a fine level of tactics and finesse.

Overall, I love the idea of adventures. As I understand it, your story sculpts visually depending on the paths you choose, including more or less friendly NPCs, destruction, etc. I am excited to grab another group and try again, choosing different paths this time. I love the change of pace from normal exp grinding without the insane challenge I have heard the dungeons present, though I look forward to those just as anxiously. It’s definitely a unique take on group content, and it helps keep you engaged in the world’s storyline in a fun new way.

Carbine Studios is doing awesome so far, and though we are plagued with gold spammers, what MMO isn’t? Patches are coming rapid-fire, fixing bugs and rebalancing what needs rebalancing. I love where the game is, and can’t wait to see where it goes.

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Google+, Twitter @Driachan or via Email or RSS to the right!

If you still haven't jumped on the WildStar bandwagon, get on board!

-Mac

There's Nothing Here For You But Death....

To survive.
In Rust, an indie game by the maker of Garry’s Mod, that’s the seemingly simple objective. You are plopped down stark naked in all your 3d modeled glory with nothing but a rock and a couple bandages and told to achieve this simple objective. Also plopped down in this world are other players, some just as naked as you. However, other players arrived long before you and now have clothes. And pickaxes. And fortresses. And body armor. And military grade rifles. And in a world where resources are limited and you are told to survive at all costs, those players with rifles are rarely friendly.

I logged in for the first time to a generic, unmodded server with over 100 other players. I wandered around trying to find a rock node or wood pile to hit with my rock for crafting materials so I could start carving my little place out of the hell that was the world. My first romp through the forest returned little for my efforts and as soon as I found a rock to harvest, I was greeted by another player stone axe blade first. My first death in Rust. I stopped counting at this point, which was good, because my current death toll is higher than I can count. I can honestly say my adrenaline was pumping fast as I wandered through the dark forests, constantly listening carefully for player footsteps, running and hiding scared when I heard them. When you die in Rust, you lose everything. The other player can loot you and that’s that. This makes creating a defendable fortress essential in which to store spare gear that you can retrieve after your many, many deaths. This game has provided me with some of my most terrifying moments in a video game, all thanks to the other psychopaths on the servers with me.

A quick overview of the progression. You harvest stone nodes and trees or wood piles for wood, stone, sulfur, and metal ore. You build a stone axe to increase your harvest rate, and then a hut in which to hide come night time…when the world gets near pitch black. You have a torch, but by lighting it you essentially just paint a target on your back. You need to build a door in addition to just the hut, and then you have a semblance of safety. You gradually increase your raw material stockpile, make a furnace, a larger hut, metal harvesting tools, a bow and arrow, and then you need to go from hunted to hunter. When I started, there were zombies in main hubs. Now they have transitioned to temporary mutated animals with an as of yet unannounced replacement for those in the future. These special monsters drop blueprints you need to progress further, making things such as handguns, ammo, Kevlar armor, military grade weaponry and plastic explosives.

I never made it this far on a standard server. Hell, I never made it past the making a little hut phase. The servers were too overpopulated, the harvest nodes had yet to be optimized to account for this and the map was too small to handle this many people in any way but absolute chaos. Once I gave up on the main servers and found my way over to the modded servers, my enjoyment factor climbed quickly. The servers went from having 100+ people on at all times to hovering around 50 at most, for the servers I chose. I feel with the current map, 50 is about all it can support without requiring all out war 24/7.

Once on a new server a friend and I had carved out our little nook in the world, created an ever growing fortress and started stockpiling blueprints, gunpowder, ammo, food, and weapons in a way that would make the best doom day preppers proud. Now violence is always enhanced in video games, but something I have learned from Rust is that given a situation where a few pieces of wood can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving, I am totally willing to beat another player’s head in with a rock to make sure I walk away with that piece of wood. I’m also willing to hold players at gunpoint if they approach too quickly or try to move in a way I don’t like. I am also willing to take shots from on top of a tower with a rudimentary sniper rifle at a near naked player who came too close to the field in which my heavily fortified house was built. My sociopath switch may or may not be triggered by this game.

The game is early in alpha and has met an extremely high success rate for being in such an early build. The game keeps getting better with every update, although we are currently experience a drought of updates because of a MASSIVE rebuild in the works, rewriting most of the code from the ground up. I can’t wait to see the re-release in the next few months, the game has good bones to build on and I expect great things for its future.

There have been teases of upcoming additions, ranging from attack helicopters to electricity to alarm systems…it’s extremely ambitious to put it lightly. Personally, my friends and I have simpler wish lists. We feel the game plays its best at the primitive level, and should at least start with that. I’d like to see different bows available, improvised clubs, swords and shields. The ability to dig would make moats a valid option for home defense, and the ability to take out metal doors and walls without the use of high explosives would make it less of a yes/no as to whether someone can get into your house. This would also mean we need more building materials to supplement the current wood or metal, different strengths to make it so the battering ram may get through the wall, but is an hour of playtime clicking the button worth it?

Being in early alpha, the game definitely has its bugs. They fix them, but some online players, being the fine human beings that they are, decide to break them and create workarounds and hacks as fast as the bugs can be fixed. On a lot of servers, hackers that can phase through walls, insta-lock for headshots, steal possessions out of your pack and a plethora of other cheap moves run rampant. They are fighting them and constantly looking for new, better systems with which to fight them. Generally when I run across hackers I either try to enjoy the game elsewhere, or I find a new server. It’s a short term fix until they can build in their long term fixes.

I hope the game continues to get better and better, and I will keep dropping by as the updates come. If you are looking for a great game that brings out the inner mass murderer and recluse, Rust is definitely for you. It’s definitely worth the $20 asking price, and I anticipate with their newest patch in the next few months, it will go from feeling like an early alpha to a well polished beta.

Rust can currently be found HERE on Steam.

Thanks for following!

-Mac

--Sociopathic Score--

In a world where you are naked, scared, and without anything to your name…your inner sociopath shines brightly.

--Sophomoric Score--

You do start stark naked, 3d modeled junk and all

--Strategic Score--

It’s survival of the fittest and most creative. Coming up with new ways to build given the limited options that prevent others from breaking in and stealing your stuff…it’s kept me up at nights.

It's all fun and games until a friend takes an arrow in the stomach.