Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Game News Underworld Ascendant releasing in September, gets negative previews

Jack Dandy

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2013
Messages
3,039
Location
Israel
Divinity: Original Sin 2
AaaaAAAggh, dammit. :negative:
I was usually careful about my KS backings, but this one looks to be a complete dud. At least I only went for the basic level. Bah.
 

karnak

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 14, 2014
Messages
920
Location
Negative Zone
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
I'm sad. I'm one of those guys who really hated the Saturday-morning cartoon style graphics.
But Ultima Underworld is one of my favourite games.
I'd sure like to see a good "Underworld 3" :(
 

SausageInYourFace

Angelic Reinforcement
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
3,858
Location
In your face
Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
Can't say I care much for Underworld Ascendant but after they also bought System Shock rights I was certainly hoping for a Thief sequel or something similar down the line.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
a good "Underworld 3" :(
138566-arx-fatalis-windows-front-cover.jpg
 

The Avatar

Pseudodragon Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 15, 2016
Messages
336
Location
The United States of America
I always thought the art style was off. It's like they were going for a darker Blizzard/WoW style clean 3d, but it ends up looking like the artists forgot to apply any diffuse/albedo texture at all to many of the models. The result is that the environment just looks unfinished.

Are there NPC's in this game? Part of the fun of the original Underworld was finding and interacting with the remnants of civilization in the dungeon- not just mindless combat.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
Hold on just a second. Many of the criticisms in the OP sound like casual garbage. "waaah I always got spotted while crouch-walking"...maybe stealth is more nuanced than just pressing the magic crouch button? "Waaah melee combat was difficult to aim"...is this actually an issue, or are you used to modern trash where you press a button and something awesome happens? e.g batman combat where all you have to do is press the awesome button and he will kick the crap out of the nearest dude. You don't even have to rotate batman to face the enemy.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
I mean really, LOOK AT THIS SHIT.

"Emphasizing spells didn't help matters. The primary spell at my disposal, a freeze-enemy move, required aiming and firing multiple times to actually ensnare enemies, even when I was aiming at enemies who stood still."

WTF? Is there some unwritten rule that everything has to be instakill OP-tier? Do you know what is identical to this freeze behaviour? Prey's Gloo gun. I bet in addition to freezing this probably does damage too, potentially making it better than the gloo.

"I had to hit the enemy more than once for them to freeze. This is bad design and something to be critical of because reasons I will not go into"

What kind of criticism is that? What the fuck? I see little to anything wrong with what was highlighted in the OP, and it smells of game journo retardation. So basically, they want to be a retarded OP god akin to Bioshock, Dishonored and Deus Ex: Human Devolution.

The first thing they should have nailed down during development was movement and combat, above all else.

In an action rpg the combat needs to be addictive, make players search out the next encounter.

All their old games had deep but rather unpolished and clunky combat and/or movement. Was addictive nonetheless, and it is important to get those things right, but those games were a sum of their parts and leagues better than most other ARPGs.
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The problem isn't the previews, the problem is the release date.

What's described in those previews doesn't sound like a game that's coming out in less than four months - not in terms of quality but in terms of quantity. Where's the game? Have you seen anything yet that looks like a full-scale experience that could come out in September? All those jokes about the full game not existing that we made about PoE2 make more sense here.

See Flug's posts here: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1974.msg27213#msg27213
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
Modern game journo need only a game with an instant win button. They do not understand that a part of the fun is to learn how the character behaves.
I have read nothing that told me that this will be a bad game quite the opposite: Sword fighting is not a stupid button smasher. Enemies are not easy to kill and to handle. You have to learn how to move.
The next thing that the game journos will complain is that you can die in a game and that you enemies don't die in the moment, that you draw the sword from the sheath. But the sad thing is that there are people out there who read what these people write and buy games based on this.
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Messages
999
That artstyle does my nut in to be honest. I can put up with a lot. I played MUDs back in the day with ASCI art. But this just doesn't mesh well with previous Undeground titles.
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Doesn’t sound to me as if it is declined journalists looking for an awesome button; more like an unfinished janky game where all it’s systems feel unpolished and lacking. I mean even if they compared it to Skyrim at least the stealth system there is not broken so the journalists probably know what they are talking about
Oh well, another one bites the dust
At least I might get hyped to play some more Arx
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
Hold on just a second. Many of the criticisms in the OP sound like casual garbage. "waaah I always got spotted while crouch-walking"...maybe stealth is more nuanced than just pressing the magic crouch button? "Waaah melee combat was difficult to aim"...is this actually an issue, or are you used to modern trash where you press a button and something awesome happens? e.g batman combat where all you have to do is press the awesome button and he will kick the crap out of the nearest dude. You don't even have to rotate batman to face the enemy.

This was exactly my impression as well, particularly the magic crouch button comment is a yuge red light.
 

Zibniyat

Arcane
Joined
Jun 22, 2014
Messages
6,536
Just lol at believing anything the mainstream game journalists say in 2018. Even reading their worthless opinions about anything is a waste of time at best.
 

Blaine

Cis-Het Oppressor
Patron
Joined
Oct 6, 2012
Messages
1,874,662
Location
Roanoke, VA
Grab the Codex by the pussy
Thought it looked shit from the first Torchlight palette/graphics concept screens. Was off my radar since then.

Shit looking and sounding game is turning out shit. Who would have thought?

Any team that chose that particular art-style as the one they feel best represents a place called The Stygian Abyss... should give anyone pause.

I kept waiting to see if the art assets were going to iterate into something a little less cartoonish as development progressed, but it never happened.

Yep, same here, and I'm on record saying so ages ago. I figured that if the game turned out to actually be good, then great, and the Codex (or rather, the tasteful portion of the Codex) would let me know—otherwise, I wouldn't hold my breath.

What I didn't anticipate was that mainstream "journalists" would react so negatively to a preview build.

I wouldn't have backed this game no matter what, mind you, since Tides of Numenera permanently killed my interest in crowdfunding as of early 2014. That goes quadruple now that Wasteland 2, TToN et al. have actually released.
 

commie

The Last Marxist
Patron
Joined
May 12, 2010
Messages
1,865,249
Location
Where one can weep in peace
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Can't say I care much for Underworld Ascendant but after they also bought System Shock rights I was certainly hoping for a Thief sequel or something similar down the line.

Thank the gods for them going out of business before that. Given the evidence here, a new Thief would be like this:

slythieves6.jpg
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom