KickStarter Underworld Ascendant is a disaster

[Gord]

I found Prey good enough, just not exactly great. It does some things well, has a few interesting ideas, but fails in some areas, too.
Enemy design and combat is pretty boring, for instance. Eventually gameplay became too repetitive for my taste. In the last hours I typically avoided engaging enemies and rather ran past them as I couldn't be bothered fighting them.
That being said, it's worth trying out if you get it at 20 bucks or less, imo.

 

[Hines]

Remember when Looking Glass reformed and asked fans to support them making a sequel to Ultima Underworld? Sad times.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Even if Arkane doesn't match LGS in its prime, it's still pretty much the only immersive sim developer out there right now. Yeah their games could be a lot better/deeper but at least their games are polished, mainstream enough to get people hooked (and introduced to this design philosophy) and pretty damn successful commercially (enough to stay afloat and push for similar quality games), their writing sucks unbelievably but..........gameplay comes first, story second.

 

[Nano]

Nah, Eidos Montreal is better.

 

[toro]

Also, why is it called Prey? That's just confusing and stupid.

Not for Bethesda.

 

[Dodo1610]

Prey is a better game than System Shock ever was. Better level design, better weapons and powers. Some really awesome ideas, like the ability to go outside the space station and use that as a sort of shortcut. Even the storyline is more interesting than the old "crazy AI tries to kill everyone" from SS.

Only thing it really lacks is the cool SHODAN style villain. The antagonists in Prey are creepy, but not especially memorable. And the graphics are good but they feel like a bit of a Bioshock-ripoff. Also, why is it called Prey? That's just confusing and stupid.

Better than System Shock 1 yes, better than SS2 no! System Shock 2 isn't really about the AI for the most part, The Many are a far more effective villain than Shodan or the Typhoon could ever be.
Prey is overall a good example of how to bring back old games, without feeling like rehashes. The developers understood what makes an immersive sim good and managed to translate them to modern gameplay, they even fixed a few issues of the original without watering down the experience.

And then look at this travesty a indie studio without a big publisher created a game that share nothing with the original except the title and few "features". Honestly if EA made a new Ultima Underworld we would have probably ended up with a better game.

 

[CootKeeper]

Is this it for OtherSide Entertainment? will they disband and call it quits?

 

[Sceptic]

It's certainly a cautionary tale on how much to trust nostalgia-bait Kickstarters...

 

[Nyast]

Is this it for OtherSide Entertainment? will they disband and call it quits?

One of their devs was saying they're totally fine in terms of funding, and that the decision to release had nothing to do with money.

Another one of their devs literraly posted that they had run out of funding and had delayed the game for 2 months, working from their own savings unpaid until the release.

I'm too lazy to dig the quotes, but one thing I can tell is that the stories do not add up. What the devs themselves say is contradictory, I have no idea what is going on at Otherside.

 

[Machocruz]

I really need to check out Prey. But I'm afraid that it's going to be too forgiving, like Dishonored. All these AAA "immersive sims" want to pattern themselves after the classics yet without the limitations on the player. There isn't a large enough market worthy of real successors. The masses just want to pop moles and larp and be awesome and be able to do and get everything in the game in one playthrough.

 

[Jenkem]

for those shitting on prey try playing it again w/ the hardcore shit turned on (wounds, oxygen, healing, etc.) that they patched in to the main game when they released mooncrash

 

[JBro]

Prey was good except for the lesbian gaymur girls.

 

[Hines]

 

[Roguey]

With momentum to unionize and people becoming more aware of bad work conditions in the game industry, people need to get that labor going into a game that ends up subpar is still labor.

You worked hard on a bad game.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Any game made by union workers will always be shit to perhaps mediocre, because unions.

 

[DeepOcean]

Is Prey any good, really? I watched over two hours of gameplay and it seems so boring

More or less. Level design is pretty good, the story,world building and characters are boring though. It has the core of a good Shock game but don't expect the world building of the System Shock games that gave the context for the awesome level design. Imagine Thief without Garret and with a bland protagonist instead or System Shock without Shodan, technically still good games but their power greatly diminished, that is Prey.

While Prey is only a shadow of the old games, it is still the best modern immersive sim game, if Arkane had good writers capable of doing powerful world building, they could have made a classic. Play it then weep that after it, immersive sims are dead, gamers deserve the microtransactions shoved on their ass. Arkane was a good company, so much potential wasted.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I don't get your point, so the game's not as bad as some people are making it out to be because.... some things aren't just technical problems but conscious decisions of the dev team? What if these decisions were shit, which is exactly the case of dozens of them in this game - including not being able to save anywhere?

The game's a technical disaster AND a decision making trainwreck, the latter isn't just a matter of unappreciative zealots of a niche genre. On the contrary actually: I have the impression many people would be lenient with Tim Stellmach's (et al) comeback to the industry, but the delivered product was awful enough to granted a 39% mostly negative score by a community that was very likely trying to look at it through the best possible angle.

No, I wasn't speaking for the game, I haven't played it, I just see a lot of games that utilize different save methods and the immediate outcry is "I can't save anywhere!!" It just pains me to see so many gamers who can't try different development ideas (again, not saying it's done well in this game, just in general). In other words, I was ranting and espousing something about what I've seen lately, also with Bard's Tale 4, about gamers and their obsession to be able to save anywhere rather than try and enjoy a different type of save system. In BT4 I thought it was done decently and still people complained until InXile had to patch in save anywhere. Gamers gonna game, I guess.

 

[agentorange]

Is Prey any good, really? I watched over two hours of gameplay and it seems so boring

It's better than SS2. Also why watch the game when there is a demo of it available.

 

[Agame]

No, I wasn't speaking for the game, I haven't played it, I just see a lot of games that utilize different save methods and the immediate outcry is "I can't save anywhere!!" It just pains me to see so many gamers who can't try different development ideas (again, not saying it's done well in this game, just in general). In other words, I was ranting and espousing something about what I've seen lately, also with Bard's Tale 4, about gamers and their obsession to be able to save anywhere rather than try and enjoy a different type of save system. In BT4 I thought it was done decently and still people complained until InXile had to patch in save anywhere. Gamers gonna game, I guess.

A lot of "gamers" play ironman on games that allow saving anywhere, so whatever your trying to say here is nonsense. The point is both BT4 and UA are clusterfucks of bad design choices, hence their disastrous reception.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

A checkpoint save system or limited saving isn't inherently a bad design choice though. That's the point. But when a game like BT4 tries to implement it, it just blows up in their face. Nobody can dare stand the fact they may lose save progress or there may be tension in their game until they find the next save checkpoint. If you think that's not true then just look at InXile's last patch information. Their most requested feature was save anywhere, lol.

 

[Yosharian]

Is Prey any good, really? I watched over two hours of gameplay and it seems so boring

More or less. Level design is pretty good, the story,world building and characters are boring though. It has the core of a good Shock game but don't expect the world building of the System Shock games that gave the context for the awesome level design. Imagine Thief without Garret and with a bland protagonist instead or System Shock without Shodan, technically still good games but their power greatly diminished, that is Prey.

While Prey is only a shadow of the old games, it is still the best modern immersive sim game, if Arkane had good writers capable of doing powerful world building, they could have made a classic. Play it then weep that after it, immersive sims are dead, gamers deserve the microtransactions shoved on their ass. Arkane was a good company, so much potential wasted.

I love prey, but I completely agree.

 

[Hines]

JESUS, a 2/10 from Gamespot!

For many players, especially the time-poor, the save system alone will be enough to render Underworld Ascendant unplayable. But even if it were addressed, and a more conventional system patched in, it would be impossible to recommend this game to anyone. Framed as a spiritual successor to Ultima Underworld, Underworld Ascendant misses the mark with almost every shot, much like my aforementioned hapless archer. At the same time, even freed from the expectations its historical baggage brings, it is a clear failure. The spirit of Ultima Underworld lives on elsewhere.

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/underworld-ascendant-review-going-under/1900-6417042/

 

[Gord]

A checkpoint save system or limited saving isn't inherently a bad design choice though. That's the point. But when a game like BT4 tries to implement it, it just blows up in their face. Nobody can dare stand the fact they may lose save progress or there may be tension in their game until they find the next save checkpoint. If you think that's not true then just look at InXile's last patch information. Their most requested feature was save anywhere, lol.

I didn't mind the checkpoint system in BT4 and found the lamenting around it pretty overblown. There were generally enough save points and you always had save-on-exit - so when you had to leave for reasons, you could do so and pick up again where you left the game without any issues.
But UA practically doesn't have any save system AT ALL. You can't save. Period. It will store your chars inventory and the last map you are on (but without any changes you did to it, it will reset) that's it.
Of course there are also other, mission based games without any real save system that can still make for fun gameplay (e.g. Vermintide, L4D, etc.). The point is however, that those games a) support it as they are build around it and b) are supposed to be played in relatively short bursts (or can be, anyway).
With UA, if you play it the (presumably) intended way, exploring the levels and such, sneaking around enemies, one mission can get pretty long. So at the very least, they should offer a save on exit.
But the elephant in the room is actually not that they left it out because they thought it would be good design, they left it out because they are unable to make it work. It's not in the game for purely technical reasons. And that is probably the single biggest reason for going this weird route of offering random missions in non-persistent environments instead of a proper dungeon crawl - they can't make their levels persistent, since they can't store any changes you made to them.

 

[Wall of Sleep]

I bought into nostalgia here and set my expectations as low as humanly possible, hoping to find the tiniest smidgen of enjoyment and this still managed to disappoint severely. I admittedly didn't give it much of a chance, quit shortly after the 'tutorial' but sheesh this was something else. I may have been more forgiving if the combat was any fun.

 

[Sacibengala]

The questions that I have now are: This thing have any salvation if they still try to fix it? They care even a little to do that? They have resources to do that? They still have some dignity?