Subnautica: Released (SPOILER WARNING past Post #1)

[ScrotumBroth]

I'm enjoying the vanilla game so much, just built the Cyclops and I'm in awe. Still have to muster the guts to kill large predators with a knife... One time at the Grand Canyon Reef I've encountered a sharp cliff drop off going straight down into darkness and the thought of going there froze the living shit in me. And I thought nothing would be scarier than Reaper crushing Seamoth with me inside staring at its face. Both implied and in face horrors are excellent. Fuck me... it's so good.

 

[Blaine]

I'm wondering if having one earlier would have saved me time, as I found traveling back and forth, up and down in the prawn suit to be an ordeal at times. I got a hand cramp from all the boosting and grappling.

The prawn suit is cool, but it's not very mobile and the grappling system leaves something to be desired, so other than fooling around with it I used it only when necessary. At no point did I use it at any length without the Cyclops acting as mothership.

Not once was I attacked by a reaper, even when it came close to me a couple times while drilling in the dunes. Ghost leviathans had a go at me a few times, but nothing the prawn suit couldn't handle. Sea dragon tossed me around a couple times, but again prawn suit. Warpers posed the greatest threat and annoyance, as due to poor visibility in the prawn suit, I'd often come within their aggro range unknowingly

On the other hand, I imagine I missed out on some armored defense by minimizing my use of the suit.

But overall I really liked this game. Thought about it at work, saw it in my sleep. They did a superb job designing the ocean geography and the flora and fauna, and replicating the immersive properties of such an environment.

It's just a shame they used the Unity engine, and so were never able to solve the terrain pop-in and other issues commonly associated with Unity—and they wanted to solve them, because in a game featuring sweeping oceanic vistas, the pop-in is very noticeable. But it was too late; they'd have had to restart technical development from the ground up.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

It's just a shame they used the Unity engine, and so were never able to solve the terrain pop-in and other issues commonly associated with Unity—and they wanted to solve them, because in a game featuring sweeping oceanic vistas, the pop-in is very noticeable. But it was too late; they'd have had to restart technical development from the ground up.

Dude, they pestered the Unity-crew to ease up on various engine-restrictions to allow Subnautica to become the game it was always meant to be. (Their words, not mine.)

The Unity-crew complied up to a point, but in the end it's the Unity-engine - not even God himself can save those who rely upon it.

 

[Blaine]

When you're too cheap and/or lack the resourcefulness to find and hire a real programmer, ya get whatcha fuckin' deserve.

So many games these days are "developed" by idea guys who hire an artist and a musician. The idea guys themselves largely settle for learning to tinker around with the development kit of someone else's engine. They are empirical lever-yankers, and not theoreticians.

Such games that turn out to be good are permanently crippled on a technical level by this shortsightedness, even if the majority of schmucks don't notice or care. The developers certainly care when they want to polish up and expand their beautiful new baby, only to find it's mired in a bunch of one-size-fits-all jank that they don't really understand.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I enjoyed playing underwater but the game itself is horrible shit.

 

[Burning Bridges]

When you're too cheap and/or lack the resourcefulness to find and hire a real programmer, ya get whatcha fuckin' deserve.

So many games these days are "developed" by idea guys who hire an artist and a musician. The idea guys themselves largely settle for learning to tinker around with the development kit of someone else's engine. They are empirical lever-yankers, and not theoreticians.

Such games that turn out to be good are permanently crippled on a technical level by this shortsightedness, even if the majority of schmucks don't notice or care. The developers certainly care when they want to polish up and expand their beautiful new baby, only to find it's mired in a bunch of one-size-fits-all jank that they don't really understand.

The really good programmers these days don't go into gaming anymore, with only few exceptions.

The glory days of game programming was when Bell/Braben created Elite or Carmack Quake. System Shock was also a game that felt great just to experience the awesomeness of the technology. Those days are long gone.

Today so called game developers are just reselling a game we have seen 100s of times before and basically change a few parameters of the 2-3 games that are already built into Unity. They are users playing with a game creation kit.

 

[cvv]

The really good programmers these days don't go into gaming anymore, with only few exceptions.

Behemoths like EA, Activision or Take-Two don't have any problems getting good programmers coz they can pay them as much as banks or tech giants but yeah, a bunch of hippies like UW can only afford moneys with their peanuts.

 

[Blaine]

If you can't afford a computer programmer or two, then you can't afford to be making computer games. Doing it half-ass on the cheap results in the same shoddy workmanship as building anything half-ass on the cheap.

Realistically though, 50%+ of indie games are puzzle platformers and other rubbish and 95% of them are total shit regardless of genre, so no harm done. It's just a shame that the 1 in 20 worth a damn very often suffer from aforementioned shoddy workmanship.

Factorio (Anvi's favorite game) was developed by actual computer programmers, and it shows. They could actually afford to be making computer games.

 

[Machocruz]

The prawn suit is cool, but it's not very mobile and the grappling system leaves something to be desired, so other than fooling around with it I used it only when necessary. At no point did I use it at any length without the Cyclops acting as mothership.

I took it upon myself as a challenge, as I had read of other people getting along with the prawn until the the plot requires the sub. But now in my "post game" I have one and I kind of wish I had built it sooner. It handles like a bear, but otherwise p. cool. Would have been fun to explore in it I think.

One time at the Grand Canyon Reef I've encountered a sharp cliff drop off going straight down into darkness and the thought of going there froze the living shit in me.

The world is both immense and small, which is cool. You'll see what I mean when you've mastered navigating areas like the Grand Reef...

 

[Blaine]

It handles like a bear, but otherwise p. cool. Would have been fun to explore in it I think.

Handling can contribute substantially to the feeling of authenticity when piloting a craft in a game, even if that particular craft features an arcade-y and simplified handling scheme (as opposed to a more in-depth simulator).

I think they nailed it with the Cyclops. I once played an alpha of a Mars-themed "exploration-survival-craft" game (that stalled and then bombed mid-development) that featured a dropship which handled ponderously in just the right way, lending it authentic weight and inertia—something I rarely experience. I can count these incidences on one hand, and the Cyclops is among them. It's a shame that game ended up being an abortion.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Factorio (Anvi's favorite game) was developed by actual computer programmers, and it shows. They could actually afford to be making computer games.

Introversion Software is another example and Chris Delay one of the few guys who work as an idol for programmers. There might also be the other guys in the company who deserve the credit but I only remember him.

Needless to say they write their own engines and Prison Architect was a gem forged out of a relative piece of shit (SDL).

 

[ScrotumBroth]

And finished. What a lovely treat. Completely swept me off my feet with a clear vision, innovative design and ability to make everything work so well together (making use of deficiencies included). I didn't think I'll ever encounter another video game like that anymore, it literally made me feel young again. It's hard to quantify with words, a bit like trying to remember what's it's like being a kid. Definitely one of the most honest attempts at video game creation I've encountered in the last 15 years.

 

[Zombra]

ScrotumBroth Sounds like you played the main Subnautica game and not the Below Zero sequel? Or both?

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Just the original game.

 

[Sranchammer]

And finished. What a lovely treat. Completely swept me off my feet with a clear vision, innovative design and ability to make everything work so well together (making use of deficiencies included). I didn't think I'll ever encounter another video game like that anymore, it literally made me feel young again. It's hard to quantify with words, a bit like trying to remember what's it's like being a kid. Definitely one of the most honest attempts at video game creation I've encountered in the last 15 years.

I agree - it was the last game to have that old feeling.

 

[Zombra]

Just the original game.

Checks out. I loved it too Haven't played the sequel yet.

 

[Zarniwoop]

And I finished BZ yesterday. Underwhelming is the best description. It should definitely have been an expansion and not a standalone game.

Both make zero sense without a walkthrough tho. Or if you're playing the whole thing in one sitting maybe.

 

[Zombra]

Both make zero sense without a walkthrough tho. Or if you're playing the whole thing in one sitting maybe.

Resoundingly disagree. Finding all the journals out of order and slowly watching a larger picture emerge was one of the game's greatest pleasures.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Both make zero sense without a walkthrough tho. Or if you're playing the whole thing in one sitting maybe.

Resoundingly disagree. Finding all the journals out of order and slowly watching a larger picture emerge was one of the game's greatest pleasures.

Read the last part.

If you go through the whole thing in one go, sure. If you leave it for weeks or months, play other shit and come back to it, there's no way of knowing what to do next unless you kept notes.

I don't mean a quest compass but at least some kind of objective or notes system would be nice. The only thing the game ever reminds you of is Pajeetina the PDA telling you CALREE INTAKE RECOMMENDED. Everyone else leaves diary entries strewn about the place, why can't you as the player make any?

But yes Below Zero makes it at least a bit clearer as to wtf to do next. The original game had a completely lost feeling to it (which added to the horror aspect).

 

[Zombra]

Fair enough. Personally, I don't marathon games; I played this over the course of a few months I think, in between other stuff. It never made "zero sense" to me and I guess I just have a good enough memory to retain connections.

You certainly can make (brief) notes to self in the game with your most important technology: beacons. Different colored beacons with short custom names create a perfectly coherent 1:1 map of where you've been, what you still need to explore, and what your next objectives are.

 

[Excommunicator]

Truly a great game. Not underrated as such but I think people underestimate how much of a classic this game will be considered as time goes on.

 

[LESS T_T]

KRAFTON, the company behind PUBG, acquires the developer Unknown Worlds. https://www.krafton.com/en/news/pre...pers-behind-subnautica-and-natural-selection/

It's making a new "genre-defining" game to be released into early access in 2022.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Hope it will fare better than Xenoworks :D

 

[Sam Ecorners]

So is Below Zero worth playing?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Most open world games give us a boring fantasy worlds that feel more trivial to explore than the city you live in. Subnautica offers an ocean that is a joy to explore. The feeling of seeing a whale leviathan for the first time, encountering abandoned bases, meeting floaters, the excitement of going deeper than you should at the moment and the beauty of coral reefs make the experience unforgettable. Going for the first time into a new biome always awes you. Taking place underwater also means that the game can fully use verticallity and it does. The world is handmade and it feels.

Atmosphere is amazing. There were moments when I were genuinely scared which may be the first time ever when I felt that way when playing a video game. You really feel the beauty of the word, the danger of a depths and a loneliness of being a survivor stranded on the planet on the outskirts of the known universe.

I liked building my own secret underwater base. I think one of the reasons base building is fun is caused by the fact that Subnautica is a legitimately scary game. Seeing distant lights emanating from your base after coming from eerie depths soothes your soul and makes you relax. It's comforting to tend to your garden after facing danger of an unknown.

I love how there is little handhodling in exploration. You can use Aurora wreckage and a lifebot marker as guides but apart from this you have to map the area yourself, with your mind. It happened a few times that I found a new area and then I had difficulties finding it again. Yes, you can use a tool to mark places, but I didn't and the game was better for it. To get a compass you need to craft it which I liked.

There is very little combat, the focus is about mastering the environment which is great. It was fun to learn that Bladder fish prefer to come out during the dawn and use this knowledge to my advantage.

The early game is amazing. Most of the world is unknown, you can't go far away and you need to make sure your survive. Butt....


…. then in the late game the problem starts:

After having a containment tank for bladderfish built and having a source of food secured (either containment or magical potatoes) game loses the sense of danger. In the early to middlegame game I was parking my Seamorth at max depth going out of it and and then returning by using Air Bladder. After upgrading it to max there were only endgame areas I couldn't swim to. Those required using other vehicles.

I hated Cyclop with a passion. Using it after riding a Seamorth felt like going from a sport car to a truck that have most of the windows ducktaped. Speed is worse, maneuverability is horrible, you get constantly attacked by braindead animals and the visibility is low. You also get some unnecessary options like having to turn engines on and it takes more time to leave and enter the vehicle. Thankfully it's only used in a single endgame adventure which makes using it far less frustrating that it initially seems.

In the late game you see that a base building isn't that deep. This is a real shame, because extending it would be the quickest way to improve mediocre endgame. It's also annoying that nearly all blueprints that you find in the endgame are the ones you already know. Seeing a 100th propulsion gun was upsetting.

After you learn animals behaviors you can easily run from them. Reapers were megascary the first several times I encountered them. And then I learned how to outmaneuver them. I think that at some point most biomes/animals loss their novelty and the endgame just adds one biome.

I disliked the second half of the story. You learn about the story through second hand accounts and virus came from the offworld. This sucks. You should find the cause of the pandemic on your own, through experimentation and learning about the world. I thought that containment units would play a major role, so I built like 6 of them and was collecting all eggs I could find. I was hypothesing about crawlers being aliens or their tools or floaters having some role in the pandemic. Though cuddlefishes are some mysterious species that hold a key to the secret. One of the alien radio signals is suggesting that the player will be hunted down, which never happened. I think that the story could be incorporated more organically into exploration.

I disliked how alien vents were not clues to locations of alien bases. Spend a good hour searching every nook and cranny around one of them.

The game left a little sour experience because of the ending, but I still think it's a amazing. Are there similar games to Subnautica in quality? I am not knowledgeable about survival genre, so I ask.