Aliens: Dark Descent - real-time squad-based tactical action

[ciox]

The grenade launcher is on the pulse rifle which is a main weapon. A bigger issue is the game's rng actually giving you enough recon class promotions.

 

[Stavrophore]

It is quite funny that it is actually worth to bring one pulse rifle even if you have access to plasma rifles, precisely because of grenade launcher.

 

[ArchAngel]

The grenade launcher is on the pulse rifle which is a main weapon. A bigger issue is the game's rng actually giving you enough recon class promotions.

No, you can only select one secondary ability. Sniper shot or grenade or flame or mine or shotgun. Having pulse rifle only lets you choose grenade launcher as one of those options as it is only on that weapon.
EDIT: I guess I was wrong.

 

[ciox]

The grenade launcher is on the pulse rifle which is a main weapon. A bigger issue is the game's rng actually giving you enough recon class promotions.

No, you can only select one secondary ability. Sniper shot or grenade or flame or mine or shotgun. Having pulse rifle only lets you choose grenade launcher as one of those options as it is only on that weapon.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ok, I stand corrected. I have stopped following this game for few weeks now, forgot about this detail.

 

[Alpharius]

On highest difficulty stealth playstyle is much harder as patrols respawn fast after you kill them.

I played on highest one, sometimes also used sentry guns to cover the most annoying spawn points.

Without the ability to micro the recon, this would take forever though, firing line constantly blocked and all that. This is why I still want to try a team of recons at some point.

Yeah, that sucks. Being able to control marines individually would have helped.

 

[ciox]

For the record you can do it by ordering them to go somewhere, then selecting every single other marine and using the 'stop actions' command on them, but what a timewaster that is.

I put a request for individual marine control in my review, so any minute now..

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Finished it on Hard (with permisive saves) without losing a single marine, with 9 days left till the nuke launch - very well spent 44,8 hours! Definitely one of the best releases this year and I sure hope to see a sequel and hopefuly even some DLCs for the game.

From the game design point of view I would say that the final part of the game was somewhat weak though.

Your characters are invulnerable in the city of the ancient aliens, which really removes any sort of tension and makes me wonder why the devs even bothered with making the this part playable instead of just turning it into a cutscene. The xenomorph created from the ancient aliens was p. cool though, but the final part when you keep running from it also wasnt done very well:

... but w/e, it certainly didnt spoil the general enjoyment of the game at all.



As for the story

really no surprises there other than the ancient aliens being present on Lethe, I could tell from the first second that Dr. "space Mengele" Becker will try to sell you out, though having him do that so that WY would forgive his tuition fees was kinda lulzy. The mission in which Maeko has to deal with the alien that Becker released on Otago was p. gud though - it illustrated nicely that a single alien is a massive threat if all you have are unarmed crewmen. Pryce possibly being an android was kinda nice twist. On the other hand Maeko turning into a full blown muhreen in the end (despite being a corporate manager a month ago) was lame.

As was mentioned by others above, the most painful thing in the game is trying to maneuver your recon so he can snipe - sometimes its a real pain in the ass and devs should do something about this.

General coments/tips

- mines are the most useful gear in the game, I would say about 85% of my stealth kills came from the mines with the silenced sniper rifle accounting for the rest, great value for your resources, get them ASAP
- rifle grenade is highly useful, especially against human enemies (you can knock them down and then move in for the kill when they cant shoot back), RPG is a nice upgrade (it can take down queens with about two hits and is very useful against Crushers too, one shots human enemies in cover) if you have resources to spent on it
- flamer is really good (burning humans dont shoot back) and can be used for area denial (aliens try to avoid fire, so you can funel them to kill zones), damage over time is useful in general
- I found drones of the tekker class to be useless, tekkers themselves are useful though (unlocking doors usually gets you plenty of tools/resources, upgrades for sentry guns arent that great, but can be useful during onslaughts)
- invest into pouches/ammo bags for your marines as much as you can, plus get a resourceful trait on as many people as possible
- all your sergeants should get the radio upgrade - the extra command points are worth their weight in gold


Anyway, GG. These devs made both Battlefleet Gothic games before this, so they are definitely worth watching.

 

[Fedora Master]

Anyway, GG. These devs made both Battlefleet Gothic games before this, so they are definitely worth watching.

Shuffled off to make mobile garbage in 3...2...

 

[Zombra]

Thank you ArchAngel for reminding me this exists. First time thread looker, what's the konsensus here?

 

[Aya Cash]

How is this beast currently functioning? I'm growing ever more tired of the Diablo 4 grind and this looks just as appealing as ever. I'll probably jump in regardless but have they fixed some shit since release?

 

[barker_s]

It took me about 32 hours to finish it. During this time it crashed on me twice. Once I was unable to pick up a datapad, which was a secondary objective (it's been fixed in the current version though). Other than that I haven't experienced any major bugs. Your mileage may vary, but on the PC it seems to be in a pretty good state. And even if it wasn't the game's worth it. Haven't been this addicted to a game since I was a kid.

 

[Fedora Master]

Okay, the part where you find the APC and the mission ends wasn't really necessary guys. The story beats are a bit intrusive.

 

[ArchAngel]

Okay, the part where you find the APC and the mission ends wasn't really necessary guys. The story beats are a bit intrusive.

That is the worst part of the game, but overall it is a pretty minor thing. It is something would bring a game from 9.0 score to 8.9

 

[KIss My Ass]

Have they talked about adding a skirmish mode or something so you can just avoid all the scripted story shit?

 

[Psquit]

Finished the game, mission 11 reminded me of the final level of tomb raider with the giant mutant.

 

[Fedora Master]

It feels like the game spends a bit too long on basic tutorial-but-not-really areas. Im back at Berkley's Dock and NOW the game feels like what the devs actually intended: Claustrophobic corridors, darkness, rooms full of fuck, patrols everywhere and barely any chances to rest.

 

[Fedora Master]

https://www.nexusmods.com/aliensdarkdescent/mods/25

Some good stuff

 

[Gregz]

Seems like this game needs another debug pass:

POSTED: JULY 14

Every game has bugs and this one is no exception. But beside the usual, more or less annoying stuff, this game has game-breaking bugs that are so frustrating that they are just leaving a very, very bad experience. Like spending hours in a campaign until a point where the game does not register your progress and you are stuck forever in the midst of the story. And let me tell you, it does not become better if you play a second time just to see that the developer has not done anything to fix this in the meantime.

POSTED: JULY 16

there are game breaking bugs, like spirit breaking bugs. You spend all your time investing in marines, picking their class to balance what type of units you have, upgrading, training specific ones, worrying about medical problems..... And then you hit a point where an objective won't work, a door won't unlock, and that's it. Your F'd. If your lucky, a redeploy MAY fix your issue at the cost of what redeploying does to the story. Or, your game files are just broken. You'll never progress further and you simply have to restart.

POSTED: JULY 27

This is actually a fun game, but I just can't recommend it to others with so many reports of game breaking bugs. Especially the bug that starts for many around Mission 7 (about half way through) where saves stop working. My version of the bug includes game crashing anytime it tries to save.

 

[ArchAngel]

Nobody told them you wait for EE version before buying games.
just like all the fools that paid to beta test JA3, BG3 or D4

 

[Maculo]

Anyway, GG. These devs made both Battlefleet Gothic games before this, so they are definitely worth watching.

Damn. I'll buy this game regardless based on what I read from you all, but that does not bode well for further expansions or content. I recall these devs ghosted both Battlefleet Gothic games quickly and moved on to the next project. While it is possible that neither of those games sold particularly well, the radio silence was annoying.

 

[Removal]

moved on to the next project.

though, this is probably healthier than spending years tinkering with the balance or working on dlcs for a game

 

[Maculo]

moved on to the next project.

though, this is probably healthier than spending years tinkering with the balance or working on dlcs for a game

I wanted a Dark Eldar campaign for Gothic Armada 2, damn it!

While you are not wrong per se, I think they could have iterated or added a little more content before riding off into the Khorne-tinted sunset.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I wanted a Dark Eldar campaign for Gothic Armada 2

Yeah those are two of my favorite games, so I wish we had some more campaigns and factions.

Sounds like they are delivering a solid game with Dark Descent though, so I wish Tindalos all the best, and hope they do justice to more frachises. Star Trek Armada would be pretty cool, or Star Wars Armada. Hell a Babylon 5 Armada game would be beyond a fan's wildest hopes.

 

[Maculo]

I wanted a Dark Eldar campaign for Gothic Armada 2

Yeah those are two of my favorite games, so I wish we had some more campaigns and factions.

Sounds like they are delivering a solid game with Dark Descent though, so I wish Tindalos all the best, and hope they do justice to more frachises. Star Trek Armada would be pretty cool, or Star Wars Armada. Hell a Babylon 5 Armada game would be beyond a fan's wildest hopes.

I read that there is a Skalgrim (spelling?) mod that adds an eldar/dark eldar campaign options. I may just check that out.