Just checked the updates and RATING, and wanted to see development progress. So after the demo last year, I played for a couple hours..
Full 10/10 Overwhelmingly Positive personal Gameplay Experience, while half of disgruntled Steam players gave a MIXED rating to this game. :D
Mixed on Steam ATM, because of unbalanced enemy difficulty.
However, current EA version is best, when cheating on this insane difficulty level.
Problem is for most Ironman players that your re-printable clone - playable character - on mission, can die in as few as 5 to 20 roguelike turn-based steps.
So I edited the TXT format savegame and multiplied the myriad First Aid Tools there. You have all kinds of drugs, booze, injectables, just like in Fallout 1-2. Addictions as a result, then addiction-clearers. Then as you adventure deeper in this Sci-Fi Hellish, Dark Cyberpunk World, ruled by MegaCorporations, you find increasingly more powerful regenerator salves, healing artifacts, IVs (bloodbags), anything you can imagine. Except a full blown ER room complete with surgeons.. But maybe the developers are already building those in too..
So I multiplied more powerful healing stuff, then batteries for my energy weapons. I also found - with time - more powerful armor on the dead bodies of Top Class Mercenaries sent to kill me.. :D
Then instead of dying - in Ironman as most players do nowadays and give a MIXED rating on Steam -, I just applied my many hacked-in healing tools.
But those big number of tools are super-heavy, with the increased backpack size came increased calories consumption. So I increased my Satiety from 3000 to like 700000.
Also DODGE % went down from 10%...25% into -70%. Because with dragging all that added health-item weight, I was "a standing target" regards attack-evasion.
Tried multiplying grenades - because many strong enemies surrounding me cannot be conveniently shot down one-by-one.. But using grenades there is a big problem with spreading fires, which can burn me as well!
So I was lucky to find like two
Nano Plasma Grenades with do mono-molecular damage - like ALIENS molecular acid. It causes burn wounds, and destroys DOORS, WALLS, the environment, - kills demons the best and the many mercs converging on my position go down from just one - but most valuable equipment stays - for a while - in the nano-blast radius, so I multiplied it and it became my favorite go-to weapon. As the findable weapon prototypes are worth SHT ATM.. :D
Lots of monsters have various natural resistances / protection from kinetic and electric and beam, laser, etc.. weapons, but not from NANO GRENADE!! HHHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!
Also the DOOM-like Demons From Hell give you very powerful Artifact-level loot sometimes: SuperHealer, Fix-All-Damage artifacts and "Wizards-Eye"-style all map-current-level revealing demon-eye artifacts as well. AMAZING!! These save your lives basically, while keeping the entire game super-creepy and frightening and a foreboding feeling positively DOOOOMED! :D
Anyway, the first Golden Skull Retrieval Mission I accepted on Venus. Well, the Demonic Arch-Enemy MegaBoss is nesting on Venus too as its his HQ.... Didn't look at the Many RED SKULLS difficulty sign on the mission - before accepting -, which I should have...
So my Space-Trillionaire MegaCorp Employer decided toward the end of the mission that I went in with making too much noise and caused massive destruction and I alerted their MegaCorp enemies, so He declared that my mission is VOID and He called in a nuclear strike on my position...
My Cortana-Like Chick Mission Assistant - PDA - declared that the blast won't hit me directly, but I must run for my life from the explosions as fast as I can to the evacuation points, which are always ELEVATORS!
But when - after dying many times fighting tooth and nails - I got there - barely - some idiot blew up the elevator!!! ??? Did the developers do this????! AAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGHH!!!
Anyway my remaining option were the stairs leading up to top level = the surface, where my ALIENS-style escape shuttle waited. So I started upward, wading through hordes of ELITE MERCENARIES plus the Hordes of Hell suddenly flooding out of the DOOM DIMENSION.
So one Artifact-Level Organ a bigger Doom-demon drops is a hellish organ, that when used, reduces the "GLOBAL DOOM-DIMENSION AGGRO Level" and demons suddenly stop teleporting through. Everything calms down!
But use of this artifact causes hallucination sickness which immediately restarts the - ever increasing - "GLOBAL DOOM-DIMENSION AGGRO Level" COUNTER.
But of course, while the counter slowly climbs up, at least I have peace to use healing stuff, reload and look for a way up, finding a MAP-COMPUTER.
BUT the MegaCorp idiot bosses called in the Nuclear Strike and the Warship arrived and it started FIRE-TORNADO BOMBING the entire map!!!
So now I have to deal with:
1. Elite Mercenaries sent to kill me
2. DOOM-Dimension Demons phasing in, when their AGGRO-counter reaches like 900
3. The friggin' NUCLEAR FIREBOMBING everywhere - causing Earthquakes - , spreading deadly fire everywhere and my suit catches fire, if I don't find a bathroom, where blasts can cause Water-Floor-Tiles to appear, which prevent burning or I don't find blue water bottles using which I can extinguish the flames burning my armor and body....
So the Nuclear strike "firebombings" gives you AIRSTRIKE-like Red Bullseye icons on the floor pinpointing TARGET FLOOR TILES which will have big fire explosions IN THREE ... TWO ..ONE turns. The Red Bullseyes are increasing in thickness as they count down their 3-2-1 fire explosions on their tile.
But the entire floor starts SHAKING VIOLENTLY WITH THE EXPLOSIONS throwing me everywhere, suddenly it gets hard to run and maintain direction just like in real life. AMAZING FEATURE..
But in the end the Nukes killed all electronics computers even the GPS-map, so there was only STATIC ON THE AUTOMAP!!!!
MAXIMUM DRAMA and deadly TRAUMA for me and all big number of enemies on the map everywhere I run. Now the Elite Mercenaries are also fighting the DOOM-DEMONS teleporting in. Also when I throw a NANO-Grenade with 200 damage, some / most smaller demons either get stunned or DISORIENTED, meaning they turn away from me! So I could have advantage HACKING THEM TO PIECES with the powerful MEELEE AXES, etc.. bladed weapons the game offers.
EXCEPT!! I don't have any melee weapons, because I'm stupidly holding a laser rifle and an Advanced Merc Assault Rifle, or any more beefy prototypes, which DO NOT have the high damage output of the awesome - but close-range - melee bladed gore-weapons.
So I have to MIND THE BLAST DISTANCE of my NANO-Grenades, which I now use as my main weapon, it kills mercs on first strike and bigger Demons need about 3-4 to DIE in groups!!!!!
With all the Fire Tornado Mass Carpet Bombardment Explosions happening all around me.
At this point in game-mission time 99,99% of Steam Ironman Players are probably DEAD!!!!! No way they survive with that much fire-health damage and monsters 1-SHOT-Killing me..
But not me the Cheater Game Developer. I save every 10-20 roguelike turn steps. If I die - 90% of the time - then I just exit to the main menu, ALT+TAB into Windows and simply COPY--PASTE OVERWRITE the entire Save Folder with my myriad of earlier saves containing save folders. Because the game has only Ironman mode....so no Quicksaves or savegames at all are built ingame..
Also when I'm low on the myriad of healing items, first aid, splints, medical glues, etc... I go into the save file and Text-Edit a larger amount directly into my backpack of everything that KEEPS ME FROM DYING VIOLENTLY in that by now extreme hectic HELL.
So I realized late, that I can zoom out the game level map and also I can scroll the entire thing to look for exits = stairs - which the automap also shows. The live battlescape of course has FOG-of-WAR, except when a big demon drops a "Wizards-Eye"-like artifact and if I use that it lights up all the game map and shows everything.
So after I fought myself UP from bottom floor three levels up to the surface, and after dying a lot on that top level in the Nuclear Blast Fire-Tornado with all the Hell-demons and Elite Mercs shooting and biting at me, I noticed I can scroll the battlescape and suddenly I see my SHUTTLE!!!
So now instead of running around blind and getting stuck in Dead-End Fire-Blast Traps forever, now I see, where I must RUN!!!!!!
Indeed RUNNING is much better - the game has sneak, walk and IIRC run and sprint modes. So running is exactly like a super hectic Apocalyptic Action Movie with Fire-Blast-Asteroids Exploding around the protagonist hero's speeding car as he desperately attempts to swerve and avoid them. Except when RUNNING its much easier to run into burning Fire tiles! Fire instantly sticks onto my (not fully) armored body and causes lots of RED ICON HEALTH WARNINGS, red poison icons, red burn wound icons, wounds get INFected Red icons and Broken Bones Red Icons from Demon Monster hits and bites are now all screaming at me - with all the monsters joining in - as a Hellish Choir - as my hero screams from pain or groans loudly then violently VOMITS BLOOD every few steps from internal bleeding / organ damage!
So after playing this mission - refusing to die via non-ingame SAVE-RELOADS and hacked-in First-Aid-Kits I finally, after a 9 hour straight playing stretch during the whole hot (no-AC) Saturday summer night, I finally get to my shuttle and can LAUNCH to the safety of SPACE.
I also increased my backpack size from 6 x 3 to a cheat-hack-improved 6 x 20 SLOTS so in the end I stuffed it full with valuable BARTER GOODS and artifacts mainly. :D :D
So after this absolutely dramatic, maximum ADRENALINE intense, DEATH-RICH gaming session, I now can use the rare artifacts I collected during my first amazing Refusing-to-Die Death-Run and I could
upgrade my ALIENS-style space-ship (just a bit!), regards research, manufacturing, engine, bio-printing, weapon enhancement, etc....
While most Steam users had a really frustrating experience stamping a MIXED RATING on Quasimorph, hacking it, I had one of the best Gaming sessions of my life!
:D :D :D