So I've given it a proper play session or two. First impressions:
- The starting area is ok but the hive is a bit confusing. You must hold your left mouse button down and choose examine on a container where the default left click opens it in order to progress. Kinda unintuitive and the game doesn't tell you this is an option. Had me stuck for a while. Overall this starting area is well-paced though. It is also the newest addition to the game, I think. The previous version had a different starting area.
- Major differences between the earlier version posted by Scarlet Lilith on page 1 and the newest version posted by Jack_Deth: the interface has been fully redesigned, speech skills were added, perks were added - those are all improvements upon the earlier version. But combat has gotten worse, as the earlier version gave you full control over party members and had a choice between real time and turn based modes. Now you only have turn based and party members act independently, like in Fallout or Arcanum. Not a positive change tbh.
- Had several opportunities to use my speech skills, usually they just serve to skip quests. At the start of the game proper (after the beginner dungeon) you get a quest to kill 10 wolves which means roaming the wilderness and hoping to get wolf random encounters. I managed to skip it with a bluff check.
- Dialog and journal entries sometimes reference things you didn't do. In the earlier version, I did the "kill 10 dogs" quest, after which I returned to the questgiver only to find out his camp was attacked and people were abducted. That led to a dungeon inhabited by zombies, the game referred to them as "wild people". This time I skipped the dog-killing quest and convinced the guy to help me attack some agents without doing the quest. My journal still referenced the "wild people" dungeon: "After I returned from the wild people, this guy helped me attack the agents." So the game gives you multiple options in some quests, but then references the default option even if you took an alternative.
- During my explorations I found the house of some gang leader. I didn't know who was inside, but as soon as I approached the guards my character knew who was in the house as I could tell the guards I want to talk to their leader, addressing the leader by name. Used my dialog skills to be let through, and when I talked to the leader my only dialog option was that I needed to buy explosives (do I? I haven't encountered anything that requires explosives to get past; maybe I will encounter it later?). Seems like there are several instances where the game assumes you have done a different thing before, which you may not actually have done at that point, making you wonder wtf that was about.
- You thought eye shots were OP in Fallout? LOL, they are far more OP in Omega Syndrome. Aimed shots to the eyes have a chance of blinding an opponent. Blindness reduces accuracy to -100%, meaning the enemy won't be able to hit any attacks from that point onward. In a fight against two aliens armed with laser guns and plenty of HP, I lucked out and managed to blind both of them in the first two turns. They ended up running away from me as they had no chance of landing a hit ever again.
- The economy is unbalanced as fuck. Downed enemies drop their equipment, and guns are highly overpriced. Even the simple 9mm Beretta handguns cost 600 dollars, and you will pick up half a dozen of those before you even enter the town. Haven't encountered a merchant with enough money to sell all of those off yet, but maybe I will find one later.
- Zombies are dangerous. If they hit you in melee, you have a high chance to contract the Omega Syndrome. That will add a little sticker to your character sheet saying you got the syndrome and have X hours left until you lose your sanity (it starts at 120 hours or so). I don't know what happens when that timer runs out. I always reloaded if my char contracted the syndrome.
- The coolest part of the game are the world map events/encounters. They're random but most of them seem to be unique. There's one encounter where a bunch of crazed policemen stop you, and showing them your special agent ID doesn't dissuade them from arresting you. You can offer a bribe, fight, try to escape, or let them arrest you. If you let them arrest you it's game over as you are locked up and rot in jail. There were a bunch of religious fanatics who want to fight against the aliens that escaped the local research facility, and want to destroy the technology that led to this catastrophe. You can either tell them that you'll join their cult or you won't join a cult that hates tech. With the latter option, they attack you - with the former option, you get a game over upon leaving to the world map as they mark your face with a branding iron as the "initiation ritual" to the cult. There's a lot of encounters that can end in game overs, but usually the game over option is obvious enough to be avoidable. If you choose "climb across the fence" when the text box tells you "You encounter a tall fence with a warning sign on it: WARNING! 1000 VOLTS HIGH ELECTRICITY!" you get fried to a crisp. Well duh.
Overall an enjoyable game but with some obvious problems. Having fun with it so far.
since we all wanted to play this again. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing. I'm definitely saving this on a USB just in case....:D
