Game News Underworld Ascendant releasing in September, gets negative previews

[Mustawd]

Zep Zepo

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Maybe if we all condemn it hard enough they will feel forced to delay the game (for the better)

Which would work if they can stay afloat for as long as it takes.

 

[Jack Dandy]

AaaaAAAggh, dammit.
I was usually careful about my KS backings, but this one looks to be a complete dud. At least I only went for the basic level. Bah.

 

[karnak]

I'm sad. I'm one of those guys who really hated the Saturday-morning cartoon style graphics.
But Ultima Underworld is one of my favourite games.
I'd sure like to see a good "Underworld 3"

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Can't say I care much for Underworld Ascendant but after they also bought System Shock rights I was certainly hoping for a Thief sequel or something similar down the line.

 

[felipepepe]

a good "Underworld 3"

 

[cpmartins]

Man, I miss Jowood.

 

[fobia]

I for sure don't.
I'd say they're to blame for at least 50% of Gothic 3's shittiness.

 

[Kruno]

They should hire Chris Avellone to fix their game.

 

[Big Wrangle]

They should hire Chris Avellone to fix their game.

You mean like how he fixed Alpha Protocol's gameplay design?

 

[The Avatar]

I always thought the art style was off. It's like they were going for a darker Blizzard/WoW style clean 3d, but it ends up looking like the artists forgot to apply any diffuse/albedo texture at all to many of the models. The result is that the environment just looks unfinished.

Are there NPC's in this game? Part of the fun of the original Underworld was finding and interacting with the remnants of civilization in the dungeon- not just mindless combat.

 

[aweigh]

Game looks like shit

 

[Ash]

Hold on just a second. Many of the criticisms in the OP sound like casual garbage. "waaah I always got spotted while crouch-walking"...maybe stealth is more nuanced than just pressing the magic crouch button? "Waaah melee combat was difficult to aim"...is this actually an issue, or are you used to modern trash where you press a button and something awesome happens? e.g batman combat where all you have to do is press the awesome button and he will kick the crap out of the nearest dude. You don't even have to rotate batman to face the enemy.

 

[Ash]

I mean really, LOOK AT THIS SHIT.

"Emphasizing spells didn't help matters. The primary spell at my disposal, a freeze-enemy move, required aiming and firing multiple times to actually ensnare enemies, even when I was aiming at enemies who stood still."

WTF? Is there some unwritten rule that everything has to be instakill OP-tier? Do you know what is identical to this freeze behaviour? Prey's Gloo gun. I bet in addition to freezing this probably does damage too, potentially making it better than the gloo.

"I had to hit the enemy more than once for them to freeze. This is bad design and something to be critical of because reasons I will not go into"

What kind of criticism is that? What the fuck? I see little to anything wrong with what was highlighted in the OP, and it smells of game journo retardation. So basically, they want to be a retarded OP god akin to Bioshock, Dishonored and Deus Ex: Human Devolution.

The first thing they should have nailed down during development was movement and combat, above all else.

In an action rpg the combat needs to be addictive, make players search out the next encounter.

All their old games had deep but rather unpolished and clunky combat and/or movement. Was addictive nonetheless, and it is important to get those things right, but those games were a sum of their parts and leagues better than most other ARPGs.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

smells of game journo retardation.

You might have a point at that. If you're right, this is gonna be one of those games with MASSIVE difference between public and critical reception.

 

[Infinitron]

The problem isn't the previews, the problem is the release date.

What's described in those previews doesn't sound like a game that's coming out in less than four months - not in terms of quality but in terms of quantity. Where's the game? Have you seen anything yet that looks like a full-scale experience that could come out in September? All those jokes about the full game not existing that we made about PoE2 make more sense here.

See Flug's posts here: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1974.msg27213#msg27213

 

[Darkzone]

Modern game journo need only a game with an instant win button. They do not understand that a part of the fun is to learn how the character behaves.
I have read nothing that told me that this will be a bad game quite the opposite: Sword fighting is not a stupid button smasher. Enemies are not easy to kill and to handle. You have to learn how to move.
The next thing that the game journos will complain is that you can die in a game and that you enemies don't die in the moment, that you draw the sword from the sheath. But the sad thing is that there are people out there who read what these people write and buy games based on this.

 

[karnak]

a good "Underworld 3"

Yep.
Played it and loved it.
And it's an exquisite love letter and hommage to UW. But it's not an "official" UW3. I almost thought U:A could be it

But the game's not out yet. Let's wait and let the devs do their work.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

That artstyle does my nut in to be honest. I can put up with a lot. I played MUDs back in the day with ASCI art. But this just doesn't mesh well with previous Undeground titles.

 

[Invictus]

Doesn’t sound to me as if it is declined journalists looking for an awesome button; more like an unfinished janky game where all it’s systems feel unpolished and lacking. I mean even if they compared it to Skyrim at least the stealth system there is not broken so the journalists probably know what they are talking about
Oh well, another one bites the dust
At least I might get hyped to play some more Arx

 

[Darth Roxor]

Hold on just a second. Many of the criticisms in the OP sound like casual garbage. "waaah I always got spotted while crouch-walking"...maybe stealth is more nuanced than just pressing the magic crouch button? "Waaah melee combat was difficult to aim"...is this actually an issue, or are you used to modern trash where you press a button and something awesome happens? e.g batman combat where all you have to do is press the awesome button and he will kick the crap out of the nearest dude. You don't even have to rotate batman to face the enemy.

This was exactly my impression as well, particularly the magic crouch button comment is a yuge red light.

 

[Zep Zepo]

I need an "I told you so" button, DarkUnderlord

Zep--

 

[Zibniyat]

Just lol at believing anything the mainstream game journalists say in 2018. Even reading their worthless opinions about anything is a waste of time at best.

 

[Blaine]

Thought it looked shit from the first Torchlight palette/graphics concept screens. Was off my radar since then.

Shit looking and sounding game is turning out shit. Who would have thought?

Any team that chose that particular art-style as the one they feel best represents a place called The Stygian Abyss... should give anyone pause.

I kept waiting to see if the art assets were going to iterate into something a little less cartoonish as development progressed, but it never happened.

Yep, same here, and I'm on record saying so ages ago. I figured that if the game turned out to actually be good, then great, and the Codex (or rather, the tasteful portion of the Codex) would let me know—otherwise, I wouldn't hold my breath.

What I didn't anticipate was that mainstream "journalists" would react so negatively to a preview build.

I wouldn't have backed this game no matter what, mind you, since Tides of Numenera permanently killed my interest in crowdfunding as of early 2014. That goes quadruple now that Wasteland 2, TToN et al. have actually released.

 

[commie]

Can't say I care much for Underworld Ascendant but after they also bought System Shock rights I was certainly hoping for a Thief sequel or something similar down the line.

Thank the gods for them going out of business before that. Given the evidence here, a new Thief would be like this: