So this is something I've always loved, and only recently put my finger on: I love games in which the objective is to simply stay alive in a dangerous, open world. I'm in love with the post-apocalyptic portrait of the grizzled survivor, scrounging for food and improvised supplies, carrying a revolver with only two bullets left in it and jumping at the slightest sign of danger. However, I don't know any games that do that well.
I've tried to tinker with Fallout 3 to give it more of a desperate survival mood - turning off the music and HUD, fiddling with the difficulty, and taking a vow not to enter any of the settlements - but ultimately, I realized Fallout 3 simply isn't a game about survival, it's a game about strapping a minigun to your back and seeing how many of a mutant's limbs you can blow off. In slow motion. The overabundance of firearms - and relative irrelevance of food, water, stealth, and subtlety - simply make the entire engine unsuited to the task of a survival game. I deeply regret playing the 360 version, as my PC is a frail, anemic thing that gasps and wheezes trying to run games from 1998; otherwise, I would've modded the crap out of it by now.
I've tried playing the adventurer mode in Dwarf Fortress, which works alright; despite being in ASCII, the level of depth and detail in that game creates a great sense of every little detail being absolutely crucial to whether or not you last another day - you can be wounded on specific limbs down to the fingers and toes, and there's an incredible breadth of improvisation allowed by the game engine for combat. It's a game that allows you to grab and hurl rocks at a pursuing sasquatch as you run for your life, then turn around, tackle it, gouge out its eyes with your bare hands, and strangle it to death with a piece of your clothing as it shambles blindly away, without any modding or self-imposed game rules. That's pretty fucking impressive. The problem with Dwarf Fortress is it's just too damn complicated. The basic key bindings take hours upon hours to learn, and it's simply not practical.
I recently ordered Far Cry 2 in the haze of an eBay binge, as it looks like it offers a good 'survival engine'. The purchase was mostly - no, entirely - inspired by the slideshow/story "Permanent Death" (which is a fun read, a sort of grim, in-character Let's Play). Whether or not it'll live up to my expectations remains to be seen.
But in the meantime, I still hunger for that sense of consequence, improvisation, and desperation that no game seems to really nail. Have you ever played a game that has that quality I'm talking about? I'd love to add some titles to my list.
I've tried to tinker with Fallout 3 to give it more of a desperate survival mood - turning off the music and HUD, fiddling with the difficulty, and taking a vow not to enter any of the settlements - but ultimately, I realized Fallout 3 simply isn't a game about survival, it's a game about strapping a minigun to your back and seeing how many of a mutant's limbs you can blow off. In slow motion. The overabundance of firearms - and relative irrelevance of food, water, stealth, and subtlety - simply make the entire engine unsuited to the task of a survival game. I deeply regret playing the 360 version, as my PC is a frail, anemic thing that gasps and wheezes trying to run games from 1998; otherwise, I would've modded the crap out of it by now.
I've tried playing the adventurer mode in Dwarf Fortress, which works alright; despite being in ASCII, the level of depth and detail in that game creates a great sense of every little detail being absolutely crucial to whether or not you last another day - you can be wounded on specific limbs down to the fingers and toes, and there's an incredible breadth of improvisation allowed by the game engine for combat. It's a game that allows you to grab and hurl rocks at a pursuing sasquatch as you run for your life, then turn around, tackle it, gouge out its eyes with your bare hands, and strangle it to death with a piece of your clothing as it shambles blindly away, without any modding or self-imposed game rules. That's pretty fucking impressive. The problem with Dwarf Fortress is it's just too damn complicated. The basic key bindings take hours upon hours to learn, and it's simply not practical.
I recently ordered Far Cry 2 in the haze of an eBay binge, as it looks like it offers a good 'survival engine'. The purchase was mostly - no, entirely - inspired by the slideshow/story "Permanent Death" (which is a fun read, a sort of grim, in-character Let's Play). Whether or not it'll live up to my expectations remains to be seen.
But in the meantime, I still hunger for that sense of consequence, improvisation, and desperation that no game seems to really nail. Have you ever played a game that has that quality I'm talking about? I'd love to add some titles to my list.
