Zero Punctuation: Subnautica

[Moagim]

Huh. I might pick this up, actually. I looked it up and the art style is really pretty .

It actually makes me want to see what the whole ocean world looks like.

Even if you buy it just to play around in creative mode and do nothing but look at all the pretty things, you won't be disappointed that you did.

And then it's quite fun to play on top of it all.

 

[sXeth]

"Your authority is not recognized within Fort Kickass!" Now that that's out of the way, I'm surprised to hear he likes an open-world survival game. All they had to do was set it underwater.

I wonder what Yahtzee's thoughts on Metal Gear Survive will be?

It will be worth it just to hear him rip into Konami some more.

I think the main point is that it has a coherent narrative to it. Where the rest of the genre more or less sticks to online PvP as its selling points, with any sort of single player or even co-op being a trivial afterthought.

Like, Ark has a "storyline progression", but its mostly to faciliate acheiving a stack of super-gear that mostly only has any relevance in PvP. The Tek gear doesn't even work properly for most of the bosses you have to fight to get more fuel for the tek gear (because jet packs and so on would really trivialize much of it).

The two main ones I can think of that try and fit the PvE aspects in are Terraria (which barely counts as survival game so much as a free form action-platformer) and 7 Days to Die which at least has a gameplay loop that forces some sense of urgency on you (where most survival games have the "survival" challenge go out the window when you hit whatever semi-civilized progression tier), but is buried in jank by virture of being a one person part time project or whatever and may achieve final release polish basically never.

(Minecraft also technicall has a story progression, or at least a vague win condition. But you'd need a wiki to ever actually know that.)

 

[fix-the-spade]

i'm surprised he didn't mention the ball churning terror

That seems to vary very much from player to player. I'm scared by open water and agree that places in Subnautica are absolutely horrifying just by existing, it's like some of the areas in STALKER in that regard.

Also the Reaper's AI has been toned down in the release version, if you go to the Aurora or the island base at night it is still a homing death machine, but during the day time it's much more happy to just hang around in the back of the map and leave you alone. I had one swim over the top of me and go about it's day at the Aurora.

Now the Crab Squid, Sea Dragon and Ghost are still pure horror, especially the Sea Dragon.

 

[Moagim]

Well if you're not going to paint your sub pink and name it the Blake Edward, then I'm going to color mine yellow with red highlights and name it

 

[Terminal Blue]

i'm surprised he didn't mention the ball churning terror

Oh, god yes..

Do not play this game if you have crippling thalassophobia.

If you have non-crippling thalassophobia though, it doubles as a top notch horror experience as well as a survival crafting game.

I think the main point is that it has a coherent narrative to it. Where the rest of the genre more or less sticks to online PvP as its selling points, with any sort of single player or even co-op being a trivial afterthought.

Yeah, it's easy to lump it in with the glut of survival crafting games, but it's actually very different to most of them.

The gameplay is less emergent and random and more a crafted journey, although it's still possible to get stuck and confused trying to find something (for me it was fiber mesh in the early access version, before they added a tooltip which explained how to get it).

There's a strong emphasis on immersion in subnautica which I appreciated. It's less about random emergent internet hijinks and more about feeling like you're in this weird alien environment. Even little decisions, like the fact your character actually has a visible body (and some creatures actually interact with it, bleeders scared the shit out of me when I first encountered them) have been put together quite carefully to make this happen.

 

[maninahat]

i'm surprised he didn't mention the ball churning terror

That seems to vary very much from player to player. I'm scared by open water and agree that places in Subnautica are absolutely horrifying just by existing, it's like some of the areas in STALKER in that regard.

Also the Reaper's AI has been toned down in the release version, if you go to the Aurora or the island base at night it is still a homing death machine, but during the day time it's much more happy to just hang around in the back of the map and leave you alone. I had one swim over the top of me and go about it's day at the Aurora.

Now the Crab Squid, Sea Dragon and Ghost are still pure horror, especially the Sea Dragon.

The crab squid were the worst for me. They're so fucking weird!

They also caused one of the afore mentioned near rage quit moments, wherein I was visiting a deep sea base surrounded by the fuckers. They buzzed around the outside of the base, staring in at me and filling the water with deadly electric waves. I made a dash for my sub and got in with my oxygen level so low my character had started blacking out. I was saved! But then it turned out all those electric waves had brought my sub's health down to about 1% health, and a final buzz caused the thing to explode around me. I died four seconds later from air loss.

 

[Gnarynhar]

Considering Yahtzee's review style, that's rather solid praise for the game.
And even though the planet is like an oceanographic space Australia, once you have a stasis rifle and a heatblade, things get a lot simpler. If something's going to be a problem, freeze it in place and start stabbing! Round things out with a repair tool, a cured fish or two, a couple of bottles of water, spare batteries and a few first aid kits and you're all set.

It's been quite interesting, seeing Subnautica move from Early Access to it's current state. Seeing things added in, taken out, graphics and gameplay tweaks. On the whole, I've been quite happy with it. My main issue is that I can no longer tuck a single bed off to one side in the Cyclops, and that's really an immersion thing.

 

[4Aces]

I kinda lost respect and just ran around mining everything to death after I got the pressure suit. With that and a repair tool, you are a little OP. The Sea Dragon was a crafty git and just swam away from me faster than the jets on the suit would propel me, so I did not have a chance to see if I could kill it too. I did love the batman grapple, even though I could not spear fish with it. I really should have reported that as a bug...

 

[Dalisclock]

I actualy grabbed this on sale a while back. I just haven't played it back because of being busy with other things and waiting for the early access period to end.

Glad to see it's getting good reviews. I think once I finish MGSV I'll give it a go.

 

[warmachine]

I recognised the film from the pink submarine and its two starring actors. Naff comedy. Yellow Submarine is a much better submarine themed film. Didn't recognise the director's name.

 

[Lazule]

No mention of the sea monsters eh? This game is scary as hell.