Survival/Sandbox Games

I have been playing a couple of these games lately, No Man's Sky, Space Engineers, Planet Nomad, Empyrion. Thought I would do a small review of a couple, and see if others play any, what they play, and which ones they like(especially if they are ones I don't play).

So, reviews:

1. No Man's Sky: This is the game that got me interested in the genre. However, it is also the one that drives me most insane. At times beautiful and fun, but far too often confusing and it feels like I am playing a game of inventory management. I do need to go back and spend some more time, maybe if I get further, I might like it more. Controls can be annoying at times.
   
2. Space Engineers: Great looking game, great concept, oh so frustrating to make things, and it is all about making things. Creative mode works great, but figuring out just how to line up the blocks so that all the plumbing lines up, and get stuff from point a to b without running into something else, oh so frustrating. Feels great when you get your first mining vessel to work though.
   
3. Planet Nomad: I like to call it "Planet Let's Fight The Interface". Should be great, looks good, runs better on my comp than any of the others, but good lord, even doing simple things is annoying. One of those games that I suspect if I put more time into it where I have more familiarity with the controls it might be good, but right now I am just unwilling to put in that time. Also, 4 hotbar slots is stupidly too few. Good look though.
   
4. Empyrion Galactic Survival: And we have a winner. Can be played as a solo building/gathering game, can be played PvP, can be played co-op. You can build everything from scratch, or you can build prefab blueprints(and there are thousands on Steam Workshop...I so want the Millennium Falcon SV). You can mine, or salvage resources from wrecks. You can just kill the occasional animal, or you can battle drones almost continuously. While you will have to do some fighting, and more as the game goes on, it does not have to be the focus. It has a storyline set of missions, or you can skip it entirely. It has a great flow. First you find a few places close to start, then you do some resource gathering to get what you need to build your first hover vessel, then you build your first base, then a vehicle to get into space, then a bigger base, than more bases, more vehicles, then you make it to planets outside your starter planet and moon, then you make a space base, and a capital vessel, then you can travel all over space. Always fairly clear cut goals, while being mostly nonlinear. Oh, and it has a little bit of RPG elements in that you level up, which gives you access to more stuff to build. This is possibly the best game I have gotten in the last couple years.

So, what games of this type do you all play? And what do you like/dislike with those games?

When it comes to survival, and I know its still Early Access (.63 patch will hit beta when it goes to the stable branch), but I've put over 1400 hours into DayZ.

Its got permadeath for your character, food and water are serious concerns. Its just the best, no game gets my heart pounding more.

If you like No Man's Sky, give Elite Dangerous a try. Especially with a HOTAS stick.

Far Cry 5 is lots of fun too. Psycho religious cultists are almost as much fun to shoot as Nazis.

It surprises even me, but I still play the hell out of GTA5 Online (closed session with friends). Fun things to do....
* See how many 7-11's you can stick up before the cops finally get you.
* Be a used car dealer. "Acquire" cars from "donors" and fill a gas station lot. Once you've crammed 30-40 cars onto the lot, throw a molotov in there and watch the fun.
* Drive solely on the sidewalks.
* Hang out in the hood. People will run from you in the more wealthy neighborhoods. In the ghetto though...they shoot back. Sometimes in groups of a dozen or more.
* Take a mission where you bring a car back to the shady car dealership. Make sure to smash it up to within a hair of exploding, right before handing it in.
* Get a heavy cargo helicopter. Pick up random cars and deposit them in fun locations like the tops of buildings (and watch them drive off) or on the roller coaster.

I picked up Avorion a couple days ago, and it has been kinda fun. You start out in a mining ship, then use what you mined to build a much better(though still crappy) ship. The ship building tools are pretty powerful, and you can make some awesome looking ships. You can then mine, or kill pirates, or become a pirate, or work the trade markets, or any of a bunch of other options. As you move closer to the center of the galaxy, there are better ores(which make better ships and are more valuable), stronger pirates(who drop better stuff and have higher bounties), and difficulty scales up nicely. Procedural generated galaxy, and it is huge. a grid of 10 squares by 10 squares, each square is divided into 10 squares by 10 squares, and each of those squares is divided into 10 x 10 sectors. So ****loads of sectors, and each sector is pretty large.

Thinking of picking up Raft. You start on a little raft floating at sea, gather resources, use those to expand your raft and make tools. I saw some screenshots of really big floating cities that you can end up with.

I tried No Man's Sky and didnt like it- the whole thing seemed pointless, and even though the game could generate tons of planets- they all seemed the same, just a reskin each time.

I think I mentioned this in another thread, but Subnautica is the best survival game Ive played. I think they'll be coming out with a sequel to it soon.

PoS said:

I tried No Man's Sky and didnt like it- the whole thing seemed pointless, and even though the game could generate tons of planets- they all seemed the same, just a reskin each time.

I think I mentioned this in another thread, but Subnautica is the best survival game Ive played. I think they'll be coming out with a sequel to it soon.

Click to expand...

Subnautica is indeed the best survival game on the market.

A friend of my has turned me on to a new game that he raved about so much that I ended up getting it even though it is still in (late) beta, and I am glad I did.

Any of you play Kenshi?

I had looked past it so many times on steam and figured I wouldn't like it because it was a Japanese RPG... I was wrong. This game is pretty great.

What it is: A post-apocalyptic, team-based, real-time Survival game.... with order-while-paused. While post-apocalyptic don't think Fallout, it is mildly sci-fi. Combat uses medieval age weapons (so far?), but you can play a robot... sooo

The goal of the game is to build a clan in an unforgiving wasteland where you do what you need to to eat, stay healthy, research and scavenge. Some of the best moments I have had in the game were just coming across pitched battles between two warring raider clans and waiting to clean up on the winners... or, if they won decisively, hide and go pick up what they couldn't carry.

Combat is chock full of varied animations and motion capture movements making the fights look rather nice. Adding to that there is an injury system (loss of limbs, crippling injuries, etc.) so there is a lot to think about.

I've just barely established my first home base and begun research, but once it is up and running I can run a store front to sell my ill gotten gear, and smith my own... and mine my own ore... etc. etc.

Back to it!

As much as I am enjoying Kenshi, I have an addiction to good Terraria clones. As such, I will be cracking open IT LURKS BELOW this evening and spending my available gaming time this weekend giving it a test run.

It looks amazing.

jmotivator said:

A friend of my has turned me on to a new game that he raved about so much that I ended up getting it even though it is still in (late) beta, and I am glad I did.

Any of you play Kenshi?

I had looked past it so many times on steam and figured I wouldn't like it because it was a Japanese RPG... I was wrong. This game is pretty great.

What it is: A post-apocalyptic, team-based, real-time Survival game.... with order-while-paused. While post-apocalyptic don't think Fallout, it is mildly sci-fi. Combat uses medieval age weapons (so far?), but you can play a robot... sooo

The goal of the game is to build a clan in an unforgiving wasteland where you do what you need to to eat, stay healthy, research and scavenge. Some of the best moments I have had in the game were just coming across pitched battles between two warring raider clans and waiting to clean up on the winners... or, if they won decisively, hide and go pick up what they couldn't carry.

Combat is chock full of varied animations and motion capture movements making the fights look rather nice. Adding to that there is an injury system (loss of limbs, crippling injuries, etc.) so there is a lot to think about.

I've just barely established my first home base and begun research, but once it is up and running I can run a store front to sell my ill gotten gear, and smith my own... and mine my own ore... etc. etc.

Back to it!

Click to expand...

Kenshi is an odd duck. Reminds me so much of Morrowwind in its aesthetics, but gameplay is nothing like it. I like hard games, but holy hell the start is a pain. Running to build up speed, then mining and running with a full load to build up strength, then helping guards fight to get weapon skills. I really think the game would have benefited from a bit more player power at start. I need to spend some more time with it to get past that annoying beginning.

Redress said:

Kenshi is an odd duck. Reminds me so much of Morrowwind in its aesthetics, but gameplay is nothing like it. I like hard games, but holy hell the start is a pain. Running to build up speed, then mining and running with a full load to build up strength, then helping guards fight to get weapon skills. I really think the game would have benefited from a bit more player power at start. I need to spend some more time with it to get past that annoying beginning.

Click to expand...

Well,there are plenty of custom start mods that make the start easier. I went with the 5 person start that can stock with the game and played scavenger. I didn't even bother trying to fight until I had gathered some better gear off the bodies of the victims of better fighters.

It's cheesey, I know, but my big break was running afoul of some Dust Bandits and running to the nearest outpost/store and letting the guards kill them. It they happen to kill a guard along the way, all the better.

OK, 7 hours in and the game is a great bit o distraction. Crafting isn't a huge part of the game, thought it does play a role early on. As expected from the creator of Diablo, the primary progression is in weapon drops and magic spells. While they refer to the weapons as "wands", they are in appearance and performance rifles that fire elemental rounds.

You play on a fair small map horizontally, but the game is about digging down and defeating bosses in each strata of earth. I just defeated the first boss after about 7 hours of play. No idea how many bosses there are at the moment, or if they are repeatable.

So if you want to play Terraria but like the ARPG feeling of getting surprise color coded weapon drops that suddenly change the game for you, then IT LURKS BELOW is a nice little game... and by "little" I mean in foot print. It is only about 25 mb in size.

Subnuatica is amazing. It's one of the best games I've played in ages.

State of Decay is a lot of fun

So I just saw this game for the first time when it went early access today.

Breathedge

Looks like Subnautica in space.

Not going to bite... yet, but my curiosity is piqued.

7 days to die is really good. Essentially a cross between Minecraft and the walking dead.

Mud n' Blood 2 is really very good.

It's a sandbox WWII defense game made by a guy called Urb (for Unfair Random Brutality, which is not a coincidence.)

It amounts to an overhead view of your battlefield, with you ordering up soldiers, and positioning them for best effect, but they defend themselves automatically. You can pause the action, and give several orders at once, and then restart it to what things unfold.

There is a huge variety of soldiers and tactics to use, including building bunkers and other defensive constructions, various vehicles, including tanks, radio guys to call in artillery. It takes morale into consideration, with troops eventually fleeing if things going badly enough. You build a career, with significant perks for future games being granted as you reach various milestones.

Also, there's no actual way to win. All you can do is hold on for as long as possible while wave after of randomly selected German troops of ever increasing numbers run into your defenses.

Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, and frustrating at the beginning, but it's very satisfying to plan and set out a good strategy that holds up. You can pause it, and I've occasionally had a game sitting on my desktop for several days, stopping and starting the action as I have time (a long game will take many hours.)

I've made it to wave 830 or so, which is braggable, but that was after unlocking a lot of helpful perks. I'm extremely lucky to make wave 100 on my first run of a new profile.

jmotivator said:

So I just saw this game for the first time when it went early access today.

Breathedge

Looks like Subnautica in space.

Not going to bite... yet, but my curiosity is piqued.

Click to expand...

Now that is tempting. What is the deal with the chicken?

This:

Tom Clancy’s The Division: Survival

https://store.ubi.com/anz/tom-clanc...ion-ii-survival/582b445929e1233b548b4567.html


"Description

During the devastating pandemic that followed Black Friday, rumors of a cure begin to circulate as a snowstorm approaches New York. Sent to recover the potential antidote from the Dark Zone, your chopper is brought down by the intensifying weather before reaching its destination. Vulnerable, stripped of all gear, wounded, and freezing to death, you must search for the cure in these unforgiving conditions and find a way to extract it from the chaos. Our survival depends on it.
Features

NEW SURVIVAL MODE

Cold, hungry, thirsty, sick, stripped of gear, and beset by a brutal snowstorm, you must survive until being extracted safely from the Dark Zone. Finding warm clothes and crafting supplies, and scavenging for food, water, and medicine will be vital to your success. However, the environment is not the only danger out there. Beware of 23 other agents and deadly Hunters prowling in the area if you wish to retrieve the antidote and be extracted for the best rewards.

BATTLE THE COLD

New York is hit by a snowstorm that will quickly freeze you to death. Find shelter and move swiftly from one warm spot to the next, and craft warm clothes to resist the cold as long as possible.

SCAVENGE FOR FOOD AND WATER

You will need to find food as your agent will begin to starve, losing life. Look out for canned food and snack bars in grocery stores to restore your health. Water will also be a necessity as your agent becomes dehydrated, affecting vision.

FIGHT OFF INFECTION

Find medicine to extend your lifespan and slow the effects of septic shock.

SURVIVE IN PVP OR PVE

You can choose to enable PvP or PvE modes in Survival. In PvP, you will be able to interact in cooperation or in opposition with other players in every corner of New York, even while out of the Dark Zone. In PvE, you will only be able to play in cooperation with other players.

OUTSMART THE HUNTER

Faster, dangerously well prepared, and equipped to fight Division agents, the Hunter is a deadly new enemy who will always be one step ahead of you. Tread carefully and beware of enemies.

GREATER RISKS, GREATER REWARDS

Monitor your basic needs and be selective of who you trust as you progress in Survival. Dying is permanent in Survival, and you only get to keep the items you collected and crafted if you extract successfully. If you die before being extracted, you will receive rewards based on your performance, which is reflected by your Survival score."

Redress said:

Now that is tempting. What is the deal with the chicken?

Click to expand...

No idea. I mean, what's the deal with most of it? :lol:

NEO Scavenger is often called a "hobo simulator" as that's what your character generally spends a lot of time looking like one.

You're thrown out of a cryo-vat with nothing but a wristband, an necklace, and a hospital gown directly into post-apocalyptic Michigan that is haunted by werewolves and worse, and bad weather besides.

Pure turn-based survival rougelike, with fairly detailed injury system that makes fighting risky.

jmotivator said:

So I just saw this game for the first time when it went early access today.

Breathedge

Looks like Subnautica in space.

Not going to bite... yet, but my curiosity is piqued.

Click to expand...

I watched a let's play video on it last night. Dude doing the video was painfully annoying, but the game itself looks to have promise. Some of the jokes in the game kinda fall flat, but it is rapid fire humor, and some is pretty great. Gameplay looks decent but not spectacular, but I could only put up with the annoying guy making the video for about 10 minutes, so hard to say for sure. For only 12 bucks, I might have to try it out soon.

And kinda the opposite end of survival, has any one tried Plague, Inc? https://store.steampowered.com/app/246620/Plague_Inc_Evolved/ Really tempted to give it a try.

Redress said:

I watched a let's play video on it last night. Dude doing the video was painfully annoying, but the game itself looks to have promise. Some of the jokes in the game kinda fall flat, but it is rapid fire humor, and some is pretty great. Gameplay looks decent but not spectacular, but I could only put up with the annoying guy making the video for about 10 minutes, so hard to say for sure. For only 12 bucks, I might have to try it out soon.

Click to expand...

I originally saw the game on a Twitch stream by a streamer who goes by the name Sl1pg8tr (?) who I used to watch all the time and then kinda got tired of his shtick.

So yeah, it is "like" Subnautica, but is a comedy game, which detracts from it a lot, I think. I think it mostly just made me want a real Subnautica sequel, but in space.