Metalartin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 15 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 12,442
What other games have no story? Surely you're not including Sea of Thieves in that?
Did you not read what I said about the whole reason why the first game became somewhat of a cult classic was because there wasn't a big storyline that heavily guided you by the hand like every other game already has. I fail to see how anyone who played the first wanted them to change everything unique and fresh about it and turn it into anther cutscene chasing experience... some reviewers clearly don't get it at all.
Also from watching twitch earlier it appears there is a main story just as the first game had but you shouldn't race through the main story missions as it's obvious you're supposed to explore before triggering them, it even warned you at some points in the first game to take care of other things first.
As for the "grind" complaints if it's anything like the first I found it great making the home safe, looking for new potential home-sites(although the ability to turn any building into one would have given more freedom to get creative), rescuing other survivors, deciding whether an army supply drop was worth risking ammo and vehicles on. Levelling up group members, finding new members with certain skills to be able to upgrade certain things around the home such as the munitions shop or a tools expert that can fix your cars when you leave them parked were worthwhile tasks that helped you in the game. Also there's no restarting in the game, instead there's permadeath for your group members which was another unique thing(made you value the characters more, losing a player with certain skill or fighting/shooting level was a real kick in the teeth), I found myself unwilling to risk my best group members on certain missions in case it went tits up. Losing the guy who was always bitching and needing you take a walk with them to stop them making everyone else depressed in the home softened the blow of losing someone on a supply drop mission.
There were things that needed improving like the variety of events and situations survivors get themselves into but I'd hardly call it a grind because you can ignore those. This is one of the key areas where they could have innovated new characters popping up with unique situations and events and thus their own storylines and histories which the first game merely scratched the surface of( not sure how the dialogue would work or how it could ever be truly procedural but isn't that the point of innovation?). Ignoring those there's plenty of missions revolving around improving the situation for your own group. I'm someone who doesn't like the filler in GTA the side missions don't feel organic but tacked on to bump up the playing time(and quite boring in some cases), I didn't feel that with State of Decay oddly. Killing zombies with melee weapons was oddly satisfying too, as were the stealth attacks where you smash their head like a watermelon from behind. Also taking out a horde by yourself on foot with your last petrol bomb lobbed behind your back as they chase you down after you run out of bullets was one of those small victories you remember.
I did try and explain the promise of a more procedural storyline experience that is unique to you, I don't know how better to explain it than in the post you replied to... but it seems as though they ended up satisfying neither those who who didn't "get" the first game or those who wanted them to take it up a notch and see what's possible so it's a moot point.
Is it not a full priced game as I assumed? I suppose it didn't quite have the investment I assumed it had. The game looks good to me, it appears it is running on the CryEngine3.1 which is not state of the art(considering 5.4 is available I'm not sure why they choose that version) but it's certainly not looking poor by any stretch of imagination against open world games of this type. If they are a small team I'd much rather they had focused their efforts on innovating the gameplay, ironing out the bugs that were in the first game and improving on what was already good.
Also people keep assuming this is a first party studio when it's not, it's just published(and possibly funded by) Microsoft which makes it second party I think. Either way people should at least blame the right parties if they are disappointed in the sequel which is Undead Labs.
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