What kind of games about survival and searching for resources in an unfavorable environment have we not seen – role-playing, action, shooters, platformers, arcades, strategies and all of the above in one bottle. There weren’t just text RPGs, perhaps. NEO Scavenger very successfully fills this annoying gap..
Total Recall!
The beginning NEO Scavenger traditional: the main character wakes up in some kind of medical cryogenic center, he has almost no clothes, he doesn’t remember anything, and there’s not a soul around. Somehow getting out, he realizes that some kind of catastrophe has happened – there are dilapidated houses all around, and instead of normal people he comes across only some werewolves, aggressive dogs and marauding killers. Now he has to somehow survive in the midst of all this. This means looking for resources, clothing, weapons, food and making basic necessities from scrap materials.
However, further differences begin, quite important and pleasant. Firstly, the plot in NEO Scavenger still matters. Traveling around the world, we will gradually, from scattered facts, put together the puzzle of this story in order to eventually remember everything and figure out why our hero ended up unconscious in this medical center and what the hell happened. Secondly, the gameplay itself is distinguished by such depth and abundance of realistic details that we, perhaps, have never seen in this genre before.
Pros and cons
IN NEO Scavenger, as in Fallout, a lot is based on the character’s skills. Only if you have the appropriate “perk” will your character effectively hit, pick locks, hack computers, hide, understand electronics, medicine, botany and mechanics. So, already at the very beginning in the cryocenter, a hero with the athletics skill will be able to quickly dash out the window, thereby avoiding a meeting with a dangerous werewolf. A hacker will have a chance to first hack into an electronic database, and a medic will have a chance to find a first aid kit.
We ourselves choose at the https://nifty-casino.co.uk/withdrawal/ start which skills to take, but you will have to balance useful skills and harmful ones that give certain penalties, for example, increased fatigue or insomnia. And the more useful “perks” you take, the more unpleasant negative features you will have to give your hero.
Hexagonal Adventure
Moving around the world, that is, on the global map, takes place in a step-by-step mode. We move a lonely character figure across hexes, but we never know in advance what awaits him: a forest, a field, some ruins, a dilapidated office center, empty houses or abandoned cars.
At the same time, enemies move around the hexes with you, and you do not see them until you collide nose to nose. You can, of course, try to cover your tracks or conduct reconnaissance in the next cell (you need the appropriate skills), but still very often you will have to meet dangerous opponents. At the same time, at first, even a stray dog or a lonely blind man in a robe will pose a serious danger to your half-naked hero.
If you were wearing not a nice T-shirt, but a wolf skin, many enemies would run away at one glance at you.
You have to fight, so fight?
The battles themselves are a different story. Each encounter is actually a text quest with a lot of different options for how to behave and what to do. They describe the situation and the enemy himself, his state, and offer you a choice: rush at him immediately, duck into cover, try to scare him, enter into negotiations, throw out a white flag, quickly run away, or try to simply walk away proudly.
When a collision has already occurred, there are many options for how to attack or, for example, what to do when you are knocked to the ground: try to immediately jump up, roll to the side, lunge and knock down the enemy with a blow to the leg, and so on. In this case, what matters is whether you see the enemy, at what distance he is from you and in what physical condition he is.
Raise the fires..
However, the physical condition of your hero is much more important. Even if he won the fight or successfully escaped, it is not a fact that he will last at least one more night. IN NEO Scavenger you are very vulnerable: you find yourself without clothes or in holey shoes in the rain – you will freeze and get sick, you run out of food – you get hungry, you eat something unknown – you will get poisoned. Your character gets sick, experiences pain and very often dies from illness, fatigue, thirst and hunger.
Therefore, if possible, the first step is to comb the hex for resources – this is done by pressing one button. You need to pick up everything – clothes, water bottles, fragments, batteries, ropes, newspapers, stones and any garbage. In addition, it is allowed to cut down trees, disassembling them into sticks and logs. You will use something as a weapon, combine something and end up making a bow, arrows for it, a slingshot or even a rifle. The main thing is to find recipes. Although no one forbade you from trying it yourself, experimenting – the “crafting” system in the game is very detailed, but just as democratic and understandable as in Divinity: Original Sin.
You also need to set up camp to get some sleep and improve your health. Or build a fire from scrap materials and warm up, dry off, and cook food. True, you need to take into account the fact that the fire may be noticed by some creatures. Some of your skills will make the process of resting (as well as searching for resources) more efficient and safer.
All this realism is designed as an ascetic text RPG. Fights are not visualized here: we only see windows with a description of the situation and options for action. The graphics are only on the global map, but even there they are extremely primitive, and are accompanied by a cumbersome interface that is not, to put it mildly, the most user-friendly. Searching for resources, establishing a camp, “crafting” – all these are also solid tables, texts and menus. But if you value not external beauty, but well-developed mechanics and real hardcore, then NEO Scavenger will captivate you for a long time.
Pros: very detailed and realistic survival mechanics; interesting battle system; detailed “crafting”; variety of positive and negative skills.
Cons: primitive design; inconvenient interface.
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