Void Bastards

Хороший геймплей, интересный юмор, игра классссс. Прошел с удовольствием.

Let me tell you a story about Sallie Walker. From what you can gather from the promo material, this game is a rogue-lite where you play as a prisoner who is set out to gather materials from various stranded ships while trying not to die in the process, in order to upgrade your equipment and fix the ship and escape the nebula. Sallie Walker was one of said prisoners, and she was next in line to get sent out into the void. I had previously shelved this game for a few years after buying it and having gone through a handful of previous prisoners, but I picked it up again the other day, determined to actually beat it this time. And playing for a while, I noticed that this prisoner, Sallie Walker, I was doing quite well with, and had already upgraded a fair amount of stuff with her, and kept her alive for a long while. So considering this good run, I became determined to keep her alive for the rest of this journey. She was going to make it out of this Nebula [i]alive[/i]. I went from day 45 to something like day 290 with Sallie, raiding ship after ship, upgrading weapon after weapon, and my armour, obtaining all the unique equipment that allowed me to find more ammo, and override security bots, and get cheaper prices in the stores, etc. Sallie was absolutely a force of nature. Even going from an arsenal consisting only of a basic pistol and a basic shotgun to having the entire arsenal and enough ammo AND food to supply a whole army, and going from basic armour to the best armour available (going from 100 HP to 1950 HP). There were a few close calls, including once where I actually died, but luckily I had unlocked the heart-starter upgrade a few ships earlier, so I managed to get Sallie away by the skin of her teeth. There were also other times where I lost track of my oxygen and started choking, or pissed off the security bots onboard, sprinting back to my own ship with only a sliver of health left, but I managed, and I shovelled a wheelbarrow's worth of sandwiches in my face to recuperate my health every time. Sallie was in it to [i]win[/i]. And win it we did! We fixed the ship, we got out of the nebula, and for all the trouble she had to go through, Sallie was awarded with... an eternal existence as a dehydrated powder in a bag in orbit around a planet with a trillion other bags. ... That kind of downer ending put a really sour note on an otherwise fun and engaging video game. Now, don't get me wrong. The journey toward this destination was certainly fun, and the gunplay, enemy design, and presentation are fantastic, but that shouldn't come as a surprise considering that the people who made this also made System Shock 2 and Bioshock, so if you're a fan of these games, you'll find a lot of familiar elements in this game. As you can probably tell from my little story above, the gameplay loop revolves around boarding ships, shooting the enemies on board, dodging the security and looting all the bins, lockers, boxes and drawers for various materials. After that you move on to the next ship, and then the next, and on and on it goes. Dying means nothing, as the prison ship AI will just send out another prisoner to continue the work, and each prisoner come with their own traits, both good and bad. You either obtain the necessary resources to further the story, or you die. The story is rather short, and takes place over the course of 5-6 steps where you fix the ship, and everything in between is just the core gameplay loop. It took me around 16 hours (minus menu time) to complete the game, but I also went out of my way to upgrade *everything* in the workbench, which is really not important to win, but it's certainly helpful. After completing the first run, you unlock a variety of extra challenges that makes the game harder, like limiting resources, or your arsenal, or modifying the enemies to be faster and/or tougher. I haven't tried these modes, so I can't say anything about what they're like, but I can imagine for people who want a proper challenge, they'll be more engaging than the base game, as even though I spent a LOT of time completing it, it did start feeling a little too easy toward the end with all the upgrades at max. I'll absolutely recommend the game for those who want a rogue-lite with some very satisfying gunplay and raunchy comedy, but I cannot recommend it for the story, as it's really not that good.