State of Decay 2 (Fireteam Builder Events)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Sunday, May 27, 2018, 15:32 (2151 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I've played for like four hours now, so I'm really just starting.

I’m six or seven hours in, and while I’m sure that there’s still a bit left to do and explore, so can’t help but feel like I’m hitting the endgame of the region that I started in before everything becomes repetition.

I'm really digging it, but that's sort of in spite of the game itself. It's . . . man, it's sort of bad. It's a buggy mess. Nothing game breaking so far, but all sorts of bad AI issues, shit disappearing and appearing at random, the simulation telling me that one of my squad members caused a fight at base and lowered moral, even though I he was actively in my party well away from base, etc.

Yeah, that’s been happening to me quite a bit, as well as the seemingly-common “disappearing follower” bug (though I found that if you go to the community tab and choose to play as the follower, it should fix the issue as soon as you hop in a car).

The combat doesn't feel good, the movement is clunky, driving is awful, etc, etc.

Driving feels pretty good, I think. It’s definitely enjoyable for me. And I found that using LB (sprint) to auto-initiate interactions helps fix a lot of the wonkiness that comes from pressing A at the wrong times (jumping is a joke in this game).

All that said, I've been having a blast. It's just the oddest sort of compelling. Every time I get thing close to being set right at base, something else goes wrong and causes another issue that needs to be addressed.

I find those things more annoying than compelling, honestly, but it comes with the territory, and it isn’t a huge issue to address the problems. Plus, some of the annoyances (such as having to bounce a single portable generator between stations because I didn’t make a permanent one) are actually fun for me, for whatever reason.

I've always wanted to dig into one of these simulation games, but I always end up falling off. I spent like fifteen hours playing Rimworld, and I thought it was neat, but I never really got into it. This game has a really great blend of base/people/skills management and actual action gameplay.

Yeah, quibbles aside (boy is it hard to raise morale), it’s great for what it is.

I also really like the "story" stuff. It's all just random bullshit, but it hints at just enough to allow me to fill in the blanks and sort of build a stupid narrative in my head about my survivors and the people they encounter.

It’s funny how simple little stuff like that can make a character endearing. I helped someone with zero intention to do more for her beyond an escort mission, but after it was over, I asked her if she wanted to join us, and now she’s one of the members that I play as more often (and she has a very positive attitude, which is a big deal in Morose Mansion.

Also, I really appreciate nighttime in this game. It's actually dark, and you can't see a damn thing. It's genuinely scary and tense.

Yeah, it’s really annoying at first, but I’ve definitely grown to appreciate the danger (especially when there are red eyes in the dark). I’m just lucky that I’ve only run into Ferals during the day.

It's a hard game to recommend in a lot of ways, but I still ultimately really like it so far. I'd love to see a really polished AAA version of this (or maybe not--maybe that would just strip away all the rough edges and be the sort of stripped down experience that No Man's Sky was, I dunno).

If you have game pass, I definitely recommend the game. If you don’t, it really is hard to sell someone in it until it goes on sale.