Recent reviews by Ancallan

I wish I had grip strength like this

Love the atmosphere, good balance of difficulty. Fantastic music.

TIL Tomcats can't swim

I quite enjoyed this one. Arma being a military-focused game means that you're looking at two potential scenarios: an exploration of how humans will react to contact with aliens or a hostile us-vs-them situation where you blow ET to hell. Without going into too much detail, the game looks at the former.

This one appeals to me a lot, because while it's not especially heavy on the action, it has a lot of atmosphere. Several of the missions support a bit of exploration and give you reason to investigate things that don't necessarily show up on the map. If you listen in on radio comms, you'll become privy to caches of weapons, minor story events, or simple points of interest that won't even show up as an objective on the map. Many of these come with intel clues that add a bit of flavour.

If you're looking for an atmospheric campaign with sci-fi elements from an Arma perspective, I can definitely recommend it.

I can't get enough of the co-op mode.

So, Nether. I initially picked this up and played it during the beta and would not have recommended it then (as seems to be the general opinion, judging by the Early Access reviews).

My two major complaints were simple. First, the movement felt wonky and made gunplay in PvP feel incredibly odd. Secondly, it was hard to be immersed in the atmosphere when most things were decorated with nothing but trash bags. If you've looked at whether or not I've recommended this game, then you might surmise that these issues were rectified.

The game does have its issues, no doubt. However, what's really doing it for me is the atmosphere. There is a lot of detail, a lot of tall grass to hide in and plenty of places to hide from enemies. As far as post-apocalyptic survival goes, this does it for me.

Let's go over some of the main points!

Safe Zones
There are zones in the game that are totally safe. You cannot kill people in these zones, you cannot even bring up your ironsights. This very well might put some people off of the game, especially those wanting an experience similar to DayZ or perhaps Rust, where you want PvP all the time, anywhere. However, I appreciate the difference. It's nice to come back after a courier mission and take some time to relax and plot your next action.

This is made a little more interesting by the fact that these safe zones periodically... well... become unsafe. You can kill people, you can kill invading monsters. Watch your trigger finger... or keep an eye out for someone that looked at you funny early on.

Survival Aspects
This game is not detailed when it comes to survival. You need to eat, you need to drink, you need to keep your health up. You won't bleed out, you won't get poisoned. It keeps this aspect of the game simple. If you've eaten enough food, you regenerate health slowly. Very slowly. But it is a nice reason to stay well-fed.

You'll find yourself scavenging for foodstuffs, weapons, ammo, cash. You'll kill monsters and get their skin, claws and skulls. Honestly, if you're after something super-detailed here, probably not for you. But if you don't mind the simplicity and just want some reason to eat food while hunting for people/monsters/etc., then it does the trick.

Monsters and PvE
Right, so there are monsters in this game. They're called 'Nether', but that always makes me try to come up with some inappropriate innuendo. Either way, what is the AI like? Not great, but surprisingly... not bad. They'll run at you, they'll call for nearby monsters to help and... they'll teleport and try to get behind you -- yes, teleport. It's a thing they're meant to do, not a buggy weirdness. They can chase you fairly effectively, handling the inside of buildings well enough to pose a threat and even able to climb stairs after you.

On their own, they're really nothing to worry about. If you have a knife, you can likely kill one no issue. It's when they're in groups that they're a danger. But there's more than just the AI to worry about once the shots start ringing out as you desperately try to cling to life...

PvP
Outside of safezones, it's free reign. Kill whomever you want. The game has a mechanic where you can join a 'Tribe'; pick one out of several colourful, but standard, apocalyptic factions and fight for them to take territory and earn rewards. Don't worry -- you can still kill fellow tribemates! There is a reputation system that discourages you from doing so and wanton fratricide will see you kicked out from your tribe.

There is an interesting mode of gameplay I'm fond of. Playing AS one of the monsters. You can buy a potion for relatively cheap (with in-game money), drink it and get the option to become one of the creatures. Some clunkiness to be had here, you have to log out and log back into the server, then choose your character as a monster. Monster mode, however, is fun. You don't lose anything on death, you're fast, you're nimble and you're practically blind. It changes up the experience in a way I quite enjoyed. What I like most about this is that you're always left wondering if the monster over yonder happens to be a player... and if they have a pack of friends.

Oh and you can group with friends pretty easily, if that's something you like to do.

Overall, PvP is perhaps limited when compared to other titles. You won't be kidnapping anyone and sacrificing them to volcano gods, you won't be forcefeeding them bleach. But you will be feverishly glancing up at windows and wondering if someone is watching you.

Levels/Progression
One thing that puts people off is that you can gain levels, build your character... then you die and lose all the hard work. The developers have mitigated this with an 'Account Level' system. You get perks that persist... nothing huge, but nice perks that give you some overall accomplishment. The game keeps track of your overall PvP and PvE kills, which is a nice touch. Thankfully, rebuilding a character is not a massive undertaking and you can get the primary perks you want in an incredibly short amount of time. Does this maybe kinda cheapen it for the more-hardcore crowd? Maybe. I don't mind it and I have other games to get my hardcore gaming cravings satiated.

Issues
So, there are some problems. I don't feel it's gamebreaking, but it's worth noting. Technically speaking, the graphics are nothing special and perhaps a bit dated. I feel that they make up with this with a great deal of atmosphere -- this is something you'll have to decide on your own after checking out some videos or screenshots. It might be a little hardware intensive for what you get.

Sounds can be a touch funky. Especially underground. You're never sure if the gunshots you hear are just around the metro tunnel bend or... actually just above you on the street level.

Terrain can be odd. There are cases where you're moving over some ruined rubble and you suddenly start levitating in the air. Like, way up. You continue on and you find yourself sinking into the rubble. Odd stuff like that -- thankfully, it's not the norm.

The UI is... mreh. Kinda funky. Backpacks don't 'equip', you have to just have them in your inventory. And sometimes you have to drop them and pick them back up. The skill menu doesn't tell you exactly what stuff does, so you end up having to look up what the mysterious %+ boosts are actually doing as you level up your Survival skill. Similarly, crafting suffers from odd menu stuff as well... functional, but not pretty.

Conclusion
All in all, I just wanted an atmospheric survival game in a post-apocalyptic setting. And yeah, this does that pretty well. Honestly, the atmosphere is just fantastic by my reckoning. I would compare it to a bit of Metro 2033 mixed with DayZ's openworld PvP. It has issues... but it has a lot of fun, if you're a fan of the setting and the genre. Will it last you in the long run? I'm planning on playing it for a fair bit more, at least. I think it's worth a shot and can keep you entertained for a good amount of time... and that's something I definitely would not have said for it in Early Access.

If you've tried it out before, it might be worth taking a second look.