You could call it the Mass Effect effect if you were willing to bend history a little to make your theory fit. After a few fallow years, it seems that Epic Space Games are no longer an endangered species. Precursors, for example, heads off and explores a galaxy that's been ignored pretty much since - ooh - Mercenary III circa 1992.
It's a sister game to White Gold, Deep Shadows' spiritual sequel to their expansive (and expansively broken) South-American GTA/Adventure/FPS game Boiling Point, and based on the same technology. As ambitious as White Gold is, Precursors goes even further. So as opposed to a series of islands off the coast of South America, we have a solar system of planets, each with its own inhabitants, flora and fauna. Plus space-stations and God knows what else.
It's a hyper-developed first-person shooter, with a light roleplaying element stuck on - like Deus Ex. As you gain a level, you pick up quirks which boost your skills in a given area. For example, your pistols or rifles do more damage. There's a mass of more unusual abilities, such as being able to bluff it out if you're spotted by a guard or hold your alcohol better. And if you read last month's White Gold preview, you'll recognise the system.
You're playing a character with similar abilities, in a completely different world full of different characters, weaponry and vehicles. Rather than swanning around a shanty-town at the edge of a jungle with your trust AK-47, getting a mission from a local boatman before driving off to solve his problem in your old Cuban-style motorcar, you'll be swanning around a spaceport on a desert world with your trusty biological weapon which demands to be fed live things to continue to fire, getting a mission from a local cybernetic scientist before stomping off in your enormous mechanical exoskeleton. Well, actually, enormous-robo-machines are rare, but you do get hoverbikes and Halo-esque buggies.
Amusingly, the one area where Precursors is more down to earth than White Gold is its airborne units. You'll find few of these when you're planetside. That's because when it becomes to aerial endeavours, Precursors is aiming at a higher target. The crucial difference between the two games is a Big Place. The Biggest Place, in fact: space.
Rather than just auto-travelling between worlds, you're put in the pilot's seat of your ship, and enter a Freespace-styled space-sim. You can move freely and explore, getting in trouble with pirates, trading, upgrading your vessel and so on. So it's Deus Ex meets KotOR meets Freelancer. See what I mean about 'ambitious'?
But I've a fear that Deep Shadows may have bitten off too much. While White Gold has the advantage of all the lessons they learned from Boiling Point, with this - bar the shared tech and some lessons learned, ie, not making an enormous game with just 13 people - they are starting from scratch.
It wouldn't be at all surprising to see Precursors slip from its estimated release date. In fact, some small slippage could even be taken as a good sign. Better a delay in countdown than risking a brave-looking vessel exploding on takeoff.
Precursors has sounded like it could be fantastic, but I think they're just promising too much. To promise a great FPS and a great space sim and a great RPG all rolled into one isn't just ambitious, it's madness.
Seems cool, I'll see how the reviews turn out and get it on that basis. Btw, I haven't played Mass Effect yet. How is it? Not such a fan of RPGs, played oblivion for an hour and was hopelessly lost without a clue on what to do so I *accidentally* broke the DVD into 5 pieces...
A bit off topic, but has anyone managed to finish halo 3 on legendary? I died like 10 times in 20 minutes. It's so damn frustrating.
Seems cool, I'll see how the reviews turn out and get it on that basis. Btw, I haven't played Mass Effect yet. How is it? Not such a fan of RPGs, played oblivion for an hour and was hopelessly lost without a clue on what to do so I *accidentally* broke the DVD into 5 pieces...
Wouldn't it have been better to 'accidentally' sell this on?
Seems cool, I'll see how the reviews turn out and get it on that basis. Btw, I haven't played Mass Effect yet. How is it? Not such a fan of RPGs, played oblivion for an hour and was hopelessly lost without a clue on what to do so I *accidentally* broke the DVD into 5 pieces...
Wouldn't it have been better to 'accidentally' sell this on?
Not if he wanted a full refund it wouldn't. Personally I would of "accidentally" scratched it, more realistic
Seems cool, I'll see how the reviews turn out and get it on that basis. Btw, I haven't played Mass Effect yet. How is it? Not such a fan of RPGs, played oblivion for an hour and was hopelessly lost without a clue on what to do so I *accidentally* broke the DVD into 5 pieces...
Wouldn't it have been better to 'accidentally' sell this on?
It actually was an accident. I frisbee'd it towards my brother, the one who told me to spend money on it, hoping to slice off his head. But it curved away in the nick of time and "accidentally" hit the wall.
A bit off topic, but has anyone managed to finish halo 3 on legendary? I died like 10 times in 20 minutes. It's so damn frustrating.
Yup- finished it on legendary- playing solo. Died a hell of a lot- but man is it satisfying when you finish it. The actual gameplay is more intense too.
I'm hoping to whatever greater power is listening to make this game great. I love a bit of sci-fi.
I hated outcast. My view was possibly based on Charlie Brooker's review, but when I played it, I just couldn't get away from all the fault he's pointed out. Nomad Soul, on the other hand, released pretty much at the same time I think, was a far, far superior game.
One thing that bothers me about Precursors is that in all ground/terrain screenshots, there aren't any hills. Perhaps they really are going back to circa 1992?
You can just tell this and White Gold are going to get bad reviews. You can see the media salivating - y'see being able to really slag of some games - deserved or not - allows the media to believe that we gamers think their reporting is 'fair'!
I wish Deep Shadows well, and I for one (well a few 100,000 actually!) found Boiling Point 2.0 a very entertaining game that I got a good 70 hours out of with no 'astounding' bugs! It was slightly broken, but then so was Deus Ex 2, KOTOR 2 and Vampire Bloodlines, and I enjoyed those high review scoring games too!
Regardless to what PC media says, when it comes to games from smaller publishers, you need to go to the official game forums and see what actual gamers are saying about the game. I know of more than one game where the magazine reviews were low and the fans scores really high - Outcast is one of them, for example!
Um, PCG gave Boiling Point 80-odd percent. Which is rather forgiving given the state the game was in at release (and is in fact higher than their score for Vampire). See also Kieron's rather favourable Eurogamer review.
Yeah, follow that link humourguy and you'll find that Outcast actually got pretty good reviews.
Also, it's not even remotely smearing a game if you mention in passing (all of two words in this preview) that the only previous game by a developer was buggy. It's great that they've apparently fixed every single last bug with a post-release patch, but the game will forever be tarnished by its sorry state at release (the point at which games are traditionally judged, y'know?).
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
