0:00

Good evening, you're listening to three moves

0:02

ahead, which is not

0:04

only a podcast about strategy and tactics

0:07

games, it's also the future of golf,

0:11

boating, online shopping

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for sunglasses, liquefaction.

0:17

We're the everything podcast. You

0:20

know, it's you can't just be

0:22

good at one thing anymore. You've got to be everything

0:24

to everybody or you're not keeping up with the

0:26

times. We're also the new Instant

0:28

Pot. Of course. Yeah, that

0:31

too. I am joined

0:33

this week by our friend, Rowan Kaiser.

0:37

Hello. You are listening to Total Massacre,

0:40

the action movie video game podcast,

0:43

sometimes hosted by yours truly.

0:45

Today, we welcome very special guest

0:48

Rob Zachney. OK, so

0:50

we are talking about Mission Impossible. That

0:53

was the plan. Oh

0:56

yeah, no, we are actually talking about

0:59

aliens. Dark Descent, which is

1:01

a.

1:03

I described it as like a survival

1:05

horror squad tactics game.

1:09

In my review,

1:10

horror might not be the right

1:12

word. It's it's it's I guess maybe

1:15

more of a thriller, but.

1:18

Based

1:18

on the alien,

1:20

the film aliens, hence

1:23

the the total massacre crossover

1:25

event of the summer. Yeah,

1:30

and what do we start

1:32

off? Rowan, what what is Alien Stark to

1:34

set?

1:35

I at initial

1:38

glance, this is like an

1:40

XCOM like strategic layer with tactical

1:43

layer that, you know, you have you

1:45

have a squad of colonial Marines that you

1:47

send on missions and they get better

1:50

and they discover more of the plot and then

1:52

you like send them to be healed or

1:54

get training or to get their legs

1:56

chopped off and get

1:59

new feet.

2:00

attached to them. Hang on. The

2:04

leg chopping happens in mission. It's not

2:06

like you're just doing prosthetic stuff for

2:08

fun. In the

2:10

game. People think there's sort

2:13

of a foot prosthesis

2:15

fetish thing happening here. I'm here to tell you no.

2:19

Yes, this is not quite RimWorld.

2:21

Which is a good thing in

2:24

many ways.

2:27

But it's actually like the tactics

2:29

or the sort of action or...

2:33

It's hard to describe because I don't want to call it tactics.

2:36

Like this is not a tactical

2:38

game in as much as you are

2:40

moving your individual units. Your units

2:43

are all combined into one little blob

2:46

and you can send the individual Marines to go

2:48

do some things. But they will all come

2:50

back to the one little squad.

2:53

So they call it like a tactics action

2:56

game or something like that. It's

2:58

a really fascinating hybrid

3:01

of

3:02

squad tactics with

3:04

sort of action RPG

3:08

kind of skills. With

3:11

just stuff that's entirely not

3:14

the kind of thing that I have seen before. And

3:17

it's very interesting how they get this conceit

3:19

of like you're actually only managing

3:22

one individual thing. But

3:24

that thing is made up of four people.

3:26

And how does that work? And

3:29

I think that that makes this an especially

3:31

interesting game for us to discuss. As you

3:33

know,

3:34

we love our traditional tactics

3:36

games. But this is definitely something

3:39

that's trying to do new stuff in order

3:41

to adapt to the

3:45

movie and the universe that it's

3:47

trying to be in. Did

3:49

you all play a few

3:50

years ago? This was an indie game. I think we talked

3:52

a little bit about it on three at the time. Infested planet was sort

3:55

of a.

3:59

top-down squad

4:02

shooter thing, but the entire thing was like you

4:04

were controlling a little squad

4:07

of Space Marines effectively and you

4:09

were just dealing with these tidal waves of alien

4:13

bugs effectively and the the

4:15

strategy of it was basically Positioning

4:18

your troops in such a way that you can make progress through

4:21

this on rushing tide Without

4:24

being overwhelmed from a different direction

4:26

and I think there's little elements of that

4:29

in here

4:29

where where you know when

4:32

when combat breaks out, it's a lot about how

4:34

can you manage the Manage

4:36

and set up the little death ball you're controlling

4:39

so that they can sort of

4:41

brace themselves and deal with the deal

4:43

with the waves of aliens the

4:46

other game that occurred to me as I was playing

4:48

it a little bit was a

4:50

long ago game That

4:52

I think is on GOG these days Gorky 17.

4:55

It's a very weird game. It used

4:57

like chess rules In

5:00

places so it was like some characters can only

5:02

shoot on diagonal But the thing it also

5:04

had going for it was just you know Incredibly

5:06

good vibes. It was sort of a post-soviet

5:10

You know horror thriller in a big part

5:12

of the game's appeal was just leading

5:14

a squad of troops through this

5:17

effectively like a haunted house of the haunted

5:19

maze and

5:20

You know these were these are games that sort of occurred

5:23

to me as a as I was playing it I think maybe

5:25

most recently what we've seen this scene

5:27

Play

5:28

around in the idea similar to this though

5:30

in a much more traditional RTS fashion was

5:33

the starship troopers game Which I kind

5:35

of liked it wasn't bad But

5:37

also I didn't love it. I think

5:39

it was not as fun as it initially is It

5:42

felt like it should have been whereas here

5:44

it

5:45

didn't take long, you know the starship

5:47

troopers game I don't know where you all came down on it,

5:50

but you know, I was like, I Think

5:52

I like it more than having fun Whereas

5:54

here it's having fun very very fast and I've actually

5:57

you know liked it more as time has gone on

6:00

Yeah, it's it's similar because they both have

6:02

sort of this conceit that like if the

6:04

enemy Gets into melee

6:07

range you're kind of fucked So

6:09

you have to like figure out how to combine

6:11

your abilities to make sure that doesn't happen There

6:15

were actually some levels in that Starship

6:17

Troopers game that Reminded me a lot

6:19

of dark descent like the ones where you had to go down

6:22

Yeah into the mining tunnels and

6:24

you know like a limited number of guys And

6:26

like, you know, you'd get reinforcements every once

6:29

in a while But you didn't have a base and you couldn't you

6:31

know build more guys We just talk about

6:33

because because here's the thing here's why I think

6:35

this is this

6:35

works better Uh-huh, like

6:38

Starship Troopers is functioning by RTS

6:40

roles by and large where units have stats

6:42

They do the thing you position them and

6:45

then they take damage and if they

6:47

get you know hit enough They die very very

6:49

simple straightforward stuff not terribly

6:52

interesting And it did make it feel kind

6:54

of grindy like if guys took too much damage You'd

6:57

sort of have to Replenish and have

6:59

troops run in from the base etc All

7:01

this all this stuffs to sort of keep your composition

7:03

correct and and keep sort of slogging

7:06

Slogging forward and a

7:07

lot of times you're just trying to identify what is the right

7:09

composition But I think the thing they've hit

7:12

on with with aliens dark descent

7:14

is that There's

7:16

actually all kinds of ways people

7:18

can get damaged by the alien. Yeah,

7:20

there's the claws. That's not good Getting

7:23

clawed by the alien. That's pretty bad But

7:26

spending time around the alien spending

7:28

time shooting at it seeing it

7:30

Contemplating your impending death at

7:32

its hands that also

7:36

Just just constant shit talking from

7:38

the alien like it's it's never heard

7:40

of how to be positive That's

7:43

just such an emotional dream it

7:45

really is it really is yeah And

7:49

you know we've talked

7:51

many times on this show about about both

7:54

of the darkest dungeons And that was definitely

7:57

something I thought was an inspiration

7:59

for how the stress system works in Dark Descent

8:02

where it's.

8:03

I guess it's not as much of a discrete game

8:06

mechanic because

8:08

you don't have. You

8:10

do you gain stress throughout a mission, even just

8:13

from like seeing lots of blips on the little

8:15

radar thing, like it'll cause

8:17

your marine stress to go up and they'll get like,

8:20

I don't know, they'll get like a like

8:22

a clumsy trade or something or like

8:24

their accuracy goes down or they start

8:26

panicking

8:28

and like making a fuss, which makes everyone else

8:30

around them are stressed out.

8:33

You don't have a lot of ways to reduce

8:36

that. There is like a

8:38

sergeant class you come in lock eventually

8:40

that has like you

8:42

can order somebody to like get their shit

8:44

together and then they won't take stress damage

8:46

for a short period of time.

8:49

Or you can weld yourself into a room

8:51

and take a nap. That that

8:53

reduces everybody's stress by one level.

8:56

They might also get in a fight, though, if one

8:59

of them is a jerk, which is kind of a funny little.

9:01

Oh, I haven't seen

9:03

that yet.

9:04

Well, they can take and they can take drugs. They can

9:06

take happy pills. Like, yes,

9:08

which is a clever thing. This game this game does has

9:10

only a few resources you manage, but the resources

9:13

like play along with the other system.

9:15

So the little the little wrench tool that

9:18

you get is important for repairing

9:20

your sentry guns. It is the way that you hack

9:22

through certain certain doors. They're

9:25

they're kind of optional. But

9:27

also, yeah, the I

9:29

think the wrench is also how you weld yourself in. Right.

9:33

So you usually need to

9:34

use more than one because you have to close every

9:36

available exit. Right.

9:39

So so like that is how

9:41

you

9:41

buy yourself. And also that's how you buy yourself

9:44

a guaranteed save because

9:46

the the auto save system in this game is

9:48

not kind, I would say. But, you know,

9:50

you're playing around with, you know,

9:53

the this is how the wrench can reduce stress is yes,

9:55

you weld yourself into a stronghold, you

9:57

take a break, everyone goes down to.

9:59

their stress baseline.

10:02

The alternative is, you know, your

10:04

other resource is you got the med kits

10:06

and the med kits can be used to

10:09

heal soldiers, but also they can be used

10:11

to administer nap relief,

10:13

which is essentially the colonial

10:15

marine anti

10:18

anxiety medication. Later

10:20

you get you know, the medic class can

10:22

have an ability where

10:24

when they perform first aid, you get some

10:27

bonus stress removal on

10:29

the healing action, which is which is

10:31

really useful. But I think

10:34

the stress system is really ingenious

10:36

because it's the simple like 100 point scale

10:39

that does just start

10:40

irreversibly climbing once

10:43

your squad comes in contact with

10:45

with the alien.

10:48

Once it goes up to 100

10:51

it you get a stress step. There's

10:54

sort of nine points of stress so like

10:56

the hundreds the meter to your next your next step.

10:59

And each time they go up a step of stress, they

11:02

get dealt from that short from that small

11:04

hand of possible debuffs

11:07

when they suffer stress and the thing I love

11:09

about it is it's a good example

11:12

of

11:14

it can be really useful to

11:16

have things be a little bit obscure

11:19

to make the effect a little

11:21

bit hard to appreciate. And I think one

11:23

of the things that dark descent does is your

11:26

squad will

11:29

look and sound effectively

11:31

the same, you know, whether they're

11:34

under great deal stress or not. You'll

11:36

see the alien you hear the the pulse

11:38

rifles open up you hear the the smart

11:40

gun start chattering away.

11:42

It'll all seem like, all

11:44

right, we're still good to go take firing positions

11:47

like you know, just like we've handled all these these

11:49

other encounters.

11:51

But a lot of times,

11:52

you know, what is happening under

11:54

the hood is that yeah, your troops are panicking

11:57

and they're less accurate.

11:58

And so suddenly your instincts

12:00

for what is a safe distance from the alien? How

12:03

can you keep moving while

12:05

engaged with the enemy? Your instincts are guiding

12:07

you in the wrong direction because your

12:09

guys just aren't putting down the damage

12:12

they need. They're whiffing shots. And by

12:14

the way, there's one debuff

12:17

going berserk.

12:18

Accuracy goes down 25.

12:20

And also the berserk soldier is firing ammo

12:22

two times the rate of

12:25

baseline. And so if you're

12:27

not paying attention to how this stuff is stacking,

12:30

you'll be like, all right, yeah, the marine squad is doing fine. Like

12:32

keep moving around. But actually,

12:34

the aliens are getting closer and closer. And by the way,

12:36

that's happening. That's freaking out your troops

12:38

more and more. And so you will end up

12:40

with a situation where your troops

12:43

may not have taken any damage.

12:46

That squad is cooked. It's time to get

12:48

them out of there.

12:49

Yeah. And then you realize that it

12:51

might be a little late to exercise.

12:54

What I think is one of the really cool options in Dark Descent,

12:56

which is hit

12:58

the bricks. Just leave. Runners,

13:03

if you're fast. Yeah. Um, it is.

13:07

Yeah. Because ammunition is your third

13:09

resource aside from engineering and meds

13:11

too, which like, yeah, there are some

13:14

like soldier architect. They have like

13:16

a flaw that they start with. And some of them

13:18

are just that they waste ammo.

13:21

And that can be a pretty huge deal. Especially

13:24

there are some maps where you have to go a

13:26

long way into the bowels

13:29

of

13:29

whatever without

13:32

actually finding additional ammo.

13:35

And walk all the way back out of there. If

13:38

you want to go back to the ship and it's

13:40

a funny choice they've made. Where

13:43

you can,

13:44

you can load up in advance on

13:47

the tech tool and the

13:49

med kits and you bring your sentry guns.

13:52

They don't let you bring more than

13:55

your issue compliment of

13:57

ammo. And so if you want more ammo in the middle.

13:59

you're going out to when

14:02

you level your soldiers, spend the

14:03

sort of the meta resource,

14:06

the supply points that you're using to unlock

14:09

new weapons and buy these

14:11

pieces of kit. You're gonna have to buy upgrades

14:13

for your soldiers so they carry extra ammo

14:16

pouches.

14:17

And so this is the other thing I think that

14:20

it's very contrived. There's no getting around

14:22

the fact that like, how can my squad

14:24

just like effortlessly carry 20 ammo around

14:27

midway through a mission, but then when they roll

14:29

out again the next day, it's like,

14:31

sorry, chief, can only manage four extra

14:34

clips here. That's all we can do. But

14:37

I do think it's smart because it encourages the

14:40

flip side of this, which is that this is a really effective push-your-luck

14:42

game.

14:43

Once you're deployed and once

14:45

you're sitting there, even if your squad's freaked out,

14:47

if they have a ton of ammunition

14:50

that they've hoovered up on this mission,

14:52

that's not going to be there the next time a squad shows

14:55

up on this map to continue the mission. Those

14:57

ammo chests are used up. And

15:00

so if you have a squad that's like maybe

15:03

not at 100%,

15:04

but they're still kitted out really well,

15:07

you will have an incentive to keep pushing because

15:10

one who wants to cover

15:12

over all this ground again, just

15:15

to make your way toward the objective.

15:17

But the other thing is the

15:19

next squad that comes in may struggle

15:21

to be as well-equipped as

15:23

this combat fatigue squad

15:26

you're commanding right now. And so the game does

15:28

kind of push you to push

15:31

your Marines in turn and say, I

15:33

think we can do the next objective. I

15:35

know you're scared, but

15:38

we've got lots of ammo and drugs.

15:40

So we're just gonna open this

15:42

big blast door and see what happens.

15:45

And fully half the time, that's a horrible mistake.

15:48

Well, and there's also the infestation time or

15:50

two, which the game

15:52

gets more dangerous the more deployments you

15:54

do. So it really does in the back

15:56

of your mind. It's like, I wanna get as much done

15:58

every time.

15:59

we land as i possibly

16:02

can in the mission is getting hard as and each time your

16:04

detected the

16:06

crit that the duel track escalation

16:08

in the game

16:09

i love it to pieces site ron i'm cutting you off

16:12

a half or so

16:14

to take a step back and and kind

16:16

of incorporate all this a don't like what this game

16:18

is darkest dungeon as an important touchstone

16:20

here but also just the movie

16:23

aliens i

16:25

this game understands in essential

16:28

component of that film that a

16:30

lot of other aliens adaptations

16:32

have not understood which is

16:34

that the colonial marines fucking suck

16:36

these guys are losers that's not

16:38

what he's kept it's

16:41

like if you watch the movie

16:44

they do nothing but fuck up the only one

16:46

who's not a fuck up at the end is hex

16:49

everyone else has completely fucked

16:51

up in some way most of them

16:53

at the very beginning in a way that kills

16:55

three quarters of that squad basque

16:57

as is the one handing out live ammunition

17:00

once they even after they discovered

17:02

the right next the nuclear power plant that's going

17:04

to blow and fuck everything up so even

17:06

like the super cool watch dyke is

17:09

also kind of an asshole

17:12

i

17:14

there are extremely cocky they

17:16

think they could do anything and then as soon as

17:18

the alien start showing up in

17:20

any way whatsoever they start

17:22

breaking into pieces and this

17:25

game has these colonial

17:27

marines who are

17:28

you know effective at running around

17:31

and shooting things like this is not a big

17:33

air bad out there just bad at

17:35

like

17:37

existing as humans in

17:39

a world where she is really bad

17:41

at she is really bad be aliens world

17:44

and

17:45

so yeah all these things that rob is talking

17:47

about the like way that the stress adds

17:49

up slightly the way that the aliens

17:51

are getting more and more

17:53

i

17:55

more and more just out

17:58

there as time goes on both strategic

18:01

layer and tactical layer time continues.

18:06

And you have reasons to try

18:08

to push forward. Sometimes you're stuck

18:10

in the middle of a dungeon. And it's like there's

18:12

no real easy retreat button.

18:16

You have to actually maneuver your way

18:18

back the way you came, which might be reinvested

18:21

with aliens, because the aliens are just coming out

18:23

of their hives every so often. There

18:25

are like various points where the aliens

18:27

are set by triggers or they're

18:30

they're always going to be in one room or whatever.

18:33

But there's also like the bulk

18:36

of the aliens that you will fight. And

18:38

some of the human enemies you'll fight are

18:41

just kind of spawning. And

18:45

this sounds like it could be very annoying. And

18:47

in some ways it is. But this is a game about

18:49

managing that those annoying things.

18:52

This is

18:53

this is built on the Darkest Dungeon model

18:55

of.

18:59

What you are trying to do is get as far as you can before you're

19:01

grounded to meet and. In

19:05

Darkest

19:06

Dungeon, this is really effective because if you retreat,

19:08

you're getting maybe like a third to a half of the

19:10

rewards you might get. And

19:12

your guys are probably going to be somewhat upset in

19:15

this game. You know, you

19:17

might have brought your very best squad

19:18

and now they're wounded. And now they're

19:21

exhausted and you won't be able to use them again

19:23

for fun. And so the next that you try to come back and finish

19:25

the mission with a bunch of rookies

19:28

that has its own problems. And

19:30

like Rob said, the ammunition that that

19:32

creates its own problems. So.

19:36

Well, you have

19:37

this combination.

19:40

Yeah, I just want to I just want to finish to go back to all the

19:42

total massacre business

19:45

like I know that one of the inspirations

19:47

for Darkest Dungeon was they watched

19:49

the first one of the first one

19:51

of the first one of the

19:53

Saving Private Ryan. And

19:56

there's a guy in that a justified

19:58

actor who like.

20:00

sees some people dying and it's just like

20:02

no I'm done and walks off and

20:06

This is a game that watched aliens and

20:08

saw Bill Paxton saying game over man

20:10

game over. Yeah, that's our game

20:13

That's what we're doing. We're making

20:15

these shitty people like go

20:18

through Darkest Dungeon I don't know that

20:20

the the dark dark descent name is

20:22

a coincidence in that respect

20:24

And you are kind of going through dungeons

20:27

like some of it is you're kind of going into a town Going

20:29

in and out of buildings that you can retreat at any

20:32

point But some of the times you're going way down into

20:34

the mine or way down in the basement or way onto

20:36

the second floor And you'd have to go back

20:39

Anyway, go ahead Rob. Yeah. No,

20:41

I was just going to say I think

20:44

you know something I appreciate is that that

20:46

that decision about pushing

20:49

on versus Retreating is

20:51

is not entirely

20:54

Is entirely straightforward because the thing is,

20:56

you know, it you know Like in XCOM

20:58

certainly and like Darkest Dungeon if that matters

21:00

sort of a staple to genre

21:03

The worst people are banged up the longer they're

21:05

on the bench recovery

21:06

And so, you know you

21:09

calling it a day and retreating to

21:11

the transport

21:12

When your squads only lightly bruised and

21:15

basically need a day or two in the med

21:17

bay to get back to fighting

21:19

trim Versus like pushing on

21:21

and having them get really wrecked and suddenly

21:24

everyone needs like nine days of medical

21:26

care That's an eternity. That

21:28

is that is a campaign killer if you

21:31

if you did that and so even

21:33

there you're Given a more

21:36

complicated risk-reward Assessment

21:39

with with decisions like that to your

21:41

point about aliens I think

21:42

you know, I wasn't sure where this game was

21:44

going to come down because It's

21:47

definitely And I

21:49

like it's definitely towing the line

21:52

a little bit with where it stands

21:54

on the colonial Marines By

21:57

and large a lot of the Marines are also

21:59

talking about you We're here to help the colonists. We're

22:01

here to we're here to help people

22:04

out. That's what we're here to save lives, which

22:06

is not really the way the colonial Marines sound

22:08

in aliens, where it's very clear that they've been

22:10

used to sort of spacefaring Pinkertons, occasionally

22:14

killing, you know, wild animals and

22:17

then mostly shooting, you

22:19

know, striking workers or, you know,

22:22

mutinous colonists. But

22:24

here, I think they they they're pretty

22:26

smart in how they handle this stuff, because

22:29

for one thing, the Marine you're on the mission with, oh,

22:32

hell, the voice in your ear, Jonas

22:35

Jonas. Yeah.

22:37

He's he's from this world, Lefey.

22:40

He's he grew up here. He

22:42

had a family here. And so

22:44

when the game sort of talks

22:47

about the fact that,

22:48

you know, a few years prior, the

22:51

Marines came to this planet

22:53

and brutally suppressed a mining revolt.

22:56

The Marine who's leading this

22:59

expedition.

23:01

Was on the other side of that, or at least his people

23:03

were. And so he's sort

23:05

of not positioned entirely as

23:07

a Ura. You know, Marine,

23:09

he is he is trying to not be

23:13

that kind of not be that kind of

23:15

soldier. And I think

23:17

it's probably a smart move because I think it would

23:19

be a bit exhausting

23:22

to command these

23:24

guys if they all sucked as much as they do in in

23:26

aliens.

23:27

But,

23:29

you know, it's trying to get the sense of

23:31

it does highlight the fact

23:34

that

23:35

what what Cameron implies in the film is that the

23:37

colonial Marines

23:39

mostly go around

23:41

being really violent rent a cop's

23:44

on behalf of, you know, companies

23:46

like Weyland Yutani. And,

23:49

you know, the flip side here is the other

23:51

major character we're dealing with

23:53

here is Michael Hayes. And

23:56

she is a

23:58

ambitious Weyland Yutani exact. But

24:00

she's not like a Paul Reiser type. She's

24:02

a Patsy. Her thinking

24:05

is she's

24:06

effectively a liberal, right?

24:08

That the company brings progress,

24:11

that the company has standards, that

24:14

if things are going wrong here, it's the Czar's wicked advisors.

24:17

Everywhere

24:20

she goes, she's seeing sort of debased Weyland-Yutani

24:23

execs. She sees all sorts of problems.

24:25

But she thinks the

24:28

company's ideals, when it's managed

24:30

to the highest

24:33

standard, the company is fundamentally

24:35

a force for good. She

24:38

clings to that belief pretty far into

24:40

the campaign as you begin sort of

24:42

unearthing the story of what's

24:44

been happening here. But I do think that

24:47

the useful thing there is, everyone

24:49

playing this game knows all the beats. You're

24:51

not going to be surprised the first time or the third

24:54

time you see a chestburster. And you're

24:56

not going to be surprised when Weyland-Yutani

24:58

turns out to be evil.

25:00

But it's useful to have a character who's got a few

25:02

scales on their eyes, so that you at least

25:04

get to see them sort of marching

25:06

headlong toward what we understand

25:09

are the rules of this universe.

25:11

I feel like this

25:13

game is really good at like

25:15

having interesting player

25:18

perspectives. Like you're sort of

25:20

playing as Hayes throughout the game. She's

25:22

your tutorial character. When

25:26

the other people are talking in the game and

25:28

telling you to do something, she's the person

25:30

who does it when you click to go into

25:33

a different room on the spaceship. That's your

25:36

base here. So Hayes

25:38

is kind of the player character,

25:41

but not fully the player character. And she

25:43

also exists outside of what you do. Like

25:47

this

25:48

is

25:49

in terms of the narrative itself. It's a fairly linear

25:52

game.

25:54

You're also kind of in command

25:57

of that you're the squad leader of

25:59

your squad. on

26:01

the missions and Hayes is another voice

26:03

in your Hayes and Harper

26:05

are the two voices in your ears telling you to do

26:07

things and they're both interesting characters

26:10

I think like it's not it's not surprising.

26:12

They're not super deep But the idea

26:14

that you have an actual true believer

26:16

in Weyland Yutani, which is not

26:19

Something that you see in the first two

26:21

canonical movies

26:24

And like

26:25

it takes her four or five missions to start

26:28

Stop defending Weyland Yutani and everything

26:31

they do like the first or the second mission

26:33

you go on you walk into like this

26:36

Like

26:38

reception building that Weyland Yutani has built

26:40

for this colonial planet and

26:44

Harper starts muttering some shit talking

26:46

about what the kind of bad shape it's in and

26:49

Hayes is immediately there to defend the company

26:51

like oh We provide the buildings.

26:54

We can't tell how people are going to

26:56

use them and

26:59

Like

27:00

that's gone three or four

27:02

Three or four missions into it her

27:04

relationship with Harper is fairly well done.

27:06

They're antagonistic

27:08

but kind of respectful initially

27:10

and then by the end like or Not

27:13

even by the end by the middle. I haven't gotten to the end

27:16

He's basically saying

27:19

if I ever you know collapse and die

27:21

then give Hayes full command and

27:23

everyone's like yeah Hayes has earned this and You

27:26

know, there's this progression through the game

27:29

through the person who's supposed to be your POV character

27:31

that works

27:34

almost exactly like with what you

27:36

expect from The aliens universe

27:39

with what you expect from just learning about a game

27:41

that is about the shit going down in some

27:43

place And yeah,

27:45

there's there's a lot of little little

27:48

big design decisions like that that end

27:50

up working Surprisingly well in this

27:53

game it all kind of adds up

27:55

in

27:55

A way that I was certainly not expecting

27:58

and I was pretty in favor of the

27:59

of what I saw from this game a

28:02

few months before it released. But

28:04

the net effect, I think, is even better than that.

28:07

Yeah. Well, the other thing that I think is

28:09

is another way that it it just does a really good

28:11

job of replicating kind

28:14

of the structure of the film or

28:16

of similar films.

28:18

Why I think it's probably the best aliens

28:21

with an S game that I have played

28:23

probably in terms of

28:25

being fun and also true to what

28:27

was cool about that movie is what we alluded to

28:29

earlier with the

28:31

the in-mission escalation track,

28:33

which is basically that

28:35

every time a xenomorph even sees

28:38

you, it starts this this

28:40

ticker that basically it

28:43

alerts the hive

28:45

and there's like two big

28:47

break points on there. That's like the danger

28:49

level. It's like low, medium, high. And

28:52

then there's some

28:53

other like non-fixed break

28:56

points that can vary from mission to mission

28:58

that will like summon a like

29:01

a special, bigger alien.

29:03

Yeah, like a Praetorian or something. And

29:06

what this leads to,

29:08

like organically and like

29:10

with your agency taken into

29:13

account, whereas there are lots of

29:15

horror games that could do this just by being completely

29:17

scripted.

29:18

But it does

29:20

it dynamically on every mission. Is it

29:23

it basically simulates

29:26

the the structure of a horror movie.

29:28

And, you know, I love my storytelling

29:31

games in the tabletop realm. And I think

29:33

the big difference that separates

29:35

a storytelling game are more

29:37

of a like a tabletop

29:40

war game miniature lineage traditional

29:42

role playing game is that they're

29:45

trying to simulate dramatic structure

29:47

alongside with or even above and

29:49

beyond simulating

29:51

like a world that just has a

29:54

logical rules. So I

29:56

love it that like you land and you go into.

29:59

mission and it's like, oh, we saw

30:02

a drone and like we shot it, we killed it, it was

30:04

no big deal. And then it's back to like, you

30:06

know, the beep beep on the motion

30:08

tracker. And as you get

30:11

deeper and deeper into the mission,

30:13

the stakes get higher, you're gaining stress,

30:16

the hive becomes aware of your presence,

30:18

they're sending more patrols out. To

30:21

the point that eventually

30:23

you realize kind of the optimal

30:25

way to play is to just never

30:27

really try to get spotted. That's

30:30

not going to happen in practice, but

30:32

that is kind of what you end up aiming for,

30:34

especially in the harder levels. Oh yeah,

30:36

I mean, so this was like, this is where

30:39

I like, once I realized that this was what

30:41

the game was, this is where I texted y'all

30:43

and was like, hey, like, if

30:45

you haven't recorded this, I think I

30:47

probably do have stuff to say about this, which was that

30:50

for the first like, half of the game,

30:52

I was like, I'm not sure all these pieces

30:54

fit together entirely well, like the

30:59

alert timers, the escalation

31:01

in mission to at the outset

31:03

is so generous because

31:05

you have the planetary infestation level is low.

31:08

And so you will have a lot of those

31:10

early missions, it

31:12

doesn't matter if the alien spots

31:14

you a bunch, like you'll gun them down,

31:17

they'll send a few at you, you gun those down,

31:20

and then you walk away, maybe you'll get caught by,

31:22

you know, caught with a big wave and

31:24

it gets, it gets a little more hairy,

31:26

it gets a little more hectic.

31:28

But it's not really like, I didn't

31:31

really feel the need to

31:34

leverage all those stealth mechanics

31:36

that the game introduces you to in the

31:38

tutorial. I was like, I don't really

31:40

know if I care enough to futz around

31:43

with the alien

31:46

spotting meter for when

31:48

it like, sort of sees your guys like, I'm

31:50

like, we just we just shoot them

31:52

in a lot of cases, except

31:55

for some, you know, very specific places

31:57

where you just don't want to be, you know,

31:59

things are too confined because the

32:02

nature of the Marines is that.

32:04

If they can engage from a distance

32:07

and create a firing line.

32:09

Aliens really can't get in on them unless

32:11

they've got like, you know, the big bruiser

32:14

type units. But in those places where

32:16

it's like really tight, narrow

32:18

confines, the corridors aren't very long and make

32:20

lots of turns. That's OK. Those are places

32:22

where I really don't want to be spotted because

32:24

I just won't be able to to shoot the

32:27

aliens before they before they get in on

32:29

me. But for the first half of the game, I started sitting

32:31

there being like.

32:32

These aliens ain't shit. I

32:35

mean, this is not this is not that

32:37

big a problem for me. They just sort of post up,

32:39

put out the sentry guns, take positions

32:42

and wreck house. And then once

32:44

the aliens get tired of of

32:47

getting mulched, we pick up our shit

32:49

and we move on. And then

32:51

it

32:52

ticked over into. Planetary

32:58

infestation level four. And

33:01

it'd be getting harder before that. Pioneer

33:03

station, you know, you return to the space station,

33:05

you're at the start. Mission bugged

33:08

and consumed a lot of resources for me that I didn't

33:10

really. Happened to me, too. Did

33:12

you have the thing that it wouldn't let you rest, even

33:14

though you sealed off? Yeah.

33:16

Yeah, it's all over the steam. Yeah,

33:19

everyone did.

33:20

The mission that mission is horribly broken

33:22

and I think

33:25

destroyed the difficulty curve of the

33:27

game a little bit. But by

33:29

the time I finished Pioneer Station, we'd

33:31

gone up an entire tech effectively

33:34

to to infestation level four. And

33:36

the very next mission is this

33:38

mission where you go to this atmospheric

33:40

processing center

33:42

and that,

33:44

in so many words, is

33:46

my Vietnam. So

33:50

it's this. It's

33:52

like it's cool. The mission areas are

33:54

actually really distinct from each other, despite

33:57

all having sort of a aliens

33:59

aesthetic.

33:59

But this one kind of puts together

34:02

a lot of the characteristics of the other maps you've

34:04

seen. So there's really like

34:06

there's a ton of buildings with, you

34:08

know, tight, complicated interiors

34:10

that you have to navigate. But also the

34:13

map is it has all these outbuildings,

34:15

which in some ways favors your Marines, because

34:19

again, like your Marines, like open field

34:21

combat.

34:23

And so that's how I hit that mission where

34:25

I was like, yeah, staying to these these large,

34:27

clear boulevards between the outbuildings. This

34:30

is this is this has served me well so

34:32

far. So I'm going to keep doing that.

34:35

But the problem is that. The

34:37

minute you're spotted and there's nowhere to hide, you

34:40

know, on those, you know, on that open

34:42

ground.

34:44

Suddenly, it's not like, oh, you get spotted,

34:46

you break contact. And the meter

34:48

is still at easy three or four times before,

34:51

before things escalate. It's like you get spotted

34:53

once and it's like, OK, now the alien

34:55

activity is at medium.

34:57

We're not doing easy. You you had

34:59

your you had one shot at that. And

35:01

now there's twice as many aliens running around the map. And

35:03

they see you again. The mission is going to get hard and

35:06

it's going to start flinging like

35:08

special enemies and bosses at you right

35:10

and left. And.

35:14

Really quickly, I was like,

35:16

I had a couple of runs where I was like.

35:19

My squad managed to do like two things

35:21

before I was like, we are too banged up to continue.

35:24

We need to get out of ocean.

35:27

I still got a ton of people abducted on that map. Anyway,

35:32

I forgot, I forgot about the

35:34

sorry. So also when troops are incapacitated

35:37

and the aliens sort of have you on the ropes,

35:40

they'll just grab one of

35:42

your little Marines and drag

35:44

them off to the alien hive. And

35:46

maybe you can rescue them if you find where they've

35:48

been taken. You

35:50

know, but maybe not.

35:52

And so I lost a bunch of I lost

35:54

a lot of good Marines. They

35:57

were fine, but I lost a lot

35:59

of useful Marines.

35:59

You know, in this mission. And...

36:04

something I was like, okay, the rules

36:06

of the game have effectively changed. Now

36:09

I need to play the way Len was just sort of describing.

36:12

I need to play it as if...

36:15

these things are like the Eye of Sauron, or like

36:17

the Gorgon Stare, right? Where like, if I am seen... that's

36:21

as bad as somebody just being like, killed by a lightning

36:23

bolt in this squad. Like,

36:26

we need to be really careful. And it changed how I

36:28

was playing. Like suddenly I'm like putting

36:30

those landmines out. Because if the aliens... just

36:35

randomly die, that doesn't trigger an alert. So

36:38

suddenly I'm like, okay, where do the aliens like to... rove

36:41

around? I'll put a mine here, that'll thin the

36:43

herd a little bit. Doing all these things

36:45

now to try to evade making contact

36:47

with them.

36:49

Because suddenly it was a stealth game. And

36:51

it hadn't needed to be prior to that. The systems

36:53

were there. But it wasn't

36:55

necessary to interact with them. And

36:58

now suddenly, this back... you know, third

37:00

of the game, back half of the game...

37:02

stealth is the slender

37:04

tether to which I'm clinging.

37:08

Yeah, the other thing is that you're getting

37:10

tools to actually use this. So

37:12

like, when I have a

37:15

pumped up recon guy, who's the class

37:17

that can use the sniper rifle, the silenced

37:20

sniper rifle, as soon as I see

37:22

that line on the screen, I slam the spacebar

37:24

so that it goes into like super slow-mo mode. And

37:27

I click the precision shot

37:29

button and hope that my sniper can hit the

37:31

alien before that big fills up. And

37:34

like you said, the mines. But the mines also

37:36

have a buff where you could do some research and

37:38

attach

37:39

pheromones to the mines so that the aliens

37:41

go directly to them once they see them. That's

37:45

a fun thing to do. So you're getting these tools that

37:47

can help you stay in stealth.

37:50

But these are taking your command points, which

37:52

are like your mana in this game, that...

37:57

you know, once that starts

37:59

getting... stretched a little

38:01

bit, oh, I only have two command points. Oh,

38:03

my Marines are now panicked,

38:06

I think, is the one that lowers the amount of command

38:08

points that you have. It is. You

38:11

have to have a certain number of Marines

38:13

that have it, too. So you

38:15

might get lucky and not ever

38:18

get two Marines that have panicked,

38:20

but you might get it the first time and stress

38:22

meter fills up. So yeah. Yes. So

38:25

I'm going from four command

38:27

points that I can drop a mine and

38:30

like, oh, that's cool. Oh, one of my

38:32

Marines is injured. Now I'm trying to carry them home

38:34

back through this building that's functionally

38:37

a dungeon. And one of my Marines

38:39

is panicked, so now I only have two command points

38:42

and I can't run.

38:45

And this makes things interesting,

38:47

but I am also deploying

38:50

these mines as quickly as I can.

38:52

I've got a sergeant who's regenerating

38:54

those command points faster than I would have

38:57

beforehand. So

39:00

it does a shockingly good job

39:02

of feeling like these curves

39:05

of like, this is too easy, this is too

39:07

hard are largely

39:09

intertwined. The problem is that

39:12

there is some randomness, both that

39:14

the game has on its

39:16

own and that the game's

39:18

bugs have, which you

39:20

found that pioneer station rest bug, which I guess

39:22

I also can't,

39:24

but I didn't realize

39:26

it. I thought I'd just done something wrong, so I managed

39:28

to finish the mission. I think I lost one Marine,

39:31

but I was like, OK, I guess we're not resting.

39:34

So I guess that's a skill issue. But

39:37

I also had one where I was

39:40

close to the end of, I think, the second

39:42

major mission where you're going through the docks

39:44

to find out where the containers that are delivering

39:46

the alien eggs come from.

39:49

And like, as a scripted event

39:51

in this game,

39:52

a train leaves from

39:54

the docks that is theoretically

39:57

going to be delivering containers all over

39:59

the planet. so that's real bad. And

40:01

so there's actually a cutscene where your Marines walk

40:03

out of the building and see the train taking off and

40:06

something in that

40:08

train the second time I played I've restarted

40:10

the game something

40:12

in that dropped by frame rate down to like two

40:16

And so I was like, okay I'm gonna get in the ARC

40:19

that your little your armored personnel

40:21

carrier that the thing from aliens the movie

40:23

and Drive off reload

40:26

the mission and come back and finish

40:28

it. It's fine. It's early in the game I don't have the

40:30

strategic death timer yet This

40:33

will be okay. I come back and

40:35

it's

40:37

still there something in that mission

40:39

when that train went off like

40:41

Didn't fully work and

40:44

now I had a frame rate of two

40:47

in a real-time tactics or whatever

40:49

game

40:51

And like it's just glitching

40:53

all over the place The Marines would be like moving

40:55

forward two steps then jerking back because

40:57

of the frame rate said that the sound and where

41:00

they were Wasn't supposed to be but then it would just get stuck

41:02

that way

41:04

So that's how my marine lost a foot on the

41:07

second mission But I didn't

41:09

manage to get through with only a missing foot Which

41:12

was fortunate because yeah,

41:15

these things can go to shit real real

41:17

fast But

41:19

yeah, like this is This

41:22

is the main thing of Lynn you reviewed this for

41:24

a major site So you you

41:27

talked about this But this is the major

41:29

thing that seems to be holding this game back is that there's

41:31

just a few too many glitches

41:33

for a game that is like really

41:36

built around making sure that all

41:38

of the All of its ideas are

41:40

converging to a single point of how you're

41:42

playing it And then there's a glitch in that single

41:45

point is suddenly all over the place

41:47

Yeah, well like Rob said I did

41:50

feel like that glitch on Pioneer

41:52

Station Through of the

41:54

difficulty curve of the entire campaign

41:57

because it is so tightly integrated

41:59

Well, you don't know what's happening. I'm I'm

42:02

sure you did the same thing I did, which was

42:04

like, OK, so we're in

42:06

a bit of an odd spot. You got to walk a long

42:09

way through this dungeon and you have a lot of

42:11

encounters along the way. But like

42:13

I know there's a room there that I can sort

42:15

of see myself into. And you stick

42:17

your entire plan around going

42:19

into that room, sealing it up and being

42:21

like, all right, now the squad is going to be ready to rock.

42:24

And they don't. And now you're

42:26

like, well, if I'd known I couldn't rest, I

42:28

would have played this entire thing more stealthy. So

42:30

I ended up like, yes, I ended up having to sort of.

42:34

I wasted a couple of runs because I was

42:36

like too casual about like stress.

42:38

And then I had to like completely

42:41

like. Change

42:44

my approach to the level. Yeah.

42:46

Well, and I think Pioneer Station really

42:48

is like the

42:50

that is the put on your big kid pants

42:52

moment of the campaign like that. That

42:55

is where the difficulty pivot. I think I was on

42:57

infestation three when I got there. I

42:59

was a little bit.

43:01

Ahead of of where you were in terms

43:04

of the campaign progression, but.

43:07

Yeah, like that was the first time I lost a Marine

43:09

was in that that boss room with

43:13

so much stuff going on that it's like

43:15

and you have these command points that they do recharge

43:18

over time. But it's kind of like

43:20

when you hit a do or die moment where there's

43:22

like

43:23

there's lots of stuff going on and you just

43:25

have to survive. You're

43:28

thinking about all

43:29

of these abilities you have that cost command points

43:32

and like, how can I construct?

43:34

It's almost thinking thinking like, how can I

43:36

construct a turn in a in

43:39

in like a like

43:41

a deck building game almost or

43:44

or like a combo in a fighting game? Yeah.

43:47

Yeah, because there

43:48

probably is a way. There's probably

43:50

a way if you have enough command points

43:53

and you have a pretty balanced squad

43:56

that you can use those command points to

43:58

get out of a really, really.

43:59

I see situation at least

44:02

long enough to, you know, recharge some

44:04

more command points and take another go

44:07

at it. But

44:09

yeah, I had I tried that

44:11

room so many different ways and like I

44:14

could not get out of there with less

44:16

than one casualty and up to that point

44:18

I had not had anyone die. So I was I

44:21

was I was very

44:23

pressed by that. It

44:27

doesn't help to make you put set up turrets

44:29

in the in bad positions. Yes, they

44:32

don't let you put them in the place where it

44:35

would actually make the most sense to put them.

44:37

Which that's another

44:40

way that just like the way the level geometry

44:42

changes later on really

44:44

increases the difficulty because a lot of

44:46

the earlier missions once you find

44:48

four turrets, it's like I'm just going to set up

44:50

four turrets at the end of this hall and

44:53

here they come and they're walking

44:57

around like picking up turrets, putting

44:59

down turrets like sorry. All right. Everybody

45:02

time to open this door. Everyone like

45:04

laying out fields of fire. All right. The

45:06

door pick them all up and all takes time.

45:09

Yeah, like later in the game, you don't really

45:12

have an option and you do the game does or

45:14

teach you. You don't have

45:16

time to be setting up turrets like

45:19

you want that. Well you end

45:21

up or at least I in the later missions

45:24

ended up using them sort

45:26

of the same way that you two were

45:28

using snipers and mines where it's like I'm

45:30

going to set this up where I know aliens are going

45:33

to be

45:34

when I'm not there so

45:36

that they will just help keep the level

45:39

population under control a little

45:41

bit. I should. Yeah.

45:43

Yeah. Well,

45:44

the other thing we haven't even talked about yet is

45:46

that there is also a Darkest Dungeon

45:49

style like long term psychological

45:52

harm system

45:54

where in

45:55

mission when your stress fills

45:58

up, you know, you'll get those.

46:00

Disobedient or you

46:02

know clumsy or like, you know

46:05

Home sweaty knees weak arms are heavy

46:07

stuff going on but

46:10

when that fills up enough times

46:12

it actually increases your

46:15

Like campaign level stress for

46:17

that marine. I forget what the term they use for

46:19

it is trauma. Oh This

46:22

is a game about trauma. I couldn't remember

46:25

that because of my trauma. I could

46:27

not remember the word trauma We're

46:29

like that will give them a

46:31

negative trait that carries with them into

46:34

every mission Until you

46:37

send them to the psychiatrist,

46:39

you know on the ship to

46:42

you know do some therapy and Eventually

46:45

get rid of that trait, which is just another thing

46:48

that keeps your best Marines out of

46:51

Rotation for if you want to

46:53

you know

46:55

Keep them Talk about how weird

46:57

and creepy the psychiatry room

47:00

in this is it is Like

47:02

the Colonial Marines doctors like

47:05

talks like a true believer in

47:07

some religion. I've never heard of

47:14

Like so little the little background

47:16

of room and animation is just

47:18

like a A Sunken

47:21

a

47:22

Sunken circle that has like a bitch

47:24

around it and all your Marines that you've put into

47:26

psychiatry are just sitting on the bench With

47:29

it in this sunken circle with

47:31

their heads in their hands It's like this is

47:33

how you're getting better from your trauma. You're

47:35

sitting down with a bunch of other depressed people

47:38

alongside this cult leader and I

47:41

Don't know. It's it's indeed. It's a

47:43

neat game mechanic. It's just the

47:46

animations They put together for like this

47:48

internal

47:50

Internal struggle of how to get better

47:54

Did not like show up externally

47:56

terribly well, I

47:58

mean it's a very gloomy game

47:59

You know, like you always hear the

48:02

rain hammer against the ship when you're

48:04

at HQ. Every time the

48:06

transport takes off, it leaves through

48:08

the pouring rainstorm. And yeah, like the

48:11

Otago, the crashed marine ship where,

48:13

you

48:14

know, you use your HQ, it is

48:16

this really stripped down warship

48:20

that the crash lines at the start of the game. And

48:22

yeah, what they've got for their little

48:25

for their rest and recovery

48:28

suite is the detail

48:31

I love about it is that it's

48:34

got like not stained

48:36

glass, but it's like translucent plastic

48:40

like light panels over

48:42

fluorescent lights. Yeah. And

48:44

it shows a nature scene.

48:46

And so you can immediately you can immediately

48:48

like imagine it of like

48:51

the weird like flicory fluorescent

48:53

light

48:54

backlighting this thing that's meant

48:56

to look like a, you know,

48:58

an image with depth of

49:01

nature and have like, you know, natural

49:03

light coming through it. But it's

49:05

patently not right. It's

49:08

it reminded me a lot of I'm pretty sure

49:11

there are similar rooms like this

49:13

in that FX series Legion

49:16

where it opens in a

49:18

psych ward and

49:20

it's like he's

49:22

being horribly mistreated. It's

49:24

a similar vibe. So the

49:26

game has the sort of like gothic

49:29

gloominess to it that crops

49:31

up in fun ways.

49:32

What it is like, we're just trying

49:34

to get you mentally healthy enough to

49:37

get back out into the tunnels with the aliens.

49:40

That's what the goal of this this therapy

49:43

session is. Like we're we're we're still going

49:45

to need you to go back out there. So

49:47

just if you could get it together. Yeah.

49:50

Yeah, there's also an aspect where like

49:52

you have these turns that are a day long. It's a

49:54

lot like Darkest Dungeon in this respect. And

49:57

between each turn, you're given like

49:59

an event that creates a choice.

50:02

And this is the other thing that I was, I was talking

50:04

about before I got to the glitches, uh,

50:07

that like some of these choices

50:09

are really, really bad. Like some of them were like,

50:12

you can get more resources if you don't send

50:14

your troops on a mission one day. All right. That's,

50:16

that's a perfectly fine choice. Either

50:18

direction. Sure. Whatever works. Um,

50:22

some of them are like

50:24

one of your Marines dies or all

50:27

of your Marines are exhausted and that means that

50:29

those Marines are like out for

50:31

the next multiple day

50:34

days. Uh, and

50:36

I got like, I think immediately

50:39

after the pioneer station and when I was going

50:41

to that atmospheric processor, which as Rob

50:43

mentioned, it was kind of a turning point

50:46

in, Oh,

50:47

now I see where this escalation

50:49

is going. Oh shit. I

50:51

got multiple

50:54

events in a row where like the only

50:56

real choice was to exhaust my Marines.

50:58

So I was not able to like actually

51:02

do

51:03

anything

51:04

for several days in a row.

51:06

And this is as that planetary infestation

51:09

ticker is getting to three and four and five

51:11

and the ones that are really, really nasty. And

51:14

also there's a strategic timer

51:16

that's or a strategic

51:17

game level timer. That's basically like in

51:20

X number of days, the campaign is over.

51:23

Um, so this, this

51:27

finally pushed me over into the, I want

51:29

to restart this game on Iron

51:31

Man, which I have done. Uh,

51:34

but it means that I never got past this part

51:36

of the game, but it's, uh,

51:39

it's definitely got some aspects

51:41

to it where the randomness and that's the intentional

51:44

randomness I was talking about. Can lead

51:46

you into some particularly nasty and

51:48

perhaps overly nasty situations

51:50

that that's not a fun way to have

51:52

your campaign go down. You know, that's not, that's

51:55

not, I fucked up by having my Marines

51:57

go too deep.

51:58

I learned a valuable lesson.

51:59

That's the dice got rolled

52:02

and the dice came up, you lose. Or

52:05

the dice came up, things will

52:07

be more difficult and this is just enough for you

52:09

to make, for you to decide this campaign

52:11

is over, which is partially a neat thing, but.

52:14

Oh, quick thing, by the way, you mentioned

52:16

those events that happen between the days. Yeah.

52:19

Another reason I want to start this thing over.

52:23

I didn't, I didn't understand

52:25

the structure of this campaign when I started

52:27

playing it, did not fully understand what was going on. What

52:30

was going to be happening over the course of aliens,

52:32

dark descent.

52:34

Immediately upon landing, the main part of the

52:36

campaign starts, do the first

52:38

mission, get halfway through it, go back

52:40

to base, whatever. Every

52:42

day hit next day, I get

52:44

an event that's like, do you want to deploy or

52:47

do you want more free goodies? And

52:49

I was like, I love free goodies. I'm just going to

52:51

sit here and take all these free goodies. I

52:54

spent like a week without doing a mission.

52:56

And then I was like, Oh,

52:58

wait. We just went up an infestation level.

53:01

And so I like

53:03

now I think about there's

53:04

no way those goodies were worth it. You know what

53:07

I mean? Like those events would probably

53:09

procs later on when

53:11

rest would have been more useful. Instead, I had

53:13

a ship full of like perfectly healthy,

53:16

psychologically balanced Marines

53:18

who had no no experience levels.

53:20

Yeah.

53:20

What's the use of that? Yeah. Well,

53:23

and so that that's why

53:25

you were at it must have been an infestation for

53:28

by pioneer station because.

53:30

Yeah, they don't really, they don't tell you really

53:32

what going up an infestation

53:34

level means either. It's

53:37

only once. I assumed it meant aliens

53:39

bad. Right. But I guess

53:41

to me, I might be a genius. Right.

53:44

Like they obviously means things are going to get

53:46

worse, but they don't tell you stuff like, okay, once

53:49

you get up to like four or five, it's like

53:52

everywhere you go is going to have at least

53:54

one drone patrolling now. Like you're

53:57

not going to have any more free movement

53:59

without.

54:00

you know, clearing them out and

54:02

then running through. Like that's, that's

54:05

what you have to do now. Once you get up to those levels,

54:08

uh, Rowan, I believe you also posted

54:10

that you got the event where

54:13

there's, there's one of your squad who's

54:15

like, Oh, I don't know. The rebellious colonists kind

54:17

of have a point, bad labor conditions

54:20

and you know, low pay, like

54:22

you basically have to like decide

54:24

if you want to court Marshall him or he gets into

54:26

like a brawl.

54:31

So yeah, this is, this is the

54:33

thing that we have a bitch because we've only been talking about the

54:35

aliens aspect to this, but there is also

54:37

like a human alien worshiping cult

54:40

that you deal with and they, they function

54:42

in a different way. You don't have the like hive

54:44

stuff in the stress. You just kill them, but

54:46

they're also, they've also got guns

54:48

sometimes. So you're actually fighting ranged

54:51

attacks, which is not the case with almost

54:54

all possibly all the other aliens.

54:56

Um,

54:58

so there are these, these cultists

55:00

who are, who are in your way in

55:02

this game. And you get like

55:05

an event overnight where one of your people

55:07

is like, well, obviously capitalist

55:09

depression is making these,

55:12

these cultists rebel. Like this, they're

55:14

not rebelling in the right way, but this is,

55:16

this is the fault of Wayland, utatia.

55:19

No, no, no, they just, they, this

55:21

all started because they're bad people. That's

55:23

the only reason.

55:25

Um, so then

55:27

you get, then you get the option of like,

55:30

do you, do you get rid of them or

55:32

do you let them stick around knowing

55:34

this will lead to a brawl and the brawl will have

55:37

negative effects later on, later on

55:39

down the line? Um, the first time

55:41

I did it, I was like, well, obviously

55:44

this, this commie has a point, um,

55:46

it might not be the right time for their point, but

55:48

they have. Uh,

55:49

the second

55:52

time I did it, uh, I

55:55

was like, this is, this

55:58

character is a rookie. Whatever

56:01

send them out into the waste and they did

56:03

not get sent out into the wastes. It

56:05

said

56:06

Rookie a Latimer has been terminated

56:09

Yeah Yeah

56:13

later on there's a mission where you have to decide whether

56:15

or not you trust people you rescue Depending

56:17

on whether you've gathered more info and

56:20

yeah, you just do like executions

56:22

down there on the planet surface if you've

56:24

got bad vibes So

56:26

here's the thing wrong. I had to

56:28

keep that person around because again

56:31

perhaps because of the wasted week Just

56:34

cooling my heels grabbing goodies from around

56:36

the planet. I

56:37

Sort of had a critical experience shortage

56:40

Pretty deep into the campaign and

56:42

also my snipers were cursed class like

56:45

I would no sooner have a sniper

56:47

Then they get fucking eaten. That's just

56:49

that just kept happening So I

56:51

get this message that like yeah

56:54

my only sniper who had some other bad traits

56:56

too I forget what they were it wasn't it wasn't good I think

56:58

was like kleptomaniac which means he's

57:00

basically skimming the resources you get every

57:03

time He also had the trauma that was like

57:06

I'm taking using a med kit Each

57:09

time we rest. Hope you hope you

57:11

guys didn't need that

57:14

I badly would have wanted to shoot this guy in the space

57:17

But he was the only

57:19

Sniper

57:20

That I had with with

57:22

the with the precision shot at that moment,

57:25

which is basically critical to maintain stealth So

57:28

he's out there saying wild shit

57:30

like yeah you know, it's capitalism's

57:32

fault that the cult is starting to planting alien

57:35

embryos in each other and infesting

57:38

the planet and I'm

57:41

just like

57:43

Yeah, that's an interesting point. We'll have to circle back on

57:45

that Anyway house house

57:47

your shooting arm today because

57:51

we have a little work for you

57:53

Weirdly enough. We didn't I didn't get the brawl

57:56

the brawl event still hasn't triggered

57:58

and I do wonder like

58:00

I did the, um,

58:02

there's the redemption trait you can get,

58:05

which removes

58:06

a negative trait on someone, not a

58:08

trauma, but like sort of a negative baseline trait. And

58:11

his negative baseline trait, I want to say

58:13

it was some sort of like,

58:14

you know, weird malcontent thing. I can't remember what

58:17

it was, but it has like a conspirator one. Yeah.

58:20

There's insubordinate where they start each mission with

58:22

like the disobedient

58:24

moodlet or what I'm calling

58:27

moodlets. Sorry

58:29

moodlets works. I mean, they're

58:31

bad. Like this is so, and this

58:33

is the other reason I want to go back and restart it. Cause

58:35

like, I do feel like a lot of these systems have

58:37

been at their most interesting when I was naive,

58:40

how they worked.

58:41

But as I've sort of like tightened up my

58:43

play,

58:45

I'm not feeling as pressed

58:48

as I was. Like I'm running out of time. The

58:50

campaign clock is, is counting down. I'm

58:53

not sure. I'm curious. I'm going to

58:55

be able to get this thing done under the wire.

58:58

But in terms of like,

59:00

you know, I went from being really banged up

59:03

and back against the wall to now

59:05

I have a really deep bench of really experienced

59:08

troops.

59:09

Nobody's hurt.

59:10

Nobody's got trauma. Cause we had such a

59:13

rotation going that like

59:15

people just were able to chill in

59:17

the therapy center and

59:19

get all those negative traits off them. So like all

59:22

the, all these systems right now are kind of dead. They're

59:24

inert because I'm staying on top of them really,

59:26

really well. And

59:29

like, there's just a little bit of resource tightness.

59:32

I'm running out of like material. So I can't buy the

59:34

weapon upgrades I really want, but

59:36

I'm sitting here and I'm like, I've

59:39

had a lot of moments in this game that were great.

59:41

That sort of arrived like

59:44

a bolt from the blue where it's like,

59:46

Oh, now I see better how this game fits together.

59:48

How it all works. My concern

59:50

is once you know how it all works, it's a little too

59:52

easy to navigate around. Like if I

59:55

started this game over, I'd really make

59:57

a lot of hay, I think in those early stages

59:59

of.

59:59

of the campaign and I don't

1:00:02

know how hard this game would be if I were sort of blazing

1:00:04

through it with foreign knowledge. And

1:00:06

so like

1:00:07

a small example of this is one of the resources

1:00:11

that you get is

1:00:12

persistent between missions

1:00:15

is Xeno

1:00:18

stuff, Alien Goo,

1:00:20

whatever. DNA links,

1:00:23

yeah. Yeah,

1:00:25

it powers very special upgrades

1:00:27

you can give to your squad. Well,

1:00:31

we kill so many aliens. I'm just

1:00:33

sitting on mountains of alien

1:00:36

essence. And so every time we go on

1:00:38

a mission, it's like,

1:00:40

what do I think we'll run into? Doesn't matter.

1:00:42

Everyone gets all the upgrades we've

1:00:44

got because there's just zero point

1:00:46

in why would I skimp on

1:00:49

the face hugger remover if-

1:00:51

Never skimp on the face hugger remover?

1:00:53

No.

1:00:57

Pardon? Now it is 100% mandatory

1:01:00

every mission. I don't even care if they're face huggers.

1:01:02

I wish it weren't in the game, honestly. Because

1:01:05

the thing is

1:01:06

the face hugger should be this

1:01:08

terrifying and once you got through,

1:01:11

well, it's still pretty bad. I will say

1:01:13

that like it's still pretty bad

1:01:15

once a face hugger gets hold of a soldier

1:01:18

because frequently that's not the only thing

1:01:20

happening because killing face huggers triggers

1:01:22

an alien alert.

1:01:24

So it's not great, but it is

1:01:26

one of those things where yeah,

1:01:27

just take everything. There's

1:01:29

no choice to be made here. I'm just gonna max out

1:01:32

the little buffs I can get with the

1:01:34

alien goop

1:01:35

and take care of all this. And

1:01:37

it feels like that system would sing a lot

1:01:39

better

1:01:40

if you were

1:01:42

sitting there thinking,

1:01:44

can I afford the

1:01:46

anti-acid mud guards, I

1:01:48

guess my troops are wearing, or

1:01:51

can I afford the face hugger remover?

1:01:54

And now that I say those two things out loud, maybe

1:01:56

those are both things that shouldn't exist in an aliens

1:01:58

game. The face hugger. It

1:02:00

should be like losing a leg. You should have to

1:02:02

carry them back

1:02:04

to the armored vehicle

1:02:07

and then take them back to the ship for extraction.

1:02:10

That's why this game is almost at its best is when

1:02:12

you're doing that whole like, oh, we're down to three

1:02:14

and one person's carrying dead weight.

1:02:17

And now we have to like

1:02:19

fight our way through at a snail's pace

1:02:22

down two guns. Yeah,

1:02:25

so this

1:02:27

is why I started on Iron Man mode or whatever

1:02:29

it's called on this. I

1:02:33

felt like, you know, the actual difficulty of

1:02:35

the missions was fine. Like my guys

1:02:37

would consistently take damage and I

1:02:39

would be able to heal them. For the most

1:02:41

part, unless something started horribly

1:02:43

going wrong.

1:02:44

And when I was

1:02:47

playing my first run, which had regular

1:02:49

saves, I

1:02:52

would just be like, oh, okay.

1:02:54

I had something go horribly

1:02:57

wrong. This is a full squad wipe. I'm going

1:02:59

to restart this or

1:03:01

reload this mission. I can let like one

1:03:03

guy die every now and then, but a full squad

1:03:05

wipe, nah, that's something I'm going to reload.

1:03:08

And like, that was good for that first play

1:03:11

where

1:03:11

I was reasonably

1:03:14

uncertain how all

1:03:16

these things fit together, how everything worked.

1:03:19

I knew that I was going to start running into problems

1:03:22

as I like got into a second

1:03:24

play. And I was like, all right, we're just getting

1:03:26

rid of that. And then I discovered some

1:03:29

weird quirks to the auto save system

1:03:31

where it's not actually a traditional iron man. You

1:03:33

don't actually save the game when you quit. This

1:03:37

is a, you are doing the whole mission in one sitting

1:03:39

thing.

1:03:43

But yeah, it's led

1:03:45

me to the point where now I have to be extra

1:03:47

careful where it's like, okay, if I push my

1:03:50

guys too hard, now do I go back into

1:03:52

the, if I push my guys too hard, this might

1:03:54

be a full squad wipe.

1:03:55

So I'm just going to take the ARC back

1:03:58

and that's gonna be it for this. this

1:04:00

time and like

1:04:01

maybe three missions down the line, this

1:04:04

is going to lead to problems because I have slightly

1:04:06

too high of a planetary infestation level.

1:04:09

But this tension of knowing

1:04:11

that like,

1:04:13

yeah, this is it. There's not a second

1:04:15

cushion here. I'm

1:04:19

either all in or I'm all out, has

1:04:22

led that aspect of like knowing

1:04:25

what the basic systems of this game

1:04:27

are and how I'm going

1:04:29

to deal with that. And the second part

1:04:31

of this is that those resources, the

1:04:34

Xeno samples or whatever,

1:04:37

if you're going through this game quickly

1:04:40

and not just like getting in giant firefights

1:04:42

with the aliens over and over, you're not collecting

1:04:44

those Xeno samples that much. So you

1:04:47

are

1:04:47

only going in with one or two of those,

1:04:51

one or two of those buffs. And

1:04:53

if one of them is taking

1:04:55

the face hugger thing every single time,

1:04:57

then that's draining it further.

1:05:00

I don't know if this is going to like balance out

1:05:02

the whole game as you continue

1:05:04

your progression, but I think

1:05:07

there might be some push and pull instead

1:05:09

of just push.

1:05:12

So the point of the face huggers does remind

1:05:14

me, I think one reason I'm bummed that they got

1:05:16

a little bit trivialized

1:05:20

through a counter is that

1:05:22

this

1:05:24

game has an enemy variety problem,

1:05:27

which isn't surprising. I think the aliens

1:05:29

universe is not set up to generate

1:05:31

tons of interesting aliens.

1:05:34

Like this game's trying,

1:05:36

man. Like it's

1:05:38

like, all

1:05:38

right, so that alien you saw before that

1:05:41

was a drone,

1:05:42

but here's a different alien and it's worse.

1:05:45

And then there's a big alien

1:05:48

and then it's like,

1:05:50

it all looks like the alien. You know what I mean? It's

1:05:53

just like we put more shit, we put more

1:05:56

Chrome on it effectively. It's

1:05:58

like a Dodge one. One alien looks

1:06:00

like the alien, that looks like a Dodge Charger alien.

1:06:03

That's kind of how they're distinguishing them. Especially

1:06:06

the warriors. Like warriors are really

1:06:08

hard to tell apart from drones until

1:06:11

they attack you because they do the job. These

1:06:13

don't die.

1:06:14

Yeah, and they've come vaulting in over your

1:06:16

field of fire. Yeah. Yeah,

1:06:18

like it's stuff like that. This is not

1:06:21

really what the

1:06:23

aliens verse has really ever

1:06:26

excelled at. And so it

1:06:28

does try to introduce this notion of, okay,

1:06:31

like a big Praetorian will come out and

1:06:34

it'll sort of kite around. But even

1:06:37

there, they're really evasive. They don't just

1:06:39

come charging straight at you. So a lot of times I'm like, come

1:06:41

back out here you little bastard. I know you're in that closet.

1:06:44

And

1:06:46

the other type of enemy they introduce, yeah, these cultists,

1:06:49

the Darwin era.

1:06:50

People who've, you

1:06:52

know, they're so

1:06:55

downtrodden by sort

1:06:57

of the economic collapse of

1:06:59

Lefey because it's basically an exhausted

1:07:01

mining planet that people

1:07:05

catch wind of the aliens.

1:07:08

And a few of them are like, well, you're

1:07:10

kind of, you know, if you think about it, when

1:07:12

they do the chestburster thing, that's kind of like being

1:07:14

reborn. And so wouldn't

1:07:16

it be cool if we joined

1:07:19

with the aliens and sort

1:07:21

of promoted their species

1:07:23

and

1:07:26

in hopes that it flourishes on this planet? Long

1:07:28

story short, there's guys with guns in this

1:07:31

game that you gotta do.

1:07:34

And they also ain't shit.

1:07:36

Because, you know,

1:07:39

you gotta use the cover a little bit more to deal

1:07:41

with them, but they don't hit very

1:07:43

hard. There's

1:07:45

special ones you run into later that are basically

1:07:47

the dudes from the Expanse. The

1:07:50

sort of blue eyed, you

1:07:52

know,

1:07:55

space white walker type characters with

1:07:57

power armor. Those are a little nasty here,

1:07:59

but. But ultimately,

1:08:01

you

1:08:02

know, the two enemy archetypes are alien.

1:08:05

What run at you and

1:08:07

shooty guy who posts

1:08:09

up and shoots at you and sort of waits until

1:08:11

you sort of wear them down with with long range

1:08:13

fire.

1:08:15

Or guy with a wrench who just commits

1:08:17

suicide by. Right. There's

1:08:20

so many dudes who are just charging at you.

1:08:23

Yeah. Uh huh. You know, it's

1:08:26

the game has to overcome

1:08:28

sort of these problems of

1:08:30

this is not a universe that readily supplies

1:08:33

you with

1:08:34

appropriately themed adversaries.

1:08:38

But also I do kind of wonder, given

1:08:40

the nature of how the game controls, which

1:08:43

is very seamless. It feels very good. That also means

1:08:45

it's dependent on feeling good, like Rowan's

1:08:47

description of, oh yeah, my frame rate

1:08:49

tanked because because of a glitch. That's game

1:08:52

ruining. This game is impossible. Run by turns,

1:08:54

impulses. The game needs to be silky smooth

1:08:56

like a shooter.

1:08:58

Yeah. No,

1:09:00

this was, this was a thing where if it had happened

1:09:02

the first time I started playing the game, I probably would

1:09:04

never have gone back. But because for whatever

1:09:07

reason, it worked one time and then didn't

1:09:09

work the next time. And there was only a tiny bit left

1:09:11

of the mission. I was like, okay, I

1:09:13

can, I can push through this. I know it's

1:09:15

not that bad. I beat an alien

1:09:18

queen

1:09:19

with two on a frame

1:09:21

rate of two or three. That was fun.

1:09:24

Yeah. I

1:09:28

think, I think that the

1:09:30

enemy variety thing is. I

1:09:36

completely see where Rob is coming from here,

1:09:39

but also like, I think it also

1:09:41

makes some degree of sense that you're just

1:09:43

fighting the same shitty things over and

1:09:45

over. Like some

1:09:48

variety of shitty things. But like, this

1:09:50

is not a game that's about like, only,

1:09:55

only vaguely is it, but about

1:09:57

like, about like figuring

1:09:59

out. to what something

1:10:02

is doing. Like when you're

1:10:04

fighting the Queens or the Charger aliens, you

1:10:06

have to dodge them

1:10:07

coming directly at you real fast.

1:10:11

That's an aspect of like actually, you

1:10:13

know, learning pattern recognition, et cetera.

1:10:16

That's

1:10:17

generally not what the game is about. The game

1:10:19

is about just slowly grinding

1:10:22

it out and seeing if you can make that

1:10:24

next grind. And obviously some

1:10:26

variety in that is helpful. And

1:10:28

I think the different missions do provide a

1:10:31

pretty decent way of it. But

1:10:34

at another level, like both in terms of

1:10:36

this is an effective adaptation

1:10:39

of the universe

1:10:39

and just,

1:10:42

this

1:10:42

isn't the thing the game is about. The game is about

1:10:44

getting splashed with acid from regular

1:10:46

aliens over and over and over

1:10:49

until you decide you've either had enough or

1:10:51

you go too far. And

1:10:53

I think that it sort of works in

1:10:55

that respect. This is also an issue

1:10:57

I had with the

1:11:00

squad customization stuff, which is not

1:11:02

super powerful. You can like change their faces,

1:11:04

sort of give them helmets or not, that

1:11:06

kind of thing. But y'all know

1:11:08

how much time I put into customizing

1:11:11

my squadies and XCOM. That's not really an option

1:11:13

here, but it's not a thing that I missed. This

1:11:16

is a thing where it's like, once I realized, okay,

1:11:18

this is the aesthetic they have, it

1:11:21

fits with the aesthetic that they have designed for the

1:11:23

entire world, which is based off a movie

1:11:25

I have seen a few times and is

1:11:27

an extremely famous and good movie.

1:11:29

Yeah, well, we can work

1:11:32

with this. I'm not going to go nuts

1:11:34

making the entire X-Men on this roster.

1:11:37

I'm just going to like

1:11:40

play the cards that I've been dealt and I

1:11:43

am cool with that, even though I would not

1:11:45

have been cool with that if it was a different type

1:11:47

of game.

1:11:50

So yeah, this is, it's sort

1:11:52

of a tough thing where it's like,

1:11:56

this is a game that by and large knows

1:11:58

that it has limitations.

1:11:59

It doesn't always get those right, but

1:12:02

it does recognize, okay,

1:12:04

we are just making an alien spin.

1:12:07

One other, or the one way I think

1:12:10

that the enemy variety

1:12:12

actually, I would give

1:12:14

it, I would give it some kudos is I

1:12:17

think this is the first game that's ever made runners

1:12:19

scary.

1:12:20

Because in every other alien game,

1:12:23

it's like, Oh yeah, they're really fast, but they have like

1:12:25

four hit points. So just I'm just gonna whip

1:12:27

my pistol out and

1:12:29

it's dead.

1:12:30

Whereas especially some of the later levels

1:12:32

in, in dark descent,

1:12:35

like if it's a drone or

1:12:37

a warrior and you see them coming,

1:12:39

you can probably just

1:12:41

like

1:12:42

jump into a closet or something and

1:12:44

they'll walk by and you won't get spotted. But

1:12:47

if a runner just comes zooming down the hall,

1:12:49

it's like, ah, shit, it saw us like,

1:12:51

all right, we're on medium now.

1:12:54

Okay, well that sucks.

1:12:57

Like the

1:12:59

role they actually play in the alien

1:13:01

team is significant

1:13:05

in terms of how much it can mess up

1:13:07

your ride. One other thing I had

1:13:09

on my outline was the Marine progression.

1:13:13

I'm curious because I kind of

1:13:15

felt like it was a little stingy. I don't

1:13:17

know if either of you had the same experience,

1:13:21

but I felt like once you unlock your subclass,

1:13:23

like you, you don't

1:13:25

really get a lot better from there. Like

1:13:28

going from not having smart gunners

1:13:31

to having a smart gunner is a big

1:13:33

deal, but

1:13:34

especially like that courage stat that

1:13:36

is supposed to measure how

1:13:38

well they can keep their shit

1:13:40

together through a mission.

1:13:42

I felt like a level like nine Marine

1:13:44

was just not that different from level one

1:13:46

in terms of like how long I could keep

1:13:49

them in a bad situation

1:13:51

before they started to lose it. And

1:13:53

that just felt like it wasn't really

1:13:55

rewarding for the amount of time I had

1:13:57

invested into that character.

1:13:59

I think it suffers a little bit from the problem

1:14:02

of

1:14:03

like by that point in the game, the level one marine

1:14:05

would would just be alien

1:14:08

food at that point. Like they couldn't function

1:14:11

the way these missions are running because like the ramp

1:14:13

up is is so fast. But

1:14:16

the effect of the the things that

1:14:18

sort of let you sort of maintain courage

1:14:20

a little bit better is that effectively,

1:14:23

you've got a marine that builds stress slower

1:14:25

than the other marines that meaningfully slower like

1:14:27

there's times I look down, it's like, wow, these guys are just like,

1:14:30

these are my rocks. We've got one we've

1:14:32

got one low level squad that's on two

1:14:34

levels of stress. They've

1:14:36

got two debuffs and Sarge

1:14:39

over here is just fine. So

1:14:42

Sarge is Sarge is at 50 percent on their

1:14:44

on their first step. And so that

1:14:46

stuff does

1:14:48

like it comes into play. I think I

1:14:50

think the big thing is that the leveling system

1:14:52

is really. Not

1:14:54

there to

1:14:56

make your marine intrinsically better.

1:14:59

It's the siphon away supply resources

1:15:02

into buying them the kit because they get the

1:15:04

slots to get the upgrades

1:15:06

that you really need. And late in the game,

1:15:09

you need huge piles of resources to get

1:15:11

late game weaponry. And that is

1:15:13

really intention

1:15:14

with building your

1:15:16

marines out to the point where they've

1:15:18

got their class abilities, which which you

1:15:20

kind of want their own mandatory for the class.

1:15:23

But after that,

1:15:25

you know,

1:15:26

I certainly found a lot of mileage

1:15:28

with, hey, everybody's taking ammo

1:15:30

pouches now. We are we're going these missions

1:15:33

with like, you know, six, seven

1:15:35

ammo, six, seven health

1:15:38

kits because it's just, you know, it's

1:15:40

not viable otherwise.

1:15:42

Yeah, you you have to keep

1:15:44

investing in in order

1:15:47

to get like the full amount

1:15:49

of potential from their leveling.

1:15:52

And that's that's another interesting

1:15:54

design decision that I think works given

1:15:56

how the themes of the game should go, but

1:15:59

it also means.

1:15:59

that sometimes like, oh shit,

1:16:02

I just bought, you know, the level

1:16:04

six, like heavy pulse rifle. I

1:16:06

can't upgrade any of my guys going on this

1:16:08

next mission. They're not

1:16:11

actually that much better because

1:16:13

I'm

1:16:14

not doing those training

1:16:16

room upgrades that would actually

1:16:18

help them. The other aspect

1:16:21

that Rob was talking about

1:16:23

is that,

1:16:25

and I think this goes back to what he said at the very beginning

1:16:27

about how it's kind of hard to, there are

1:16:30

aspects of this game that are obfuscated

1:16:33

in good ways. Like

1:16:35

your Marines are slightly better at hitting

1:16:37

enemies. That's not a thing that you

1:16:40

really can tell just

1:16:42

by walking around a level shooting enemies.

1:16:45

That's a thing that you tell 20

1:16:47

minutes later after they've been in

1:16:49

six firefights and they've

1:16:52

only gotten a couple scratches where

1:16:54

the rookies would have been, you know, sliced

1:16:56

and diced, losing four or five

1:16:58

hit points.

1:16:59

That you, your hit points, you have

1:17:02

like six or seven hit points. That's

1:17:04

four or five is a lot in this game for those who

1:17:06

haven't played it.

1:17:09

And that's, that's a good thing in that

1:17:11

you get the idea of like a slow progression.

1:17:14

You're not

1:17:15

constantly trying to just min max

1:17:17

everything. You're not turning this

1:17:19

game into like a set of dice rolls

1:17:22

that you've weighted the dice in the ways that you

1:17:24

wanted or

1:17:25

you're not

1:17:27

turning this game into the set of dice rolls

1:17:29

where you've weighted the dice in a way that you know you

1:17:31

have guaranteed it to win. You've

1:17:34

added just a teeny bit of weight in a

1:17:36

way and the enemies have also added

1:17:38

weight in the planetary infestation and stuff.

1:17:41

And you're hoping that yours, your way still

1:17:43

comes out. That's, that's good

1:17:45

in terms of like

1:17:47

immersion or whatever. It's

1:17:49

bad in terms of, oh, I'm really feeling

1:17:51

like this is powerful. You get this in RPGs

1:17:54

sometimes where

1:17:56

if you go up in level at exactly

1:17:59

the same rate, enemies go up

1:18:01

in

1:18:02

strength,

1:18:03

then you don't feel like you're actually progressing.

1:18:05

Why is there even a system that exists like

1:18:08

this in this game? I feel like

1:18:09

the Assassin's Creed games that like went

1:18:12

all out in terms of having

1:18:14

RPG style leveling and whatever were

1:18:16

like massively

1:18:18

fucked that up. It's

1:18:20

just, it's like why does this exist?

1:18:23

The numbers went up, but it doesn't mean anything.

1:18:26

And this game I think

1:18:28

does kind of suffer from that also because

1:18:30

of the lack of enemy variety. This

1:18:32

is an aspect where that will,

1:18:36

that will create some frustration. I still think that

1:18:38

it's overall a good idea or

1:18:40

a functioning idea, but

1:18:44

it does lead, does

1:18:46

lead to those kinds of situations. Rob,

1:18:51

any final thoughts on Alien

1:18:53

Stark descent? I

1:18:57

mean, I think the thing I'd stress is like I'm enjoying

1:18:59

the game tremendously. It's, you

1:19:01

know, it's not the,

1:19:03

the competition has not been thick on the ground certainly,

1:19:05

but this is the best Aliens game since, you

1:19:08

know, Alien Isolation.

1:19:10

You know, no, no shade

1:19:12

to the, you know,

1:19:14

squad shooter that they made, the

1:19:16

co-op shooter, but like this is,

1:19:18

this is very successful at being

1:19:21

Aliens in the way that Alien Isolation

1:19:23

was very successful at channeling Alien. And

1:19:26

it goes about that. I think

1:19:29

really the crucial insight here is that

1:19:31

if you do Aliens and you think, ah,

1:19:33

imagine it from the

1:19:36

first person shooter perspective,

1:19:38

you've whiffed. You're going to miss it because

1:19:41

either it won't feel good

1:19:43

because the Aliens are appropriately

1:19:46

fast and evasive and you just can't hit

1:19:49

them, you'll feel incompetent, or

1:19:51

you turn into the character that is how

1:19:54

the Marines in that, in that movie see themselves,

1:19:56

you know, the, the, the hyper competent

1:19:58

badass.

1:19:59

you with this remove and having you

1:20:02

just watch them and watch them

1:20:04

crack under the strain and

1:20:07

having to sort of tackle the same

1:20:09

challenges that they

1:20:12

tackle in that game, which is actually like

1:20:15

exploring a map is what they're doing

1:20:17

for the majority of that

1:20:19

film. The insight

1:20:22

to move the action to this perspective and center

1:20:24

the game on that action is a

1:20:26

really brilliant one. And so I think,

1:20:29

you

1:20:29

know, I was very

1:20:32

measured in my praise of the game when it first came

1:20:34

out because I wasn't fully

1:20:36

sold on how the pieces fit together. But

1:20:39

as I've gotten into late game, I think it really

1:20:41

is a special

1:20:42

game. It's

1:20:44

a tremendous amount of fun.

1:20:48

I don't have a ton of time, but I'm also thinking about

1:20:51

maybe I want to restart this and, you know,

1:20:54

play it on the harder difficulty and see how

1:20:56

it all comes together, knowing what

1:20:58

I know, but also maybe throwing an even

1:21:01

stiffer challenge my way.

1:21:02

That sounds really good. And I don't feel

1:21:05

that way about most games, but this one

1:21:07

I do. That's

1:21:09

a pretty good compliment, but I'm

1:21:11

going to I'm going to go a little higher

1:21:13

here. This was a game

1:21:15

that got me excited enough that I actually

1:21:18

went and watched Prometheus.

1:21:22

That's yeah,

1:21:24

that's that's a pretty pretty high

1:21:26

recommendation. Yeah, I actually

1:21:29

kind of like Prometheus. It was not it

1:21:31

was not anything. Then I went on to watch

1:21:33

Covenant and that was

1:21:35

that was a mistake. Covenant I've not brought

1:21:37

myself to watch yet. Yeah, I

1:21:39

haven't either. It's

1:21:42

it's fine, but it's. It

1:21:46

doesn't have the good enough. It

1:21:48

doesn't do the things from alien and aliens

1:21:50

well enough to stand on those

1:21:52

two feet, and it doesn't function well as a Prometheus

1:21:55

sequel at all, and it's trying to do both

1:21:57

of those things. So yeah, it's.

1:22:00

It's a mess. It's not

1:22:03

the worst mess I've ever seen, but

1:22:05

I didn't enjoy

1:22:07

that as much as

1:22:11

Prometheus and I didn't adore Prometheus like

1:22:13

some people have managed to do, but

1:22:15

I at least felt it

1:22:17

was getting somewhere. Anyway, yeah,

1:22:21

this is a good game for getting its hooks

1:22:24

in you and it's not as...once

1:22:27

you figure out what this game

1:22:29

is, which happens pretty soon

1:22:32

in the first mission, how it all fits together

1:22:34

is a little less so, but once

1:22:36

you're dropping shotgun blasts

1:22:39

on aliens when they get a little too close and

1:22:41

then hoping that you have those command points regenerate

1:22:43

as they show up, and then later in the game you're

1:22:46

realizing, oh, these command points all add up in different

1:22:48

ways and I can plant mines and I can do these

1:22:50

other things.

1:22:53

Once that stuff starts clicking, it

1:22:55

assumes a game that gets its hooks in you pretty

1:22:58

quickly and it's

1:23:00

really an astonishing adaptation

1:23:02

of an IP

1:23:06

or a

1:23:08

world that

1:23:09

has been pretty resistant

1:23:12

to actually having that done well

1:23:14

and I think going with the kind of Darkest

1:23:16

Dungeon meets XCOM meets at

1:23:18

this

1:23:19

very strange real-time tactics

1:23:22

thing

1:23:24

ended up being a bunch of good choices

1:23:27

that really work

1:23:29

out well for having this

1:23:32

be like, ah, this is the aliens game I was waiting

1:23:34

for. I didn't even know I was waiting for it.

1:23:38

Yeah, not even just the universe more

1:23:40

broadly, but specifically the second

1:23:42

movie like we've said

1:23:45

a couple of times, like this is

1:23:46

probably the best aliens game

1:23:48

I've played since like 2001 or something.

1:23:52

It's about the same things that

1:23:54

movie is about and it's cool

1:23:56

in the same way as that movie was cool

1:23:58

specifically.

1:24:00

Yeah, if you want

1:24:02

to hear more of my thoughts on it, my full

1:24:04

review is over at IGN. Three

1:24:08

moves ahead is hosted on the idle thumbs network.

1:24:11

You can head over to- A seven? A

1:24:15

seven, Fraser. It

1:24:17

was because of the bugs. That's

1:24:20

the reason I want to restart it. I want to play it again

1:24:22

without the bugs. Yeah. I

1:24:24

don't know in a month or so, and see

1:24:28

if

1:24:30

that's a significantly better experience.

1:24:32

Once the Jones the Cat expansion goes on

1:24:35

sale. Yeah.

1:24:37

It's like eight

1:24:41

borderline nine without all the bugs I

1:24:43

ran into, but I couldn't really

1:24:46

ignore that. I had

1:24:48

to bravely stand up for

1:24:50

the consumer and say that

1:24:52

that

1:24:54

might affect your experience negatively. No,

1:24:57

I mean, if I had

1:24:59

gotten that fucking bug the first

1:25:01

time I played it, I would have said, yeah, this game is

1:25:03

neat, but it's unplayable. I'm going to

1:25:06

go back to Final Fantasy XIV, and

1:25:09

that would have been that.

1:25:11

Maybe you might've been able to nag

1:25:13

me into doing it for this

1:25:16

show, but

1:25:18

I would definitely have lost all

1:25:21

my motivation at

1:25:22

suddenly

1:25:24

finding the game functionally unplayable.

1:25:27

Yeah. Yeah. So

1:25:30

there's been a couple patches since then. I haven't

1:25:32

been back to it since. I hope

1:25:34

some of the, I know in

1:25:36

the patch notes, some of the bugs I specifically

1:25:39

run into, they say they've addressed. I haven't

1:25:42

gone back to verify that, but I definitely

1:25:44

will do another playthrough of this at some point. Hold

1:25:46

on. Steam says that I have the Jones

1:25:48

the Cat

1:25:50

thing. Where

1:25:52

is my cat? Wait,

1:25:55

sorry. That's not a joke. That's not a

1:25:57

joke. There is actually a cat DLC?

1:26:00

Yes, their day one add-on it was a $4 thing

1:26:02

with a Black

1:26:05

camo armor and a unique

1:26:07

feline companion for the Otago

1:26:11

It's a Percy Okay,

1:26:14

lethary compact well,

1:26:17

I've got to investigate and see if I have a

1:26:19

cat now, but Three

1:26:22

moves ahead is hosted on the idle thumbs Network

1:26:25

You go check out the forums and

1:26:27

stuff over there idle thumbs net slash

1:26:29

3ma

1:26:30

As social media as a concept

1:26:33

continues to implode under

1:26:35

its own rapacity Forums might

1:26:38

be making a comeback

1:26:39

You know in the near future

1:26:42

We're also over on whatever the website

1:26:44

is called right now. We're at

1:26:47

3ma over on Whatever,

1:26:49

whatever there's whatever they decided to call

1:26:52

it. It used to be called Twitter I'm

1:26:54

not sure at this point

1:26:56

Also, we're supported

1:26:58

by listeners just like you on patreon

1:27:00

you can go to patreon.com Slash

1:27:02

3ma you get discord access.

1:27:05

You can get bonus episodes. You can become

1:27:07

a part of our exclusive multiplayer community

1:27:10

It's a fun place to be we

1:27:13

Experimented with adding more channels

1:27:15

and that has really

1:27:17

been a shot in the arm of the 3ma discord

1:27:19

I think we have like 10 times

1:27:22

as much activity there as we did previously

1:27:24

So maybe that's something we should have

1:27:26

done done earlier

1:27:29

Yeah, we'd love to have you join join

1:27:31

our rowdy crew of various

1:27:35

tactics and strategy fans over

1:27:37

there Be back soon

1:27:39

with another episode. But until then for

1:27:41

Rowan and for Rob, this is Len saying

1:27:44

good night