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Editorial RPG Codex Report: Gamescom 2015 - Project Daedalus, Hard West, XCOM 2, The Mandate and Fallout 4

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Bethesda Softworks; CreativeForge Games; Daedalic Entertainment; Fallout 4; Firaxis Games; Gamescom 2015; Hard West; Perihelion Interactive; The Long Journey Home; The Mandate; XCOM 2

Esteemed community reporter Bubbles saw so much random stuff at this year's Gamescom that even now that more than a month has passed, he still has enough material to continue with our series of reports. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and so this is Bubbles' penultimate report, with just one more part left to go. Savor it while it lasts.

This time, the report begins with Daedalic's Project Daedalus, a surprisingly Star Control-inspired space game with a keyword dialogue system, which, as Bubbles points out, "strongly discourage[s you] from choosing violent solutions."

Project Daedalus is a game with great potential: especially the diplomacy systems could, in theory, provide players with a large variety of complex and dynamic challenges. Unfortunately, it's still completely unclear to me how deep these systems will actually be. If the gameplay just boils down to a series of moon lander minigames, combined with quests along the lines of "find item x to pass through the gate", "ask species y about item x to find out where it's located" and "praise z to make peace", then the game could get boring very quickly. The randomized races are also a red flag for me; much of the charm of the Star Control II races derives from their careful design, which couldn't possibly be emulated by a randomizer that simply throws different traits together. And yet, there are also many positive signs to be found: making a roguelike that has diplomacy instead of combat as its main gameplay element is in itself a laudable choice. Additionally, the introduction of constant ship attrition strikes me as a clever way of implementing complex resource management and maintenance mechanics without having to offer a traditional ship upgrade system; that kind of system simply wouldn't fit the premise of this game. The crew traits also add a welcome measure of mystery to the gameplay: how exactly could an interest in "quirky cats" ever be relevant to space exploration? And finally, the developer's excellent taste in pop culture should also not be completely discounted. Could a game inspired by Star Control 2 and Farscape really be all that bad? (Full disclosure: he also asked for "Firefly fans" at one point, but I would interpret that more as a last ditch attempt at mainstream popularity. Naturally, all the uncultured swine in the room knew Firefly.)​

Next comes Hard West, a squad-based tactics game from Polish developer CreativeForge...

Kacper was the lead designer on Hard West, and he began by laying out the main features of his new game: Hard West was a turn based squad combat game with strategy elements, not entirely dissimilar to the new XCOM. It was set in the "Weird West", a version of the Wild West that was "full of supernatural elements, ghosts, demons, shit like that." The player would lead a squad of up to four characters through eight story-driven scenarios (a better term might be "mini-campaigns", since each scenario contains multiple missions) that all had different plot hooks. As one example, he mentioned an "expedition scenario" that involved leading a group of explorers on a search for the golden city in Latin America. The scenarios would feature a variety of protagonists; the gameplay would be focussed on combat, but it would also offer resource management and a healthy amount of choices&consequences. [...] Hard West is scheduled to be released later this year on PC, Mac, and Linux. Apart from my concerns about balance and atmosphere, the game seems to offer a fun variety of scenarios and an impressive range of interesting combat abilities, which is a rare combination in today's gaming landscape. I'll be keeping a cautious eye on it.​

...followed by another squad-tactical title, the (currently PC-exclusive) XCOM 2. I'll quote the important part.

The 2k lounge was busy and ostentatious. The walls were littered with framed soccer and basketball jerseys; the spaces in between were filled by large flat screen TVs that covered various sports and racing events. The bar was offering several varieties of coffee, most of them sold out. Almost all of the people in the booth seemed to be developer and publisher staff; they chatted loudly about the challenges of child rearing, the weather in Ireland, and the stress of having a long commute. Finally, I made my way towards the presentation booths. There were about two dozen booths, all of them managed by three receptionists whose job was to stand in a long corridor all day while holding a clipboard to check off the names of the booth visitors. You may wonder why these poor people were not allowed to take a seat at some point: perhaps it is enough of an answer to tell you that they were all tall, slim women in their early 20s, wearing extraordinarily tight red dresses. When I approached the woman in charge of the X-COM 2 presentation, she was in the process of giving a series of increasingly tight hugs to a grinning booth visitor while giggling girlishly and screaming "He's my husband! Naah, just kidding!" "That guy must be from IGN," I thought.

[...] This was easily the biggest waste of time of my Gamescom experience.​

Or was it? In this year Gamescom's perhaps most unexpected turn of events, Bubbles got to attend a press presentation of the Codex's most anticipated RPG of all (recent) time, Bethesda's Fallout 4. When arranging this presentation, I was curious to find out if we were still on Bethesda's blacklist; apparently not anymore. (Fallout 4 review by Vault Dweller, anyone?)

When Crooked Bee had finally managed to secure this booking for me, she gave me two tasks: to take as many pictures as possible, and to steal a Fallout 4 branded cup. I accomplished both of these tasks, and very little else.

[...] If there's a lesson to be learned here, it might go something like this: don't waste your time with bad games from bad companies. Zenimax didn't need to offer us interviews or in-person presentations. All it took were a guard, a cinema, and some t-shirts to make Fallout 4 the most well-attended and most well-received presentation of my Gamescom visit. This game was a commercial success from the moment it was announced; the question of quality never even figured into it.​

And finally, since Bubbles didn't want to end the report on the Fallout 4 note, he has some words to say about the indie space RPG The Mandate, complete with a mini-interview and a Eurogamer cameo:

The devs smiled and said that they had this well under control and were well funded. As they were speaking, I noticed a sudden movement from my right: my Eurogamer colleague had stopped packing and was now leaning forward in his seat, staring straight at the developers with a strange, hungry look in his eyes. He interrupted their answer: "You know, I'm not impressed by what I've seen here today. I've seen failure many times, and this looks like failure to me." Mr. Eurogamer went on to explain that he considered the scope of the gameplay to be vastly unrealistic; a game like this had "never been achieved before", and the devs had not convinced him that they could achieve it. The Mandate was "at least three games in one." (By the way: one of the presentation slides had also mentioned planetary exploration and away missions, although the devs had not been eager to talk about those aspects of the gameplay.)

Our interview partners did not seem prepared for this change in atmosphere; they were dead silent for a while, just listening to my colleague tearing them to shreds. If the Codex had made a remark like this, they could have just shrugged it off, but this was Eurogamer – they could not ignore him.

[...] I couldn't quite tell you if the Mandate devs are scam artists, if they are delusional, or if they're merely suffering from some truly incredibly bad luck; either way, there seems to be something deeply wrong with this project, and I'm very excited to see what's going to happen next.​

Read the full article: RPG Codex Report: Gamescom 2015 - Project Daedalus, Hard West, XCOM 2, The Mandate and Fallout 4
 

SausageInYourFace

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The violent death scenes got a few laughs. (..) the male protagonist was killing an endless stream of ghouls who were swarming at him from all directions in the middle of a ruined city. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Scores of feeble ghouls fell before the mighty Vault Dweller, some of them in slow motion. The guys around me whispered to their neighbours: "Whoa!" "Wow!" "Geil!". This was what they had come for. (..) Some people got up and gave a standing ovation. (..) All it took were a guard, a cinema, and some t-shirts to make Fallout 4 the most well-attended and most well-received presentation of my Gamescom visit. This game was a commercial success from the moment it was announced; the question of quality never even figured into it.

The current state of gaming in a nutshell. This is why we can't have nice things.
 
Weasel
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Another good read, thanks :salute:

and helped me get over my SCL questions not being asked :M


Think you're missing a word ("was"?) in this sentence:

XCOM 2's developer Firaxis was based in the 2k megabooth, which entirely too large for its own good.
 

Lhynn

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good read again, first paragraph has a typo i guess, a "yet" for instead of a "let" im thinking.

What is growing increasingly irritating about your articles Bubbles is that you feel the need to point out what could be unbalanced. I do not give a flying fuck about your opinion on that, i can make my own conclusions after reading what you wrote.
 
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Bubbles

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This confirms my fear that Mandate is indeed vaporware.

Between the devs' MMO background and the talk about "laying the groundwork for future RPGs", I suspect that we really will see something released eventually; it's just likely to be a greatly cut-down version of the original pitch.

By the way, here's the devs' description of the public hands-on at Gamescom::

Many different types of players were playing the demo and we noticed two distinct types of players who would play the demo: Casual Gamers and Core Gamers. Casual gamers seemed to check out the game briefly, while Core gamers who were more comfortable with Real Time Strategy games stayed and played for much longer.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1964463742/the-mandate/posts/1331158

I was a core gamer :salute:

What is growing increasingly irritating about your articles Bubbles is that you feel the need to point out what could be unbalanced. I do not give a flying fuck about your opinion on that, i can make my own conclusions after reading what you wrote.

I don't understand this post. Are you saying that I shouldn't have voiced my concerns about balance to the Hard West devs based on what I saw in the presentation? Do you think it was rude or inappropriate of me to address them? If I'd just stayed silent, then I wouldn't have learned about the luck mechanic, which I thought was informative. Do you mean that I shouldn't have reported on issues of balance, or that I simply should repeat what the devs say without commentary?
 

Lhynn

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I don't understand this post. Are you saying that I shouldn't have voiced my concerns about balance to the Hard West devs based on what I saw in the presentation? Do you think it was rude or inappropriate of me to address them? If I'd just stayed silent, then I wouldn't have learned about the luck mechanic, which I thought was informative. Do you mean that I shouldn't have reported on issues of balance, or that I simply should repeat what the devs say without commentary?
No, not at all, in fact i like that you did. What i dont care about is your own thoughts on the luck mechanic or how it will play in the finished game.
The "it remains to be seen" bit. i do not care about your conclusions.
 

Outlander

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Nice to see that K. Rosenkranz is back into gaming music, he explains in the video Bubbles linked that thanks to the album he successfully kickstarted he already got a few offers to do games soundtracks.
 

Raapys

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Nice writeup.

Hard West sounds the most promising, followed by Project Daedalus which could be a neat little title. Very disappointed with Mendate, but everyone saw it coming.
 
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Excidium II

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Hard West looks almost like an unlicensed Dadlands game. I even checked to see if it was same dev as Shadowrun Online Chronicles since it's similar in gameplay and some years ago they had the Deadlands license for a project that was cancelled apparently.
 
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Bubbles

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What is growing increasingly irritating about your articles Bubbles is that you feel the need to point out what could be unbalanced..

I checked back to be absolutely sure, and this was only the second time I gave my personal opinion about balance in any of my 26 Gamescom reports so far. You probably confused me with somebody else (Grunker? Roxor?) and I understand that completely, but I hope you can see why I was so confused by your point.
 
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Excidium II

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The fallout 4 thing sounds like insanity. I could say bubbles exaggerated it for lulz if times weren't like they are.
 

Bumvelcrow

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I checked back to be absolutely sure, and this was only the second time I gave my personal opinion about balance in any of my 26 Gamescom reports so far. You probably confused me with somebody else (Grunker? Roxor?) and I understand that completely, but I hope you can see why I was so confused by your point.

Ignore, Bubbles, ignore. It was a great read - humour and despair in equal measure delivered in that style that must now be known as 'Bubble-esque', or perhaps 'Bubblicious'. I'm now firmly of the opinion that no good games will ever be released in the future and I should just get on with replaying the ones I already have, or perhaps become a hermit or a sociopath.

Exceptionally disappointed about The Mandate, as that really sounded like something special (and I even backed it, more fule me). Project Daedalus started off sounding interesting, but the whole randomised aliens and 'press X to praise iron' is giving me mobile-game vibes. Hard West could be fun, if they can get the tone and strategy right. The graphics look like they're heavily influenced by Darkest Dungeon.

Anyway, time to succumb to that nihilistic oblivion known as sleep. Looking forward to the next instalment.
 
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Bubbles

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I'm now firmly of the opinion that no good games will ever be released in the future and I should just get on with replaying the ones I already have, or perhaps become a hermit or a sociopath.

Thanks, that's all I could have hoped for.

Should have stolen and sold them on ebay at an exorbitant price. Imagine the number of Fallout cups you could buy with that money.

Well, I did get two t-shirts, but I don't want to contribute to the Fallout 4 publicity machine in any way. I'll probably use them the next time I need to repaint my flat.
 
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