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Womyn Capote
Jul 5, 2004




Subnautica is a (currently) single player survival game with a theme that sets it apart from the rest of the genre in that it is set in a vast ocean world and takes place almost entirely under water. The core of the game seems very familiar; You start in a tiny bubble of an escape pod floating in a vast sea and have to scrounge up resources to fabricate food and shelter while fending off hostile wildlife. I think it's very immersive both in terms of graphics and sound design, and I don't think I've had such an enjoyable game-feel experience of diving since Endless Ocean on the Wii.

Womyn Capote fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Jul 11, 2016

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queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



this is a really good game.

Skeletome
Feb 4, 2011

Tell them about the tournament!

it looks cool

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



RedHotKick posted:

it looks cool

it is, you can catch fish with your bare hands and cook em

ArbitraryTA
May 3, 2011
If I start playing this game does it just automatically upload my gameplay footage to youtube in 10 minute chunks?

Maggot Soup
Aug 18, 2005

queeb posted:

it is, you can catch fish with your bare hands and cook em

You can even eat them raw, right after you catch them. Minus the hydration penalty.

Tujague
May 8, 2007

by LadyAmbien
I just don't know how many more bases I can build in video games

Anaxite
Jan 16, 2009

What? What'd you say? Stop channeling? I didn't he-
I bought Subnautica last night and gave it a try.

It's not bad; a lot of the mechanics seem relatively simple, which makes it easy to work with. I wasn't sure how a non-random map would work but there's enough variety in the world to experiment. The base-building mechanic seems like it could stand to have more polish but, to its credit, it works.

Some good:
  • Hasn't crashed yet.
  • Looks pretty! The water effects they recently overhauled work really well, and the underwater vegetation seems well-modeled.
  • You can build some pretty-neat looking bases. And thankfully, you can put blueprints down or start building before you have the materials. I'm still experimenting.
  • I appreciate the different game modes, especially since food and water may get really tedious to some people after a while.

Some bad:
  • The usual list of unpolished bugs that an early build has: collision detection, missing in-game effects, lighting inconsistencies...
  • Pop-in. Oh god, the pop-in. Why is it blocking I/O? The most tense part of the game was not what horrors may lurk in unknown areas, but whether the game will pop in something really dangerous or annoying right in my face; the game freezes when it loads visual assets and terrain. It doesn't help that assets aren't loaded in while they're still out of visual range, in the fog! Someone really should tweak the LOD settings before release.
  • Can't make a saddle and ride my space manatee

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
The recommended settings option apparently has really bad pop in, experimental is a bit better.

Anaxite
Jan 16, 2009

What? What'd you say? Stop channeling? I didn't he-
Yeah, some guy recording a playthrough said the same thing. Experimental is a bit better, but could still stand to be improved.

Untrustable
Mar 17, 2009





The sound design in this game is fantastic. I'm playing on my tv with the surround sound and those massive swimming reefs? Or whatever they're called sound terrifying.

Right now my biggest issue is the super long nights because I'm a huge wuss and really don't want to go outside at night even with the flood light and a proper knife.

juggalo baby coffin
Dec 2, 2007

How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?


Its really nice and I've been having a lot of fun with this game. I got my little moon pool built and a little submarine to tootle around in. It's very relaxing.

Anaxite
Jan 16, 2009

What? What'd you say? Stop channeling? I didn't he-
It's unfortunate that aside from the Wreck parts, there aren't really renewable resources yet -- or if there are, I've yet to find them.

Pararoid
Dec 6, 2005

Te Waipounamu pride
This game is really great; if you like survival games at all this is a good one.

I'd personally say it's worth playing now, I picked it up earlier in the week and I still feel like there are things I haven't seen yet 18 hours in, but of course it will only get better if you can hold off.

Another thing to mention is that this is the first new game from the people who made Natural Selection. NS2 had some issues but they are really cool devs and I'd be willing to recommend the game just based on that alone, although the game itself can totally stand on its own in this case.

Chexoid
Nov 5, 2009

Now that I have this dating robot I can take it easy.
I have really high hopes for this game. Exploring a cool alien ocean and building a little base is maybe my ideal game.

Ever since the H20 graphical update though, the games been crashing every time I try and start a new game. It looks like I'm not the only one though so hopefully something Happens soon.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
What do you mean crashing? it often seems like the game is crashing but you just have to keep waiting for it to load.

The game is really fun and once you feel like you don't know what to do, go onto the wiki, specifically look up the biomes. Look for new things to explore. I'm currently trying to get into the lava caves. I found the entrance to the really extensive one and immediately got lost and had to load a save.

Yoda
Dec 11, 2003

A Jedi I am

I bought this game during the Steam Christmas sale. I have since logged 26 hours in it, and will probably spend more in a few months when some substantial new updates have been released. I am quite happy with my purchase, and would certainly recommend it to anyone, just maybe not quite yet.

As an early access game, that 26 hours I logged, it allowed me to explore, craft and survive just about everything the game has to offer, at which point the game becomes more of an aquarium then something you, well, play.

That's not to say early access is a bad thing here. The game is beautiful and the developers are engaged with the community, with a solid roadmap, frequent updates and bugfixes, and are relatively on time with new features. So in this case don't shy away from the early access, but do take it for what it is.

The world of the game is a static map, not very large in surface area but considering the vertical nature of some of the zones that's not entirely a bad thing. The map is broken into zones, many of which have multiple segments, each of which is inhabited by it's own unique flora and fauna. Throughout exploration and gathering you will unlock the ability to craft various survival tools, habitats and vehicles while nurturing four stats, Health, O2, Hunger and Thirst. Some of this is fun, engaging gameplay, some of it is novel at first and becomes grating fast.

An example of awesomeness:
You can craft flares and wires to navigate through caves, using custom built O2 tanks to allow you to explore for a couple minutes before backtracking to an O2 source (such as your custom built submarine), fending off sandsharks that are attracted to your flare and flashlights brightness, while scouring for scarce resources and research data needed to get to the next stage.

An example of not-so-awesome:
That food bar you need to fill, you fill it by eating fish. Fish that don't (or very, very slowly) respawn. I hunted the starting area to extinction, and found myself having to travel further and further every few game days to catch an inventory full of fish to cure so that I didn't die. Although I see a place for hunger and thirst in this game, especially in the beginning when the most basic aspects of survival are harshest, they desperately need to alleviate over fishing. Likewise resources you need a whole lot of, like quartz (used to make rubber and glass) can become sparse very quickly, and searching for them becomes more of a chore than a joy.

Neither of these things became that big of a problem for me, however, because the limited amount of things to build/discover in the game leads you to being an underwater god very quickly. In about 10 hours of gameplay you can have your own base, with moonpool dock for your minisub, storage, crafting, nuclear generators, etc set up on underwater floating islands, a giant sub to take anywhere else as a mobile base, and have every piece of technology researched and crafted, fix the main ship, explore a good amount of caves, and kill everything that's smaller than you.

They are adding areas, and fleshing out areas that exist but have no content, such as an underwater river and the underground lava zone (lava castles under the deep reef under the grand reef, fun to get to but nothing once you're there). They have already overhauled the way research is obtained in game, and are adding mechanisms to make it more challenging and fun.

Where this game really shines is the atmosphere. Oh god the atmosphere. You can chill, safe from harm, just enjoying yourself, learning to ignore the creepy music because it's everywhere and nothing comes form it, when BAM you're eaten. There are things you will learn, the creatures that can attack you do have certain behaviors. The earliest predators you deal with, they are attracted to metal. Have one chasing you, drop a ship hull and it will attack it instead. Sandsharks love light, so throw a flare then swim away. A lot of the danger is real, but survivable. Most things have patterns, can be avoided and fled from. At some point in the game however you get a rifle that makes everything fit into one of three classes. Annoying (pirhanas that swarm you, don't do any major damage but gently caress they are everywhere and gently caress I just want this drat sandstone gently caress okay i'm leaving), Used to be a real concern but now dead (sharks), and leviathans (basically instant death, unless you are in a specially rigged mini sub made to escape them, and nigh unkillable). After this point the atmosphere almost breaks into more of just "explore here, have all tech build cool base leave game".

Dusty Lens
Jul 1, 2015

All Glory unto the Stimpire. Give up your arms and legs and embrace the beautiful agony of electricity that doubles in pain every second.

I love subnautica. The atmosphere is fantastic and the exploration feels rewarding. A mystical underwater world where everything is screaming away at the top of their lungs.

The conflict is in this being a game that I feel would be best experienced when it's finished. Right now it's something of a breathtaking magical forest where the trees turn to cardboard cutouts after you pretty past the wrong river and the gameplay elements still feel indev. If you do not mind kicking things around and running through some of the same motions multiple times as they rebuild the game a few times I think it's a very good purchase.

If you want to enjoy the experience of everything working as intended it might be worth waiting a while.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
Once you get the basics of the stable version down, I highly suggest moving to experimental beta version. The experimental builds have all the newest content. The game is updated several times per day. it's not always content, it's usually just tweaks and fixes, every once in a while something new is added. It currently has large aquariums and farming. Farming means you can plant kelp and mushrooms outside your base. This means endless amounts of kelp and kelp seeds which means endless amounts of fibers, lubricant, and silicone rubber. You can also plant acid mushrooms which means lots of batteries if you can get enough copper. There are other plants that are scattered throughout the game that you can plant but don't really have much use as of yet. There are water plants as well as land plants. You plant the former outside, and the latter in your base.

Large aquariums are build inside a multipurpose room. These allow fish to reproduce. Fish will reproduce until there are 10 fish in the tank. 10 is not the overall limit, it's just the limit for reproducing. Large aquariums can be stacked. So if you build several multipurpose rooms on top of each other, you can build large aquariums in each one. The aquariums span the entire height of your stack of rooms. Each aquarium adds to the reproductive limit. A double height aquarium with Reginalds inside will spawn enough fish to keep you constantly fed.

There are also eggs. Eggs allow you to get larger creatures into your aquarium. Things like stalkers.

Those farming update is supposed to release to stable sometime this month. that solves the food problem. Water is solved by crafting a stillsuit and having a water filtration device.

The main things you need in this game are titanium, quartz and copper. Titanium is easy to get, it's literally everywhere. Pick up scraps of ship and turn it into titanium. The easiest place is near wrecks. Quartz is kind of rare at the beginning of the game but you eventually will find areas that provide nearly endless amounts of it. You just have to find them. Copper is harder because you can only get it from busting up rocks, mostly in the kelp biomes.

Once you get the hang of the game, it's really easy to quickly get set up and scan all the fragments you need for blueprints. Then you just have to explore the world. There are plenty of things to explore and they are always adding more stuff.

I should note, there's two things called experimental in this game. One is the experimental graphics setting, that's not what I'm talking about. The experimental builds are gotten by choosing the experimental beta through steam.

JuffoWup
Mar 28, 2012

Cojawfee posted:

Once you get the basics of the stable version down, I highly suggest moving to experimental beta version. The experimental builds have all the newest content. The game is updated several times per day. it's not always content, it's usually just tweaks and fixes, every once in a while something new is added. It currently has large aquariums and farming. Farming means you can plant kelp and mushrooms outside your base. This means endless amounts of kelp and kelp seeds which means endless amounts of fibers, lubricant, and silicone rubber. You can also plant acid mushrooms which means lots of batteries if you can get enough copper. There are other plants that are scattered throughout the game that you can plant but don't really have much use as of yet. There are water plants as well as land plants. You plant the former outside, and the latter in your base.

Large aquariums are build inside a multipurpose room. These allow fish to reproduce. Fish will reproduce until there are 10 fish in the tank. 10 is not the overall limit, it's just the limit for reproducing. Large aquariums can be stacked. So if you build several multipurpose rooms on top of each other, you can build large aquariums in each one. The aquariums span the entire height of your stack of rooms. Each aquarium adds to the reproductive limit. A double height aquarium with Reginalds inside will spawn enough fish to keep you constantly fed.

There are also eggs. Eggs allow you to get larger creatures into your aquarium. Things like stalkers.

Those farming update is supposed to release to stable sometime this month. that solves the food problem. Water is solved by crafting a stillsuit and having a water filtration device.

The main things you need in this game are titanium, quartz and copper. Titanium is easy to get, it's literally everywhere. Pick up scraps of ship and turn it into titanium. The easiest place is near wrecks. Quartz is kind of rare at the beginning of the game but you eventually will find areas that provide nearly endless amounts of it. You just have to find them. Copper is harder because you can only get it from busting up rocks, mostly in the kelp biomes.

Once you get the hang of the game, it's really easy to quickly get set up and scan all the fragments you need for blueprints. Then you just have to explore the world. There are plenty of things to explore and they are always adding more stuff.

I should note, there's two things called experimental in this game. One is the experimental graphics setting, that's not what I'm talking about. The experimental builds are gotten by choosing the experimental beta through steam.

That sounds fantastic once it gets there. RIght now, my issue is the cyclops. The idea behind it seems awesome. The idea of it recharging your seamoth also sounds awesome. The idea you can't park it next to some power units to recharge bothers me to no end. I do hope respawning of materials comes in eventually. Also, a better weapon than a survival knife would be amazing as well.

Untrustable
Mar 17, 2009





I finally built the cyclops and just wanted to let everyone know that left click blows the horn, and it is amazing. Also now that I've pretty much built everything I'm playing wreck hunter and using a cutting torch to enter sealed rooms on mysterious shipwrecks. Also heads up near the floating islands there's a shipwreck with a placeable Natural Selection 2 poster inside.

spider wisdom
Nov 4, 2011

og data bandit

JuffoWup posted:

Also, a better weapon than a survival knife would be amazing as well.

This definitely exists.

JuffoWup
Mar 28, 2012

spider wisdom posted:

This definitely exists.

the freeze gun and propulsion cannon are all I'm aware of. I know you can upgrade the knife, but my main issue is reach. I suppose there is seamoth torps as well.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
A way to recharge power cells is being worked on. Used to be you could put solar panels on the cyclops. They removed that without adding another way to charge the cyclops.

HookedOnChthonics
Dec 5, 2015

Profoundly dull


Grabbed this on a whim, very much enjoying it.

This game has an amazingly strong sense of place--the lighting in particular does a great job of making the underwater environments feel alternately claustrophobic and terrifyingly infinite. The variety in atmosphere between different environments is also pretty striking, which is great because seeing new sights is still the primary reward and motivation for play.

I dig the base fabrication, particularly how easy it is to sprawl out and run ridiculous habitrail labyrinths all over the map (whoever made the call that climbing ladders should be instantaneous deserves a raise). Also find it pretty amusing that in a total reversal from the typical survival-crafting norm gold and diamonds are utter trash and copper is the prized resource I never have enough of.

The weakest part for me is currently the aggressive wildlife. The 3-dimensional nature of the environment and the constant visibility restrictions lead to attacks that feel totally out of nowhere way too often, and like other posters I still only have a puny little dive knife for protection despite having been rolling around in a Cyclops for hours and hours. The little red piranha guys and exploding suicide fish in particular feel entirely like video game enemies placed around the environment to hinder a player and not predators in an ecosystem.


Only major bug I've run into so far was a random Seamoth despawn that drowned me.

JamieTheD
Nov 4, 2011

LPer, Reviewer, Mad Welshman

(Yes, that's a self portrait)
Love Subnautica, my only real bitch is that, since I've got a fair few "Big" (Long) games to review this week, I find it hard to find the time to alternately chill out and have moments of pants wetting terror. I covered it before the farming update hit, and will be doing so again, as per site policy (SPOILER WARNING: There is a photo in that article of a fish you may not necessarily meet in your first few hours), and I've mostly been enjoying the hell out of it, with perhaps the exception of having to find Solar Panels. I usually find the Bioreactor first, and that annoys me (I just don't like Bioreactors.)

Still, can't wait until ships get a bigger deal, although the base building has already shown some hefty signs of improvement (FARMING, YEAAAAAHHHH!), and, pop in aside, god-drat they make that Blue Planet look good.

Carecat
Apr 27, 2004

Buglord
This performs a hundred times better after I moved it to my SSD. It was pretty bad on a normal HD.

NoNotTheMindProbe
Aug 9, 2010
pony porn was here

JamieTheD posted:

I've mostly been enjoying the hell out of it, with perhaps the exception of having to find Solar Panels.


Go to the kelp forest near the crashed spaceship's engines. You'll need a rad-suit first, but I found that lots of Solar Panel and Sea Glide modules spawn there.

Beefeater1980
Sep 12, 2008

My God, it's full of Horatios!






I love playing this in creative mode. I always wanted a seabase, and now I can build one.

Atoramos
Aug 31, 2003

Jim's now a Blind Cave Salamander!


This game is one of the best games for the Oculus Rift I've experienced.

S w a y z e
Mar 19, 2007

f l a p

Wanted to add my love for this game. The variety needs work still but the atmosphere is like no other game I've played. Parts of the game aren't challenging enough yet, like research or base strategy. I'd love for the Leviathan and who knows what else to pay a visit to your base now and then, if only to actually make you deal with the flooding mechanic.

7c Nickel
Apr 27, 2008
I was kind of skeptical when I first heard what UW was doing, but man this looks great now. I really hope this does well for them when it makes it's way out of early access.

N17R4M
Aug 18, 2012

Because yes we actually DID want that land

JuffoWup posted:

That sounds fantastic once it gets there. RIght now, my issue is the cyclops. The idea behind it seems awesome. The idea of it recharging your seamoth also sounds awesome. The idea you can't park it next to some power units to recharge bothers me to no end. I do hope respawning of materials comes in eventually. Also, a better weapon than a survival knife would be amazing as well.

I'm 99.9% certain that materials respawn after some time, or once you leave the are/look away. In my experience they do at least, just not in the exact same locations.

7c Nickel
Apr 27, 2008
I bit. (it is a fishing joke)

NoNotTheMindProbe
Aug 9, 2010
pony porn was here

JuffoWup posted:

That sounds fantastic once it gets there. RIght now, my issue is the cyclops. The idea behind it seems awesome. The idea of it recharging your seamoth also sounds awesome. The idea you can't park it next to some power units to recharge bothers me to no end. I do hope respawning of materials comes in eventually. Also, a better weapon than a survival knife would be amazing as well.

The devs are working on a docking extension for your base where the Cyclops can park and get recharged. Also, resources definitely respawn. I've found it's best to maintain a few base sites and cycle between them as you work on projects.

7c Nickel
Apr 27, 2008


Very zen.

7c Nickel
Apr 27, 2008
40% off for the next few days on Steam.

GenericOverusedName
Nov 24, 2009

KUVA TEAM EPIC
Bought this game. It is chill and good. And occasionally loving terrifying. I haven't set up a base yet, but I've noticed that my escape pod thing is drifting...

E: Oh wow, just had a solar eclipse occur.

GenericOverusedName fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Mar 16, 2016

Azhais
Feb 5, 2007
Switchblade Switcharoo
Just started this since it was 40% off. The pod drifts? I guess me thinking it seemed like a further hike to the fabricator wasn't just in my head. I WISH I COULD FIND ANOTHER SOLAR PANEL FRAGMENT :argh:

I've found about 400 bioreactor fragments tho, if only I could find a mushroom forest in my immediate vicinity.

Azhais fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Mar 16, 2016

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Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
Swim to the north east. You probably don't have a compass so from the safe shallows, surface and look to the Aurora. Turn to the left a bit and start swimming that way.

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