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 Pył (literaly Dust) is a 1999 game published by Nexus, a Polish company that released exactly one game before getting killed off by Optimus SA, its parent company that acquired it, rebranded to Optimus Nexus, then shut down to eliminate a competitor (more of it in a separate post). It has failed to sell, for a laundry list of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it was published by a moribund company slated for the grinder and the developers raced against time to complete the product and release it. WHAT MAKES IT GLORIOUS EUROJANK? By the standards of 1999 it had passable graphics (it's not Half-Life or Sin, but it works. But, it's not the graphics or aesthetics, or even decent sound design. It's the gameplay: It was envisioned as a multilayered adventure game, and diverged from the kind of FPS gameplay at the time by forcing the player to advance slowly and deliberately, making every bullet count, and scavenge for supplies near constantly. Firefights are brief and brutal, enemies are durable, smart, and hit incredibly hard, and half the time you're going to come out worse for the wear, as healing is rare and biostims you can use on-demand are even rare. Oh, and if you manage to get shot up to the point your implant shows red, you'll get blurry vision, reticle wandering, and general unpleasantness. Second is the story. Inspired by a combination of Asimov and James White's Sector General, the story is told primarily through environments and loading screen notes. Our intrepid hero is Sope, a washed-up former soldier who just wants to find something on Arena to retire properly after his unit was wiped out. The story is sparse and requires filling bits in - given the almost literal deadline, the developers had to cut much of the game, including open-world sections crossing the Arena on board a walker, a whole subplot involving Sope's war buddy, Jafo, and that's despite pulling 10-12 hour shifts in a rented office space in a building belonging to a shutting down steel mill. The biggest issue with Pył is that it was not future-proofed at all. It's built around a very janky proprietary engine literally built by one of the lead devs while still going through technical school (third year, to be specific, around 22 years of age), with 3Dfx acceleration, and no DirectX. In fact, the publisher told them not to bother with DirectX, as "the future is MMX". Even the 3Dfx support is a miracle, as the devs had one (1) Voodoo between them four and somehow managed to make it work out of the box. In 2023, Pył will not run on any Windows newer than Win98. It won't, period. The only way to launch it is either by arduous fiddling with DOSBox or using a pre-configured package obtained from Russian hackers with emulated accelerators (one of the original devs even gave up on trying to convert Pył to Unity, because that package surfaced). Oh, and it's also impossible to obtain it legally, as while the IP passed to Onet, the company had no interest in continuing to publish the game or republish it on eg. GOG.com. Pył is also obscure enough that companies like Night Dive won't bother with it. I have the distinction of owning an original CD, but it's mostly a curio and a relic, due to the above.  Concept art of the main character. A style I love and feels like Jean Giraud, except born to the misery of Eastern Europe and alcoholic. WHAT TO EXPECT Here's where I come in. The LP will be a hybrid screenshot/video hopefully, in the style of Sope's journal. I'll include profiles of guns and enemies as I come across them, trying also to make some sense of the game's story and progression, as well as any observations that come to mind. I plan to intertwine the posts with whatever behind-the-scenes material I can find. I'll try to keep to a biweekly schedule since this lovely piece of Eurojank requires care and attention to play, and I've got two jobs to work and a kid to raise. I'll be posting recordings to YouTube, starting with the intro. Note that the official English version is bad. Not hilariously so, just bad, so I'll also be translating the game as I go. THE STORY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQ1ddnpr5s The intro is something that the devs used as a motivator to keep them interested and working. The year is 2798. Another year of imperial crisis, in which more planets arrive on the dark precipice of utter barbarity. Billions of human lives will be again consumed in the raging fires of wars of unimaginable proportions. Wars which long ago spiraled out of control of the Imperial Peacekeeping Forces. You are, or rather were, a soldier of an elite Imperial Light Cavalry regiment. Corruption among commanders led to a complete rout and disintegration of your corps during one of the countless private wars over food supplies, on a backwater agricultural planet. Your proud unit was wiped out by a mass of starving and desperate peasants, armed with homemade blasters and electric flails... Money made by selling off your kit and back pay allowed you to reach the Arena, a desert moon orbiting a gas giant nicknamed the Big Brother. Arena was one of several planets used by the Empire to keep the peace. All interplanetary conflicts were resolved on planets like these, where belligerents fought under the supervision of Imperial Peacekeeping Forces - all to prevent escalation. Time showed that it was a vain effort. Now, Arena is a haven for outcasts and criminals, coming from all corners of the galaxy hoping to find some weapon, vehicle, or data bank - technologies that would grant them money and power, or at least a safe way off the Arena. This hope also becomes your lot. SOME IMAGES        END NOTES If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please post them. This is my second LP and first on SA, and I'm too old to be proud about it. Especially the format: Pył is a very dark game, literally, and I'm not sure if the screenshots are legible. Big thanks to VERY COOL MAN, MonsieurChoc, General Revil, Rocket Baby Dolls, and PurpleXVI for expressing interest. Hope I won't disappoint too badly. Addendum: Well, I janked the thread title, ain't I smart. Sign of things to come I guess. Tagaziel fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 11, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2023 20:52
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Anastasia Station Part One: Sope vs. Ladder BONUS SECTION 1. The Authentic Pył Experience or Tagaziel Tries Taping and Everything Goes Sideways Tagaziel fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2023 20:53
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This sounds rad as hell and like a total nightmare to play Is it a linear story or are there choices you can make?
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Jan 12, 2023 05:57
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There are optional paths to take most of the time, but it's also nonsensically linear in parts. The second location will have a most confusing event in the first five minutes. I can't really blame the devs. I dug up some old Polish mags and the reviews spanned from 38% (bad) to five stars (utterly rad!), most unaware that this was a game that was made with a proverbial gun to their heads, while the publisher was dismantled by Optimus SA. Speaking of Optimus, I threw together a primer for those interested in how Poland behaved after 1989: Optimus SA is an IT company that was founded in 1988 by Roman Kluska, presently a multi-millionaire and one of the richest Poles in the country, and a corporation that could very well have been a global player to rival HP and other brands... If it wasn't for the fact that Poland was a playground for foreign money after 1989 and you can't have strong local brands competing, now can you? In the course of the 1990s, Optimus became the industry leader for IT in Poland, starting as a software company and gradually expanding to hardware sales and assembly. It expanded rapidly, despite the shock therapy, and by 1992 it was selling assembled PCs abroad in England and the Netherlands, cooperating with IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and NEC. The largest contract was 20,000 assembled PCs sold to Philips and Sanyo. Then it added digital cash registers, code scanners, and electronic scales. 1996 saw expansion into the Net, with the foundation of OptimusNet, first a phonebook of URLs, then a news and entertainment website, which survives to this day as Onet.pl. Optimus Nexus was a sideline, experimenting with gamedev, and Pył was their only child, as Optimus bought Nexus only to kill it off and eliminate a competitor (they Zucc'd it before Zuccing was a thing).You know, just in case you think there are good guys and bad guys here, it's only bad and worse. By 2000 it had a massive 13.1% market share and the conglomerate encompassed 30 companies, with three occupying the top spot in their respective market sectors (Optimus SA in hardware, Optimus IC SA in cash registers, and Onet.pl in the Internet space). As the largest domestic company, it also gets a public contract for supplying computers to schools (it's a national program for a country of >35 million people, so a lot of money is involved). However, Kluska resigned as CEO that year and sold off his shares at sub-market prices, because of what he called "dirty political deals". Then things get interesting. Eastern European interesting. Optimus coasts along and generates massive income, ... Then Kluska gets arrested in 2002, in the wee hours of the morning, and charged with tax fraud. He's accused of defrauding the treasury for 30 million PLN, by avoiding paying VAT on computers produced by the company. The investigation started after the Polish IRS reported suspicion of fraud in 2000 and ran for two years. The whole scheme in question is honestly stupid, especially for someone who started a company that grew to such a size and prominence and illustrates how crazy Poland was after 1989 and how servile the new regime was to foreign interests. To provide computers to Polish schools at competitive prices, Optimus had an assembly plant in Slovakia. Rather than assemble computers domestically and sell them to schools, Kluska elected to assemble them in Slovakia, then import them. This was technically legal and was done to avoid having to pay VAT, as the law was set up in a manner that forced companies to pay VAT on computers assembled domestically (22%), but direct imports were VAT-free (0%). Yes, you read that right, Poland after 1989 set up its law to favor foreign companies and interests, and penalize Polish companies. I can't divine what Kluska was thinking, but I believe it's a combination of a laissez-faire mentality, a screwed-up tax code, and a hustling mindset. Kluska was cleared of all charges next year and even got a token amount of money as reparation, but the damage was already done. The Polish IRS did not just arrest Kluska, it also seized Optimus assets, which sent the company into freefall. By the end of 2003 it lost about 60% of business (632 million PLN income reduced to 217 million). Although the courts ultimately decided that the import scheme was not fraud and the investigation was closed, it never recovered. The Wrocław-based JTT Computer was also wiped out in the crackdown, effectively destroying Polish domestic assembly capabilities. The clincher? In the next couple of years, American giants HP and Dell swooped in and set up their own assembly factories, gobbling up the market share. Meanwhile, Optimus continued as a zombie company, eventually bought out by CD Projekt, which then replaced it on the Warsaw Stock Market, bypassing the IPO requirements in 2011. The most interesting fact is that we have no idea who was responsible for engineering the fall of Optimus. Kluska made vague references to "special services" (Poland followed the Russian pattern of building capitalism, so it's possible), while most just blame it on the "gubbmint". I don't buy the claim that it was just the Polish IRS going rogue, as destroying a strong Polish company ran counter to national interests, especially on the eve of entering the European Union. Notably, at around the same time we had anoother scandal, involving Lew Rywin (major media presence and multiple millionaire), tied to corruption attempts and engineering a hostile takeover of Polsat by Agora, two major media companies, as well as passing media legislation favorable to his companies. It erupted in 2002, the same year that Kluska and Optimus got mauled. The government then got handed a stunning electoral defeat in 2005, ushering a right-wing two-party system that lasts to this day. Honestly, now that I put it to paper, it seems likely to me that the whole scheme was intentionally set up to weaken the Polish industry and the government as the negotiations for EU accession ended and the treaty was about to be signed. Also worth noting that SLD, which replaced the right-wing, neoliberal AWS-UW government after the 2001 elections, had to deal with the fallout from hardcore neoliberal policies enacted by that government that culminated in nearly 20% unemployment by 2002 and only started to decline after entry to the EU (primarily attributed to people finding work abroad). Notably, nobody was punished for killing the computer industry in Poland and allowing for foreign corporations to take it over. People responsible for it went on to make regular careers and earn accolades for their work.
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Jan 12, 2023 08:31
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That's a proper 90s intro video. Although I did think the drawn portraits at the end were a nice added touch.
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Jan 12, 2023 10:47
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Tagaziel posted:Yes, you read that right, Poland after 1989 set up its law to favor foreign companies and interests, and penalize Polish companies. Super looking forward to the LP, though. I've heard of this game existing (and being compared to the rather underwhelming Czech releases of that time) but never seen any of it. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 15:42
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UPDATE -1 Not a proper update, but I think it's important to understand the general experience of the majority of gamers who tried Pył back in the day. This recording is a test for the purposes of the LP, and it inadvertently turned into something very authentic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJi1DKUBLMA  So the game starts up, I go through the options (realism is spelled reality, I am aware of that), I notice a few more screw-ups in the translation (note: the original had Sope introducing himself as a Cavalryman, I decided to use Dragoon instead, as Cavalryman sounded not as natural as the original kawalerzysta, and Dragoon embodies the spirit of the Imperial infantry Sope served in), skip ahead, decide to test the level regardless.   Sope arrives on location. Though the game is written around Sope being alone, as you'll see in the "proper" update, you can see him waving to someone and getting a rifle thrown down to him. I believe this to be a relic of one of the original drafts, where Sope was traveling around with Jafo (named after the acronym from Blue Thunder, Just Another loving Observer), and would try to escape Arena together with him.  First enemy, I forget that the rifle is set to five-round burst (one fifth of your magazine gone with one trigger pull, and the recoil is impossible), get shot in the rear end for my trouble, but the rifle takes him down quickly after switching down to single fire mode (more on that in the proper update).  The hangar. I follow the instructions, fall back, whip out the scope, shoot some poor sap on the catwalk in the brain, take out a Nomad and a Crazy, then another Nomad fills me with lead putting me at near death (the rifle has zero spread and no crosshair, and I forgot about the scope).  This is not how Pył should be played. If you watch the video, you can plainly see how the enemies move and how I'm fighting the gun mechanics and waste shots trying to nail him.  I take him down, look around with my vision swimming and probably a couple of organs taking their first peek at the outside world, then the last Crazy runs up and shoves a stick of dynamite up my rear. This is the authentic Pył experience. I mean it. During one of the first press demos, three of the four devs were trying to show the game off to the journalists. Problem is, none of them had much experience playing it, as the engine creator and lead designer, Jarosław Świerczek was unavailable. They were unable to get through the hangar and kept getting killed. They tried to salvage the situation by calling Jarosław, who tried to give them cheat codes for immortality and such, but this apparently didn't work and the first demo earned Pył the title of the hardest game known to man among Polish gaming mags. (and yes, the engine does struggle with rendering multiple sources of light and particle effects, even when emulated on a modern gaming laptop that does not want for processing power)
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Jan 13, 2023 23:01
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Holy poo poo, I remember this game. It's from the ancient times before Painkiller and Witcher when almost all Polish games were unplayable crap and Polish video game journalists tried very hard to convince us otherwise.
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Jan 13, 2023 23:18
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Oh, no! Textures in Russian! "Protect state secrets" "Energy"
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Jan 14, 2023 12:01
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Good lord, this is the kind of game I'd almost expect to see in a civvie11 video or similar. This is going to be an interesting watch.
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Jan 14, 2023 13:39
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The aiming from the side of the screen thing is certainly a choice
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Jan 14, 2023 18:34
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Slaan posted:The aiming from the side of the screen thing is certainly a choice You get used to it, surprisingly enough, in the same way your body gets used to poison. Sounds inconceivable, but that's the way it is. Szarrukin posted:Holy poo poo, I remember this game. It's from the ancient times before Painkiller and Witcher when almost all Polish games were unplayable crap and Polish video game journalists tried very hard to convince us otherwise. Yep! From the dark/awesome time when we had legendary classics like Mortyr or Target!  Cooked Auto posted:Good lord, this is the kind of game I'd almost expect to see in a civvie11 video or similar. This is going to be an interesting watch. It's an even more interesting play. If, like me, you like weird games that try for the moon and wind up drilling into the earth's core. Something keeps me drawn to it. SelenicMartian posted:Oh, no! Textures in Russian! There's more coming 
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Jan 26, 2023 21:25
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UPDATE 1 - SOPE VS. LADDER Finally, a proper update, and finally Sope can begin his adventure on the Arena! This update is available both in screenshot and in recorded form on the You's of Tubes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30oBJEsbzw8 A couple of disclaimers: I ran it by my friends and there are issues with my microphone, for which I apologize, subsequent videos will have better quality. It's also my first time actually marrying voice to video, so if anyone has useful tips, then please share! There are moments when sound does not sync properly with the game. After testing, it's an issue with the game, not the recording. Eurojank wouldn't be what it is without jankiness, no?     Pył loads with the logo of the late Optimus Nexus and jumps directly into the main menu. I'm actually quite fond of the design. I believe it's meant to emulate either the control panel of the walker (or Jumper in Pył parlance), or Sope's personal comms, with what I assume to be the regimental mascot in the corner. The design is perfectly functional and clear, which is more than I can say for far, far too many menus in modern games. After a quick check, we're good to go. Fun fact: Pył's mouse and keyboard layout can be freely edited, except for quick load and quick save buttons. Somehow, years ago, I managed to screw up the save button, and had to reset to default, then remap the game. Oh, and it nuked one of the recording attempts. All in a day's work.       Intro posted:I am a Dragoon. My elite squad was wiped out by a band of rebels on a backwater agricultural planet. Chaos reigns  of exposition. I had to retranslate the game from Polish, since the original English version made Soviets speaking with a Russian accent sound like native New Yorkers. Virtually the entire story is told through loading screens, with little in the way of cutscenes or in-game story events. I'll try to fill in the gaps and suss out the intended story as best I can, because otherwise it's nigh impossible to understand. At times even if you know what's going to happen, it still won't make sense. But back to Sope.Intro posted:It's difficult to catch a break on the Arena, but I managed to get an in with an indep excavation team led by Rupert. He owns a mobile platform, trawling the sands of the Arena for tech. He explained, in simple words, that I hosed up. The specifics of how Sope gained an in are left unexplained. I assume it's part of an early design with Jafo, or that Sope's just that good about making a first impression. Intro posted:There's an old military station less than half a day's worth of travel away from the Platform. It's called Anastasia. I can reach it without any special excavation equipment, just a bit of courage and determination. I'll be posting gear and enemy profiles in a separate update, but location-relevant info from the manual goes here. Manual posted:LOCATION: Anastasia Battle Station (Боевая станция Анастасия)  This is the end of for a long while and the most exposition you'll get in virtually the entire game.  Anastasia has definitely seen better days. What's not wrecked is rusted-through, and what's not rusted-through is inhabited by all manner of wildlife. The spiders are the only thing that's not interested in tearing Sope's guts out - mostly because they're too small.   The spider, minding its own business is scared off by the arrival of a new creature at Anastasia.   That's Sope, As mentioned, the waving to someone up who throws his rifle down is likely a remnant of the original design, where Sope was fleeing, er, proactively executing a tactical withdrawal together with Jafo. Sope was the brawns to Jafo's brains. The brains were removed, the brawn remains, as we'll see.  Sope takes stock of his equipment. He has his trusty AK-247 assault rifle in 9mm caliber, with an underslung grenade launcher, his instruments, and some supplies. The green dot on the left is his health tracker, giving him a clean bill. The single yellow dot means Sope has a single biostimulant with him (health pack). The indicators below show the AK's ammunition. Each magazine holds 25 bullets (indicated by the outer ring of dots), and Sope carries three magazines in reserve, for a total of 100 shots. In the middle is the fire mode indicator, showing that the AK is set to burst mode. Each burst fires not three bullets, but five, so it's a good way to expend your ammo fast. The other indicator shows the amount of 40mm grenades Sope has in his rifle. The launcher is semi-automatic and fed from an internal tube magazine (don't ask about the mechanics). Sope has two grenades. It's enough to begin with. I love the design of the rifle for some reason. Looks like a shotgun had a baby with the Bizon.  Remembering his training, Sope switches the AK to semi-automatic mode. Burst mode is difficult to control and largely useless.   Then he tests the optics. Together with the rifle in semi-auto mode, he now has a very accurate weapon at his disposal, capable of extinguishing a cigarette from a hundred meters without hurting the smoker. Officers always frowned on such creative use of Imperial tools, though.  Sope takes his bearings, noticing an odd stenciled sign from the Neocommunist contingent. Shrugging, he moves on.   Turning the wheel grants him access into Anastasia proper. The stench of burning trash and decaying metal hits him like a truck. It's still better than the stench of cauterized meat of his fellow Dragoons, as the peasants broke out the electric flails.  There's someone moving behind the steam jet. There are no friends in Anastasia, he remembers, and turns on Echo mode. The ultrasounds generate a black-and-white image of his surroundings, allowing him to see in the dark, ignore glare from lights, or in this case, steam that would hide the scavenger. He lines him up and...  ...promptly misses, alerting the man. Seriously, the lag can be a hell of a problem, especially with the hitboxes being fairly tight and the rifle extremely accurate.  The second bullet hits its mark and the nomad goes down, his death twitch sending a burst in the air. The bullets harmlessly bounce off the armored walls.  With his first kill, Sope carefully advances into the chamber and checks the burning wreckage. Nothing salvageable, but the burning barrel's designation makes him chuckle. That honestly can't be too healthy.  A quick check of the side corridor yields a box of flares. Sope pockets them, realizing that he forgot to pack any source of light other than his optics. Which are useful, but incredibly cumbersome when you want to inspect a couple dark corners. And the Arena is VERY dark indeed.  Down the corridor past the dead scavenger, Sope heads into what appears to be a hangar.  Fortunately, the scavenger that patrols the walkway didn't notice him.  Sope backs up into the corridor, ever mindful of his training. As long as the enemy remains unaware of his presence, he can plan his strike and attack accordingly.   The scope makes recon a lot easier. Legs go pitter-patter behind the boxes, suggesting at least one enemy on top of the guy on the catwalk. For a second, Sope ponders relying on his stealth and discretion.  Then remembers that enemies can't detect him if they're dead. A single bullet to the face is enough to stop almost anyone in their tracks. He aims and fires, the bullet ripping through the roof of the mouth and straight into the ushanka-covered head. There's a reason they nicknamed high penetration frag rounds "Mincers". Stealth in Pył? Lies. While you can shoot light sources and probably sneak through if you really want to and savescum, there's no benefit to it. No light indicator, no consistent field of view feedback to stay hidden, nothing. Your best bet is to kill everything in your way. From far, far away whenever possible.  The second scavenger behind the boxes quickly takes a dirtnap, with a single bullet to the temple.  His "friends" notice him go down and Sope finds himself in hot water. Two of these yellow... Mutants, for a lack of a better word, charge him, twirling lit explosives in the air, then throwing him at them. Another scavenger backs them up, and after a frenzied exchange of gunfire and explosives, Sope emerges alive, if a little worse for the wear. You can see the whole fight on the video, and screenshots don't do it justice. The mutants jump around like monkeys on crack, and you have about two seconds to dodge explosives thrown at you. The scavengers are just the cherry on top, as he can knock you down to half health with just a couple of bursts. I actually consider it went well.  With the scavengers gone, Sope takes stock of his surroundings. This is most definitely a hangar, but the vehicles are all ruined hulks, with nothing salvageable. It won't be easy to fight anything of value here - and he's not about to strip the scavengers for whatever crap they might carry on them. However, something brightly colored catches his eye.  A bottle of what looks to be homebrew hooch is lying in the cold embrace of a wrecked combat car. It smells horribly strong, and Sope, known for making great life choices (such as NOT deserting) promptly downs it. The taste is overwhelming, but Dragoons drank worse - and his instruments suggest it does make him feel better. Yep, it's a Polish game about a Russian station, so of course the local variety of medkit is a bottle of rectified spirit. At least that's what I believe it is, it certainly resembles the green bottles rectified spirit came in in PRL.   In better spirits, he moves beyond the hangar. The machine room next door beckons. Inside, as if to reward him, is a wooden box of ArcherR brand AK magazines. Each contains four magazines, topping Sope's reserves up with one hundred bullets. Evidently a tutorial area.  However, when he peeks through the doorway into the corridor beyond, a hulking ushanka-wearing beast of a man rushes him with what looks to be a shovel, breaking through the steam jet! Sope retreats, but the beast gets a couple of good swings in. Something rattles loose inside him. Our intrepid Dragoon tries not to think too hard about it.  He fires wildly without the scope, and eventually the bullets connect with the man's chest and head. He collapses, while Sope's instruments indicate he took quite the beating. From bright, fresh green, the indicator is down to a sickly yellow.  Sope forgoes the use of a biostim and peeks into the silo the creature came from. He briefly wonders if he should step out, but notices shapes on the catwalk. Old, heavy barrels tumble down endlessly, exploding at the bottom. And yes, they kill you.  Turning around, he notices a warning sign on the wall, its meaning plain. Well, if the Neocoms didn't want their people to drink on duty, then why is hooch so tasty and invigorating?  Back in the hangar, he spots a couple more bottles next to overturned lockers and another burning sarin barrel. He promptly downs them both. Whatever hurt is gone now and he can take stock of his surroundings and plan how to avoid the tumbling barrels, like some Italian plumber.  The catwalk the first ushanka-wearing scavenger patrolled catches his eye. Next to it is a control room and Sope's old foe, the ladder. He swallows, but climbs to the top, remembering that it's not the climbing that's the problem, it's getting down. More on that in a bit, but yes, ladders are the greatest challenge in the game bar none.  Inside the wrecked control room are non-functional control panels, rusted calculating machines, and a lone box of explosives Sope quickly pockets, before stepping out onto the rickety catwalk.  As predicted, it leads to another level of Anastasia. Sope delicately balances his way over, shaking his head at the lack of OSHA compliance. The catwalk is unintentionally slippery due to poor collision detection, and it's easy to fall down (and die). This is a good opportunity to note that Pył, while linear, does offer alternative routes. In this case, you can either go into the silo and play Mario with rolling barrels, or use the catwalk.   His curiosity is rewarded, as Sope emerges next to the barrel dispenser. Ignoring the logistical questions, he rushes past them and hits the switch, rendering the catwalk safe for his use. Peering down into the silo, he notices several exits, and a burning barrel at the bottom. In his quest for something of value, he realizes he'll have to check each and every one.   The first corridor is a bust, leading to a closed blast door. His sixth sense does suggest, however, that door controls might be nearby.   The next opening is likewise a bust, with a collapsed skybridge. Sope spots another bottle of hooch and rushes over, the budding alcoholic inside driving him on. However, he stops just short of the edge, realizing that something's watching him. A scope check quickly reveals a turret in an alcove. And in typical contrived level design fashion, the two turrets point inside the silo, rather than outside.    It does seem like the way deeper into Anastasia leads through the intact skybridge below. Sope checks his surroundings, marveling at the clear blue sky - industrial and societal collapse has its benefits! - and the intact bridge below. It's definitely the way forward. However, he has to do something about the turrets...   Back in the silo, Sope descends deeper, passing the exit to the hangar. He briefly peeks into the skybridge, but the turrets acquire him almost instantaneously and open fire. Sope jumps back, retreating to safety.  He scouts out the bottom, noticing that another ushanka-wearing scav calls it home. A moment later, he's put to eternal slumber.   With Echo active, he stumbles in the darkness, finding his way to the bottom of the pit. Here, he realizes that he stands face to face with a ladder, his mortal enemy. No matter how he tries, he can't find a grip, and lands flat on the bottom of the silo. Memories of boot camp briefly flash through his head, when he realized he has a ladder problem. He can get up, but he couldn't go down a ladder if his life depended on it. However, he gets a consolation prize: A box of 40mm grenades for the AK, giving him an additional six rounds to use. It's no exaggeration. Ladders are easy to go up on, but getting down is an exercise in frustration. It's usually faster to just take the damage and play on.   He also spots a turnwheel, sitting innocently on the wall next to his mortal enemy. He quickly turns it, while pointing the AK-247 at it, in a desperate attempt to make it comply. The ladder rebuffs his attempt at intimidation, menacing with steps of rusted steel.  Somewhere up there, the blast door has opened. Sope sighs and climbs the ladder, making his way up.  A couple flights later, he enters the previously sealed area. Only one corridor leading away from the intersection is not blocked by debris or a stuck door. However, out of the corner of his eye, Sope spies movement.   Said movement is dead a short while later, Sope being the last thing he never saw. I honestly love the implementation of the Echo. According to the Pył blog, it was coded in the span of a day by one of the programmers, after the rest of the team struggled to get it working. It does reinforce the idea of Sope being a proper soldier with good gear - well, the gear he did not pawn while NOT deserting - and is just plain fun to use.   Near the late scavenger Sope finds a control booth overlooking the silo with the turrets. His training would suggest that it could contain a button, a switch, or a system to break and shut down or disable the turrets. However, after pawing every surface, and checking every nook and cranny, Sope finds precisely sweet gently caress all. He briefly considers trying to take the turrets out from this elevated position, opening fire on them and taking them out from the safety of the enclosure.  He quickly reconsiders upon imagining the bullets ripping through him in a split second, adding openings in places generally considered to be best left unopened.  Dejected, he turns away and heads back to the skybridge entrance. The correct way to eliminate the turrets would be to break the glass in the enclosure and take out the gunner. However, in the emulated version of Pył I'm playing it turned out to be next to impossible - the moment Sope breaks the glass, the turrets rip him apart in a split second. You can see how it's supposed to work in this part of another longplay.  Sope resigns himself to just running through the skybridge under constant fire of turrets. Much to his surprise, he makes it to the other side unscathed and unmolested, even though the turrets fired constantly.  However, on the other side he's faced with a blockade: An electrified fence with a "BOH!" tag he assumes to mean get out, and a generator on the other side. Faced with such a conundrum, he calls up his elite training as a Dragoon, to figure out a solution for this puzzle. Do you know what it is?  Sope gauges the distance, taking into account the dimensions of the corridor, the angle of the walls, distance to the generator, density of the air, average air velocity of an unladen projectile, and after what feels like an hour of heavy thinking...   ...sends a 40mm grenade rolling down the corridor. The AK-247 launcher cycles the next round into the chamber, as the electrified fence, generator, and a chunk of Sope's hearing cease to exist.   The disappearance of lights also allows Sope to use one of his three flares for half a minute of light. Remember when AVP2 treated flares as an integral part of a soldier's loadout and gameplay? Yeah, me too.  He succeeds in locating another turnwheel, which opens into a part of the station that seems to be in somewhat better repair. Stepping through the threshold, he arrives on a gantry overlooking a large circular chamber with yet another one of these damned turrets in the center. Circling it is someone quite different from the mutants, nomads, and ushanka-lovers Sope saw before.  It's a Neocommunist holdout, clad in what appears to be powered armor, wielding a powerful rocket launcher. Sope poked his head out a bit too far and was immediately acquired. This new enemy is hostile - what else? - and is evidently a tough nut to crack. Sope is soft and squishy, but decides to fight. He can't retreat and he can't leave Anastasia without finding something to pay Rupert with. This is where Pył is quite annoying. After much ado about stealth and shooting people in the noggin using your mighty AK-247, it pits you against an enemy who has power armor, shrugs off head shots, and fires rockets more often than Musk does Twitter employees.  Eventually, the Neocommunist goes down. The power supply on his armor overloads, tearing him apart in a spectacular burst of violence. If you look at the readouts, it took about 30 headshots and two wasted grenades to take the Neoc down. What makes this even more infuriating is that you're not actually in danger: The turret is obscured by the ring in the ceiling, meaning it can't turn you into finely ground red meat, while the Neoc has a rocket launcher, true - but the AI always aims for center mass (or center of Sope's model), which means it will never score a direct hit as long as you are behind the edge of the walkway. Rockets just explode harmlessly on it, and the only thing dying is my framerate.   Sope takes the elevator down to the ground floor of the chamber. He can't tell what purpose it was supposed to serve, but his jarhead brain is soon occupied by a mad dash to safety beneath the platform, as the turret realizes that it can actually hit him now.  After another encounter with his greatest foe, Sope climbs onto the platform where the Neoc prowled. He shuts off the lasers, figuring it might turn off the turret. But as he does, gunfire erupts in the chamber, as more Neoc holdouts break within.  Rather than face them head-on, Sope leaps off the platform and sprints for the only unexplored exit. They get a few shots in, and Sope uses his only biostimulant, to stay alive long enough to reach the threshold. I'm serious. When you turn off the turret, you get not just one more enemy to fight, but three, all with similar resilience as the Neoc we just killed. Discretion is the better part of valor, so I just ran for the door.   Inside he finds safety and another box of ArcheR magazines. He dashes to the other side of the doorway, briefly pondering if maybe he should've stayed his ground and fought. A couple of bursts from the holdouts convince him that he made the correct choice. Fun fact: ArcheR is a reference to Łucznik Radom, a former state-owned weapons and machine factory. It was well known for producing a ton of goods throughout its life, but was declared bankrupt in 2000 and privatized, limiting production to just weapons.     The other end of the corridor contains what look to be living quarters. As ruined as the rest of the station, they are nonetheless the way forward. Sope explores the darkened alcoves, paying close attention to the entrance to the quarters. The jankiness of Pył means AI might break and give up - or pursue you doggedly to the ends of the Arena. In my test playthrough, the second rocket-launcher Neocom followed me here, but got stuck in the doorway. Got a good look at him, then tested how many grenades it takes to open a tin-can (too many).  One of the upper quarters contains an unassuming cylinder, which turns out to be exactly what Sope needs: A spare biostimulant.  The other contains the entrance to the ventilation shaft. Unwilling to go toe to toe with the holdouts, Sope heads inside. While fighting janky collision detection, which made me think this isn't the way at one point. Then I went back to fight and got shot up.   The way forward was barred by a barrier. Sope's sixth sense told him again that door controls should be somewhere nearby. Frustrated by the obstacles, he fired off a round into the darkness, realizing that there was a vent grate there. Utilizing his hard-earned skills as an elite trooper, he negotiated the vent - with a grenade from the AK-247 - and once more faced his mortal enemy.  This time, the ladder was triumphant. As Sope plummeted down the vent into sludge he tried not to think too hard about, he he cursed his luck and congenital inability to descend down ladder. The sickening crunch again dislodged something inside, as the instruments displayed a rotten kind of yellow. If you're wondering why there's no "blow grate up" screenshot, it's literally pitch-black with a blurry Echo image.   Sope stumbled down the rusty, sludge-filled corridor, feeling the moist liquid slosh around in his cavalry boots and lap against his hairy legs. When he turned the corner, he felt elation, as the partially flooded chamber seemed to be the ventilation hub for the area - and in the darkness opposite the entrance, he spotted a turnwheel, which logically would open the barrier in the vent upladder. There's also a very cool animated effect on the vents here, which screenshots don't show.  He turned it, and instantly the disturbing sound of someone running in hip waders through sepsis-inducing waters came down the corridor. Sope turned in time to see a familiar ushanka and an upraised metal bar. He didn't have the advantage of height this time, but he knew where to aim. A couple shots later, the giant lay floating in the sewage.  Sope climbed up the ladder, trying not to think too hard of how much he's going to pay for skin ointments. The barrier was, indeed, retracted, and he could move ahead without trouble.  When he approached the ventilation shaft, a dead and partially eaten mutant fell down to the floor, most of its limbs and organs missing. A swarm of bats flew in a fit of rage down the ventilation corridor, but he paid them no heed. They weren't - surprisingly - trying to eat his face off.  He couldn't tell what was holding the corpse up, and at this point, he was afraid to ask. The sight of the clear blue sky was a soothing one, however.  He moved down the corridor. Something snarled in the darkness. Then he saw movement, out of the corner of his eye.   He turned just in time to see a massive beast come down the ventilation shaft at him, full bore.  Instincts kicked in and a single bullet to the skull stopped the monster dead in its tracks. You eventually get used to the layout of the screen and can reliably take enemies down. In this case, I also got lucky and hit it in the head. I think the original idea was to scare you and make you retreat down the corridor.  Turning around, Sope moved deeper down the ventilation shaft. Then he realized that he fell prey to yet another of his greatest foes.  The conspicuously placed weak floor grate.  As he thundered down and landed on a metal grating, pain shot up through his body, blinding him briefly. He realized that he was screwing around, and paid the price. As he looked around, he realized...  ...it was time to get serious. End of update 1 Coming soon: Anastasia part two! Will Sope again encounter his greatest foe, the ladder? Will the elite of the Imperial military (who DID NOT desert!) demonstrate his aptitude once more and fall down even more vents? Will we see Pył renege on its basic gameplay principles and introduce even more bullet-sponge enemies you have to cheese your way through? Tune in next time for more Sope opera! And let me know if I should use timg instead of img. Tagaziel fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 21:29
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For your first go at commentary it was pretty good, mic issues aside. Even if the audio desync was definitely a bit annoying, but not exactly something you can fix if its the game in this case. Speaking of flares, Unreal 1 had them as well, and fully expected you to use them since it didn't have a reusable flashlight. At least not until the expansion. Also, the url for the video clip about the turrets don't work and there's a couple of tag markers here and there.
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Jan 26, 2023 22:54
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Cooked Auto posted:For your first go at commentary it was pretty good, mic issues aside. I'll use a different headset next time. Or just get a free-standing mic. The sound system bugs get annoying especially when the game forgets to play gunfire, and you suddenly lose health and listen to Sope's many grunts. quote:Speaking of flares, Unreal 1 had them as well, and fully expected you to use them since it didn't have a reusable flashlight. Or the darkness level on the Skaarj mothership, where you get a proper searchlight with almost infinite battery... Two levels before the finale. quote:Also, the url for the video clip about the turrets don't work and there's a couple of tag markers here and there. Yeah, fixed it with a link to the YouTube video's moment instead.
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Jan 27, 2023 11:52
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Tagaziel posted:Or the darkness level on the Skaarj mothership, where you get a proper searchlight with almost infinite battery... Two levels before the finale. Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.
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Jan 27, 2023 12:14
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