Zero Punctuation: Survival Special (Rust, Starbound, 7 Days to Die)

[JoJo]

Out of those I like the sound of Starbound, don't own a PC capable of playing games currently but according to this article [http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/08/20/starbound-extraterrestrial-sandbox-adventure-coming-to-ps4/] it's planned to be ported to PS4, which I also plan on getting eventually, so maybe I'll pick it up then.

 

[AldUK]

Best episode in a while. Quick-firing on multiple half-assed, inconcievably popular, early-access games that really shouldn't be getting development funding from so many gullible people on Steam.

It's about time someone did.

Also, the joke about early access at the end actually made me giggle. Been a while, Yahtzee but you can still elicit more than a raised eyebrow after all!

 

[Carnagath]

So you never upgraded your bow because the game never told you too? Knowing to get stronger weapons should being part of gaming 101 especially when the mission warns "be ready for anything."

"Be ready for anything" is not a warning. It's nothing. Be ready for anything means craft everything till tier 7 or whatever the limit is, so basically after the game gives you that quest, 30 minutes in, play 100 hours more before completing that quest. That's retarded. But no, of course you don't have to do all that. You just have to make some decent gear. How decent? Where do the rare components drop? Yup, it's Wiki time. That's the problem with these games really. Fire up your second monitor or alt-tab till the memory leaks set your computer on fire. It also doesn't help that the game is a coding clusterfuck, takes 5 real times minutes to load and runs like dogshit on an i5 while having SNES graphics. But yes, it's early access. And playing a game like that in early access is pretty much suicidal.

 

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

The Rust review made me laugh. The game talks more about the people who plays it than the game itself.

I think I'll get it eventually.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but the planets in Starbound aren't infinite. Their size is determined by, well, the size of the planet, and it's technically possible to run out of resources if you use up the last bit of fuel for something else.

I think that's been fixed since you can turn wood into coal and plant trees.

 

[Deathfish15]

Great review, and have to say that Rust is the best of all 3. But, it's also a pain in the arse. I started it just last night, but crunched 5hrs into it because it's so damned addictive. Died quite a few times to decked out tools that think it's their duty to strip the world of naked people (ha?).

When I found an open shack with a furnace full of metal, and 2 supply boxes filled with shit, I immediately jacked it all and ran away. Only to be approached by 2 gents 45sec later asking "did you jack our stuff?". I did the damnedest of things by apologizing and returning their stuff, then they invited me to build a shack near them and they assisted me as I assisted them with mat gathering. Seriously nice blokes compared to the people on the roads (do NOT go to the roads!).

 

[Something Amyss]

I remember one of the Highlander movies being panned because in theaters the ending still had the green screen involved. Little did they know they were just early access before it was cool.

Heh...ok, the NRA reference I saw coming, but still...

Well, he did kinda telegraph it.

 

[Thanatos2k]

So you never upgraded your bow because the game never told you too? Knowing to get stronger weapons should being part of gaming 101 especially when the mission warns "be ready for anything."

I feel this is one of those situations where you'd discover more about the game if it DIDN'T tell you what to do.

When it doesn't tell you what to do, it triggers the instinct to figure things out for yourself. Terraria was wonderful in this regard.

 

[punipunipyo]

Tip for starbound:
Trees grow in a biblical speed (when they are off screen, but not off world)... each full grown tree(takes about 2-3 minutes to get from pod to a tree) drops more than one pod, you'd have double the amount of pod(seed) if you'd chop them down..

10 wood = 1 coal(basic fuel for ship

quick solution: tree farming is the best way to get wood = quick infinity fuel.
(if you marked your tree farm planet as "Home" with navigation computer in the front of ship(seat), no matter where you go, you can warp home for free, and your ship stays at where you parked it, no fuel needed to go "home" to get recharge for your ship.
Plus
If chi-chi-chi-chia trees = wood & coal, that also means UNLIMITED WOOD PLANKS, Stairs, and you know what is ALSO made of wood and coal? TORCH!~ never will you fear dark when cave digging again!~ i usually carry 2000-4000 wood and 800 coal with me... you nver know when you need to dig to the center of some large planet....

Tip 2, you can overlap lava/poison water by placing dirt(or any other) blocks on where they are, or just cover it up, only time when you can't it's if there is something IN IT like box, vines or pods, which you can just dig, chop or hit them out...

One more thing... get better pick axe when you can... and get to drill as soon as you have the tech level for, time saver... make you ravage a planet a breez

have fun!~ the game is not bad... bosses have too much HP... you just need a iron bow, and a miniboss melee weapon... or like my 2nd play... bombs... faster take downs...

 

[lord.jeff]

So you never upgraded your bow because the game never told you too? Knowing to get stronger weapons should being part of gaming 101 especially when the mission warns "be ready for anything."

"Be ready for anything" is not a warning. It's nothing. Be ready for anything means craft everything till tier 7 or whatever the limit is, so basically after the game gives you that quest, 30 minutes in, play 100 hours more before completing that quest. That's retarded. But no, of course you don't have to do all that. You just have to make some decent gear. How decent? Where do the rare components drop? Yup, it's Wiki time. That's the problem with these games really. Fire up your second monitor or alt-tab till the memory leaks set your computer on fire. It also doesn't help that the game is a coding clusterfuck, takes 5 real times minutes to load and runs like dogshit on an i5 while having SNES graphics. But yes, it's early access. And playing a game like that in early access is pretty much suicidal.

The ready for anything was enough to know a major fight was going to happen even if it was vague as to how hard of a fight so I made sure to put resources aside for armor and weapons before finishing the quest(still lost the first time but bosses should be hard). I personally enjoy the fact that a game largely about exploration lets you do as you please even if that means scoring yourself over, I find the oh shit moments that come from games not holding your hand a lot of fun. Though I agree with the rest of your post the coding is shit at this stage.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Seemed like there was a missed oppurtunity to say that Starbound, Terraria and Minecraft were human centipeded together. 'tis a shame but the rest of the video being funny and the animations keeping up with the audio made up for it.

Yeah, wasn't Yahtzee the one who wanted to make "human centipeded" into an actual verb? He just missed the perfect opportunity.

 

[tangoprime]

Now I'm just counting down the days until zombies get replaced with aliens or some shit. Then we'll move back to elves and work our way towards zombies again. What a vicious cycle.

Via nazis, presumably...

How about mutant dolphin men? That's one that's never been tried. Dragon men? Trogdor? Witches? Gallivanting and show tune singing knights of blood lust? (I got a trillion of 'em.)

I believe that the obvious answer is Crab People. That said, I'm really hoping to see them as an enemy in the South Park game coming out *soon.

 

[gamegod25]

Funny thing about the UFO: it goes down a lot faster if you can get yourself in a position to melee it rather than shoot it. Makes the fight a lot easier (since much of the difficulty comes from avoiding all the penguin spawns, of which there will obviously be more the longer the UFO is alive).

But yeah, the difficulty curve in Starbound as it is now is...ridiculous, to say the least.

While the difficulty in Starbound is a step up from Terraria (especially starting out) it's not that bad imo. Honestly I found Terraria to be pretty easy till hardmode unlocked so having more aggressive wildlife, dealing with hunger/cold, etc. to be a welcome change. And I don't really see it as the games fault he wasn't prepared for a fight, I'm pretty sure they give you a warning (albeit a vague one if I recall) and the whole point of the game is to take your time and explore. Yeah he was in a hurry for a deadline but like speed running Skyrim you're playing it wrong that way.

Also as I'm sure many others have pointed out, Starbound is made by former Terraria people and is the spiritual successor/sequel so of course it's going to be very similar.

 

[Slash2x]

I fuckin' lost it at the mention of classism.

I agree though. Rust got pretty boring pretty fast because nobody really wants to try to kill you and risk losing all of their stuff in the process, so they just harass the wildmen.

I organized the players on my server to build an Arena to have a specific place to go fight and not lose all your shit. Drop a sleeping bag in a room to spawn in and NO LOOTING! Then we had people armed to teeth in towers watching the fights.

 

[GuiltBlade]

Why are you doing this to early access titles? You're giving them the same once over you use on finished titles, you even acknowledged that they were unfinished but then essentially ripped into a Beta product as if it was the final release. I'm not saying you should have taken it easy I'm saying you shouldn't have bothered doing these titles.

Also with regards to Starbound, the reason its so similar to Terraria is because half the design team of Terraria is making it as the spiritual successor. And yes the UFO is a bugger (or at least used to be pre-patch 1) but that's because you're meant to fill your spaceship full of coal (FTL travel, only possible with fossil fuels) and explore the sector first.

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

Why are you doing this to early access titles? You're giving them the same once over you use on finished titles, you even acknowledged that they were unfinished but then essentially ripped into a Beta product as if it was the final release. I'm not saying you should have taken it easy I'm saying you shouldn't have bothered doing these titles.

In a way it makes more sense to do these games than others. Yahtzee has said he thinks of himself as QA for the games industry, pointing out every tiny defect in a game. Only he usually does the QA after the retail release is out the door and it's basically too late. In the case of early access games, his criticism has a chance of actually improving the game. A slight chance, granted, but a chance.

 

[Darth_Payn]

The Rust review made me laugh. The game talks more about the people who plays it than the game itself.

I get the same impression fro the recent Critical Miss strips. I wonder if Yahtzee's been playing against those guys.
And Escapist, please do something about these video ads embedded in the pages. They screw with the typing and the sound comes out of nowhere.

 

[Chewster]

This is hilarious, because just today I saw one of my Korean students playing Terreria on his phone. I asked him what it was about and he showed me some of the game play and my first thought was "Huh. They made a Minecraft side-scroller". Then my second thought was "Hey, we're on class time!" and I told him to put his phone away before I threw it out the window.

Korean kids are mental about Minecraft for some reason so it makes sense that this one is now gaining in popularity here, I guess.

EDIT: Whoops! Turns out Terreria isn't new and isn't even being reviewed. Oh well, it's new to me. I guess things take a bit of time to make their way over here.

 

[Playful Pony]

Now I'm just counting down the days until zombies get replaced with aliens or some shit. Then we'll move back to elves and work our way towards zombies again. What a vicious cycle.

Via nazis, presumably...

How about mutant dolphin men? That's one that's never been tried. Dragon men? Trogdor? Witches? Gallivanting and show tune singing knights of blood lust? (I got a trillion of 'em.)

Woa woa whats this, innovation and alternative thinking? GET OUT!