The Surge: Metal Machine Soul Music

[Cosmic_Guru]

There doesn't seem to be a thread for this so here goes.  Made by Deck 13 interactive, the people who brought you Lords of the Fallen, a perfectly competent fantasy game which probably suffered rather than gained from the Dark Souls comparisons.  This seems to be moving into mech v mech combat in a big way (or perhaps more accurately big men in metal suits versus same) but glancing at some of the published previews retains considerable Dark Souls DNA in terms of mechanics so those comparisons aren't going away any time too soon (if you die you need to fight your way back rather than avoid enemies to retain the souls scrap).  There seems to have been little on-line or magazine exposure but the release date is now set for just two months time.

 

https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-surge/the-surge-gameplay-preview reasonably recent developer supervised hands on

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/08/the-surge-limb-crafting/ and a second.

 

 

[gospvg]

Love the Mechs was hoping it was not going to be a PvP only affair but looks like it.

 

[Mentazm]

Had my eye on this. I thought it was a singe player action RPG?

[Cosmic_Guru]

4 hours ago, gospvg said:

Love the Mechs was hoping it was not going to be a PvP only affair but looks like it.

 

 

PvP?

 

12 minutes ago, Mentazm said:

Had my eye on this. I thought it was a singe player action RPG?

 

That's what I thought.

[ilpostino]

So it's Cyborg Justice, Dark Souls style?

[gospvg]

@Cosmic_Guru Player vs Player, multiplayer only affair which is a shame.

[K]

Are you thinking of the right game? This doesn't look to be MP-only, it's a Dark Souls clone.

[gospvg]

15 minutes ago, K said:

Are you thinking of the right game? This doesn't look to be MP-only, it's a Dark Souls clone.

 

Oh! Wow I got that wrong from the trailer. Now I'm interested to see more. Souls inspired mech based action rpg

[gospvg]

Gameplay trailer

 

 

[gospvg]

 

 

Good game play video, spoiler it does show the first boss fight.

Looks tough but I do love the sci-fi setting.

[The Bag]

Good impressions from TerraMantis (who I know from his Dark Souls videos) about this

 

 

[Vemsie]

Yeah, the TerraMantis' video is probably the best one yet, along with that recent combat trailer. Have yet to read the Edge preview. 
This is the combat trailer:
 

 

[Wiper]

Hmm, based on all the trailers all I can think is: I preferred Cyborg Justice when it wasn't loaded up with gore  

[Vemsie]

I don't expect this to be Bloodborne: Exoskeleton Edition, but I do like some of the stuff they're trying. Stuff like body targeting for specific loot, sliding and being able to duck under and jump over attacks are potentially nice editions to the Souls-like genre.

Here's a new dev video.
 

[Vemsie]

Detailed impressions in this vid.
 

 

[Kevvy Metal]

wtf? I've never even heard of this game! Sci-fi Souls?

wat?

[Radish]

Simply Games have shipped my copy, just in case anyone fancies playing it tomorrow (they have a history of getting Tuesday releases to you on the Saturday before). It's about £38 there too so it's pretty cheap. 

[Qazimod]

I didn't get on with Lords after it was given away, but the bit in Edge about this was interesting - time attack scrap retrieval could bring a sense of urgency to gameplay, and it's nice to see a developer toying with punishing gameplay mechanics in different themes (yes, Bloodborne's cosmic horror was a great change from the typical fantasy swords and shields setup, but this is an even more extreme change in setting...)

[Curtis]

I'll be playing this tomorrow, so i'll give impressions once i've had a decent session.

 

I'm intrigued by how they've made every encounter a choice: the 'easy' option is to combo-wail on them til they fall, or you can target specific limbs which is more difficult but you're guaranteed better rewards.

 

The lack of trash mobs is worrying though. No-one wants every fight to turn into a chore. It'll promote speed-running levels.

[Radish]

I've played about about 90 minutes or so now and figured I'd post some very early impressions.

 

So far I like it. The introduction was really cool and well done, and I like that you pick which style of exo-suit you want very early on (fast or heavy) so you have an immediate influence on your playstyle. I've seen a menu for swapping out exo-suits so I imagine you're not locked into fast or slow for the rest of the game, it's just whatever you want to use early on. I went with the light suit and it's extremely quick - feels very similar to how I remember Bloodborne feeling, very nimble and the dash/leap is quick and covers a lot of ground. 

 

The weapon variety so far seems to be what you'd expect - I've found what are essentially daggers, a staff, a fast sword and a slower one (but still one handed). I may be wrong but it looks like there's an interesting twist on proficiency too. It doesn't look like you allocate stats when you level your exo-suit core up; instead, every kill levels up your currently equipped weapons proficiency level (e.g. staff, one handed sword or whatever). Weapons still have proficiency scaling (low, medium etc) so it looks like it'll be easier to swap between different play styles as rather than having to respec from a Dext build to a Strength build you can just equip the new weapon and start levelling the proficiency up. 

 

Levelling your exo-suit core just increases the energy it provides (I think that's how they define it). At the moment mine grants me 19 energy, which is consumed by equipped items, implants (passive bonuses, e.g. I have one that heals me for 10% every time I exectue something, or active ones such as an instant heal with 3 charges or a heal over time with 5 charges) and a third thing that I've forgotten the name of. It sounded to me like their equivalent of magic, only based on tech of some kind instead. Certain doors require a specific energy value to overwrite, so it seems like a basic way to gate access to certain areas. 

 

I really like the limb targeting feature too. It reminds me a bit of For Honour; you lock onto the enemy and then use the RS to flick between the location you want to target your attacks on. It contextually shows you whether that area is armoured or not so you can easily tell if you're attacking a heavily armoured section and doing reduced damage because of it. Attacking builds up an energy meter and eventually it allows you to perform an execution kill by pressing Square. It feels a little like a backstab or an attack after you parry in DS/Bloodborne, just a really brutal animation that will finish off the enemy. It isn't guaranteed to chop off a limb though; targeting a specific limb with your normal attacks weakens it, which increases the chance of it being cut off.

 

Whatever body part you chop off (or if you go for the body itself) then you'll acquire a scrap item based on that body part. The first time you pick one up it unlocks a specific recipe for that body part (e.g. arm or leg armour). Any body parts you chop off after that can be salvaged into the specific resource you need to craft the recipe (there's one for arms, legs, head and body). The only recipes I know so far seem quite generic; I can toggle between higher level versions that cost a lot more scrap to craft and require higher level crafting resources, so I assume higher level generic enemies will drop a higher level version of the scrap item. The exception to this seem to be the weapons, as you just acquire those directly after cutting the limb off. I'm not sure they're guaranteed to drop though. You can also use your salvage (and souls equivalent) to level up specific items. These seem to make a huge difference as my staff went from 19 damage to 29 damage and it only cost the same as one level up and maybe 20% of my salvage. 

 

19 hours ago, Curtis said:

The lack of trash mobs is worrying though. No-one wants every fight to turn into a chore. It'll promote speed-running levels.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. All the enemies (so far) have been trash mobs, in the same way that normal enemies in DS/Bloodborne are trash mobs. 

 

The 2 and a half minute timer to return to your body is pretty brutal. I've not failed it yet (I'm also only 90 minutes in :D) but it's a very effective way of adding tension to the corpse run. In other games I'd be telling myself to take it easy and be cautious to minimise the risk of losing my currency but here, I have to take risks to make sure I'll get back on time. 

 

Performance on the PS4 Pro seems perfect too. I have it set to performance (rather than quality) and it seems really smooth so far.

[Curtis]

3 hours ago, Radish said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. All the enemies (so far) have been trash mobs, in the same way that normal enemies in DS/Bloodborne are trash mobs. 

 

I'd been taking a lot of what the previews had said as gospel (them basically saying every encounter is a drawn out slug-fest ). Once you're tooled up the regular enemies become a cake-walk.

 

I'm really enjoying this now i've gotten over the transition period from playing so much Nioh. I really like the way the character moves and feels. They've nailed that aspect. I've been using the staff exclusively and its amazing how many different moves there are from only two attack buttons.

 

Not a big fan of the timer to reclaim your souls. But your guy is very nifty, and running doesn't drain stamina as bad as other games, so rushing back to your corpse is definitely do-able. Risky, but do-able.

 

Has to be said: for someone like me who is highly into Fashion Souls, this game is my worst nightmare - my outfit looks like i rolled around in a box of Meccano. 

 

Anyway. Enough chatter. Back to it.

 

*edit* The second level is kicking my ass! Not a fan of the industrial setting - its way too similar looking and i feel constantly lost cause there are no identifiable landmarks etc. Shortcuts don't feel satisfying if you have no idea how you got there. 

[Dave White]

Bloodbots is ace!

 

Loving it so far, slow reveal and takes a formula we all love from souls and sets it up for a really unique experience, bastard hard but cant put it down.

[K]

What are the environments like? The previews made it seem like the whole thing takes place in a brown oil refinery. 

[Captain Kelsten]

Previews of the souls games and bloodborne made them seem like the whole thing took place in the same environment, too, which is partly why they're such amazing games: not only are the environments vastly different, but they so cleverly interconnected. It always amazes me popping through a door and suddenly being back somewhere I'd cleared hours before. Genius level design. 

 

Hopefully this game, which I'd completely ignored until today, will be similar in that respect and not all typical, cliche dark space mining colony stuff. 

[Uncle Nasty]

When rumours of a Sci-Fi Souls by From started circulating, I imagined something like Dead Space/Alien, along the lines of a Sci-Fi horror and disturbing, weird, claustrophobic and tense. The Surge looks like it never got even that far into ideas development and something about it is cynical as hell to me, like they almost tried to beat From at their own game by rushing out their take on Sci-Fi Souls before From released theirs. It looks really bland and the boss fights just look silly from what I've seen so far, some guy in an exoskeleton hacking at the heels of a 30ft high robot just seemed laughable to me, there was no drama or intensity to it at all.

 

Dunno, the whole thing feels a bit off to me.

 

Edit: I see they even nicked the fog doors from Souls, that's really weak.

[macosx]

not struck on the environments (from what I've seen). Looks like someone going apeshit in a lockup.

[Andy XC]

9 hours ago, Dave White said:

Bloodbots is ace!

 

Loving it so far, slow reveal and takes a formula we all love from souls and sets it up for a really unique experience, bastard hard but cant put it down.

Sounds good. I enjoyed Lords of the Fallen it wasn't as good as Dark Souls but it was good enough, just a bit short though.

[Radish]

I haven't played much more (I'm about 5 hours in) but I've seen two bosses now and I must admit I'm pretty disappointed in them. Neither of them have been especially exciting and while I was willing to accept that from the first boss (as they perhaps want it to be a bit simpler to ease players in), for the second to be so similar in concept was pretty disappointing. I also experienced some pretty major hit detection issues with my attacks frequently going through the second boss and not registering, which is a pretty major flaw. It would be bit more acceptable on a normal mob but for a boss? Definitely frustrating. 

 

The area between the first and the second boss ramped the difficulty up a lot too. It was pretty maze like and had a few very awkward sections that actually felt a bit cheap (in terms of mob placement, such as a bridge with two ranged enemies which fire 3 shot bursts that knock back, and a fairly aggressive tanky mob with an aoe slowing field that makes it harder to dodge the ranged attacks). I do quite like the level design though and there are tons of clever shortcuts to open up. 

 

I'm not quite as keen on it now as I was after my first session, but the defining thing for me will be what the next area looks like (and the boss if I make it that far). I do enjoy exploring and killing the non-boss enemies but it has to mix things up a bit now. 

[Gavin]

I'm quite looking forward to this as I thought Lords of the Fallen was pretty great and a definite hidden gem of sorts 

 

Me and a mate are just wrapping up The Ringed City DLC, having pretty much co-opped the  entire SOULS Trilogy, and it would be great to just move onto this afterwards, only, it doesnt seem to have any online functionality at all - like Lords of the Fallen - which seems a bit of a shame really.

 

I assume adding co-op/PvP etc. would add loads of complicated layers of programming and design which is probably beyond this development team (and just highlights how great FROM SOFTWARE are at this kinda stuff) or surely it would be a no brainer to include these options?

 

For this reason alone I will wait for this to drop to around half price, and the inevitable patches and updates have been released, before taking the plunge even though I'm sure it will be a pretty great game... pity... 

[Radish]

Man, this game started out so promisingly

 

About six-seven hours in now and I just can't recommend it and I'm sorely tempted to stick it on ebay before the price drops too far. 

 

After defeating the second boss I was pretty excited to see the next area. It turned out to be a sewer level. The darkest, most boring area ever conceived in a video game. Fortunately though it only took about 10 minutes to explore and progress onto the next area, which was outside again - finally! Bright and sunny, this is where the games aesthetic really shines. Unfortunately they've reverted back to their cheap level and encounter design. If one mob at a time is too easy, why not throw two in? But that might still be too easy, so we'll throw in tons of patrolling mobs that can charge at you from 30 meters away in a split second and do about 80% of your health in the process. So many times I've been dodging around two fast, aggressive enemies only for a third to suddenly pounce on me from off screen and instantly kill me. 

 

That might not be so bad except that this is where the poor level design comes in. The safe room is about 5 minutes away. That's not 5 minutes of fun, fighting enemies and trying to work your way back to your corpse - it's 60 seconds of dashing through a shitty sewer level, 20 seconds of waiting for a lift to arrive, 20 seconds of waiting for the lift to start moving once you get in (yay for masked loading screens), another 20 seconds of sitting in the lift while it takes you to the next area and THEN you can start fighting through the next area to reclaim your corpse. Why the hell is the safe room BEFORE a long loading screen? What's even more frustrating is that during the Reddit Q&A they actually said the biggest thing they learned (and improved on) from Lords of the Fallen was level design. Sorry, but it's worse than ever. I genuinely enjoyed Lords of the Fallen and went straight back in for a NG+ play through. I'm considering selling this after 2 bosses.