I have been on the hunt for the ultimate survival game ever since I started playing Conan Exiles on the Personal Computer about a month ago. I was so invested in that game - in single player of course - that when I finally died, I just stopped playing it because I had done so much stuff, a sudden step back felt like a crushing defeat. Yes, I do plan on going back because I thought the game was very engaging and it certainly wet my appetite for the genre. Yesterday, I started playing The Forest, also on PC, and wow, this game is so darn brutal I couldn't even finish building my first bloody tent before I died... twice now!
They were so hungry, they didn't even bother stripping me naked.
I have already played Stranded Deep as you recall, so the starting intro where the plane crashed seemed awfully familiar. Here, you crashed into an island instead of the middle of the ocean. I was disappointed however with the kid character aspect of the game. In the beginning, when you awoke from the crash, you saw one of the uh, hostile locals, kidnapping your kid. This is an immediate immersion breaker because well, I frankly hate kids, I don't want one ever, and developers are known to coddle kids. A note to all developers: please stop adding kids to save/protect just because you recently obtained one and think everyone should share your uh, joy? It made me stopped playing that latest God of War on the PlayStation 4... In a game that's rife with horror and violence, I sure hope that The Forest doesn't hold back when it comes to the kid because it would sharply contradict everything else this game seems to offer. I was able to find other passengers hanging upside down with their bellies sliced open and their intestines hanging out so when I find the kid, I am hoping for a horrific discovery. Thankfully, after the eye roller kid situation, the game saved itself by offering an atmospheric environment of uncertainty, terror, and desperation.
If all lives were equal, how come this brat got priority over everyone else on-board?
The first time around the plane landed close to the beach and I thought that it could be the location where I could set up camp... until I saw three dead sharks near the water. I wasn't even sure they were dead at first so I had to throw rocks at them. These are not your typical sand sharks either, they looked like great whites. Funny because just a few strokes away from the beach, there was a yacht. Surely, the best place to spend the night but there is no way I am jumping into the dark water - especially with these dead sharks littering the beach. Then, I went back into the forest to cut down some logs when I heard what sounded like a woman's cry. Like an idiot, I went looking for the source and found out that it was a hostile, so I brandish my ax to cut her down to pieces until I realized too late that she had her boyfriend with her. They knocked me out and took me to their camp and when I escaped because they were all missing - maybe they were holding some sacrificial ceremony on top of a hill somewhere with the kid as the main attraction, one would hope - I managed to find the same beach again but after collecting a bunch of stones off the sand, I looked up to see that same couple creeping up towards me. I stood between the dead sharks hoping that they would work as some kind of cannibal-repellent but nope. Since I was badly hurt from the previous encounter, it didn't take them long to kill me off.
Dead sharks in cult-like placement. Very promising.
The second go saw an even more pathetic attempt at survival. The plane landed quite far from the beach but because I was so scared to venture through the forest, I found a cliff and followed its edge until I found the same beach. This time, I walked alongside the beach until I found a very secluded area under a rocky cliff that formed a little underpass and started to set up camp there. Because I spent too much time crawling to get to my destination, it started to get dark before I could start chopping some wood. Suddenly, the screen got dark and I started to freeze and the next thing you know, I quit the game. I never quit a game until its over, even when I got thrown into the ocean defenseless in Stranded Deep, but this was too horrific for me. I wasn't ready to start freezing to death and get jumped by hungry cannibals. I surely did not want to accidentally get into the water in a panic to then be attacked by a great white. I love this game, but it's pretty darn scary. The brilliance of The Forest is that seemingly in this early phase, there is no place where you can hide from danger, unlike the other survival games I have played. Subnautica is also quite a traumatic game for me because everything takes place in the open sea but when I got really scared, I could always just hide in my impenetrable little floating pod. Here, I feel exposed at all times. Despite the high fear factor, I have already started my third try and this time, I am forcing myself to build that save spot immediately come hell or high water without being too picky about the location. Thankfully, I found that same bad luck beach close by! The good news? The "close your eyes" method actually worked to keep me calm and collected while I was chopping down trees. But I am not sure how well that's going to help when the hostiles start sneaking up on me mid-chop...
What you can't see can lead to a fallen tree!
FIRST IMPRESSION: 5 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment